“So,” I asked, “what did you do before you got pulled here?”

  I was bent over another hobgoblin corpse as I spoke, carefully sawing through a strip of armor with my dagger. This was not my favorite part of dungeon crawling. It had happened enough times now that it was becoming routine, and that bothered me more than the gore.

  Ephraim had been brutally efficient. He kept surprising groups and dropping them before they could scatter. By my count, he had killed around thirty goblins since we started. I had not gotten a single kill since the earlier mess.

  No experience for me.

  Honestly, I was not even that upset about it. I was too busy being upset about the fluids.

  People really undersell how many fluids come out when something dies. It is not just blood. There are textures involved. I could feel it soaking into my hands and sleeves, and I was trying very hard not to think about it.

  We were finishing up a pack of seven hobgoblins Ephraim had already flattened.

  He looked up. “What was that?”

  “Oh. Sorry,” I said. “I was asking what you did before all this.” I waved my knife at the bodies. “If that’s not too much.”

  He snorted. “Nah. It’s fine.”

  Then he said, “I was a postman.”

  I snickered. “You were what?”

  “A postman,” he repeated calmly while cutting free a piece of metal plating. “Mail service.”

  I stared at him. “Like… letters.”

  “Yep.”

  “That is not what I was expecting.”

  “My Earth wasn’t as advanced as yours,” he said. “We had horses doing most of the hauling. Some places had trains, but we weren’t quite there yet.”

  “Your Earth,” I said.

  “United Conglomerate of Predicate,” he said.

  I nodded. “I am absolutely not unpacking that.”

  He chuckled and tossed a shin guard into the cart. “Probably for the best.”

  “I worked the route for about ten years after leaving my family farm,” he went on. “One day I was sorting deliveries and a prize mailer slipped out of my hand. I stepped on it and ripped it open.”

  I blinked. “And that sent you here.”

  “Yep.”

  “That feels wrong,” I said.

  He shrugged. “The entry rules are weird. People think they’re all hidden trials or sacred locations. Sometimes they are. Other times they’re prizes or rare objects.”

  “Prizes.”

  “Lottery vouchers. Scratch tickets. Bottles in the ocean. Stuff like that.”

  I slowly nodded as I took it in.

  “And yours was a prize machine,” he added.

  “A slot machine,” I corrected.

  “Yeah. That.”

  I sighed and went back to cutting the leather to get the armor off a corpse.

  “And Mathilde,” I said, working the blade under another strap. “What did she do before she came here?”

  “Oh. Math,” he said, almost fondly. “She was a cave explorer. Believe it or not.”

  I paused. “Seriously?”

  He smiled. “Yeah.”

  “Like this?” I asked, glancing around at the dungeon walls.

  “Nah. Real caves,” he said. “Spelunking. Deep ones. Ones without monsters.”

  I would not have guessed that if I was given a thousand chances.

  “She was an adventurer back home too,” he went on. “Traveled a lot. Never stayed put. From what she told me, she stood out wherever she went. Forward. Stubborn. Didn’t let anyone tell her what she couldn’t do.”

  I nodded slowly.

  “She was also one of the first women in her area to openly wear pants,” he added.

  “Huh,” I said. “Good for her.”

  I tugged a little too hard on the leather I was cutting free. The armor snapped loose and something warm splashed across my cheek. I froze, then slowly wiped it away with my sleeve and made a very deliberate decision not to focus on it.

  “Anyway,” Ephraim continued, “she and her team were exploring what was supposed to be one of the deepest cave systems anyone had mapped. They reached the bottom. Found a treasure chest.”

  I winced. “Oh no…”

  “She opened the chest,” he confirmed.

  “And poof,” I said.

  “Poof.”

  I sat with that for a moment while my hands kept working on autopilot.

  “That feels… fitting,” I said finally. “Not fair. But fitting.”

  He glanced at me. “How so?”

  “She chased something dangerous because she wanted to see what was at the bottom,” I said. “And the universe rewarded her by dropping her somewhere even more dangerous.”

  He was staring at me as I spoke. I swallowed and kept going.

