POV - Edgar

  I let out a slow breath, dragging a hand down my face. “Alright. Put a pin in this.”

  Isen blinked. “Put a what in what?”

  “A pin.” I made a vague stabbing motion in the air. “In this conversation. So we can pick it up later.”

  Isen frowned. “I don’t have a pin.”

  I squinted at him. “It’s a—never mind. Stay put.”

  I turned on my heel, heading toward the exit. The conversation could wait. The world’s divine source code wasn’t going to vanish overnight. But what was a more immediate concern?

  A very loud, very unskippable system notification telling me that adventurers would be entering my dungeon in twenty-four hours.

  Which, under normal circumstances, would’ve been fine. We got adventurers all the time. It was kind of the entire premise of being a dungeon.

  But circumstances had drifted significantly from ‘normal’ lately.

  Zombies were getting twitchy, shuffling with a nervous energy they shouldn't possess. The very stones of the dungeon felt... agitated, humming with a discordant thrum beneath the usual silence. And I was still dealing with the fact that my minions could apparently just walk out the front door and start a side hustle in medieval Uber Eats.

  So, before I could spiral too hard about that, I made straight for the boss chamber.

  The fourth floor had never stopped feeling like a tomb. Because it was one. A vast sepulcher of cold stone and curling arches, all ribcage architecture and ancient burial niches. The kind of place where the shadows seemed to hold their breath. Where you didn’t so much walk as trespass.

  Blue torches flickered along the walls, casting twitchy light over the stacked bones and alcoves. My throne—a vaguely throne-shaped piece of broken sculpture I’d dragged into place out of pure aesthetic spite—sat at the far end. Nearby, a squat, uneven stone slab rested under a pile of maps, scrawled plans, and what may or may not have once been a femur. I’d carved the table myself with Tombcarve back when I claimed this floor, and never really bothered to make it level.

  It wasn’t impressive. But it was mine.

  I crossed the room, already reaching for some semblance of a plan—when the System pinged again.

  [System Notification]

  A party of adventurers will arrive within the next 24 hours!

  I blinked. "Yeah. I just saw that."

  The text didn't fade. It twitched. A low, pulsing tone buzzed in my skull as the letters warped.

  [System Notification]

  A party of adventurers will arrive within the next —

  [A party of adventurers will arrive —

  [—arrive within the next 30 minutes.]

  I stopped. “…That’s new.”

  The letters began to crawl, glitching across my vision like a dying scroll wheel. Then came the garble:

  [System Not…@*%$!@ …arRiv@rs w|ll ar/—]

  And then… gone. Just empty air.

  I stared for a long moment. No resolution. No ping. No update. Just a slow, creeping realization that the rules were not so much bending as actively unraveling.

  Cool. Normal. "Definitely not horrifying at all," I muttered.

  Movement caught my eye. At the entrance to the chamber stood a small kobold—nervous posture, oversized spear, too-big helmet slanted sideways across his head.

  Zyzzt, I was pretty sure. Krix had been training him a lot lately. Said he had potential. Said he “listened better than most, and didn’t try to eat the chalk.”

  That counted for a lot, apparently.

  “Zyzzt,” I called. “Find Krix, Grib, and Gorthor. I want all three of them here, now.”

  Zyzzt gave a tiny salute—more enthusiasm than accuracy—and scampered off at a full sprint, tail whipping behind him like a poorly balanced rudder.

  I let out a slow breath, rubbing at my eyes.

  The System was glitching. The dungeon felt subtly out of key. But everything was fine.

  Everything was fine.

  A few minutes later, Krix and Grib walked in. Which was already a bad sign. Because they were only two-thirds of what I had asked for.

  “Boss!” Krix chirped, sharp-toothed grin in place. “Something happening?”

  Grib trailed after him, his usual boundless energy making his ears twitch as he looked around the room, eyes bright. “Boss need Grib?”

  I exhaled sharply. “Where’s Gorthor?”

  Silence.

  Krix’s grin faltered ever so slightly. Grib blinked up at me, then glanced at Krix, as if waiting for him to answer first.

  Neither of them spoke.

  I looked between them. “...Guys?”

  Krix shifted, rubbing the back of his head. “...Yeah. About that.”

  I stared at them, waiting for an actual explanation.

  Grib, ever helpful, perked up and nodded. "Gorthor gone."

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. "Gone where?"

  Krix let out a low grunt, tail flicking. "Not gone, boss. Missing."

  Grib nodded quickly. "Gorthor missing," he echoed, like that somehow clarified things.

  Gorthor wasn’t just some random orc. He was the best leader I had.

  He was the one keeping the others in line, stopping them from murdering each other over rations, keeping the whole orc situation from boiling over into chaos. Losing him meant losing stability. And, honestly?

  I liked him.

  For a former bloodthirsty warlord, he was a surprisingly decent guy. Smart. Practical. Capable of adapting. I had seen him shift from a battlefield tactician to something else entirely—an actual leader, one who planned for the long term, who understood control beyond just who had the biggest axe.

