The human body was not designed to walk three miles with a fresh puncture wound in its liver.

  Wanhan leaned heavily against the damp, splintering wood of the Mercenary Guild’s bounty board, his breath coming in shallow, ragged gasps. Every time his heart beat, a hot spike of agony radiated from his left side, threatening to tear his freshly stitched bandages wide open.

  "Stand up straight, boy, you're ruining our terrifying mercenary aesthetic," Tiny muttered.

  The dwarf was standing on an overturned bucket just to reach the lowest row of parchment bounties pinned to the board. The Mercenary Guild of the Iron Capital was less of a professional hall and more of a glorified tavern for killers. It reeked of spilled ale, unwashed bodies, and cheap steel.

  Mata stood near the tavern doors, her bone-white bow slung across her back. The blindfold was tilted downward, her delicate nose wrinkled in absolute revulsion. She hadn't spoken since they walked in, but her hand rested dangerously close to her hunting knife every time a drunken sellsword stumbled past her.

  "We need a job that pays today," Wanhan gritted out, wiping a line of cold sweat from his forehead with his left hand. He kept his empty right sleeve tucked securely into his belt so it wouldn't snag in the crowded room. "I need food. And you need your thirty percent."

  "Don't remind me," Tiny groaned, ripping a piece of stained parchment off the board. He adjusted his soot-stained goggles and squinted at the crude charcoal writing. "Look at this garbage. 'Escort a spice merchant to Oakhaven. Pays three coppers.' Three coppers! I wouldn't spit on a merchant for three coppers! The localized economic depression of this city is insulting."

  Wanhan’s vision swam slightly. He looked past the dwarf’s complaining and focused on a crumpled piece of vellum pinned near the top of the board, stamped with the red wax seal of the local mining foreman.

  He reached up with a trembling hand and tore it down.

  "What does it say?" Wanhan asked, tossing it down to the dwarf. "I can't read Capital script."

  Tiny caught it, his thick fingers unrolling the vellum. His bushy eyebrows shot up. "Well, look at that. The foreman of the Black Lung copper mine is offering a full silver piece. Up front."

  Wanhan’s ears pricked up. A silver piece meant a hot meal, a real bed, and maybe a bottle of willow-bark extract for his agonizing ribs. "What's the catch?"

  "The catch," Tiny said, his voice dropping an octave, "is that the lower shafts are infested with Slag-Hounds. Nasty, subterranean scavengers. They eat copper ore and vomit highly acidic bile. The miners won't go down there until the nest is cleared."

  "Hounds that eat rocks," Mata said from the doorway, her voice dripping with disdain. "The Mother Tree weeps at what the deep earth spits out in this cursed place."

  Wanhan didn't care if they breathed fire. He looked at the blue screen flickering faintly in his peripheral vision.

  [Name: Wanhan]

  [Class: One-Hand Swordsman]

  [Status: Hemorrhaging, Exhausted]

  He needed the silver. And more importantly, he needed to learn how to fight without leaving his back wide open. Tree Cutter was useless in a cramped, dark mine shaft. If he swung Fenrir with maximum force down there, he would bury the blade into a stone wall and get eaten while trying to pull it out. He had to rely on his level 5 Forward Thrust.

  "We'll take it," Wanhan said, pushing himself off the bounty board.

  "Are you insane?" Tiny hissed, grabbing Wanhan’s tunic. "You have a hole in your side! Slag-Hounds hunt in packs. They'll smell the fresh blood on your bandages from a mile away. You're basically walking bait!"

  Wanhan looked down at the dwarf. A tight, humorless smile touched the corner of his pale lips.

  "I know," Wanhan said, dropping his left hand to rest on the heavy iron pommel of Fenrir. "That means we won't have to waste time looking for them."

  Tiny stared at the boy's feverish, determined eyes. The dwarf slowly shook his bald head. "You have a deeply concerning lack of self-preservation, kid. Fine. But if a hound bites off your good arm, I'm taking the sword back and leaving you in the dark."

  [System Notification: Quest Accepted - The Black Lung Mine]

  [Objective: Eradicate the Slag-Hound nest.]

  [Reward: 1 Silver Piece, Moderate Experience]

  Wanhan turned toward the doors, his boots dragging slightly on the sawdust-covered floor. He nodded to the blind elf as he passed.

  "Ready to go hunting in the dark, Mata?"

  A grim, predatory smile finally broke across the elf's face. She tapped the bone-white wood of her bow. "The dark is the only place I hunt, human. Let us go kill some dogs."

  The Black Lung mine earned its name the moment the rickety wooden elevator dropped them past the second shaft.

  The air down here didn’t just smell of stagnant water and copper dust; it tasted sour. It coated the back of Wanhan’s throat like a thin film of grease, making his lungs burn with every shallow breath. The only light came from the sputtering, iron-caged oil lantern swinging from Tiny’s thick fist.

  "The load-bearing timbers down here are completely rotted," Tiny complained, kicking a splintered wooden strut as they moved deeper into the tunnel. "The compressive stress on this ceiling is a cave-in waiting to happen. Cheap, miserable, surface-dwelling contractors."

  "Put the light out, dirt-grubber," Mata hissed from the shadows ahead.

  In the pitch-black tunnels, the blind elf moved like a ghost. She didn't stumble over the uneven cart tracks or scrape against the jagged walls. Total darkness was her domain, and the lantern was just a beacon.

  "I have darkvision, you pointy-eared bat, but it doesn't work in absolute, total zero-light environments!" Tiny snapped back, though he lowered the lantern slightly. "And the kid is blind as a mole. He'll trip and impale himself on his own sword."

  Wanhan didn't argue. He was sweating profusely, the cold dampness of the mine doing nothing to soothe the feverish heat radiating from his wounded side. His left hand gripped Fenrir so tightly his knuckles ached.

  He looked at the narrow stone walls pressing in on both sides. They were barely five feet apart.

  A cold spike of realization hit him.

  If he tried to use his Level 100 Tree Cutter in here, the massive, horizontal arc of the blade would instantly bite into the solid rock. The recoil would either shatter Fenrir, dislocate his only shoulder, or tear the stitches in his ribs wide open. His ultimate weapon was completely, fundamentally useless in a tunnel.

  Click. Clack. Hsssss.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Wanhan froze.

  It wasn't a single sound. It was an overlapping, skittering rhythm echoing from the darkness just beyond the lantern's reach. It sounded like dozens of heavy, metallic claws scraping against the stone.

  "Wall," Mata whispered, her voice slicing through the gloom.

  Wanhan didn't hesitate. He slammed his back against the damp rock just as a low, guttural snarl vibrated through the floorboards.

  Something stepped into the edge of the lantern light.

  It looked like a wolf that had been skinned alive and re-forged in a furnace. The Slag-Hound was a hairless, corded mass of muscle, its hide a sickly, translucent gray. Beneath its skin, veins of glowing, molten copper pulsed with unnatural heat. Saliva dripped from its oversized jaws, hitting the stone floor with a violent, smoking hiss. It was pure acid.

  And it wasn't alone. Three more sets of glowing copper eyes ignited in the dark behind it.

  "They smell your blood, kid," Tiny warned, dropping the lantern to the floor and bringing his heavy scatter-crossbow up to his shoulder.

  The lead hound didn't bark. It just coiled its muscular legs and launched itself straight at Wanhan’s throat.

  [Skill Activated: Diner Dash - Level 20]

  Wanhan’s survival instincts took over. He couldn't dodge backward—his back was against the wall. He couldn't swing wide. He dropped his center of gravity, shifting his weight entirely to his left foot, and glided smoothly along the rock face, slipping just inches out of the hound's trajectory.

  The beast crashed into the wall where Wanhan’s head had been a second ago. Acidic drool splattered against the stone, sizzling violently.

  Wanhan brought Fenrir up. His brain screamed at him to chop, to bring the heavy iron pommel down and cleave the beast in two. But the tunnel was too tight.

  He forced his wrist to turn. He leveled the lopsided blade, pointing the tip directly at the hound's exposed flank, and shoved all his weight forward.

  [Skill Activated: Forward Thrust - Level 5]

  It was a clumsy, unpolished strike. But the sheer, ridiculous weight of Fenrir’s pommel drove the steel forward like a battering ram. The blade punched through the hound's tough, leathery hide, burying itself deep into the beast's ribs.

  The hound shrieked—a metallic, grating sound—and thrashed violently.

  Agony exploded in Wanhan’s side. The twisting motion tore at his stitches, and he felt a terrifying pop, followed by the warm rush of fresh blood soaking his bandages.

  He gritted his teeth, planting his boot against the hound's thigh, and wrenched Fenrir free. The beast collapsed, smoking copper blood pooling around it.

  Before Wanhan could even catch his breath, two more hounds lunged from the darkness.

  THWIP. THWIP.

  Twin black-fletched arrows materialized from the pitch-black tunnel, burying themselves perfectly into the eye sockets of the leaping beasts. The hounds dropped like stones, their momentum carrying their dead weight to slide to a halt at Wanhan’s boots.

  Mata stepped out of the shadows, her bowstring still humming. She didn't even look at the corpses. Her blindfolded face was turned slightly, her pointed ears twitching toward the deep darkness ahead.

  "There are more," she said coldly, reaching over her shoulder to draw another arrow. "A lot more."

  Suddenly, a blue screen flickered violently in front of Wanhan’s face, illuminating the dark tunnel with a faint, ghostly light.

  [Target Defeated: Slag-Hound]

  [Experience Gained.]

  [Skill: Forward Thrust has reached Level 6.]

  Wanhan leaned heavily on Fenrir, his breathing ragged, his side burning like liquid fire. "Level six," he muttered, wiping a splatter of smoking acidic blood from his cheek. "Only ninety-four more to go."

  "Brace yourselves!" Tiny roared, racking the lever on his scatter-crossbow. "The whole damn nest is coming!"

  From the absolute blackness of the lower shaft, a tidal wave of glowing, molten eyes surged upward. The skittering of claws grew into a deafening roar.

  The tunnel erupted into absolute, deafening chaos.

  Tiny’s scatter-crossbow fired. In the cramped, echoing stone shaft, the weapon sounded like a cannon going off inside a tin barrel. A blinding flash of muzzle flare illuminated the tunnel, followed instantly by a hail of jagged iron bolts.

  Three of the leading Slag-Hounds were shredded mid-leap, their bodies thrown backward into the swarm in a spray of molten, smoking blood.

  "Reloading!" Tiny roared over the ringing in Wanhan’s ears, frantically cranking the heavy iron lever on the side of his weapon. "Hold the line, boy! Do not let them reach the firing sequence!"

  Mata didn't shout. She just became a machine. Her hands moved in a blur, drawing and loosing black-fletched arrows so fast the bowstring sounded like a single, continuous, hum of angry hornets. Hound after hound collapsed, pinned to the cavern floor, but the swarm was too thick. The beasts trampled their own dead, their glowing copper eyes burning through the smoke, jaws snapping at the air.

  Wanhan stepped forward into the choke point.

  The tunnel was barely five feet wide. It was a meat grinder, and Wanhan was the only thing standing between the snarling tide of acid-spitting hounds and his ranged companions.

  His side felt like it was being sawed in half. Fresh blood poured down his ribs, soaking his tunic beneath the leather armor. But as the first hound broke through Mata’s volley and lunged for his knees, Wanhan’s mind went terrifyingly blank.

  He didn't think about the pain. He thought about the alleyway behind the Boar's Trough. He thought about repetition.

  [Skill Activated: Diner Dash - Level 20]

  He dropped his weight, sliding his left boot forward along the slick, uneven stone. He snapped his empty right shoulder back, aligning his spine, and drove Fenrir straight ahead.

  [Skill Activated: Forward Thrust - Level 6]

  The heavy iron pommel punched the lopsided blade forward like a piston. The steel bit deep into the hound’s throat. Wanhan didn't pause to admire the strike. He immediately ripped the blade free, pivoting on his heel just as a splash of acidic saliva hissed past his ear, melting a divot into the stone wall behind him.

  Another hound lunged.

  Wanhan stepped left. Thrust. Pulled.

  Another hound scrambled over the ceiling timbers, dropping straight toward his head.

  Wanhan slid right, letting gravity pull the beast into his blade. Thrust. Pulled.

  The heavy, custom weight of Fenrir was the only thing keeping him alive. With every desperate lunge, the massive pommel anchored his hand, stopping the sword from flying out of his sweaty grip when it struck bone.

  He fell into a brutal, rhythmic trance. Step, thrust, recover. Step, thrust, recover.

  Blue text began to cascade rapidly in the corner of his vision, overlapping and flashing in the dark.

  [Experience Gained.]

  [Skill: Forward Thrust has reached Level 8.]

  [Skill: Forward Thrust has reached Level 10.]

  [Skill: Forward Thrust has reached Level 14.]

  The air grew suffocatingly hot, choking him with the stench of ozone and burnt copper. The bodies of the hounds piled up around his knees, forcing him to use Diner Dash just to maintain his footing on the slippery, acid-soaked corpses.

  "Last one!" Tiny bellowed.

  Through the thick, gray smoke, a massive hound—twice the size of the others, its veins pulsing with blinding white-hot heat—barreled over the pile of dead. The Alpha.

  It didn't leap. It simply lowered its massive head, opened its jaws, and charged like a battering ram.

  Wanhan’s lungs burned. His left arm was completely numb from the elbow down. He didn't have the strength to pierce that thick, armored skull with a standard thrust. And he still couldn't swing.

  So, Wanhan cheated.

  He planted his boots firmly into the dead hound beneath him. Instead of thrusting with his arm, he locked his elbow tight against his side, pointed Fenrir directly at the charging Alpha, and threw his entire body weight forward to meet it.

  The impact was catastrophic.

  The heavy steel blade punched perfectly through the roof of the Alpha's open mouth, sliding deep into its brain cavity. But the sheer momentum of the beast didn't stop. The collision threw Wanhan backward. He slammed violently into the stone wall of the tunnel, the Alpha’s dead weight pinning his left arm and the sword against his chest.

  Wanhan’s vision went entirely black for a terrifying second as his stitched ribs fully tore open.

  [WARNING: Severe Blood Loss.]

  Then, the tunnel went dead silent, save for the violent hiss of acid burning into the stone.

  "Get this... off me," Wanhan choked out, his voice barely a wheeze.

  Heavy boots splashed through the gore. Tiny shoved the massive, dead Alpha off Wanhan's chest with a grunt of effort, sending the beast tumbling to the cavern floor.

  Wanhan slumped down the wall, his boots sliding out from under him until he hit the dirt. His left hand released Fenrir, his fingers locked in a rigid cramp.

  Mata stepped out of the smoke, her bow lowered. She knelt beside him, her delicate hands hovering over his soaked tunic without touching it. She inhaled sharply.

  "He has torn his stitches," the blind elf said coldly. "He is bleeding out. Quickly, dirt-grubber. If he dies, his blood will attract things worse than hounds."

  Tiny didn't argue. He ripped his leather pack open, pulling out a vial of thick, foul-smelling alchemical paste and a roll of clean bandages. "Hold still, you suicidal idiot," Tiny muttered, his hands moving with surprising, gentle precision as he ripped Wanhan's tunic open and began packing the wound. "You fought like a cornered rat. Ugly. Desperate. But efficient."

  Wanhan leaned his head back against the cold stone, fighting the wave of nausea washing over him. He looked past the dwarf, his eyes focusing on the blue screen hovering stubbornly in the dark.

  [Quest Completed: The Black Lung Mine]

  [Reward: Collect 1 Silver from Foreman]

  [Combat Summary:]

  Forward Thrust: Level 22

  Diner Dash: Level 24

  He had gained sixteen levels in a single, desperate fight just by spamming one clumsy move. It was nothing compared to his Tree Cutter, but for the first time, Wanhan realized he didn't just have to rely on one massive, suicidal swing. He could build an entire arsenal, one bloody thrust at a time.

  "Cut the ears off," Wanhan whispered, his eyes sliding shut as the alchemical paste began to numb his side. "The foreman needs proof."

  "Already on it, kid," Tiny grunted, the sound of a hunting knife sawing through tough hide echoing in the dark. "Take a nap. The interest rate on your debt just paused for twenty minutes."