Lyn peeked her head above the bushes. In front of her was a giant dome-like hill made from a combination of sand, mud, and tree branches. The ants that patrolled the nest were twice as long as Lyn was tall, and their shiny, black exoskeletons looked especially sturdy and intimidating.

"Alright, that is the ant nest." She turned to her team behind her, grinning ear-to-ear. Excitement overflowed in her heart; after all, this was her first commission after leaving her old guild, and also her first commission as a team leader.

Irene seemed eager as well. Her favorite hoodie was haphazardly tied around her waist, and her charcoal skin looked as though it was steaming hot and ready to burn anything and everything. Millie, on the contrary, was more done up than usual. Her curly hair was meticulously styled, matching the tanned tones of her skin. Raph stood to her side, his thick eyebrows furrowing in worry. He was carrying a small knapsack, probably filled with magical potions and items.

And then there was Cydney, standing at the side and fidgeting about, but still looking as cute and sweet as ever. Lyn gave her a quick wink before addressing the team.

"Essentially, our goal is pest control. These giant ants are a hazard to people living in the neighborhood, so they want us to get rid of the colonies. The fastest way to do this is to kill the queen; once the queen is dead, the entire colony will move away to another ant nest somewhere else, hopefully, one that is further away from here. It might take us a while to find the queen, and we will be attacked by other ants on the way, but these ants are magicless and should be relatively easy to take down."

Lyn beamed at everyone as she continued, "So this is a good first quest for us—it's easy and straightforward, and we get to practice using our magic before we move on to higher-level commissions. Any questions?"

"So all we gotta do is to just go in and kill some insects?" Irene smashed her hands together. "Easy."

Lyn nodded. "Millie and Raph, you two stay close to us. The three of us will fend off any attacking ants. Millie, I'll leave you in charge of tagging our paths so we don't end up running in circles. The inside of an ant nest is like a maze to humans."

A thought occurred to her, and she cast a mischievous look at Irene and Cydney. "Hey, you know what? To spice things up, let's have a friendly match among the three of us to see who can kill the most ants."

Irene's eyes lit up, as Lyn expected. "You're on," she growled as she started stretching her arms.

Lyn smirked and turned around. Seven worker ants marched in front of the nest. She raised her hands towards the sky—and slammed them down.

As if following the motion of her hands, seven streaks of lightning struck down from the clouds. In a blink of an eye, where there used to be giant ants, there were now spots of smoking black marks.

Patting her leather jacket, Lyn faced her friends again. "I got seven."

Cydney's mouth was wide open in awe. "Wow! That was- That was so cool!"

"You think so?" Lyn's heart fluttered, her grin widening like an idiot.

"What a show-off." Irene snorted. "Don't be too impressed by this, Cydney, she's a thousand times weaker indoors."

"Hey, I got to flaunt it while I can, you know?"

"Whatever, my turn." Irene rolled her eyes and jumped over the bush.

Apparently, Lyn had made quite a spectacle that the ants had rushed to seal off the entrance to the nest. That did not stop Irene at all, however. With a loud explosion, Irene blasted the seal open, knocking out two ants that were near the entrance.

"Two for me," she called out.

As she turned her back to the nest, three giant ants jumped out at her.

Cydney threw her wristwatch towards the insects. The watch split into three and transformed into three short blades that then sliced each of the invading ants in half.

Lyn watched in utter amazement as the knives twirled across the area, combined into a single grey sword, and landed back on Cydney's hands.

"Three?" Cydney said with a quiet voice.

"Telekinesis too? Really?" Irene exclaimed. "Okay, this is just unfair now. How can anyone be this good?"

Raph and Millie also exchanged incredulous looks.

Lyn, on the other hand, could not be more delighted. Cydney was surprising her every single day and she was loving it. "Cinnamon, you are literally my favorite person in the world." She wiggled her eyebrows at Irene. "You'd better catch up, Irene."

Competitiveness took over Irene and she bolted towards the nest. The rest of the team followed.

The first quest had officially begun.

