Chapter 2

“That bad?” I muttered, then paused because something felt wrong.

“If they’re dead, who’s in charge of the patients they were assigned?”

The answer was no one.

Everyone already had their hands full with their own unstable anomaly-patients. Nobody was volunteering to adopt someone else’s nightmare.

And when an unassigned monster roams free, nobody knows what it might do.

A man with a scar across his cheek let out a sharp laugh and looked me up and down like I was trash.

“You should take them. Isn’t seducing monsters your specialty in every dungeon?”

He smirked and leaned in.

“Tell me, which one was better in bed last time? The one in red, or that pretty boy with the mole under his eye?”

He was talking about the two anomalies who stayed with me until the very end in the Rose Manor dungeon.

One was Jackson in the red coat. Hot-headed and reckless, but completely devoted to me.

The other was Zero, the one with the tear mole. Gentle on the surface, quietly dangerous underneath, always protecting me without making a big deal out of it.

After the last dungeon closed, they followed me back to the real world. But anomalies aren’t allowed to stay there for long. Before I knew it, they were forced to disappear.

I’d been thinking about them ever since.

He clicked his tongue.

“Must be nice, being that desperate. Do you sleep with anything that has a—”

“No,” I said calmly. “I’m allergic to ugly.”

The scarred man choked on his words.

Because he had just been ripped apart.

I turned around slowly and stared at the “pet” who had done the ripping. He still had blood on his face, but somehow looked… innocent.

“I was hungry,” he murmured.

Maybe it was my imagination, but his pupils looked a little sharper than before.

[Wow. Trying to slut-shame someone in a horror dungeon? He had it coming.]

[Pop the champagne. Ding-dong, the jerk is dead.]

[Lol the stans are out. She can sleep with monsters but nobody can call her out?]

[We are literally here to watch players rot. Why is everyone fighting?]

[Only me noticing his beast-form is starting? Time is running out for her.]

I had no clue about “beast-form” or whatever. I only knew one thing.

A pet that bites strangers is not adoptable.

Did this mean… I really was stuck raising him?

---

By then, he was done eating. He ignored the two players running away screaming. Instead, he knelt down in front of me, head tilted up, a tiny smile tugging at his lips.

“Are you afraid of me?”

[Here it is. The feeding-time question.]

[Animal behavior 101. Say yes, and he kills you.]

[Pretty hard not to be terrified when you watch someone get eaten in front of you.]

[Yeah she is shaking. Rest in peace.]

[Cue the funeral music.]

My body was shaking, but not because I was scared.

It was because, from this angle, I could see his pecs.

He had a perfect chest line, deep and sculpted.

All my rational thoughts evaporated. I leaned forward, pressed my face into it, and inhaled deeply.

“So good,” I whispered into his chest. “So good.”

[I’m dying. She is a chest maniac.]

[Pet: I knew it. I’m terrifyingly sexy.]

[Trainer of the year.]

[You all need to calm down. She still needs to cure him. The goal is to make him normal again.]

[If he fully beast-forms, everyone else in this dungeon dies.]

I was still buried in his chest, reluctant to move.

“Oh right,” I said. “Since you don’t have a name, I should give you one. How about ‘Dominus’?”

What I got in response was a heavy, uneven breath.

I looked up and froze.

He wasn’t looking at me anymore. His eyes were fixed on the far corner of the hallway, pupils thin and sharp, filled with killing intent.

I remembered the three unassigned anomaly patients roaming around.

Suddenly nervous, I instinctively ducked back against his chest for cover.

But before I could burrow in again, a familiar voice called out:

“Missy.”

Zero stood at the end of the hallway. His gaze drifted from me to the pet’s chest I was clinging to. He smiled gently.

“Did I walk in at a bad time?”