He didn’t know what was real and what was false anymore, he would assume he’d been drugged if it wasn’t for how surreal everything had been.

He’d caught glimpses at the laws that governed reality, that wasn’t something illusion-based magic could replicate and if it was then it had to be some very potent magic, in which case why bother using it on him?

It was an out-of-body experience, nowhere near as bad as when his God had begun mutilating universal laws but still awful nevertheless.

Time ceased to mean anything to him and he remained engulfed in his thoughts, a new world-altering perspective being revealed to him every other second.

That was until someone yelled. THOMEL! THOMEL! THOMEL!” With all their might and broke him out of his hollow state.

Blinking to clear his watery eyes as well as his drifting mind. He turned towards the voice.

Standing in plain view was half a dozen people, all wearing the same combat hazmat suits him and the other hunters had been issued.

“I knew you'd be alive!” One of them shouted out.

He couldn't see their face but the general body type and certainly the attitude made him think they were Volly.

There was no need to play detective though as she excitedly yelled.“It's me Volly, you remember me? When's my birthday!”

“I uh, don't know.” He sorrowfully replied.

“good cause I never told you!”

“This proves nothing Volly.” One of the hunter's next to her said, beamer still pointed firmly at Thomel’s bare chest.

Even though he'd hoped she was alive he didn't actually think she would be. He was baffled that another team had survived the horrors within the monitoring station. How had they done it?

“What’s meant to be proved?” He asked, squinting at the wary group.

“Nothing because I'm team leader!” Volly assured him.

“Where’s the PMC?”

“Back at the facility.”

“So you’ve retreated and then come back here for the data?”

“Yep, pretty much.” She nodded her head.

“Where’s your team Thomel?” The same hunter who’d reprimanded Volly early said. Beamer still pointed firmly at his chest.

Thinking quickly he replied. “Dead I think. I remember coming up here with the lieutenant and someone else but then everything gets blurry.

“Okay cool and why are you wearing that? Where’s your beamer and where’s your suit?”

“I have no idea at all, you can do the test on me and everything else though and you’ll find I’m still human.”

Looking at their teammates to make sure they weren’t just speaking for themselves, the hunter received a series of nods.

“No point, you're a dead man walking without your suit on. Might as well put you down now.”

“I have a regeneration boon, this toxic atmosphere isn’t strong enough to kill me.” Thomel hurriedly said, lifting up his thumb and biting on it to prove his point. Showing them his wound as it quickly closed.

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“I don’t want to find out what its limit is though and I don’t want to meet whatever did this to me so can you guys hurry up and get the data so we can leave?”

“Yeah! Go and get what we came for subordinate two.” Volly barked out, nudging her gun towards the listening post.

The referred to subordinate number two looked like they wanted to say something but instead, they slumped over slightly and began to walk over toward the listening post.

“Now the rest of us should spread out? That’s what you’re meant to do in a case like this right?”

“I thought you were promoted to this position because of meritocracy, how did you get those merits exactly?” asked the disgruntled hunter.

“By shooting stuff and staying alive, not by reading textbooks to try and figure out the best way to deal with mages. In this case, it looks like Thomel’s been left here as a trap, which makes me think we should stick together and watch every angle. On the other hand, mages have area-of-effect spells and that could be exactly what whoever or whatever did that to Thomel wants.” Volly explained like she was talking to a toddler.

It was the most gentle he’d ever seen her be with anyone.

And immediately it was subsumed by rowdiness as she turned back towards him and mimed throwing him some money.

It took him a few seconds to catch on to what she meant but once he did he flipped her off and scrambled around on the ground for his shirt.

While sliding his arms and head through the holes, she debated with the other members of her team what to do.

He was just finishing off rubbing off the rock powder and dust when she yelled out at him.“You just stay where you are for now Thomel. We’ll collect you and get out all together.”

Stopping his self-cleaning for a moment to shoot her a thumbs up, Thomel returned to his work.

It was easier to focus on rubbing filthy particles off than it was to try and figure out what to do moving forward.

Calling forth his status screen, he took a look at what had been innately changed about himself.

NAME: Thomel

CLASS: Apostle

LEVEL: 56

EXPERIENCE: 4322/18148

Physical

[76]

Attunement

[0]

Magical

[0]

[Boons]

Tracking

Hunted Hunter

Survivor

[Gifts]

But other than his class everything else remained the same. He hadn’t even gained a gift.

His hunter class had let him track things easier, shoot more accurately and even cook better.

What would this class help him with? What exactly did an apostle do?

Was it a leadership class and he was supposed to go around gathering people to his side, or was there something else to it?

He spent what should have been half a minute quickly thinking of ways his class would influence his actions but when he left the status screen behind and returned, he found everyone had already formed a basic perimeter.

They’d opted for a strategy in between spreading out and staying together, each person remained far enough away that an impact grenade would only hurt them not kill them should it hit the person besides themselves.

Impact grenades had served to be a surprisingly accurate way of judging how powerful magical area attacks tended to be, so it wasn’t surprising they’d modelled themselves around defending against such attacks but it still brought a faint smile to his face.

He found it reassuring how naive they were acting, the creature that had done this to him had simply erased people from existence, what was standing a dozen yards apart going to do?

“Right got it!” Yelled out subordinate two, striding out from the listening post and waving his hand up in the air.

“Everyone group up then!” Called out Volly, gesturing towards Thomel as well.

While walking towards her Thomel noticed a couple of them set their beamers to a low charge.

It would be fine though, just a few more steps and he’d be back at that corporate hellhole and away from this literal one.