The rocky tunnels within the nest were spacious and well-paved. Irene, a ball of energy holding a bright ball of flame, led the way for everyone else. As they ran deeper into the ant nests, the number of worker ants charging at them increased, but Lyn, Irene, and Cydney were more than capable of killing them before they even got close. Periodically, Millie conjured random disc-like items and pasted them on the walls. Whenever they picked a passage at a crossroad that led to a dead-end, they would trace back their path using these discs.

After running around for almost an hour, they still did not see any sign of the queen ant. As for the ongoing friendly contest, well, even though Lyn was the one who had started it, she was losing terribly. The extent of her powers was determined by the space around her. Confined underground, Lyn could only generate enough lightning to electrocute one ant at a time. In contrast, Irene, with her explosive fireballs (and severe lack of care for burning herself), was blowing up ants consistently, while Cydney was slashing through them with her sword.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

Soon, they neared a wide opening at the end of a tunnel.

"Oh!" Pointing ahead, Millie exclaimed in excitement. "We're here!"

Indeed, they reached an enormous cave-like structure where the queen ant resided. There were no more worker ants, but the queen more than made up for the lack of them—it was at least fifty times larger than any of the ants they had been fighting against. Angered by their presence, the queen screeched and snapped its massive, spiky mandibles together.

The team stared at the queen ant for a while, dumbfounded and speechless.

"Wow," Raph blurted. "I- I mean we knew it was going to be this big, but to see it in real life..."

Lyn gulped down the fear in her throat. "It's okay, guys. We can do this. Size doesn't matter."

"What are you talking about?" Irene frowned. "Of course it does."

"I respectfully disagree. I don't need any size to get the job done."

"Uh, we are still talking about ants, right?" Raph said.

"Watch out!"

Cydney's voice snapped everyone back into attention. The queen had charged towards them, and all five of them managed to jump away in time.

"Raph, Millie, stay within the tunnels!" Lyn commanded. "The rest of us, let's spread out and attack together!"

As Irene and Cydney ran towards different ends of the cave, Lyn stretched out her hands. One good thing about the queen ant being huge was the corresponding increase in space and thus Lyn's boost in power. With a forceful push, an intense stream of electricity pummeled into the queen. At the same time, Irene blasted the giant ant with a powerful shot of fire while Cydney stabbed into its body with her sword.

The queen ant shrieked in pain. Yellowish liquid dripped down from one side of its body as smoke rose from the other side. Its legs quivered and it staggered on the spot.

"One more time!" Lyn ordered.

She raised her hands, ready to go for another strike. However, she noticed the queen lifting its abdomen in a scorpion-like pose, and hesitated—what the hell was it doing?

Before she could figure it out, a spray of liquid ejected from the queen's abdomen, aiming towards Cydney. Fuck, change of plans. Lyn shifted her magic towards her feet and dashed across the cave at lightning speed.

She tackled Cydney out of the way just in time. Together, they fell onto the ground, with Lyn wrapping her body around Cydney's to absorb the impact.

"I got you," she said in relief, and then let out a sudden yelp. There was an excruciating burning sensation on her leg—it seemed that a few hefty drops of the mysterious liquid had splashed on her.

"Lyn!" Cydney cried. "Your leg!"

Lyn clenched her teeth to stop herself from screaming out again. "I know, I know, I'm okay." She forced a smile. "Don't worry about me."

Behind them, the queen ant crashed onto the ground as Irene gave the finishing blow. The commission was completed.

Raph ran over to Lyn.

"Acid burns," he muttered as he uncapped a bottle of water.

Pulling the water out of the bottle, he hovered it over the burns to rinse the acid away. As he placed his hands on her leg, the scar began to vanish, along with the pain.

"Thanks, Raph," Lyn said with a small sigh.

With the pain gone, she realized that she had been unknowingly squeezing Cydney's arms so hard that they had turned red.

"Oh shit, sorry, Cinna, did I hurt you?" Letting go of the petite woman, Lyn examined her. Her eyes gravitated to the few old scars on Cydney's arms that had become more obvious with the redness, and her heart clenched.

