All man-made buildings collapse while Carl is outside in the freezing cold chasing his ex-girlfriend's cat, Princess Donut.

A robotic voice offers Carl a choice to enter a dungeon or freeze to death; Carl and Donut descend the glowing stairwell.

Carl fights off attacking goblins and takes shelter in a tutorial room, where he meets his guild master, Mordecai.

Mordecai reveals that no crawler in the dungeon show's entire history has ever survived past Level 13.

Donut eats an enhanced pet biscuit from Carl's loot box and transforms into a sentient, talking crawler with a charisma of 25.

Carl and Donut fight and kill the Hoarder neighborhood boss — a real Earth woman painfully transformed into a 15-foot monster.

Donut uses her extreme charisma to charm local goblins into building the pair a coal-powered motorcycle with a sidecar.

Carl shoves a cart of gunpowder into the goblin chieftain's room and detonates it, killing the neighborhood boss.

Carl finds the Meadow Lark group — four caregivers protecting roughly 40 elderly people — and decides to help protect them.

Carl, Donut, and the Meadow Lark fighters combine forces to defeat the borough boss, a massive fleshy ball made of swine.

After descending to Level 2, Carl and Donut are teleported to a live interview with the famous show host Odette.

Level 1 collapses, killing over a million crawlers who had not yet reached the stairwells down to Level 2.

An elderly man named Jack accidentally urinates in a hallway, summoning a deadly Level 93 rage elemental that attacks the group.

Carl lures the rage elemental into a bomb-laden motorcycle chase and tricks it into falling through a stairwell, where it disintegrates.

Carl and Donut descend to Level 3, where they will finally be permitted to choose their race and class.

The story begins when Carl's world literally collapses around him and he is forced to enter a deadly alien dungeon game with his ex-girlfriend's cat, Princess Donut. With guidance from his guild master Mordecai, Carl learns the dungeon is a galactic entertainment spectacle rigged against its participants. Carl and Donut face their first boss fight — killing a real woman transformed into a monster — before rallying to help a group of elderly survivors called Meadow Lark. Together, they defeat the borough boss and descend to Level 2, where fame, new enemies, and deadlier threats await. An accidental summoning of a near-invincible rage elemental forces Carl to improvise one of his most daring exploits, launching them into galactic stardom. The novel closes as Carl and Donut descend to Level 3, where they will finally choose the race and class that will define their path forward.

The headline events that define Carl and Donut's dungeon survival story.

The dungeon voice announces that 13 million people entered the stairwells before they sealed, and 3 million died within the first hour.

Mordecai explains that the Borant Corporation profits from the dungeon crawl, which is broadcast as entertainment across the entire galaxy.

Despite Mordecai's warning, Donut immediately puts on an enchanted crown from her loot box, unknowingly entering the Blood Sultanate line of succession.

Carl and Donut watch the dungeon show's premiere episode from a safe room and discover neither of them is featured.

Carl and Donut find the body of a crawler named Rebecca and learn from her info box that she was shot by a fellow crawler named Frank.

Frank and Maggie ambush Carl and Donut inside a safe room; the room's mechanics freeze both attackers as punishment for the violation.

Carl hides a stick of dynamite inside a dead rat's body and leaves it as a hidden booby trap for Frank to loot.

Carl and Donut fight the Level 9 Juicer neighborhood boss inside a repurposed fitness center filled with troglodyte minions.

Donut pounces on the Juicer's back and bites its neck to rescue Carl from being strangled to death by the boss.

Borant Corporation assigns Carl and Donut a kua-tin PR agent named Zev, who surprises them with genuine compassion and unexpected understanding.

A Borant administrator overrides Zev's decisions and forces Carl and Donut onto Maestro's sadistic Death Watch show against their will.

Carl publicly humiliates Maestro on live television by exploiting his own fame to save four endangered crawlers from certain death.

