'Wait, I'm Supposed to Become a Goddess?! But I'm a Guy!'

The old man moved more carefully now, each step calculated, extremely calculated as he ventured into the inner circle of the dungeon.

This area was different than the rest, powerful tier 3 monster resided here in every corner.

The air was heavier, quieter too, like the forest was dead.

A massive python lay coiled in the distance, nearly thirty meters long, its glossy scales blending seamlessly with the thick roots tangled across the earth.

It looked like part of the landscape, motionless.

If one wasn't keen enough to pay a close attention to his surroundings here, then... DEATH.

But despite stepping directly into its territory, the old man passed unnoticed.

Mize, still observing from the sky, tilted her head with a frown.

"Breath concealing skill?"

"It seems like the typical protagonist default skill"

She’d expected his presence to at least stir the beast’s instincts.

But nothing. Not even a flicker of awareness from the snake.

Her brows furrowed. “Alright, I get it. He has some kind of anti-detection skill…” she murmured, floating lazily in midair, arms crossed.

“But it works on tier 3s too? He's not a lord, but a native Awakener"

Then came the real surprise.

Back when Mize designed the dungeon, she had carefully placed rare herbs and unique plants deep within the inner layers.

Their numbers uncountable, spread all over the dungeon.

These weren’t ordinary finds, they were imagined and constructed entirely from her own creativity.

No one should recognize them.

They weren’t catalogued, didn’t exist in any real-world alchemy books, and had been camouflaged so subtly they looked almost mundane.

And yet, one by one, the old man started unearthing them.

No hesitation. No searching. He walked straight to the exact locations as if guided by an invisible hand.

Mize’s eyes narrowed to slits, her smile thin and laced with interest. “You’re not just lucky, are you?”

She tapped her lips, her fingers lightly brushing the corner of her mouth. “Disguise ability strong enough to even fool me once, movement techniques that let him slip past elite monsters like a ghost, and now… an apparent knack for sniffing out treasures I made up myself?”

She fell silent for a moment, eyes flicking between the images playing out in her vision. “It lines up too well. If this isn’t a son of luck, I’ll eat my own dungeon core.”

Still, she wasn’t ready to leap to conclusions. Coincidence could stack in strange ways.

She turned her gaze away, letting the image fade as her focus shifted toward a lake nestled near the heart of the dungeon.

Her lips curved upward slowly.

“Fine then. Let’s test you a little,” she said, eyes gleaming. “If you really are a protagonist type… you’ll fall for this bait like the rest of them.”

"The lake, it's an entrance to my next project underneath. I suppose tricking this boy into my plan wouldn't hurt"

"If he really is the son of luck, then perhaps I could use him as the second points catalyst from now on"

With a light hum, she vanished, leaving not a ripple in the air behind her.

'but of course, it's not cheating as long as I am not intimate with him' she assured herself.

The scene shifted, diving down from the canopy into the forest floor.

Giant clover-shaped leaves blanketed the earth, most of them dried and pale.

Beneath them, a scattering of black and white pebbles lay in irregular patterns.

Step on them, and they’d crunch, sharp, brittle, noisy.

Then, a foot dropped into the frame from above, crushing a few leaves and darkening the ground for a split second.

The view widened.

A hooded figure stood motionless where he landed.

His cloak stirred gently with the wind.

Light pierced through the cracks in the foliage overhead, casting faint rays across his weathered face, long white hair, wrinkled skin, and deep, piercing blue eyes.

He scanned his surroundings.

The breeze picked up, swaying the trees. His hood fluttered, briefly revealing more of his face before settling back.

He stepped aside without a sound and crouched near a thick tree root.

A faint glint in the soil caught his eye.

With his hands, he gently cleared the dirt, revealing a small plant with oddly patterned leaves.

He plucked it, roots and all, and slipped it carefully into a storage pouch.

Then he rose, brushing the dust from his palms, glancing around.

“This place is a goldmine,” he muttered, voice completely at odds with his appearance. “Old man, you were right. Coming to this territory was the move.”

He stretched with a groan, placing both hands on his hips. “Still… walking this slow while staying on high alert isn’t exactly my favorite way to travel.”

As if summoned, a soft glow rose from the ring on his finger.

Wisps of light coalesced into a translucent figure, blue and ghostly, like smoke taking the shape of a man.

Long white hair, sharp features, a smirk tugging at his mouth.

“Acting tired already?” the figure snapped, hands on his hips in mirrored irritation. “I’m the one doing all the shielding, brat.”

“Hey, calm down, old man,” the young voice replied, grinning. “You’ll age faster from the stress.”

The spirit scoffed. “Klein, after all these years, you’re still the same mouthy runt.”

“Whose fault is that?” Klein shot back, stretching again. “You’re the one who siphon my energy like a battery in the early days"

“And now I’m paying the price,” the spirit grumbled, crossing his arms. “You better not forget it.”

Their banter continued for a while.

Then the tone shifted.

“Watch yourself,” the spirit warned, gaze turning solemn. “You’re talented, but this place? It’s crawling with things that could flatten you without blinking.”

Klein’s posture changed just slightly, a sliver of tension curling in his spine.

His eyes scanned the forest again, slower this time.

“So… how many close calls so far?”

“Hundreds,” the spirit said without hesitation, lips twitching in a smirk. “And without me? You’d be nothing more than a smear on the dungeon floor.”

Klein huffed. “Encouraging as always.”

“I’m serious.” The spirit’s gaze drifted toward the depths of the dungeon. “These tier 3 monsters... they’re not normal. There’s something off about them.” 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

Klein arched a brow. “You mean I can’t win against even one?”

