Picture this: You die. You get a reincarnation. Standard procedure. One goddess, one queue, one shiny new adventurer body waiting on the surface with a class, a guild card, and a whole heroic future.

Then reality glitches.

A voice from outside reality cuts through the dark: "I told you not to reincarnate humans when you're drunk!"

That's right. The goddess was day-drinking. You are not an adventurer. You are a Cave Slime. Maybe a Bone Rat. If you're lucky, a Goblin Weakling that can almost pronounce the word "help." You've been reincarnated as a dungeon mob — the thing adventurers grind for XP before breakfast, the thing that respawns specifically to die again.

The apology? "Sorry. Can't undo it. Policy."

The consolation prize? She left you your sentience. You're the only thinking creature in this entire dungeon. Every other mob is a scripted automaton running the same patrol, the same attack pattern, the same three grunts, forever. The only living, feeling beings you will ever meet are the adventurers — and they're coming down here to farm you.

Here's the fine print: you earn XP only by dealing damage to adventurers — beings five times your level, in parties, with healing potions and better gear than your entire bloodline could afford. You don't collect any of it until you die. Death is your paycheck. Respawn is your commute.

But you level. Tier by tier, floor by floor — Cannon Fodder to Pack Mob to something with actual teeth — all the way up to Dungeon Boss, where you get a class of your own naming, an infinite skill tree, and a hoard holding every drop ever taken from your kind.

The level cap? There isn't one. The goddess felt bad. Apparently that's her idea of making it up to you.

Welcome to the Dungeon. Try to make your deaths count.

• By request of @VibesForever