We escaped the forest and the great, mighty Empress Malpheria within it, only to find ourselves, after a long detour insisted upon by Ryn Valen, in a reconstructed Wild West town called Blackridge. Dungeon Now marked the area as safe, with no bosses and no known threats, but it didn’t provide any detailed maps of it. According to the one I held in my hands, Blackridge was designed to give visitors a glimpse of 19th-century America (yeah, incredibly realistic, of course… nothing cliché at all).

  The ground was completely waterlogged from the constant rain, a thick layer of mud sucking at my old sneakers with every step. There was no wind, so the raindrops fell almost perfectly straight from the sky, and somehow, the weather felt... utterly depressing. Not just the weather. The melody that started playing the moment we stepped into this godforsaken Wild West town had the same effect.

  Anyone here ever seen Once Upon a Time in the West? Yeah, it was that harmonica piece. Not some twisted theme-park version like the pipe organ music at the entrance. No, this was the original song of death and loneliness, drifting from a nearby saloon. I wasn’t in a hurry to find out who was playing it, but I already had a bad feeling.

  "Stay alert," the paladin murmured, head tilted slightly toward us. Naturally, he led the way. We trudged through the sludge behind him. "We know nothing about this place."

  "We know it’s not abandoned," I said, eyeing the saloon we were passing. The harmonica tune was louder now, clear and haunting. Four powerful, muscular draft horses stood tethered outside, their reins looped around a wooden beam. Even the horses bore the mark of darkness.

  "The four groups before us either didn’t come this way, or..." Dae-Won hesitated, glancing at us uneasily. "They didn’t leave an entry in the DungeonDex because... maybe they found something we don’t know about." He looked like he instantly regretted saying that, as if his words might summon something sinister. He wrapped an arm around his fiancée as we kept walking in tense silence.

  It felt like we were following old telegraph lines. Thick black cables stretching from one wooden pole to the next, leading us straight into the heart of the town. But were they really telegraph poles? Or power lines? Did electricity even exist back then? What year was this supposed to be... 1890? That had to be the golden age of the Wild West, right? Thomas Edison, that smart dude and ruthless businessman, had invented the lightbulb in 1880. So these could be power lines. But then again...

  Ah, screw it. I waved away my nerdy thoughts like an annoying fly buzzing in my face.

  "Why are we even going this way?" asked Hye-Rin, the petite, pretty Korean woman beside me, keeping her head down. I gripped the unfolded park map tightly in my trembling hands.

  "If we take the eastern route toward Magic Land, we’d reach the final boss much faster."

  "Faster, yeah," I admitted hesitantly. "But also riskier. There are barely any mini-bosses listed in the Dex for that area which means one of two things: either it’s an easy path… or it’s a death trap. If the other groups went that way and never made it back, we’d be walking straight into whatever took them out."

  I had no clue where this confidence was coming from. I was just talking like I actually knew what I was saying. Maybe I just wanted to back Ryn Valen’s decision. Not because he needed me to, but because I felt like I owed him after my earlier screw-ups.

  But he didn’t react. I adjusted my glasses nervously.

  Then suddenly, the harmonica stopped playing.

  What was that?

  Someone… cleared his throat.

  "There are stories that get told, and stories best left buried in the dust. But this one? Oh, this one is a legend. A twisted outlaw and his gang dared to ride into Malgrave’s town. And him? Well... the man was once a righteous lawman. Until the devil himself bound him to an oath he could never break: to keep the peace. No matter the cost."

  We all froze.

  Was that... a Texan narrator? Was he commenting on our actions?

  To be fair, after yesterday’s fourth wipe, we all knew something was seriously wrong with this dungeon. But none of us had wanted to admit it.

  "Where the hell is that voice coming from?" Hye-Rin asked.

  No one answered. No one could answer.

  We just kept walking.

  I had somehow ended up at the front of the group, walking alongside the paladin. Not out of bravery. Hell no. It was pure cowardice. I just felt safer next to Ryn Valen. But the moment my foot touched the town’s wide, muddy main street, a terrible silence fell over everything. A tumbleweed silence.

  Since when had this thick fog started creeping through the streets? It coiled around the creaking wooden steps leading to various rundown shacks. The town’s main street was lined with old wooden buildings, their dark shingled roofs sagging under the weight of time. Behind us, horses neighed from a shabby stable. To our left stood a General Store with boarded-up windows, and to our right, a multi-story building with the words Saints Brothel painted in bold white letters along its side. At the end of the street, I saw the glowing windows of a small, whitewashed village church with a tall bell tower. The stained glass shimmered with warm light. Who the hell was inside?

