Starting out as a Dragon Slave

Twenty minutes later, the vehicle slowed and came to a smooth stop. A faint hum signaled the activation of camouflage and peripheral security systems.

- "We’ve arrived," announced Lazare, his voice breaking the silence like a stone tossed into still water.

The tactical screens simultaneously displayed the location: "Mirador Industrial Complex Exclusion Zone 27." Satellite images showed a tangle of abandoned structures, corroded by time and encroaching vegetation. Half-collapsed industrial buildings, truncated smokestacks like accusing fingers pointed at the sky, and a chaotic web of rusted piping created a bleak post-apocalyptic landscape.

At the center of this modern ruin, a stable D-rank portal had recently been reported by reconnaissance teams. Preliminary data, shown in green characters across the screens, indicated minimal energy activity, low mana concentration, and an estimated negligible level of hostile biomass.

- "An apparently classic and basic dungeon," commented Lazare as he skimmed the information. "Likely linear layout, low-tier hostile fauna, predictable mana flow."

His gaze settled on Isaac, a calculating gleam briefly flashing in his eyes.

- "Perfect for some fun," he added flatly.

The team disembarked from the vehicle with choreographed silence that impressed Isaac. Every movement was efficient, precise, devoid of the usual nervous chatter that often preceded dungeon entry. These people moved with the quiet confidence of predators in familiar territory.

Isaac was quickly flanked by two team members the taciturn tall man and the tattooed one. Without a word, the latter handed him a seemingly simple belt that was surprisingly heavy. As he strapped it around his waist, Isaac immediately felt the protective field activate, like a second, invisible skin molding to his form.

The belt was warm to the touch not uncomfortably so, but noticeably as if generating its own energy. Tiny runes etched into the buckle pulsed faintly with a blue glow, gradually adapting to his energetic signature. A high-quality defensive item, likely capable of withstanding multiple A-rank magical impacts.

- "Frontline protection," murmured the tattooed man. "It won’t save you from a dragon but it’ll handle everything else."

Those were the first words he had spoken directly to Isaac, and the latter detected a strange blend of lingering suspicion and resigned professionalism. He nodded in silent thanks.

The two men stayed at his sides as the group deployed into formation. Isaac quickly understood that Lazare hadn’t been joking: "maximum protection" didn’t just mean an escort it meant a living shield ready to intercept any threat.

They moved through the industrial ruins, their steps crunching on fractured concrete and broken glass. The air was thick with the acrid scent of rusted metal and stagnant damp. Graffiti in odd patterns perhaps clumsy attempts to mimic protective runes adorned the few walls still standing.

The portal was located in the center of a former assembly workshop, its luminous frame in stark contrast to the surrounding desolation. A vertical fracture in reality, its iridescent edges pulsing slowly like the heartbeat of something weary.

Lazare approached first, studying the swirling energy patterns around the rift. Without turning, he raised a hand, forming a complex symbol that shimmered briefly before dissolving into the air.

- "Defensive formation around Isaac," he ordered. "We go in on my signal."

The team positioned themselves with military precision, forming a protective perimeter around Isaac. He found himself at the heart of a perfectly coordinated human constellation, each member occupying the precise space needed to maximize coverage without hindering movement.

Lazare dropped his hand.

- "Now."

They entered the portal.

The transition was smoother than Isaac had expected. None of the usual falling or compression sensations that accompanied low-quality dimensional travel. Just a faint floating, like stepping through cool silk, then a quick sensory adjustment to a radically different environment.

A misty plain stretched before them, bathed in perpetual twilight. The ground, covered in grayish grass that seemed more mineral than organic, was dotted with ruins of strange design structures no human hand could have created. Broken arches jutted up like the exposed ribs of some long-dead titan. Desiccated trees, frozen in tortured poses, cast outsized shadows despite the dim light. Shallow crevices slashed the terrain, occasionally exhaling iridescent vapors.

The atmosphere was sticky, as though the air itself had a tangible consistency. Each breath required slightly more effort than usual, the oxygen seemingly diluted in mana-saturated fog. Not dangerous, but constant a reminder they were no longer in their native reality.

Isaac felt his senses sharpen a conditioned reflex from years of dungeon crawling. He scanned shadows, watched for movement, read the terrain’s anomalies. The universe of dungeons followed its own rules often illogical to human minds, but patterns always existed for those who knew how to see them.

And then, as if summoned by their mere presence, the creatures emerged from hiding.

Orc-gnomes biological aberrations born from the monstrous fusion of two incompatible species.

- "Another madness from that degenerate race," Isaac thought, knowing full well that dragon cruelty knew no bounds when it came to weaker species.

Small barely a meter tall but squat, with disproportionate limbs and exaggeratedly broad torsos. Their sickly green skin was riddled with pustules and half-healed ritual scars. Their misshapen heads, far too large for their bodies, were crowned with grotesquely long ears that stuck out like antennas, and jutting jaws with yellowed fangs.