  “I think what messes with me,” I added, “is that none of this feels malicious. It’s not punishment. It’s just… curiosity plus bad timing.”

  He grunted and cut something. “That’s one way to put it.”

  I stripped the last piece free and tossed it into the cart.

  “I keep thinking about how close any of us probably came to not being here at all,” I said. “One step different. One choice delayed. And we’d still be back home doing something boring and safe.”

  “Yeah. Boring,” he said. “Also dead. You’re forgetting I would’ve died of old age if I wasn’t here.”

  I hesitated.

  “Yeah,” I admitted. “Probably.”

  “How do you feel about that?” I asked. “Are you… happy in this life?”

  Ephraim paused and straightened up slowly. I just realized I’d asked a very hard man a difficult question.

  “That’s a tricky one,” he said. “On good days? I’m content. Satisfied.” He nudged the corpse with his boot. “And I get to feel like a badass.”

  I nodded and didn’t argue. It was hard to, considering everything I’d watched him do.

  “What about Silas?” I asked after a moment. “How did he end up here?”

  He exhaled through his nose. “Silas. I don’t think he’s quite sure.”

  He worked his blade free from the last piece of armor as he spoke.

  “He was a farmer even before all this. Lived with his sister and her family. Good folks, from what he’s told us.” Ephraim hesitated. “But when it comes to people, he needs help sometimes. He gets along with animals better”

  I nodded. I understood that well enough from what I’ve seen.

  “Best he can figure,” he continued, “he was repairing an old well. Digging out the bottom. Hit something hard. Ended up here.”

  “Ah.” I said.

  “Yep.”

  “Did he hit a prize or something?” I asked.

  “Or something,” Ephraim said dryly.

  He stood and lifted the last piece of chest armor before walking towards the cart and dropping the armor in the back with a dull clang.

  “He survived. He adjusted. Mostly.” He shot me a look. “And we protect him when he needs it.”

  The meaning landed clearly enough.

  “All right,” he said, gripping the cart handles. “That’s the last of them. Let’s get moving.”

  The cart creaked softly as he started pulling it forward again.

  We walked like that for another fifteen minutes, deeper into the dungeon, the cave angling down in slow uneven slopes. The walls narrowed and widened in turns, sometimes close enough that I had to turn my shoulders, sometimes opening just enough to make me uneasy. What struck me was the silence. No goblins. No beds. No cooking pits. No trash piles. Nothing that suggested anything lived down here anymore.

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  Ephraim slowed and finally stopped.

  “I think we’re close,” he said quietly. “You stay back. I’ll handle this.”

  “No complaints,” I said at once.

  We moved forward together, slower now, until the tunnel opened into a massive chamber. It wasn’t square like I first thought. It was round, easily two hundred feet across, with a high curved ceiling that vanished into shadow. Hanging from the center was a massive orb, suspended without chains, glowing a soft steady white. It reminded me of an old incandescent bulb turned impossibly large. The light filled the room evenly, warm and constant, and the air itself felt heavy, like the space was holding its breath.

  “What is this,” I whispered.

  “Shh,” Ephraim said. “Dungeon heart. I’ll explain later.”

  I nodded and stayed still.

  Across the chamber another tunnel opened, darker and lower. Something moved inside it. Heavy footsteps. Slow. Purposeful.

  She emerged a moment later.

  The goblin was massive compared to the others, broad and thick, with gray skin stretched tight over muscle. Her ears were torn and ragged, her belly scarred and heavy. A name floated over her head.

  [Broodmother Goblin] {Level 37}

  “That’s the boss,” Ephraim said calmly. “Thankfully it’s only a Broodmother.”

  Only.

  She roared and charged.

  Ephraim dropped the cart and stepped forward, cracking his neck once. Yellow light flared around his boots as he pushed off the ground, crossing the distance in a blur. The Broodmother swung a massive club, but Ephraim slid under it, the weapon smashing stone where his head had been.

  He drove a glowing punch into her knee.

  There was a sound like breaking timber. She screamed and stumbled, one leg buckling as stone fractured beneath her weight. Ephraim did not slow. He jumped again, light flaring under his feet, and landed on her shoulder. The impact forced her to the ground.

