Chapter Four
Ingram
People were supposed to hate dungeons, but I’d never felt that way.
Maybe it was because of my connection to the shadows, to the space between the realms, but this place felt as much like home as my own.
It never made me uncomfortable, never felt like somewhere foreign, where I didn’t belong.
In fact, I even felt a sort of camaraderie between the monsters and me.
I’d even wondered before if there wasn’t some greater connection between espers and monsters.
Maybe we were bound together, created from the same energy, not as different as we like to pretend.
Sure, we killed each other, but in my experience the closer people were, the more likely that was to happen.
I couldn’t deny that I was the least comfortable I’d ever been here, though.
That was probably because of Yun. I knew exactly how fragile she was, and I didn’t want to risk anything happening to her. All it would take was one bite, one errant swipe of some claws, and she could get taken away. There were injuries that even Kenyon couldn’t fix, after all.
Still, none could deny the eerie beauty of the place. The purple streaks in the sky danced like the northern lights, and even the things that came from our world seemed to lose their color.
I glanced over at Kenyon.
Maybe not all the color. His shirt was just as loud and annoying as ever.
We’d kept searching as we headed toward the portal, gathering anything useful. We hadn’t found any good weapons, but thankfully, we didn’t really need them. Still, it helped to have something. We had found a single pistol with a few rounds, but that had gotten handed over to Yun.
I didn’t love the idea of arming her—partly because she could turn it on us just as quickly, with her temper. I also felt like it was already admitting defeat, as though we were saying that we wouldn’t be able to protect her so had to let her do it herself.
Even if I understood the reasoning and accepted it, I didn’t like it.
“You’re sure you know how to use that?” I gestured at the holster that held the heavy gun at her hip.
“I went through basic training with the guides,” she reminded me. “Every guide learns self-defense. I got top scores, in fact, at the gun range.” She lifted her chin as she said that, with a pride I had to admit looked good on her.
She too often worried about, well, everything. She blamed herself for every problem, never thought she was good enough, and was always waiting for others to see it, too. Watching her gloat was a rather nice change.
Which reminded me that I hadn’t actually gotten off earlier—either time. I wasn’t the type to usually enjoy edging myself, and this sure drove that point home.
Oddly enough, though, I wasn’t crawling out of my skin. I didn’t have the gnawing pain inside me. I hadn’t, not in a long time, not since…
My gaze moved over to Yun, a side-long glance that had me admitting, yeah, that had been mostly due to her. I wasn’t sure what it was about her that did it, but she filled me up in a way nothing else ever had. It had turned sex from a craving into something I simply wanted.
It was nice, like it took that pressure off.
A noise from our left had me shifting, putting myself between it and Yun.
We’d run into a few monsters in our travels so far, but not many.
I had to guess that was because of our distance from the portal.
From what we understood, monsters would head towards that portal as soon as it opened.
It made that area the most dangerous. Since we were still a few miles away, the monsters had been far and few between.
Still, I knew never to let my guard down. That was exactly the time that things always went to absolute shit. The bushes shifted, and purple glowing eyes appeared between the sparse leaves.
The thing didn’t attack right away, which sounded like it would be a good thing, but in my experience anything that veered away from the normal when it came to a dungeon was usually a bad sign. It meant that the rules as I understood them had changed, and I didn’t care for learning new ones.
It stepped from the underbrush slowly, its massive claws sinking into the soft ground.
And yet again, it paid me little to no mind. Instead, its gaze locked on Yun, a terrifying intelligence in those eyes that said it knew exactly where its target lay.
Over my dead fucking body.
I shifted again, breaking its line of sight, forcing it to focus on me. It snarled, revealing massive fangs and dripping saliva.
There we go, that’s the monster I know and hate.
Carter walked back from up ahead, strolling as though taking a lovely walk through a park. “Why are you playing with that thing?”
“I’m not playing. It just showed up. Don’t you think it’s acting weird?”
“Maybe? Who knows? In fact, who cares? I heard gunshots, so we should be close to someone, at least.” He spoke about the monster like we were talking about a stray kitten.
Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the thing was watching Yun, that it had more smarts to it than they usually did. Could Corsa be watching through those eyes? Connected somehow? Able to control the beast and have it report back?
I didn’t love that, but it made sense.
Still, even if we killed it, it wouldn’t stop it from reporting back. It still would send whatever information it had already gathered, assuming they were telepathically connected.
Before I could come up with a way to deal with it, another noise from the other side came, so soft I nearly missed it. A rustling—no, maybe just the shifting of air.
Whatever it was, it signaled something moving fast in our direction. I caught Carter’s gaze, and only years of working together gave us the ability to communicate with just that look. I dove forward, taking Yun with me, out of the way, forgetting the monster.
