Reverse Dungeon

The elf reacted instantly. A violent gust spiraled through the cavern, sweeping the swarm of ghost mice toward the rear wall.

Boom!

Squeak—squeak—squeak!

Something slammed hard against the stone, though nothing was visible in the darkness. Once the ghost mice closed their eyes, even their locations became impossible to track.

Ian didn’t hesitate. He immediately activated and loosed a volley of arrows.

Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

The arrows struck with the brutal sound of harpoons piercing flesh, and one by one, the ghost mice began to materialize on the cave floor. Starting from the point where each arrow pierced them, their hidden bodies slowly emerged into view, their tails appearing last.

That was the nature of ghost mice.

Creatures that lurked in damp, lightless places, they remained invisible unless injured. Monsters whose existence could only be confirmed once they were hurt.

Their hunting pattern was simple: briefly open their eyes to pinpoint prey, then charge with their eyes shut.

Unfortunately for them, they had encountered an elf.

“I’ll blow them away.”

The elf flicked his hand lazily.

The ghost mice were swept up like dead leaves in a storm and smashed into the cave wall.

Thud!

It looked as though a giant broom had swept across the cavern floor. Blood from the ghost mice splattered across the rough stone walls and slowly trickled downward.

The elf showed no reaction to the gruesome sight. If anything, he looked mildly bored, which left Ian baffled.

‘What’s with him?’

Still, there was no time to dwell on it.

The ghost mice recovered from their dazed state and lunged again. The elf’s attack had mangled them into bloody wrecks, but it hadn’t actually killed them.

That was more than enough for Ian.

The time it took the ghost mice to recover and charge again perfectly matched the cooldown Ian needed to prepare another . Within the limits of his maximum range, the swarm was reduced to corpses.

‘Did he calculate all of this?’

It was the exact same range Ian had taught the elf to maintain when they dealt with the dark bats earlier.

An elf who remembered what he’d been taught after seeing it once.

Thinking about how someone this capable had spent all that time trailing after him while pretending to be a harmless “merchant,” Ian felt absurdly cheated.

Naturally, he ignored the fact that he himself had been exploiting the elf the entire time. The elf had never volunteered his abilities—Ian had simply used whatever was available.

Ghost mice had far more health than dark bats, but no monster could survive high-level Purification. On top of that, for reasons Ian still considered completely nonsensical, the skill had an effect where damage increased with distance. At maximum range, it always resulted in an instant kill.

‘Shouldn’t attacks get weaker the farther they travel?’

Air resistance. Physics. Common sense. Something.

Ian once again regretted abandoning mathematics. If he’d stuck with science subjects, he could’ve written a properly reasoned complaint to the game developers.

also gained damage bonuses based on distance, which meant close-range combat offered no real advantage aside from accuracy.

‘How is it balanced for a starter character to land nothing but critical hits from absurdly precise long-range sniping?’

The developers clearly had no idea how to monetize a game properly. Ian clicked his tongue in disapproval.

Still, thanks to the elf, their “pull a few enemies at a time” strategy had evolved into something far more efficient.

The final ghost mouse let out a shrill screech before collapsing.

“That’s all of them, right?”

“Yep.”

After the elf confirmed it, Ian crouched down and stored several relatively intact ghost mouse corpses in his inventory.

“Why do you keep collecting those? Emergency rations? Because if that’s the case, I refuse to eat them.”

The elf grumbled like a spoiled picky eater.

“You’re not eating them. Relax.”

Ian reassured him.

‘Keith would probably gnaw the bones clean and insist they should be served as tribute for the people who died to them.’

Of course, Ian had no intention of feeding ghost mice to Keith either.

There was another reason he’d been collecting dark bats and ghost mice.

There were three dark bat trap variations in total. Of those three, only one also included ghost mice.

And Ian knew how to solve it.

“Oh, this place opens up.”

The elf stopped walking.

The spirit fluttering around him landed lightly on his finger. After listening to whatever it whispered, the elf glanced around and asked,

“There are paths everywhere from here. Which way are we supposed to go?”

‘......?’

Ian stared at him.

The elf still looked completely blind in the darkness, gazing vaguely into empty space as though he genuinely couldn’t see a thing.

But to Ian, a marker was perfectly visible.

At the center of the chamber sat a square stone slab, surrounded by strange floating lights.

The entire scene practically screamed:

“The key to escaping the trap is here!”

“You seriously can’t see anything?”

“Ah! Don’t grab me out of nowhere! You scared me. What if I’d attacked you?”

