Lucian and Ryan kept staring at each other—one with a scowling, irritated face, the other smiling on the outside but clearly not on the inside.
Silvanus had already sensed the strange tension between Lucian and Ryan, but he hadn’t expected Ryan to be the one to pick a fight first.
After all, from his first impression, this "childhood friend" of his seed gentle and considerate of others’ feelings. It was hard to imagine just how much he must dislike Lucian.
With that thought, Silvanus glanced back at Lucian. His expression was sour, his eyes practically murderous as he glared at Ryan.
Silvanus: "..." Alright then, maybe Lucian does deserve to be hated.
Still, now wasn’t the best ti for his two teammates to start fighting.
Thinking that, Silvanus stuck to his established character, pretending he hadn’t noticed the undercurrents between Ryan and Lucian.
He nodded and said, "Alright, I’ll head back to my room first."
With that, he got up and left the room.
Click.
The sound of the door closing echoed.
Lucian and Ryan simultaneously looked away from the now-vanished figure of Silvanus. Their eyes shifted—and locked onto each other once again.
Lucian curled his lips, his gaze full of mockery. "No wonder this place reeks more than I expected. Turns out a dead rat is lying around."
Ryan smiled, his eyes narrowing slightly, but the smile didn’t reach their depths. Unlike Lucian’s veiled tone, he went straight to the point: "Who are you?"
Then he answered his question: "We’re alike, but not the sa. Soone who’s already fallen should stay far away from him."
Ryan’s threat didn’t scare Lucian in the slightest. He raised an eyebrow and replied with a challenge: "Try if you think you can do anything."
With that, he turned around and walked back to his room, paying no mind to the growing darkness in Ryan’s expression.
[Hold on, what the hell are they talking about? I feel like there’s so big secret going on here!!!]
[This storyline is getting unpredictable. Has the writer in this corner of the world finally figured out how to make things interesting?]
[But seriously, what the hell are they talking about? "Don’t go near soone"? Are they talking about Silvanus?]
[Help, are we seriously getting body-snatching this early into the dungeon? I swear, both Ryan and Lucian seem off sohow.]
[Even the fact that a hot guy is showing up in a place like this is already suspicious, ha ha ha.]
[Fair point... waiting for them to tear Silvanus in half.]
[What kind of horror scene are you imagining up there? I don’t think that’s what they ant at all.]
[hmnmmmmmmm]
Silvanus read the comnts continuously flashing before his eyes, his expression slightly confused. Although he had said he was returning to his room, he was still straining his ears to catch any conversation outside. Only now did he realize the rooms were incredibly soundproof—so much so that even with his evolved body, he couldn’t hear anything from outside.
So Silvanus turned to the comnts, hoping to glean so helpful information. But after reading them, he just felt even more confused.
Were Ryan and Lucian hiding sothing? What were the chances that their bodies had been taken over and their souls swapped? What could be the motive behind such a thing? But then again, that was just viewer speculation—usually, dungeon threats wouldn’t appear this early.
Most likely, the issue was that Ryan and Lucian weren’t exactly normal.
And what did the viewers an when they said those two might tear him apart? What exactly did they say?
"What are you so curious about?"
Just then, Lucian’s voice suddenly rang out, snapping Silvanus out of his thoughts.
He looked up to et Lucian’s familiar arrogant gaze and realized that, in his distraction, he had accidentally voiced his question out loud.
He smiled and said, "I’m just curious, that’s all. Is that not allowed?"
Lucian frowned, clearly annoyed by Silvanus’s smile.
As he walked past Silvanus, his shoulder bumped against him. With a voice full of disdain, he said, "It’s none of your business, little lamb."
Little lamb?
Silvanus was so angry he nearly laughed, but he held it in—he couldn’t ruin his performance now.
Lucian, wait. When I find your weakness, you’ll see who the real little lamb is.
"Thud!"
The sound of a body hitting the ground echoed. Silvanus had collapsed to the floor, one hand clutching his other arm, head lowered in silence. All that could be seen was him biting down hard on his lower lip.
Lucian froze, staring at Silvanus in disbelief. Doubt filled his eyes—as if he were seriously wondering whether that light bump just now could’ve knocked Silvanus down like that.
[Silvanus is overacting so badly. Lucian barely touched him. And if he was gonna fall, wouldn’t it have happened during the bump? Why did he wait until Lucian had already walked several steps away? Fake, fake, so phony!]
[I get the feeling Lucian isn’t so simple. He’s easily angered, and I bet it’s terrifying when he gets mad. Are we seriously getting into conflict this early on day one?]