  She thrashed and howled, claws tearing deep gouges into the floor, but Ephraim was already moving. He grabbed her arm, yellow light flooding into it, and swung her like a weapon into the stone wall.

  The wall shattered. Alarmingly so. The way it came down was strange, less like solid rock and more like loose gravel giving up all at once.

  Chunks of dungeon stone rained down as her body crumpled and slid. She tried to rise, blood pouring from her mouth, and Ephraim was there again. One hand closed around her throat. The light intensified, humming now, and he drove her head into the ground once.

  Twice.

  The third impact cratered the stone and the sound stopped completely.

  The glow faded.

  Ephraim stepped back and rolled his shoulders like he had just finished stretching.

  Silence settled over the chamber.

  I stood there with my dagger still in my hand, heart pounding, staring at the broken floor and the unmoving body of the Broodmother. I realized I had not moved at all during the fight.

  I was also very aware in that moment that if this man had wanted me dead at any point, I would not have even seen it coming.

  Ephraim turned and walked back toward me, completely relaxed, like he hadn’t just folded a dungeon boss into the ground.

  “Easy enough,” he said.

  He passed me without stopping and pointed upward. “That’s the dungeon heart. Living part of the dungeon. It builds everything. Rooms. Tunnels. Monsters. All of it.”

  “Oh,” I said, realizing he was answering my question from before the fight. Then, after a beat, “Are we… gonna kill it?”

  He laughed, a deep grunt of a sound. “No. No real reason to.”

  He kept walking as he talked. “First off, you don’t get much more experience than the boss, so chasing that’s pointless. Second, it’s a pain in the ass. It’s high up, awkward, and it’s basically like breaking a really stubborn rock that fights back with lightning.”

  That sounded unpleasant.

  “And besides,” he added, “we wiped out all the goblin spawns. The heart’ll restart things eventually, but it takes time. For now, it’s done.”

  “Oh,” I said again. I didn’t really understand, but I was willing to accept it.

  He picked the cart back up and headed toward the tunnel the Broodmother had come from. The faint yellow glow returned, a little less subtle this time.

  “Now,” he said, “the good part. Let’s see what we’ve got.”

  “Oh,” I said, my tone shifting despite myself. My brain immediately jumped hopefully to glowing loot drops and legendary items. Something sharp. Something shiny. Something that might help me not die.

  As we rounded the corner, that hope died quietly.

  The chamber beyond was less treasure room and more storage closet. A rack of armor lined the wall. Crude metal plates. Bent helmets. Rusted axes. Basically the same junk we’d been peeling off hobgoblin bodies the entire way down.

  I stared at it.

  My face must have done something because Ephraim chuckled.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Manage expectations.”

  I opened my mouth to respond when he stopped suddenly and pointed deeper into the room.

  “Now that,” he said, “is what I was hoping for.”

  I followed his gaze.

  It looked like a hillbilly science project gone horribly right. A round metal container sat at the center with tubes running out of it in every direction, connecting to smaller barrels and coils. One larger drum had a steady fire burning beneath it, the flames low and patient like they had been trained not to misbehave. Everything was bolted together with mismatched metal plates and thick leather straps, the whole thing balanced in a way that suggested someone had learned entirely through trial and error.

  I stared at it for a long moment.

  Ephraim turned to me with a wide grin. Then his grin got wider.

  “Moonshine,” he said softly.

  My disappointment evaporated.

  “Oh,” I said, suddenly very interested.

  He laughed. “Processed too. Already running.”

  I stepped closer, peering at the tubes. Clear liquid dripped steadily into one of the containers with a soft rhythmic tap. The smell hit me a second later. Sharp. Sweet. Burning in a way that made my sinuses recoil and my brain immediately understand what it was.

  “This was… just down here,” I said.

  “A goblin dungeon special,” Ephraim replied. “Dungeons spawn weapons. Armor. At one point when you get strong enough goblins it dungeons will add a still. Keeps the goblins busy and not killing each other”

  I rubbed my face. “Of course that happens.”

