“We should get out soon,” John grumbled. “Seriously. We haven’t accomplished anything here.”

For once, Fate didn’t disagree. They’d collected quite a few ores that Danjo needed, and they’d gotten ample experience fighting various mana beasts scattered throughout the dungeon. Prota’s experience with magic was slowly fine tuning itself, and she was adapting to forms of magic that weren’t just fire or ice.

Danjo, too, was getting better at fighting. Well, it was more like self-defence than fighting, but the point was that he, too, was growing. Long gone was the frail and defenceless boy from the prison.

The dwarf was starting to look like a real dwarf again.

The problem was that they simply weren’t doing anything of note. They hadn’t come across anything of note. There were no particularly strong enemies, no events to encounter, no tests to run, and they were close to getting the mana core. For some reason, despite being advertised as dangerous, the dungeon was quite empty and bland. Fate had a mind to bring this up to Albert when they got back.

“Come on, let’s head back,” John complained. “What are we staying in here for? Do we even need to grab the core?”

He was about to complain more when Prota tugged on his sleeve urgently.

“John,” she whispered. “People.”

“...what? How many?”

“A lot,” Prota muttered, closing her eyes. “One… no, two feel familiar.”

John grit his teeth and pulled his revolver out. “Fate. Company.”

“Yeah, I heard,” Fate said, unsheathing his sword. Now wasn’t the time to fool around.

The situation had gone from boring to dangerous in the span of a single sentence.

“W-what’s going on?”

“Ambush,” Fate grumbled. “Which shouldn’t be possible. There’s a guard… well, the guard’s probably not there anymore, if Prota’s right.”

“Probably dead,” John shrugged. “Paid off at best. Regardless, what happens next?”

“We fight, I guess,” Fate said. “I doubt a rescue team is coming for a while.”

“With Danjo’s gear, we could probably rat away for a while,” John suggested. “It depends on whether or not the guard was killed or paid off.”

Fate let his sword drop to his side as his posture relaxed. “...you’re right. What do you think?”

“Why’re you asking me?”

“I thought you’d have some kind of guess for this situation! Isn’t your whole thing your amazing insight?”

John shrugged again. “Can’t have insight on a situation I have no info on. What do you think I am, god?”

Fate sighed. “...fine. We camp for a day. Rest up, prepare, and wait. If those people are still here by the end of that, then those people are waiting for us. We need to fight our way out.”

John nodded, but he was thinking about what Prota had said. One… no, two had felt familiar. Why would there be familiar souls in this dungeon?

“Ah. I finally found you, you cockroach like things.”

Everyone whipped around to see Draco Wynton walking towards them as if he were taking a pleasant afternoon stroll.

“John,” Prota whispered. “Two. Both feel familiar.”

Two. Where was the second? John couldn’t see anyone but Draco. Who else would feel familiar?

“...where?” John whispered.

“Further. Can’t see.”

John grimaced and pulled out his gun without a second thought.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“Whoah, whoah, I’m just here to talk,” Draco said with an unpleasant smile.

“Just here to talk, my ass. How did you even get in here?”

“I’ll answer that and more if you just follow me,” Draco said with a sickening smile. It was like trying to deal with a snake. “Just you.”

“Just me?” John frowned.

It was obviously a trap. Even Fate was shaking his head.

“Yes. Just you.”

“Do I look as stupid as you?” John scoffed. Inwardly, Prota sighed with relief. It wouldn’t have been strange for John to accept the offer. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t put a bullet through your head right now.”

Draco smirked. “We’ll see if you can kill me and my friend before we kill you.”

Danjo gasped as felt a thin blade pressed against his neck. The air shimmered, revealing a long rapier pointed at Danjo’s throat, but the person holding the blade was still invisible. Draco grinned. The grin on his face froze, however, as John just laughed.

“Really? This was your master plan?”

“Surely you wouldn’t let your companion die.”

“Yeah. Good point. You could kill Danjo,” John shrugged. “But I would also kill you. Is that really what you want?”

“Hey, wait a minute-” Danjo started, but stopped at the point of the blade was pressed against his throat, drawing a drop of blood.

“John?!” Fate yelled. “Hey, what do you mean-”

“Fate. If I go along with this, we could all die. What do you want me to do? Put my weapon down?”

