‘It should be somewhere around here,’ Leo thought, looking up from the map in a flier he grabbed as he got out of the clinic.

His arm stung like hell.

The area around the injection was all bloated and extremely dark.

The smart swarm of the microscopic machines tore through whatever stood in their path in Leo’s flesh, only to reach the bloodstream and expand all over his body.

‘Shit,’ Leo cursed as he stumbled. Dizzy from the sudden, overwhelming wave of weakness, he leaned forward, barely managing to grab the edge of a random bench.

Leo sat down right as his body threatened to give up.

A long, exhausted sigh left Leo’s mouth as he leaned back and rested his back against the solid wood of the bench.

The weakness came… and was likely going to stay for a while. But as the nanites gradually worked their magic, the burden of all the toxins Leo breathed in on the job thus far…

Bit by bit, the damaged and poisoned cells would fall prey to the aggressive hunting of the nanties. By using some of those nanites, the rest of the swarm scavenged the affected place and reconstructed the cells anew with the parts left after the initial purge.

“Haaa…”

Leo’s body suddenly relaxed, the sense of weakness giving way to the peak relaxation.

There wasn’t an iota of chemical fuel left in his body. All of it fell prey to the hungry nanites as they rushed to complete a myriad of microscopic operations.

‘So that’s how it feels…’

Melting down into the bench he sat at, Leo breathed out. His ass slid further and further down his seat, all the way to when he practically laid down on his seat.

But in just a few minutes, he had no other choice but to pull himself up and take a proper seat.

It would be unbecoming to welcome the members of his newly formed team by sloppily lazying on the bench, out in the open, wouldn’t it?

The man approached Leo’s seat and even spared him a quick glance… before turning his steps away and taking a seat on a nearby bench.

The two didn’t exchange a single word, each dedicating only a short but intense look at the other before going back to minding their own business.

And soon, the third person arrived. This time, however, rather than being as average as Leo and his new companion, she had one distinctive trait about herself that made her stand out.

Contrary to the two men, she paraded in the corp’s colors. The tablet and smart pen she held on her forearm only served to enhance her aura of a guide.

“Hi,” the young girl was anything like the two men she greeted. Young and full of energy, with a smile yet to be tainted by the brutal and unforgiving reality of the world around.

Her skin was fair, her eyes bright and her step jumpy.

“First off, I hope you’ve read the pamphlets,” the guide spoke with an encouraging, lively smile.

Leo looked down at the piece of paper he held in his hand. It contained pretty much all the barebone information a recruit like him had to know.

Between the chain of command, the mission’s purpose, and a set of basic orders to follow, the flier outlined every last thing that Leo had to know.

Leo’s new companion didn’t bother to open his mouth, limiting himself to a short shake of his head.

“Good.” The guide either couldn’t be bothered by the man’s attitude or knew perfectly well how to hide it. “And you?”

Leo looked up and into the girl’s light-brown eyes before slowly nodding his head.

“Yeah.”

“Great,” the girl’s smile grew a little as the corners of her mouth pulled up a bit. “Now then, the injection should wear off in a few minutes. By then, the rest of your team,” the guide stopped mid-sentence and turned her head, right as another figure appeared, “Hi,” she threw before turning her eyes back and showcasing a renewed smile.

“As I was saying, everyone should gather in the next few minutes. While in the zone, make sure to follow the orders and let the nanites do their job. Extracts at the injection at minute, hour, and week intervals. Your rift is scheduled for in fifteen minutes.”

As she neared the end of her information bit, the guide raised her hand to clear her long, black hair. With a clearer view, she turned her eyes down to her tablet as if to confirm she voiced out all that she was obliged to.

“That will be all from me. You will hear about everything else from your leader. Good luck and may the well of probability be lenient with you.”

The girl smiled and nodded her head before turning around and leaving, right as the third and fourth members of Leo’s team-to-be appeared on the scene.

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

By the time the last of the toxins formerly stored within the very fabric of Leo’s flesh have now been extracted through sweat, the crowd grew to nine people with only the leader of the unit missing.

And quite notably, even with nine different people gathered at the same spot, no one said a word.

“What’s with this gloomy atmosphere?!”

The solemn air suddenly vanished, chased away by the brightness of the personality of the last man to appear.

“Who fucking died?”

The leader was a man somewhere in his thirties. He donned a solid, modern protective suit and carried both a considerable tank of nanites on his back and a brand-new breathing mask.

“Come on guys, I know what you are all thinking,” the leader of the newly formed group stepped right into the middle before turning around as if to ensure that everyone’s attention was focused on him. “We didn’t die yet. And thanks to the masks our beloved corporation provided, our chances of return are greater than ever!”

As if the entire thing was orchestrated, a group of workers in Sawa Corporation jumpers appeared, each carrying a gas mask-like helmet and a small backpack.

And before Leo could even utter a single word of protest, he realized he was the one throwing the backpack on his back while sporting the helmed down onto his head.

The leader of the group waited for a moment to let everyone prepare, before clapping his hands.

“Okay, let’s go!”

