The morning after the sky broke, the city smelled of blood, smoke and ozone. Emergency sirens wailed on loops. On every available screen—from phone displays to giant billboards—a single message from the World Government flickered: "Remain indoors. Do not engage unknown entities. Await further instructions from your local System liaison."
Kai didn't have that luxury.
He sat on the floor of his apartment with a towel wrapped around his bleeding arm and a cursed sword across his knees. Min dozed fitfully on the couch, a fever making his cheeks flush. Every time Kai closed his eyes, he saw the crack in the sky again and the monsters dragging people down the street. He saw the red blade carving through gray flesh. He felt the rage that had filled him when he'd saved his brother—a rage that had not entirely been his own.
His System panel hovered silently in the corner of his vision, its translucent edges catching the dawn light filtering through his shattered window. Every so often, lines of text scrolled down it: names of nearby portals, warnings about roaming monsters, tips for new hunters. Kai ignored them until one update snapped him out of his trance.
[System Notification: Dungeon outbreak active at coordinates 143-07 (Downtown Mall). Raid eligibility: Hunter Rank F or higher. Guaranteed common loot drop.]
Guaranteed.
The word sparked something in him. Last night, every monster he killed had dropped something. The System itself said loot was rare. Hunters in the stories he'd read might go five, ten kills without a single weapon or potion. Kai had received two cursed items from two kills and one from the third. When he'd used the cursed blade to kill the kitchen monster, another item had dropped—a crystal he had refused to touch. He still felt its presence in his inventory, a weight tugging at his mind.
Absolute Drop Rate.
He couldn't stay at home forever. He needed credits to buy food, medicine for Min, maybe some protective gear. The System had turned currency into something else entirely—killing monsters and clearing dungeons now paid out credits. And credits meant survival. Sitting here waiting for another portal to open in his living room was suicide.
"Stay here," he whispered to his brother when the fever broke enough for Min to murmur a response. "Lock the door and don't open it for anyone but me."
Min's eyes widened. "You're going out? Are you insane? Did you forget the monsters?"
Kai forced a smile. "I haven't forgotten. But we need to eat. We need medicine. If I can clear a small dungeon, maybe we can get some gear... maybe we can figure out what this skill actually does."
Min swallowed hard but nodded. "Don't die."
"Back at you." Kai patted his head and grabbed the Blood Fang Sword. He slid the Bone Whisper Ring onto his finger, ignoring the faint hiss of static in the back of his mind. He tucked the Rage Shard into a side pocket, still wrapped in a towel. It pulsed weakly through the cloth like a slow heartbeat. He'd deal with it later.
The streets were not empty. Hunters—people like him, newly awakened by the System—moved in groups, some carrying knives, others sporting baseball bats or whatever they had stolen from sporting goods stores. A few wore mismatched pieces of armor that looked like they had been looted from costume shops. Military drones buzzed overhead like oversized hornets, scanning alleys and broadcasting warnings. At the intersection near Kai's apartment, a System liaison—a woman with a badge and a pistol—was organizing volunteers.
"Anyone F Rank? We need two more to meet the minimum party requirement!" she called, her voice amplified by a small device at her collar. She noticed the sword at Kai's side and waved him over. "You. Newbie. You're coming. You have a weapon. We deploy in five."
Kai didn't argue. He joined four other hunters at the back of a supply truck. They wore expressions ranging from fear to determination. One was a stocky man in his thirties gripping a fire axe so tight his knuckles were white. Another was a teenage girl with a pair of kitchen knives taped to her forearms. The last two were a pair of friends, both mid-twenties, with matching utility belts loaded with empty pockets. It struck Kai then that they were just... people. No one looked like a hero from a game.
"I'm Shirin," said the liaison, climbing into the truck with them. "System's given me temporary authority to field F-rankers. Our job is to clear the mall basement before the dungeon energy spreads to the rest of the building. Stay close. Don't chase loot. If you see something glowing and you don't know what it is, yell."
Kai almost laughed at the last part. Yell? Sure. He glanced down at the Blood Fang Sword. Its crimson sheen was dull in the morning light, but he could feel it thrumming against his fingers as if anticipating more blood. The Bone Whisper Ring on his finger whispered faintly at the edge of hearing; nothing he could make out yet.
They rode in tense silence. Downtown Mall loomed ahead: five floors of glass and steel. It had been cordoned off with makeshift barricades, behind which a dozen other System liaisons directed hunters into the basement entrance. Above the main doors, where once a giant screen advertised smartphones and fast-food chains, the System now displayed a portal hazard warning along with the recommended hunter rank.
[Breach Zone: Level 1]
[Enemy Types: Rabid Canines, Slime Parasites, Infected Humans]
[Boss: Subterranean Sludge Beast]
[Minimum Party Size: 5]
Shirin flashed her badge at the gatekeeper and led their group inside. The escalators weren't working. Broken glass crunched underfoot. Down the corridors, clothing racks had been overturned and mannequins lay in pieces. In the distance, something growled.
The portal to the basement pulsed at the end of an employee-only hallway. It looked like a hole in reality: a swirling vortex of black and violet mist, rimmed with white light. The moment they approached, the System screens of every hunter lit up with a single line.
