Sip yawned, fanning his mouth as he rolled out of Toya’s grip, landing with a plop as he hit the ground.

  “Ohhowwww,” Sip groaned, rubbing his nose. “Where are we?”

  “Outside,” Toya stated. He pointed to the giant in the distance. “That thing’s approaching.”

  “The thing with a billion health?”

  “Yep.”

  “Oh. Okay,” Sip said.

  He fell unconscious again.

  Toya sighed. “Someone else can carry him.”

  “We need to find shelter,” Catania said, fixing her helmet into place. “Judging by the size of those steps, we probably have less than thirty minutes before that nightmare flattens the city.”

  Toya grabbed her arm. “Shelter where? Be practical!”

  “How am I supposed to know?!” Catania snapped back. “I’m saying we need to find some!”

  “Calm down you two,” I started. “We could go into the desert.”

  “We already decided that wasn’t an option,” Catania grunted. “Who knows what kind of monsters are out there?”

  Soise shouted, pulling her hand back from another exploding chessboard.

  “That’s not going to work,” Toya muttered.

  Catania jabbed him. “You’re not helping.”

  Soise fell to her knees.

  “Hey. You okay?” I asked.

  “This can’t be happening.”

  I knew that look.

  She was staring at the monster, frozen in fear. Her whole body was tense and her heart was racing, but she couldn’t move. She couldn’t think.

  “Hey! Snap out of it!” Toya shouted, reaching for Soise. “We need to move!”

  “Don’t touch her!” Catania shouted back. “We’ll go when she’s ready!”

  Catania and Toya started screaming over one another, clenching their fists to fight.

  I flung the two of them back.

  “CUT IT OUT!”

  Everyone was dead silent.

  I took a deep breath, sitting down beside Soise. “Give her a couple seconds.”

  Soise was breathing a little slower now. “I’m fine.”

  “No you’re not.”

  Toya groaned, pushing out of a crater in a nearby building. “Enough of this. I’m living before we get killed.”

  “Neither of you get to go anywhere without the raid captain’s orders. You voted for her, didn’t you?”

  “B-but,” Toya grabbed his hair, exhaling sharply.

  Soise looked at the floor. “Grind, you do something. My board won’t work.”

  “Don’t need it. You already know how bad this is.”

  “Don’t you have a plan?” She asked. “Do something.”

  “Can’t,” I stated.

  “Why not?”

  “I’m not the leader.”

  She held her head in her hands. “Grind, I only wanted to be Captain because you seemed so…apathetic. I just wanted everyone to be safe, but if my one ability doesn’t work, what good am I to the team?” She sniffed. “We couldn’t do anything even if we wanted to! Not to something like that. Nobody can! We’re doomed—”

  “So?”

  “Grind, I don’t have a plan,” Soise muttered. “There’s some shelters in the capital, but nothing that could stop a billion strength punch. Grind, if you follow me you’re going to die.”

  “So?”

  There was silence.

  Toya cleared his throat. “Grind, that’s stupid.”

  “I don’t have any plans either,” I chuckled. “If it’s a thousand times stronger than a silver, there’s just nothing any of us can do to stop it. In other words, if we’re already beyond any hope of survival, then there’s no reason not to let you lead our team.”

  Soise wrung her hands. “You’re weird, you know that?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re an emotionally profound idiot.”

  “I’m not quite sure if that’s supposed to be offensive or not.”

  “Me neither.” She rose to her feet, addressing everybody else. “Move!”

  Toya scrambled to his feet. “Took you long enough—”

  “Toya you get to carry Sip.”

  “Oh come on,” Toya huffed. “He drools when he’s unconscious. Is this because I almost left—”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s hardly fair.”

  “I’m the captain. I can do whatever I want.”

  Toya rubbed the spot between his eyebrows. “Even though we’re all probably going to die anyway, please try to keep us alive, alright?”

  Catania shrugged. “She’s in the right mindset now. Grind, you coming?”

