"We're leaving in twenty minutes," Nyz announced over the way station's PA. "If you cause us to be delayed, you're going to have your pay decreased if we do get paid."

As he waited for the Scavengers to return to the hanger and prepare for departure, Nyz thought over the news Kal gave him the night before. As his friend had told him, it was pretty bad news, but Kal asked him not to tell the others until they were close to returning to Honlar. Nyz could at least understand the reasoning for that, considering what the news was.

Once everyone was prepped and ready to go, they departed the way station and resumed their journey. The trip consisted of the same as before, with the team killing the monsters in their path, finding no new obstacles on their way.

Nothing new occurred the rest of the day, and at night, Nyz was glad to be able to go to bed without receiving an incoming call alert. The next day, they continued their journey, reaching the ruins of Norulb at six in the evening.

"The base is near the center of the city," Gabe spoke over the comms as they rolled through the opening in the concrete wall that was once a Gate. "It contains supplies for making new crystal cartridges if we need them, I know we've burned through quite a few."

After decades of loss and habitation by monsters and the fog, the city was in a worse state than Troak, with its roads damaged everywhere, buildings crumbled throughout, and none of its skyscrapers still standing. Just entering it made the Scavengers feel as if they were surrounded by ghosts, and even Gabe and Lyan, the hardiest of the six in the walkers, felt their nerves increasing.

"The beetle has plenty," Nyz said as he took in the city's state. "And contains an enchanting station."

"Uh," Miyak said. "I know the beetle has plenty of space, considering how large it is, but how does it have a station for enchanting crystal cartridges? Isn't that bulky?"

"Not really," Nyz said. "I just have to insert blank cartridges into slots and tell it what to enchant them for. As long as it has the formulas necessary, it will enchant them. Kal wanted to make it simple for me."

"What about the space issue?" Miyak asked.

"The beetle utilizes dimensional technology to have more space than it should," Nyz stated. "The only downside is that if the beetle completely loses power, the dimensional technology won't function, and there will suddenly be a lot of extra space that doesn't belong. The resulting explosion would be devastating. Thankfully, this is Kal's tech and not something from some other organization. The generator is far superior and won't stop."

"I am suddenly not all that comfortable with being in here," Wys muttered.

"You'd be fine," Nyz told him. "It's not much extra space, either, so Kal said the explosion wouldn't be all that big. He just wanted to fit in a bathroom and a little extra storage."

"Don't beetles normally come with a toilet?" Gabe asked.

"Yeah," Nyz answered. "It's normally by the door to the storage room behind the general room. This one, however, has a separate bathroom, complete with a shower. Oh, look, a tentacle monster."

Drifting into their path at the far edge of the FDKG's range, floating in the air, was a monster with a bear-like body and twelve tentacles wriggling about. The bear's fur was pale, indicating it was a fog monster.

"Motherfucker!" Gabe exclaimed as the Scavengers pulled to a stop, Nyz quickly stopping the beetle as well. "Let's take an alternate route, Nyz. This thing is tougher than anything I've faced before. It usually leaves people alone unless we get too close to it, and with the range your glow gives us, we've plenty of time before then. Its fur disperses magic shots and its skin is tough enough to stop bullets, and-did you just aim the magic cannon at it?"

"Yes," Wys sighed. "He took over the controls."

"Have you ever shot it with a Type 10 magic bullet?" Nyz asked. "Because this is a magic cannon. Lots more power."

"Its tentacles are resilient to both," Lyan said. "And while it's just drifting around, it'll move those things quite fast to smack attacks out of the air."

Nyz set the cannon to flame-type attacks, then pressed the button to shoot. A burst of condensed magical flames shot out of the cannon, soaring straight to the monster. In a flash, the beast lashed out with a tentacle, striking the attack with one of its tentacles.

While the magic was deflected to the side, it still caused an obvious effect, charring to a crisp the section of the tentacle it impacted. The monster let out a roar of pain, then began quickly floating towards them.

"Flame-type, magic shots," Nyz stated as he released his lock on the combat controls, allowing Wys to take over as he returned to navigating the beetle. "Take out the tentacles first, it's much slower once it's on the ground. Once the tentacles are taken care of, switch to air shots.

"Have you fought this kind of thing before?" Wys asked as everyone followed the instructions.

