Mark kept staring at the site of the accident, unable to look away, until the Demon Lord’s voice pulled him from his trance.

"You know," she said quietly, her eyes fixed on the street. "Many times I wished I had really died that day."

"...Why?"

"Because that day was when the real nightmare began..."

"..."

"After joining that group, it didn’t take me long to realize something," the Demon Lord said as the surroundings transformed around them. "And that was that things between them were incredibly tense... much more so than it seemed at first glance."

When the scene finished forming, Mark found himself in what looked like a makeshift camp inside the dungeon.

There were sleeping bags spread across the stone floor, a fire burning at the center, and supplies stacked against one of the walls.

But the atmosphere was far from peaceful, as the archer and the assassin were arguing with each other.

"Sleeping again?!" the archer reproached him, arms crossed and brow furrowed. "You’re supposed to be looking for a way out instead of just lying there doing nothing!"

The assassin, leaning against the wall with his arms behind his head, didn’t even bother opening his eyes.

"Already did," he replied, annoyed. "I spent all morning combing through every corridor of this damn place, same as yesterday, same as last week, same as last month. And you know what I found?... Nothing."

"That’s because you’re not searching properly."

"The problem isn’t how I search," he shot back, finally opening his eyes, his tone irritated. "The problem is there is no exit... We’ve been looking for years, so stop getting your hopes up already."

"Don’t say that!"

"It’s the truth and you know it."

Mary, who was watching the argument from the side, tried to step in.

"W-wait," she said, taking a step forward. "Maybe if we organized better and split up the search areas, we could—"

"Huh?!" The archer whipped her head toward her, and all her frustration found a new target. "You’re going to give your opinion on how to look for an exit?"

Mary shrank back slightly.

"I was just saying that—"

"You’re a goddamn level one who just got here," the archer cut her off with contempt. "You’re nothing but dead weight, and on top of that the only thing you know how to do is summon that pathetic shadow demon that couldn’t even kill a rat. So do me a favor and shut your fucking mouth."

"..."

"You’ve been here what, a month?" the archer continued mercilessly. "We’ve been trapped in this hole for years. Years. So don’t you dare come here telling us how to do things like you understand anything."

Mark, who was watching everything from his place beside the Demon Lord, frowned.

There were several things about that scene that caught his attention.

The first was confirming that the Demon Lord, like him, had reincarnated as a level one.

That gave him an uncomfortable sense of connection to her, because he knew exactly what it was like to start from the very bottom in a hostile world.

But there was something else. Something the archer had just said that troubled him.

"Wait..." Mark said, turning toward the Demon Lord. "How long had all of them been trapped here?"

"The oldest of them all was that loudmouth," she replied, nodding toward the archer. "She’d been trapped in this dungeon for three years by the time I arrived."

"Damn... and the others?"

"It varied," the Demon Lord replied. "The one who arrived right before me was the lizard man, and he’d only been here a year and a half."

Mark absorbed it in silence. Years trapped in the same place, with no way out and no hope... it wasn’t hard to understand why the atmosphere between them was so toxic.

Back in the scene, the situation had escalated.

"Leave her alone already!" the wolf-eared woman suddenly cut in, stepping between Mary and the archer. "What do you gain by taking it out on her? She just got here, she’s not to blame for anything that’s happened to us."

"Stay out of it!" the archer snapped at her. "Always defending her like she’s your pet. You think coddling the newbie is going to get us out of here any faster?"

"At least I’m not running around screaming at everyone like some hysterical bitch!"

"What did you call me?!"

And then the archer threw a punch.

The wolf woman took it on the cheek and struck back instantly, and within a second the two were tangled on the ground, fighting, pulling each other’s hair and hurling insults while the assassin simply watched without moving and Mary backed away, not knowing what to do.

"Enough!"

A deep voice stopped the fight.

And through the camp entrance came the armored elf, the dwarf with the hammer, and the pale man in the black cloak, who by that point Mary already knew was a vampire.

"What the hell are you doing?!" the elf shouted, pulling the two women apart. "Are you seriously going to fight each other right now? As if we don’t have enough problems already!"

The archer and the wolf woman separated reluctantly, both with messed-up hair and breathing hard, glaring daggers at each other.

"Save your problems for later, we have news," the dwarf said. "And for once, it’s good."

That caught everyone’s attention.

"We found a hidden chamber," the elf announced as everyone’s eyes locked onto him. "It was sealed behind a false wall in the deepest section of the dungeon."

"And we think it might be a way out," the vampire added.

The entire camp went silent.

For a moment, all the tension and resentment seemed to fade, replaced by something none of them had felt in a long time.

Hope.

Mark, watching it all closely, felt a chill.

"I have a bad feeling about this..." he murmured.

"Heh... I thought the same thing back then," the Demon Lord replied beside him, her eyes fixed on the scene.

And before Mark could ask what she meant, darkness swallowed everything once more.

A moment later, the darkness vanished, giving way to a spacious, elegantly decorated hall.

That place clashed completely with the rest of the dungeon.

The walls were covered in reliefs and symbols carved into the stone, and the ceiling rose into a dome adorned with engravings that glowed faintly.

But what dominated the space was the center of the room, an enormous circle of runes etched into the floor, pulsing with a steady, faint light.

The entire group entered the chamber, taking it all in with a mix of caution and wonder.

"Are you sure this isn’t a trap?" the archer asked, looking at the circle with distrust. "Because this has all the makings of one."

"Yeah, I don’t get a good feeling from it either," the other human accompanying the group added. "Magic circles in hidden places rarely mean anything good."

"I already checked the runes," the dwarf replied, walking up to the edge of the circle. "I used one of my rune-reading skills to decipher them... and what they say is ’back door’."

Mary watched the circle from the back, her arms pressed against her body.

"I don’t know..." she murmured. "This place gives me a really bad feeling."

The wolf-eared woman walked over to her and casually draped an arm over her shoulders.

"Come on, cheer up," she said with a smile. "If it really is a way out, well, at least you didn’t have to live here for years like the rest of us."

"...You’re right," Mary said quietly with a shy smile. "I guess I should be grateful."

"That’s the spirit."

"Don’t let your guard down yet."

The vampire’s voice made everyone turn toward him.

He stood near the entrance, his eyes narrowed as he scanned the chamber with distrust.

"The runes might say ’back door’ but something about all of this still doesn’t sit right with me," he added.

And in the very instant he finished saying those words, a sound echoed behind them, a dull, heavy thud.

Everyone spun around at once.

The door they had entered the chamber through had just slammed shut, sealing completely and trapping them all inside.

"Fuck... I knew this was going to happen"