“No, but-”

“I’m confident I can kill Draco before they kill Danjo. And if Danjo dies, well, it’s a pretty fair trade, right?”

“Hey, I want to live!” Danjo protested.

“Yeah, and I’m doing what I can to keep you alive,” John said. “But if Draco dies, you don’t mind dying, right? I’ll be sure to get a really good revenge for you.”

“What? No, I’d rather live!”

The air was tense. This wasn’t going the way anyone expected. Draco was especially stunned. He’d expected John to meekly obey and follow, but the flow of the conversation was going in John’s direction, despite having made enemies of practically everyone in the room. Even Prota was mildly shocked at how things were going, but then she remembered what John had said before.

“I sacrifice pawns all the time, both in chess and real life.”

Was this what he’d meant? Sacrificing pawns? Was that what everyone was to him? It hit her. Life was, in a way, a game of chess to him. Losing people wasn’t anything of consequence. He could always [Reset] and bring them back. He would just do the most strategic things until he got the outcome he desired. A chill went down her spine.

Draco’s smirk fell off his face. “Fine. We’ll have a talk. Just me and you. There are quite a few men in this dungeon. Initially, I wanted all of you dead, but since you’re going to be so stubborn, I’ll offer you a deal. Just you. Come with me. And I’ll let everyone else go.”

“You expect me to believe that? This is bait 101. Really?”

“I’ll apologize to you and your sister.”

John’s eyebrows shot up at that. A small grin appeared on his mouth as if he were scheming something. “No way. Really?”

Draco smiled. “Of course.”

“Well goddamn! Why didn’t you just say that?”

“... so will you do it?”

“Hell yeah!” John said, tossing his gun and sauntering over.

“John-” Prota started, reaching out, but he looked back and shook his head, silencing her.

“Alright, Draco. Let’s have our talk.”

The blade at Danjo’s throat disappeared. A quarter of a second. It took a quarter of a second for the blade to disappear, and in that instant, John reached into his pocket and pulled out another gun, then turned and shot.

A body fell to the ground, bleeding out.

“What the hell?!” Danjo yelled, jumping back. His pants had a stain in them, but that was to be expected.

“Who was this?” John muttered, walking over. “Seriously, did you think I’d just come with you? I told you, I’m not as stupid as you.”

John pulled off the hood, not expecting anything, but unexpectedly, there was a familiar face.

“...Elfin? What the fuck?”

“Elfin? One of the managers at the branch?” Draco exclaimed. Even Fate was speechless.

Everyone stared, stunned. John poked the elf’s cheek as if to make sure it was real.

“H-hey,” Fate said quietly. “Albert suspected a spy, but for it to be Elfin…”

Surprisingly, the most stunned of them all was John.

“Wha- no, no, this doesn’t make sense. There was no prelude. No chaos. There was no pointing fingers, no game of espionage… What was the point? Why put a spy in? And why now? Did the [Author] try to set something up and fail to use it properly? No, there’s no way they’re that bad, right? Am I missing something? I’m-”

“John! Snap out of it!” Fate exclaimed, slapping him. “We found the spy. That’s all that matters. We can report this to Albert, and then information breaches will be solved!”

“That’s not the problem! Elfin being dead is the issue!”

“Why is it an issue?”

“It just doesn’t fit! It doesn’t make sense! Elfin’s barely done anything!”

The two were so busy yelling that no one noticed the presences gathering around. It was too late anyway. In a flash, a group of hooded figures had them surrounded, a knife at each person’s throat, and Fate’s mouth was sealed to stop him from chanting.

Despite being bound, Prota could still cast. She was just about to fire off a spell, the mana at her fingertips, but once again, that split second of hesitation was there to screw her over. Suddenly, a club hit her over the head, and she crumpled like a piece of paper.

“She was just about to cast, too!” someone called out. “Good work!”

John was quickly grabbed and bound with rope, stopping him from reaching his weapon.

“Good job,” a hooded figure said, walking over to Draco. “It didn’t go as planned, but it worked. Your information was quite valuable.”

“Hold on,” Draco growled. “I want alone time with that one.”

“The coreless one? Fine.”

The hooded figure snapped his fingers. “Take him away! We’ll figure out what to do with the others later.”

