In For A Penny (II)

  As soon as Evan—the first to step inside—trotted a bit further, the room reacted and a series of torches affixed to the walls and surrounding pillars immediately combusted, breathing new life into the forgotten space.

  It was just bright enough to vaguely make out the shape of the few things in view. So far, it consisted only of a dusty stone floor lined with numerous thick pillars that stretched upward into the ceiling, while a large cloud of mist lazily drifted across the room. In terms of size, the room measured a hundred meters in all dimensions and the vast space, devoid of any life, made even the cacophony of their footsteps sound vibrant.

  The torches placed high on the pillars were far above their reach, so instead of fully illuminating their surroundings, they mostly highlighted their silhouettes, casting a series of dancing shadows along the walls as the group moved forward.

  Once Cyril stepped inside, he was pleasantly surprised to find how cold the room was. With each step his skin shuddered as if he was using his body to cut through fog. Soon after, his breath became visible, misting in the cold air as he exhaled, the faint fog swirling around him in the dim light.

  What’s going on with this place? There wasn’t any fog leaking through the door frame a while ago.

  “Use your aura. It should help you stave off the cold.” Arden muttered in a low voice as he attempted to match the boy's pace. After a few seconds of looking around, Cyril quickly noticed that he was the only one who hadn’t been doing the obvious.

  “Yeah, sorry I got a little lost there. I need to focus.” His reply preceded a series of vigorous head shaking motions, likely an attempt to ward of the uncertainty that was gnawing at his mind.

  “No worries. I’m sure we’re all a bit nervous here kid, there’s no telling what kind of-”

  “Well, this is disappointing.”

  That voice had unknowingly shoved Arden’s own sentence back down his throat. Its point of origin was the young man with fiery red hair currently suspending a small fireball above his palm.

  “You said it might be in here, Evan. I’m not sensing anything yet, so I really hope this isn’t just a waste of my time.”

  “J-Just wait a moment. We’ve only just entered, and the room is pretty large, so we still have some ground to cover. There’s no way for us to be certain of anything yet.”

  “Hmmm. I hope you’re right about that.” Marcel scoffed with a clear lack of interest, much to the displeasure of his supposed bodyguard. Evan scurried after him like a nervous shadow, his steps quick and uncertain as he tried to keep pace without drawing too much attention.

  “I can’t believe I let that guy rope me into this...” Arden said, seeming disheartened by his poor judge of character.

  “We’re here now so might as well-”

  Cyril’s sentence was abruptly brought to an end.

  He froze for a moment, clutching his ears in disbelief.

  “C-Cyril, what's wrong!? Oi answer me!” Arden cried, failing to get an answer. Their progress through the dimly lit room was halted by the uproar, beckoning the attention of superior powers.

  “Shaw, what’s the problem?” Ralph asked, still keeping his eyes vigilant. As a tank, his designated role was naturally suited to defense, which is why the man was so reluctant to abandon his position at the front.

  “I-It’s Cyril he just suddenly stopped moving.” Arden mumbled out a slur of fear drenched words but the lack of a reaction only served to mount his growing anxiety. He shook the slumping boy’s body again and again, probing for some kind of reaction—any kind of reaction would do but his tactics had yet to bear fruit.

  Before their captain got to speak again, however, Cyril wearily rose to his feet.

  Sweat trickled down his forehead despite the low temperature, and his expression was strange—like someone who had lived through decades of hardship in just a few minutes.

  “Severin, are you feeling alright? What was that about? I can hear your breathing from all the way up here.” Remarked the captain who still had yet to adjust his position.

  “The boy is probably just having trouble adjusting to the environment. He is a D-rank after all, perhaps he needs a bit more time to get his gears going.” worded Evan disinterestedly, blatantly disregarding the huffing site of his supposed ‘comrade’.

  “Y-you guys didn’t hear that? The voice just now, it said we initiated a quest.”

  [Alert: A suitable host has been detected. The quest ‘Heir To Oblivion’ will now be initiated. The timer has been set to ten minutes and the countdown will commence on the instruction of the operator.]

  “A...quest? Cyril what are you talking about? I didn’t hear anything like that. You just... suddenly started panting and keeled over.”

  The moment he heard those words, Cyril’s body sagged slightly, as though some of his energy had drained away.

  He flashed his head around in a series of sharp turns hoping to see if someone—anyone shared his experience but unfortunately, the only thing to come back his way were scrunched brows and baffled stares.