"Several times," Nyz answered. "The tentacles are how it floats, and they're also linked to its resiliency and the dispersing property. You don't have to completely destroy them, just do enough to ground it and your shots will pierce its hide. Don't waste bullets on this thing."

"Copy that!" The Scavengers responded.

They surrounded the monster, shooting at it from all sides as Wys kept its attention on the beetle using the magic cannon. He didn't use the beetle's guns due to the chance of hitting someone, but his own attacks were enough without them that the team was able to ground the monster within a minute.

The moment it was grounded, everyone swapped to wind magic shots and began attacking, their bullets quickly piercing through its hide, spraying blood out as they ripped through the beast. Seconds later, it was dead.

"Damn," Gabe said. "I know we've seen several times already just how damn good your stuff is, Nash, but damn this is good. No one's ever been able to hurt these things before. I've heard the reports that even the military hasn't been able to."

"The military," Nyz said. "Has, at best, Class A equipment and Type 8 magic weapons to use regularly. You need at least Type 9 magic to hurt these, which is the absolute best the military has, and is also extremely limited in quantity. A single Type 9 grenade costs around twenty thousand creds, and a crystal cartridge that produces Type 9 magic shots is about the same."

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Nyz snorted at the stunned faces on the monitor, each of the Scavengers in the walkers clearly shocked by the cost of the equipment they held, even without hearing its own value.

"Just out of curiosity," Harn said. "How much does a Type 10 cost?"

"Five times as much," Nyz answered as everyone took up formation around the beetle once more, then resumed their trip through the ruins of the city. "Which isn't a bad deal, considering it's enough for ninety percent of the monsters a Type 9 can't handle and can produce three times as many shots. The real problem is the bullets. Adamant and mithril aren't cheap, even if they're used as plating on the best-quality of mechs and combat suits. We use an adamant-mithril alloy for our plating and combat suits, one that's superior to what the military can make. It's Kal's own alloy, though he sometimes comments about wishing it were orichalcum. It's one of the few things he's struggled to make."

"What's that?" Harn asked.

"It's a mythical alloy," Lyan explained as they navigated over a pile of rubble. "Said to be second in durability only to a dragon's scales and just as resilient to magic, too. No one's ever managed to craft some, though."

"The armor you're wearing," Nyz said. "And the plating on our mechs are made from an alloy Kal came up with while trying to make orichalcum. He says he's missing something, some material to use, that will give it the legendary property. I'm sure he'll figure it out eventually, he's been focusing on other things."

"Damn," Harn said. "I knew we were using pretty expensive stuff, but I didn't realize just how expensive this trip was. We've had to have used up a couple million creds' worth of supplies."

"Probably," Nyz answered. "I haven't kept track of the cost, though Kal probably has a program to figure it out or something."

"Just how much are we being paid?" Kacy asked as the Scavengers gunned down a small herd of deer-like monsters with two heads and crimson antlers. "I knew the trip was probably costing a few million, but after hearing the price tag on our weapons and mechs, it's got to be a lot more, doesn't it?"

"How much we're paid," Nyz said. "Depends on how many of the three jobs we complete. It's entirely possible for us to earn nothing. Even Lurnal's job, the one with the lowest payout, will be able to cover the journey's expenses and still allow each of you to retire comfortably as long as we don't go extreme with wasting supplies. That's one of the requirements for us to accept a job out to Norulb."

"We're almost there," Gabe announced. "To those of you who haven't been to this base before, it's much more comfortable than the way stations and has far better supplies kept in it. Most Scavengers spend a day or two here before returning back to Honlar if they come out this far."

"We aren't staying that long," Nyz said. "We're pressing on in the morning. However, we do have a few extra hours."

"I wish the pool was still functioning here," Harn commented as they rolled up to the hanger doors and Gabe pulled a lever before pressing his hand to the scanner.

"Sadly," Gabe said as the doors rolled up. "Due to the lesser power supply of the base's own generators, we can't run the pool."

Gabe closed the hanger doors, then everyone exited their walkers for the decontamination. Once that passed and the gas cleared up, they left the chamber, Wys joining them on their way out. Alone once more, Nyz walked to the bathroom of the beetle and took a shower.

As he dried off, Nyz heard the beetle's alert for an incoming call. Growling under his breath, knowing it was probably Sen and not Kal, he wrapped the towel around his waist and walked to the front, sitting in his chair before answering the call.

