Page 10 of Wrong Squad, Right Mess

Corrupted might have once been human, then esper, but their screams always held a certain level of madness. It was like I could taste the corruption even in their screams.

This sound was pure human, though. It meant there had to be a civilian around—and worse, something targeting them.

I glanced behind me, to which Shear nodded. He was telling me to go, to deal with it, that he had Yun handled.

I didn’t need any additional permission, rushing off in the direction of the scream. It was close, less than fifty feet away. Dungeons made tracking by sound difficult, since nothing operated the way it was supposed to out here. Worse, it didn’t follow any rules.

Sometimes I could hear a monster a mile off, and other times one could dive from a tree above me, and I wouldn’t know until it breathed on me.

It was as if the dungeon twisted the world around me, always to my own detriment.

Of course, I didn’t mind a good fight one bit, and if the odds were against me, it only made it all the more fun. I would have preferred Yun to be nowhere around this mess, but if we were already in it, I saw no reason to hold back.

I moved through the trees to find a house, the same strange mixture of our world and this place. The spindly trees of the dungeon reached up and around the structure, and vines grew over it, making it look like something from a horror movie.

I wondered what it looked like in the real world, before all this. Had it been nice? Cozy? Or maybe it was exactly like this either way.

Another scream got my mind back on track. The front door hung open on its hinges, splinters of wood spread around it. Instead of following the same path—which always ended with someone getting second place—I instead dove in through a large window.

The glass shattered around me, a sharp pain in my arm telling me I’d managed to gain a cut. I ignored it, finding it unimportant. Anything short of losing a limb was hardly worth slowing down for.

My feet struck the ground inside, and I took a quick overview of the room. There, cowering in the corner, were three small bodies—children.

A snarl, low and vicious, gave me a moment of notice before something struck me in the back, the weight enough to knock me forward.

I twisted, my elbow making contact with the thing’s face, aiming for the eyes. Blinding a beast was always a good bet, after all.

The hit at least disoriented it because it shook its head hard, giving me the chance to roll and throw it free.

I glanced back at the kids, checking the surroundings. Monsters often traveled in packs, and I didn’t want to waste my time with this one only to miss another that picked the civilians off from behind.

They huddled there, still, their expressions all mirrors of fear and awe. I’d seen that look so many times over the years, knew better than to trust it. Civilians needed us, sure, but they feared us just the same. They viewed us as weapons—that I might have saved them this time, but could just as easily turn on them the next.

When the monster rushed again, I caught it by the chin and snapped its neck, the crack loud, its body going limp in an instant.

Another scream, but when I twisted, Ingram had a knife in the chest of one that had tried to flank me.

Two down. Not difficult monsters, not the strange ones that had stalked us on the trip, either. It was nice to face something usual, to encounter things that did as I expected them to.

“You hurt?” I asked the kids.

They didn’t answer. One, the oldest, a girl, opened her mouth as though to say something but only a squeak left her lips. She couldn’t have been older than nine, and she had her arms wrapped around the other two as though she thought she could do a damn thing to keep them safe.

Something about the sight reminded me of Yun, of that protective drive that didn’t seem to know much about skill. It was a promise to do everything she could to keep her siblings safe even if she didn’t have a fucking clue how to go about it.

Idiots.

Sure, maybe that thought made me heartless, but who could blame me? People like that didn’t save others, they just got themselves killed, too. How many times had I watched some fool die all because they’d tried to do more than they were capable of?

It was pointless, like not valuing the life they had, not recognizing that they on their own deserved to live.

Not that yelling at people did anything, and I hadn’t gotten where I was by letting my temper slip often.

So I smiled and crouched in front of them. “My name’s Carter, and we’re here from the Guild.”

The youngest’s lips trembled before they broke down, as though invoking the Guild’s name reassured them. That might just be the second dumbest thing any of them had done today. In the end, I was far safer for them than the Guild.

I plucked one of the locators from my pocket, then pressed it in until I heard that telltale snap. That would activate it so it would start to transmit the location, telling the scouting espers to come here. I held it out to the oldest girl. “This is a locator. It’s going to bring a rescue team here, okay?”