Chapter Five
Ingram
Another dungeon, just like any other fucking day.
At least it gave me the chance to stretch my legs and get some work done, to burn off some energy. That was beneficial because every time I saw Yun, I wanted to throw her over my shoulder and take her right to bed.
Fuck that, I’d take her wherever the hell we were. I’d never claim to be picky, but with Yun, it had worsened. I’d be fine with pushing her up against a wall, with taking her from behind.
I’d turned into a pervert after just a little time with her.
Well, fuck, I guess I’d been a pervert for a long time, but she made brought it out in me all the more.
Before, I’d take sex from anyone at any time.
I didn’t give a damn who orgasms came from, the proof of that given what I’d done with Shear.
So long as I got my needs met, so long as that hunger inside of me quieted for a damn minute, nothing else mattered.
Now, though?
Every last desire had warped, like shrink wrap, around Yun so that every fantasy, every urge, it all revolved around her.
Even jacking off hadn’t dulled the need. I’d tried until I was worried I’d end up chafing my cock, and it hadn’t helped.
I swung my arm, a short blade clutched in my hand, and sank it into one of the small creatures that dug up from the ground.
The dungeon was A-Rank, opening just an hour away from the base. I’d felt it open, that shiver through me drawing me closer. After we’d arrived, however, it seemed the rest of the Guild had caught on and sent other squads.
They still wanted us to work together, but they’d had no real success in that thus far.
The dungeon was filled with more espers than seemed, though we all stayed in our own areas. This was less a group working together and more people trying to exist in the same space and not kill each other by accident.
Kenyon stood beside Shear, and Carter was—
Well, fuck only knew. Probably wherever the largest concentration of monsters was.
I took them out quickly, one at a time, but Carter?
He’d rather taunt a whole damn group, then tear through them all.
He wanted the pressure of more, always pushing the limits of what he could survive.
It was like the fucker only knew he was alive if he was doing something really fucking dangerous.
I worked my way toward the heart of the dungeon. Carter had at least drawn off most of the monsters to leave my path mostly clear.
“There is another squad near the heart,” Ingram whispered in my head.
“Fuck, already?”
“They’re made up of two stealth specialist, a debuffer, and a healer/stealth mix. It means they can move mostly as a group.”
“Well good for them.” Even as I bit that retort out, I threw myself faster.
I didn’t normally give a damn if anyone else did well, felt no desire to compete.
That drive had been crushed inside me years before, when I’d seen what happened to those at the front, when I figured out how little the world actually cared for them and how quickly they’d turn on them.
However, something made me move, had me rushing toward the center of the dungeon, toward the familiar pillar that I knew would be there.
Yun was waiting outside the portal, at one of the trailers set up to hold guides. I hadn’t given a damn about impressing anyone, but the thought of walking out of this place and having someone else take care of the heart?
Yeah, no, I didn’t plan on letting that happen. I didn’t care if the other squads were A or S Ranked, I’d been at this long enough to know how to handle myself. I had a deeper connection to that void than any other stealth esper I’d ever encountered.
I’d bring the dust of that heart back to Yun like some gift to prove that she should stay with us.
While we didn’t want her to go, I had no doubt that the Guild would offer her whatever they could. This unease inside me made me desperate to show her the reasons to refuse, to pick us.
The trees blurred past me as I shifted inside that space between the real world and the dungeon, the darkness that existed in that narrow space.
It helped me bypass squads and monsters.
Shear could keep an eye on me—mostly—but Kenyon and Carter wouldn’t.
It put me on my own, yet I didn’t mind that.
If anything, a part of it felt more natural to me than working with others.
Stealth weren’t made to exist with others, were driven by that darkness, the call of a void that nothing could ever satisfy. I’d learned to adjust, to work with my squad, to rely on them, but a terrifying freedom overcame me when I had the chance to break free like this.
Just ahead, the pillar came into view. Obsidian, with the heart above it. The shiny, black stone hovered slightly, power radiating from it. I wasn’t first, however. The other group stood there, but upon seeing them, I cursed.
Rank B? They truly thought they could deal with the heart of a higher-rank dungeon?
I’d seen what a heart could do to an esper who lacked the rank and power to destroy it.
The corruption within the heart could easily overwhelm the esper.
The competing energies would clash, and unless they relented, only one would survive.
And looking at the B-Rank idiots here, I had a feeling I knew exactly who’d win that battle.
Heartless as I was, I couldn’t just let that happen. Instead, I slipped from the shadows beside them. “You really think that’s a good idea?”
One of the two stealth espers looked my way, his eyes narrowing. The look he offered suggested he knew exactly who I was. “We were here first.”
“So?”
“You can’t destroy this. It’s ours.”
I made a point to roll my eyes so hard a teenager would have cringed. “I don’t give a fuck about the payout.”
