As I sat there, slowly watching my health increase point by agonizing point, I contemplated where I could go. I doubted that I had the money or connections to get a place, however temporary, inside the city. I even doubted that the adventurer hall had a room I could rent. Then again, if they did, I was fairly sure that it would cost much more than one silver a day.

  Maybe they had a few quests to kill monsters. Sure, it would be a challenge for me to kill some of them, but I doubted that those living here would waste their time on the lower-level quests. They didn’t pay as much after all, in both money and experience.

  At least for them. For me, they would work out, probably. Hell, even if the money was pitiful, the experience was what I needed. With experience came levels, and with levels came freedom. Freedom from others, and freedom to go where I wanted.

  Honestly, the more I thought about it, the more I liked this idea of taking missions, especially when it gave me something to kill. I needed something to kill. Now I just needed to get out of here.

  As I stood up, I found my chest didn’t hurt as bad as it had when I had first tried to move. That isn’t to say that it didn’t hurt. Now it just felt as if someone had cut into my chest with a piece of paper or something. Fortunately, the more I moved, the less I felt the pain. As if getting my blood moving was helping with the healing process. Too bad it didn’t work that way, at least according to my health.

  Just as my hand twisted and pulled the door open, a horn blared through the room. It was loud enough that I felt the air vibrate against my skin. Between blasts, a loud male voice took its place. “ALERT. DANGER. ALERT. DANGER. BIOLOGICAL WEAPON SPECIES DETECTED. THIS FACILITY IS IN INDEFINITE QUARANTINE. EVERY ABLEBODY IS REQUIRED TO RESPOND. REPEAT. EVERYONE IS TO RESPOND. ERADICATE THE CREATURES YOU COME ACROSS. SAMPLES ARE NOT TO BE COLLECTED!”

  What the fuck? Of course something had to happen just as I made a decision. With a sigh, I opened the door to find the place in complete chaos. Every person, young and old, was gearing up in some way. Judging by how everyone knew what they were doing and where they were going, this was not the first time they had done something like this.

  As I watched, a young girl pulled a thick piece of armor out of her inventory. The silvery gold material was at least an inch thick and I could feel the mana that poured off of it even without my Mana Sense active.

  The boy next to her looked like a sibling, if not a twin, but he was donning a coat made out of some darker leather. From his inventory, he pulled out a scepter capped with what looked like a crystalline copy of the girl's armor. As for her, her arms effortlessly swung a great sword around as if it weighed nothing.

  Both turned and calmly moved toward what looked to be a reception area to join the growing group. There were people and groups of all types present. Loners sat or leaned against the walls around the edge of the room while larger groups talked back and forth. They were likely sharing information and plans.

  “Those of you that have been in this area during any of the drills and other incidents—” a ripple of laughter and groans flowed out from those around the female speaker. It was enough to catch everyone’s attention and end their conversations so they could listen to what was going on. “I know, I know, some of the scientists need to learn to contain their shit better. BUT that is neither here nor there.”

  “Our ONLY concern today is to kill whatever managed to get out.” She continued. “As per established protocol, everyone here will be helping to control the surrounding corridors so that nothing can get to our patients while also allowing the injured somewhere safe to retreat to. Now, all of you solo people, for want of a better term, you are going to be our shock troops. Anytime a section needs help or relief, you will go in. Any large groups, you will deal with as fast as you can.”

  People groaned at that. A pair of dainty hands lifted over the crowd as she continued. “I know, you all want the experience from killing these creatures but I cannot risk one group getting overwhelmed or bogged down. Remember why we are holding the line here. Now, find a spot in the corridor and hold it.” People flowed out of the room and into the halls beyond as she finished talking. “If we need you moved, we will come move you. Call out if you need help.”

  I debated what I should do. While I wanted to go kill things, I doubted that I was strong enough to take on something that would require a ton of people nearly twice my level working together to exterminate them.

  “Oi.” Came what I could only describe as a surfer dude voice. “Put your armor on and get out there.” At first, I thought the speaker was talking to someone else until someone gave my shoulder a light shake. “If you are well enough to stand, then you are well enough to provide at least some magical support.” With that, he pushed me toward the door.

  “But, I am too low of a…”

  “Doesn’t matter.” He said as he looked through the door next to mine. “It is about keeping the creatures distracted long enough to let someone take care of them without letting them do too much damage.” With a sigh, I walked back into my room. Seeing this, his voice grew irritated as he started toward me. “Are you really going to hide?”

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  “No,” I snapped. “I am getting my armor on.”

  “And what kind of…” I ignored him and slammed the door in his face. For a moment I worried the guy would dare to open the door to demand I explain but thankfully he didn’t. Maybe he realized I was still in a hospital gown. A gown that easily ripped with my bare fingers to reveal the lack of other clothing covering the rest of my skin.