  “W-we have to get out of here! It’ll all be over once that ‘operator’ thing gets here!” his plea had unconsciously mixed with a surprising amount of desperation, so much so that it was starting to rattle those around him. Suddenly; his body was forced to a stop—well, ‘yanked’ would be a more precise definition. After the brutal tug had put an end to his antics, Cyril turned his head to meet the wide-eyed stared of a certain magician.

  “Enough of this child! We’re treading unknown territory right now, so the last thing I want is for some brat to start going insane on me! If you have no proof of this ‘quest’ of yours, then keep the delusions to yourself boy.” Evan rasped gruffly, his eyes glowing with fury.

  “I-I'm not making this up, I really did hear a voice just now-”

  “Stop it.”

  The sharp words were like a dagger through his chest. Creaking his neck around, he saw Anglica giving him an expression he’d never seen her make before.

  “I don’t know what you heard or saw Cyril, but this is going a little far, everyone’s already nervous and your outburst isn’t making this any easier, so I suggest you calm down.”

  “I agree with her man...you’re really not making any sense right now.” said Arden, this time giving him a gentle shoulder tap.

  Cornered by their words, he stepped back. For a moment, it felt as if the entire world had fallen silent.

  Looking around didn’t make it any easier—if anything, he found the stares of fear and anxiety a lot harder to handle. If Evan hadn’t shoved him in the chest he would have probably been locked in that state of stupor for a while.

  His head suddenly drooped, as if a heavy hand were forcing him to stare at the floor. Clenching his fingers into fists, the boy struggled to banish the familiar emotion. After a while, the uproar had calmed somewhat, mostly thanks to the efforts of a certain furious magician. He was only seconds away from recommencing their march when a lone individual came to Cyril’s aid.

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  “Cyril, are you certain you heard something just now?”

  Out of all the stunned reactions that surfaced after hearing that question, Cyril himself was perhaps the most bewildered.

  “Captain Ralph...you believe me?”

  Finally turning his body, Ralph spoke with a thin smile.

  “I wouldn’t go that far yet, but Chairman Wilhelm had spoken to me earlier. He told me to ‘trust your instincts’. Those words suddenly came to mind, so if there’s any truth to the chairman’s words, now’s the time to confirm it.”

  A little bit of light returned to Cyril’s eyes.

  Even if nobody explicitly believed his words right now, getting their captain, of all people to at least hear him out was more than enough.

  “I did hear something earlier. It felt like a voice was speaking directly into my mind about the quest we initiated. Something about finding a ‘host’ and a ten-minute window.” Cyril explained confidently, pacing every word.

  Assessing the information, Ralph slowly surveyed the room with only his eyes.

  “I see. But if its a quest I would expect there to be some level of danger associated with it. So far, I haven’t sensed anything since I stepped foot into this room.”

  “Captain Ralph, I applaud your earnest attempt at accommodation, but how much longer are you planning to entertain this charade? All we’re doing is blindly following the wits of some D rank rookie.” Evan protested. Perhaps due to negligence, or his own ire, he had ended up wandering too far outside the bounds of their formation.

  “You’re breaking formation, Mr. Adler. I understand your concerns but let’s not leave these trainees with any bad habits.”

  “Huh?”

  Evan swiveled his head in response to that question. The captain’s implication had left him looking baffled. Having felt the unnerving sensation of his furrowed brows, he quickly corrected his expression to convey a more professional demeanor.

  “Sir Ralph, I can assure you, if there was anything even remotely threatening in all this mist, my senses would allow me t-”

  In the middle of Evan’s monologue, Cyril’s eyes exploded with shock. The words weren’t coming out fast enough, but he needed to say something; to warn Evan as he stood there oblivious to the threat inching closer by the second.

  His toes arched in preparation for a burst of speed despite time itself seeming to slow around him. His words were faster and so the warning came first-

  “Get down!!!”

  BANG

  The air expanded with a roar. Evan tumbled over to the floor and rolled a few times before he could finally regain his footing.

  “W-what was that!?” stammered the old magician, his wide eyes darting around the foggy room.

  The question answered itself.

  Glancing back to Evan’s previous position, Cyril saw the figure of an oddly dressed woman wearing something that resembled a mix between a skin-tight military suit and a maid uniform. Her daggers had been drawn, both weapons dripping with a viscous fluid.

  She must have cut between Evan and the large silhouette being veiled by the thick swarm of mist in an instant. The creature's form wasn’t yet visible, but one thing was clear—it was no ally.

  That much was obvious from the simple fact whatever had attacked Evan just now had been aiming for his head. Whatever form the specter took or what its intentions were would ultimately remain unknown, for only a second later, the murky figure of the aggressor crumpled to the floor in a heap of scraps.

