Ronald stopped his writing. His eyes narrowed, then, with a quick movement that was surprising for a man his age, he spun around, his prosthetic iron arm raised.

  The Slime leaped.

  But Ronald was already ready. He didn't dodge, didn't retreat. Instead, he stepped forward, receiving the Slime's leap directly against his chest. His body swayed slightly, but his feet didn't shift.

  "[Kinetic Absorption]," he murmured.

  A dim light enveloped Ronald's body. The Slime clung to his chest, gnawing at his robe, but Ronald didn't flinch. He simply stood there, letting the creature attack, while the energy of the attack was absorbed into his body, not to be used, but to be neutralized.

  Five seconds. Ten seconds.

  The Slime began to weaken, its body shrinking, its eyes dimming. Ronald raised his prosthetic arm, gripping the creature, and squeezed it until it burst into harmless slime.

  "A stray Slime," he murmured, shaking the remaining slime off his robe. "Probably a leftover from yesterday's swarm that was hiding. Dangerous if left alone."

  Ethan watched him with a new feeling. Ronald, the old drunkard with one prosthetic arm, had just shown why he had once been a Tier 4 tanker. Not because of his offensive power, but because of his ability to absorb damage. Because of his mentality: I am the shield. I am the first to take the hit.

  "You're not hurt?" Ethan asked.

  Ronald patted his chest. "Slime slime is only mild acid. For a tanker like me, this is like soapy water." He grinned, showing his uneven teeth. "That's the secret to being a tanker, Vance. It's not about how hard you hit, but how long you can keep standing."

  Ethan nodded, storing those words away. In his chest, the new skills pulsed slowly, and for the first time he saw a pattern: Arcane Explosion for attacking, Danger Sense for warnings, Lesser Regeneration for healing, Iron Skin for defense. He could become a tanker like Ronald, but in a different way. With a collection of skills from dead people.

  "You noticed first," said Ronald suddenly, looking at Ethan with a sharp gaze. "Before the Slime attacked, you had already warned me. Even though you had your back to it. How did you know?"

  Ethan was silent for a moment. Honest or not?

  "I heard something," he said finally, choosing a partial lie. "The sound of slime crawling. Slimes can't be completely silent."

  Ronald looked at him for a long time, a very long time, until Ethan almost thought he didn't believe it. But finally the old man nodded. "Good instincts. Survival intuition." He clapped Ethan on the shoulder. "That's rare among cleaners. Most die because they don't have instincts."

  He turned, stepping back toward his team. "Let's finish the work. One more hour until dawn, and I want to be in bed before the sun rises."

  Ethan followed him, but inside his chest, his heartbeat was slightly faster. Ronald was suspicious, that was clear. But he didn't press. He gave space.

  'This old man... maybe he can be trusted,' Ethan thought. 'But not yet. Not until I know exactly what's happening to me.'

  The shift ended at five in the morning.

  The cleaning team returned to headquarters with tired bodies and empty minds. Ronald went straight to the break room, lying back in a folding chair without removing his boots. The four other young men said their goodbyes and headed back to their respective rented rooms. Ethan himself sat on the headquarters steps, staring at the sky of The Grime that never truly got dark. The reflection of neon lights from the city above created a yellowish haze in the polluted clouds.

  He opened the system screen once more.

  [Stench Level Update]

  Activity: Use of skill [Danger Sense] (passive) detected.

  Stench Added: +1

  Current Stench Level: 6/100

  Effect: Normal — Monsters do not react specially.

  Ethan furrowed his brow. Even passive skills added Stench?

  He reread the notification, digesting its implications. Every time he used a stolen skill, active or passive, the smell of death clinging to him increased. Right now it was still level 6, safe. But if he kept using them, sooner or later Stench would rise. And when it reached a certain level... what would happen?

  He remembered the warning in the first notification: Stench Level will be detected after first activation. And in another notification: Monsters will treat him as a priority target.

  So this was the price. The power to collect skills from the dead, paid for by becoming a living target for monsters. Ethan drew a long breath, rubbing his face. In his chest, four skills pulsed slowly, lives that had ended with regret, now becoming part of him.

