- Unknown Village, Avalon Empire’s territory–

- inside the catacombs, unknown hall -

- 2210hrs, local time -

As the moonlight shone brightly in the night sky filled with twinkling stars, some people in this certain village at the edge of the Avalon Empire’s territory gathered around a lake not far from their place as they heard a series of sounds they never heard. The village chief and the others searched around the lake to find the source of the sound but to no avail. They didn’t find anything. They do not know that twenty meters underneath the ground, a small skirmish is currently happening between the strongest adventurers from their village and the most notorious mercenary from Earth.

Down below, the Adventurers were stunned, bewildered, and quite possibly feared their adversary due to the show of power from Coyote’s machine gun that fired a rain of .338 incendiary magnum rounds and how accurate Jaeger’s shot was. The man in white armour is still in his stance, holding his sword firmly as he normally does when he’s in a fight. Yet, his legs are slightly trembling, the first time in his career being an adventurer. He tried to look at Coyote’s [status]. [Lv: 70. job: squad machine gunner, mercenary. Skills: unknown, title: none]. All of that doesn’t make sense to him, “Squad Machine Gunner? What’s that?” He thought for himself. He shrugged it off for a moment as he now looked at Jaeger’s status, which made him even more confused. [ḛ̵̭͠r̸̰̉r̴͇̍o̴͇͋ŗ̷͉͊̅!̷̫̽ ̸̝̔u̴͘ͅn̴̛̤̙ǩ̶̪͠ń̸̗͘o̶̘̫̓w̵͙͎̓n̵̖̺̆ ̸͌͐͜ě̶̢̨ņ̶̞͋̒t̸̠̫̑͘i̴͈̝̇t̵̮͙͝y̷͔̐͒!̴͓͋͝ͅ ].

“what in the world… Millia, can you see one of their statuses? I can’t seem to understand what’s wrong with the other man’s status.”

The female mage, still in a state of fright with her legs trembling, tried to look at Jaeger’s status too. To her surprise, she saw the same thing as the white armoured man. “I- I can’t. Is this what you’re seeing, Neil?”

“yeah, do you know what’s wrong with his status panel?”

She shook her head. “I never encountered such a thing before, nor has it been written in any books that I read.” Neil returned his gaze towards Jaeger, who still pointed his assault rifle at him.

“what about their attacks? Is it high-level magic?”

“no… I don’t think it is… if it's magic, the barrier wouldn’t be this strained out. Only physical attacks from legendary-grade weapons could cause this kind of damage.”

“… I don’t like this situation… has Klien got fully healed?”

She looked back at her comrade, who was still in pain, “My spell somehow didn’t work… as if there’s something that’s inside his body that prevented my [medium heal] from recovering his injuries... as if he was struck by an arrow.”

“Darn it! Peter, help Millia carry Klein. Get out of here as fast as you can!”

“but what about-“

“I’ll be fine! Just run!”

The two looked at each other for a moment and nodded. Quickly lifted their friend and went through the corridor where they came from. The nun, who was still in a state of shock, tried to hold them from going, but the three of them ignored her.

“what about the quest?!”

“We’ll be cancelling it! This isn’t worth being rated as a B-ranked quest in the first place! I thought it was just a bandit that sneaked inside. But those people… they’re in a different league!”

Suddenly, two more shots are fired from Jaeger’s rifle, shattering the luminous barrier. “so? Are you going to surrender or what?”. Taunted Jaeger while still looking through the scope of his rifle. Neil gripped his sword tighter and gritted his teeth. Launching himself into the air and activating a skill

“[Ground Pound]!!” he cried as he flew to the ground with his sword pointing straight to the point of his landing, shattering the stone bridge’s floor and causing a massive shockwave along with debris. Luckily for the two mercenaries, they already leapt backwards and hid behind the pillars.

