The world beyond the portal was almost disorienting. The light that enveloped them as they passed through it evaporated like mist, revealing a gray stone corridor lit by floating mana globes fixed to the vaulted ceiling.
The air there was cold, but not the cold of death, rather the cold of control. The smell of magical incense and bureaucracy permeated the environment.
They had returned to the safe entrance of the dungeon, where officials from the Hunters' Association monitored the active portals.
Eliza staggered as she stepped out. Her body still ached, her lungs craving air untainted by toxins. Bastet followed close behind, slowly dematerializing until only her shadow remained, which coiled around Seth's feet like a sleepy snake.
A man waited ahead. Tall, pale, wearing the Association's formal uniform—black and dark blue, with the silver crest of the watchful eye on his shoulder. The emblem made it clear: he was no mere employee. He was an Incident Supervision Officer.
His eyes scanned the two immediately. First Seth. Then Eliza. And then... just silence.
"Just the two of you?" he asked, his voice neutral but with tension beneath the surface. 'Where are the others?'
Seth took a deep breath, his shoulders relaxing in a rehearsed movement. He brought his hand to the back of his neck, scratched it lightly, and then replied with the casualness of someone describing the weather.
"We don't know." His voice was calm, drawn out, as if he were slightly bored. 'The prisoners were killed almost immediately. Spiders camouflaged in the stones of the floor and walls... they were part of the dungeon itself.'
The officer didn't react. He just watched him.
Seth continued, impassive:
"Gregory tried to escape when the boss appeared. A Crystal Spider. Large. Territorial. It killed him during the confrontation. It was quick." He paused and then concluded with a shrug: "The dungeon did what it does."
Eliza nodded slowly, confirming the narrative. She was still pale, exhausted, but there was truth in her eyes. Or, at least, what the Officer would see as such.
Even so... something didn't add up.
The man crossed his arms.
"Too much of a coincidence," he said, in a tone that was somewhere between suspicion and protocol. "The entry log included more individuals. You are the only ones who returned. No partial return readings. No activation of emergency spells. And no visible corpses on the surface scanner. Strange, isn't it?"
Seth sighed again. As if he had expected this.
Then he took a step forward.
The officer raised an eyebrow but did not move.
Seth approached until he was within earshot. He leaned slightly forward and spoke in a barely audible tone, his voice as cold as the air in the room:
"Gregory was a prisoner assassin." A short pause. "He must have been paid. Not by us, of course. I finished the Dungeon alone, we didn't call the others, they must have been killed."
The officer kept his face neutral, but his eyes narrowed, analyzing every word.
Seth then added: "Do an investigation. Use the internal channel. Say Connie Parker asked."
The mention of that name was like lighting a candle inside a tomb.
The officer reacted. A single muscle in his jaw twitched. His eyes blinked once, slowly. He understood.
Seth backed away with the same calmness as before, as if nothing had been said. Bastet, invisible to others but present in his shadow, seemed to purr softly—a warning growl, not one of affection.
The officer straightened up. He cleared his throat. His expression returned to rigid professionalism.
"Understood. A full report will be issued. You are dismissed for the appropriate mana tests and psychic stabilization." He paused for a moment, then added, in a curious tone, "And... a recommendation for silence, I suppose?"
Seth gave a slight informal bow of his head.
"Silence is... the best way to listen, isn't it?"
The officer did not respond. He simply turned away, already accessing a recording crystal, his fingers sliding precisely over the luminous glyphs, encoding the request with urgency and discretion.
Eliza watched everything with a frown. The tension was beginning to dissolve, but too many questions still hung in the air. She turned to Seth, hesitant.
"Who is Connie Parker?" she whispered.
Seth yawned. A genuine, exhausted yawn, as if the weight of the dungeon was not only on his muscles, but on the deepest layers of his mind.
"Rank-S hunter... and my wife," he said casually, as if talking about the weather. Then he looked at the horizon and narrowed his eyes. 'Ah. Speaking of the devil...' he muttered, with a crooked smile.
A shiny black SUV crossed the outer perimeter of the dungeon courtyard, its tires tracing a smooth path on the polished mana floor. The vehicle stopped silently, far enough away not to attract attention, but too close to be ignored.
The car door opened with a subtle click.
From inside, a woman with impeccable posture emerged—tall, dark hair tied in an elegant bun, wearing a graphite gray overcoat that danced in the wind. Her heels made no sound. Her sunglasses were removed with a slow gesture, revealing eyes as sharp as stilettos.
She said nothing. She just looked directly at Seth.
And he, with a lighter smile than usual, turned to Eliza.
"I have to go," he said, almost in a domestic tone, as if announcing that he was going out to buy bread. "Don't kill yourself out there... and be careful who you trust. Not every dungeon has walls."
Without waiting for a response, he turned and began to walk away.
Each step was silent, controlled, like someone who was not going into the arms of a wife — but to the epicenter of another veiled negotiation, another power game masked as a reunion.
Connie was waiting for him next to the SUV.
When he approached, she sized him up from head to toe.
"You're covered in the smell of monsters and cheap politics."
Seth smiled with his eyes.
"The day is just beginning."
She handed him a bottle of water and a dark towel without saying a word. They exchanged a look that said it all: promises, warnings, and complicity. He wiped his hands as the back door opened by itself, inviting him in.
Eliza watched them from afar. Not with jealousy. Not with fear. But with the clear intuition that she was dealing with the kind of people who made the dungeon seem... simple.
The car door closed with a soft click.
The SUV drove off.