John was dragged away by a beaming Draco, leaving just Fate, Danjo and Prota.

Surprisingly, no one had done anything with Danjo other than put a knife to his throat. It seemed that they didn’t perceive him as a threat. Fate was distressed that John had been taken away, but he had to get himself out of this situation first.

His mouth was still bound, but while his hands were tied together, they were mildly free. He couldn’t reach his sword, but his fingers were available to move. He signalled to Danjo frantically.

Thankfully, their captors were too busy talking to notice.

Danjo looked over at Fate with bugged out eyes. What did Fate want? He could see Fate staring intently at his hands. His hands? What did Fate want with Danjo’s hands? Hands. Danjo thought, but he was panicking inside. Hands. What could he-

The gloves. But how was he supposed to put them on? Danjo glanced at his captor. The knife at his throat wasn’t very tight. He had an opportunity. But was he brave enough to take it? He could see Fate begging with his eyes. Danjo gulped. He was the only one who could do anything here.

He looked at his hands and gulped again. He had one shot. He couldn’t mess this up.

With a quick chant, he threw his captor’s balance off and tackled him, knocking him to the ground.

“What the- hey!”

It was too late. Danjo put his gloves on and powered them up, then raised them up in a guard. The knives clashed off his weapons uselessly, and he lowered the gauntlets and charged them up, ploughing into their captors with full force.

The element of surprise had worked. Fate quickly got himself unbound and picked up his sword, cutting the tape off his mouth before going to work on their enemies. Thankfully, none of them were all that strong. It seemed that their enemies had relied mostly on the element of surprise to capture them, so with relatively little work, the group was free.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Prota!” Fate yelled, rushing over.

Thankfully, the young girl was merely unconscious and not dead. However, no matter how Fate tried, he couldn’t get her up.

“How about John?” Danjo said hesitantly. He was a little peeved at the fact that John had been so willing to let him die, but it had worked, kind of, so he couldn’t be too mad.

“...we don’t know where they went. Does your communicator have a tracker?”

“No,” Danjo said. “I should’ve thought of that…”

“Tch…”

Just to see if it would work, Fate tried to signal over the device Danjo had made, but got nothing back. Had they searched John? Probably.

Fate paced back and forth. “We need to go after him…”

“Now?”

“We don’t know what they’ll do to him!”

“I guess…” Danjo said dejectedly.

He was scared. He didn’t want to be here. There was too much going on. He’d been improving, but this was a little too much, all at once.

However, he couldn’t just let John get taken.

“Let’s go,” Danjo said, steeling his resolve.

