The Sand That Awakened

The moment Bennett's party stepped into the third-floor office, the first thing that greeted their eyes was a cluster of zombies standing motionless in the gloom.

They lingered like vacant shells, their hollow eyes staring blankly out the dust-streaked windows. Bennett quickly tallied their numbers and raised Shooting Star.

Thwack!

A steel bolt buried itself deep in a zombie's skull. The creature crumpled, overturning a nearby desk with a clatter that instantly drew the attention of every corpse in the room.

"Grrr...?"

Bennett reached back and tapped Edgar on the shoulder. "Brace yourself. Here they come."

"Right!"

The party shifted into combat formation, tensing for the inevitable onslaught—only for the snarling to taper off into nothing.

"Graaah..."

After a few aimless glances around the cluttered room, the zombies simply settled back into lethargy.

Bennett and his companions exchanged bewildered looks. They had braced for a frenzied swarm, yet nothing happened.

"...What's going on?"

"It's like they can't even see us," Kyle whispered, his brow furrowed.

They weren't far away at all. In any normal encounter, stepping this close would have triggered a ravenous stampede the instant a single monster turned its neck.

Bennett was just as surprised as the others, though he kept his face an unreadable mask. Cocking his head slightly, he lined up another shot and pulled the trigger. With a muted thwip-crack, another bolt struck a zombie dead center between the eyes.

Thud!

The corpse crashed to the linoleum, yet the surrounding undead did not react in the slightest. It was more than enough noise to send ordinary zombies into a frenzy, but these monsters barely twitched.

Could it be...?

A memory surfaced in Bennett's mind—the system alert that had flashed before his eyes when they severed the anomaly deep below.

Permanent debuff to zombies.

That single condition had reshaped the dungeon's ecology. With their driving malice neutered, the undead had lost their predatory edge.

Realizing this, Bennett moved with calculated boldness. Stepping forward, he rapidly picked off every lingering corpse within his sights.

"Krrrk!"

Body after body dropped with dull thuds, turning the office into a graveyard of fallen husks. Even with corpses toppling all around them, the remaining zombies merely turned their heads in slow, dull-witted arcs. The terrifying pack behavior of the past was entirely gone.

Toward the end of the sweep, a couple of stragglers finally caught their scent and shuffled in their direction, but their pace was laughably slow—a sluggish, aimless trudge that was even worse than the crippled specimens they had encountered on the lower levels.

Bennett lowered his crossbow and shared his conclusion with the team.

"They really have gotten ridiculously weak," Edgar remarked, resting his broad axe against his shoulder.

"Does that mean we won't have to worry about zombies anymore?" Kyle asked, a hint of relief coloring his voice.

Clap.

Bennett struck his palms together, bringing everyone's attention squarely back to him.

"Don't let your guard down. Think back on every dungeon we've survived so far."

The premature optimism faded from their faces, replaced once more by sober focus. Even setting the zombies aside, danger had hounded their every step. In the underground research lab, they had nearly been buried alive beneath tons of collapsing bedrock, to say nothing of the hostile scavenger parties that had tried to slit their throats.

"We'll conduct a quick sweep of the immediate area," Bennett commanded. "Watch the blind spots."

"Understood."

Having visited municipal offices back in his homeland, Bennett couldn't help but notice how alien this world's administrative spaces were. In Lancelot, an office shared a similar core concept—sturdy desks and high-backed chairs arranged to process paperwork. Here, however, desks were crammed together in suffocating density, divided by cloth-covered partitions that blocked all lateral sightlines. It was a bizarre, unnatural layout he had never seen before.

Furthermore, atop nearly every desk sat a wide, dark screen resembling a massive glass tablet, accompanied by small adhesive scraps of paper stuck along the bezel.

Beside each screen rested a rectangular metal tower, connected to the display via thick black cords. Other wires ran from the tower to a flat plastic board covered in tiny square keys and a smooth, palm-sized oval device.

Click, click.

Bennett poked at the buttons with a gloved finger. What in the world were these used for?

"Bennett-nim, should we salvage these as well?" Kyle asked, hovering over an intact workstation.

"Take a set just in case. Find the ones in the best condition."

A pristine monitor, desktop tower, keyboard, and mouse vanished into their Sub-space Pouch. Whether these contraptions held any actual worth was something they would only find out once they returned to the surface. Along the way, the party scavenged other sundries—ordinary goods like ballpoint pens that appeared frequently in ruins but commanded a steady price back in the city.