As a parting act, Maestro gives Frank and Maggie a tracker potion that lets them find Carl by name anywhere in the dungeon.

Carl and Donut defeat a neighborhood boss running a dog-fighting ring by feeding biscuits to the caged dingoes and turning them into allies.

Donut officially bonds with the baby velociraptor Mongo after rescuing him from capture during a dungeon fight.

As Carl and Donut navigate the first two floors, a web of secondary conflicts and crucial moments shapes their growing reputation in the dungeon. They encounter their first human enemies in Frank and Maggie — ruthless crawlers who murder fellow survivors for experience points — and discover just how brutal the contestant-versus-contestant dynamic can be. On Level 2, Carl and Donut gain a surprising ally in Zev, their corporate PR agent, while being forced onto a sadistic televised show hosted by the menacing prince Maestro. Carl's defiance of Maestro on live television creates a powerful new enemy while simultaneously saving four other crawlers from certain death. The arrival of the baby velociraptor Mongo adds a chaotic but loyal new member to their growing team. Every encounter and alliance in this pool reflects how Carl and Donut are building something rare in the dungeon: genuine partnerships forged under impossible pressure.

The secondary battles, rivalries, and alliances that shape Carl's dungeon journey.

Carl threatens to split from Donut due to her cruelty; she apologizes and admits she has always watched over him with affection.

Mordecai quietly warns Carl that no deal the dungeon ever offers a crawler is truly worth accepting.

Mordecai is revealed to keep the ashes of his mother and a photograph of his brother, who was also a dungeon crawler.

Donut casually reveals that Beatrice had another man visit the apartment while Carl was at the gym, confirming she was cheating on him.

After the explosion, Donut tells Carl the destroyed goblin room contained babies, pregnant goblins, and the elderly, horrifying him with the collateral damage.

The dungeon AI awards Carl a war criminal achievement for killing more than 20 noncombatants in a single explosion.

Carl declares aloud to the dungeon that it may hurt or kill him, but it will never break him.

Odette privately removes her alien costume to reveal she is a legless human woman who survived the dungeon to Level 12.

Odette reveals she was Mordecai's former trainer and asks Carl to reconnect them once Mordecai's indentureship to Borant Corporation ends.

Mordecai secretly reveals that a political faction called the Bloom is pressuring Borant Corporation to end the dungeon crawl early to collect advertising revenue.

Maestro reveals that Carl's booby-trapped rat severely injured Frank and Maggie's daughter Yvette, and that Maggie subsequently killed her as a mercy.

During the Krakaren Clone boss fight, Carl wraps his own body around Donut to shield her from a massive explosion, accepting his likely death.

Donut drags the severely injured, blind, and deaf Carl out of a burning boss room to save his life.

Carl discovers advanced Valtay Corporation technology hidden inside Agatha's shopping cart, suggesting the mysterious elderly woman is connected to something far larger.

Odette warns that one hidden class option available to Donut will anger someone powerful, and reveals that Mongo is a velociraptor.

Beneath the dungeon's explosive action lies a series of revelations and emotional turning points that reveal the true nature of Carl, Donut, and the world around them. Early discoveries — including the truth about Beatrice's infidelity, the horror of unintended goblin casualties, and Carl's vow never to let the dungeon break him — establish his core moral identity. Meetings with Odette expose the dungeon's deeper politics, including her secret identity as a legless human survivor and the revelation that a corrupt faction is forcing the game toward an early, lethal end. The most devastating moment comes when Maestro reveals that Carl's booby-trapped rat indirectly caused the death of Frank and Maggie's daughter, adding guilt and dangerous new enemies to Carl's burdens. Carl's willingness to sacrifice himself shielding Donut from an explosion — and Donut's quiet act of dragging him to safety — crystallizes the depth of their bond. Together, these moments of revelation and decision show that surviving the dungeon is not just physical, but a constant test of character.

The key revelations and emotional turning points that define who Carl and Donut truly are.