Chapter 5: Banquet of Broken Things

  The door to Level 11 swung shut behind them with a hollow click, sealing them in a warzone of broken glass and blood-smeared linoleum — and the smell hit them first.

  Metallic. Rancid. Meaty.

  Then the sounds: wet tearing, the crunch of cartilage, guttural laughter like dogs fighting over scraps.

  Two units ahead, a pack of goblins crouched in a semicircle, their hunched backs quivering with excitement. The offices lining the corridor looked like they’d been ransacked by a hurricane with a grudge—desks overturned, computers smashed, papers strewn like confetti from the world’s worst party.

  Kylie’s stomach lurched as her foot crunched on something. A shattered picture frame, the glass spiderwebbed over a smiling family photo now speckled with rust-colored droplets.

  "Stay close to the walls," Serena whispered, eyeing the buckled floor tiles near the central atrium. The railing had been torn away in sections, leaving yawning gaps that offered a stomach-churning view of the eleven-story drop. Below, a few unfortunate shapes—some green, some pale—lay motionless on the atrium’s marble floor.

  The wet, tearing sounds alone made Kylie’s skin crawl, but it was the glimpse between the goblins’ scrawny shoulders that turned her bones to ice—

  A corpse.

  Or what was left of one.

  The corridor was a slaughterhouse. Glass walls were shattered into jagged teeth. A reception desk had been cleaved in half by something monstrous, its splintered edges jutting toward the ceiling.

  And the bodies—Oh God, the bodies.

  Kylie’s knees buckled.

  The office worker’s abdomen had been ripped open like a gift wrapped in pinstripe fabric, glistening coils of intestine spilling onto the carpet. The goblins yanked and slurped at the offal, their clawed hands digging into the cavity with the enthusiasm of kids at an all-you-can-eat buffet. One looked up, its muzzle dripping red, and let out a burp that echoed down the corridor.

  Oh God... Kylie slapped a hand over her mouth as her stomach lurched violently. Her knees wobbled, vision tunneling as she squeezed her eyes shut against the nightmare before her. The sour tang of bile flooded her tongue as she fought to keep it down.

  This wasn't some distant horror on the news - this was real. A person had been alive, breathing, existing just hours ago, and now they were... that.

  Her entire body trembled. She'd seen kids scrape knees, even break arms on playgrounds - but this? The ragged flesh, the careless way the goblins tore at what had once been a living, feeling human... It was a violation of everything soft and human. The world seemed to tilt around her, the wet tearing sounds and guttural laughter closing in like a physical weight.

  Serena’s fingernails dug into her arm, the pain grounding her. "Don’t look. Just breathe," her whisper barely audible. "Breathe through your mouth. Look at me."

  But Kylie couldn’t unsee it—the brutality crashing over her, how easily life could be ripped away. Her hands trembled at how lucky they were to still be breathing.

  Beyond the feasting goblins, the corridor was a death trap. Entire sections of the railing had been torn away, leaving gaping holes where a single misstep could send them plummeting eleven stories down to the atrium below. The distant, broken shapes of bodies—human and goblin alike—littered the marble floor far beneath them.

  She wrenched her gaze from the feast to Serena’s face. The usual snark was gone, replaced by something hardened. "They’re blocking the way to Satchi’s," Serena muttered, fingers tightening around her weapon. "We have to go through them."

  Kylie swallowed hard. "Then how do we get past?"

  The bone snapped with a sound like stepping on frozen branches, the marrow glistening between the goblin's needle teeth. Kylie could smell it—that coppery tang of fresh blood mixing with the sour stench of half-digested meat on their breath. The creatures hunched in their grotesque banquet, talons scraping against linoleum slick with fluids that squelched with every movement.

  Serena's elbow dug into Kylie's ribs as she pointed. The office door stood ajar, its shattered glass webbed with cracks that caught the emergency lights like a spider's jeweled net. Through the broken pane, Kylie could see overturned chairs—their fabric gashed open, foam innards spilling out like pale intestines.

  "We move fast," Serena whispered, her voice tight. Kylie felt the vibration of her words more than heard them. "Stay low. If we can—"

  A wet, clicking growl cut through the feeding sounds. The pack was distracted—for now.

  At the edge of the pack, a goblin's ears twitched. Rivulets of crimson dripped from its distended belly as it raised its muzzle. The drip-drip of blood hitting the floor seemed deafening.

  SNIIIIFF.

  The creature's nostrils flared wide, drinking in their scent. Kylie tasted bile as she realized—their sweat, their fear, the antiseptic tang of the hand sanitizer they'd used three corridors back—it all might as well have been a dinner bell.