  The moment we left the academy grounds, the city was flooded with monsters. Small black nightmares Nightmares plus an assortment of massive native beasts, in addition to tides of monster types used on the slave trade.

  I recognized some of them.

  Soise knelt beside the corner of a building, grimacing at the sight. “What happened here?”

  “Either a spell, a curse, or an artifact is causing monsters to go feral and get really strong,” Toya sighed, glancing at the red-ringed eyes of another pack of monsters. “I’m leaning toward a spell, personally. This might be an effect of Riot.”

  Catania moved ahead, waving us behind an overturned dumpster, wrecked with dents in the thick metal surface. The little nightmares weren’t much of an issue, and the infected humanoid monsters kept pretty close to one another, so it was easy to avoid them.

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  The real issue were the massive black bugs, each the size of a dump truck with glistening clouds of mana around their shells.

  “Stingbeetles,” Catania grunted. “Enormous stingbeetles.”

  I crushed one of the smaller nightmares in my hand, tossing the carcass to the larger bugs.

  Immediately, they set upon one another, smashing against each other's armor, shattering chitin and splitting limbs. Exp ran slick across the ground, soaking up into the last few remaining bugs, who had grown so big as to brush against the second floor of nearby buildings.

  {Stingbeetle}

  [Lead]

  [12k Str 300k Hp 1m Dur 1m Res]

  [This unit has been afflicted by {Unknown Affliction}]

  On the plus side, that thinned out the crowd.

  It had also made our remaining enemies far, far stronger.

  “How are we supposed to kill those things?” Toya asked.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Soise smirked. “Just make Grind do it.” She pointed. “Go on. Get ‘em.”

  I just looked at her.

  She nodded toward the bugs. “You made a big point about following your leader, didn’t you?”

  “You want me to fight the equivalent of seven young Excavators? Alone?”

  “Yes.”

  As expected, the moment I stepped out from our cover, every single stingbeetle snapped in my direction, cracking into one another as they rushed to end me first.

  Maybe I would’ve been better off leaving her behind.

  I flung myself out of the way, stumbling over corpses on the ground. People.

  These bugs had killed people too.

  “I’m not going to let that slide,” I grunted, aiming my wrists toward the largest monster.

  My mana channels burned as I summoned a simpler five-thousand mana manifestation, flaring red under the monster’s wrath.

  Riot took hold a moment after, flashing across the projectile.

  Of course by that point it had already sunk a foot through the monster’s carapace.

  {Stingbeetle : (-99750) 200.3k Hp}

  Transcendent force threw the bug back, searing parts of its shell.

  [{Stingbeetle} has been dealt [True Damage]]

  [This unit has lost 99750 instances of [Health] [Strength], [Durability], [Resistance] and other statistics.]

  Although the beetle had a lot of health, its strength was incredibly low. Normally, that wouldn’t be much of a problem, as it didn’t need to move particularly fast or with nearly as much force as other monsters. Stingbeetles had spines all long their shells, which inflict high—usually lethal—poison damage. As long as they could take enough hits to outlast their opponent, they’d be fine.

  But I was using magic, which didn’t much care for any of that.

  So now, without any strength to speak of, (or a lack of strength, really) the beetle shredded itself apart the next time it tried to move, not dead but totally helpless.

  The other bugs hesitated.

  Some twitched toward me, while others moved toward the weakened bug.

  “RUN!” I shouted, sprinting ahead.

  Others moved after me, catching manifested abstractions to the face while the rest pummeled one another to kill the injured stingbeetle.

  “These things are horrible!” Soise exclaimed, sprinting up next to me. “Nice shot, by the way. You weren’t even trying, were you?”

  “Not even a little—”

  Soise grinned like an eel. “I’ll have to make you do even more work next time.”

  Curse my egotistical tendencies.

  Soon, after encountering and beating a few more patches of monsters, we reached a place in the back of the city where massive metal doors rose a hundred yards up a mountainside. They had been painted orange to blend in with the dry rock and the doors themselves were at least three yards thick, not to mention enchanted.