“You may not, but it would make a huge difference for us.” He reached for the heart until my snapped response froze him in place.
“Yeah, well, money’s not gonna mean a fucking thing to a pile of ash.”
“You don’t know that’ll happen. It’s not all about rank! You think that rank means everything, but it doesn’t.”
I shook my head at their stupidity. I could feel monsters coming, the sickening energy, the crunching of ground beneath their feet. They felt us near the heart and wouldn’t allow us to be here unopposed. No dungeon let itself get destroyed without a fight, after all.
Were they alive? Was there some central guiding intelligence? Or was it just instinct?
I didn’t know and, honestly, I didn’t much give a fuck. None of it changed my task, so it didn’t matter to me. Let the scientists waste their time with those sorts of questions.
Me, I destroyed shit. That was it for me. No need for deeper thoughts or what-ifs.
“You want to do something this fucking stupid? Go for it. I’ll take the heart and destroy it after you turn into fucking dust, huh? I’ll just wait until it destroys every cell in your stupid fucking body.”
The first monster burst through the shrubs around us, but I had heard it coming. I caught it by a horn and twisted, the snapping of its neck loud, like a fucking exclamation point to my statement. The thing collapsed into a pile of twisted limbs and black scales. It was hardly alone, however.
More of them overran the small clearing, swarming the group. They focused less on me, probably because the lower-rank espers made for easier targets.
Not that I let that happen. I slipped two blades into my hands from the slots of my belt. They weren’t large, not as scary-looking as the weapons Carter often used, but they helped me stay quick on my feet.
Even a needle could kill a person if stuck in the right spot, and my placement was impeccable.
They didn’t slow, didn’t stop. It was like everything Carter had drawn to him before had abandoned him to focus on us. I lost myself in the movements, in dropping one foe after another, a familiar rhythm that had made up my life for so long.
At least, I did until movement to my left caught my attention. I glanced that way to find the same asshole from earlier going for the heart again. He ignored the monsters snapping at him, and the others of his squad tried to keep them away from him.
“Don’t you fucking do it,” I yelled out as I tore a blade free from where I’d embedded it into one of the thing’s throats.
The esper looked at me, challenge in his features, then dove for the heart. A pained sound escaped him the moment he curled his fingers around the stone.
I knew that pain, had felt it myself, had probably made that sound myself. Still, it hurt to hear anyone else make it, especially over something as fucking stupid as their own ego, as their own pride.
What use was there in climbing some imaginary social ladder if it was just going to fucking kill him?
Sure enough, when he grasped it, his body froze. He couldn’t have let it go even if he’d wanted to. His eyes shifted to purple, to the same color that worked its way through the otherwise black skies. His face darkened, veins black and stark against pale skin, until he disintegrated right there.
No—disintegrated implied it was instant, as though it didn’t hurt. That word didn’t do justice to just how horrific it was, to the way the pitch of his voice changed with the pain, to how time no doubt seemed to slow around him as the power tore him apart, atom by atom.
The heart fell, striking the dirt, deceptively heavy.
Looking at it, most people would assume it was light, but in truth, one that size was easily twenty pounds.
The heart of an S-Rank dungeon would hit closer to fifty.
No one had ever managed to lift the heart of a stable dungeon, not surviving long enough to judge the weight of one of those.
I cursed to myself at the waste of that idiot, but didn’t let it slow me down. Instead, I rushed forward, grasping the heart, ready for the pain.
Even if it was a lower-rank dungeon, even if I knew I could handle this heart, it didn’t remove the agonizing fire that burned through me, the way the corruption inside me seemed to ignite and burn.
It was strange, like a moment of power before it all went away, before the energy in me overwhelmed the heart.
I tightened my fist around the heart until it crumbled, much like the esper had.
As soon as I destroyed it, the entire dungeon shook. The monsters howled, but retreated, the sky dripping down as though melting.
Which was a good sign it was time to get the fuck out of here.
The four from the lower squad had become three, and that was a pretty generous count given their state.
The one remaining stealth stood—barely—and the debuffer hybrid no longer had an arm. The healer was down, though not dead.
A part of me wanted to leave the whole stupid team. They’d brought this on themselves, so sure of their own success that they hadn’t bothered to think through any of it. They’d wanted fucking money, like a cash prize at the end of the tunnel would prove to be worth it.
Did they still think that?
Fuckwits didn’t usually learn their lessons, from what I’d seen, so I didn’t put much hope in that.
“It’s time to go. We’re already at the portal.” Shear’s voice held no worry. He’d felt me destroy the heart, no doubt knew what had happened and where I was. Instead, it was a prodding to get me to hurry up.
I glanced at the unconscious healer, so damn tempted to turn around and leave all these fuckers to their own fate.
Except something stuck with me, this idea in my head I couldn’t shake, one I didn’t even understand.
Hell, maybe I’m the fuckwit.