As the debris and smoke fumes were still covering where Neil landed, Jaeger quickly leaned out of cover and aimed at Neil’s head as Neil dashed towards the pillars they were hiding at. Three shots were fired, one hit right between Neil’s eyes and two of the remaining hit at the centre of the torso, penetrating Neil’s prized armour. Thermal vision surely helped him with these shots he took as he could visibly see Neil through the thick cloud of dust.

A loud thud was heard, and the clouds of dust clouds resided. The Nun’s eyes grew wide as the Adventurer, who was renowned as the strongest in the southern region, was now lying dead on the floor. Blood started to flood around his corpse as the bleeding got intense.

“looks like that’s a no huh?” Jaeger nonchalantly said, checking his remaining ammo on the magazine of his rifle.

“dude, you didn’t even let him say anything and you dropped him damn…” Coyote remarked, sighing as he looked at the corpse in front of them. “though, he did try to attack us, so… I guess it’s fine.”

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“you sounded like you’re the one in charge here sometimes.”

“my bad, it’s a force of habit.”

“That aside...” he turned his attention to 60k, who was checking on his equipment to see if anything broke. “60k! did you plant every single explosive charge you brought?”

“yeah! I did!” he shouted, boost jumping from near the entrance of the hall, landing softly as the thrusters slowed him down right next to the two. “but damn, I hate it when people suddenly pointed a sharp object to my face when I’m doing my job!”

“… that sounded wrong in many ways.”

“shut up Coyote! Why did you make it even worse!”

As they were having a small chat, the Nun quickly ran away, disappearing in the darkness of the tunnel. Whatever information lies inside her head about the underground cave is now out of their reach for now. Not long, they quickly jogged their way out. But to their surprise, on their way back to the surface, some of the imprisoned children were somehow outside their cells and were trying to walk their way out in the pitch-black corridors of the catacombs. Jaeger ordered them to sneak past them, but 60K’s sympathy took the better of him.

“Hey, kid, can you understand me?” he asked the front of the pack, which the girl that shouted in fear earlier. The girl was startled and yelped, looking left and right, trying to look at the ones that asked her.

“y-yes, who are you? How can you see us?”

“no time to explain! Is it just the five of you that escaped?” through 60K’s white Phosphor night vision filter, he could see the girl nod slowly. Maybe she still fears that 60k might harm them. “i-indeed sir… it was six at first but one of us… was separated.” She replied with a meek voice.

“I’ll try to-.” 60K’s sentence was cut as Jaeger cleared his throat. “Remember our objective, you’re not going to waste our time here, are you?”

“Jaeger, c’mon, man! Again!? Don’t you have some humanity left inside you!?”

“…” Jaeger was silent for a moment, though he responded with a rather challenging tone. “then, I’ll let you save them, only if you’re the ones that provide them cover fire and lead their way. Alone. I won’t take responsibility for this. Coyote, on me!” he then jogged towards the spiralling stairs going to the top alongside Coyote, who was following him as per order.

“u-uhmm… Mister? you can just leave us… we don’t have anyone to come home, to begin with… we don’t want to trouble you.”

“wha- No! Absolutely not! You’re a victim of whatever the church is doing right now. Plus, Look at you! You’re so malnourished!” the little girl got confused about what 60k was saying and tilted her head. Groaning, he then grabbed the little girl’s arm, which was not holding the other children as the guide. “Just follow me! I’ll make sure all of you are outside!”

The little girl is slightly hesitant for a moment, but she trusts him a bit at the end and lets him guide her to the surface. Along the way, 60K has his sidearm, a Glock 45, up and ready to fire just in case there’s a sudden attack. As they finally reached the stairwell, which was shined by the torches which may have been lit up by the priests beforehand. The children were amazed at how easily 60k traversed those dark corridors of the catacombs, which they found impossible to exit. Among them, the most wonderstruck of them all is the little girl he’s holding into.

“mister?”

“yes, what is it, kiddo?”

“Are you the Hero? Or a Sage?”

[A Hero? Me?] 60K thought for himself, and the urge to grin about it can’t be held back much. Shrugging off that feeling, he seriously answered back. “sorry, I’m not. I’m just a soldier.”

