Reverse Dungeon

Dorian slept deeply—more deeply than he could remember sleeping in years.

What woke him was noise. Unwilling to abandon the comfort of unconsciousness, Dorian tried to shut it out by force, squeezing his eyes tighter and willing himself back to sleep.

The distant voices drifted in one ear and out the other.

“Look at this, an elf! Just look at him. Ever seen hair that color before?”

“Like spun silver. Isn’t this exactly the kind of thing the boss was looking for?”

“Has to be. Started out riding a camel, but look at that physique. Definitely high-bred stock. Woah, woah! Easy there, beast. Is he your owner?”

“You belong to us now. Leave the elf alone.”

“Boss! You need to come see what we caught!”

The words reached him, but his mind failed to process them properly. Half-asleep, his body felt unbearably heavy.

He had no desire to move.

Dorian stayed still, unwilling to crawl out of this hazy state.

Then rough hands dragged him off the camel and hauled him somewhere else. He was shoved into a cramped, dark space.

Thud.

Silence followed.

Dorian drifted back to sleep.

This time the sleep was shallow.

When he awoke again, exhausted, his body had been bound to a pillar. Flames rose around him while terrified eyes stared his way. The elves surrounding him hurled stones and spit.

‘Ah. This again.’

Dorian thought he was dreaming.

He knew it.

...Or did he?

Was this reality?

But everyone Dorian knew should have been dead by now.

Inside his muddled consciousness, past and present began to overlap.

The dwarves around him blurred into elves.

His own body became smaller, younger.

The clearing transformed into the sacred grounds beneath the towering World Tree.

Dorian ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) was tied to the World Tree.

One by one, the elves of the village stepped forward and threw fireballs at him. Each flame that struck fed the blaze licking at his feet, until it climbed his legs, his chest, his neck—until at last it swallowed even his face.

The elves chanting spells as they cast the flames prayed earnestly.

They prayed that the sacrifice would protect them.

Dorian screamed.

He begged them to stop. He apologized. Pleaded for mercy.

Eventually, he begged them to kill him.

His flesh melted from the bone. His organs liquefied. His eyeballs burst. His brain boiled away. Pain beyond endurance ravaged his body.

Dorian wanted to die.

But he was a living sacrifice.

This was a ritual.

He was not being killed.

He was being offered to a new master.

An elderly elf carved symbols into his chest with a knife. Dorian felt as though his blood itself had ignited. Fire raced through his veins. His body twisted violently.

He could not comprehend how he was still alive enough to feel such agony.

He called every surrounding elf by name.

Miriam. Dolren. Baut. Pinocchio. Zelcha. Parat...

With hollow, ruined eyes, he begged them.

Please kill me.

No one listened.

Dorian wondered if his vocal cords had already burned away. Was that why nobody could hear him?

Otherwise, how could there be no response?

Or perhaps he was already dead.

Otherwise, how could they look at him like that and do nothing?

...Then why did his screams sound so vivid?

Dorian prayed to the gods.

The very gods who had never once reached down to ease their suffering—he begged those same gods for salvation.

None came.

When he regained consciousness, he was in the demon realm.

The brand carved into his chest marked him as a slave.

The ‘Demon of Fear’ had become his new master.

Had Dorian wanted to die?

Back then, beneath the lush forests of the elf homeland, beside its deep springs and radiant sunlight, beneath the protection of the World Tree’s altar—

Yes, he had thought death would be better.

But the truth was different.

He had wanted to live.

Desperately.

Only after arriving in the burning demon realm, with dead blood and rotting flesh sticking to his feet at every step, did he realize just how desperately he wanted to survive.

So he prayed again.

To gods. To demons.

He begged every power in existence for life.

Nothing answered him.

If he wanted to survive, he had to protect himself.

So he did everything necessary.

He ran.

He laid traps.

He killed.

Years passed.

Eventually, there was no creature left in the demon realm capable of killing Dorian.

And when he finally slew the demon who had branded his chest—when he inherited the title of ‘Fear’—

Dorian understood that he could never return to what he once was.

A body tainted by demonic power could no longer be called a pure elf.

Only his outward appearance remained unchanged.

Everything inside him had become something else entirely.

