Dark, winding, and bone-dry, the underground passages twisted in loops, dragging the three of them in circles no matter which route they took.

  Three weeks had passed since they first entered the titanic spider’s carcass, and they’d done nothing but walk, fight, kill, eat, and repeat—always moving, always carving their way through swarms of bugs that never seemed to end. The air was thick with the stink of blood and old decay, their boots caked in grime from a thousand carcasses crushed beneath them.

  And the deeper they went, the more uncertain their path became.

  Dahlia tightened her grip around her hammer’s handle as she trudged behind Otto and Emilia. Her arms ached. Her body was sore from the relentless pace. She knew they were lost; the marked crossroads made that clear enough. No matter how many times they branched off into a different path, they kept on looping back to the same place, the same damn camp they had set up a week ago.

  Now, for the fifth time, they found themselves back at the crude resting spot—a cramped cavern nestled between veins of dried-out flesh, their own crude scratches still visible along the walls, marking their futile attempts at navigation.

  Otto sighed heavily, rubbing his temples as he stared down at the crumpled map in his hands. “I don’t get it,” he muttered. “We’ve mapped everything as best as we could, but something’s not lining up. Either this map’s inaccurate, or something’s changed down here since the cartographer last came through.”

  “Or,” Emilia said, flopping onto a chunk of dried tissue with an exaggerated groan, “we’re just really bad at this.”

  Dahlia sat down quietly on a lump of dried tissue as well, setting her hammer beside her with a dull clunk. The exhaustion settled in deeper now that they weren’t moving. The stagnant air pressed heavy against her skin, so she pulled off her gauntlets, flexing her sore fingers before setting them to work.

  Time to eat.

  While Emilia and Otto reached into their satchels to pull out cooking pots and chunks of still bleeding flesh, she knelt by the circle of twigs and stones in the centre of their camp and held out her hands. She closed her eyes. Focused on the tingly sensation on the tip of her fingertips. With a little more effort and concentration, a few crackling bolts of electricity shot from her fingertips, lighting a small fire on the kindling.

  The faint warmth was a small comfort in the endless cold of the tunnels.

  Otto immediately set the cooking pot over the fire and poured water inside, while Emilia dumped a handful of crudely cut squares of bug meat into the pot. As the three of them waited for the water to slowly bubble, Dahlia’s eyes flicked open her status screen—a familiar sight, though one she hadn’t checked in a while.

  [Points: 62]

  Her lips pressed together.

  She hadn’t gained many points. Despite having killed at least five or six hundred Giant-Classes as a team in the past three weeks, most of them had gone to Emilia—and for good reason.

  Emilia was the one doing all the real work. Otto could at least provide support, sniping enemies from a distance and helping them navigate through the tunnels, but Dahlia? She was too slow. By the time she swung her hammer once, the fight would already be over. Emilia’s voice would’ve cut through the bugs like a blade through silk, reducing everything to twitching limbs and oozing carcasses before Dahlia could even reach them.

  It was only natural that Emilia alone claimed over ninety-five percent of the points they’d obtained, leaving Dahlia with barely enough to upgrade any one of her attribute levels.

  [Of course, it doesn’t help that most of the bugs you’ve been facing the past few weeks are arachnids.]

  What do you mean?

  [For starters, you’re inside a giant spider,] Kari said matter-of-factly. [Makes sense that arachnids would be drawn here. Even in death, bugs of the same kind stick together. It’s just instinct.]

  Uh-huh.

  [But,] Kari continued, [but that’s not a great situation for you. The arachnids down here don’t have a lot of meat on them. Narrow legs, small abdomens—bad for harvesting. You’re not going to be getting a lot of points from them in the first place.]

  Dahlia’s stomach twisted slightly as she glanced toward the field of carcasses behind them. Kari wasn’t wrong. Most of the arachnids they’d fought had been small, at least in terms of usable meat. And then there were two other problems…

  […Your cooking isn’t perfect,] Kari added bluntly.

  I know.

  [I’m just saying, you’re losing tons of points in the process. Cooking isn’t just about eating—it’s about properly extracting all the nutrients. You’re wasting a lot of bioarcanic essence by not having a professional chef do the job.]

