---
The adventurers passed by without noticing him.
Takumi remained perfectly still, hidden within a narrow crevice in the stone wall where a small cave-in had created an uneven alcove. The moment they were gone, he emerged, eyes wide with calculation.
He had memorized everything:
The way the torchlight flickered across the mage's robe.
The fact that the swordsman's armor was missing a left shoulder plate.
That the woman in front had laces tied unevenly on her left boot.
A droplet of blood on her spearhead—not hers—meaning they had already killed something nearby.
He hated that he noticed all of it.
His mind wouldn't stop chewing on those details, like a dog gnawing on a bone that would never snap.
Still, he couldn't risk contact yet.
Not until he was ready. Not until he was complete.
---
He wandered for hours.
The dungeon had no logic to its layout. Some hallways ended in sharp drop-offs. Others looped into themselves, like a spiral trying to tie its own end. Eventually, he realized something that should have terrified him, but instead filled him with rage:
> The dungeon was procedurally generated.
Each time he backtracked, the walls had shifted.
The torches reset themselves in different intervals. The tiles changed color slightly, their lines rotated in a counterclockwise swirl.
"No," he whispered. "This… this is wrong. It's broken design. This place is a system error."
> [Mental Load +5%]
The notification blinked in the corner of his vision. He could feel it—like a weight behind his eyes.
His fingers began twitching.
Fix it. Fix it. Fix it.
But how do you fix chaos?
You erase it.
---
The next room was a long rectangular chamber—thirty by ten meters, with pillars spaced unevenly and some slanted, some straight. A leaking fountain dripped in the center. To most adventurers, it might look like a peaceful rest zone.
To Takumi, it was a violation of structure.
He closed his eyes, inhaled.
Then let his body move.
---
His fists hit the first pillar with precision.
Crack.
The second pillar—slightly tilted—he corrected by breaking the base and aligning the top edge using an overhead elbow strike.
Snap.
He brought balance to the third by knocking over the fourth to mirror it.
His own blood ran down his arms from fractured knuckles and torn skin.
But something inside him calmed.
The room now had structure.
His Mental Load dropped by 12%.
---
> [Skill Unlocked: Structured Mind Lv. 1]
"You thrive when chaos is erased. You gain bonus recovery and clarity in clean environments."
---
He sat by the corrected fountain, letting the sound of steady drips echo in even timing.
His breathing slowed.
His thoughts lined up like books on a shelf.
In moments like these, he almost felt human again.
---
But it didn't last.
From the far end of the chamber, a hiss echoed—a long, wet gurgle followed by the scraping of nails on stone.
A creature limped into the room.
Its body was wrong.
Tall, hunched, its arms dragged along the floor like elongated vines. One leg was twice the size of the other, grotesquely muscular. Its jaw hung off to the left, unhinged. Its eyes were positioned diagonally on its face, as if a child had drawn it from memory and got bored halfway through.
Takumi didn't blink.
His stomach churned.
"Asymmetrical abomination," he muttered, voice tight.
---
> [New Threat Identified: False Pattern Spawn]
Danger Rank: C
Objective: [Cleanse the Irregularity]
---
The creature lunged.
Takumi didn't step back. He moved through its strike, ducking beneath a club-like limb and driving his fist straight into the monster's sternum.
But it didn't crack.
Its body was like rubber—shifting, resisting the blow.
It countered with an arm sweep. He flipped over it.
It leapt again.
Takumi caught its malformed wrist and twisted—too far, not far enough. It bent at the wrong angles. It didn't even feel pain.
His breathing began to quicken.
> "Why doesn't it respond logically? Why doesn't it have a pattern—"
> [Mental Load +9%]
A sudden voice cut through the static in his mind.
> [Perfect Execution Activated.]
---
His world sharpened.
The enemy's movements slowed. Not literally—but in his perception.
The arcs of its limbs could now be traced, countered, neutralized. His brain stopped trying to make sense, and simply acted.
He kicked its left knee—then elbowed its shoulder to rotate the torso 15 degrees—then kneed it in the base of the spine.
The result?
It collapsed.
Still alive.
Still twitching.
But Takumi wasn't done.
He adjusted the creature's body into a symmetric pose: legs aligned, arms flat, spine straight. He moved its head until it faced forward—what was left of it.
Then, and only then, he delivered the final blow.
A clean strike to the center of its chest.
---
> [False Pattern Spawn Eliminated.]
+5 Levels.
Level: 17
Skill: [Cleansing Strike Lv. 1] Acquired.
---
The room went quiet again.
Takumi stood, chest rising and falling, sweat running down his neck.
Then he laughed.
Just once. Dry, bitter, and quiet.
He didn't laugh because it was funny.
He laughed because this was his new world.
And he was the only one insane enough to fix it.
---
🔹 End of Chapter 3