They wielded crude weapons sharpened stakes, clubs studded with rusted nails, or hardened wooden shards. Some wore mock armor fashioned from scrap metal held together by rotting leather straps.

Their bloodshot eyes revealed primitive intelligence, driven by violent impulses and a constant rage that animated every jerky movement. Their cries were a grotesque blend of rodent squeals and pig-like grunts — a dissonant cacophony seemingly designed to grate on human ears.

- "They’re just as dumb as the mission file said," muttered one team member with an audible sigh of disappointment.

Isaac recognized the voice of the young blond with the cocky smile the one who had openly doubted his account. His tone suggested he’d been hoping for a more substantial challenge.

No sooner had he finished speaking than the squad sprang into action with terrifying efficiency. No orders were given, no visible signals exchanged. They moved as extensions of a single organism, each knowing exactly where and how to strike.

Isaac observed their method with a mixture of professional admiration and growing unease. This wasn’t a battle it was a clinical execution. No mercy, no hesitation, no war cries or exertion. Just the relentless mechanics of death delivered with surgical precision.

Naesha, in particular, displayed a mastery of combat beyond anything Isaac had ever witnessed. She didn’t so much move as dissolve into the shadows with each leap. Her technique was less martial art and more a form of lethal poetry a dance with reality itself, where the laws of physics seemed to suspend their rule.

She reappeared only for the split second needed to strike a fatal blow: slitting a throat with such fluidity the victim didn’t realize they were dead, piercing a spinal cord with anatomically perfect precision, silencing a scream by placing a gloved hand over a mouth while simultaneously driving a dagger into a vital point.

"It’s... beautiful," were the only words Isaac could find.

Despite his experience, he couldn’t keep track of her with his eyes. She was there then not then there again, another corpse at her feet. Not a drop of blood stained her outfit, not a single breath gave away effort. It was like watching a ghost a myth in motion.

The others were just as devastatingly effective in their own specialties. The redhead sniper never missed, her energy rounds tearing through skulls and torsos with mathematical precision. The tattooed man wielded threads of corrosive mana that dissolved the orc-gnomes from the inside out, their bodies collapsing like puppets with their strings cut. The tall, silent man applied brute force with surgical restraint, breaking bones and cartilage without wasting an ounce of energy.

As for the cocky blond, he combined area magic and close-quarters combat with a flamboyant flair that betrayed his youth the only one to add a touch of showmanship, as if still trying to impress his peers.

The orc-gnomes didn’t even understand what was happening to them. They ran, fell, shrieked senselessly as they flailed their crude weapons, sometimes striking their own in growing panic. It was a one-sided slaughter, a massacre so absolute in its efficiency it felt almost abstract detached from the usual messiness of combat.

And Isaac? He stood there, flanked by his protectors, watching the scene unfold with the growing discomfort of someone who felt useless.

Nothing.

No threat came near him. Every time an orc-gnome tried to flee in his direction, it was eliminated before closing even ten meters. An energy round through the eye. A blade slicing a crucial tendon from nowhere. A paralysis spell freezing it mid-run before a clean blow ended its miserable life.

Lazare himself, standing slightly removed from the main carnage, appeared barely involved. And yet Isaac noticed with fascination his lethal subtlety. With just a snap of his fingers not even a full gesture, just a flick of thumb and index — he killed a gnome trying to hide behind a rock, over thirty meters away.

Isaac squinted, trying to perceive the nature of the attack. No visible trace of energy, no distortion in the air, nothing perceptible. The creature simply collapsed, like a puppet whose strings had been violently severed. At that range, with no direct line of sight, and such economy of movement... That level of precision defied comprehension.

It was... frustrating. Deeply frustrating.

- "I wanted to explore these dungeons to test my theory about double entries... looks like that’s off the table," he muttered.

He didn’t even have time to properly observe the environment.No in-depth terrain analysis, no chance to search for a secondary passage, no opportunity to verify energy fluctuations at the dungeon’s boundaries.The Phantom Unit was too efficient, too fast. Every corridor, every corner was cleared before he could even consider venturing into it alone.

And when the last orc-gnome collapsed in a sickening gurgle, a mana arrow piercing its throat, the team stopped... without even breaking a sweat. Their breathing remained calm, steady as if they’d just finished a moderately brisk walk.

- "Report: no anomalies. Standard dungeon," grunted the taciturn man, wiping his gloves stained with a greenish substance that was already evaporating into glowing threads.

Isaac felt a weight settle in his chest.He had nothing to add, nothing to contradict. The dungeon was indeed ordinary no sign of draconic presence.No unusual spatial divisions, no above-average mana concentration, no subtle shifts in physical laws...Just a mediocre fragment of a parallel world, inhabited by weak and stupid creatures.