  And just like that, the door of the corrupted brothel slammed open. Glass shattered inside. Wild laughter echoed into the night.

  I spun around, heart hammering. The distant church bell struck midnight. All around us, torches flared to life as if by ghostly hands.... or the demonic force that had taken root here. Was it really that late already? How did time even work in this dungeon?

  A horde of Painted Ladies spilled out onto the street. Wild West courtesans... decked out in brightly embroidered corsets and flowing skirts, their feathered hats sitting low over sweat-slicked, heavily painted faces. The flickering torchlights cast eerie shadows across their doll-like expressions. Clicking heels. The clatter of cheap jewellery. Shrill laughter and half-muttered curses. Their makeup started to run, dripping like melted wax, revealing the bloody, rotting flesh underneath.

  Their eye sockets? Empty. Dark voids.

  Their movements? Jerky, unnatural.

  Like marionettes... controlled by some hellish puppeteer.

  Nihilith’s work?

  "What do we do?!" I shouted.

  "Die," Sin-Joo said flatly, without even flinching.

  My mind raced.

  It had to be the acting troupe, right? The one that performed its infamous Wild West shows every Tuesday and Thursday in the park?

  We couldn’t just kill them.

  They were still people... right?

  But Hye-Rin didn’t hesitate.

  She drew her service pistol, squinted down the iron sights...

  ...and fired.

  A shot rang out.

  The bullet slammed dead center into a Painted Lady’s chest. She was blasted backward, stumbling two, three steps before crashing onto the brothel’s steps.

  And just like that... the demonic presence unraveled from her body, dissolving into the rain-soaked night.

  But her corpse remained.

  Shit.

  "Shit."

  Dae-Won voiced exactly what I was thinking as we scrambled up the street, fighting (or in my case, stumbling and barely dodging death).

  Then, the voice returned. The rough, whiskey-soaked drawl of some backwoods drunkard, narrating our fate like he was telling an old ghost story by the campfire.

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  "This town once had its lawmen. Men who wrote the word of justice in lead and sealed it in blood. They fell… but the law? The law remained. Now, they return. Draped in dust, with hollow eyes and rusted tin stars upon their chests. They do not ride. They march. Dead, but not silent. Fallen marshals, still delivering justice. And woe to the fool who dares to beg for mercy."

  We froze.

  No.

  No, no, no.

  And then it happened, just like the narrator had said. The cell doors in the gloomy sheriff’s office groaned open, and out came the grotesque prisoners, twisted figures with clawed fingers that immediately snatched up sticks of dynamite, striking them alight with a hiss.

  Behind them, the lawmen followed. Demonic enforcers, clad in dusty, tattered uniforms. Their faces looked waxy and brittle, split open by deep, gaping cracks like shattered clay masks, oozing black void from within. They marched forward with heavy, deliberate steps, their hollow eyes locked onto us like predators sizing up their prey.

  We were so screwed.

  So. Incredibly. Screwed.

  "I thought this damn area was supposed to be safe!" Hye-Rin shouted.

  Yeah, I thought so too. But then it hit me like a lightning bolt.

  "It's just like Empress Malpheria! The dungeon is evolving. What was safe a few days ago is now a living hell."

  Hye-Rin spun around and fired at one of the prisoners. A deafening explosion followed, tearing three of the possessed apart. Limbs flew through the air, and a bloodied demonic torso hit the mud not far from us.

  My heart pounded, and my mind raced like a hailstorm of bullets. Was Hye-Rin shooting at humans without hesitation? Was it still a human? Or a demon? Could its soul have been saved once the darkness was banished from this place?

  Dae-Won raised his shield. With a battle cry, he charged into the horde, drawing aggro from several mobs. This gave Ryn Valen the opportunity to unleash his epic Sword of Justice upon the crowd. The paladin couldn't possibly use his AOE abilities without blowing us all to pieces.

  "And this is only phase one? Or two? Whatever, this is wilder than in any B-Dungeon!" Dae-Won shouted in the middle of the fight, his shield flashing through the air in a dazzling motion, but there was no way he could block them all. The paladin’s sword traced golden arcs through the dark horde, each strike cleaving another possessed foe to pieces.