  "Vance."

  Ronald's voice made him turn. The old man stood in the doorway, looking at him with an expression that was hard to read. "You're not going home?"

  "Enjoying the view," Ethan answered flatly, pointing at the dirty sky above.

  Ronald snorted. "View of garbage." He stepped outside, sitting beside Ethan. For a while they were silent, enjoying the morning quiet that was filled only by the hum of ventilation machines and the occasional horn of a transport vehicle in the distance.

  "Hey," said Ronald suddenly. "Thank you for the warning last night. That Slime might have been small, but if it had gotten to bite another cleaner, it could cause infection."

  Ethan shrugged. "Teamwork."

  "Teamwork." Ronald repeated it, then laughed softly. "You know, in twenty years here, I've seen hundreds of cleaners come and go. Most just wanted quick money, then ran after seeing the first corpse. But you... you're different."

  "Different how?"

  "You're not afraid." Ronald looked at him sharply. "Not brave. I know the difference. Brave is fighting against fear. You... you show no fear at all. Even when you passed out yesterday, when you woke up, you were immediately calm. Like you were already used to it."

  Ethan was silent. Inside him, childhood memories, the village in ruins, parents dead, the arrogant adventurer who survived, rushed past quickly. 'I am afraid,' he thought. 'I'm afraid of magic. I'm afraid of power that can't be controlled. But maybe... maybe that fear has turned into something else.'

  "Maybe I'm just tired," he said finally.

  Ronald looked at him for a long time, then nodded. "Tired. That's a safe answer." He stood, stretching his back which cracked. "I'm going to sleep. You should do the same. Tomorrow is the evening shift. A report from the seventh floor says there's a beginner team in chaos. We might work overtime."

  Ethan nodded. Ronald stepped inside, then stopped in the doorway.

  "Hey, Vance."

  "Yeah?"

  "No matter how long you keep hiding whatever it is, I won't ask. But if you need help, real help, not just cheap drinks, I'm here."

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  He didn't turn, but his voice came through clearly. "Because in this dungeon, the only thing more important than survival instincts is someone you can rely on when those instincts fail."

  The door closed, leaving Ethan alone with those words.

  He looked down, staring at his own hands, hands that six months ago only knew how to clean, now holding power from four dead people. Ronald was right. He was different. But that difference wasn't a choice. It was the consequence of trauma that had never healed, of hatred toward magic that now flowed through his veins.

  The blue screen at the corner of his eye flickered.

  [Stench Level: 6/100]

  Note: Stench will rise 1 point with each skill use.

  Warning: Level 30 will open access to [Necropolis of Failures].

  Level 60: Monsters of Tier 4+ begin to be attracted

  Level 90: Dungeon recognizes as a living corpse.

  Ethan read the warning one more time, then closed the screen. Dawn began to creep across the eastern horizon, illuminating the slum buildings of The Grime with a dirty orange light. Somewhere up there, the Top Rankers were perhaps just falling asleep after last night's party, indifferent to the cleaners who tidied up their messes.

  But Ethan didn't care about them. He had a new purpose: collect skills, understand this system, and find out what [Necropolis of Failures] actually was. And most importantly, find out how great a price he had to pay for this power.

  Because his Stench Level had risen by one point. Just one. But that meant the system was real, its consequences were real, and his journey had only just begun.

  In his chest, the Arcane Explosion incantation pulsed slowly, like a second heartbeat, like a promise not yet fulfilled. And in the corridors of The Infinite Maw, in depths never seen by human eyes, something began to move. Something that caught a new scent in the air.

  The smell of a cleaner beginning to rot.

  The alarm rang like the shriek of a wounded animal.

  Ethan jolted from his restless sleep in the folding chair of the break room. Red neon lights flickered on the ceiling, casting horrifying shadows on the crusted walls. The siren rose and fell, deafening, forcing every cell in his body to wake up even though it had been only two hours since he had closed his eyes.

