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In a grand receiving room at the top of a dark castle, a neatly dressed imp demon rushes in, falling to his knees in front of an imposing throne.
"My lord," the imp says, panting with both exertion and fear. "They are breaching the wards!"
His Majesty Kim Soleum the First, Lord of the Dark Wastes and King of Demonkind, scratches the base of one antler and fights the urge to sigh. He wonders if they'd let him resign. Maybe if he asks very nicely?
But in his heart he knows it's too late. He's come too far. Hell, there's no one that would accept his two-week notice anyway.
What a headache. He stands and waves his hand. "Leave us"
Soleum had never asked to be Demon King. It hadn't been the title he applied for. The portal he had submitted his credentials to had the job description listed as "Level Boss Assistant". Kim Soleum supposes that he bears some blame on his part for not anticipating this. He had not put any thought into the fact that Level Bosses get into fights with adventurers. And if the Level Boss in question is weak, they die.
Which is what happened to Soleum's first Level Boss, may Lord Ajax, five-time winner of the dungeon's Top Minotaur Employee of the Month award, rest in peace. The dungeon break room would forever miss his brownies.
Kim Soleum should've known, really. When the castle's HR department had scheduled him in for a group interview and he had tapped into the conference portal at the agreed time. They had been five minutes late, and instead of an interview like he had been told, it had actually been an induction meeting. Soleum had been desperate enough at the time to just go with it — rent was due and any dungeon position comes with room and board. He should have known when they had only given his magic stat a cursory acknowledgement before assigning him to a post on Level Four.
Level Four! For a new hire? Absolutely ridiculous.
Turnover at the castle was fiendishly high, and his managers kept dying, one after the other. Of course, HR never saw fit to actually solve the root of their personnel issues, so it kept happening, and eventually, Soleum found that all of his bosses were dead and he was the highest in the hierarchy of everyone left at the castle. Which was distressing, to say the least. The castle was rundown, barely a respectable S Class dungeon at that point. They wouldn't have had enough mana to feed everyone their wage at the end of the month. And Soleum isn't keen on dying a slow death to starvation.
So despite the unwanted position, the thankless overtime that had awaited him, Soleum got to work. Talent acquisition, employee retention raises, discounts with armour and weapon retailers. Renovations to the workers quarters, because although all dungeons include housing very few actually make it an enjoyable experience.
And above all, medical cover and an in-house team of healers. Right now that team only consists of three people, but Soleum is proud of the fact that deaths in the line of duty within the castle has dropped by over 40% across all floors.
Which means, all in all, these adventurers blasting through his fellow workers like so much paper, leaving behind untold amounts of property damage as well as casualties, has him feeling rather irritated.
Their rogue could have easily picked that lock. Soleum had purposefully left that gate as easy to pick to stop heroes from trying to break it down. Did they have to blast through it with a fireball?
His stress headache has intensified and it's showing a bit in the magic leaking out of him. He feels a little sorry for the goblins and imps still in the room, and it's why he asked everyone to leave in the first place. He knows he's not great at keeping it all contained.
He watches through the crystal screen as the adventurers rush up the stairs and into the third floor. The knight cleaves a path forward with wide sweeps. He doesn't seem fully comfortable with that sword, and indeed, judging by the barely visible halo of light surrounding the blade, most of the destruction is being enabled by the buff spells the wizard is casting.
A shame, because Kim Soleum can tell already that the wizard is likely the most powerful in the team. She has near perfect control over her mana, her spells have just enough to power them with very little energy going to waste. She'll likely be an issue once the party hits the higher floors and the mana gets more dense.
Which looks to be soon. They dont seem like they'll be taking breaks in between floors like regular adventurers, the way theyre moving.
He wonders why they're in such a hurry. The longer you spend in a dungeon, the more you risk mana sickness (demon mana tends to have a contaminating effect on humans). But at the same time, the longer adventurers can rest within a dungeon, the higher their chances of survival. Surely the Cyclops that Soleum had assigned there had not been so easy to beat. Gus, they call him. The bone-mangler.