  And me? I was just a spectator. Or maybe not even that. A spectator can at least stand still. I ran, nearly tripping as one of the possessed lurched toward me, a sizzling bundle of dynamite in his hand. His broken voice croaked something incomprehensible, while the fuse burned down, spitting sparks ominously.

  He didn’t care about dying. He only cared about taking me with him.

  "No..." I whispered, my throat tightening, my fingers wrapped around the knife, knowing it wouldn't save me.

  Ryn Valen raised a hand, and his voice cut through the chaos. "Sanctified Aegis!"

  A blinding light erupted around me, forming a shimmering barrier just as the dynamite exploded. Heat and force slammed against the shield… but nothing reached me. Not a single ember, not a single shockwave.

  The twisted gunslinger let out a warped, guttural scream as his own explosion consumed him, his body tearing apart in a firestorm.

  I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t see. And then… the radiance vanished. I was still floating within a sphere of holy light, untouched, absorbing every ounce of destruction meant for me.

  Ryn Valen stood a few steps away, breathing hard. Sweat dripped down his forehead, and I could almost feel the strain on his manapool. That shield had cost him big time.

  Both the prisoners and the Painted Ladies lay defeated. A gruesome scene of carnage stretched out before me. Corpses littered the mud, body parts scattered in every direction.

  Sin-Joo was on all fours, kneeling among severed limbs, his breath ragged as he stared at the ground. Hye-Rin and her fiancé weren’t in much better shape.

  What the hell was happening? This was supposed to be an A-Dungeon...

  And then, it got worse.

  "History’s seen its fair share of lawmen. Men with iron wills and guns that spoke faster than words. Men who stood for law and order until the dust swallowed them whole. But then there was him. Sheriff Malgrave. The last true man of the law in this godforsaken town. His hair, once his pride, once as fine as a stallion’s mane, now hung in filthy, matted strands, heavy with dirt and crawling with lice. A relic of the man he used to be. But legends don’t just die. No, sir. They rot. They twist. And when they crawl back outta the grave, they’re worse than the things they once hunted. When the doors of the sheriff’s office creaked open, he stepped out. He looked at the outlaws. Spun his revolver slow, deliberate, like he was savorin’ the moment. And in that quiet, there was judgment. Because the sheriff? He never left a case unsolved. And these men? They were already dead."

  I heard the Krrr! of leather boots on wood. The sheriff himself stepped out of his office. He walked up to the wooden steps, the sky at his back, his ominous aura swirling around him like a dark tempest.

  I swallowed hard in fear. Somehow, I believed every word the narrator had spoken.

  Sheriff Malgrave radiated an incredible power. An overwhelming darkness.

  No doubt about it. We were already dead.

  "Curly Bill. You’re back in my town. I knew you’d return one day… to pay your dues."

  Malgrave’s eyes locked onto the paladin with a knowing smirk. Curly Bill? What kind of movie was this sheriff playing in his head? That was definitely Ryn Valen.

  The mini-boss (seriously, if this was just a mini-boss, how insane was the final boss?!) lifted his revolver, its absurdly long barrel pointed toward the stormy night sky. A monstrous construct of black metal, so menacing it could unnerve even a titan. Whatever the case, that thing scared the shit out of me.

  "A debt dies when the last witness falls."

  A single cursed gunshot tore through the air—a deafening boom like thunder splitting the heavens. The bullet didn’t just fly… it bounced. Off wooden facades, railings, every damn corner of the town, like it had a mind of its own.

  "Oh, holy crap!" I cursed, throwing myself face-first into the mud. The bullet whizzed past my head so close I could feel the sheer force of the air displacement.

  A goddamn enchanted demon bullet?!

  Malgrave grinned wide, flashing yellowed, crooked teeth in the dim light. He spat a dark clump of tobacco straight into the dirt at his feet.

  "I learned long ago that friendship has no place in the law. I wonder if he learned that too..."

  What the hell was this lunatic talking about?

  Friendship. Friendship. Was he talking about Sin-Joo and me?

  The bullet kept moving, zigzagging through the air at supersonic speed. It nearly took out Hye-Rin, pinged off a water pump, then punched straight through the paladin’s shoulder plate like it was paper.

  What the hell, this wasn’t some low-tier A-rank dungeon!

  "We’re dead. Finally," Sin-Joo muttered, more relieved than panicked. But even as he spoke, he twisted his body just right, barely dodging the bullet’s next rebound. It splintered through a coffin, clanged off a spittoon, and sent us scrambling like headless chickens across the town square—until its kinetic energy finally ran out, and it plopped harmlessly onto the ground.