  “This is what I’ve been trying to lead us to,” Soise said, puffing for breath. “The bunker! We haven’t used them in forever, and nobody really talks about them, but they should still work.”

  She pressed her union ID against the door, opening it with a crackle of hidden enchantments.

  Screech jumped out of Grey’s arms, sprinting into the tunnel with Grey following close behind. “This is awesome!”

  “Hang on,” Toya started. “These doors are hidden down a series of backroads, far past the rest of the city, not to mention I’ve been in the city for weeks now and I haven’t heard a word about these doors. How do you know about any of this?”

  “Dungeons appear everywhere,” she stated. “Particularly mana-rich secret bunkers. When that happens, the Union needs to send somebody in to fight the small fry.”

  Soise led us deep into through the passages, running her hands on the walls.

  “I’d rather stay at the academy,” she sighed. “This place is too secluded. If we have to lock ourselves in here, who knows how long it’ll be before we get found?”

  Catania smiled. “At least we’ll be alive. Nice work, leader.”

  “We’re not safe yet,” She admitted. “Spread out and look for sources of food and water. There should be plenty. Grind, you stay here.”

  The moment everyone else left, she stared me directly in the eyes.

  “You do have a plan, don’t you?”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “I know you wanted to get us safe, and I am grateful you didn’t usurp my authority, but I’d have to be blind not to see that look in your eyes. You think you can kill that giant, don’t you?”

  “No, not kill it, but I can do a lot more than most people.”

  A faint shockwave rolled through the bunker, dropping dust from the ceiling.

  She folded her hands, leaning against a bag of scrap metal. “But you do want to fight, right?”

  “Yeah. It’s worth a shot.”

  “Go.”

  Soise stretched a hand to the door.

  “Your team is safe now. Kill that thing already.” Soise scuffed her shoe. “The rest of us would only slow you down.”

  “Thank you,” I said, offering a smile. “I’d suggest you get stronger while I’m gone. Captain. I’m sure there’s spare exp stores or weapons here.”

  She nodded. “And Grind?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t die.”

  I smirked, walking out the bunker, through the tunnels, to the city.

  It was almost entirely leveled.

  Monsters larger than trees roamed freely through the crumpled streets, eating any living thing they gots their hands on. Npc, Player, or monster, they didn’t discriminate.

  Worse, the giant was closer now.

  Three heads of the giant nightmare poked up out of the clouds. Seven arms sprouted out of its back, covered in smaller spiked appendages, with an air of mana so thick it choked the air.

  I grabbed onto a crumpled husk of a skyscraper, flinging myself to the rooftop with an explosive burst of strength.

  “WindUp,” I called.

  {Affected stat Grind/Crapshoveler : Shovel affinity}

  [16:22:00]

  Had it really only been forty minutes?

  Either way, I couldn’t risk touching Crapshoveler while that ability was still charging, which meant no flying around. And with Riot affecting my manifestations, there was a limit to how large I could make each individual attack before my time ran up and the fields exploded. Theoretically, I could work my way around that with a bit of mental force, but if I pushed myself too hard I could lose my focus on Grey’s plate, killing her and Screech in the process, if not everyone within the bunker.

  My options were dwindling.

  If I wanted to take this thing down, I’d have to use a constant stream of attacks.

  True damage and Transcendent damage both ignored armor, so as long as I did something the attacks would go through. Each attack would reduce all of the monster’s stats, shrinking the giant to the size of a field mouse.

  It’d certainly take a while, but I could do it.

  I would do it.

  I’d grown attached to this life. I could grow strong without too much work and I knew the people I fought alongside. Up until this point, everyone I cared about was safe.

  This was a precious life. I’d do anything—absolutely anything—to keep it.

  No matter how far I had to push myself.

  Here and now, this thing would die.

  I detonated the fields in my hands, tossing me backward with a clap like thunder, lighting up the sky with a ball of hot blue energy.

  // {Notice} //

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