[Do you wish to enter the dungeon? Y/N]
Shirin gave them all a look. "Last chance. We go together. We leave together. Anyone wants to back out, now's the time."
No one moved.
"Alright. On three. One... two... three..."
They stepped into the portal.
For a moment, Kai felt like his body had been turned inside out. Cold tore through him, then heat, then nothing. His feet touched something soft and damp. He opened his eyes.
They stood in a cavern lit by a dim green glow emanating from moss-coated walls. The air was thick with humidity and the stench of stagnant water. Fungal growths pulsed faintly around stalagmites, oozing slime. Far above, the ceiling of the cavern rippled like the surface of a lake.
[Dungeon Instance: Downtown Mall Level 1]
[Time limit: 60 minutes]
[Eliminate Boss to clear dungeon]
The first rabid canine attacked them almost immediately. It wasn't a dog; not anymore. Its fur was missing in patches, replaced by matted flesh. Its eyes glowed with a sickly yellow light. It sprang from behind a rock with a snarl.
Kai swung the Blood Fang Sword out of instinct. The blade sang through the air and severed the creature's head with almost no resistance. Black blood spurted. The head hit the ground with a wet thump and dissolved into smoke. The body crumbled moments later, leaving nothing but bones... and a glowing orb.
[Item acquired: Minor Strength Orb]
[Effect: Permanently increases strength by 1 point]
[No curse detected]
Kai blinked. The other hunters stared.
"You—" Shirin started, then another canine leapt at her. She shot it, twice. The bullets punched through its skull. It, too, vanished, leaving nothing behind.
No drop.
Shirin frowned. "Huh."
They continued, moving cautiously between mossy boulders and clusters of slime. Slime Parasites lurked in shallow pools, launching themselves like sticky projectiles. One latched onto the teenage girl's arm; she screamed and sliced it off with her knives. It fell and dissolved. No drop.
Kai took out five more monsters. Each time, the Blood Fang Sword sang and the Bone Whisper Ring hummed and something dropped—an orb, a shard of metal, a potion bottle that refilled itself. He shared the non-cursed items with the party. They thanked him with bewildered gratitude. When he picked up a ring that throbbed darkly, he felt the curse immediately and pocketed it. He didn't mention that one.
By the time they reached the boss chamber—a wide circular cavern with a pit of viscous sludge in the center—Kai's inventory held more than ten items. The others had zero or one. Shirin's eyes flicked to his screen once. She said nothing. The Bone Whisper Ring's whispers were getting louder, voices overlapping in a susurrus, but he still couldn't make out words. The Blood Fang Sword trembled in his hand like it was excited.
The Subterranean Sludge Beast rose from the pit with a gurgling roar. It was a mound of ooze the size of a pickup truck, studded with floating bones and the occasional skull. Acidic spit dripped from pseudopods that lashed out at them. The fight was messy and frantic. The teenage girl was thrown against a wall and nearly sank into a pool before the two friends pulled her free. Shirin pumped bullet after bullet into the creature's core, but the slugs slowed and melted. Kai darted in and out, slashing deep gashes into the creature with his cursed sword. Each time, the blade carved out a chunk of sludge that sizzled and shrank.
"Find the core!" the stocky man shouted, his axe buried up to the head in ooze. "It's regenerating!"
Kai closed his eyes for a brief second, ignoring the chaos. He listened.
The whispers from the Bone Whisper Ring aligned for a heartbeat.
*Lower left.*
He opened his eyes, dashed forward, and plunged the Blood Fang Sword down and left of the main mound. The blade met something hard. The sword screamed in delight. Kai forced it deeper. The creature shuddered and let out a warbling shriek. Its entire body convulsed and then collapsed, liquefying into a puddle that quickly evaporated into mist.
A bright object clattered at his feet. The System chimed.
[Dungeon cleared!]
[Reward: 500 Credits, 2 Skill Points]
[Guaranteed drop acquired: Cursed Slime Core]
[Cursed Slime Core: Grants temporary invulnerability when consumed; curse: random mutation risk]
Kai picked up the core, ignoring the excited suggestions from the whispers to eat it immediately. The other hunters whooped and hugged each other. Shirin clapped Kai on the back hard enough to jar his teeth. "Nice call, kid! I don't know what skill you have, but that was good work."
They exited the dungeon to find the world outside had not magically gotten better. The sky crack still glowed, the city still hummed with fear. But Kai had credits in his System balance, new loot in his inventory, and confirmation: every monster he killed dropped something. The Absolute Drop Rate skill wasn't just rare—it was impossible by System standards. The hunters looked at him differently now. With awe, yes. But also calculation.
Word would spread.
And that meant more attention from liaisons, from guilds, from criminals, and from whatever had whispered to him through his sword and his ring.
As he walked home, Kai's phone buzzed with a new notification. An invitation appeared on his screen, glowing gold.
[You have been invited to join: Iron Wolves Guild. Accept? Y/N]
Kai smiled despite himself. A guild. A team. Maybe some answers. Maybe more danger.
He clicked Accept.
The next steps would take him deeper into the curse. It was an impossible drop rate, after all. Impossible things rarely come without impossible prices.