The Guild was forcing this on all of us.But that was part of the way of life around here.Whatever tune the Guild wanted to play, we all had to dance to.That was why we’d put as much distance as possible between us and those in charge.All we had to do was get through this mission, clear the dungeon, prove we could work with others, then play cleanup crew on The Pitt.
I didn’t love the idea of having to play their game, but I was smart enough to see enough steps ahead and know that there wasn’t much of an option.
“You know,” Ingram said, “we could kill them.”
“You always think killing people is the right answer.”
“No, I think killing people isananswer.”Ingram shrugged as if the point was obvious.
The funny thing about him was that he wasn’t kidding.He didn’t go around killing people without any thought, of course.That would make him a psycho.
And we were definitely all just slightly over the line on the sane side of psychopathy.We might jump rope with that line occasionally, but we never drifted too far over it.
“We just have to get through this.No reason to make it more difficult than it has to be.”
Shear had taken point up on a rocky cliffside not too far away.He worked best when he could oversee the entire battlefield.
This dungeon, despite being an A-Rank, was rather small.A person could stand on one side of it and shout, and someone on the other side could still hear them.I’d seen other dungeons this small, though they weren’t that normal when it came to higher ranks.We hadn’t run into any monsters yet, and that unnerved me all the more.
Monsters that hid in dungeons like this tended to cause a problem.It wasn’t even that I cared about that.I could fight whatever showed up without worry, but I really didn’t want this to take long.
The image of Yun, sitting back at that trailer, waiting for us—that was the shit that came back to me.I wanted to finish this up and get back to her, to dig a little deeper under her skin, to get the answers that we still didn’t have.This dungeon felt as frustrating as getting a pointless traffic ticket on the way to the most important day of my life.It was just a distraction that I wanted to finish as quickly as possible.
“So, what’s the plan?”The esper, Hart, who asked looked at me as if I was supposed to have that answer.It made me want to fuck with him a bit.After talking so much shit, after having everything in the world to mutter under his stupid little breath, he really was asking me what we were supposed to do?
Pathetic.
Sure, I was higher rank and had been doing this longer, but the Guild didn’t worry about how squads dealt with each other.It wasn’t a hierarchy, where we had to listen to those above us.Instead, each squad only answered to the Guild, not to one another.
It made his tendency to follow me nothing more than an unwanted annoyance.It wasn’tmyjob to keep them alive, after all.
Still, I plastered a smile onto my face, ever the jovial idiot.“I think we’re supposed to clear this place.”
He didn’t look all that pleased with my evaluation.Of course, he tracked it up to my idiocy rather than me being a smartass, which I preferred people to do.I’d always rather they not see me coming, that they doubted my ability and intelligence.
It made it easier to maneuver them exactly where I wanted them.
“I mean,howdo you want to do that?”He gestured at the mostly cleared space, at the line of trees and cliffs to the edges, surrounding us.
One of the things that had surprised me about the dungeons was how similar they all looked.Often, before anybody entered one, they assumed that they were as unique as the places on earth.
They figured that the trees and monsters would all be unique.The problem was that they seemed to think that dungeons were actual places.They were under the misunderstanding that dungeons were like different states or countries in our realm.Instead, dungeons were simply tiny broken pieces of space.They could have slight variances from one another, but for the most part they resembled the same dark, barren landscape.
In that way, this place was just the same.The trees were spindly, with thin branches that stretched up toward the sky.They were white, with black lines winding through them.Some had leaves, but they were sharp-edged and thin and mostly black.Small veins of purple ran throughout the trees, mirrored in the skyline.
Ingram remained with me, and Kenyon not far behind.We tended to work closely together, when possible.Ingram often took off on his own since he moved fastest by himself.He liked to slip past defenses and go after the most important areas.
At the end of the day, there were two ways to clear a dungeon.The first was to kill every monster within it.Without anything alive inside it, the dungeon would naturally dissipate.The other option was to destroy the heart.
That was usually the preferred method, but it wasn’t easy.Dungeons like to protect the hearts, as if they knew it was their lifeblood.This area was always thick with monsters, and even getting the heart was never easy.Only an S-Rank esper could do it, and it was still dangerous.Plenty of espers had died in the attempt.The higher level a dungeon, the more dangerous the heart.
A dungeon like this was probably best served by removing all the monsters.I wasn’t looking forward to a fight like that—though it had been a while since I had gotten to go all out—but it was the smartest choice.
I didn’t want to leave Yun alone for too long.
“Let’s set up a line there.”I gestured toward the center of the open space.“If we get near the heart, the monsters will come running.”
“Are you serious?That’s a terrible idea.”Hart stared at me as if I’d lost my ever-loving mind.It was funny, because if he had admitted anything before, he would have probably said I had already gone mad.