“No,” the spirit said flatly. “Not yet.”

Klein didn’t argue.

He just stood there for a moment, listening to the quiet rustle of wind, the subtle stir of the forest around him.

"I can sense more spiritual herbs up ahead, let's go" The old man muttered, and guided the next direction which Klein needed to go.

Then he took a step forward. Into the dungeon’s heart.

Unaware that someone else had already taken an interest in his journey.

The deeper he ventured, the more the forest closed in around him.

What had once been a generous path gradually narrowed, the ground swallowed by sprawling roots that snaked and curled like ancient, sleeping beasts.

Vines twisted up the colossal trunks, dangling overhead in loose knots, casting twitching shadows under the canopy.

A pale mist had begun to gather, thin at first, barely noticeable, but thickening with each step toward the heart of the forest.

Klein moved slowly, his boots brushing against mossy bark and the damp forest floor.

With the guidance of the illusory figure, he collected several more bizarre herbs and uncanny plants, none of which had ever been recorded in the known world.

But instead of pride or excitement lighting up his face, an unsettled dread took root.

“…Why do I feel like something bad is about to happen?” he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck.

His brows were furrowed as he crouched beside a patch of soil, both hands working with care to unearth a peculiar flower.

The petals were sharp-edged, soft like velvet but shimmering faintly as if laced with dew.

As he channeled a thread of energy into the ground, the surrounding soil loosened and fell away from the roots in a silent crumble.

He pulled it free, delicate as threading a needle, and tucked it neatly into his bag.

“Not bad,” came the old man’s voice, floating as the spectral figure emerged once again from the ring, arms crossed behind his back.

“That flower carries the essence of pure life energy. It can substitute for the main ingredient in a Tier 3 breakthrough elixir"

"Combined with the rest of what we’ve gathered, we’ve practically recreated the whole formula with superior variants.”

Klein groaned and waved a hand as he stood up. “Old man, stop. You know I can’t follow half of what you’re saying. Just tell me when we’re ready to cook something.”

“We’ll refine the elixir right here when the time’s right,” the illusory figure said, now circling Klein slowly like a curious ghost professor. “Watch carefully when the time comes. You might catch some insight from my technique. Who knows, you could even leap to upper-grade Tier 3 Alchemist overnight.”

He paused mid-air, gazing around the forest with a wistful gleam. “Still… after all these years, I’ve never seen materials like these. Not even once.”

Klein’s expression tightened.

He leapt lightly onto a nearby root, his gaze narrowing as it traced the mist-heavy horizon ahead. “Exactly what I’m worried about. If even you don’t recognize them, then something’s off about this place.”

“It’s not unexpected,” the old man replied, his voice dropping in tone. “This is a lord’s domain, after all.”

“A lord, huh?” Klein murmured, hopping nimbly from one tangled root to the next.

His balance was casual, instinctive. “One of those ‘skyfolk,’ then?”

“Indeed. So don’t be surprised when their territory doesn’t play by the rules. You saw it yourself, didn’t you? Yesterday.”

“You mean the angel?” Klein clicked his tongue, dropping to the ground again.

He plucked another rare-looking herb from the base of a tree and tossed it into his bag without breaking stride.

“I saw her. You were drooling.”

Klein sputtered. “I was not!”

“You totally were,” the old man shot back with a grin. “You looked like some love-struck teenager.”

His ears reddened slightly as he walked on, trying to mask the heat creeping into his face. “I mean… she was the most beautiful existence I’ve ever seen. Not even the top-tier beauties from the central region come close.”

“Oh?” The figure floated down, now cross-legged in the air, chin resting in his palm as if pondering. “So our brat's smitten?”

“Shut it. Not like it matters anyway,” Klein said, hopping over a twisted root as thick as a tree trunk. “She’s the lord’s wife, isn’t she? Unless I plan to fight a hundred thousand Awakeners, it’s game over.”

“Now that would be a tragic love story,” the old man chuckled. “But good on you for having a shred of self-preservation. You’re not dumb enough to think you could take on the lord of this territory. Not after what we’ve seen.”

They both fell silent for a moment.

Because what they had seen, others hadn’t.

From the instant they stepped foot here, there were eyes in every corner.

Silent shapes tucked in the shadows. Invisible watchers behind layers of illusion.

The rumors were true. And probably just the tip of the blade.

“…Old man,” Klein began, leaping over a cluster of vine-wrapped stones. His voice was quieter now, cautious. “Back then… the castle. You said something about it. Was it true?”

“Yes,” the figure replied without hesitation. “Even in this form, my divine mind hasn’t dulled. I may not have a body, but my perception remains intact.”

He turned in midair, eyes narrowing toward the distant direction of the castle, still hidden behind miles of trees and underbrush.

“Something resides in that place. Something extremely evil. I’d bet everything that even in my prime, I wouldn’t have lasted a second against it.”

Klein didn’t speak, but he followed the old man’s gaze instinctively.

Suddenly, the scene shifted.

The wind whispered louder as the perspective rushed forward, slicing through trees and tearing across fields.

The forest gave way to open grassland, which then rose into the towering stone wall of the castle itself.

It dove downward.

Through a hidden corridor. Down further still, beneath layers of earth, stone, and silence.

Until it arrived in a cavernous space, so vast the edges were swallowed in total blackness.

Then, in that pitch void… movement.

A flicker.

A stir.

And suddenly, a pair of gigantic golden eyes opened itself within this immesureable space.

Their sheer size defied logic, their presence heavy enough to warp the air itself.

The pupils shifted slightly, then closed once more like a curtain falling.

Stillness returned.

And the water above that reflection, strangely undisturbed… remained.