  "I’ve hunted someone before that I didn’t want to hunt… but that doesn’t change a thing. A debt is a debt. And the bullet always finds its mark… eventually."

  Malgrave wasn’t giving us a moment to breathe. With a dramatic step forward, he leaped off the saloon steps, raising his revolver directly at Dae-Won. Above our tank’s head, a glowing red Deadeye symbol flickered into existence like some cosmic death sentence.

  "Kid, you look like you could use a lead diet," Malgrave growled, cocking the hammer of his revolver. "Let’s see if your heart works without all that blood."

  "Get to cover!" I yelled, but it was too late. The gunshot cracked like the wrath of a vengeful god, and even Dae-Won’s raised shield may as well have been cardboard. The bullet punched straight through it, straight through him, sending a crimson spray into the night air as he collapsed, gasping for breath.

  Hye-Rin, his fiancée, let out a heart-wrenching scream and opened fire like a madwoman. But Malgrave moved with an unnatural swiftness, dodging her bullets with a lazy sidestep, his cold laughter sending chills down my spine.

  "He said he’d return. I knew he would. No one outruns their debt."

  "You talk way too much," Ryn Valen snarled, launching himself at the sheriff. "Your judgment has been passed, demon!"

  His blade struck true, slicing into Malgrave’s side, sending a spray of black blood into the dirt. But Malgrave just grinned.

  "Black, red… blood is blood. You’ve spilled your fair share before, haven’t you? Tell me, Curly Bill… do you remember, or are you still running from it?"

  For a moment, Curly Bill—no, Ryn Valen!!!—froze.

  Shit. This Wild West scenario was getting into my head. This place’s dark energy was messing with me. But I wasn’t some legendary gunslinger. Fuck, I wasn’t even ranked high enough to be here.

  Malgrave moved like a shadow, parrying Ryn’s next strike with nothing but his revolver. Then he pulled the trigger…

  …and blew half of Ryn Valen’s torso clean off.

  Blood poured like a waterfall as Ryn clutched his gut, staring down at the gaping wound—clean through, a hole big enough to shove a fist through. He was still standing, somehow, but I had no idea how the hell that was even possible.

  While the paladin staggered back in shock, Malgrave shifted into Phase Three. Inhumanly fast, more shadow than man,he streaked toward the old church. Before I could even process it, he was already at the top of the bell tower, standing there like he had just teleported.

  I glanced at Ryn Valen, still bleeding heavily. Then back up.

  Malgrave raised his absurdly oversized revolver.

  The ground around us lit up.

  Glowing magical circles spread in every direction—An AoE cast!

  The first shots shattered the ground around me as I tackled Ryn behind a pile of old wooden coffins.

  "That son of a bitch," Ryn spat, blood dripping from his lips, staining his teeth dark. He coughed, spitting onto the ground. "I’m done. I need to heal. Fast. Or I’m dead. That’s gonna drain all my mana."

  "I thought holy paladins didn’t have mana problems?!"

  I slapped a hand over my mouth.

  Too smart-ass. Way too smart-ass.

  Then I noticed.

  We were hiding next to a crate of dynamite.

  Every instinct screamed: Move. Get the hell away from this death trap.

  But then I stopped. Breathed.

  This was my chance. My first real chance to prove myself to my idol.

  My fingers fumbled through my pockets for my old gasoline lighter.

  "What the hell are you thinking, Takuya?!"

  "I’m thinking… it’s about time I made myself useful."

  "And how the hell do you plan to do that? You’ve got no magic, no gear, and you’d lose a fight to a fucking goblin."

  I swallowed hard. Yeah. That one stung.

  "Yeah… no magic." I flicked the lighter open with a click. "But I do have something I learned from my ancestors. It’s called Kamikaze."

  I grabbed a stick of dynamite, ready to light the fuse when…

  Ryn’s bloodied hand clamped onto my arm. His fingers fumbled at his belt, pulling out a small vial. He twisted off the cap, and golden light spilled out, illuminating his pain-stricken but resolute face. "Drink this. Buff potion. Triple speed, triple strength. Ten seconds. Make it count."

  I downed it in one gulp. Fire burned down my throat, then lightning tore through my veins. My muscles tensed, my heartbeat slammed like a war drum, and for the first time in my life…

  I felt unstoppable.

  Malgrave blew our cover to hell.

  I lit the dynamite.

  And with a speed I never knew I had, I sprinted for the bell tower as the world behind me erupted into chaos.