Just as he expected, Sen's face appeared on the monitor, her expression quickly turning to shock at seeing him. Her hair was fixed back in a ponytail, as seemed to be the norm for her, and she wore a brown hoodie that concealed her breasts entirely.

Nyz was grateful for that, as it told him she wasn't as full of herself about her appearance as some women he had known in his life. He found them easier to work with both on jobs as a cover identity and on jobs as a Scavenger.

Reminding himself that she was just a prisoner, so it didn't matter, Nyz fixed a glare on her.

"Did you get naked just to answer the call?" She asked.

"I was already naked," he told her. "And I'm wearing a towel around my waist, you just can't see it because I'm sitting. I had just gotten out of the shower and am not dried off all the way yet. Putting shorts on when my privates aren't thoroughly dried becomes uncomfortable."

"Oh, um, sorry," she said.

"I thought I told you to leave me alone?" He asked. "I don't like socializing with prisoners or terrorists."

"Has Taylor been calling you?" She asked.

"No," he answered. "Because he at least understands that I don't want to be bothered by anyone there except Kal! Why are you so intent on bothering me?"

"Nyz," she said. "I was calling today to apologize about that. That's all it was. This will be the last time you hear from me before you return in a few weeks."

Nyz felt his aggravation at her decreasing just a little bit, though he was still annoyed that she called him just to tell him that. In his opinion, she should have simply not called him, then apologized once he returned.

He was about to tell her that when he remembered something Kal had once told him. When they were younger, Nyz had a much more difficult time understanding people, even with the empathic abilities that made him aware of how they were feeling. In fact, they had only made it more difficult for him to try to understand. Because of that, Kal tried to help Nyz understand people better so that he could better blend into jobs when living away from their base.

Once, Kal had mentioned that normal people, when feeling guilty over something, prefer to apologize as soon as possible. Otherwise, it would eat at them until they finally managed to – or never did out of guilt at what they did.

While Nyz wasn't sure the situation qualified for that, he supposed that Sen probably did feel guilty over bothering him once she realized how much it bothered him. He couldn't know for sure without being there in-person to sense her emotions with his empathy, but he trusted Kal's statement.

"Apology accepted," he told her.

"Anyway," she said. "That's all I wanted, Nyz, so goodnight."

"Wait," he said as she reached forward, and she paused. "Last time Kal and I talked, he mentioned he was training the terrorist to perform missions. He wouldn't do that unless he had one in mind already, and I forgot to ask what it was due to him giving me some bad news. Do you know what it was?"

"I do," she pulled her arm back to the armrest. "Kal and you both hate Gairal, and Taylor knows some information regarding a few of their hideouts. Kal's training him on better magitech so that he can help dismantle the organization. He's actually a pretty good shot, it turns out."

"Of course he is," Nyz said. "He's a terrorist, they're trained for that shit. I should have left him to the bogral."

"Yeah," she said. "Good night, Nyz."

"Bye," he said, then ended the call.

He stood and returned to the general room, where he finished drying off, then pulled on a pair of shorts, a tee, and a pair of yellow-tinted glasses before laying down on one of the couches and playing an RPG until he went to sleep.

In the morning, Nyz ate and changed his clothes, gave everyone else some time, then summoned them to the hanger to leave. As he waited for them to arrive, he climbed out of the beetle and sat on the magic cannon, waiting.

Gabe and Lyan were the first to arrive, dressed already in their combat suits. Upon seeing Nyz waiting on the beetle, they stopped, knowing he had something to announce. The rest of the Scavengers arrived soon after, all of them in combat suits except for Wys, whose suit had never been put on and was still in the beetle.

"Alright!" Nyz said once the team was assembled. "From here on out is unknown territory. Scavengers don't typically go past this city anymore, so there's no telling what we'll expect. The last data we have on the way station past here is decades old. It and the others past it are unlikely to be usable. We may have to adjust our route many times, though Kal's planning gives us enough information to manage that with ease.

"Now," he continued. "If we can't get into a way station, six of us will be sleeping in the beetle while the other two keep watch. We'll rotate as you guys do now, whatever your pattern is. I've left that up to Gabe, so he'll assign it. If there's an issue, contact the beetle. I'll be sleeping in the cockpit, so I'll respond rather fast. Got it?"

"Got it!" The team responded.

"Let's move out!"