Leo followed the group to a small, concrete pad nearby. The middle of the area was occupied by a heavily armored truck with scanning tech crammed all over the armor’s surface.

A patchwork of protective qualities and scanning ability.

Around the truck, there were ten racks each holding an automatic handgun and a simple, military-grade machete.

Leo looked around and sighed before following the example of everyone else and picking up the weapons.

“Two minutes!”

A voice from a small, control station nearby put a timer on their fates.

The corporation workers quickly removed the empty racks, freeing just enough space for Leo’s fresh companionship to gather around.

“Whatever happens on the other side, stay tight, follow my commands, and be ready to evac,” the leader spoke, his confident look spoiled only by the slight twitching of the corner of his mouth.

A moment later, the dreaded voice came again.

“One minute.”

Leo gritted his teeth, preparing himself for the worst.

There was no telling what awaited them on the other side of the rift.

Would it be an open field rich in grains and basked in the golden light of the gentle star?

Would they appear in the middle of an ocean and be forced to desperately chase their truck deeper and deeper into the depths to be within range once the first interval for evac would come?

Or maybe they would end up embedded into a rock, their bodies disintegrating into a mesh of flesh mixed into stone?

“In five!”

“Ready yourself!”

The leader screamed out in a low, hoarse voice.

Then, the fabric that made up space itself tore and started to bend in a mind-boggling display of four-dimensional interference until it tore itself open.

As purple lightning exploded all over the group, their spatial reality collapsed, pushing them off the edge and down the probability well.

The experience of falling through reality lasted for years… while ending in a mere fraction of a second. Before Leo could even register that, he was already standing atop a small cliff, basking in the reddish rays of the setting sun from the west and a slightly chilly, reinvigorating sea breeze coming from the east.

A paradise opened up before Leo’s eyes, replacing the overly polluted air and overpopulated streets of the Corpo-cities.

A world unmarked by the destructive hand of modern civilization.

“Haaa….” Leo released a long breath.

Suddenly, everyone regained their voices.

The looming threat of the sudden and extremely painful death lifted off everyone’s shoulders, releasing them from the hold of the overwhelming terror of losing control.

Their gamble worked.

Regardless of what pushed them to take the risk of scouting a rift, they won their bet!

“Beautiful…” The leader whispered, awe-struck by the tranquil picture opening up before his eyes wherever he looked.

They were standing on an open field, stretching far beyond what Leo could see towards the sun, while blocked off by a forest down the stretch of a gentle, eastward slope. To their backs, just a few tens of meters away, a blue stroke of blue painted a calm, clean stream that dropped off the edge of a cliff stretching all the way out to the west.

A landing zone that pulled straight out of a game, where the lay of the land itself guided the players toward the implied path.

An unnervingly worrying thought. Still…

‘It worked…?’

Struggling to believe the impossible luck that had to play its part to make this result possible, Leo took in a deep breath of this world’s fresh air.

It was filtered through the industrial-grade breathing apparatus… but still!

A breath of relatively fresh air filled Leo’s lungs… And the sight of three tiny dots rapidly moving across the skydome filled his eyes with terror.

‘Are those…’

A stupid realization.

A connection he made only because of the type of Eastern novels he read to kill time in the past.

Leo recognized the shapes that appeared to be no greater than a single point within his vision.

And the meaning behind their presence instantly shattered all the joy and tranquility that the beauty of this world induced.

Ting!

A short, piercing signal came from the truck.

“That’s the first interval,” the leader announced after giving the truck a quick glance. “But I think we can all agree, there’s no way we are going back anytime…”

Swish!

“…soon.”

Like a thin thread jumping up on the wind, a flash of light swung across Leo’s vision. And just like a cutting wire, it slashed through the leader’s neck so cleanly, that he still managed to utter his last word before the upper part of his severed throat slid down the bottom, knocking the man’s head down.

‘Wha…’

The long years of working extremely dangerous jobs made Leo flinch just a single instant before the rest. Coupled with the nanites bombarding his bloodstream with adrenaline, he transformed his twitch into a slight dodge… and then pushed to make a step back.

A single step was all Leo managed to take when the true form of the cutting glint of light revealed itself to be an elegantly thin, long sword. The owner of said sword, thought, was the picture-perfect example of an icy-cold jade beauty.

Donning the light, fleeting robes the color of the bright, blue sky, the girl couldn’t fit any better into the mental image of a “cultivator” in Leo’s head.

And by the time she swung her sword again, Leo made his second step.

Two more of his companions fell when the girl’s team arrived.

Leo made his third step back, slowly building up the momentum.

Five more corpses fell to the ground, two of which were lucky enough to keep their heads and have their hearts skewered instead.

In what seemed like a single instant, eight out of Leo’s teammates fell to the ground, dead before they could mount any sort of defense.

The girl looked up, at Leo and his last surviving companion. The other guy looked back at Leo, seeking answers, assurances, help, inspiration, and…

Leo made no mistake of wasting his time on useless staredowns. Instead, he used the momentum from the last three steps to throw his body back…

And right down the cliff he noticed before.