[Still don’t get why Silvanus is doing this...]
[Honestly, I suspect Silvanus didn’t even lose his mory... What’s up with this dungeon? Why does everyone seem weird? Is the team leader, not the only liar here?]
Team leader?
Silvanus suddenly caught on to an unexpected bit of information.
[No one’s going to believe him this ti!]
The flood of spam comnts continued scrolling rapidly.
Lucian turned around, about to head toward Silvanus, when the door suddenly swung open, and Ryan entered.
The mont he saw the scene in the room, his expression darkened. He quickly rushed over to Silvanus, helped him, and asked urgently, "What happened? What did Lucian do to you?!"
Lucian instantly reacted like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. He snapped, "I didn’t do anything!"
After a pause, he looked at Silvanus, still sitting on the ground with his head down. Then suddenly, he lunged forward, grabbing Silvanus’s chin and forcing him to look up.
Lucian’s eyes narrowed slightly as if trying to scrutinize every detail of Silvanus’s expression.
"Don’t fake it. I didn’t use any force," Lucian said, practically spitting out each word.
Silvanus turned his face away, saying nothing.
In truth, his thoughts were already spinning rapidly.
Even though Lucian looked pissed off, Silvanus had still caught a flicker of concern in his eyes—however faint it was.
Silvanus realized that despite Lucian’s gruff and unpleasant deanor, he seed hesitant to use too much force when interacting with him. Silvanus was sure that if he acted friendly toward Lucian, the man would be visibly surprised—perhaps even a little pleased—before quickly growing angry and brushing it off.
Lucian’s thoughts were hard to read, strangely similar to Drake’s. But Silvanus didn’t care. That was all that mattered as long as he could exploit it to his advantage. He knew how to handle people who were inconsistent inside and out. One way was to ignore them completely, as he did with Drake. But with Lucian, Silvanus had another approach.
Act weak—until Lucian genuinely believed he was weak.
People often let their guard down around things they care about.
"Silvanus, try to stand up. What happened to your arm?"
Ryan spoke gently as he tried to roll up Silvanus’s sleeve to take a look, though he seed oddly hesitant, his hands fumbling in a way that clashed with his usual calm deanor.
In contrast to Lucian, Ryan showed concern in a different, rigid way—like he was afraid that even touching Silvanus too much would be so form of disrespect.
For so reason, Silvanus felt a strange sense of familiarity in both Ryan and Lucian. It was almost like... they were his believers.
Though, of course, that couldn’t possibly be true.
Silvanus ignored Ryan’s awkwardness and rolled up his sleeve himself. The area was already bruised badly—bluish-purple and red as if it had suffered a profound impact.
"No way! I didn’t do anything!" Lucian shouted under Ryan’s questioning gaze. He, too, looked shocked by the angry-looking bruise on Silvanus’s arm. Enraged, he stepped forward, grabbed Silvanus’s wrist, and demanded loudly, "Who did this? I’ll kill them!"
"Ow..."
Silvanus winced in pain. Lucian imdiately jerked back like he’d been shocked by electricity. Staring at the wound, he muttered, "Sorry..."
Then, frustrated, he ruffled his hair and began pacing the room like a caged animal, filled with unending rage and nowhere to release it.
Under Ryan’s suspicious gaze, Silvanus quickly said, "It wasn’t Lucian... I got this injury when I fell."
Ryan looked at Silvanus, his eyes filled with sorrow that they were almost overflowing. "The path to the lake wasn’t that slippery. Soone must’ve pushed you for you to fall that hard... and even lose your mory..."
"Didn’t you see any signs, idiot?!" Lucian snapped angrily at Ryan.
Ryan said nothing, seemingly accepting the bla for missing sothing so important.
He didn’t respond to Lucian; he only turned to Silvanus and said gently, "Try to get so sleep. Maybe the injury will feel better by morning."
Silvanus nodded and stood, limping slightly as he walked toward the only bed in the room.
"Your leg’s hurt too? Why didn’t you tell ?"
Ryan rushed to support him, clearly worried—and a little scolding.
Silvanus shrank back and muttered, "I’ve already caused you enough trouble..."
He was referring to his mory loss, which had happened just as they were about to start their mission.
Ryan opened his mouth to say more but said, "Sorry, I raised my voice. You should rest."
Silvanus nodded and finally lay down, genuinely exhausted by everything that had happened that day.
The mont his breathing evened out, Ryan and Lucian exchanged a glance—as if reaching so unspoken agreent at that exact mont.
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