The darkness of the lower sub-level wasn't empty. It breathed with the sound of scuttling legs and shifting stone.
Matheo lay in the filth of the slave-pen, his stomach twisting into a knot of pure agony. The porridge they fed them was designed to keep them alive just long enough to work, but his body—his "Regenerative Constitution"—was demanding more. It was burning through his muscle mass to keep his heart beating.
If I don't eat, my body will eat itself, Matheo thought. His eyes moved to the "Waste Pile" near the hunters' camp.
He watched the B-Rank guard. The man was leaning against a mana-lantern, nodding off. Matheo calculated the distance: forty feet of open ground, two minutes of exposure. If he was caught, he'd be executed for "theft of guild property."
Risk: Death by execution. Reward: Survival. Matheo crawled. He didn't use his feet; he pulled himself through the mud like a snake, using the shadows of the obsidian-wood crates. His heart was a drum in his ears. Every inch was a battle against the 1.7x gravity.
He reached the pile. It was a heap of discarded Rank-D Stone-Eater organs—livers, lungs, and intestines that were too toxic for the hunters to sell.
He grabbed a hunk of raw, purple liver. It was cold and slimy. Without thinking, he bit into it.
The horror hit him instantly.
It wasn't a "power-up." It was poison. The raw mana in the meat felt like a thousand needles stabbing his tongue. As he swallowed, his throat constricted. His stomach felt like it was being filled with molten lead.
"Argh..." He muffled his own scream by shoving his dirt-stained hand into his mouth.
The pain was incandescent. His vision fractured into shards of white light. Because he didn't have a mana-core to filter the energy, the raw monster mana was tearing through his veins, rupturing capillaries. Blood leaked from his nose.
But then, the Itch responded.
His body didn't "heal" the pain away; it fought it. He felt his cells screaming as they grabbed the monster proteins and forced them into his own structure. It was a violent, biological war. He lay in the dirt behind the crates for an hour, sweating, shaking, and vomiting bile, waiting for the toxin to either kill him or change him.
By the time the mana-lanterns flickered to signal the next shift, the agony had subsided into a dull, heavy ache.
Matheo looked at his hand. The skin was still thin, but the tremors were gone. He touched the scar on his leg. It felt denser. Harder.
He hadn't healed "instantly," but a wound that should have taken weeks to recover from the toxins was already stabilizing. He was learning the logic of his new body: Pain is the price of fuel.
"Get up, Thirty-Silver!" a guard roared, kicking the crates.
Matheo scrambled back into the line of slaves just as the guard turned the corner. He was covered in monster gore and mud, his eyes bloodshot, but he stood straighter than the men around him.
As they walked back to the quartz veins, Matheo noticed something new. He wasn't just seeing the dark; he was sensing it. He could hear the vibration of the Shadow-Stalkers in the walls before they moved.
One of the hunters, the C-Rank scout from before, walked past him and stopped. He sniffed the air, his eyes narrowing as they landed on Matheo.
"You smell like Stone-Eater bile, rat," the scout said, his hand moving to the hilt of his sword.
Matheo's heart stopped. He kept his head down, his voice trembling—partially from fear, partially from the lingering poison. "I... I fell in the waste pile while hauling the crates, Master. I'm sorry. I'll wash in the sump-water."
The scout looked at Matheo's skeletal frame. He saw a pathetic, dying slave. He didn't see the way Matheo's fingers were twitching, ready to go for the scout's eyes if he drew that sword.
"Disgusting," the scout spat, turning away. "Make sure you don't foul the quartz."
Matheo exhaled, a cold sweat breaking out on his neck. He had almost been caught. He had almost died. But as he picked up his pickaxe and swung it against the stone, the tool felt... lighter.
He looked at the dark tunnels. The other slaves looked at the shadows and saw death. Matheo looked at the shadows and saw a Buffet.
I'm not special because I'm strong, Matheo thought, his cold mind returning to its calculations. I'm special because I can eat the things that kill everyone else. I just have to survive the pain of the meal.
The seventeen days were over. Now, the Harvest began