"No, I'm fine, but..." Cydney's eyes filled with tears. "I'm sorry about your leg... I was too slow—"

"What are you talking about?" Lyn chuckled, lightly pinching her cheeks. "Nothing is ever your fault, Cinnamon Pie."

"Hey, get off Cydney, you're crushing her." Irene grabbed Lyn by the shirt and yanked her off from the floor.

"Wow, is this how you treat an injured teammate?"

"Shut up, Raph already healed you."

"That was so awesome, guys!" Millie squealed. For some reason, even though they had been running for a few hours, her hair still remained gorgeously curled. "Can you believe it? We finished our first ever commission!"

Lyn grinned. "Yes, great job, everyone. Now, let's go celebrate."

ϟ☁ϟ☁ϟ

"Cheers!"

Lyn gulped down her beer and exhaled, satisfied.

Irene and Cydney had both lost count of the number of worker ants they had killed, and so they decided that Irene was the winner of the friendly match by default since she was the one who took down the queen ant. Therefore, they were currently at Irene's favorite burger spot for a celebratory dinner.

"So?" Lyn asked, looking around the table. "How does it feel, completing a commission in this new team?"

"Fina-fucking-ly," Irene said. "That took a while."

"Yeah, sorry for making you all wait this long. But we have a full team now, and things can only go up from here. I assure you, you can all quit your part-time jobs now."

"Oh? Are we getting more commissions?" Millie asked.

"Oh yes." Lyn held up her hands as she smirked. Five pieces of paper appeared in her hand, and she waved them around. "I signed us up for five more commissions, and they all accepted our application."

"Already?"

"Yes, of course! I mean, we have two alumni from Dawn Avengers, one alumnus from Disciples of Destiny, a healer who studied in Johns Hopkins medical school, and a really, really strong fighter." Lyn beamed at each of her teammates as she described. "Soon, we won't even need to apply for commissions anymore—we will be drowning in requests."

"Nice," Irene said, her mouth full of burger. "Can't wait to be blowing even more stuff up."

"And that's what you're here for. Also, if any of you finds anything interesting you want to go for, definitely let me know. This is the entire reason why we're an individual team and not part of a guild, you know? We get to do whatever commissions we feel like doing, whenever we want."

Millie and Irene both nodded in agreement. "Freedom has never felt so good," Irene declared.

"Did you not get to choose your commissions before?" Cydney asked.

Lyn shook her head. "No. In Dawn Avengers, you have to submit a request to be on a commission, and then the higher-ups assign people to commissions based on what they think is best for the quest. You don't really get to choose who you work with, and who you work for." She turned to Millie. "That's how it is in Disciples too, right?"

Millie nodded. "Yep. Disciples of Destiny is very prestigious, which was why I took up the offer, but it's really boring. We don't even get to request a commission. They just give you whatever."

"Wait, you don't even get to put down a preference?" Irene asked, flabbergasted.

"Nope, the guild doesn't believe in that," Millie said with a pout. "I was assigned to so many boring commissions. One time I was assigned for a commission that was basically a safety inspection for an elemental magic training class."

Irene snorted.

"Huh, Disciples really do take up every single commission out there, don't they?" Lyn mused. "No wonder they're always number one in commission completions."

"Were you also in a guild, Raph?" Cydney asked.

"No, I'm not interested in quests." There was a short pause before Raph changed his answer. "Oh, I mean... I wasn't interested in doing quests with... with strangers."

Millie elbowed the nervous man. "I know right? It's way more fun with people I know."

They exchanged a peculiar look before chuckling softly as if sharing an inside joke.

"Did you have fun too, Cinnamon?" Lyn leaned towards Cydney as she stole a fry off from her plate.

Cydney nodded, a faint blush painting her cheeks.

"Good, we're going to have a lot more fun from now on." Lyn grinned. "I've been doing nothing but eating into my savings for the past few months, so I am super ready to make up for it."