"Oh, so you also got done in," the snicker came from a man wearing a red plated armor.

The fortress mouth swallowed sound the way it swallowed people. Thick stone walls, iron portcullis, torchlight licking damp bricks, everything here was built to funnel bodies in and keep them from spilling out.

The portal itself sat like a wound in the air, a vertical slit of shimmering distortion, and the space in front of it had been claimed the way predators claimed a watering hole.

A bunch of climbers who looked worse for wear were standing in front of the portal at the fortress.

Torn sleeves, dried blood in the seams of rough goblin armor, or more like rags of newbie tracksuits, soot on cheeks that had been wiped too many times with dirty hands. Some held their weapons like walking sticks, some held them like they were still expecting something to jump out of the rift and finish the job.

There were many members of different guilds standing there, waiting for the newbies to recruit. They didn’t look like rescuers.

They looked like merchants at auction, eyes flicking over new arrivals the way you’d check a horse’s teeth. Sigils flashed everywhere, stitched, engraved, embossed, bright symbols on polished plates that made the newcomers’ battered gear look even more pathetic.

The ones with real power didn’t stand closest to the portal. They stood where they could see it and also see each other, letting intimidation do the heavy lifting.

Iori’s boots scuffed the stone as he stepped out with the handful behind him. Five. That number sat on his shoulders heavier than any pack. He didn’t need to count them, he could feel the gap where a crowd should’ve been, could feel the eyes that noticed how few.

He lifted his chin anyway. A leader’s posture, even when the leader had nothing left to lead.

"Lucas... what’s going on here?" Iori asked.

Lucas’s red armor caught the torchlight and threw it back, warm and arrogant. The sun emblem stamped on his chest was clean enough to look insulting. He had the relaxed stance of someone who hadn’t been hunted recently, shoulders loose, weight balanced, hand resting near a weapon like it belonged there.

"You can probably guess, newbie recruitment area."

The words landed bluntly. Not cruel, just matter-of-fact. Like this was as natural as breathing. Like it hadn’t been a slaughterhouse downstairs and a marketplace upstairs.

Before Iori could reply, another voice cut in, smooth in tone, sharp in intent.

"Oi, Lucas, you know as well as we do we all have dibs on the newbies, too." Another person wearing blue armor with a lion’s symbol on it spoke.

The blue-plated man stood half a step behind his own group, confident enough to argue but careful enough to keep distance. His armor was the kind that didn’t just protect, it advertised. The golden lion on his chest wasn’t subtle. Neither was the way the men around him shifted slightly, as if they’d rehearsed how to move together.

Lucas didn’t turn his head immediately. He let the silence stretch just long enough to remind everyone that he wasn’t obliged to answer fast.

"And you also know that dibs are only for unaffiliated climbers. This is Iori, he’s a member of my sun clan, well former sun clan. Funny thing, he used to be my supervisor back then, but unfortunately for him, he also croaked."

The jab was delivered with a smile that didn’t reach Lucas’s eyes. Lucas looked Iori up and down like he was confirming the story for himself, alive enough to stand, dead enough to count, useful enough to keep.

Iori swallowed the irritation. He wasn’t here to win pride contests in front of predators.

"It’s fine," Iori looked behind him, "By the way, some guy wearing black leather didn’t go ahead of us, did he?" Iori asked.

His gaze slid past Lucas’s shoulder, past the portal, past the milling groups. He didn’t see Kael. No obvious tracksuit boots. No awkward gear silhouette. No strange gauntlets. The absence felt wrong in the same way a missing tooth felt wrong; you kept probing it with your tongue without thinking.

Lucas’s brow lifted, more curious than concerned.

"Why you asking? So far, you guys are the first; no one has left yet." Lucas asked.

That should’ve eased Iori. It didn’t. Kael had a habit of not being where he should be. It wasn’t luck; no one stayed alive on luck alone that long. It was some kind of method that made other people pay the cost.

"Tsk, nothing much, tell me, how’s the guild?"

Iori asked it like a casual check-in, but his eyes stayed active, scanning faces, reading posture. The fortress had the smell of sweat and metal and old stone, but beneath it was something else, anticipation. The kind of buzz you get before a raid. Or before a robbery.

"Strong as always," Lucas said.

The blue-armored Lionards man snorted like he’d been waiting for that exact word.

"Yeah, right, you guys are still third, don’t call yourself strong." The man wearing the blue armor said.

Iori’s head tilted slightly toward Lucas, not taking his eyes fully off the Lionards. The tension between guilds had a shape here. You could almost see the lines where violence was allowed to happen and where it was delayed.

"Who’s this guy?" Iori asked.

Lucas didn’t dignify the Lionards with a full glance.

"Don’t bother with him, they’re Lionards, bunch of gangbangers," he said.

Iori exhaled once through his nose. Great. Exactly the kind of people you wanted at a choke point with fresh recruits coming through, organized, hungry, and used to taking what they wanted.

Iori rubbed the bridge of his nose with two fingers, feeling grime beneath his nails. The fatigue from the first floor sat in the joints now, not the muscles, deep, stubborn.

"So, what’s the... rules?"

He forced himself to ask it. He hated asking it. It made him sound new again, and he wasn’t new. Not really. He’d just been stripped down to the part of himself that could be killed. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

Lucas’s eyes flicked behind Iori again, counting heads with the same cold efficiency the tower used to count kills.

"Same as before, nothing much changed. But, is this all you managed to gather?" Lucas said as he looked behind Iori.

The five survivors shifted, some avoiding eye contact, some staring too hard at nothing. Their gear was mismatched, their faces drawn. Nobody looked eager to be claimed.

Iori’s jaw tightened. He didn’t like being judged on a number when he could still taste smoke from the basilisk’s cooking in his throat.

"You try and get more members alive if the whole floor broke into literal hell." Iori looked around and said, "I don’t see any Snakes here."

Lucas’s expression hardened in a way that said he understood more than he was sharing. The Lionards around them listened too, pretending not to.

"That guild is long since dead in the Reverse Tower, absorbed by Rising Tides. The second rank guild, why are you asking?"

Iori’s mouth twitched. Even dead, the Snakes still managed to be a nuisance in conversation.

"Good, nothing good ever came from those guys," Iori said.