Yamino sat slouched on the throne of stone and bone, his chin resting on his knuckles. Time moved sluggishly in the dungeon. Or maybe it didn't move at all—he couldn't tell anymore. The silence had weight here, like thick fog clinging to his thoughts.
He had wandered a bit after that first revelation—hoping, maybe, that some door would appear or a voice would speak again. But nothing. Just endless red-tinged shadows, lifeless walls, and cracked ground. The dungeon didn't feel alive—it felt dormant. Just like him.
Slumped in thought, he sighed. "Am I supposed to just… sit here for eternity?"
The throne pulsed faintly in response. A reminder of his authority—but no instruction. He rubbed his temples, frustration mounting. He hadn't been given any tools. No clues. Only the demand: gather 100 normal souls.
And yet, even that task was directionless. Where were these souls supposed to come from?
He leaned back, eyes wandering across the dusty, cracked floor, until something caught his attention. It was small, almost unnoticeable—movement near the base of one of the throne's support pillars.
He narrowed his eyes.
Ants.
A tiny trail of black ants was marching through a crack in the dungeon floor.
"…What the hell?"
Yamino stood and stepped down from the throne. The tiny line of ants shimmered faintly in the dungeon's ambient glow, going about their business like nothing was wrong with the world.
He crouched down, watching them work. They were carrying pieces of dead insects, pebbles, and other fragments. A living colony. Here. In this dead place.
At first, he was baffled. Then, intrigued. Then, something inside clicked.
If these ants are here… this dungeon must be close to the surface.
Ants didn't survive deep underground. Their colonies needed access to food, to air, to moisture. Which meant… this place—this throne room—wasn't buried in some faraway infernal plane. It was somewhere near Earth. Possibly even on Earth.
His heart stirred for the first time in hours.
"If I'm near the surface… maybe I can break out."
The thought ignited something in his chest—something bold. He wasn't trapped in another world. He was underneath it. Still tethered to the living. And that changed everything.
But he needed more proof.
He followed the ants—slowly, cautiously—as they made their way across the cracks. The trail vanished into a thin fissure in the wall. Yamino touched it, and the stone felt… different. Cooler. Wetter.
He smirked. "There's air behind this."
Hope flickered in his chest like fire. If there was a way out, he would find it.
He returned to the throne, eyes sharper now.
The dungeon wasn't just a prison now.
.
.
Two hours later, Yamino was lying on the cold floor, arms outstretched like a dead man—though technically, he was dead.
His mind was a mess of boredom and spiraling thoughts. The quietness of the dungeon wasn't peaceful. It was maddening. No sound but the faint hum of energy in the stone. No flickers of life beyond the throne. Just him, the ants… and a vast emptiness.
He groaned and sat up. "I'm losing it in here."
He'd already counted the cracks on the wall. Made stories out of the shapes on the floor. Even held a one-sided conversation with the ants.
He was a soul. Technically dead. And yet… he still felt things. Restlessness. Agitation. Boredom.
Sleep, however, was out of reach. No fatigue, no need to rest. Just this constant, gnawing awareness. An endless hum beneath his skin that never turned off.
He stared at his translucent hands. The ghostly blue glow pulsed faintly along his forearms. "If I can't sleep or eat or cry… can I still move?"
The thought struck like lightning.
He stood. "Can I… work out?"
Absurd idea. But everything about his life had been absurd lately. So why not?
He took a breath—more out of habit than necessity—and squared himself in the center of the throne room.
"Let's try…"
Push-ups.
He dropped to the ground and extended his legs behind him. His hands pressed into the stone. Cold. Unforgiving. Just like the situation.
Then—down, up.
Down, up.
"1… 2… 3…"
It felt strange. His muscles weren't sore. He didn't feel strain. But there was movement. His soul-body mimicked muscle memory. The form was solid. The resistance was real enough.
He grinned. "Hell yeah."
He kept going. Dozens. Hundreds.
"Fifty… eighty…"
At two hundred, he still wasn't tired. Not even a drop of sweat. But his soul flickered faintly with energy, like embers getting stirred.
Next?
Plank.
He held the position—forearms to the ground, core tight. He focused. Seconds turned into minutes. Five minutes passed. Then ten. No burning in his abdomen, no trembling in his limbs.
Still, something was happening.
The dungeon trembled faintly.
He dismissed it as coincidence… and moved on.
Sit-ups. Dozens. Rapid-fire.
Lunges. One leg forward, deep bend, back straight.
He repeated the movement a hundred times for each leg. No pain, but there was movement in the air around him now. Almost like the dungeon was… reacting.
"Interesting."
He cracked his neck and smiled. "Let's go big."
He jumped straight into burpees. Full jump, squat, push-up, jump again. Over and over. At this point, it felt like some twisted kind of freedom. Back in the living world, he avoided PE like the plague. But now?
He was a soul doing cardio. In a cursed dungeon. Alone.
The irony was poetic.
He moved on to shadow boxing. Jab. Jab. Cross. Uppercut. His arms sliced the air in a blur. He remembered watching martial arts anime and thinking he could never do that.
Turns out being dead unlocked all kinds of things.
"Take that, Kairon," he muttered between jabs.
The image of the bastard's smug face fueled his punches. His form grew sharper, faster. Every movement made the air vibrate just a little more.
Something changed.
A faint shimmer spread across the walls.
The throne pulsed—faintly.
Yamino paused. "Wait… am I charging something?"
It made sense. He was the Dungeon King now. Movement. Energy. Activity—it was feeding the dungeon.
He looked around. The walls had taken on a darker hue. The air was a little less stale. The throne's stone had faint veins of red glowing beneath it.
Yamino smirked.
"Okay. So I can't leave yet. But that doesn't mean I'm helpless."
With a new sense of purpose, he dropped back down and went into soul push-ups, laughing under his breath.
"Let's see if I can train myself into a monster."
And for the first time since his death… Yamino didn't feel powerless.