Etzel noticed Level Eight most when he stopped looking for it. There had been no dramatic transformation, no sudden realization that the world had become slower, and no overwhelming surge of strength.
He was simply—better. A little faster, a little more balanced, a little more capable of making his body obey what his mind had already decided.
Unfortunately, DK had noticed too. “Again.”
Etzel reset his stance. “You know, some people celebrate progress.”
DK raised the wooden sword. “We are.”
“This feels suspiciously like training.”
“It is.”
“That is not celebrating.”
DK attacked, and Etzel reacted. The wooden blade came toward his left shoulder, his spear rising almost before he consciously completed the decision. Wood struck wood. Etzel redirected, stepped, recovered.
DK stopped. Etzel blinked. That had been—clean.
He looked at his hands. “I don’t feel stronger.”
DK attacked again, and Etzel barely blocked. “You are.”
Etzel stared at him over the crossed weapons. “You could have answered normally.”
“You would not have believed me.”
“That is an unfairly accurate assessment of my personality.”
DK stepped away. Etzel rolled his shoulder. Level Eight was not making decisions for him; it was making the distance between decision and action slightly smaller. He liked that. A lot.
“Again.”
This time Etzel initiated. He showed DK a line toward the ribs—weight forward, eyes committed, spear tip aligned. False Line.
DK did nothing. Etzel changed direction anyway. The wooden sword intercepted him. Etzel frowned. “Again.”
Second attempt: different line, different signal. DK did not react, and intercepted. Etzel narrowed his eyes.
Third attempt: Etzel made the lie subtler. DK’s sword shifted. There!
Etzel immediately changed to the real attack. DK changed too. The sword snapped around the spear shaft, locking it.
Etzel stopped. DK stopped. Etzel looked down at the trapped weapon, then slowly looked up. “You lied.”
“Yes.”
“You pretended to believe my feint.”
“Yes.”
“I dislike progress.”
DK released the spear. “False Line does not control the opponent.”
Etzel rubbed his wrist. “It influences a decision.”
“Yes.”
“But they can lie about the decision.”
“Yes.”
Etzel sighed. “That makes considerably more sense when I’m the one doing it.”
“Again.”
Etzel raised the spear. “One day I’m going to develop a technique called Rest.”
“Then practice it later.”
“That was cruel.”
The message from Maerin arrived shortly after breakfast. Etzel opened it immediately:
Maerin: Sector 14 update.
The humor disappeared.
Etzel: Go.
Maerin: The humanoid is still outside the dungeon.
Etzel frowned:
Etzel: Still?
Maerin: It hasn’t entered.
Maerin: It hasn’t attacked anyone.
Maerin: It has barely moved.
Etzel looked toward DK. “The figure is still there.”
DK waited. Etzel read the next message:
Maerin: Dungeon instability continues to increase.
Etzel typed:
Etzel: Because of it?
The answer came quickly:
Maerin: Unknown.
Etzel closed his eyes: Etzel: I’m beginning to hate that word. Maerin: Good. Scientists use it often.
Etzel stared at the message, then looked at DK. “She’s getting funnier.”
“No.”
“I think she is.”
“No.”
Etzel put the communicator down. The Authority had maintained the exclusion zone—no one was being allowed near the dungeon without clearance, the unknown humanoid had made no attempt to force entry, and it simply waited while the gate continued reacting to its presence.
Then another message arrived:
Maerin: They’re sending a specialist.
Etzel picked the communicator back up. The feed became available less than an hour later, showing that the Authority had established a temporary observation post well outside the dungeon entrance with equipment, sensors, armed Hunters, technicians, and one man walking toward the gate.
Etzel leaned closer. The newcomer looked disappointingly ordinary—maybe early thirties, dark hair, plain field clothing beneath a light protective coat, no enormous weapon, no dramatic armor, and nothing about him announced: I have been summoned because reality is behaving incorrectly.
Etzel typed:
Etzel: Who is that?
Maerin: Specialist.
Etzel: That explains nothing.
Maerin: Correct.
Etzel lowered the communicator. “I walked into that.”
“Yes.”
The man stopped several meters from the unknown humanoid with no weapon drawn, though the Authority personnel behind him were considerably less relaxed, several having weapons ready. The humanoid turned its narrow head and watched.
Stolen novel; please report.
The specialist spoke: “You want this closed?”
A pause. “Yes.”
The voice still sounded rough, unused. The man nodded toward the dungeon: “Why?”
Silence—long enough that Etzel wondered if the conversation was over. Then the humanoid answered: “Wrong.”
Etzel leaned forward. The specialist did not: “What is wrong?”
The figure looked toward the gate. Its answer came slowly: “Still open.”
Etzel’s expression changed. DK said nothing.
The specialist looked at the dungeon—not surprised, not frightened, but interested. That worried Etzel more.
For the next eleven minutes—nothing happened. At least, nothing Etzel considered interesting. The specialist walked around the entrance, stopped, read sensor output, asked for historical measurements, moved again, stared at the gate, asked another question, waited, and stared some more.
Etzel shifted in his chair. “Is his Ability staring?”
DK looked at him. “You do that.”
Etzel went quiet. Several seconds passed. “That was unnecessary.”
DK returned his attention to the feed. Etzel did too. Then he noticed something: the man was not looking for damage, not exactly. He kept asking about function—gate pressure, energy circulation, formation stability, closure behavior, anchor condition. Every question was about how the dungeon worked.
Etzel sat straighter. “He’s looking for a rule.”
DK glanced at him. “Perhaps.”
Not a Flaw—that was what Etzel would have searched for, something real, something exploitable. The specialist appeared to be doing something adjacent, but different. He was trying to understand the mechanism itself.
The man finally stopped beside one of the technicians: “Gate closure protocol?”
The technician answered through the feed: "When a dungeon is completed and its anchor collapses, structural energy decays. The gate loses stability and closes."
The specialist looked toward the entrance: "What keeps this one open?"
"The anchor."
"No."
The technician paused. Etzel did too.
The specialist continued: "The anchor keeps the dungeon stable." He pointed toward the gate: "Something else keeps the door open."
The humanoid moved—not toward him, just its head. For the first time since the specialist arrived, it appeared genuinely interested.
Etzel saw it. “So did it.”
DK nodded.
The specialist requested more data: energy flow, old measurements, current measurements. Then he asked the technicians to separate incoming and outgoing readings. Several minutes passed before a technician spoke: "There’s contamination in the return flow."
The specialist crouched beside the sensor display: "Contamination?"
"Very low."
"How low?"
"Below normal operational relevance."
"Then why is it consistent?"
Silence. Etzel smiled slightly; he liked this man.
The technicians recalibrated and ran the measurement again, but the result remained: energy flowed outward from the dungeon, expected, but beneath it—almost hidden—something was flowing back in. Not much, but constant.
The specialist stood: "There."
One technician answered: "That amount shouldn’t be enough to matter."
"Then remove it."
"We don’t know the source."
"I didn’t ask you to remove the source." The man stepped toward the gate: "I asked what happens if the flow stops."
Etzel’s smile disappeared. “Oh.”
DK looked at him. “He’s going to test it.”
“Yes.”
The Authority did not seem enthusiastic. Two personnel moved forward, but the specialist raised one hand: "Stay there."
"Renn—"
So, a name: Renn.
The man ignored the warning. He stopped just short of the gate, his hand rising—not touching, a few centimeters from the surface.
For several seconds, nothing happened. Then the observation system flashed:
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION
Event
Hunter Ability Activation Detected