“...you stay here, actually,” Fate said. “Make sure Prota isn’t harmed. I’ll go look for John. If I can’t find him in an hour… well, we go to Albert.”

~~~

John had been mildly amused upon being dragged away.

“Why did you only knock Prota out? Wouldn’t it have been better to knock all of them out?”

“Shut up!” Draco yelled, kicking John. “Will you not be quiet for just a second?”

“That’s boring. Seriously, if you learned to have a little fun I’m sure you wouldn’t be nearly as unbearable.”

“Peasant! You should be honoured that you can even be talking to me in the first place!”

“Please stop talking like that. Seriously. Unless your hidden goal was to get me to kill myself. If that’s the case, it’s working.”

Finally, they reached the surface. Unknown to Fate and the others, John wasn’t in the dungeon at all.

He’d been taken back out.

“So, where are we going? To a warehouse? Maybe a secret base?”

“You’ll see.”

With that, John was dragged away. He continued to yap away, but with no response, he eventually fell silent. He was cursing himself for not having seen the current situation coming. There weren’t any real indicators that he’d get captured, but…

Wait a minute. The pawn. Sacrifices. Had he just invoked Chekov’s gun on himself? He’d even been questioning why this dungeon raid had been in the story in the first place. There was no way, right?

“Fuck,” he muttered.

Finally, they reached their destination.

“...this isn’t anywhere.”

“That’s right.”

Draco grinned. “Which means I can beat you up as much as I want.”

He cracked his knuckles and raised his fist. John closed his eyes. This was going to hurt. However, the blow never came.

“Open your eyes.”

The hooded figure stood over John. Behind the figure, Draco was unconscious on the floor.

“We’ll be wiping his memories. He served his role.”

“Who the hell are you?”

The hooded figure took his hood off, revealing a scarred and muscular face.

“Name’s Breaker. I’m only telling you cause you’re gonna probably die soon. Sorry about that.”

He slung John over his back like a rag doll and ran through the forest, reaching an opening in a cave. With a bit of effort, he snuck through, descending into yet another dungeon.

“Hey, so what’re you guys in this for? Money? World domination?”

“...”

“Seriously, if I’m gonna die, you might as well tell me.”

Breaker remained silent as he went lower and lower. John cursed to himself. If he’d introduced himself, he was clearly a character of importance, but he wasn’t the boastful kind of villain. That was bad. If he died without learning anything, this would’ve all been for nothing. Besides, these types of [Characters] weren’t fun to deal with. John’s desire for entertainment wasn’t in anyone’s mind at the moment, though.

Finally, they reached a somewhat hidden door.

“Doctor,” Breaker yelled. “It’s me.”

The door opened, revealing Doctor in all his greasy glory. The man was standing in the middle of his messy office, papers and items scattered everywhere. John frowned. The sight and stench of the place reminded him of a basement dweller, or perhaps a user of a certain social media site.

“Ah. So you succeeded?”

“Just this one. I don’t think we got the others.”

“Oh, well. This was the only one I wanted. The girl will follow naturally.”

John stared at Doctor with a frown. His normal grin was nowhere to be found. Why had he been singled out?

“Who… are you?”

“I’m Doctor. Very pleased to meet you, my new test subject.”

Doctor was grinning, but it wasn’t a pleasant grin. It gave John the creeps, but that wasn’t what was bothering him.

“I can’t wait to break you. Oh, this’ll be fun. Oh, I almost forgot.”

Doctor put chains around John’s neck, hands and feet. “You won’t be able to move very well from now on. Oh, and just to be sure…”

Tendrils came out from Doctor’s lab coat and stripped John to everything but underwear. John yelped, but Doctor didn’t seem interested in John as a male.

“We can’t have you sneaking any weapons or anything in here. Hm? What’s that on your back?”

Doctor held John by the wrists and spun him around, spotting John’s symbol. “Hm… interesting. I’ll look into that later. Breaker! Take him away. Throw him into a cell.”

Breaker picked John up roughly and carried him into a cell, throwing him in like a sack of potatoes. He winced as his head hit the floor, causing his vision to begin to spin out as his arms were chained to the wall.

None of that mattered, though.

The energy around the man named Doctor. It felt familiar. Familiar to him but foreign to this world. Breaker slammed the cell door shut as he and Doctor left, leaving John muttering as he faded into unconsciousness.

“Those… they’re mine… why do you have them? Why?”

~~~

Fate and Danjo were sitting dejectedly in Albert’s office. Prota still hadn’t woken up and was in the hospital, recovering.

“He got taken?!”

There was no response.

“Shit… I should’ve never gotten him involved in the first place!” Albert cursed, slamming his fist onto the table. Danjo flinched, but Fate just looked up with cold eyes.

“It happened. I told you what happened. Draco Wynton was there. He led them to us. I don’t know what happened, but he’s the reason we let our guards down.”

“Well, the reason John let his guard down,” Fate muttered.

“We can’t do anything about it,” Albert said, shaking his head. “I’d love to go after him too, but the guard didn’t report anybody coming in, and we don’t have the power to go after a noble family of their status.”

“Noble this, noble that. What the hell’s the point in nobles when stuff like this is going on?!” Fate roared, standing up and knocking his chair back. “That little bastard tried to get us killed! And we can’t do anything about it?”

“I’d love to!” Albert roared back. “But you know just as well as I do that we can’t fight against their entire household! Without any concrete proof, you’ll just get hunted down! Is that what you want?”

Fate sat down, the words ringing in his ears. The same words he’d told John time after time. He was starting to understand where John was coming from. He wanted to run up to Draco’s mansion and grab the little shit by the throat and choke him out, but he couldn’t.

John did, though. He had the balls to break in and teach that little bastard some manners. The lesson hadn’t gone through, though. In fact, it might’ve backfired. Fate held his head in his hands, unsure of what to do next. He’d gotten so used to John knowing what would happen next that he’d forgotten that he could think for himself.