"Is that everything from this section?"

"Yes, all clear."

That hardly meant the entire floor had been cleared. The office was vast, and they had only combed through a single wing. But just as Bennett turned toward the adjoining corridor, he threw up a hand.

"Halt. Someone's here."

His Detection caught the subtle displacement of air first, followed an instant later by Kyle, Edgar, and Erika picking up the muffled noise. As the party snapped into defensive posture, hushed murmurs and the rustle of gear drifted from behind a freestanding partition wall.

A second later, six fully armed scavengers rounded the partition and froze.

"?!"

Both groups locked ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠eyes. Despite their shock, the newcomers reacted with practiced discipline, fanning out into combat stances without missing a beat. They clearly weren't greenhorns on their first expedition.

"Who the hell are you bastards?!" the lead scavenger barked, his knuckles whitening around the hilt of his broadsword.

Bennett didn't waste his breath telling them to calm down. Telling panicked mercenaries to calm down only stoked their paranoia. Instead, he raised his empty hands where everyone could see them.

"Just a passing party."

"Bullshit!"

"We heard footsteps ahead. We stopped here to avoid colliding in the dark."

The scavenger leader's face twisted into an ugly scowl. "Cut the crap! You were lying in ambush waiting for us to walk into your crosshairs!"

"If we truly meant to ambush you, would we be standing here chatting?"

Bennett smoothly shifted his coat, letting the dark metal frame of Shooting Star glide into clear view.

The eyes of the six scavengers widened in unison.

"B-Boss... look at that. That's a repeating crossbow!"

"I've never seen one in person... I thought those were just merchant rumors."

"Shut up, you idiots! Keep your eyes forward!" the leader hissed, swatting at his subordinate's shoulder.

Bennett watched their brief scuffle, his expression cool and unbothered, before continuing in a steady, measured tone.

"If we had opened fire from concealment, half of your party would already be on the floor. We chose not to because pointless bloodshed serves no one."

"Ha! Cocky bastard, aren't you? You think you can strut around just because you're holding fancy dwarven engineering?"

"Then," Bennett murmured, his eyes narrowing into cold, lethal slits, "care to find out?"

"..."

Gulp.

The dry swallow from one of the rear scavengers cut through the tense silence like a falling coin. Even the blustering leader froze mid-breath, his aggressive posture faltering beneath Bennett's icy stare. After several excruciating seconds of hesitation, the man forced out a strained reply.

"Th-There's... no need for that. Sir."

"Good." Bennett's tone snapped back to polite indifference. "Then let us go our separate ways. Which route were you heading?"

"Th-That way."

Bennett gestured with his chin, giving them the right of way. The leader nodded jerkily, gathered his crew with hurried hand signals, and beat a hasty retreat toward the far corridor without looking back.

Watching their retreating backs vanish down the hallway, Erika tilted her head. "They won't circle around to backstab us, will they?"

"They might," Bennett replied casually.

"What?"

"If they do, our earnings for the day just go up."

Erika stared at him blankly for a second, then broke into an amused smile and nodded in agreement. Naturally, the fleeing scavengers had no intention of throwing their lives away—no ambush materialized.

Whoooosh—

A sudden draft swept over Bennett's collar, prompting him to glance toward the exterior perimeter. Several broad glass panes along the outer wall were shattered, allowing cold gusts to eddy into the building. Beyond the broken glass, nothing stirred. Scattered zombie corpses littered the floor nearby, likely the handiwork of the scavenger team they had just crossed paths with.

"As you all know, keep your distance from the windows—"

Before Bennett could finish his sentence, an eerie, sickening azure radiance poured through the shattered frames, drenching the office in unnatural indigo light. The cold beam swept methodically across the floor like a searching searchlight, lingering for several harrowing minutes before retracting into the sky without a sound.

"...Avoid it at all costs," Bennett finished softly.

"Y-Yes, sir!"

Reminded of the chilling peril of the Blue Moon, the party nodded solemnly and steered clear of the windowline. Bennett turned his attention toward the inner perimeter, where rows of private offices lined the hallway.

The previous scavengers had been thorough; almost every room had been stripped clean of portable valuables.

Conference Room 1.

Bennett stepped into a glass-walled enclave situated deep in the interior. As he kicked aside piles of overturned folders and shattered plastic, his foot struck something dense. He paused.

What's this?

