The scent of blood filled Ryu’s nose. Already? He gripped a hatchet, turned, and stopped. A man a few yards away hissed in pain at a cut on his arm. Another man stood across from him, twirling a curved saber lightly. Ryu recognized them as the men who had woken him with their “sparring” the other night.

His vision narrowed. Blood pounded in his ears, and the efforts of the builder Classes around him seemed to fade from existence. Then he blinked, letting a shaky breath out. The world returned to normal. He shook his head.

“Everything okay?” a woman asked, looking at him strangely over a piece of paper. He believed her name was… Lydia. Maybe. She was the Classer in charge of the team draining the surrounding swamp of water and making what defenses they could.

He smiled weakly. “Yes, yes. My apologies, I’ll get right out of your way,” he said, shoving a shaking hand into a pocket on his pants.

Ryu walked through the maze of tents in a daze. Why was he even worried? Things were being handled. It would be fine. Hells, even Lucius was involved now, having taken Ryu and Horace’s meddling as a sign to get involved in the camp’s defense against the swarm.

It was as if the gods- or god, if some were to be believed- listened to his very thoughts. “Ryu,” Horace’s voice said into his mind, “You are needed on the western edge of the camp with the other scouts.” He revised his opinion. It was perhaps a bit selfish to believe the gods cared for his thoughts. It was more likely their lack of care that inflicted such punishment upon him. No end to the disappointment in sight, indeed.

Struck with a shred of purpose, Ryu managed to place some conviction in his walk towards the western side of the camp. Among the combat-oriented Classes, there could be said to be seven archetypes: rogues, rangers, mages, healers, warriors, and specialists. Only the most generic of Classes held those specific names, but all Classers fell under the scope of one or another. Some- like Ryu himself- sported a sort of mix of two archetypes. His fellow scouts, however, seemed to fall into the more definable roles. Still, he felt nothing against the men. Their purpose was no less than his. He did, however, hold something against the idea that he belonged among them.

“You’ve arrived then, scout?” a man said. His graying hair was close-cropped, and he wore a faded green uniform from some military that Ryu was sure no longer existed. He even suspected the man ironed it every morning. A short infantry sword swung from his belt.

Ryu nodded, sitting in a chair next to a woman in a hooded cloak. The “scout commander” gave him one last look before lifting his eyes to the other gathered scouts. Which wasn’t many.

“As you may well know, we will see combat today,” the commander- Mr. Willink, as he liked to be called- declared. He spoke like he chewed gravel for a living. “I’ve been assigned to this corps. Our duty is to spot and disrupt enemy infiltrators. Is that clear?”

He seemed to wait for something. After a long pause, a scout finally said, “Yes, sir.”

“Good, good,” Mr. Willink said. “We will be called unit Bruiser…”

Ryu zoned the man out. Order was well and good, but he knew the orders were pointless, at least for himself. Pick off targets? He would pass. Pretentious as it was, he knew he couldn’t serve the same function as these scouts. He was no warrior in a scout’s body. He was a killer, and his body was that of a man made to see the whites of his enemy’s eyes. The bow- like any weapon he used- was just another tool to get the job done.

Horace’s message interrupted Willink’s orders. “The swarm has been spotted on the right flank. Units, you have your orders,” Ryu’s friend said. He could almost feel the man’s exasperation at being the command tent’s mouthpiece. Such was the price for meddling, he supposed. Better Horace than himself.

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Ryu strode from the tent, ignoring the commander’s calls. He needed to get his armor, first. Then he’d see where the fight took him. He strapped his vambraces on as walked, looking at the dark scales of the armor admiringly. It was crafted from the scales of a sea drake, and it fitted his form like a tailored suit. After his armor was on, he pulled his bow from storage, stopping to string the weapon and test its draw a few times. His quiver went around his back, its enchantment ready to bring forth any of his stored arrows in a blink. His hatchets- as always- were by his side.

A hand grabbed his shoulder. “Already forget about me?” Bonny said. He cursed mentally. She always managed to sneak up on him.

“I have to-”

“No, I know,” she said, pushing a finger against his lips to hush him. “Gotta go be a badass, I’m sure. Just… Don’t die, okay?” she said, looking him in the eyes.

