“Look at it,” Graq said.

  The tiger remained motionless. Muscles coiled beneath its fur. Posture speaking of restrained violence that would rend the both of them into a million pieces including toothpicks. Eyes locked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Where is it sitting?”

  Jin-woo looked again. Forcing his addled mind to return to full function. There was a disconnect that struck him. It could have ended the both of them without so much as a whisper. He hadn’t noticed it move while foraging for fruits. Not even when he ran back. Only when it had allowed itself to be seen.

  And yet it hadn’t done that.

  Watching. Observing with obvious interest. Not piecing them up like shawarma.

  “I know a hungry predator when I see one,” Graq walked down the stairs. He kept walking until he reached the fruits. Picking them up one by one. “She is biting at her laurels to get at us.”

  The tiger began to claw at the ground. Eyes tracking Graq’s every step. The ground screamed in protest as its massive death paws tore it up. Mirroring a housecat’s hunting crouch, scaled up to proportions.

  Understanding hit Jin-woo harder than the Rat Lord had.

  “You’re right!” It hadn’t moved an inch towards them. More importantly, it hadn’t moved an inch past the invisible wall that prevented the underbrush from invading the hospital proper. The beast’s stealth would have ruined them, approaching without triggering his senses.

  Jin-woo walked slowly to help Graq pick up the fruits. Graq's small hands could only carry at most three, and that was using his forearms. There were at least seventy-five in total. Jin-woo used his fruit, juice-stained shirt to gather them all up. Dumping them near the dungeon entrance.

  Graq smiled. “I have a working theory.”

  Jin-woo took a bite of a fruit. Eyes closing momentarily as the unusual taste invade his taste buds. Sweet, addicting almost. Better than anything he had ever eaten in his entire life. He doubted that was a subjective truth.

  Graq gulped as he grabbed his own. It was massive in his hands. He took a few tiny bites; the fruit would last him much of the day if it stayed fresh.

  “That is,” his mouth was full. He gulped. “The closest it will get, because of the dungeon.”

  Jin-woo finished his. He threw the pit back towards the tiger. Making sure to not accidentally hit it. The tiger didn’t need more reasons to force its way in.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Graq put his fruit down, only a small portion had been finished. “I suspect the dungeon is the cause behind the lack of vegetation near the hospital. It drains the life force of anything in its sphere that has no mind and enslaves the rest.”

  “Enslave?”

  “You really don’t know?” Graq tilted his head. Blinking. “How’d you clear a dungeon if—” Graq shook his head. “Never mind that. Dungeons enslave beasts and monsters that haven’t developed complex thought. In the rare case, they trick evolved sapient creatures into doing its bidding.”

  “Like your Kin.”

  Graq lowered his head. Ears flattened. “Yeah. Like my Kin.”

  Jin-woo winced. He had no clue how to navigate emotional situations, so he needed to steer this back to topic. “How? I can’t imagine something as strong as the cloud tiger being enslaved.”

  “It doesn’t have the mental capacities to fight against the mind and spirit attacks of the dungeon,” he said with a weak smile.

  Jin-woo’s mind flashed back to one of his earliest notifications. He pulled his status page up and mentally clicked on the spirit attribute. A terrible feeling crept down his chest. Eyes drifting back towards the dungeon entrance. Even after wading through hundreds of giant rats, he did think it was this dark.

  […defense against spirit binds, mental assaults, and attacks on free will…]

  “I was in the dungeon for months. It never crossed my mind to serve it,” Jin-woo said. He remembered how much he hated the place with a passion. The endless slog of battle and close calls with death. Poison. Fangs. And claws. “Exact opposite actually.”

  If not for miraculous health potions, he’d still be horrifically disfigured from all the damage. He didn’t recall how many times he had gone into ‘Crimson Madness’, but each time left him viciously damaged and broken. His enhanced recovery was both a boon and curse after he lost consciousness, and it took over.

  “We’re fine to delve. Even destroy the evil thing if we get the chance, due to our evolved sapience,” Graq grabbed 4 fruits. Lining them up in a basic math equation on the dirt. “Single added to another singular entity will invariably equate to two. A fundamental, if basic understanding of arithmetic. But enough to defeat the insidious assault on our minds and spirit.”

  Great. Math. It followed him even to a new world.

  His eyes drifted back toward the dungeon entrance. Jin-woo’s mind began to go through everything they needed done as soon as possible. Starting with both of their power stone tampering and integration. They would sorely need the boost in power if they were planning to tackle the second floor.

  Or even the first.

  He did not want to go through the same amount of difficulty again.

  They sat together in silence, watched by eyes that held them no malice. Just an objective truth and desire to sate its hunger. Patient. The tiger had disappeared sometime during their discussion, but neither one was foolish enough to believe it had left them alone. It was there, beyond the dungeon’s invisible barrier. Invisible to the senses.

  Jin-woo felt constricting in his chest. He understood, now, that some prisons had no walls. Chains forged from fear or depression rather than iron and steel. You could quantify being thrown into a physical cage or jail. But this felt endless, completely suffocating.

  The fruit he’d gathered felt like poor compensation for this lesson. Especially after he satiated his hunger.

  [WARNING: Multiple Threat Vectors Detected]

  [ANALYZING SURVIVAL PARAMETERS…]

  [RECOMMENDATION: Further Data Required]

  [SECOND…]

  Redundant system notifications filled his feed again. Stating the obvious and only touching the surface of their reality and its dangers. A place where tigers the size of elephants, bigger, feared dungeon enslavement. And a cute rat. Teaching him one plus one equals two. Whatever normal had meant to him, that had died long ago. The definition changed by the moment. Leaving only questions he could not answer.

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