The first thing I saw when I woke up was a clipboard.
The second thing was the woman holding it.
She looked like someone had dropped a military officer into a tailor's shop and asked for "intimidating, but also unfairly hot." Her hair was short and black, pulled into a sharp side braid that looked like it could cut through glass. Her eyes were dark brown—no, black—and narrowed at me like I owed her money. Which, honestly, I probably did.
"Arjun Mehra," she said, tapping the clipboard. "Age twenty-three. No registered class. No Guild affiliation. No mana trace. And yet..."
She flipped the page.
"You triggered a system event that hasn't appeared in over two hundred years."
I blinked at her, groaned, and pulled the blanket over my head.
She yanked it back.
"Start talking."
I squinted at her. "Can I get a name before the interrogation starts, or is this just your thing?"
A pause.
"Lieutenant Zoya Khan. Arcane Division."
"Well, Zoya," I said, sitting up with a wince, "I think I might've inherited a magical crown from a dead dungeon king."
She blinked.
I grinned. "Surprise."
Zoya didn't find it funny.
She took me through the entire Guild protocol—scans, mana readings, magical diagnostics, a lie detector enchanted to buzz if I exaggerated. It buzzed a lot. Apparently, sarcasm counts as dishonesty when magic's involved.
By the time she finished grilling me, a full two hours had passed, and the runes on my chest still hadn't faded.
Worse, they kept changing.
"His Mark is... unstable," one of the mages muttered, tracing lines of mana across my torso. "It's evolving."
"That's not supposed to happen," another whispered.
"No one's supposed to get a mythic inheritance," Zoya snapped, arms crossed. "Especially not by accident."
"Hey," I said, raising a finger. "I take offense to that. I put in a solid fifteen seconds of mortal peril before triggering that thing."
She looked at me.
Flat. Unamused.
I cleared my throat. "Anyway. It wasn't a big deal."
Turns out it was a very big deal.
The moment word got out, I was temporarily flagged as a "Person of Special Magical Interest," which is a polite way of saying we think you might explode or open a hellgate, so we're watching you.
Zoya was assigned to observe me. Not guard me. "Observe." She made that clear while very obviously wearing a sword.
They relocated me to a secure ward in Zone 1—a reinforced arcane complex near the Guild Tower. I got a bed, a window, and a suspiciously good sandwich. Honestly? Not bad for a guy who almost died under a chandelier.
But I didn't get to enjoy it for long.
Because that night, as I lay staring at the ceiling, the system came back.
NEW MISSION: THE CROWN DEMANDS DOMINANCE.
Requirement: Defeat the boss of a living dungeon.
Condition: Must land the final blow.
Penalty: Fragment degradation. Power will be lost.
"Okay," I whispered. "So, not optional."
ADDITIONAL CONDITION: You may no longer enter dungeons unaccompanied.
Reason: A king is never alone.
Witness required for fragment resonance.
I sat up, stared at the glowing rune on my hand, and groaned.
"A witness? Seriously? This is starting to feel like a very niche dating sim."
The next morning, Zoya brought me coffee and a file. She didn't smile. She never smiled. But she did raise an eyebrow when I told her about the system update.
"So," she said slowly, "you have to enter dungeons... but only with a team."
"Yep."
"But still land the killing blow yourself."
"Mm-hm."
"And you don't have any formal training."
"Correct."
She stared at me. "Do you even own a weapon?"
"I have a mop handle. Sort of."
Zoya looked to the heavens like she was praying for strength. Or a transfer.
"Well," she said after a long pause, "you're in luck."
"I feel like I'm not."
"The Guild's running a C-Rank clearance in Zone 2 tomorrow. Light dungeon, manageable threat, mostly new recruits. You're going in."
I blinked. "With who?"
"Me," she said.
"What?"
"I'm your assigned handler. Observation protocol. I'm going with you."
I stared at her.
She stared back.
And that's when I realized: I was about to enter my first real dungeon with a no-nonsense, sword-wielding Guild officer who thought I was either a ticking time bomb or the world's luckiest idiot.
And I had to steal the final kill under her nose.
This was going to go great.