Soleum's brand new HR team had specifically headhunted him from a labyrinth dungeon and eveyone had been happy with the hire. Gus himself had been thrilled about the castle's high ceilings, the one in the labyrinth he had worked at was to low for him to really show off his full range of skill, and he'd been frustrated at the lack of both career and physical mobility.
Gus had been outfitted in strength and defense boosting armour, as well as a club with a speed buff. No ordinary adventure could have been done with him so quickly. But Soleum is coming to realise that this team is no ordinary adventuring team.
Hopefully when the medic team gets there, Gus will still be in salvagable shape. He has two younger siblings that he's supporting, and while Soleum could employ them instead if something happens to their eldest, child labour had always left a bad taste in Soleum's mouth. It looks like the adventurers had aimed quite precisely at his vital spots though so it doesn't look good. These adventurers are skilled, ruthless. Dangerous. The knight had cut through Gus' enhanced armour like cardboard and hadn't stopped coming at him until he was down. Vicious, even as he flinches at every unexpected sound.
And so is the rest of his party, it seems. Even the bard carries herself with the confidence of a seasoned killer, her cheerful eyes scanning the area with a detached but vigilant gaze. Soleum knows instinctively that she's more the type to break that flute of hers over someone's head than to use it to lull an opponent to sleep. An odd disposition for bard work, truly. But the way she leaves no body unlooted, no corner of the castle unsearched, that fits with the bard stereotype well enough. The things they'd do for coin…
The rogue though. The rogue is the epitome of the class. Just look at his darting eyes, the way he holds himself tense and ready to strike. A snake, reared back with a mouth full of venom. He hates being here, hates walking the halls, hates the hassle of mellee fighting. Soleum has seen a dozen just like him. That rogue is the type to stab the nearest party member in the back to make a clean escape when the going gets too tough to handle.
And then there's perhaps the most problematic one of all. The wizard. Calm and careful in a fight. Precise in the timing and placement of both buffs and attacks. Totally uncowed by the rogue's snippy sarcasm, holding her own as the party leader.
Soleum will have to kill the wizard, he thinks. He doesn't usually. It's better for adventurers to keep feeding the dungeon mana by coming back to challenge it again and again. But if the other three are threats, the wizard is the most dangerous of them all.
He watches the party skulk through the gallery room, carefully avoiding the strike range of the ghost portraits and showing him exactly how well-informed they are. He'd only moved those portraits into the castle during the last quarter. Information circulates fast amongst adventurers. Soleum has to keep updating the layout of the castle to stay competitive.
No adventurer has ever reached the throne room at the top of the seven-floor dungeon during Kim Soleum's tenure as Demon King, so they would not have as much information on him as they clearly do about everyone else. But it's still not going to be easy. The wizard has a wide field of vision and good focus, but she doesn't seem to be the most creative about mana, so Soleum is sure that if he takes measures to deal with her mana sources she would be much easier to deal with.
The most sure method would be to take out the knight first, the hardest hitter of the party. It's a classic strategy when there's no healer in the party, and it works well for quick eliminations. But the knight is also the sturdiest of them all so Soleum would need to go in with some force. Not his greatest strength, admittedly. But if Soleum times it well the knight wouldn't see it coming.
The rogue is another matter entirely. The twitchy one is hyperalert to any changes in the air. Soleum would have to make sure to not give him a moment to think and to always have an eye on him. He's fast enough that if Soleum doesn't watch out, he'll have a knife in his back. But if he plays it right, one good hit should be enough to take down a rogue. Maybe two hits if the rogue is being enhanced by buffs. Soleum just has to be careful
Without their damage dealers, the party would be crippled enough to form no threat to him. Even with that vicious bard left whole, it's unlikely that she'll be able to do much damage to him just with her wooden pipe. She really should have picked a different class, Soleum thinks. But that's her loss and his win.
