He folded his hands behind him, a sure sign he didn’t plan to take it back.“Sorry, those are the rules.You’re in this squad, we need to communicate with you.Think of it as a perk.”
I sighed, hating the feeling of owing anyone anything.Worse, something about the surprisingly large and light phone felt like a collar, like a tether holding me to them.Still, they weren’t wrong.Wasn’t I the one complaining about how we needed to be able to plan, to know our schedules?How was that going to happen without a phone?
And I certainly wasn’t in a position to get one myself.Being a guide had its advantages, but some of the downsides were that we didn’t really have credit scores or documentation to sign contracts on our own.
So I set it on the table and took my seat again, a quiet awkwardness in my chest that I couldn’t shake.I muttered out a sullen ‘thanks’ before focusing again on my food.
“We’ll work on a schedule,” Carter offered, tone soft as though trying to appease me.“But we don’t do a whole lot to worry about.”
“How many jobs do you take on a month?”
“Four, maybe?Usually local stuff.We get called in if a dungeon opens close by, but only in emergencies.Otherwise, they leave us alone for the most part.”
I shuddered at the mere mention of a dungeon.It was difficult to hide that reaction, even after all these years.
Funny, given that was what everyone talked about around me.What else did espers have to say?Still, it never failed to conjure up horrors I’d rather not ever think about again.
I pushed it aside, relegating those feelings to the darkness reserved for my past.“You’re all S-Rank.Why aren’t you called into more dungeons?”
Carter lifted one of his dark eyebrows.“You really don’t know much about us, do you?”He let out a dark chuckle.“We’re S-Rank, sure, but we aren’t thegoodones, you know, the ones they put on television that play up for the cameras real well.Plus, we aren’t huge fans of doing dangerous work, so we usually hang back.If it’s bad enough, they’ll call us in to help mop up around the entrance, but that’s it.So don’t expect a ton of travel.”
And, boy, didn’t that make my day…
I’d managed to avoid most dangerous work as a guide.Some guides, the flashy ones, they got stuck right outside a dungeon, helping the espers who needed guiding during large-scale operations.I’d never been one of them, so I’d gotten to stay back to help after my squad arrived back to their place.
It served me just fine.I saw no reason to put myself into danger any more than I had to.
Still, it made me glance around the table at the four men here.
No, not men, but espers.
I’d dealt with lots of them over the years, all different types, different ranks, different ages, but they were similar in their need for approval, in their desire to prove themselves.Sure, they had pressure on them.I wouldn’t pretend like they had it that easy or anything—I wasn’t that short-sighted—but they’d always struck me as show offs.
Espers and squads tended to battle for top rankings, wanting to see themselves on the news, wanting to prove themselves.In fact, it was so bad near the top that people threw each under the bus just to get ahead.
Which was why I had no idea how to take these four who didn’t give a fuck about those sorts of things.It went to explain why they had such a bad reputation, didn’t it?They really didn’t care about doing anything, so maybe they deserved all that hate and ridicule, after all.
At least, that was how they seemed.
I ate slowly, unsure how to put that together, how to understand or interact with these men.Normally, I knew what espers wanted, could tolerate them, could control them just by understanding them.I never enjoyed it, but it at least felt safer because I understood it.
These four, though, they didn’t follow any of the rules I was accustomed to.It made me uneasy, had me watching them with a new wariness.Espers were dangerous, sure, but they’d been easy to predict before.If these four didn’t do as I expected, if they didn’t follow the trends I knew of, how was I supposed to deal with them?How was I supposed to stay a step ahead?
The answer escaped me, so I focused instead on my food.I’d need to pay attention, to learn the new rules, because I knew better than most that my survival could depend on it.
Chapter Four
Ingram
The beast moved before me, a lumbering, mindless, rage-filled monster.It had slipped through a small portal, escaped a dungeon, as a few of them did now and again.Most dungeons opened fully, allowing espers to go inside, trapping civilians inside at the same time.Those were the best-known type, the ones that made the news.Occasionally, though, smaller portals would open for short periods of time, like tears in the fabric of our world, with monsters escaping through them before they closed and disappeared again.These portals could be open for only a matter of a few minutes, gone before anyone knew about them.They were rarely ranked or remembered.
Shear was sensitive enough to notice them, however, as was I.We felt the disturbance, even the slight one caused by unstable portals.Only a fool would enter them, but we didn’t mind picking off the beasties that got through.It was hardly a workout for Rank-S espers like us, but given the tension in the house, I appreciated the chance to get out.
The Guild wouldn’t even bother to send anyone, given it was a low level.They’d view it as too insignificant to waste time on.It meant they wouldn’t order espers there, but we did as we fucking wished.
Shear had confused the monster that had gotten free, forced it to move away from the community of homes and toward an open park which, given the late hour, was entirely empty.
Better this way.I preferred avoiding the risk of collateral damage.Our jobs were hard enough as it was without needing to deal with civilians.Some screamed, attracting the attention of the monsters, and others—the worst kind—actively tried to help, which just made things harder.