It didn’t seem to want to hurt us at the moment, and we had no idea if the same held true for whatever sailed at us.
Carter caught the thing—a woman, it turned out when a small figure dangled from his grip, held by her throat. I’d seen her at base, though hadn’t seen any reason to actually speak to her.
There were few people I saw a reason to speak to, honestly. She had hair dyed purple, and bright blue eyes. Her body was small, the sort that would trick a person into thinking they were innocent and harmless.
However the speed in which she moved told me she was an elemental esper, likely a wind type, or at least one most closely bound to wind powers.
Carter dropped her, not bothering to help when she collapsed to her knees, hacking and coughing as she tried to catch her breath. “What are you doing here?”
She gagged, dry-heaving a few times, before the antics died down. “I could ask you the same thing. Last I heard, no one could find you assholes.”
“Assholes? Well, now, that’s rather rude,” Carter said, crossing his arms as he stared at her.
The monster remained in place, seemingly content to watch it all unfold.
She wiped her mouth, then stood. At least she looked more like an esper when on her feet. “How the fuck did you get here? When we left base, no one knew where you’d gone.”
Carter waved around him. “A tear seemed to open and drop us in here. We’ve been headed toward the portal for the past few hours.” He paused, then added, “Where did it open, exactly?”
“On the California–Nevada line. It’s bigger than last time—no idea how many civilians are stuck right now, but the estimates say likely thousands were trapped inside. A good portion are likely already dead.”
“And you’re part of the scout teams?” Carter asked.
She puffed out her chest. “That’s right.”
“What squad?”
“No squad. I travel fastest on my own, so I’m sent to work out the edges of the dungeon. I just can’t seem to find them. It’s like this place is twisted in space, like it doesn’t have edges.”
Carter nodded. “I felt that too as we walked toward the portal—it hasn’t been in a straight line.” He gestured at her bag. “What do you have there?”
“Everything they gave us.”
“Good, hand it over.”
She took a step back. “Excuse me?”
Carter pointed toward Yun. “It wasn’t just us who ended up in here. Our guide got pulled in, too.”
The color leaked from the other esper’s face, as though she’d just noticed Yun and really didn’t care for it. “I can take her back—”
“Not a chance.” Carter cut her off before she could get the whole idea out.
“I’m not handing my guide over to anyone.
I’m just persnickety like that, I guess.
However, you can make it back to the portal for more gear in a few minutes at your speed, and we got thrown in here without anything, so hand it on over.
” The way Carter spoke made it clear it wasn’t a request and she had no choice but to obey.
“What’s your name?” Yun asked as she rose from where I’d tackled her.
The esper eyed her, the hesitancy in her look suggesting she knew at least something about all of us.
If she knew of us, it wasn’t like it would be good stories.
No one told good rumors about the famed Reject Squad, after all, and now our faulty guide.
Finally, though, she answered. “Kris. S-Rank elemental.”
Yun smiled and offered a wave. “I’m Yun Moore. I’m really sorry about this, and I promise to make it up to you.”
“Not by guiding,” I chimed in quickly. “Don’t get your hopes up for that. Keep it in your pants.”
Yun rolled her eyes and spoke again as though I’d said nothing. “I know this isn’t ideal, but I really don’t have anything, and it’s still a long way back.”
Kris sighed but pulled the backpack off.
She could have handed it to Carter, but she didn’t seem all that interested in getting close to any of us.
Instead, she handed it directly to Yun. “There’s water, food, a basic tent, some medical supplies, and a bunch of location trackers.
” She turned her gaze to Carter. “Even if your main goal is to get your guide out, make sure you mark any civilians you find.”
“Sure, sure.” Carter waved her off, his words less than reassuring.
She turned her gaze past us again, to where the beast still crouched, watching it all.
Kris lifted her hand, sending a blast of wind so strong that I grabbed Yun out of instinct, like she might just get carried away with it.
The monster rose in the air, then slammed against a tree so hard that it lost all sense of rigidity in its body.
It now reminded me more of a bag full of jelly than anything that had once been alive.
“You should kill those things, not let them sit around.”
“I was going to name it Fluffy,” Carter complained.
She shook her head as though she’d remembered that we were idiots. “I’ll head back to the portal to report in and gather more supplies. Good luck.” She didn’t wait for us to respond. A blast of wind nearly made me stumble, and when I blinked, she was gone.
“Hey, gear,” Yun said, holding up the bag.
Her enthusiasm was nice, but I had a feeling that might just be the start of our problems.
A command that had seemed to want us dead, monsters tracking our every move, and a corrupted just waiting for his chance.
But, fuck, maybe they had lube in the bag. I was a man who always looked for those silver linings.