  The door of the break room flew open with a bang. Ronald stood in the doorway, his face tense, his prosthetic iron arm already fully equipped with cleaning cartridges.

  "Seventh floor overflow! All teams on standby!"

  Ethan leaped to his feet, automatically grabbing the cartridge belt he always hung on the chair's backrest. In the headquarters corridor, the sound of boots struck the wet cement floor. Night shift cleaners poured out of their break rooms, some still rubbing their eyes, others already putting on gas masks with reflexive movements.

  "What's happening?" asked Ethan, following Ronald who was already running toward the equipment warehouse.

  "A beginner team on the seventh floor is overwhelmed. They were supposed to be doing basic training, slime, goblins, maybe a few venomous snakes." Ronald grabbed an extra-dimensional sack from the shelf, tossing one to Ethan without turning. "But somehow they triggered a swarm. Sixteen people went down, only eight came out."

  Only eight.

  Ethan processed that number while putting on his equipment. That meant eight corpses, possibly more if the monsters had already started feeding. And since it was a beginner team, the corpses were most likely still fresh, not yet touched by other cleaning teams.

  An opportunity.

  The thought appeared cold and pragmatic in his head, and he felt no guilt at all. Eight people dead foolishly because of rookie mistakes. Eight regrets he might be able to harvest.

  "Cart's ready outside!" shouted the shift commander from the end of the corridor, a middle-aged man with a thick mustache and one eye covered by a leather patch. "Team A fifth floor, Team B seventh floor, Team C on standby at headquarters! You have thirty minutes before the dungeon starts digesting!"

  Ethan and Ronald joined six other cleaners on an open mana-powered cart, a boxy vehicle with iron wheels and dim headlights. Its engine roared as the driver pressed the pedal, shooting away from Sanitation Headquarters toward the mouth of The Infinite Maw.

  The night air of The Grime struck Ethan's face. The smell of sulfur, factory smoke, and something sweetly rotten from the city's lower layers. Neon lights flickered along the pothole-riddled road, creating pools of dirty light in the black puddles. Above, the yellow haze from the city of nobles covered the stars. No one spoke during the journey. Only the sound of the engine and the roar of the wind.

  The mouth of The Infinite Maw opened before them like a gaping wound in the belly of the earth. Five hundred meters in diameter, its rim lined with reinforced concrete and mana-forged fences ten meters high. Cargo lifts rose and descended along the walls, transporting adventurers, equipment, and hunting spoils. Giant spotlights illuminated the depths, but that light died in the thick darkness below, as though swallowed by something alive.

  The cart stopped at the first-floor cargo zone. Ethan and his team disembarked, hurrying toward the sanitation workers' special lift, a narrow iron cage with rusted bars that descended at half the speed of the passenger lifts.

  "Seventh floor," Ronald murmured, pressing the button. The lift shuddered, then began to descend.

  Ethan felt the pressure in his ears. With each floor they passed, the air changed, more humid, heavier, more alive. The walls of the lift corridor were made of organic stone that pulsed faintly, like giant blood vessels. Occasionally they passed a gap where Ethan could catch a glimpse of dungeon corridors: the third floor with its moss-covered limestone walls, the fourth floor with its glowing mushroom forest, the familiar black basalt of the fifth floor.

  The lift stopped with a jolt. The door opened, and the smell struck.

  Not the smell of rotting corpses, that would have been too simple. This was the smell of chaos: acid slime vapors evaporating, blood already half-congealed, broken healing potions, the sweat of fear, and beneath all of it, a pressing sweet aroma, the smell of mana spilling from bodies that had just stopped living.

  The seventh floor of The Infinite Maw was a labyrinth of red sandstone with a ceiling fifteen meters high. Its walls were carved with reliefs of primordial creatures, humans with animal heads, dragons with a thousand eyes, trees rooted in the sky. Emergency mana-powered lights were installed every hundred meters, creating pools of light in the darkness that was immediately consumed by shadows.

  And in the main corridor, thirty meters ahead, the chaos lay spread out.