“But, but… the clothes that you use, and the wand on your hips and the ones you’re holding… you’re activating a spell right now, right?”

He chuckled, “Hehehe~ no, these aren’t magic tools or whatnot. But it’s a tool that goes bang! And shoots a small metal arrow tip to a target.”

“SO COOL!” one of the boys shouted with a gleeful face. 60K smiled as he finally saw them smile; earlier, what he saw on their face were just expressions filled with despair.

“right??! I like these weapons. As long I don’t run out of the arrowheads I said earlier, I’ll be able to protect you all.” He said with pride and a smile under his balaclava. “say, what’s your name, little lady? I think we get along pretty well.”

The Little girl blushed slightly. She never got called a “lady” in her whole life, and yet, the ones who guided her to her freedom called her that. In a meek voice and the energy she currently has, she replied to him. “A-a-Aliciats!”

“Pfft! Alicia bit her tongue!”

Her face was flushed in her embarrassment, especially the part where one of the boys pointed out her mistake. “Alicia, huh? That’s quite a beautiful name. Your parents may want you to become someone noble in this world. Can I call you Alice though?”

Little Alicia bashfully nodded, “Y-yes”. Her attitude made 60K couldn’t help to pat her head. And as he doing so, he could feel how coarse and rough her hair is, even though he was using a thick glove.

He then glanced upstairs again and noticed that they were already near the exit. “Alright then Alicia. Wait here and keep an eye out okay? I’m going to check the surface real quick”

As he nears the trapdoor contraption, suddenly, there’s a large shockwave that he saw knocking out the whole church’s construction. 60K peaked slightly outside and was dumbfounded to find Jaeger and Coyote facing something that was out of this world, something grotesque looking. Though as the thing was in the process of morphing, he could see the flesh was being blown away by something that was shot from far away, most likely Point is the one that was sniping it.

Through his headset, a static came for a moment and Jaeger’s voice came through. “60k! whatever you do, don’t let those kids get caught by this… creature! It absorbed something from humans of this world and use it as its power!”

“wait? What!? What the heck happened when I was still down there!?”

“No time to explain! Just try to save the ones you can save and leave the AO to the LZ! Point is retreating since he’s running out of incendiary ammo” 60K’s mind panicked for a short moment and quickly went back downstairs towards where the children are.

“What the hell is going on!?” is the only thing he could think of currently.

- Several minutes ago –

Jaeger and Coyote are currently walking up the stairwell, weapons are up and ready as usual. As Jaeger is being quiet as usual, Coyote currently having restless thoughts about something. “Jaeger, did you feel odd about why those kids suddenly could escape? Aren’t they bruised and… you know…”

“I do, but well, we do get told to have minimal casualties anyway.”

“… if you have those kinds of thoughts, why are you arguing with 60K earlier?”

“what he wants is to save them, not to have minimal civilian casualties. When we blew up this place, those kids are hopeless in the first place so it’s not a big deal for me. Probably, it’s because of his old experience, isn’t it?”

“Yeah… you know about it didn’t you?”

Jaeger stopped in his tracks for a moment, “I do, but anyway, shut up. Someone’s above us”. The two then had their guns facing up the stairs towards the entryway of the trapdoor. They could hear some chatter, but as they slowly walk their way up, those chatter suddenly turned into screams, gurgles and pleads and some bright red light shone all over, though, it resided shortly after. As they reached the entryway, all they could see is just the carnage of a massacre.

Standing across them is the nun, used to be. From the darkness across and through their thermal visor, they could see something has changed. It grew sharp spines through its back and also another arm, making its body hump to the front. The church’s condition was also in a bad state. the seats of the praying hall were either shattered or broken, blood splatters were all over the walls, and corpses were scattered all over the place.

“what the hell…” Coyote muttered in disbelief, it’s the least he’d expect on this mission, a massacre that they didn’t do. The thing then stood up and horrifically bent its torso far to the back that’s impossible for any human can do, staring at both of them with its barely luminescent red eyes.

“ah s**t… here we go again”