The stat page flickered before his eyes. A new attribute had appeared at the bottom.
> [Sanity - 00]
His heart skipped a beat.
"What the hell?" His whisper barely left his lips, but the sight of that number made his blood turn cold.
His eyes widened, his breath quickened, and an eerie shiver crawled down his spine.
Sanity... 0?
He finally understood.
The things he had done—the reckless, utterly suicidal choices—hadn't been bravery.
It had been madness.
He had stood before a monstrous serpent, taunted it, laughed at it—he had mocked his own impending death.
Why?
Because the ability to think rationally, to fear death, had been torn from him.
A dry, bitter laugh escaped his lips. The sound echoed, mixing with the chaotic hissing of the snakes below.
"I really have gone insane."
His shoulders shook. Was it from exhaustion? Or from the creeping realization that he had barely survived his own stupidity?
The more he thought about it, the more his skin crawled.
The serpent had let him live.
It could have struck him down in an instant. Yet, it had spared him.
That wasn't normal. That wasn't natural.
A deep-rooted fear stirred in his chest.
Why?
Had the serpent simply lost interest? Had it been mocking him? Or… was there something more?
His head throbbed violently.
The weight of everything crashed down on him.
The endless cycle of death and survival, the pressure of outsmarting death at every turn, the constant leveling up and fighting monsters far beyond his limits—
It hadn't just drained him physically.
It had been tearing away at his mind.
The truth was simple.
He had reached his limit.
And that limit had finally snapped.
The cracks in his psyche had split open, flooding him with realization.
He needed to fix this. Now.
His legs folded.
His back straightened.
He sat down. Right at the cavern's entrance, surrounded by the lingering venomous mist and the relentless sea of writhing snakes.
He took a deep breath.
Then another.
He closed his eyes.
The chaos around him—the endless slithering, the distant echoes of monsters deeper in the dungeon, the faint, sickening sound of snakes devouring each other—
It faded.
Not because it was gone.
But because he forced his mind to reject it.
Slowly… ever so slowly, his sanity ticked upward.
> [Sanity: 01.... 02.... 03...04.....]
The numbers barely rose, but they did rise.
For the first time in what felt like forever, he allowed his mind to breathe.
He was alive.
And if he wanted to stay that way, he had to regain control.
The [Sanity] stat disappeared from his status window.
A slow breath escaped his lips.
It wasn't complete recovery. His mind was still frayed, still teetering on the edge of exhaustion. But at the very least, he had clawed back enough clarity to think straight.
He was still himself.
And right now, he needed to rest.
He stood up, stretching his aching limbs. His body protested—his muscles were sore, his HP was still dangerously low, and his head throbbed from the lingering effects of the venom.
Yet, his mind was sharper than before.
His gaze drifted toward the darkness beyond the cavern's entrance, where the giant serpent had disappeared.
"…It let me live."
His voice was barely a whisper, but the words weighed heavily.
The lesser serpents had hunted him relentlessly because they had seen him as food. To them, he was just another prey that had wandered into their domain.
But that higher serpent…
It was different.
It hadn't attacked him. It hadn't even considered him worth killing.
Its actions had been deliberate.
When he had stood before it, taunting it like a lunatic, it had simply stared him down. Then, instead of finishing him off, it had dived into the sea of serpents—devouring its own kind.
That had been its answer.
A silent warning.
"Stay out of our business."
"You are beneath me."
"I let you live because I choose to, not because you deserve to."
The realization made his stomach twist.
That serpent… it wasn't just a mindless beast.
It understood. It thought.
And it had decided that he wasn't worth the effort.
Yet.
A dry chuckle left his lips.
"Good news and bad news, huh?"
The good news?
If that higher serpent wasn't going to actively hunt him down, then he could rest. He could sleep.
For the first time since waking up in this hellish dungeon, he could actually lower his guard.
The bad news?
If he tried to pull another trick, like luring in the lesser serpents to farm EXP…
He would be instantly erased.
That last glare the serpent had given him—it had been clear.
"Try anything funny, and you're dead."
His lips curled into a smirk.
"Well… guess I'll take what I can get."
His body gave out the moment he sat down.
His back pressed against the cold cavern wall. His arms rested lazily at his sides. His legs stretched out, toes barely brushing the damp, rocky ground.
The hissing below never stopped.
The scent of venom, blood, and decay still lingered in the air.
Yet, for the first time…
He let his eyes close.
"I'll figure out an escape plan when I wake up."
For now…
Sleep.
And this time, he didn't fight it.