  He crouched and checked one of the valves, nodding to himself. “This’ll sell real well in town. Good quality too. Dungeon-made alcohol’s usually clean. No poison. No weird side effects.”

  “That feels like a low bar,” I said.

  He shrugged. “You’d be surprised.”

  I looked back at the setup, watching the steady drip continue.

  This world was insane.

  But apparently it still understood two very important truths.

  Metal was valuable.

  And people would always find a way to get alcohol.

  Have you ever moved a couch? If you have then you already understand the general vibe of how getting the distillery out of the dungeon went.

  Ephraim was strong enough to lift the whole thing in one piece if he really wanted to. That was not the problem. The problem was that the thing was shaped like a bad idea and connected to several worse ones. Tubes everywhere. Containers bolted at odd angles. Fire involved. It was less lifting furniture and more disarming a trap that really wanted to burn the house down.

  We took our time. We shut the fire down first and capped the tubes as best we could. Ephraim handled most of the weight while I handled the parts that required fingers and caution. We broke it down into chunks that still felt too large and somehow stacked them onto the cart. The armor and weapons went on top like packing peanuts made of sharp metal. I learned very quickly which pieces could bite you if you grabbed them wrong.

  Once everything was loaded we started the long miserable trip back out.

  This is where I learned the second reason it was a two person job.

  Getting the cart into the dungeon had been easy enough. Getting it out was an uphill struggle, literally. The tunnel sloped just enough to make every step annoying. There were sharp turns. Uneven steps. Places where the cart wanted to tip or wedge itself sideways like it had given up on life.

  I ended up walking backward what felt like half the time waving my arms like a kid guiding a parent into a parking space.

  “Little left. No too much. Stop. Stop. Okay now push.”

  There were points where the cart stuck on a step and we had to lift and shove together until it finally scraped free with a sound that made my teeth hurt. My arms burned. My legs ached. I was pretty sure I would feel this for days.

  Hours later we finally dragged the thing out into daylight.

  I have never been so happy to see the sky.

  On the walk back to the farmhouse Ephraim offered to let me ride in the back. I declined. I felt like I needed to walk it out after that. Also I suspected I would not be comfortable lying on a pile of scrap metal.

  We moved mostly in silence. Just footsteps, the cart creaking and the occasional thud as something shifted in the load. Every now and then Ephraim would chirp at and deathslap a small animal that got too close.

  When we got back to the farm Silas was opening the gate with Bibi prancing and snorting happily behind him. We walked through and Silas closed it behind us. Ephraim pulled the cart to the side of the barn and dropped it with a loud thud. A cloud of dust rolled out behind it.

  I asked if we needed to do anything with the stuff. He shook his head and said no. We would be taking it into town tomorrow morning so leaving it there was fine. Nothing in it anyone could really use the way it was.

  He waved me forward as he started toward the house.

  “Come on,” he said. “You’ll stay in the guest room tonight.”

  I followed behind him, a little nervous to go into the house for reasons I did not feel like unpacking right then. Something about enclosed spaces and social consequences made my shoulders tense.

  We came in through the kitchen. Mathilde was there at the counter chopping something with aggressive efficiency. She gave Ephraim a short nod and then looked at me.

  I did not make eye contact.

  Not accidentally. Very deliberately. Almost at a professional level.

  If staring at the floor could be considered a skill I was leveling it.

  Ephraim led me down another rough hallway and stopped at a door. He opened it and stepped aside.

  “This is the guest bed,” he said.

  I stepped forward and looked into the room. It was rough but decent in a way that felt intentional rather than neglected. The bed had a simple wooden frame and a thick homespun wool blanket folded over it. No pillows which felt like an odd omission. Off to one side was a low counter and a dresser with a large bowl of water and a neat stack of towels beside it.

  Practical. Very on brand for the place.

  It also felt oddly safe. Or at least safer than a dungeon full of goblins.

  Ephraim cleared his throat.

  “Make yourself comfortable,” he said. “Relax some.”

