The environment in the deep region had changed markedly from that of the middle and shallow regions.
It still had the overall structure of an underground cave, but the space here had grown far wider and taller.
The ceiling stood at least twenty or thirty meters above the ground, as though they were inside an immense subterranean cavern hall. The sweeping view made them feel small.
The rock walls on either side no longer confined them to narrow passages, but opened out into broad spaces. In places, they formed natural ledges and slopes, and even small forests of stalactites hung from the ceiling, mirroring the stalagmites below.
Within this vast, deep labyrinth, three bedraggled figures stumbled along in desperate flight.
They wore the distinctive uniforms of Glory Kail Academy, but their clothes were already in tatters, covered in mud, moss, dark stains that looked like blood, and holes eaten through by some kind of acid.
Two boys and one girl, their faces were etched with utter exhaustion, bone-deep terror, and despair on the verge of collapse.
"Quick! This way! Get in there!"
A boy with short brown hair and several fresh scrapes on his face shouted in a low voice. His left arm hung unnaturally at his side, swinging limply as he ran, clearly badly injured.
He led the rush toward an unusually dense patch of low shrubs beneath the rock wall, their leaves a deep purple bordering on black.
The boy and girl behind him threw themselves into it with almost the last of their strength. All three scrambled into the deepest part of the bushes, desperately curling up and pressing themselves against the cold, damp rock wall.
The moment they were hidden, all three held their breath so tightly that even their hearts seemed about to stop. Only their eyes moved in terror, fixed on the gaps between the branches and leaves.
Heavy footsteps approached from the distance. Each step made the soft ground tremble slightly, sending vibrations through the hands and feet they had tucked beneath the fallen leaves until they went numb.
An enormous, misshapen shadow, reeking of a nauseating stench, slowly lumbered past along the path beside their hiding place, less than five meters wide.
In the faint glow of a distant cluster of blue fungi, they could just make out a humanoid monster over three meters tall. Its skin was a rocky gray-black, its surface covered in knobby growths and cracks.
The shadow stopped beside the bushes.
Time seemed to freeze.
Cold sweat instantly soaked their thin, tattered clothes. The icy sensation made them want to shiver uncontrollably, yet they dared not make the slightest sound.
The lone girl clamped her hands over her mouth and nose, her nails almost digging into the flesh of her cheeks. Her blue eyes brimmed with terrified tears.
The two boys were equally pale, their jaws clenched tight. They did not even dare blink.
The monster lingered outside the bushes for about five or six seconds, but to the three hiding within, it felt like centuries.
Its crimson eyes seemed to stare toward the bushes for a while, its heavy breath almost spraying onto the outermost leaves.
At last, seemingly unable to find a clear target, it gave a low growl and resumed its heavy strides, continuing into the darkness at the far end of the passage.
Only after the footsteps had vanished completely into the depths of the cave, and they had waited a good while longer to make sure nothing else stirred, did the three collapse into the rotting leaves and dirt, as though every bone had been pulled from their bodies.
They began gulping down the cold, damp air, their chests heaving as though they had finally surfaced after a long stretch underwater.
"Hah... hah... We... we dodged another one..."
The brown-haired boy, Evan, leaned against the rock wall and wiped the mixture of cold sweat and mud from his face. His voice was hoarse, trembling with the relief of having survived.
"Dodged it? How much longer can we keep dodging them?!"
The other boy, Leonard, had curly blond hair and broad patches of scrapes and bruises across his face. He whipped his head around, the fear in his bloodshot eyes pushed to its limit, bursting instead into a twisted fury:
"It's all your fault, Evan! If you hadn't sworn the pay was great, the risks were manageable, and this one job would turn our lives around, why would we have lost our minds and taken that damned commission? We couldn't even meet the client, and the contract terms were a complete fog!"
"My fault?! Leonard, your fucking eyes nearly popped out when you saw the number on that contract! Who was it who said, 'With this money, we can pay off most of my family's debt, and there'll be enough for my sister's dowry too'?!"
Evan snarled back, refusing to give ground. His injured arm spasmed with his agitation, making him bare his teeth in pain:
"Now that things have gone wrong, you're dumping all the blame on me? You weren't so high-minded when you agreed to it!"
"Enough! Stop fighting!!"
Lia, the only girl among them, cried out in a voice on the verge of breaking, sharp despite her efforts to keep it down.
Her pale blond hair clung wetly to her paper-white face. Her blue eyes were red and swollen, and tears kept rolling down, mingling with the grime on her cheeks.
"What's the point of fighting... Will fighting help us find the way back? Will it get us away from those monsters?! We lost the Magic Device... We lost the map too... We don't even know where we are anymore... Sob..."
Her words were like a bucket of icy water poured over Evan and Leonard's heads, instantly extinguishing their freshly kindled anger. All that remained was an even colder despair, weighing heavily on each of their hearts.
Now, not only were at least three or four terrifying, highly aggressive monsters like the one they had just seen hunting them through the vast deep region, but they had also lost all sense of direction, blundering like headless flies through this enormous, intricate underground maze.
These deep caverns, filled with darkness and danger, had turned from a place of exploration into a prison of death they could not escape.
It was further proof of the absurd, deceptive difficulty of the Academy Dungeon's first floor.
The officially recommended entry level was Level 20, but any student naive enough to think reaching Level 20 would let them roam the first floor unhindered would most likely learn through a bloody lesson what it meant to "walk in and get carried out."
In reality, the danger within the first floor's deep region far exceeded anything its figures on paper could convey.
Evan, Leonard, and Lia all came from minor noble families that had long since fallen into decline, struggling financially and barely able to hold their heads up in noble circles.
If their families had any means left, if they could easily obtain training resources or generous allowances, why would they have taken such a desperate risk for a reward large enough to change their families' circumstances, willingly signing a commission whose client's true identity was a mystery?
Poverty and the urgent desire to change their circumstances had blinded them to caution and pushed them into this abyss.
As third-year students, their average level was only around Level 21, already the limit of what they could achieve with their scant resources.
With that strength, they had no hope of facing the deep-region monsters head-on, creatures generally around Level 25 or perhaps even higher, with all manner of troublesome abilities.
They had only escaped their previous encounters by pushing their bodies beyond endurance, burning through their mana without restraint, and relying on a few scraps of elusive luck.
But now, their stamina, mana, and mental strength had all reached their limits, if not exceeded them.
Despair gnawed at what little will they had left like maggots burrowing into their bones.
"Are we... really going to... die here...?"
Lia's crying gradually faded into broken sobs, her eyes staring blankly at the cavern ceiling swallowed by darkness overhead.
Evan and Leonard fell silent too.
Their earlier accusations seemed so hollow and helpless before this hopeless predicament, even laughable.
They slumped in the rotting leaves with their backs against the cold, slippery rock wall, their eyes unfocused as they stared dumbly into the endless darkness ahead.
They seemed to have accepted the cruel end approaching them, utterly drained of even the strength to struggle.
Yet their heated argument and intermittent sobs had already carried clearly outward, like sparks flickering in the night.