  Cyril heard a deep breath of exasperation come from a few steps away, and in response the temperature seemed to drop further.

  “Everyone keep your guard up; there is something off about this room.”

  All eyes were glued to the A-rank hunter Yelena Riot.

  She flicked the stained blade and quickly assumed an offensive stance. Leaning forward for a standing start, she glanced back to Ralph who managed to quickly decipher her intentions.

  “Form up! Tighten the formation or you might get caught up in this next attack!” Ralph unleashed a deafening roar. This time he himself was forced to partake in the resulting scramble, quickly shuffling to his position at the front.

  “We’re ready!” He sent, bellowing the words that needed no confirmation.

  Yelena’s aura sparked and crackled furiously around her body. Once all roles were assumed, the A-rank sprang forth to unleash a cross layered slash from the daggers oozing power. The entire room—deviants included — was struck by an emanating wave of frigid gales that forced everyone to brace themselves against the unrelenting winds.

  The air howled with an almost sentient fury, as if the attack itself had a vendetta. Loud howling noises and obnoxious whizzing sounds entered Cyril’s ears amidst the resulting cyclone. He jammed the tip of his blade into the ceramic floor in a bid to keep himself rooted. The storm of dust and mist subsided in under ten seconds, but after struggling to keep himself on the ground he felt like it had lasted for much longer than that. Now that the foggy obstruction had been pushed back, the entire room seemed to ‘open up’ to them.

  The flailing lights from the high-rise torches suddenly ramped up their intensity in a show of praise, synchronously brightening the room as a result. The path before them—and everything else—had been laid bare, but instead of progressing as one would expect, the first thing Cyril did was unconsciously take a step back. Not just him either, even though no one had said anything to that effect or even indicated it, they were all thinking the same thing. Forty meters into the spacious room, all thirty-three members of the deviant assembly shared the same crushing thought.

  “This was a mistake”

  The heap of scraps that was previously piled up at Yelena’s feet would never be able to return to its original form, however there was no need for that because its replacements could be found all throughout the rooms span. Realizing this, Yelena’s eyes cautiously drifted up to scan the humanoid figures that seemed to have been strategically placed around them.

  These monsters were different.

  They resembled masked medieval knights carved from stone and averaged around two meters in height. That wasn’t the only thing that was strange about them either, though they were present, they weren't moving.

  Instead, they were arranged in divisional columns that blocked off their path forward, their path of retreat and any other potential areas they could flee to or use to expand the radius of their formation. The sentinels stood firm whilst holding onto their various array of stone carved weapons, each one ready to strike on command.

  Luckily for a certain unconventional deviant assembly, that command had yet to be given.

  “W-We’re surrounded....” Evan muttered dubiously. He spun his body at just about every angle in hopes of refuting that notion, but the only thing it ended up doing was banish his biases.

  “A-ah...”

  “Calm down everyone! They’re not moving yet so we still have a chance!” Chided Ralph eagerly. His teardrop shield had already been deployed; despite the current surge of uncertainty in his voice the man was clearly a pro.

  “Damn it! How did we not sense them!? With this many monsters packed into one place my senses should have been going awry from the moment we found this damn door!”

  Panic or Frustration.

  Cyril wasn’t sure which one but something uncertain laced his captain’s tone.

  “Ralph, I think we might be able to handle these but the one at the back feels different. I think that’s the boss, if we are able to open up a path through all these grunts then I will engage it.”

  Yelena wore a confident expression on her face after muttering that suggestion, but Ralph had yet to decipher the meaning behind those words.

  “The one at the back?” He repeated anxiously, retreating a few steps.

  Despite being at the front, his view had been obscured for the past few seconds by the two-meter stone soldiers lined up in single file formation.

  “Impossible... I can’t believe these things were here the entire time, they’re huge!”

  Noticing their captain’s concern, the assembly slowly mimicked his movements and directed their gazes above the formation of stone forged heads.

  That was all they had done and yet...

  “N-no way...”

  “We can’t beat that”

  ...their despair deepened.

  Murmurs, wails and cries of sorrow breached Cyril’s ears.

  He felt as though everything was mere seconds away from spiraling into complete chaos. The clatter of weapons hitting the ground around him, paired with the frantic, terror-filled breaths of his comrades, was beginning to chip away at his focus, inch by inch.

  Being the lowest ranked deviant here was doing him no favors at the moment, a fact he couldn’t have been more aware of considering how hard his hand was trembling on the hilt of his blade. Cyril narrowed his eyes, and with deliberate movements—aided by a few breathing techniques —resolved himself to face the looming terror at the opposite end of the wide room.