The elf flinched as Ian removed the hand he’d placed on his shoulder.

‘Seriously... is this another player-exclusive feature?’

Apparently, not only was visibility in the trap restricted to players, but even the trap key itself could only be seen by them.

But wasn’t this elf technically a playable character too?

‘I should’ve known something was off when that question mark appeared.’

The glitches really were severe.

Still, if the game had forced players to navigate an entirely pitch-black dungeon with no visibility whatsoever, nobody would’ve wanted to play it.

Ian had heard rumors about maniacs who enjoyed ultra-realistic torture-difficulty games, but he definitely wasn’t one of them.

Special items should look special.

And puzzle mechanisms should practically scream, “Solve me if you want to escape!”

Thankfully, the game understood that much. The trap key stood out clearly to Ian.

Since he had to explain the mechanism to his companion, he spoke first.

“I’m going to touch you, so don’t attack.”

“Huh? What exactly are you trying to do...?”

The elf muttered something strange and hesitated.

Ian frowned.

Why was someone who claimed he couldn’t see anything suddenly being this difficult?

“Stop squirming. Don’t resist and just stay still.”

“Uuuh...?”

Ignoring the elf’s resistance, Ian dragged him over and shoved him onto the stone slab.

The elf instinctively braced both hands against Ian’s chest.

“Wait, I’m strongly opposed to sudden relationship developments. There are very important reasons for that—”

“You’re sitting on the puzzle.”

“...What?”

Reluctantly, Ian activated , spending mana to illuminate the area.

Only then did the elf finally realize what he was sitting on.

“It really is a puzzle?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Oh. This pattern looks familiar.”

“It should. You saw it earlier. Now move.”

Ian pulled a ghost mouse corpse from his inventory.

As always, the system automatically guided his hand the moment he retrieved the item. He placed the corpse neatly into the ghost mouse-shaped indentation carved into the slab.

“It’s one of those puzzles. You fill the slab with monster-shaped pieces.”

Once every matching monster corpse had been inserted, the trap would unlock.

The elf stared in fascination.

“So you weren’t collecting them for food?”

“Well, if we run out of jerky, they can double as emergency rations.”

Ian revealed their secondary purpose with complete seriousness.

“I’m a vegetarian! I’ve eaten nothing but plants for a hundred years!”

“Then survive on dew.”

“Is there dew inside a cave?”

“How would I know?”

“......”

‘What other reason would I have for carrying around spare monster corpses?’

Even though Ian’s inventory didn’t allow unnecessary junk, he still made sure to reserve space for backup food supplies. Starving to death in a game was the single most infuriating way to die.

He added the dark bats as well.

Only two slots remained empty now.

One required a monster roughly twice Ian’s size.

The other, something about half his size.

‘Stone Cat and Echo Ghost.’

Now that they’d reached the central chamber, Ian no longer needed the spirit’s guidance. He already knew exactly where both monsters were located.

At that moment, the elf lightly tapped the stone slab.

“Alright, I understand the puzzle now. But I still have one question.”

“What?”

Capable as he was, the elf was also ridiculously inquisitive.

Taking advantage of the pause, Ian checked the elf’s affection level.

[Affinity with Dorian(?): 51%]

‘Does it only increase by 0.1 at a time?’

The progress was agonizingly slow.

He’d followed Ian into a deadly trap, yet this was the level of gratitude he showed? Ian briefly wondered how exactly he was supposed to turn this uncooperative elf into a subordinate.

The elf scuffed the ground with the tip of his shoe.

“I think we need to clarify something important.”

“Clarify what?”

To Ian, the elf suddenly looked strangely serious.

Crossing his arms, the elf fixed Ian with an intense stare.

“Don’t you think there’s been a little too much physical contact between us?”

“......?”

What was with that smug expression?

Ian tried to remember every instance of physical contact they’d had.

...Did shoving him onto the slab count?

Was this elf some kind of germaphobe?

But a germaphobe wouldn’t voluntarily wander through filthy, dust-covered caves like this.

While Ian genuinely contemplated the matter, the elf continued rambling.

“I don’t know much about human romance, but generally speaking, when two people are in a relationship, they belong exclusively to each other, right? And from what I’ve heard, elves and humans share similar values in that regard. Which means your first regular customer is apparently close with your second regular customer, isn’t he?”

“......?”

“So when you keep treating me this kindly, I can’t help wondering... isn’t this technically a love triangle? Wouldn’t the gods disapprove? Or is this acceptable because you’re royalty and therefore exempt from the one-partner rule?”

“...What the ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) hell are you talking about?”