  A minute, and a dozen annoyed grunts later, found me in my dress, bra and all. Turning, I yanked the door open to find that the man had vanished, likely into one of the other rooms to talk to someone or something. Unfortunately, he chose that moment to exit a room near the end of the hall.

  His eyes locked onto me and seemed to roam over my form. The look caused a shiver of pure revulsion to ripple down my spine. I took the opportunity to pull my Chisa Katana out and push a bit of mana into it. Not enough to activate anything, but enough to show on the edge of the blade.

  Pale, near invisible, blue mana rippled off the blade. It almost looked like the blade was on fire. His eyes widened a bit as I turned and walked toward the door. While I didn’t care what people thought about me, I didn’t want people to see me as someone to ogle or as a target of their obsession. Of course, such actions could backfire given the wrong audience, but something told me he wasn’t one of those people.

  The moment I passed through the doorway, my head erupted into pain as my ears were assaulted by sound. People screamed as weapons whistled through the air and spells exploded. But those were not the only things creating noise. Tiny feet skittered across various surfaces as the near-silent creatures raced toward their targets. As each got close, they were squished, split, or otherwise killed.

  Mentally focusing, I worked to mentally push many of the noises to the side. It helped, but not enough. Finally, I found myself trying to will the noise to just stop. For my hearing to just fail. As if my body understood my needs or a god was there helping me, the noise diminished. My overly sensitive ears went from eleven to three in sensitivity.

  Worried that I had damaged them, I reached up with my free hand to find that nothing was sticking up out of my head. Given that I still had my tail, my ears had to be there. If they were not there, then what had caused them to vanish? Would it happen again? Wide-eyed, I searched for the damned things only to find them flat to my head.

  A fair amount of tension washed out of my back and shoulders as I realized my mistake. I had grown so used to reaching up and finding the ears standing straight up. Not expecting the things to be flat to my head, and not wanting to deal with the mess that was my hair, I had reached above my head.

  With a shake of my head, I forced everything out of it and instead moved toward where a bunch of castors were flinging spells down the hall. Two flames rippled out from two mages. Each was easy to differentiate because their colors were just so different. While one was the typical red that one would expect, the other was a green color that seemed to sparkle and pop.

  As the red fire raged and roared down the hall the green flames seemed to dance from place to place. Parts would die only for the air in another spot to sparkle and pop before another spot of green exploded into being.

  If that was all the magic going on, then I could follow it and try and throw my spells into the tiny gaps they left. But it wasn’t. Something else twisted the air and made the spells expand and jump unnaturally, even for magic-created flames. Given how the light was bending in certain spots, it had to be someone using some sort of space-based magic. Something that I had not seen nor was I capable of even buying the ability to use it.

  As I got closer, one of the mages near the back glanced back. Nodding at me as they spoke. “Front line?” I shook my head. Their eyes flicked to my sword before returning to what they were focusing on down range. Mana visibly flickered across their arms before a twisted snake of flame shot out from him.

  It dove through the air and vanished before appearing a few feet away. The creature coiled up as it changed direction and dove into nothingness a second time. I watched as the creature did this time and time again as it first crossed the distance until it started to lash out at something beyond the last row of fighters.

  As the mage kept their hand up, the creature continued to fight. Almost as if they were simply providing it mana and it was the one choosing where it would go and who it would attack. “Fine, you can stay back with us but, whatever you do, don’t use water magic.”

  I wanted to give them a snarky sarcastic answer about them ordering me around, but something told me now was not the time to do that. For now, I needed to focus on killing whatever was in front of us. It would help if I knew what to look for and while my vision had grown better since changing into a Kitsune, it wasn’t able to see through everything between me and the apparently tiny targets.

  Of course, I tried to use Mana Sense only to find that the place was completely filled with the fucking stuff. Spells that I had not noticed before suddenly made themselves known to me as they raged around us. Some seemed to be buffing the fighters while others simply lashed at whatever was out there.

  I almost considered turning around the heading to one of the other groups until I noticed something skittering high above. Whatever it was used the shadows to blend into the structure as it made its way across the place.

  When it crossed out of the darkness, as it made its way toward some point overhead, I got my first look at what it was we were fighting. It looked like a mix between a larva and a spider. Long fangs glistened from its oversized mouth as the dozen or so feet dug into the ceiling.

  As it passed over the front line, the creature suddenly stopped, twisted, and dropped on top of an unsuspecting fighter. The fighter, having been using their fists to send out waves of force, screamed as they bashed the creature apart. Unfortunately, they were not fast enough to prevent the creature from sinking its mouth into the fighter's shoulder.

  “That’s cheating.” Someone cried out from the group in front of me. “No one said they could crawl on the ceiling.”

  “Who did you expect to know that?” Another voice screamed back. “Just keep your eyes open.”