Whether it was a fight with a monster, the corruption, or that we simply decided that we didn’t want to keep going until one or the other got us, espers weren’t known for being long lived.Still, there was a youthfulness to this squad that said they hadn’t had any real taste of battle.
Too often the younger espers would fight a single monster at the entrance to a dungeon and act as though they’d earned their stripes.I had a feeling this was the first exposure to that that this squad had ever gotten.
One of the reasons that they’d been sidelined from the more dangerous situations was probably because they didn’t even have a healer.The squad was made up of two combat specialists, a debuffer who could control the weather, and a stealth expert.Without either a mentalist or a healer, there were a lot of dungeons and monsters that they simply couldn’t deal with.
That also meant keeping both squads alive rested squarely on me.It was my job to make sure that nothing got them, or if something did, that I kept them from dying.
And fuck knew that wasn’t an easy job when it came to my own squad.They put far too much trust in me and didn’t value their own lives nearly enough.
The first monster to appear came from the treeline.It was far from the largest or scariest thing that we’d ever encountered, but we’d learned never to underestimate a monster.Doing that almost always led to injury or worse.The thing was large, probably as tall as a horse.It had six legs, and they worked together like an insect’s to propel it forward.A short, stocky neck led to its massive wide, flat skull.The head resembled a lizard, with a short snout full of teeth that didn’t line up quite right, so a few stuck out from over its lip line and showed even when its mouth was closed.
It headed straight for Carter.That didn’t shock me, as Carter knew exactly how to piss anyone off.
Before the thing could reach him, however, Ingram appeared out of nowhere.
It had freaked me out when I’d first met Ingram and learned how quickly he could sneak up on people.In fact, he seemed to revel in jumping out of nowhere and scaring the shit out of me when we were younger.
I think he got off on the control.
I’d gotten used to it, much like Shear’s ability to sneak into my head.They were just things that we had to accept about one another.Were they weird?Fuck yes they were.But they were part of us.It was no different from my ability to heal or Carter’s uncanny ability and desire to kill anything that annoyed him.
Ingram’s shadows engulfed the creature.Some of the time he used a blade, like Carter, but he also had a few skills that Carter lacked.It required significantly higher risk to use shadows, but there was no doubt of their effectiveness.
A frightened, pained screech left the creature, escaping through that cloud of shadows, and when the dark shroud cleared, an emaciated husk remained.Ingram’s eyes glowed from the effort, but he hadn’t allowed the creature to get anywhere near Carter.
“What the fuck?”Carter held out his arms as though he’d just been personally wronged.“That was mine!”
Ingram smirked, the expression pulling one side of his lips up higher than the other.“Well, you should have been a little faster then, huh?”
Carter reached into his jacket and withdrew two blades, gripping the handles tightly.Each one was about the length of his forearm, incredibly sharp and thin.He had any number of blades on him, but those were his favorites.“So what are we betting on who gets the higher number?”
“First guiding when we get back?”
“But I’m not gonna have any kills!”I shouted at both of them, annoyed to be left out again.They always liked to base everything on kill count, as if that was the only thing that mattered.It felt rather unfair.
“Well, that seems like a you problem,” Carter said.
“Maybe we should count every one of your kills for me.I mean, I did save you, so you wouldn’t even have any kills if it wasn’t for me.”
He chuckled, but didn’t seem all that inclined to accept my idea.Not that it really mattered—most of these bets never actually went through.No one kept their word at the end of the day.What did it matter when most of our resources were all pulled together?It was just a way to pass the time, to have a little fun in the midst of something that was unquestionably not fun.
Of course, I also had never really wanted to win before.What was a hundred bucks to me?
But getting first guiding from Yun—now that was something worth fighting for.
Even if I thought I had a chance, that belief went away rather fast.One look at the way the others moved around the battlefield reminded me of exactly where I sat.Carter moved like a typhoon, fast and devastating, barreling through the open space.I’d seen him fight countless times before.It wasn’t like this time was unique or special in any way, and yet, there was no doubt that it astounded me.Maybe it was some amount of jealousy.
The truth was that I had always fallen short.Despite my size, despite how I looked, I’d never gotten to be that vision of masculinity.Everyone always expected me to be the combat specialist.Anyone who looked between Carter and me would assume that I was the fighter.At my age, by my point in life, I’d think that I would have gotten over questions like that, fears like that, but I guess no one really got over that sort of thing.We moved past it, we made amends with it, we accepted it, but we didn’t ever really silence the doubts.
It was why it was ridiculous to me, but I still watched in awe, and a bit of jealousy, as he tore through the monsters that appeared.More and more showed up, causing that slightly acidic scent to fill the space.It was like rot, but more like rotten fruit.It had this fake sweetness to it, something that I had grown accustomed to over our years of fighting monsters.The more and more of them they came out, the more bodies piled up.Despite that however, we kept the upper hand.No matter how many appeared, neither Ingram nor Carter struggled beneath the onslaught.
The other espers fought in the way toddlers helped clean up the house.They usually just made more work, but they still got praise for it.They did their best.
I mean, it wasn’t good or anything.
I stayed where I was, monitoring the situation.Since I wasn’t that useful in a fight, I tended to try to stay back.Carter and Ingram had no issues with the monsters, so it wasn’t like there was anything for me to do.
At least not when it came to my squad.
