Chapter Twenty-Two
Yun
My body hurt. All of it, as a whole, like each cell inside of me complained all at once. I wasn’t made for physical exertion like this, and judging from the other guides around, I doubted they were, either.
“This is insane,” a B-Rank guide said, leaning forward, his hand on his knees as he panted.
I had to agree, but I’d learned that arguing with the Guild after they made a decision did nothing. They weren’t the type to rethink anything, too busy defending their choice even if it was wrong.
“Again,” the woman at the front shouted, having come in from the military to run this little training lesson.
When I’d gotten word about a training exercise for guides, I’d assumed it would be something actually useful. Maybe we’d need to go over risks at the portal opening, or review prioritization when it came to emergency guiding.
I hadn’t expected to end up in a group with a bunch of guides doing an obstacle course like we were in basic training, like we were going to become soldiers.
I’d caught Carter and Shear around that morning, but a sharp look had gotten them going. I didn’t need them to actually witness the embarrassment that was my attempt to keep up.
I went toward the monkey bars, but my grip had tired so much that the moment I attempted to hold on, when I wrapped my hand around the metal bar, I fell. It caused me to crash down, the soft dirt beneath enough to keep me from getting hurt—at least more than my pride.
“Again,” the woman said.
“I can’t,” I bit out, curling my aching hands into the dirt. My palms were already filled with raised circles that would no doubt fill with liquid, blister, then burst later.
“You can’t?” She scoffed, walking closer as though she’d just found herself a target—me. She stood above me, wearing fatigues and a lot of attitude. She was neither an esper nor a guide, just some drill sergeant they’d picked out to handle this training.
The Guild trainers worked with espers, not guides, so the Guild must have thought someone used to handling humans was a better fit.
They’d been wrong.
“You think you can just quit when things get hard, huh? You think you’ll be able to just turn around and walk away when someone wants you dead?” Her tone came out like a mockery, but her jabs didn’t hit. She had no idea what she was talking about.
“This isn’t what I do. I’m a guide, so I don’t even go into dungeons.
There’s no reason I need to be able to cross some damn monkey bars.
” I gripped the metal frame to help pull me to my feet.
It would have looked better if I could have stood all on my own, but I knew better than to try.
I didn’t have much high ground, but I’d for sure lose even that much if I ended up face-first in the sand.
“You have no idea what you could face. Are you just going to wait and hope an esper saves you? What are you, some princess in a fairy tale?” She spat the words like the very idea had insulted her.
“I know better than you do. Have you ever even been to a portal?”
She sputtered in response, the noises escaping her almost words but not quite, like she couldn’t work out a real sentence.
After gathering herself, she tried again.
“I’ve been in actual fights, on actual battlegrounds, with enemies who want nothing more than to see me dead.
I’ve been in the crosshairs of killers who want to splatter my brains on the ground.
Don’t you dare think that I don’t know what I’m doing here. ”
“You don’t know what you’re doing here,” I countered, unable to help it. “You don’t have any idea what monsters from dungeons are like, or what it feels like to face one.”
“I’d faced my fair share of enemies. Death is death, kid.”
Kid? The name chafed. I was a full-grown adult who had survived things that would make her shudder.
So I stared her right in the eyes. “Have you ever seen a monster?”
“No.”
I scoffed, mirroring the tone she’d taken with me earlier. “You say you’ve faced death, but what you’ve faced is a human. The things that crawl out of the dungeons aren’t human, they’re not really even alive. They’re corruption made flesh, a force opposite to our own.”
“They’re living, and they can be killed. That’s all that matters at the end of the day.”
“It isn’t all that matters! You talk about this like we can protect ourselves, like this whole thing is to teach guides to be safe. Do you want to know the truth? There is no safe, not for guides, not for civilians. The only things capable of standing against monsters are espers.”
“So you’ll just let them save you like a coward?”
“Maybe I am a coward, but I’ve seen what monsters can do, and I’ve seen what dungeons can do, and I’ve seen what espers turn into. I can promise you that if any of us—you included—end up in the sights of one alone, we’d be fucked.”