  The goblin's yellow eyes snapped open, pupils contracting to vicious slits. When it shrieked, the sound ricocheted off the broken walls, vibrating in Kylie's molars.

  [Verdant Warden's Codex: Passive]

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  [Peril Assessment: CRITICAL]

  - 6x Goblin Feasters (Alert Status: Distracted, Starving → Hunting)

  - Environmental Hazards: 87% fatal drop | 42% floor collapse | 100% tetanus risk

  Kylie's grip on the fire extinguisher made the metal creak. Her palm slid against the condensation-slick surface. "D-Distracted is good," she whispered, watching a goblin wipe its snout on a shredded lab coat sleeve. "Maybe if we—"

  The lead creature launched forward, its talons screeching against the floor. It still clutched a rope of intestines in its off-hand, the purple tissue slapping wetly against its thigh with each bounding step. Behind it, the others moved in a scuttling wave, their shadows jittering on the blood-streaked walls like a macabre puppet show.

  Serena's mop handle cracked against her palm. "Or not. So much for distracted," Serena sighed, hefting her gore-caked mop as the pack scrambled up. One still clutched a stringy piece of viscera like a grotesque lunchbox.

  Kylie's body thrummed with the pound-pound-pound of her own pulse. The extinguisher's weight felt suddenly alien in her hands—too light to be a real weapon, too heavy to swing quickly. Somewhere behind the goblins, a loose ceiling tile clattered down, the sound swallowed by their guttural war cries.

  Kylie's fingers cramped around the fire extinguisher. The math was simple:

  No exit.

  No cover.

  Just six hungry things between them and Satchi's lab.

  Somewhere behind the goblins, a dangling office chair creaked on its remaining wheel—the only witness to what came next.

  The office chair’s dying squeals faded beneath a wet symphony of clicks and snorts. Then—movement. A rush of spoiled meat stench hit first, thick enough to coat Kylie’s tongue. The goblin didn’t leap so much as erupt over the gurney, its body a nightmare of wrong angles.

  Every sense screamed at once:

  The crackle of tendons stretching like overworked rubber bands;

  Hot spittle spraying her cheek where it burned like acid;

  Copper and rot flooding her nose as its maw yawned wide—

  —revealing chunks of half-chewed fabric

  wedged between jagged teeth;

  The shrill scrape of claws on linoleum, each shriek setting her teeth on edge;

  The vibration of its growl thrumming through her ribs before sound even registered;

  And beneath it all, the sticky pop of its ribcage expanding with each breath, stretched skin glistening under fluorescent lights like overripe fruit about to burst.

  For one suspended second, Kylie existed only as a collection of terrified nerve endings—then the first claw came whistling toward her face, trailing strands of saliva that smelled like gangrene and day-old roadkill.

  Then the world narrowed to the whistle of claws cutting air, the stink of rotting meat, and the terrible understanding that this corridor would need new walls by morning—painted in shades the janitors couldn't scrub away.

  [Combat Initiated: Corridor of Carnage]

  Objective: Reach Satchi’s Interior Design (Unit 8)

  Mini Challenge Success: 1x Random Equipment, 500 Exp Bonus

  And Kylie swung.

  This isn’t happening. This isn’t—

  Then she saw it.

  A photo on the floor, half-buried under debris. A family at Tokyo Disneyland—Yui and Yuichi, cheeks smushed together, Mickey Mouse hats askew. Their mother, a woman with sharp eyes and a kendo champion’s posture, laughing as she held them close.

  Now the glass was cracked, the colors muted beneath a spray of red.

  Something inside Kylie snapped.

  [Verdant Warden’s Codex: Passive]

  "To nurture is to understand. To understand is to know where to strike."

  The world sharpened into brutal clarity.

  Kylie’s fingers trembled. She could feel the choice looming—the split between mercy and retribution.

  Then, a weak groan cut through the horror.

  A man—half-crushed beneath an overturned desk—reached out, his fingers smearing blood across the tile. "P-please…" he rasped. "My kids… school pickup… t-they’re waiting…"

  [Optional Quest: A Man’s Dying Wish]

  Objective: Find Accountant Dave's children: Alex and Andy Lee (Last known location: Catholic High School )

  Reward: 300 EXP, "Keeper of Promises: Father's Blessing" Title (+10% luck)

  [Accept / Reject]

  Kylie’s throat tightened. She opened her mouth—

  SCREECH!

  A goblin lurched toward the dying man, drawn by the sound of his voice.