  I nodded and sat down on the edge of the bed. The mattress was firmer than I expected but not unpleasant. I turned to thank him and found him still standing there with his hands awkwardly clasped together. He looked like a man trying to decide whether to fight a bear or ask for directions.

  “So,” he said. Then stopped. Then tried again. “There’s something I ought to say. Don’t rightly know how to bring it up.”

  I waited.

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “Your class. [Bard]. It’s… well. It’s known for a thing.”

  I blinked. “Music?”

  He gave me a look.

  “…no, not that thing.”

  Oh.

  “Right,” I said slowly.

  He shifted his weight. “The skills the class gets tend to make folk real good at… intimacy. Because of that a lot of people think [Bard]s are pretty useless. Easy to kill. Good targets if someone’s looking for experience.”

  That landed heavier than I expected. It also explained a few things I had been trying not to think about.

  “And that skill of yours is famous,” he continued. “The one called [Magic Mouth].”

  I sighed. “Yeah, I kind of figured. Oral sex.”

  He nodded with obvious relief. “Good. Because I didn’t want to be the one explaining that part.”

  There was a short silence.

  “Just so we’re clear,” I said. “It’s not like it came with instructions.”

  He snorted. “Nothing ever does.”

  He hesitated again then pressed on. “Thing is. That skill isn’t just… for that. You can make good money with it if you know what you’re doing. When you get it to a high enough level especially.”

  I stared at him. “You mean by prostituting my mouth.”

  He laughed loud and sudden. “Gods no. At least not just that.”

  That did not help my confusion.

  “No. Casting a mouth on objects,” he said still chuckling. “Sex toys.”

  I froze.

  “Excuse me?”

  “The main way folks use it,” he said carefully like he was explaining farm equipment to a child, “Is that you put a mouth on something you can hold. You give the mouth simple direction. Different types of movement and the such. The caster can make it respond to simple phrases. Heck, you can even get the person who created the mouth to change it after you. Folk pay good coin for things like that.”

  My brain shut down.

  “You’re telling me,” I said slowly as I glanced down at my dagger, “that I have a magic skill that basically… creates enchanted adult merchandise.”

  He shrugged. “That’s the polite way of saying it.”

  I opened my mouth. Closed it. Tried again.

  “I do not know how to respond to this new information,” I said tiredly.

  He nodded sympathetically like this was a normal reaction.

  I sat back on the bed and stared at the wall. “I was just hoping to find some place to live now. Maybe play music and not die going forward.”

  “And you still can,” he said quickly. “I just wanted you to know. So you don’t get blindsided by someone else explaining it badly.”

  That was… oddly considerate.

  “Thanks for telling me,” I said as I stood up.

  Ephraim dipped his head like that settled things.

  “Anyways,” he said, stepping closer and giving me a good-natured pat, “since we cleaned out the dungeon, we're all are gonna celebrate in a bit. Wanted to invite you to join.”

  I frowned, the question already forming on my lips.

  He closed the distance without warning, his hand petting between my legs as he leaned in and kissed me.

  There was no lead-up. No context. One second I was standing there, and the next his mustache was tickling my nose. Then he stepped back, calm as anything, like he’d just finished commenting on the weather.

  “See you tonight,” he said.

  He left.

  I stayed where I was, staring at the empty doorway, heart racing, trying to piece together reality again.

  WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK.

  ?? November 2025 Writathon Winner

  ★★★★★

  LitRPG Progression Portal Fantasy Summoning

  DENIED BY SYSTEM - HE SUMMONS HIS OWN

  The System rejected him. The World took his wife. And now, his daughter...

  Sasaki Jin must master a forbidden power to ensure his child doesn't share her mother's fate. He will tear down the gods themselves to keep her safe.

  "A high-octane, addictive read that perfectly balances “dad energy” with cosmic power."

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  "If you’re a fan of Solo Leveling, then I think that you’ll enjoy this story, too."

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  Inspired by Solo Leveling & Pokemon...

  ? Competent MC: Street smart, ingenuity over luck.

  ? Unique Summons: Each with distinct personalities and powers.

  ? High Stakes: Death is a mistake away.

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