Chapter One Hundred and Fifty-Eight - Revenge of the Kobolds

  It took another hour to clear out the first room. The kobolds kept coming. At first in ones and twos, then in small groups, almost like squads.

  There seemed to be some sort of order to how they did things. A bigger kobold would be directing three to five smaller ones, and I noticed that these 'squads' often carried similar gear, or a mix, with each one having their own thing going on.

  It was interesting, but I was here to... well, I wasn't here to be an anthropologist.

  Once the kobold groups slowed down a little, I decided to venture out into the early tunnels.

  The portal wasn't overly complex. The opening space led into a set of large courtyards, separated by stone walls with wooden palisades high above, all of them more or less built out of the natural stone of the area. It was open air, which was... strange?

  Most of the portals I'd been in had been underground, or within a castle or dungeon or something. Having an open, clear blue sky up above felt strangely... I think there was a word for it. Agoraphobic? I wasn't normally the sort to give a damn about that, but this being a portal world made it different somehow.

  Could I just leap over the walls? How restrictive was the portal? Was there an entire planet just outside?

  I was pretty sure I'd seen some short-form videos on one endless scroll or another that said that it wasn't possible. People had obviously tried with like, drones and the like, but I couldn't remember exactly why it wasn't possible.

  Whatever. I wasn't here to poke my head out like that.

  I took a few steps back, reloaded my guns, then pressed onwards. The deeper I pushed, the fewer kobolds I ran into, at least until I was a few rooms in and I discovered a large room with some two dozen or so kobolds arming up. There was a forge to one side, and what looked like a large carpentry or woodworking station off to the other side. They were producing spears and arrows and generally seemed like they were ramping things up.

  I held up by the entrance, taking potshots at the lot of them, then I backed up, and up, retreating through the passages I'd already cleared to give myself time to reload and regroup. A few Shadow Bolts would keep them away for a while, and there was one patch of open space that had lots of grass in it. I finally got to use Grasping Growth on actual enemies properly.

  Once I was back by the entrance, I regathered myself, spun around, and push back into the kobolds.

  By then I was running low on just about every sort of ammo I had. Either I'd need to learn how to aim a lot better, or I'd have to bring more ammunition next time.

  Probably the latter, honestly. Maybe I could bring a spare gun as well? It'd allow me to be a little more aggressive.

  I was just walking through the second room in when I heard noises behind me. Not kobolds, not unless they'd started speaking in English.

  I dipped over to a corner and hid. It was a weird instinct, but... yeah, I didn't want to be seen so casually. It took a few minutes, but eventually, a small group wandered into the room. I was tucked in behind some crates in a corner, a tarp pulled over my head, gun held close, just in case.

  Seraphs.

  Fuck. I'd probably taken too long. Like, way too long. A glance at my augs showed that it was nearly nine.

  So... yeah, Seraph would be on the scene by now. How had they gotten here so quickly, though?

  Then again...

  I watched as they slowly moved through the room. A squad of five, led by a sixth member. The leader was Ernest Glover, that new C-ranker that I'd seen in another loop. The rest had to be D-rankers.

  They scanned the room, one of them kicking at the corpse of a kobold. "So?" Ernest asked.

  "Definately human interference," one of the D-rankers said. "Some lingering magic in the air as well. Dark."

  Ernest nodded. "Numbers?"

  "Still can't determine," the ranker replied. "One to five."

  I blinked. Five? Why, thank-you, random D-ranker, I'd take that compliment.

  "Different calibres. Looks like... birdshot, some sort of rifle round, and something a little bigger, as well as magic. Could be a non-uniform team." The D-reanker stepped away from the corpse they were inspecting. "Are we going to push on, sir?"

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  Ernest seemed to consider it before nodding. "They might need our assistance. And Lyra wouldn't forgive us if the locals failed and this portal breached. Let's move."

  I waited until they were past, then waited another minute or two. Eventually I heard the distant bark of gunfire and decided that they were busy enough as it was.

  Damn. I wasn't going to be able to clear this one out this loop. I wasn't even up to the boss' room yet. Though... I had the feeling that I wasn't too far off from it.

  As far as portals went, this one was very simple. Lots of monsters, but no traps that I'd noticed. The only real trap was having to move so damned fast.

  I stood, then tossed the cloth I'd hidden under aside before making my way back towards the opening room. Hmm... wasn't Dark magic good at sneaky stuff? I could recall seeing a few spells that could create small blobs of shadow, or darken an area. Why weren't there more of these available?

  Or maybe there was good reason for that? I could picture several corps preferring it if the average D-ranker with a bit of Dark magic didn't gain easy access to what was basically magical stealth.

  There had to be a way for me to get my hands on some of that, right?

  Yeah, illegal spell markets had to exist, and someone in that kind of thing would have Dark spells that touched on what I was looking for.

  Not that I needed stealth stuff at the moment. Or maybe I did? I had been doing a lot of sneaking around. Always in loops, but still. Carving a few sneaky spells couldn't hurt.

  Something to look into later.

  I made it to the portal's entrance, looked around, found nothing too out of the ordinary, then I took a running start and leapt through.

  That landed me in the Redlad Welding building once more, only this time it was properly lit up. Someone had set up a couple of battery-powered standing lights on tripods. And the room wasn't empty. There were a half-dozen people in seraph uniforms just milling around.

  They looked mightily surprised when I jumped out.

  "Good morning," I said, cheerfully. "You guys wouldn't happen to know the exact hour when you got here, yeah?"

  They might have known, but they didn't seem inclined to tell me. In fact, they were rather aggressive and insistent. So I Reloaded. No point in being dragged around by Seraph.

  So... no clue what the boss looked like, but the portal itself wasn't that hard. I'd put it in the middle of D-rank in terms of difficulty.

  I could solo it.

  Not that easily, and it would take more time than I had, and more ammo. More prep, basically, but I could do it.

  It kind of made me a little giddy to know that. I was getting stronger. Or as strong as equipment, practice, and time could make me?

  But I wasn't going to do this one solo. As strong as I could become, having strong allies was better.

  So, the next step? I looked at my bike, then hopped up onto the back of it. I wasn't that tired, and the meds hadn't worn out yet.

  Time to check out another portal, then.

  I rode through the city, into the western industrial sector, then parked my bike in a tight little alleyway, not too far from the main road, but far enough from it that it wouldn't be disturbed by anyone not looking for it, and especially not by the kobolds and slimes, who were showing up much further in than here.

  Licking my lips, I did a bit of a stretch, then started to circle around a few buildings. At this hour of the night, most of the employees were gone or off-site. The buildings I circled, however, were empty, mostly, for other reasons. Just old places that weren't in use, and hadn't been for a while.

  It wasn't too hard to find one shop that had piss-poor security. I vaulted over a fence, then punched a window in with a quick Shadow Bolt. A few minutes later, I was through the other side and into the large, open courtyard in the back and navigating around old sheds and a few rusty shipping containers.

  As I came around the last, I flicked on a flashlight and raised it up. It was more than enough to illuminate the misshapen form of a stray ice elemental.

  "Hey there, buddy," I said as I unsheathed my sword.

  Time to see if this portal was any harder than the other.

  ***