The party reaches the next Floor Boss just as Kim Soleum receives an alert from his medical team. It seems that Gus' condition is severe, but they had reached him in time to give him proper care. Once they get him stabilised in the infirmary he should be able to reach full recovery after a month or so. Soleum is relieved at the news. He'll happily pay out whatever sick-leave or hazard pay Gus wants as long as he doesn't have to look for another Floor Three Boss ever again. Finding proper candidates for Level Three in any dungeon is basically they worst thing ever, in his opinion. Turns out "not too weak, not too strong" isn't a helpful metric.
The boss on the Gallery Floor is Gargi the Sphinx, who had also been headhunted from the western region. Assigning her to Level Four had been a little controversial at the start. In her previous dungeon Gargi had been the Level Five boss and was highly regarded. But Gargi herself had no complaints, and told Soleum that she was happy with being able to meet more adventurers. She had had very few encounters with adventurers previously as only a small percentage of them would ever reach floors higher than the third, and she had been getting bored with the lack of opportunities to actually do her job.
Soleum can see that the increase in encounters has helped her regain her passion. Gargi's riddles have become harder and harder to solve, and even these adventurers, who had clearly done their research before risking life and limb, are looking flustered.
"… Are you serious?" The rogue says it like he didn't entirely mean to, the words tumbling out of his mouth.
Gargi's tail lashes behind her. "The terms are clear."
"But ten riddles? That's ridiculous. The file said—"
"The terms," Gargi purrs out, "are clear."
The wizard steps forward. "What is the first riddle?"
"I have cities but no houses, I have mountains but no trees. I have water but no fish. What am I?"
"A map." The wizard answers. "Next."
"I speak without a mouth, and hear with no ears. I have no body, but I come alive with a call. What am I?"
"An echo. Next."
"First you eat me, then you are eaten. What am I?"
"A fishhook. Next."
"Something that no one wants, but no one wants to lose. What am I?"
The bard sneers. "A lawsuit."
"I am full of holes but strong as steel. What am I?"
"A- A chain?" answers the knight.
"Correct. What is always coming but never arrives?"
"Tomorrow."
"I can be written, and spoken. I can be exposed, I can be broken. What am I?"
"News?"
"Correct. The poorest are rich in it. If you eat it, you will die. What is it?"
The rogue clicks his tongue. "Nothing."
"In giving you one, you will have either two or none. What is it?"
Silence. The adventurers freeze, waiting for one among them to step up.
After a long moment, the wizard's face hardens. "Is this the only way to move on to the next floor?"
Gargi flexes her claws. "Answering correctly is the only way to pass."
"No, it isn't. We could kill you instead. The door opens when the Level Boss is defeated. Answering your riddles is not our only option."
Gargi laughs, a terrible screeching, yowling sound. "You think killing me is easier?"
The wizard tightens her grip on her staff.
"It is."
A spark lights up at the tip, bright and hot. Soleum is puzzled. By the feel of the gathering mana, the spell is only—
"A fireball?" Gargi scoffs. "Such a tiny flame, what could it do to something like me. For your bravery, I will at least—"
Her words are interrupted by a choking cough. Blood spills out of Gargi's mouth and down her front.
Soleum should have never taken his eyes off of the rogue. In the brief second his and Gargi's attention had been taken by the wizard's flashy fireball, the rogue had snuck behind the sphinx and driven a knife into her vulnerable back.
Soleum alerts the medical team right away, but he already knows that they would be too late. The rogue had struck precisely at Gargi's heart. By the time the medical team gets there, Gargi would have already bled out.
"The door is open," says the bard, pocketing a handful of the loose jewels Gargi had decorated her station with. She loved the colours, she said. Soleum had promised to find a good, clear emerald for her one day. To match her daughter's eyes. "Let's go up to the next floor."
No. Not if Kim Soleum has anything to do with it.
