The first sensation was the cold. It was a lie.
The cold wasn't real. It was just the absence of feeling, a creeping numbness that started in his legs and was slowly, methodically, conquering his body. Kang Seo-jun lay twisted on the black, obsidian floor of the Dragon's Lair, his own blood a rapidly cooling puddle beneath him. The coppery stench of it, thick and metallic, was the only thing he could still smell.
He'd been hit from behind. Three gaping, claw-shaped tears in his back, a wound so deep it had shattered his spine. The Shadow Wyvern's parting gift. A poison that didn't kill with fire, but with paralysis.
"He... he's still breathing," a voice, thin and reedy, whispered from somewhere above.
Seo-jun's world was a blurry mess of shadow and torchlight, but he recognized the voice. Cheol. The party's Mage.
"So? He won't be for long." That voice was deeper, calmer. Park Jin-ho. The leader of the "Valiant Strikers," and the man Seo-jun had, until ten seconds ago, trusted with his life. "The poison is necrotic. His system is already compromised."
Compromised. Such a sterile word for dying.
Seo-jun tried to push himself up. His arms, his real arms, were still his. He willed them to move. Nothing happened. The paralysis was complete. Only his eyes, his lungs, and his rapidly failing heart were still his to command.
He gurgled. A wet, pathetic sound. "Hye-jin..."
His gaze found her. Lee Hye-jin. The Healer. The one he'd... he'd...
He had done it for her. He'd seen the Wyvern's shadow-step, its clawed tail swinging in a silent, lethal arc. He'd been standing next to the supply bags, a dozen meters away. She'd been in its path. He hadn't even thought. He'd just... moved.
He, an F-Rank Porter, had thrown his worthless body in front of an S-Rank attack.
And for a moment, it had worked. He'd taken the blow.
Now, he was paying for it.
"The... potion..." he managed to rasp, his throat feeling like it was full of wet gravel.
He saw her hand, the one not holding her glowing staff, move to the belt pouch where she kept the high-grade healing elixirs. A single clink of glass.
"Hye-jin, don't waste it," Jin-ho said. His voice wasn't angry. It was just... tired. Annoyed. "It's a Grade-B potion, and we have one left. His stats are too low. It wouldn't even begin to counter the necrosis before the poison melts his organs. It's simple math. Don't be stupid."
Seo-jun's eyes locked on her. Please, he tried to say. Please, Hye-jin. I saved you.
She looked at him. Her face, usually so kind, was a mask of pale, calculated fear. She looked at the red vial in her hand. She looked at Jin-ho, her leader.
Then, her hand moved away from the pouch. She tucked it behind her back.
She wouldn't meet his gaze.
"He's right, Seo-jun," she said, her voice hollow, empty. "I'm sorry. It would be... a waste."
A waste.
The word echoed in the cavernous, dying furnace of his mind. Three years. Three years he'd been with this party. He'd carried their food, their water, their tents, their mountains of useless loot. He'd been the first one in, testing for traps. The last one out, carrying the wounded. He'd taken a half-share of experience, a quarter-share of loot, all on the promise that he was part of the team. That he was family.
"The item, Jin-ho," Cheol said, his voice nervous, his eyes darting to the shadows. "The Wyvern's corpse is going to despawn. We need to get the drop."
Seo-jun's gaze, watery and dim, followed theirs. There, in the center of the chamber, the massive, shadowy corpse of the Wyvern was beginning to flicker. And on its chest, pulsing with a light so dark it seemed to drink the torchlight, was an orb. A swirling, miniature galaxy of purple and black.
It was the reason they'd come. The reason he'd spent six months researching, cross-referencing, and finally locating this S-Rank dungeon.
[Heart of the Void (S-Rank)]
"You... you can't..." Seo-jun gasped, a bloody foam flecking his lips. The lie gave him a spark of adrenaline. "The... the Heart... S-Rank. It... it binds to the... first... touch..."
Jin-ho laughed. A cold, ugly sound that had no humor in it. "Exactly, you stupid mule. And we can't have an F-Rank Porter, a piece of literal garbage, binding to an S-Rank item, can we?"
He stepped forward. His heavy, steel-plated boot planted squarely on Seo-jun's outstretched hand. Seo-jun felt that. He felt the bones in his fingers snap like dry twigs.
A scream, wet and choked, tore from his throat.
"You were always a good-for-nothing, Kang Seo-jun," Jin-ho said, leaning down so his face was just inches from his. He smelled of sweat and steel. "But today? Today, you were finally useful. You were the perfect bait."
He gestured to Cheol. "Pick it up."
"Wait," Hye-jin said, her voice trembling. "What about... him? We can't just... leave him. The monsters..."
"We can't just what?" Jin-ho rounded on her, his patience finally snapping. "He is dead. He is a sack of meat that kept you from getting a scratch. We take the Heart, we get out of this S-Rank hellhole, we sell it, and we never have to come back. Are you with me, or do you want to stay here and die with the luggage?"
Hye-jin flinched. She looked at Jin-ho. She looked at the S-Rank orb.
And then she looked, one last time, at Kang Seo-jun.
"He's right," she said, her voice now as cold as the obsidian floor. "We're leaving."
"Good." Jin-ho strode to the corpse and snatched the [Heart of the Void]. A system message, visible only to him, must have appeared. He was smiling.
"No..." Seo-jun's vision was going dark. The poison was in his heart. It felt like his veins were being filled with setting cement. "You... you promised... equal... shares..."
"We did," Jin-ho sneered, not even bothering to look back. He was already walking toward the exit, Cheol scrambling behind him. "And you get an equal share of nothing. Just like you've always been."
Hye-jin was the last to leave. She paused at the cavern's exit, her silhouette framed against the torchlight. She looked back at him.
Seo-jun summoned his last ounce of strength. "Hye-jin... why?"
She just shook her head. "This world... it's not for people like you anymore, Seo-jun. It's not for the kind. It's for the strong."
And then she was gone.
They didn't even finish him off. They didn't grant him the mercy of a quick death. They left him. Paralyzed. In the dark. For the other dungeon-crawlers to find.
Kang Seo-jun lay there, the sound of their retreating footsteps echoing until it was replaced by a profound, crushing silence. He was alone. The Wyvern's poison was a fire in his veins, but the betrayal was a core of ice in his gut.
It wasn't fair.
His breath hitched, a ragged, failing pump.
I was loyal. I was... I was good.
He thought of his small, cheap apartment. He thought of his younger sister, the reason he'd become a Hunter, waiting for medicine he could now never afford.
The anger came then. A hot, pure, and profound rage that burned away the cold, the fear, and the pain. It was a fury so potent it was almost a physical thing. He was weak. He was stupid. He was trusting.
If I had another chance...
His vision, which had been graying, suddenly went black.
If I could do this all over... I wouldn't save them. I wouldn't help them. I wouldn't be their mule.
A single, bloody tear rolled from the corner of his eye, defying the paralysis.
I would have let her die.
A final, agonizing rattle. And then, silence.
Kang Seo-jun was dead.