Mark examined the area around the Gate with clinical precision. Beneath his feet lay nothing but shifting sand; above him, a relentless, punishing sun. He began to scout the perimeter, but even after trekking nearly a kilometer from the Gate, he hadn't encountered a single living soul.
A taut irritation began to gnaw at him, replaced quickly by a strange, unsettling anxiety. On the first and second floors, monsters were a constant presence—especially on the second floor, where danger lurked behind every corner. The sheer scale of the second floor had been immense; if the first floor was a forest tucked inside a colossal cavern, the second was a vast expanse that Mark knew he hadn't even fully mapped yet.
The third floor appeared no less massive, but the lack of targets was frustrating. If finding a single monster is this difficult, how am I supposed to track down a Floor Boss? Mark felt the cold realization that he was truly becoming lost. He began to consider turning back.
For now, he could still rely on his memory to find the way. But he knew that if he pushed any further, that mental map would eventually fail him. The sun remained pinned at the zenith like a fixed, scorching lightbulb, stripping him of any sense of direction—no east, no west. The dunes, identical in their shifting curves, grew increasingly indistinguishable by the minute. To make matters worse, a light breeze was methodically erasing his tracks, smoothing the desert floor as if he had never been there.
A faint but persistent sense of dread settled in his chest. It wasn't overwhelming, but it was clear: Turn back while you still can. Realizing that any further exploration would lead to a fatal case of disorientation, Mark made the call. He turned around, choosing a strategic retreat over the growing risk of the unknown.
As Mark retreated, he noticed a subtle shift in the air. The wind began to pick up, a low howl beginning to echo in his ears. It felt disproportionately loud for such a light breeze. A sense of urgency gripped him, and he quickened his pace, the unease in his chest tightening into a knot.
The wind intensified rapidly, now whipping up clouds of loose sand. Fine grains began to pelt his exposed skin, stinging his face and hands like tiny needles. What had been a rhythmic whistle was now transforming into the roar of a full-blown gale. Mark knew with absolute certainty that something was wrong. He broke into a run.
The escalating storm was physically reshaping the landscape around him. The sand dunes he had used as mental landmarks were being dismantled and rebuilt by the wind before his very eyes. The gale didn't feel natural. Mark finally understood the source of his earlier dread. He realized why he hadn't found a single monster on this floor: they were all likely buried deep underground, hiding for their lives.
For the first time in his journey through the dungeons, Mark was facing a terror that had haunted humanity since the dawn of time—not a monster of flesh and blood, but a catastrophic force of nature: a massive, blinding sandstorm.
Mark stood near the Gate for a while, waiting, but the wind only grew more violent. Fortunately, the area immediately surrounding the Gate seemed to possess some form of inherent protection, preventing it from being swallowed by the rising dunes. Having confirmed that this was indeed a massive sandstorm, Mark felt a surge of relief that he had turned back when he did.
He didn't necessarily think the storm would kill him outright, but it would have undoubtedly caused him to lose his way. Moreover, a sandstorm of this magnitude would fill a person's lungs with fine silt. Without high-level medical magic, such an injury would lead to a slow, agonizing decline.
Yet, a deeper realization began to dawn on him. Is this really just a dungeon? he wondered. Or have I been transported to another dimension entirely? A full-scale sandstorm inside a dungeon felt beyond the bounds of logic.
The scale of these floors was becoming increasingly absurd; he hadn't even fully explored the second floor yet, and the third floor already felt like an endless, desolate world.
Once Mark confirmed the sheer scale of the sandstorm, he stepped back through the Gate and returned to the Safe Zone. Feeling the cold, flat floor and the solid walls of his sanctuary, he began to dust himself off—sand had found its way into every crease of his clothing.
He retreated to the bathroom, and as he sank into a tub filled with hot water, his mind drifted back to the nature of the dungeon. The first floor was small, governed by strict rules, he mused. The System had calibrated it to prepare me, ensuring I wouldn't die before I learned the basics. But the second floor was different—a lawless, vastly expanded version of the first. It was a dense forest where danger and combat lurked at every turn, with different territories housing monsters of various specializations. Each battle there had been a unique lesson.
The third floor, however, seemed to promise fewer battles. Yet, the fact that monsters were hiding from the sandstorm didn't mean they were few in number. Still, the reality remained: a desert is a harsh mistress, even for monsters. During his brief excursion, Mark hadn't found a single thing that could be considered edible. The environment itself was a silent killer.
Perhaps the Floor Boss died simply because it couldn't endure this place? Mark wondered. But shouldn't a Boss be an overwhelmingly powerful creature? The contradiction left him feeling more perplexed than ever.
After bathing and getting some much-needed sleep, Mark decided to venture onto the third floor once more. As he stepped through the Gate, he found the landscape unchanged—sand as far as the eye could feel—but one thing was drastically different.
"It's... freezing," Mark muttered, his body shivering uncontrollably.
The Safe Zone, much like the first and second floors, had always maintained a neutral, almost artificial temperature. He hadn't been prepared for this sudden drop. But as his senses adjusted, he realized another startling fact: the sun was gone.
During his first visit, Mark hadn't stayed long enough to understand the celestial mechanics of this floor. Was the sun merely a fixed object in the sky that flickered out, or did it follow a natural cycle from east to west? Perhaps his first entry had simply coincided with high noon. He hadn't been able to track the sun's movement before the sandstorm arrived, rendering the sky irrelevant. Now, the oppressive heat had been replaced by a biting, desert night.