“Go get some rest,” Albert sighed. “You two need it. As soon as the girl wakes up, someone has to let her know what happened to her brother. I’m removing her from the team. Do you two think you can do it alone? You can drop out at any time.”

Fate shook his head. He was here for this particular reason. There was no reason for him to drop out now. He looked at Danjo, who was visibly shaking, but the dwarf also shook his head.

“I can’t… back out. I want to, but…”

Albert sighed. “Good. Now, you said you had one more piece of news?”

“Boss. Remember when you were talking about a spy?”

“Did you find a lead?”

“We found the spy.”

“What?”

Fate sighed heavily. He didn’t want to say it, but someone had to.

“Elfin. He was the spy.”

There was a surge of bloodlust in the room. “I’m not in the mood for jokes, boy.”

“I’m not joking. He died. John killed him. He was with Draco, wearing the same outfit as our attackers. I hate to say it, but… it was him.”

“No, it could’ve been another elf, it could’ve been…”

Albert started pacing back and forth, head in his hands.

“Sir. Albert. I don’t know what’s going on here, but you need to calm down. Whatever Elfin was to you before, he’s dead now. You have to accept it.”

Albert dashed forward and grabbed Fate’s collar, pinning him to the wall. “What do you know about losing comrades? What do you know about betrayal?!”

Fate didn’t react. He just stared calmly into Albert’s eyes. “A lot more than you might think, sir. A lot more than you might think.”

The bitterness in Fate’s voice was enough to pierce through the voice changing system in his mask. It was enough to shock Albert back into a state of sobriety. He dropped Fate to the floor and took a deep breath in, his shoulders rising and falling.

“Fine. I… I’ll deal with this after. I’ll need to talk to Bren…”

Albert seemed to be lost. For the first time, Fate saw the leader of the Adventurer’s Guild in a state of disarray. He was normally confident and bold, giving off an aura that made everyone around him more confident, but now, he seemed small and weak. Despite his loud voice and rough nature, Albert was really a caring person, so to have lost Elfin must’ve been a huge blow to him.

“It’s fine, though. I suspected they only had one source of information anyways.”

“What makes you say that?”

“The rate at which they were receiving information. They weren’t getting a lot, and there weren’t a lot of times Elfin was out of my sight. Most of our actions were accounted for, so it lines up, in a way.”

“That’s all?”

“There’s a few more logistics to it than that. We’ve known there might be a spy for a bit, and now that I look at it, it’s not impossible that it was Elfin. The info they received was only known to a select few anyways, so it’s probably better that we keep going with the assumption that our spy is gone.”

Fate nodded. “That’s good to hear.”

Albert crossed his arms and turned to his map.

“One week. You should rest, recover and recoup.”

“How about Prota?”

“I told you. I’m removing her from the mission.”

“But John is-”

“That’s exactly why! Her emotions will be involved. We can’t have people risking this because of an emotional attachment. If we have to let John die…”

Fate’s blood went cold. Those words. Was he going to let a comrade die? A friend?

That was how John thought. If he needed to kill someone, if he needed to let someone die, he would. He’d shown that with Danjo, in the cave. He’d let his own sister get pretty close to death, multiple times. It didn’t matter how close they were. If it meant that it was the best move possible, he would do it.

So would he be ok with being sacrificed himself?

“That’s your choice, sir. I don’t like that.”

“You’re telling me you’d rather save John and potentially lose everything, than lose John and save everything?”

Fate clenched his fist. “Both. I’ll do both.”

“You sound pretty sure of yourself.”

“I am pretty sure of myself.”

Albert just snorted. “Hmph. Fine. We’ll do it your way.”

He took an axe off the wall and checked the edge. Still sharp.

“You two are still in it, right?”

Danjo looked at Fate, who nodded, and the dwarf nodded as well.

“I’ll be joining you two. We’re finishing this, here and now. One week.”

Albert took a pen and marked a dungeon with a big X. It was a lesser known dungeon, one whose entrance was nothing more than a crack in the wall.

“We just found this. It’s brand new, no one’s ever seen it before. We were going to announce it as a dungeon, but… it turned out that it was their base instead. Right there. That’s where this will all end. We’re not losing anybody else.”