Investing In My Lv.999 Devoted Wife Makes Me a Tyrant

10 | First Level Up

The cold hit him first.

It was deeper than any slum morning. It seeped through his jacket, through his skin, and settled into the marrow of his bones. The air tasted like old iron and wet stone. Behind him, the portal shimmered, a gray window back to the world he'd left. Ahead of him, the corridor stretched into absolute blackness.

Night Vision kicked in immediately. The darkness didn't lift, exactly. It just stopped being an obstacle. Shadows became shapes. Shapes became details. The walls were rough-hewn stone, slick with moisture that gleamed faintly in the dark. The floor was uneven, cracked in places, with shallow puddles of stagnant water that reflected nothing. The corridor ran maybe fifteen meters before branching into two passages, one veering left, the other right.

Allen drew his knife. The blade was dull, but the point was sharp. Ten Copper. That was what his life was worth now.

Skitter. Skitter. Skitter.

The sound came from the left passage. Multiple sets of feet. Small. Quick. The kind of footsteps that belonged to things that hunted in packs.

Allen pressed his back against the cold stone and waited. Calm Mind was working, suppressing the fear, sharpening his focus to a razor's edge. His heart was pounding. He could feel it in his throat. But his hands were steady, and his thoughts were clear, and those two things were the only weapons that had ever mattered.

The first goblin came around the corner and stopped.

It was short. Maybe 120 centimeters. Green skin the color of pond scum. Yellow eyes with slit pupils that dilated when they caught his scent. A rusted dagger in one clawed hand. Behind it, two more shapes emerged from the darkness. Three goblins. One with a dagger, one with a club wrapped in rotting leather, one with nothing but claws and teeth.

GGRRAAAAHHH!

The lead goblin shrieked and lunged.

Allen's mind broke it down without effort. Height: 120 centimeters. Speed: roughly 3 meters per second. Angle: right arm raised, dagger coming down from above. Weakness: throat exposed during the swing, left flank unguarded.

He stepped inside the swing and drove his knife into the creature's throat.

SSSKKKTTT!

Blood sprayed across his hand. Hot. Thicker than he'd expected. The goblin made a wet gurgling sound and collapsed, but there was no time to stop. The second goblin was already swinging.

The club caught Allen in the ribs before he could dodge.

Pain exploded through his side. White-hot. He stumbled backward, nearly losing his grip on the knife. The goblin pressed forward, club raised for another strike. Allen threw himself to the left, felt the wind from the swing pass his ear, and slashed blindly at the creature's arm. The blade cut deep. The goblin howled and dropped the club.

Before it could recover, Allen buried the knife in its chest.

THUD.

The third goblin hesitated. Its yellow eyes flicked from Allen to its dead companions and back again. Then it bared its teeth and charged, claws outstretched.

Allen's ribs screamed with every movement. He couldn't dodge again. So he didn't.

He dropped to one knee, let the goblin's momentum carry it forward, and drove the knife upward into its belly.

SLLLKK.

The creature folded around the blade and went still.

[Ding!]

[Violet: EXP gained. Level up: 7 → 8.]

The energy hit him like a wave of ice water. Something deeper than pain. Something in his bones that had been asleep for years and was finally stirring. He felt his muscles tighten, the ache in his ribs fade from a scream to a dull throb. His skin felt tougher. His grip on the knife felt steadier.

Level up. First time in his life.

He stood over the three goblin corpses, breathing hard. His jacket was torn at the ribs. Blood dripped from the knife onto the stone floor. His side ached, but he was alive. He was alive, and he was Level 8, and he'd just killed three creatures that would have slaughtered him before he met Seraphina .

'Three down.'

A new sound echoed through the corridor. Not goblins this time. Something heavier. Something with more legs.

Click-click-click-click.

Allen turned toward the right passage just as two shapes scuttled out of the darkness.

They were the size of large dogs, but there was nothing canine about them. Hairless gray skin stretched tight over gaunt frames. Long yellow teeth jutted from underslung jaws. Their eyes were black and lidless, and their claws made a clicking sound as they scrambled across the stone. They moved along the wall like spiders, defying gravity, their heads swiveling toward Allen with predatory precision.

Duskrat. A dungeon scavenger. Not strong on its own, but they hunted in pairs, and they were fast.

The first one dropped from the ceiling.

Allen twisted sideways, but the claws raked across his shoulder before he could fully evade. Three lines of fire opened along his back. He spun and slashed at the creature's flank, but the knife glanced off its hide. Too shallow. The Duskrat skittered away, already circling for another pass.

The second one lunged at his legs.

He jumped back, but not fast enough. Teeth sank into his boot, just above the ankle. Allen drove the knife down into the thing's skull. It convulsed once and went still.

KRIIIEEEE!

The surviving Duskrat shrieked and charged. Allen met it head-on, ignoring the pain in his shoulder, ignoring the blood running down his back. He caught it mid-leap, knife punching through its chest.

Both dead.

He stood in the corridor, surrounded by corpses. Three goblins. Two Duskrat. His body was screaming. His ribs. His shoulder. His ankle. But he was alive, and his enemies were dead, and somewhere deep in his chest, something that felt dangerously close to hope was starting to take root.

Footsteps behind him. Human this time. A lantern's glow.

He turned.

The E-ranker stumbled through the portal first, sword drawn, the cheap lantern swinging wildly from his belt. Behind him came the young woman with the short sword and the thin man with the spear. Their eyes went wide as they took in the scene. Three dead goblins. Two dead Duskrat. Allen standing in the middle of it all, bleeding but upright, knife still dripping.

"He's already—" the woman started.

"CONTACT!" the E-ranker roared.

Four more goblins poured from the left passage. Two Duskrat skittered down from the ceiling. The monsters swarmed past Allen like he wasn't even there and crashed into the three Hunters.

The woman screamed. The thin man's spear snapped in half. The E-ranker's lantern hit the ground and went out, plunging them into darkness.

Allen watched for one heartbeat. Two.

'They can't see in the dark.'

He could. Night Vision turned their panic into a clear tableau. The woman was backing toward the portal, swinging blindly. The thin man was on the ground, crawling. The E-ranker was shouting orders that nobody could follow, his sword catching goblin claws and Duskrat teeth in a desperate dance.

Allen could help them. He could step in, use his sight to turn the tide, and maybe save a life or two.

But if he did, they'd know. They'd see him fight in perfect darkness. They'd ask questions. Word would spread. By sunset, the Veton family would hear that the discarded son had walked into a dungeon and come out with skills that didn't belong on a Level 8 nobody.

He couldn't afford that. Not yet.

He turned and walked deeper into the dungeon, into the dark where no lantern could follow.

After thirty paces, he stopped. The sounds of fighting echoed down the corridor behind him, but they were growing fainter now. Someone was still screaming. Someone else had stopped.

Allen opened his System Panel. The familiar blue screen materialized in the darkness.

[Name: Allen Veton]

[Level: 8]

[Class: None]

[Title: None]

[HP: 80/80]

[MP: 0/0]

[Strength: 10]

[Agility: 11]

[Endurance: 9]

[Intelligence: 1,247]

[Skills: Calm Mind (Passive, Common), Iron Will (Passive, Uncommon), Night Vision (Passive, Uncommon)]

[Talents: None]

[Bloodline: None]

[Equipment: None]

Level 8. Strength up by 2. Agility up by 2. Endurance up by 2. His HP had climbed from 70 to 80. The numbers were still pitiful by any real standard. Now he had three passives, and a number that was finally, after seven years, moving in the right direction.

'Not much. But it's a start.'

He closed the panel. Behind him, the screaming stopped.

Allen kept walking. He had a boss to find.