The mid-ring contract came because Torvin made a comment in the guild hall at the wrong volume about how the outer ring was getting repetitive, and the wrong person heard it, and that person was Branch Master Kelvin, who had apparently decided that Pale Coin was ready for a step up whether I agreed or not.

  The contract was a Thornwood mid-ring reconnaissance — map the first three sections, document monster activity, identify the position of the Dungeon Troll that had held the ring for six years without any party managing a clear. No engagement required. Scout and report.

  "No engagement," I said, reading the contract twice. "That's what this says."

  "That's what it says," Kelvin confirmed.

  "So if we find the troll, we observe it and leave."

  "Correct."

  "We do not fight the troll."

  "The contract does not require that, no."

  I looked at Torvin. He was looking at the ceiling with the expression of someone who was absolutely thinking about fighting the troll.

  "Torvin," I said.

  "Mm."

  "We are not fighting the troll."

  "I know."

  "I need you to know that with your whole body. Not just the part that processes words."

  "I understand completely," he said, which was the answer that convinced me least.

  The mid-ring started two hundred meters past the outer-ring boundary and you felt it before you saw it. The light changed — less of it, the canopy thicker, the air wetter. The ambient sounds shifted from birds and wind to something lower and more deliberate. The monsters here had lived deeper and longer and had opinions about visitors.

  Rena had been here twice. Both times she'd come back. I was counting on the streak.

  The first section mapped cleanly. We moved slowly, no engagement — a pack of razor wolves clocked us and decided we weren't worth it, which I was choosing to take as a compliment rather than an insult. Sera logged the mana density readings. Yua stayed close to the center of our formation and did not get lost because in the mid-ring there was no branching and only one real path forward and backward, which I suspect was the only navigational setup she thrived in.

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  Section two had a hobgoblin patrol — four of them, better equipped than the outer ring variety, with crude iron weapons instead of sharpened sticks. We went around. Contract said recon, not combat.

  Section three is where I heard it.

  A sound like something extremely large and extremely displeased moving through undergrowth that was trying to slow it down and failing. Rhythmic, heavy, with a wet undertone that I didn't enjoy thinking about.

  Rena held up a fist. Everyone stopped.

  She pointed left. Seventy meters, maybe eighty, through the trees. In the dimness I could make out a shape — massive, eight feet tall at the shoulder, built like someone had tried to make a person and run out of refinement halfway through. The Dungeon Troll moved like it owned everything it could reach, which in the mid-ring was everything.

  Its skin had a faint greenish sheen that I recognized from the guild bestiary — regenerative tissue, constantly cycling, the biological mechanism that made standard weapons useless against it. You cut it and it healed faster than you could cut. You had to hit it with something it couldn't regenerate against. Fire disrupted the tissue regeneration specifically — something about the heat interfering with the mana cycle that drove the healing.

  I have twelve enhanced Fire Arrow scrolls, I thought, watching it. Each one at nine uses. That's a hundred and eight fire arrows. Against a B-rank regenerating monster that we are absolutely not here to fight.

  The troll stopped moving. Raised its head. Sniffed the air.

  We were downwind. It didn't find us. After a long, terrible twenty seconds it moved on, crashing through the undergrowth to the east.

  Nobody breathed for a full ten seconds after it was gone.

  "We're leaving," I said quietly.

  "We still have section four," Sera whispered, notebook half-raised.

  "We have enough. We're leaving."

  We left. I wrote up the recon report in the guild that evening, noted the troll's approximate territory, logged Sera's mana density readings, and collected the contract fee.

  Then I went back to my room and sat on the bed and thought about a hundred and eight fire arrows and a monster that had been unclearable for six years and whether I was being an idiot for thinking what I was thinking.

  We're not ready, I thought. We need more runs. We need Sera to have the Fusion controlled reliably. We need a plan that accounts for Torvin being Torvin and Rena's freeze window and Yua's exit path.

  But, I thought.

  A hundred and eight fire arrows. And nothing in that ring fights fire.

  I opened my status screen.

  [ STATUS — PARK JUNHO ]

  Level:6

  HP:210 / 210

  MP:160 / 160

  INT:19 (E)

  SKILL:Minor Enhancement Lv.4

  RANK:F

  LUK:3 (F)

  Level six. Skill level four. MP pool growing as the INT crept upward. Each enhancement pass costing slightly less than the last as the efficiency improved.

  Not yet, I decided. Two more weeks of runs. Get the skill to level five. Get the team's coordination tighter. Then we talk about the troll.

  I closed the screen and went to sleep.

  I dreamed about a hundred and eight fire arrows and woke up convinced I was right.