  Corpses were scattered like dolls discarded by children after tiring of play. Eight, no, nine young adventurer bodies lay in unnatural positions. Warden Slimes, small monsters the size of basketballs with glowing red eyes, still crawled around the corpses, gnawing at equipment, licking the congealed blood. On the walls, traces of goblin claws, deep lines in the sandstone. And on the floor, chaotic footprints, running, falling, rising again, then running once more before finally stopping forever.

  "Beginner team," Ronald hissed with a bitter tone. "They should have had a supervisor. They should have..." He cut off his words, his jaw tightening. "Clear the area. Kill the remaining monsters. Neutralize the residue. Collect the equipment. We have twenty-five minutes."

  The cleaning team moved with the efficiency of machines. Two people advanced with mild acid sprayers, spraying the slimes that were still moving. The creatures hissed, shrank, then burst into harmless slime. Two others began setting up portable lights in the corners of the corridor, expanding the work area. Ronald himself took up position at the end of the corridor, watching for the possibility of monsters coming from the depths.

  Ethan began to work.

  He knelt beside the first corpse, a young girl, perhaps nineteen years old, with red hair tied in a ponytail. Her eyes were wide open, her lips parted in a scream that hadn't managed to come out. The wound on her chest, the characteristic tear of goblin claws, was still wet. The warmth of her body hadn't yet fully left.

  Ethan reached for her wrist. The final seconds.

  Darkness. Screaming. A young man beside her fell with a torn throat. "RUN!" she shouted, but her feet didn't move. A clump of green slime clung to her calf, burning her skin. "I... I wasn't ready... I wasn't..."

  No skill.

  Ethan released her hand, exhaling slowly. The girl's regret wasn't about a skill she had failed to use, but about her unpreparedness. About the fear that froze her steps. About death that came too quickly for a young person who should still have been studying, not fighting in a dungeon.

  He closed the girl's eyes with his palm, then moved on to the next corpse.

  The second corpse, third, fourth, all the same. Young people with cheap equipment and expensive dreams, dead because of a swarm they should have been able to avoid if only they had had one experienced adventurer on the team. No Residual Regret strong enough to be harvested. Only ordinary death.

  Until he arrived at the fifth corpse.

  A scout.

  Ethan knew that from the equipment, a thin robe with light camouflage, soft-soled shoes, a short dagger at the waist. The body was slender, the face still childlike, perhaps seventeen years old, at most. No visible external wounds. But the posture... he had fallen in a kneeling position, one hand stretched out ahead, as though pointing at something. His eyes were peacefully closed.

  Ethan reached for his wrist. Cold. But a second after contact, the world spun.

  The same corridor, but in a different condition. The emergency lights hadn't been installed yet. Only the light from an illumination rod wedged in a wall crevice. Ahead, three goblins, small, green-skinned, red-eyed, were tearing apart the corpse of a girl with a ponytail. The same girl as the first corpse.

  The scout was hiding behind a stone protrusion, his body trembling. His breath came in gasps, his eyes wet. In his hand, a communication crystal was gripped tightly.

  "The other team... in the south corridor... they don't know there's a swarm here," he whispered, his voice breaking. "I have to... I have to warn them."

  He stared at the goblins. One goblin turned, sniffing the air. Its eyes narrowed.

  "[Quick Step]," the scout murmured. "I can run faster than them. But if I run... they'll follow me. And the team in the south... they'll be safe because the swarm chases me."

  Two seconds. The goblins began to move closer.

  "Or I stay still. Hide. They might not find me."

  One second. His breath stopped.

  "But if I stay still... the team in the south dies."

  The scout drew a long breath. Then, with a movement that couldn't be called brave, because his face was still pale with fear, his eyes still wet, he leaped from his hiding place.

  "[Quick Step]!"

  His body shot like an arrow, passing the goblins, hitting the wall at the end of the corridor, then running stumbling toward the south, away from his own team, drawing the swarm's attention in the opposite direction.

  The goblins snarled, giving chase.

  And the scout, with his final breath before the first claws tore his back, could only think: "I hope they hear... I hope they're safe..."

  Author Note