“I-I’ll do my best,” he said. It was as close as he could come to a promise. He wasn’t a man to lie.

“Good. Now, move along scout. I have important business to attend to” she said, walking past him. He noticed she was in armor.

“Be careful…” She was already gone. He sighed. The front lines awaited him.

A spine took a woman on Ryu’s left in the eye. He cursed, dropping below the hastily built wall that surrounded the front of the camp. Did they have no defensive mages to cover them? Where were the archers and the ranged attackers? It seemed as if no one would cover their shaky front line. He heard a scream of pain somewhere down the line and sighed. Another body in the forest, he thought to himself.

He leapt to his feet. One of his hatchets spun from his hand, shining with the red light of [Cripple]. A swamp drake fell to the ground. A boom rattled his ears on the right, and an explosion of blue light turned a group of monsters to ash. Then he heard the soft twang of arrows. Yards of wood and steel from the sky like clouds, some glowing with the light of damaging Skills. Spells followed, lightning and fire raining down like the judgement of an angry god.

Ryu’s hatchet flew back into his hand with a smack. He’d always loved that damn enchantment. The swarm- now enraged from the expedition’s attacks- continued to charge at their camp, undisturbed by the losses in their ranks. The walls between him and the snarling beasts seemed as thin as paper. The truth turned out to be even more depressing.

The first section of wall collapsed under the charge of a group of leshies, twisted creatures that looked like demonic trees. The next fell to a swamp drake. The one after that… Well, Ryu had quit paying attention at that point. Cursing himself a fool, he hopped over the wall.

[Whisper Step] carried him to the side of scrin, a humanoid fish-like creature. It looked at him with bulbous eyes, parting green lips to show off a row of razor teeth. His hatchet turned its skull into paste. He chopped into another scrin, turned its arm into a mangled mess, and finished it off with a [Cripple] imbued chop to the throat. His other hatchet spun off into the skull of another monster, one that looked like a mass of mud.

Screams surrounded him. The copper scent of blood lingered in his nose. His heart pounded in his chest, threatening to break free from its place in his chest. He realized he was excited. No. It was excited. That reptile part of his brain- the part of himself he could never escape from- was raging within his body like one of the mad beasts around him. He indulged it.

The world around him had started to blur. On the third kill, a ringing started in his ear. On his fourth, his hands numbed. On the fifth, the ringing had turned into a full roar. On and on, the physical world seemed to shrink, his mind singling on its only task. He didn’t need sound or taste. Didn’t need to smell. He only needed to ki-

“Retreat! Fall back to the second wall!” Horace shouted into his mind, breaking through the haze of violence. Fall back? Already?

A monster blocked his hatchet with a forearm, ducked under his second blow, and received a knee to its skull for its efforts. It looked like the poor thing’s nose was tickling the back of its head as it dropped to the ground in a stiff heap. He turned to look back at the camp. True enough, the group was already back behind the second wall. He could only hope it’d last longer than the first.

He shook his head, kicking a scrin in the chest. He needed to head back. His absence… His absence had probably left good Classers dead. It almost made him laugh. He criticized Lucius, but was he any better? What a fool he was. A sad, pathetic fool.

The camp’s second layer of defense was less a wall and more a series of interlocking defensive Spells held together by the expedition’s mages. Ryu made it behind the Spells just as they started to go up. The swarm crashed against the translucent Spells like a wave, threatening to spill over top.

“Front line down!” Horace called, and Ryu and the Climbers around him dropped to the ground. Above their heads, another volley of arrows, javelins, and destructive Spells passed through the Spell wall, decimating the swarm. Then another came, and the screeches of the dying monsters had Ryu’s teeth clenched. Finally, the order to rise was given. The Spell wall came down, the mages no longer able to hold the swarm back.

Left without any defenses, the two sides met on the dry ground outside of the camp. Ryu snarled a curse and shoved into a leshy, feeling the words pass his numb lips in an unintelligible mumble. He was determined not to lose control this time. His body refused to oblige. The dead soon outnumbered the living.