“You just have to fight—”
“There is no fighting! Don’t you understand that? There’s no running, there’s no hiding. At best there is enduring—if you can—until something else comes along.” I turned fully toward her, letting go of the bars, the memories too close.
I recalled how those monsters had surrounded me, their sickening breath, the way they’d knocked into me as though I were nothing.
I remembered his eyes, the way he’d stared at me, the cruel smile he wore each time his gaze landed on me.
Worse, I remembered his strength, the way there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to resist.
In those moments I’d felt helpless, entirely at the whims of another, unable to do anything to fight back, to protect myself, to rebel. I’d been forced to swallow that desire, to go along, because I had no chance to fight.
Being so fully outclassed was humbling, but it was a lesson I’d never forget.
No matter what this woman said, the truth was that guides weren’t equipped to handle dungeons, and no amount of exercise would ever change that.
The woman scowled, clearly not taking in what I’d said. That was fine—I’d never have believed it at first either.
Back when I’d been human still, when I’d thought I’d always be human, I’d thought dungeons and portals and monsters were all over-hyped. I thought people made them into something bigger than they were just because they wanted to feel important.
That had been all hubris, though, just ego protecting me from the truth of how small and helpless I truly was against forces that could crush me in an instant if given the slightest chance.
“Then leave,” she snapped. “If you’re so sure that nothing here matters, that you’re just going to roll over and die if you’re cornered, then leave. I’ll focus on helping those who want help.”
I didn’t bother with a response. People didn’t learn until they had to, and I prayed that woman never had to.
I walked away from the group, leaving the other guides to her. If they wanted to leave, they could, but most of them hadn’t had much direct contact with monsters, either. They probably were just as foolish as her.
The sunset threw shades of pink and purple across the sky, lighting it up over the mountains. The harsh lights around the compound hadn’t yet clicked on.
Having grown up in San Diego, I knew exactly how beautiful sunsets and sunrises in the desert were, and this one could have made the staunchest atheist wonder about god.
And yet it couldn’t do anything for my mood.
My body hurt, with scratches and scrapes and bruises all over.
Worse, even if I was right, a part of me hated how it had all ended.
I’d done that for nothing, gotten hurt for nothing, and now everyone probably saw me as a coward.
Maybe I was one, or maybe I just knew the futility of fighting better than most.
Did it even really matter which was true?
I walked toward our trailer, actually looking forward to dinner, to sitting around the table with the others. They could annoy me, of course, but I’d found at least somewhat of an ease with them, a simplicity that let me relax.
After the hard day, curling up with them and watching some mindless movie sounded fantastic.
I turned the last corner, but froze when I noticed two figures standing in front of the trailer that had become my temporary home.
One was easy to place—Carter. He wore a pair of sweatpants and no shirt, not that that was overly unusual for him. The thing that had me stilling was the other person.
A woman with long dark hair and wearing a dress that covered so little I wondered what the point of it was.
It was black, the sort of thing I’d expect someone on a catwalk to wear, entirely impractical for daily life, yet she moved in it like she’d worn it all her life.
It fell to the floor, with a slit so high that it showed the top of her hip.
It had no back to speak of, open down to just above her ass, and it dipped in a graceful drape to show off her ample cleavage.
I wasn’t really into women, but even I doubted I’d say no to someone looking like that.
What exactly was she doing at our place?
She spoke with Carter, her voice low enough that I couldn’t catch the words, before she headed in my direction.
I ducked behind the building again, plastering myself to the wall to become as small as possible. I would have disappeared if I could have managed it. I sure wished I had Ingram’s skills right about then.
The woman walked past me, not looking over, not seeming to notice me at all. Then again, from looking at her, I doubted I was worth her noticing.
The one thing I knew for sure, however, from the way energy flowed around her as she passed, hurt the worst.
The woman who had just left the place I was living, who had just walked out of the space I shared with my espers, was a guide.