This is his castle. Everything that happens here is subject to his will.
He gathers the mana around him and manipulates the space in front of the throne room's door. He folds the staircases of the fifth and sixth floor in, compresses and reshapes them, pressing and pressing so that when the adventurers open the door that they had just killed his employee to unlock, it would bring them here.
Here, to the seventh floor, the top of the tower they were in such a hurry to conquer. Here, where the air is thick with Kim Soleum's rage.
The great doors of the throne room opens. Kim Soleum's attending imps and goblins have long since fled to the lower floors in fear of both the adventurers' continued carnage and also the weight of their King's magic. Thus when the four adventurers step into the throne room, the only being in the room left to greet them is Kim Soleum himself.
"Congratulations," he says. "You are the first to reach this room. But unfortunately you will not have time to celebrate this achievement."
The rogue narrows his eyes. "You, what are you—"
"I am the king of this castle. You will not survive me."
"No, wait—" The wizard tries, but Soleum does not let her continue. He is tired of them, tired of their presence in his castle. Gargi had died because she had let them ask their questions and honoured them with her answers. He will not make the same mistake. This will be over quickly.
His gathered mana still swirls around him, and he sends out a ball of pure energy to throw the knight into a pillar. A simple, straightforward attack, perfectly suited for a simple knight like him. The knight slumps at the base of the pillar, blood dripping from some headwound. Not dead, but well and truly out of the fight. That's fine, Kim Soleum can come back for him later.
One tendril of energy swats away the knife thrown at his back. The rogue tries another, but Kim Soleum had never taken his eyes off him and now the rogue has his full attention. It takes barely a flick to send him careening into the wall as well. As tricky as the rogue is, Soleum can't trust that he'll stay down. To make sure, Soleum drives a dark spike into his thigh, and another into his elbow.
The rogue screams. Soleum can't pretend that it doesn't give him just a bit of satisfaction to hear it.
"Y-you bastard!" The rogue pants. "I knew one day it would come to this. I fucking knew it!"
Kim Soleum tilts his head. "Then perhaps you should have tried harder."
"Fuck you!" he spits. "You psychopath! You—!"
A blast of heat goes past Soleum's head.
"Roe Deer-ssi, please!" says the wizard, holding her staff in front of her. "Please snap out of it!"
"Forget it," says the bard, breaking off the tip of her flute into a jagged point. "The contamination is deep. We might have to kill him."
"But—"
Soleum does not understand what they are talking about. What contamination? The ones in danger of contamination from demon mana are them.
"No, please! Please, I know he can do it, I—"
Whatever it is, it doesn't concern him. He sends out a dark fireball at the wizard. It's deflected just in time, the wizard pulling up a shield in front of her with a yelp. He was right to assume she would be the most dangerous to him.
The bard comes at him but he swats her away like the others. He gathers his mana again and starts chanting.
He needs a big spell. It doesn't really matter what it is, but it has to be big enough to use up the ambient mana in the room so that the wizard has nothing to pull on. Adventurers have no mana of their own to power their spells. Without anything to draw on, the wizard will be powerless.
The effect is clear already. He sees the wizard try to cast, feels her try to wrest control of the energy away from him. But he's the stronger caster. Of course he is. His casting is strong enough to get him placed on Level Four even as a rookie.
The spell in his hands builds and builds, sucking up more and more mana in the air. His hair lifts with the sheer energy swirling around him and if he hadn't made sure to anchor himself before he started, his body wpuld have also been lifted slightly too.
He condenses the energy into a ball and chants for 'dark' and 'wind' and 'cold' to wrap around it. With the trigger word, the spell will blast the throne room with freezing darkness. The spell isn't really made for this much energy, usually it's just used to slow adventurers down or to bind them in shadows for a little while. Soleum doesn't really know what would happen to the adventurers with an overloaded one like this, and he doesn't know if he really cares.