  And now he was just... gone? My stomach dropped. This was going to be a problem.

  "And when, exactly, did this happen?"

  Krix shrugged, arms folding across his chest. "Here last night. Did orc stuff. Morning? No Gorthor. Just gone."

  Grib helpfully added, "Nobody see him leave. Nobody hear fight."

  I exhaled slowly. "And no one thought to tell me?"

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  Krix scratched his jaw. "Boss busy."

  Grib nodded solemnly. "Boss busy."

  I was beginning to wonder if this entire dungeon was going to be the death of me. Not adventurers. Not holy knights. Just… this. The sheer, grinding incompetence occasionally leavened by moments of baffling disappearance.

  I looked at Grib and Krix, waiting for something. A reason. A theory. Even a wild guess.

  Nothing.

  I’d been trying not to let it get to me. Trying to keep things running. Pretending I had some kind of grip on all of this. But now Gorthor was missing. Just… missing.

  “No witnesses? Signs of a fight? Body? Blood?”

  They stayed quiet.

  That wasn’t normal. That wasn’t even comfortably abnormal. That plunged straight into the territory of things you didn't have a category for, the kind of anomaly that made the small hairs on your neck stand up.

  The dungeon wasn’t supposed to work like this. I was supposed to know what happened on my own floors. That was the tradeoff. You built the lair, you kept the lights on, you managed the screaming. In return, you got structure. Stability. The illusion that if something went wrong, you’d see it coming.

  But if something had taken Gorthor, and it had left nothing behind, not even a scuff on the stone, then maybe I wasn’t in charge of this place at all.

  Maybe I’d just been the last one to notice.

  I exhaled, steadying myself. Later. Right now, I needed to figure out what was happening before it became something worse. One thing at a time.

  I opened my mouth to demand more details—when something shifted. Not in the dungeon. In the air.

  My gaze snapped toward the far side of the chamber. An orc zombie.

  I don’t normally pay much attention to them. They were convenient, sure—good for guarding hallways, standing in eerie formation, adding to the general “undead overlord” aesthetic—but they weren’t something you thought much about. Unless you wanted to debate the morality of undeath… And the longer I lived here, the less I wanted to. Point being, they usually aren’t that interesting.

  Until now. Because this one wasn’t just standing there. It was moving like it had a purpose. Not aimlessly shambling. Not the sluggishly drifting around.

  It had a direction.

  A flicker of ice crawled up my spine. Zombies didn’t move like that. They didn’t focus unless someone made them. I had only ever seen—

  The thought barely had time to finish before the thing lunged.

  One massive, rotting hand shot forward—

  And closed around Krix’s throat.

  Grib moved first.

  The moment Krix’s claws scrabbled against the orc’s thick, rotting fingers, the goblin lunged forward with a sharp growl, grabbing at the arm holding Krix aloft. His muscles tensed, veins bulging beneath his green skin as he heaved—

  But the orc didn’t budge.

  Grib strained, his feet skidding against the stone, his breath coming in sharp, panicked huffs as he tried to pry the undead’s fingers apart. His wide eyes flicked to me. “Boss—too big!”

  Krix’s tail lashed, his small, scaly hands prying at the thick fingers locked around his throat, but the grip didn’t loosen. His feet kicked once, twice, and then—

  A choked rasp. A single, wet, horrible sound that curled around my bones and lay there like a promise.

  The orc raised its free arm, slow and sure, its body swaying slightly with the motion. The way a man might brace himself before delivering a heavy blow. The way someone might weigh the best angle to cave in a skull.

  My grip tightened around my staff. Not happening.

  I had promised him. All of them. I would never let any of them go without a fight.

  A bolt of raw mana shot across the chamber, white-hot and crackling, shearing the zombie’s raised arm clean off.

  The severed limb hit the floor with a wet slap.

  The orc did not react. It did not recoil, did not hesitate. It still held Krix with its other arm.

  Krix’s hands twitched, his movements growing sluggish.

  My stomach twisted into a cold knot.

  I fired again. The second bolt slammed into its head, bursting through the skull. Bone and sinew exploded outward, black mist curling from the wound.

  And yet, for one awful, impossible moment—

  The body remained standing.

  It swayed, like a man too stubborn to know he was dead. Its fingers stayed clamped around Krix’s throat, not out of rage, but out of some quiet, mindless purpose. Like it hadn’t noticed the rest of it was gone.

  Krix gave a weak, rasping wheeze.

  Then, as if some internal string had finally snapped, the orc collapsed.

  Krix hit the ground hard, rolling onto his side with a choking gasp. His chest heaved, tail twitching erratically as he clawed at his throat, gulping in desperate lungfuls of air.

  I was already moving.

  "Krix," I snapped, crouching down beside him. His head jerked up slightly, golden eyes still unfocused, his hands still trembling against his bruised throat.