Even the four elementals who had never abandoned Dorian had lost their original nature, corrupted by demonic power and unable to return to the elemental realms.

Just like him.

After spending his entire life clawing for survival, Dorian now wished for death instead.

He was exhausted.

Nothing brought him joy anymore.

He was sick of the demons’ sly whispers and honeyed temptations.

Yet he refused to die at the hands of creatures from the demon realm.

He loathed them.

Despised them.

‘I wish they would all die.’

But even that felt tiresome.

He was simply tired.

He wanted everything to end.

If only he could close his eyes and have it all disappear.

Not a single moment of his life had ever held meaning.

‘Can this even be called living?’

Dorian wondered.

To live was not merely to remain alive.

There could be nothing more hollow than existence without meaning.

Dorian had resisted every temptation the demons offered him.

But there was still one thing he desired.

Now that he himself had become a demon, he understood that nobody would grant it to him.

He would have to claim it with his own hands.

So Dorian invaded the Middle Realms.

And that was how he ended up here.

• He wanted a death that meant something.

That was why he searched for a hero.

Though Dorian himself had been abandoned by the gods, he sought those who were unmistakably loved by them.

What made them different from him?

Dorian yawned.

‘Why am I dreaming about this now?’

Snap!

A whip lashed across Dorian’s bare torso.

The dwarves dumped water over him and struck him again.

‘Ah... that’s why.’

The world spun around him.

Shadows flickered and swayed.

It reminded him of the day he had been offered to the demons.

Round and round.

Snap!

“Why isn’t this one screaming?”

“Is he dead? His eyes are open, aren’t they?”

The dwarves muttered among themselves.

Round and round.

The spinning figures around him cried out as well.

They too were being whipped.

‘Pitiful. No one’s coming to save them.’

Countless lives vanished every day.

No single life was inherently precious.

The gods were equally indifferent to all things in this world—

save for a select few truly special beings.

‘Poor things.’

They were going to die anyway.

Dorian, of all people, was practically an expert in rituals like these. He had experienced both sides countless times—being sacrificed himself and later sacrificing others.

Though admittedly, he had far more experience as the offering.

Still, the outcome had always been the same.

Whether they prayed through ritual or suffered as sacrifices, Dorian had granted them rest alike.

No one suffered anymore after that.

No matter what kind of desire had driven them, he had brought it to an end.

Round and round...

‘Ugh. I think I’m going to be sick.’

Dorian felt dizzy.

Exhausted.

Apparently getting older meant motion sickness hit harder when people kept spinning you around like lunatics.

He gagged—and made a decision.

‘Let’s finish this.’

Then, amidst the spinning sacrifices, he spotted a familiar face.

‘......?!’

His thoughts instantly shifted from ‘Why does that sacrifice keep staring at me?’ to—

‘Why is he here?’

Ian was desperately trying to catch Dorian’s eye.

He had twisted himself into an awkward pose, pretending to be tied up, though it suited him terribly. Ian simply wasn’t someone who belonged in chains.

...No.

It wasn’t even about personality.

Dorian’s eyes widened.

Ian was mouthing something.

‘One, two...’

‘Wait—?!’

Ian completely ignored Dorian’s frantic gestures.

At three, the rope binding Dorian snapped apart.

Dorian stumbled as his feet hit the ground.

And then he saw him—

Ian, standing amid the flickering flames filling the clearing, bow in hand.

The towering firelight—the only illumination in the darkness—cast sharp gold across his face as he reloaded. His lips were set in fierce determination, his bright eyes scanning the chaos around them.

“Dorian.”

“...Yeah?”

Dorian answered blankly.

Was this still part of the dream?

Was he dreaming about his own foolish desires again?

Like the naive child he once used to be.

“What are you doing? Get over here!”

Dorian obeyed without thinking.

The clearing erupted into chaos.

The dwarves shouted.

The sacrifices collapsed.

Water spheres burst through the flames.

But Dorian saw only one thing in the darkness.

Soft clusters of light gathered around Ian’s face.

The wind swept through his hair, revealing the smooth curve of his forehead. His lashes trembled with concentration.

Then Ian threw aside the bow and reached out his hand.

Dorian took it.

“Purification!”

Agony crashed through Dorian’s body.

And for the first time in a very long while—

it felt like being alive.