  Dahlia huffed under her breath. Well, it’s not like we can just get Uncle Safi down here.

  [True,] Kari admitted. [Furthermore, it’s worth noting that excessive damage to a bug can also significantly reduce the amount of points you can gain from their carcass. It’s the reason why—despite most Hasharana being able to dismantle an entire brood nest of a thousand Giant-Class bugs by themselves—dismantling a brood nest typically only gives the Hasharana a few hundred points at most.]

  Because the tougher the fight, the more violent the Hasharana has to be.

  [Mhm. It’s not like most Hasharana can afford to be like you, picking apart a Giant-Class without severely damaging its structural makeup. They have to swing their giant weapons around, bash open skulls, crack tons of edible chitin, and blast the bugs to mince with whatever explosives they have on hand. In an ideal battle, dismantling an entire brood nest should yield at least ten thousand points, but that can never be achieved when a Hasharana is fighting solo. Nobody can afford to carefully kill each bug with expert precision.]

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Dahlia cast another look at the field of carcasses behind them. It was true that they had an extremely tough time trying to harvest all the bug meat they could, given Emilia’s style of killing involved violently dicing the bugs up and sending the meat flying everywhere. She could easily imagine a more powerful Hasharana bashing a bug into the ground in the spur of the moment and essentially burying the meat so far down that harvesting it would be time-inefficient, maybe even impossible.

  [And since you’re also sharing points, with most of them going to the person doing the most work…]

  Dahlia sighed. I get barely anything.

  She already knew that. It was something they’d all agreed on. Emilia was the one pulling the most weight, so naturally, she deserved the highest cut. Dahlia wasn’t about to argue that.

  But it still stung a little.

  Emilia’s gonna be fine, she thought, watching the girl beside her kick her legs casually back and forth. She’s strong. She’ll make it as a Hasharana, no problem.

  But me?

  She stared down at her faint reflection off the head of the hammer, the ripples distorting her face.

  She wasn’t so sure.

  The campfire crackled, a quiet but steady presence in the deep silence of the tunnels. Once the square cuts of meat started floating to the surface of the pot, Dahlia hopped off her seat and passed out bowls of stew with a ladle, the heat of the metal barely registering against her calloused fingers.

  At least I still have my heat-resistant hands.

  [How useful.]

  Otto took his bowl with a distracted nod, his eyes still locked onto the crumpled map, tracing and retracing lines like he was trying to force the tunnels to make sense.

  “This whole system is weird,” he muttered. Emilia, who’d been slumped against a dried-out chunk of flesh, barely perked up as she took her bowl from Dahlia.

  “Weird how?” she asked lazily, swirling the stew around with her spoon before shoveling a mouthful into her mouth. “Because it’s one giant dead spider? Yeah, I noticed.”

  Otto didn’t look up. “I mean, what’s the actual test here?”

  Dahlia blinked. “The test?”

  Otto finally glanced at them, pushing the map forward slightly as if expecting them to see what he saw. “Think about it. Three weeks in, and we haven’t seen a single Mutant-Class down here.”

  That got Emilia’s attention. She tilted her head slightly, eyes sharpening. “And?”

  Dahlia hesitated, gears turning in her head. Mutant-Class bugs were definitely the more powerful threats: intelligent, adaptive, and significantly stronger than the Giant-Classes they’d been cutting through. The first stage of the exam had been brutal, designed to weed out the weaker participants, so… where were the real threats in this second stage of the exam?

  “One would think,” Otto continued, tapping his fingers against the map, “that after eliminating the weaker participants, the proctors would introduce something more challenging in stage two. So far, though, it’s just been Giant-Classes, and let’s be honest…” He looked at Emilia. “You’ve been tearing through them like they’re nothing.”

  Emilia grinned, flashing sharp teeth. “Aww. You’re so sweet.”

  Otto rolled his eyes. “You’re an outlier, child of the Magician. You were strong before the exam even started, but the rest of us? We’re still barely getting tested, so you’d think the Fool would account for your presence given he had an entire month to adjust the second stage of this exam. Instead, we’ve done nothing but walk around like dogs chasing their own tails. What part of this is supposed to be a ‘test’?”