  Kylie’s hands shook. She could *feel* the Codex pressing against her ribs, warm and alive, whispering options she didn’t want to consider.

  Then a weak cough echoed from a wrecked cubicle.

  A man lay slumped against a filing cabinet, his shirt soaked crimson. One hand clutched a photo—two little boys in soccer uniforms. His lips moved, voice a wet rasp:

  "P-Please... my kids... school pickup at—"

  [Optional Quest: A Man’s Dying Wish]

  Objective: Find Accountant Dave's children: Alex and Andy Lee (Last known location: Catholic High School )

  Reward: 300 EXP, "Keeper of Promises: Father's Blessing" Title (+10% luck)

  [Accept / Reject]

  Kylie opened her mouth—

  SCREECH!

  A goblin whirled toward the sound, Dave's half-eaten liver swinging from its claws. It licked the organ with grotesque relish, beady eyes locking onto the dying man.

  Across the room, a glass wall shattered.

  "EVERYONE DOWN!"

  Mrs. Sakamoto's voice cut through the chaos as she emerged from a barricade of filing cabinets, her makeshift kendo ruler-sword glowing an eerie blue. Behind her, the last survivors cowered—a receptionist hyperventilating into a trash can, interns clutching fire extinguishers, the security guard missing an ear.

  The Codex flickered: [SURVIVORS DETECTED] with the damning footnote: "Fear is not surrender."

  [Awakened Detected: Sakamoto Hanako]

  Class: Blade Dancer (3★)

  Status: Maternal Fury (+25% damage when offspring threatened)

  Her first strike bisected a goblin mid-leap. The second removed a head that rolled past Kylie's feet, its teeth still chewing imaginary meat.

  Kylie hefted the empty extinguisher. The gauge still read zero from last week's drill.

  BONGGG!

  The steel cylinder caved in a ribcage with the crunch of a stepped-on soda can. She pivoted and hurled it—not at the goblins, but at the cracked window behind them.

  The extinguisher spun through the air in perfect silence before smashing through glass. Three feasters stumbled after it, claws scraping desperately at the floor tiles—

  —then disappeared into the eleven-story void.

  [Environmental Kill: +50 EXP]

  "Sometimes the best weapon is whatever's heavy enough to break gravity's heart."

  Mrs. Sakamoto's blade flashed, severing the last two heads in one whipcrack motion. The silence that followed was worse than the screams.

  The dying man's breath stuttered. Kylie knelt, gripping his shaking hand. His other clutched a photo—two boys in soccer uniforms, their smiles frozen behind blood-spattered glass.

  "I'll find them," she whispered through numb lips.

  His fingers relaxed. The photo slipped away.

  The dying man’s breath stuttered. Kylie knelt, gripping his hand.

  "I’ll find them," she repeated with conviction.

  He smiled. The photo slipped from his fingers.

  [Optional Quest Updated: A Man’s Dying Wish]

  "The living owe the dead nothing... and everything."

  Objective: Find Accountant Dave's children: Alex and Andy Lee (Last known location: Catholic High School )

  Reward: 300 EXP, "Keeper of Promises: Father's Blessing" Title (+10% luck)

  [Accept / Reject]

  Mrs. Sakamoto made a sound like a knife twisting in flesh when she saw it. Her sword arm trembled, the blue glow flickering as she choked out: "Kylie-sensei...my children—"

  "Safe," Kylie said. The word tasted like blood, wiping her palms on her ruined slacks. The man's blood had left sticky streaks between her fingers. "We're getting you to them."

  Outside, the burning city painted the office walls orange through broken windows. Somewhere beyond the smoke, children waited. And Kylie's new title - Keeper of Promises - settled on her shoulders with the weight of a dead man's trust.

  Ping!

  MINI CHALLENGE SUCCESS!

  [Combat Initiated: Corridor of Carnage]

  Objective: Reach Satchi’s Interior Design (Unit 8)

  1x Random Equipment, 500 Exp Bonus

  Ping!

  [Level Up!]

  Congratulations! Level 4 Reached

  +3 Stat Points Available

  +1 Skill Points Available

  Ping!

  [Level Up!]

  Congratulations! Level 5 Reached

  +3 Stat Points Available

  +1 Skill Points Available

  Ping!

  New Skill Obtained: Nurturer's Covenant - Ephemeral Bond

  The art of turning enemies into eternal allies—not through domination, but through unlocking their greatest potential.

  "Even monsters deserve a glimpse of what they could become."

  Effect: Temporarily tame any monster (even boss-tier) for 5 minutes

  Subjected to Intelligence, Wisdom and Luck stats