Jung Yushin is twenty-three when the world he knows drops out from under him. In the one that replaces it, black hair marks a man as Barbaroi — northern stock, half-civilised, watched wherever he goes. Going home is not on offer. Neither, particularly, is staying alive. Both run through the same place: the Great Labyrinth, which pays out in strength and takes its payment in people. So he goes down. Floor by floor, alongside whoever is willing to stand next to a barbarian.