  [Well, he’s not entirely correct,] Kari said, [Stamina and navigation ability are critical skills for Hasharana. You people track bugs for days, sometimes weeks, across unknown terrain. In some cases, you’d have to march through tunnels like these while clearing out entire brood nests. You are getting tested in a way.]

  Dahlia frowned. But this still feels… off.

  [Well, he’s not entirely wrong either. There’s something missing. A crucial obstacle.]

  “... Well, not that I’m complaining. It’s just kind of creepy.” Otto exhaled, staring down at the map in his lap. “Being down here this long, no sun, no sky… it feels like the whole world is just—” he gestured vaguely at the pulsing tunnel walls, “—this.”

  Emilia snorted. “A Pioneer feeling claustrophobic?”

  He shot her a dry look. “Not yet. But ask me again in another week.”

  Dahlia smiled faintly. At least they were keeping optimistic. She could only hope Muyang and Wisnu were faring better in their navigation attempt, but before she could say anything, a sharp metallic clash echoed down one of the tunnels to their left.

  She froze mid-bite.

  For a second, none of them moved. The sound had been distant—muffled, almost warped by the tunnel acoustics—but it’d been real.

  “…Did you hear that?” Dahlia asked.

  Then there was another noise—flesh tearing, something heavy hitting the ground, a muffled shout cut short.

  Otto was already shoving the map away. “Kill the fire.”

  Dahlia wanted to kick the kindlings apart, but Emilia whistled and sent out a cool, quick-moving blast of wind, snuffing out the flames and instantly plunging them into thick darkness. It wasn’t until Otto slapped the lantern on his hip that Dahlia saw the two of their faces again, all of their hands working swiftly to pack up their gear.

  Then they ran.

  The tunnels were a maze of twists and dead ends, but the sounds guided them. Every distant clash and echo gave them a direction to follow. Their boots and shoes and sandals barely made a sound against the damp, fleshy ground as they hurried forward, and maybe someone could make a point about not rushing head-first into what could be a trap, but the fact was, there were other people down here with them. If Muyang and Wisnu needed their help, they had to help.

  After ten minutes of straight running, glancing at each other every once in a while to affirm they still wanted to go, they stumbled into a vast chamber.

  Dahlia’s breath hitched as she took it all in. The space was enormous. It was one of those ‘sinuses’: the interior of a shrivelled, hollow organ. The walls had the same fleshy texture as the tunnels, glistening wet under the eerie pinkish-purple bioluminescence, but the ground was an entire field of sprawling carcasses—a grotesque carpet of twisted legs and shattered exoskeletons.

  This was where the fighting sounds had come from.

  Some bodies were fresh, blood still pooling in thick, sluggish streams, while others had begun to dry out, curling inward like husks. And standing at the very top of the pile…

  Blaire.

  The Plagueplain Doctor was utterly still, her long coat stiff and dark with blood. The beaked mask she wore made it impossible to tell if she was even breathing. Her syringe claws hung loosely at her sides, dripping with blood, venom, and something thick and gold and unidentifiable. Dahlia felt a deep, crawling unease settle under her skin—and then Blaire’s head snapped toward them. Too fast, too jerky, too mechanical.

  Dahlia stiffened.

  The silence stretched between the four of them, broken only by the faint, wet sounds of their weight creaking against the carcass ground.

  Then Emilia, unbothered as ever, raised a hand.

  “Hey, doc. You good?”

  No response.

  Blaire didn’t move at first. She merely stood there like a statue, her masked face unreadable. Dahlia would admit, she’d rather they had stumbled upon Muyang and Wisnu instead of the Plagueplain Doctor, but then—without a word—Blaire shifted.

  Her posture tightened. Her shoulders squared. Her weight shifted forward. Those glowing green eyes behind the dirty lenses on her mask latched onto Dahlia’s.

  … No.

  She’s not… looking at me?

  And Dahlia barely had a second to process before Blaire lunged straight at them, syringe claws flashing in the dim light.

  The Exorcist Doctor will be taking Storm Strider's timeslot with five chapters a week for the first month, and it's a base-building progression story set in the Plagueplain Front, so you can expect: