Dungeon King: The Hidden Ruler-Chapter 38: [The Silent Duel Begins 2] - Knock at the Door

The knock came just as Adrian placed the last chip in his mouth.

Knock knock.

He froze, the quiet comfort of his apartment broken by the intrusion. Brows furrowed, he stood, brushed the crumbs from his shirt, and walked to the door. He opened it without expression.

Standing outside was a red-haired young woman—cheerful, bright-eyed, and carrying a small gift box in one hand and a large tote bag slung over her shoulder. Her smile on her freckled face could have lit an entire Discord server.

"Hi! I’m Elara. Just moved in next door. Thought I’d bring some cookies!"

Adrian stared at her, expression flat.

"...Huh. Thanks."

He took the box and turned back inside to place the cookies on the dining table. Elara, undeterred by the lack of invitation, followed him in and made herself comfortable on the couch.

"You live alone? Oh, you’re one of those people who works from home, aren’t you? Wow, that’s awesome. Relying solely on your own skills like that? Respect, bro!"

Adrian opened the fridge, grabbed a can of cola, and held it out to her without a word. She accepted it with both hands, like a gift.

He answered with a shrug, "Not really sure what others think of me. Haven’t had the time to figure it out either. You a college student or office worker?"

"Oh! I just got accepted into Titan Corp. Can you believe it? Moved here to be closer to the office. This place is only five minutes from the station—can you believe that? Five minutes!"

She laughed brightly and gestured toward her bags. "I even picked this apartment cause it’s on the same bus line! My roommate bailed on me last minute, so I’m going solo. Kinda nervous, honestly. First job and all."

Adrian let out a low, dry sigh. "Yeah. I can hardly believe it."

She didn’t notice the sarcasm. "It’s like a dream come true, OMG! Titan Corp! I used to stay up all night playing their games with my college buddies. Now I’m inside the place that makes them!"

He sat down slowly, setting the cookie box on the table. "Great to hear a dream come true. So, what department are you in? Customer service? Because you sure talk a lot."

She laughed, brushing the jab aside. "Nope! QC and AI Audit!"

Adrian smiled—same dry curve of the lips—but one of his fingers, resting casually on the table, twitched slightly.

QC and AI Audit.

An enemy next door.

To the public, it sounded like boring system checks and crash logs. But Adrian knew better. He’d seen enough backend dashboards and red-flag protocols in his time to recognize the truth: These were the watchdogs.

The red light division.

The ones who didn’t warn.

They flagged, logged, and executed.

The person sitting across from him was part of the team that pulled the plug when an AI learned too much or when a player class drifted into dev-only territory.

Which meant—if Elara discovered anything strange about his character Raven, she’d be the one who pushed the button.

The final death.

The irreversible kill-switch.

Adrian took a slow breath, adjusting the can in his hand like a prop to buy time. He needed to play this just right—no suspicion, no sharp edges. When she looked at him again, bright-eyed and brimming with unfiltered excitement, he tilted his head with practiced curiosity.

"What’s QC and AI Audit?" he asked, injecting just enough hesitation into his voice to sound like a casual gamer, not someone who already knew far more than she did.

Elara perked up instantly. "Oh! It’s kind of like making sure the AI doesn’t go rogue or get messed with. You know, checking integrity stuff, running behavioral audits so no one jailbreaks the system or uses unauthorized overrides. Basically, we make sure the smart parts of the game stay smart—but not too smart, if you get me." freeweɓnovel-cøm

To Adrian, the phrasing was very oversimplified—but expected. "QC and AI Audit". Elara toned it down for politeness, for explaining it to a casual, but Adrian knew.

From a dev’s lens, it meant AI behavioral profiling, integrity sweeps, and exploit tracking. She was the eyes inside the wall. The one who got the red flags before they went public. He hid the realization behind a slow nod and a neutral hum, still playing the part of the uninformed neighbor.

He nodded slowly, as if piecing it together for the first time. Inside, gears were already turning. Her department did matter. More than he initially assumed.

So she wasn’t just QA—she was part of the firewall.

Acting like a noob was the best move for now.

Before he could respond, Elara turned toward the monitors across the room. One of them still played a YouTube breakdown of the Emberstone Burrow incident—blurred chains, raid wipes, overedited theorycrafting.

"Ohh, you play Primordial Abyss too? That’s pretty cool! That Emberstone Burrow dungeon thing is so messed up, don’t you think? Crazy! Totally crazy, I say."

Adrian made his next move, careful as ever. He tilted his head slightly, voice calm, casual. "What do you think?"

Elara gave a quick laugh, unfiltered and genuine. "Ah, that could be exaggerating. You know streamers—they always blow things up for clicks. And players who lose? They cry like it’s the end of the world."

She shrugged, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. "Not sure myself. Could be one of them. Could be both."

Adrian gave the faintest nod, pretending to absorb it like someone who hadn’t already analyzed the entire landscape. But he noted her tone. Genuine. Unbiased. Still loyal to her gamer roots. Still unaware of how deep the rabbit hole went.

It was the kind of perspective he needed.

And now he had it.

He opened the box of cookies, picked one up, and held it out to her with a faint, unreadable smile. "Cookie?"

To Elara, it came off as simple politeness—an offered treat from a reserved neighbor. But to Adrian, it was something else entirely. A subtle reward. A prize for answering his questions. A breadcrumb tossed toward a potential enemy, offered with a calm hand and a hidden smirk.

She took one without hesitation, biting into it cheerfully. Adrian watched the moment, cataloguing it.

She didn’t hesitate. That meant something. To some, cookies were snacks. To him? They were diplomatic tools. Offers. Tributes. He briefly wondered how much data she might give for sugar—not mockingly, but analytically.

As Elara reached over, Adrian’s thoughts raced behind his calm expression. He had an AI systems watchdog assigned to the same game company living next door. Random? Maybe. Dangerous? Definitely. The only logical move: make her a useful pawn.

He leaned in slightly. "So, what’s the company saying about it? About the Emberstone thing."

"Oh, I don’t really know yet," she said with a casual shrug, biting into the cookie. "Let’s see what they assign me tomorrow. First day at job and all that."

So, no intel. Yet.

Still, keeping her close wouldn’t hurt. She was too excited, too open, too easy to predict. He could guide that type. Shape it. Better to be the friendly neighbor now—ask questions later.

"Alright then, neighbor," he said with a dry tone that could almost pass for charm. "Good luck on your first day."

Elara grinned, then plucked one of her own cookies off the table. "Aight, gotta run! These are for you, but I’ll steal one for the road. First tax as a neighbor!"

Adrian smiled, raised his can in a quiet gesture of cheers in response.

She stormed out with a spring in her step and a wave over her shoulder.

The apartment fell quiet again. Adrian’s smile fades away. Only the muted hum of the monitor remained, still looping the overdramatized raid breakdown.

Adrian sat down slowly. Still. Thinking.

He watched the video in silence, but his mind was elsewhere. Another chessboard had appeared. He wasn’t expecting to play it yet, but now the first move had been made.

This wasn’t just about cooling off anymore. Now it was about positioning too.

There would be patches. There would be dev investigations. But Adrian had seen this dance before—back when he interned at small game studios during college. He’d stress-tested betas, broken AI systems, and watched corporate bureaucracy twist itself into knots.

Always slow. Always reactive. Profit first, questions later.

While he was officially a fresh graduate when Titan Corp hired him, he was already familiar with dev pace, corporate hesitations, and how bureaucracy responded to panic—always calculating, always stalling, all while prioritizing microtransactions and profit first.

He had a feel for the patterns. He understood how slow they’d move, how careful they’d tread.

But he also saw it many times, how deadly they are when they sink their fangs into the neck of their prey.

Instant annihilation. And in his case, class deletion.

No matter how solid his case will be, it will be drowned by a world class PR release of how this one particular player threatens the whole game mechanic.

And now, one of their QA arms lives next door. Fresh. Naive. Planted within reach.

He took a bite of the cookie. A small, genuine smile formed on his lips.

"Huh. I don’t even have a cat to play a cat and mouse game."

Let the pieces move themselves. He just had to wait until the heat cools down.

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