They had been the ones to snap the cord that holds back the terrible and dark thing inside him. That they would be swallowed up by coldness and shadow seems only fitting.
He is down to the last sentence of the chant, once he finishes this the battle will be over. But before he can say another word, a force tackles him down to the ground from behind.
The bard.
Soleum had forgotten all about her, hadn't thought she was a threat at all. But he had neglected to remember that his automatic defenses fall in the split second before he launches a spell, the energy diverted. And the bard had been watching and waiting for the opportune moment, not having given up for a moment.
She holds him down with the same tenacity, hand sealing his mouth shut. While Kim Soleum is a demon he is also just a magic specialist. Physical grappling had never been in his wheelhouse, unlike some of his colleagues in the dungeon. With the bard perched on his chest, pinning his arms down with her knees, it's all he can do to contain the spell he'd been building so it doesn't blow up in his face.
"We can still bring him back," says the wizard. "We can't just leave him behind when the Darkness collapses."
"You're crazy, Goral." The bard pants, catching her breath. "I like it. But I can't hold him for long. And I won't let him talk either. He uses words to cast his attacks."
The wizard nods, and lowers into a crouch by them. Soleum braces for an attack, body tensing. But the wizard only levels him with an unreadable gaze.
"Roe Deer," she says. And something in him stills. "Kim Soleum, who am I?"
Who is she? She is the wizard, an adventure—"
"What is my name?"
… Goral?
No. That's not right. While the bard had called her that, Kim Soleum knows that it isn't her name.
But since when did adventurers have names anyway? It is one of the constants betwee all dungeons, that adventurers refer to themselves and each other only by their class. Some of his colleagues had speculated that they were born that way, unable to choose their own specialties. Thus this wizard should have no other designation than "wizard". Names are for those strong enough to claw their way into a role as a Level Boss, like Soleum's coworkers Gus, Ajax, and Gargi. Soleum himself had only received his name when he'd—
"What is my name?" the wizard asks again.
… When had Soleum received his name? Was it when Ajax had died? But he had written his name down on the job application, right?
"What is my name, Roe Deer-ssi. We've worked together for almost a year now. You know what it is, don't you?"
Roe Deer?
Roe Deer, Goral. Soleum casts a glance at the figure slumped against a pillar, the one fainted from blood loss against the wall.
Goat. Bison.
"You remember mine too, right?" says the bard, grinning. "I'd be hurt if you say you don't!"
Horse.
His… his coworkers?
Soleum winces as the ever present pain in his head intensifies. A pulsing pain, like something is trying to break itself free out of his skull. No, no, his coworkers' names are Gus, Gargi, Moira… Who else? Was Damian on sick leave still? Is Jun—
It hurts. It hurts to think. Something is…
"That spell you've got loaded will kill us, I can feel it," says Horse, easy and casual as if she's just going on a stroll in the park, not perched on top of a demon king with a deadly spell on his tongue.
Her role is bard in this dungeon. She can sense the flows of mana too, if she bothers to actually use her flute as a conduit like she's supposed to. But she leans back on her heels, leaving Soleum's arms free to move again.
"Do you want us to die, Roe Deer?" She asks.
No. He doesn't.
The answer had come to him faster than thought.
He doesn't know their names. He doesn't remember working with them, he can't— He can't remember. His head hurts and his teeth are starting to rattle with the force of the spell he can't discharge.
But he doesn't want them to die.
Not Horse, perched on top of him. Her undying cheer, her greed. The way she never quits, never gives up, until she gets what she wants. Not Goral, with her determination, her quiet strength, or Bison with his skittishness, the fierce side of him that would sometimes peek out.
Hell, not even Goat. The one Soleum is sure will stab him in the back one of these days if he's not careful. Not even him.
Soleum never wanted anyone to die. Not Ajax, not Gargi, and not Baek Sa—
Oh.
"Is it working?" Kang Yihak whispers badly. "I can't tell."