Nestled beneath a layer of moldering paper lay a weathered booklet.

While the heavy cardstock cover had survived reasonably intact, the inner pages were mostly stained by moisture or torn to ribbons. Bennett flipped through the stiff paper until his fingers caught on a pristine spread in the middle.

A dog?

The only undamaged page featured a detailed color photograph of a hound made entirely of sleek, jointed metal.

Bennett couldn't read the intricate glyphs of the Dungeon Language, but his gaze remained glued to the mechanical hound's striking profile. The small mockups they ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had seen on the second floor had looked impressive, but they felt like fanciful artistic models. This, however, radiated the utilitarian elegance of a machine built for practical warfare.

After a moment's consideration, he slipped the brochure into his coat pocket—driven not by monetary greed, but by genuine curiosity.

Tap, tap.

A soft knock on the glass frame broke his reverie. Kyle and Edgar were waiting by the doorway, signaling that their sector was cleared.

Crunch.

As Bennett stepped past the threshold of the conference room, a strange grating texture under his boot caught his attention. He looked down.

Sand?

Come to think of it, there had been a thin dusting of sand back at their initial entry point on the first floor—enough to trace lines with a finger. Yet when they had pursued the ambushing scavengers across the second floor, the floors had been completely bare. Now, here on the third floor, sand had reappeared.

He scuffed the floor with his heel, brushing aside the coarse beige grains until the hard vinyl tile reemerged underneath.

Did an anomalous sandstorm sweep through the building?

The glass panes manufactured in this strange world were exceptionally resilient. If something had shattered them from the outside, the winds must have been ferocious. That would certainly explain the silt settling across the interior.

Brushing the thought aside, Bennett pointed toward a heavy metal fire door at the end of the hall. According to the emergency layout posted near the elevators, it housed the stairwell leading upward.

"We'll take a brief rest once we secure the fourth floor—"

Schluck!

Mid-stride, Bennett's right leg suddenly sank into the floor. The sensation was unnerving, as if solid ground had dissolved into a bottomless quagmire.

What is this?!

Without warning, his entire lower body began to submerge. He instinctively wrenched his leg upward to pull free, but the sand surged around his ankle like coiled wire, gripping his limb with vice-like ferocity. The sheer dragging force rivaled the grip of an apex predator.

Bennett's eyes narrowed as he opened his status display.

He instantly dumped all twelve of his saved stat points into Strength, swelling his physical power. Yet even with the massive surge of muscle reinforcement, the pulling force didn't budge. If anything, the constricting sand clamped tighter around his calf, as though mocking his brute-force resistance.

"Bennett-nim!" Kyle yelled, lunging forward with his sword drawn.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"Stay where you are!" Bennett snapped.

Halting his companions in their tracks, Bennett glared down at the creeping vortex. The sand had already swallowed him to his knees, but panic found no purchase in his mind. In life-or-death crises, losing composure was the quickest way to die.

His senses blossomed outward in an instantaneous sphere. The invisible pulse peeled ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠back the veil of mundane sight, revealing what had previously escaped notice.

Is this... mana?

The faint, prickling vibration he had dismissed earlier suddenly resonated with razor clarity. It bore an unmistakable resemblance to the repulsive aura of the Hand of Curse, the shattered vessel of Ra'al, and the fanatical cultists aboard the cargo ship. It was an alien power that mimicked mana while remaining fundamentally distorted.

Once he recognized the nature of the threat, the solution became simple.

Bennett channeled his Psionic Energy downward in a concentrated burst, flooding his legs and boots with foreign authority. The reaction was immediate. The suffocating tension around his calves unraveled like severed rope.

To an outside observer, the sand looked identical, but Bennett felt the supernatural suction evaporate in an instant. The bottomless pit vanished, replaced once more by the unyielding floor beneath his boots.

With a clean, explosive vault, Bennett tore himself free from the quagmire. Edgar and Kyle rushed in, grabbing his arms and hauling him onto stable ground.

"Are you hurt, sir?!" Edgar asked, scanning him frantically.

"Stay back," Bennett warned, his voice low and sharp. "It's not over."

Before his comrades could process the warning, the scattered dunes across the office floor began to churn. Grains of sand spiraled upward in defiance of gravity, knitting together as the shifting mass rose into the air like an undulating wall.

The towering barrier blocked the hallway completely. And within its swirling face, two hollow, malevolent eyes opened in silence, locking their gaze directly onto Bennett.