---
"Huh… Ren, you really seem to have broken out of your shell," Kai muttered under his breath, half-amused, half-critical.
It hadn't even been a full hour since the boy was on his knees, begging for mercy like a kicked dog. But now? Now he was glancing back over his shoulder at the two Class D slaves they'd just captured, subtly giving commands with the air of someone who thought he'd found purpose. No stuttering. No hesitation. He even barked orders at the other members of class C earlier, as if he were already assuming a role above them.
Kai watched this shift with a certain detached interest.
There wasn't even a moment of shame on Ren's face no flicker of guilt or shame for trying to establish a chain of command that didn't belong to him
"I guess you could say that…" Ren had said earlier, when Kai commented aloud.
But Kai didn't buy it for a second. This wasn't character growth. This wasn't some inspiring arc about a coward finding his courage
This Purley about dominating the weak to make yourself feel better
This was math.
It was busines
And Ren?
He was trying
Kai didn't judge him for it. If anything, he respected it. Ren understood the situation now he wasn't a person anymore. He was property. The only way to climb back up was to find usefulness, carve out a niche where his leash could feel like a chain of command instead.
"A bottom-tier dog trying to become a kennel master," Kai mused internally.
But really… was that so strange?
Kai had seen it before online, in classrooms, on message boards. People formed hierarchies over absolutely nothing. A mod badge. A custom avatar. Posting frequency. Popularity among peers.
It didn't matter how artificial the setup was humans needed ladders.
They needed to know who was above and who was below. Who took orders. Who gave them. Even if the whole system was a game, or fake, or rigged from the start.
Ren just… understood that faster than most.
Still, there was one thing that nagged at Kai.
As they walked his steps silent, controlled, practiced—he kept glancing at the two Class D students now trailing behind Ren like half-broken animals. One had a limp. The other hadn't said a single word since the ambush. Their eyes were still dazed, like they hadn't caught up to reality.
Kai didn't pity them, exactly. But he felt the weight of what had happened.
"Imagine," he thought, "you get told you're the weakest of the weak… Class D. You're already on edge. Then you get dumped into a forest in the middle of the night, barely conscious, and before you even figure out what's going on, you're chained to some cold bastard who only sees you as a resource."
It wasn't just cruel.
It was efficient.
And that made it worse.
Kai exhaled slowly through his nose, watching the mist of his breath drift in the cool air.
He couldn't help but feel that this whole situation was less about strength and more about positioning. These two Class D kids weren't even bad. They weren't weak in a traditional sense they were just unprepared. Thrown into a shark tank with no time to think, no time to plan. Their only sin was being vulnerable when the game began.
And yet… here they were.
Chained.
Following a Class C puppet who was, himself, bound to a sharper leash.
Kai's leash
Kai kept moving. His footsteps didn't slow. The terrain had shifted—less mud, more uneven roots, shadows getting deeper under the trees. It had been a while since the last engagement. Time felt weird here. Stretched. Shaky
His mind wandered again back to something Ren had said earlier.
"I could hear sounds," the boy had claimed.
"Screaming. Faint shouting. I thought a war was being fought or something
At the time, Kai brushed it off. Maybe Ren had sensitive hearing. Maybe he'd been closer to the southern zone than it seemed.
But now?
Now it started to feel off.
The path Kai had taken to reach Ren had been long. Close to forty minutes of fast walking, even with detours and concealment. If there were sounds echoing through that space, he hadn't heard them. Not once.
Not the screams.
Not the fighting.
Not even the usual wildlife sounds you'd expect in a place like this.
It was... silent.
Too silent.
Kai's eyes narrowed.
And another thought crawled into his head
Why did it feel like the trees kept repeating?
He swore he'd passed a crooked three-trunked cedar at least three times. The same split stone. The same patch of gnarled roots that looked like grasping fingers.
It was subtle. But noticeable now.
The landscape was looping.
Not in a magical way. Not overt. Just… faintly wrong.
Like the world itself was watching.
He glanced at the slaves.
They hadn't noticed. Their heads were low, eyes empty. They were just walking, following commands, too numb to question the path.
But Kai was not numb.
Kai was thinking.
Always thinking.
Something about this stretch of the forest didn't add up. And if it didn't add up?
Then it was probably hiding something worth finding.
He adjusted the grip on his blade-turnedseal under his sleeve and kept walking.
---
And then it happened.
Out of the corner of Kai's eye, he swore he just saw one of his newly acquired slaves vanish.
He froze.
Kai had read about this in the novel. Things like this happened when you were inside an illusion—especially when it was starting to break down. This was always the crucial phase: the point where you had a narrow window to escape. To detach yourself from the illusion before it collapsed on you completely.
As more strange things began to unfold around him, Kai forced himself not to react. Not to think about them. Not to feel the fear slowly crawling up his spine.
Disengage.
Detach.
Don't feel. Don't process. Just pull away.
And then slowly, painfully he began to feel his real body again.
Like bullets ripping through his brain, memories shot into him.
Two days.
He'd been in the southern area for two days.
He had enslaved over 30 stragglers, including multiple Class B students, before he realized what was really happening.
A Level 15 Illusory Spider Devil—one of the rarest and most dangerous early-game monsters in the novel—had ensnared him.
And at that exact moment, Kai woke up.
-
Webs.
Thick, sticky strands clung to his face—some curled near his mouth, dangerously close to his throat. He couldn't move. His gag reflex kicked in, and tears streamed from his eyes as he tried not to choke.
His vision adjusted. Slowly.
The world around him became clearer.
And what he saw was hell.
A forest, but entirely infested. Cocooned students hundreds of them hung from trees like forgotten decorations. The air was thick with the glint of threads catching faint rays of light.
Then he saw it.
The Spider Devil, far off in the distance, wrapping another victim.
"Damn," Kai thought, swallowing hard. "The author really was vague about this part…"
He didn't waste time.
With precision and care, Kai cut himself loose, slicing cleanly through the bindings at his wrists and ankles. He dropped from the tree without alerting anything, hitting the ground and rolling softly to nullify the impact.
He sprinted.
His blade-seal pulsed faintly under his sleeve. His feet pounded the ground as he raced past the suspended bodies, guilt nagging at him. So many were still trapped—still dreaming.
He couldn't save them. Not now.
He didn't have the ability to pull someone out of the illusion
Then he heard it.
Muffled struggling.
Someone was awake—conscious—but bound. Not yet drained completely. He followed the sound, weaving through the overgrowth and strands until he found the source.
A student—body twitching, limbs bound tight, mana being drained directly from their chest.
Kai moved fast.
His blade cut clean through the webs.
And then
He saw her face.
Kathlyn Lionheart.
The deuteragonist of the Underground Battle Arc. A standout figure. Red hair, flowing down her back in waves, styled in subtle noble braids. Even covered in sweat and grime, she looked stunning—her presence undeniable.
Right now, though, her expression was a mix of shock and raw fury.
Kai caught her mid-fall.
She grunted, clearly displeased at the contact.
Prideful to a fault.
But that expression quickly changed to fear when she saw what he was doing.
Still drained and too weak to resist, Kai began searching her. Methodical if not a tiny bit indulgent She squirmed, eyes wide with disbelief.
Then he found it.
Her Slave Token.
He pressed it against her skin.
The seal activated.
She went stiff as the red brand sizzled against her wrist.
She looked at him with pure hatred in her eyes.
And Kai?
He could only laugh out loud