  But he was breathing. I grabbed his shoulder, checking him over. “You alright?”

  Krix blinked hard, still dazed. “No.” He coughed, voice raw. “Maybe. Ask later.”

  I exhaled slowly, my fingers lingering on his shoulder for a second longer before I stood. The corpse was still twitching, its fingers curling in slow, reflexive spasms.

  Something cold settled in my chest, heavy as grave dirt. The natural order of undeath, such as it was, had just buckled right in front of me.

  "Boss," Grib muttered, his ears pinned back. He was watching the body warily, his usual boundless energy gone. “Why zombie do that?”

  I didn’t answer Grib’s question. Because I didn’t know.

  And that lack of knowing felt like a widening crack in the floor beneath my feet.

  I stood there for a moment, the weight of it settling in, pressing against the edges of my mind. The zombie hadn’t just attacked. It had decided. That was the difference. That was the part that gnawed at me. I had never seen that before. Not in the undead I raised, not in the ones that already lurked in this dungeon.

  I glanced down at Krix, still curled on his side, still dragging in rough, shallow breaths. His golden eyes flicked up toward me, slitted pupils blown wide, his throat mottled with fresh bruises. His tail twitched once, then went still.

  Grib padded over without hesitation. He dropped into a crouch beside him, expression strangely serious, then patted him lightly on the back—small, careful motions, as if checking to make sure Krix was still in one piece.

  Then, with slow deliberation, he lifted his little slime from his shoulder and placed it gently between Krix’s shoulder blades.

  The slime gave a contented blurble and jiggled slightly.

  Krix groaned. “Why.”

  Grib patted his head. “Slime help.”

  I didn’t even have it in me to argue.

  Instead, I turned back to the body. Or what was left of it.

  The severed arm still twitched against the stone. The corpse lay still, but its fingers had only just stopped flexing. The black mist curling from its shattered skull should have dissipated by now, but it lingered, coiling lazily like smoke with nowhere else to go.

  The situation had escalated. Deeper than I’d thought.

  I wasn't stupid. I knew the undead had been acting skittish lately, shuffling off-script in minor ways. But I had been writing it off as stress. Dungeon magic being finicky. Some sort of unseen system balancing I hadn't been made aware of.

  But this? This wasn’t just a deviation.

  This was rebellion.

  Undead didn’t disobey. Not really.

  I gave them instructions—basic stuff—and they followed. No questions. No decisions. That was the whole point. Reliable, shambling, disposable.

  I let the orcs wrestle, the kobolds hoard loot. Whatever. I didn’t micromanage. I didn’t have to. But zombies?

  They weren’t supposed to be doing anything except what I told them.

  Was it something I was doing? Was the dungeon itself fraying at the seams? Or maybe even the elf?

  And where the hell was Gorthor?

  My jaw clenched slightly.

  I turned the thought over in my head, staring at the twitching corpse of the orc. This wasn’t some random anomaly. The dungeon had been hinting at this—small things at first, cracks showing in the usual pattern. The zombies moving strangely. A disquiet I couldn't name, like a familiar tune played hauntingly out of key.

  Now?

  Now they were attacking my own people.

  Before I could even begin to untangle that mess, a notification appeared.

  [System Notification]

  Adventurer threat eliminated! All Invaders Defeated

  Silence stretched in the sepulcher.

  I blinked once. Twice. My mind worked through the words again, as if reading them more slowly might somehow make them make sense.

  “…What?”

  For a single, stupid second, I thought—Gorthor? Maybe he wasn’t missing. Maybe he had just gotten sick of waiting for orders and gone full warlord mode. Maybe he’d taken care of it himself.

  Krix, still rubbing at his throat, coughed. “Boss?”

  I ignored him, scrolling back up in my mental display to the part where we had not actually fought any adventurers.

  A wet thud cut through the room, like someone dropping a heavy cabbage. But substantially wetter.

  And then a severed head rolled to my feet. I looked down.

  Blood still dripped from the stump, seeping into the cracks of the stone. The mouth was frozen half-open, eyes wide with a kind of horror usually reserved for last-minute tax audits.

  And that’s when I saw her.

  Tall, clad in dark leather armor, a heavy cowl draped over her shoulders. One gloved hand rested easily against the haft of the largest axe I had ever seen. The counterweight at the base was shaped like a snarling wolf’s head, and as she shifted her grip, the air let out a faint, keening wail—too thin, too sharp. Like a scream swallowed whole.

  She was pale. Not sickly, not ghostly, but something else entirely. Something that didn’t need warmth to exist. And at the corner of her mouth, something red.

  She tilted her head, considering me, then smiled. With far too many teeth and far too much blood for comfort.

  For a moment, I considered launching a fireball out of sheer, preemptive caution.

  I opted for plan b.

  I opened my mouth and with as much confusion as I could muster, I asked: “...What the fuck is going on?”