Go Youngeun shakes her head. "I don't know either."
"Damn, it'd be amazing if it does, we kinda need his brain right now. There's no door on this level."
That's because this is the Final Boss' room. Unlike the lower levels, there are no exits, only entrances. The only way to escape from this place is to-.
Kim Soleum closes his eyes. He knows what to do.
He hums underneath Kang Yihak's palm, adjusting the spell that he has been holding all this time. It just needs a little tweak, not even a word, just a suffix. Because rather than going out like he had initially designed, he now wants the spell to go in.
"… What's he doing?"
Kang Yihak may be able to feel the flow of mana in this Darkness, but her role would not allow her to be as sensitive as a wizard. Go Youngeun is the one to realise it first.
"Wait, Soleum-ssi, don't—!"
But it's too late. A click of his tongue, and Soleum releases the spell into himself.
It breaks in his chest, cold and terrible. Just as he expected. Just as he intended. It hurts.
The room shakes and shakes. He can only barely feel it as his sense shut down one by one. His hearing went first. He can't hear Go Youngeun or Kang Yihak anymore. That's what the shadows do. They eat away at you one piece at a time.
He really did put a lot of mana into the spell.
And then,
black.
Soleum opens his eyes.
Dark, but in the familiar way an internet cafe is dark at past midnight. He's back.
"R-Roe Deer-ssi, are you alright?"
A shadow falls over him. It's Jang Heowoon.
A knot in the pit of Soleum's stomach that he hadn't realised existed starts untying itself. That head wound had looked pretty bad.
He sits up and looks around, counting mentally.
"That— Goat-ssi already went back. He said he'd submit his report himself."
Yeah, Soleum had expected that. He looks at the other two who had entered the Darkness with him. Kang Yihak is smiling as always, leaning against the back of a nearby computer chair.
"It's always a circus with you, isn't it? Can't believe you got given the Demon King role in the Darkness."
He's rather annoyed about that too, honestly. The documentation had never stated that it was possible for someone to be cast as the Demon King instead of an adventurer, but surely Daydream had known that it was possible. This was supposed to be a milkrun in a well-explored Darkness, hence why they didn't bother assigning any seniors to the team.
"Not complaining though. You're my good luck charm." Kang Yihak holds up the essence collector, golden liquid swirling inside. S-Grade.
Small mercies, after what they went through. Soleum's chest still feels kinda cold. He can't wait to sink into a warm bath after this.
But.
He bids Kang Yihak goodbye when she makes to return to headquarters, but doesn't move from his own computer chair. The thought of going back to the officetel, fetching Braun, of doing his paperwork, turning the report in, and then just going to sleep feels… wrong.
"It was a successful expedition."
Soleum turns his head to see Go Youngeun look at him with a careful expression.
"By all counts it was successful. No one died."
Jang Heowoon nods vigorously. "It was hard, but! Everyone did a great job! Especially Roe Deer-ssi! I think Roe Deer-ssi should get a bigger share of the points for his efforts."
"You did a lot too, Bison," she says, smiling to tease. "Maybe we should tell the company to give you a greater share too."
"Wha— But, Goral-ssi—!"
Go Youngeun is right. All five of them who had entered the Darkness had walked out on their own two feet. Healthy enough to return to their dorms, to be renumerated for their efforts. To report to work again tomorrow.
He thinks about Gargi and Gus, who hadn't been his coworkers in the end. He thinks of Gus' younger siblings, Gargi's green-eyed daughter. He thinks about Kang Yihak and Baek Saheon, of Jang Heowoon and Go Youngeun. Of coworkers, and family, and going home. Of people who don't exist in reality.
He wonders how true that is, when he can still feel the freezing cold of that overcharged spell beneath his ribs.
Kim Soleum stands up.
"Mm, everyone worked hard and no one died."
And no one will die tomorrow either. Not if he works hard. He hopes they're being patient at home. He'll be back soon.