“Random encounters build character.”

  — Anonymous adventurer’s tombstone

  —Myrah—

  “This is an excellent idea,” Myrah said.

  “Right?” Aidan grinned, stepping back and using his hands to frame the entire u-shape of the two-floor motel.

  Judging by the motel’s damage and lack of an accompanying road, it hadn’t seen occupants for a considerable time. This wasn’t surprising: close proximity to dungeons caused complex machinery to fail, not to mention issues with nightmares and the occasional devil. Special equipment like Banners could ward off negative effects, but they needed constant, expert-level maintenance.

  When Aidan said he had an idea to prepare the party for the dungeon, she’d been skeptical. He seemed worldly enough, but among the party, Kossetsu was the only one with any real experience—and that wasn’t even in the Vault.

  Aidan won her over after fully explaining his plan to use the abandoned motel near the Mugen Mori as a training house. In addition, his openness to her suggestions and willingness to debate her had impressed her greatly.

  “Stress inoculation,” Myrah said, under her breath.

  “What was that?” Aiden asked.

  He doesn’t need to know your past. Keep it simple for everyone’s safety.

  She took off her overcoat and rolled up the sleeves of her work shirt. “I was remembering a phrase I’d heard once.”

  “Until a person is put under serious stress, you can’t know how they will react. Even after gaining experience, they will likely crumble without consistent practice under non-ideal conditions. I was experimenting with a few methods, but the teamwork aspect you included in your plan may be the final piece we need.”

  “Were you doing something similar with Kossetsu?”

  “Something like that.”

  “…I performed with a carnival for a while, so the concept of stress inoculation makes sense. Animals follow similar principles,” Aidan said.

  He walked toward the building. “Stress inoculation, I like that. By the way, is this really a motel? That’s what, motor plus hotel, right? Not many motors around when you’re within range of the Mugen Mori.”

  Myrah smiled, looking at the lone carcass of a minivan. “I’m not sure what the previous owner was thinking.”

  They climbed a rickety staircase, walked past a hingeless door propped against a wall, and approached an open room.

  She plugged her nose upon entering the trashed space. “Ah. I see why Ben said this place was fine to destroy if it was abandoned.”

  Aidan said, “What would you think about a circle he—”

  Alarm bells sounded inside Myrah’s head. Without hesitation, she crossed the room and grabbed Aidan. The nail on her forefinger grew in length, and as something approached her psyche, she traced a circle on her palm and yelled:

  “First Chord,”

  「Halo」

  A white-gold magic circle surrounded them. Seconds later, the circle’s walls of light vibrated violently, filtering a blood-curdling scream into a manageable whisper.

  Myrah caught sight of her now-visible thorn tattoo that curled around her wrist and forearm.

  Some kind of spiritual attack!?

  She knelt away, rolling down her sleeves and trying to hide the tattoo’s glow. Once the scream ended, she broke the circle and looked at Aidan.

  Her personal worries were quickly overshadowed.

  “Are you okay? You're crying,” she said.

  Aidan touched the tears falling from his in-focus eye. “I guess I am…”

  He blinked away the tears, his attention drifting elsewhere. “Something’s wrong with the forest. It’s crying out in pain.”

  Another alarm bell sounded.

  Myrah whipped her head around and reached behind her, drawing her military-issue handgun. As she moved toward the danger, a laser-sight and extended magazine emerged from her pockets, floated through the air, and attached themselves to her weapon.

  Black ichor dropped from the sky and landed on the outdoor walkway, rapidly morphing into the body of a wolf. She flicked a switch on the side of her firearm and let loose a burst of bullets at the wolf’s head.

  The bullets found their target, filling the air with a sickly splatting sound. The wolf fell backwards, but even though it was missing parts of its head, the monster tensed its body, readying a jump at Myrah.

  Myrah turned on the magically enhanced laser sight and moved the light across the wolf's neck. Simultaneously, she said:

  “Sixth Chord,”

  「Cut」

  Slightly trailing the laser, a gash ripped across the wolf and blasted a mess of ichor over the railing. Myrah moved to a kneeling position, ready to continue, but the rest of the wolf abruptly exploded and dissolved.

  She shook her head, clearing away the haze encroaching on her vision.

  I suppose I’m really out of practice, too.

  Aidan moved to her side.

  “That was incredible! I knew there was more to you than meets the eye,” he patted his ear, “for once in my life, I’m glad my hearing is shot. No pun intended.”

  Myrah tried to smile. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  Aidan’s attention shifted outside. “Do you feel that?”

  Myrah nodded, then began looking through her backpack.

  She put on a shoulder harness and gently touched the front of the backpack. Various rods, screws, chunks of wood, and other pieces of metal floated out and fitted themselves together. In the time it took Myrah to holster her handgun, the assortment of parts assembled themselves into a semi-automatic sniper rifle. She checked the box cartridge, confirming it had a full ten bullets, then compacted the stock of the gun.

  “I don’t know a lot about guns, but some of those parts looked fairly random,” Aidan said, peeking outside.

  “Think of my ability as gun alchemy. I can turn firearms into other firearms. As long as the goal creation is similar, and most of the parts are originally from a gun, I can rearrange them as needed.”

  “I definitely haven’t met a mage like you!”

  Their reprieve was short-lived: another three cannonball-sized masses of ichor landed in the parking lot and took wolf shape.

  “Could you cover me, please?” Myrah said, approaching a semi-unstained section of railing.

  “On it. I’ve got a few tricks of my own,” Aidan said, unclasping multiple gold bands from his ears.

  Myrah calmed herself by remembering an old creed.

  Walk alongside the shadows…

  ——— ——— ———

  Myrah slowed her breath and, using her left pointer finger, traced a rectangle into the rifle’s wooden hand-groove.

  She whispered,

  “Lady in white, guide my hand and pluck the Fourth Chord,”

  「Claim」

  She winced as more stamina left her body, but the spell had its intended effect: creating an orange, sticky platform the size of her arm and extending the width of the railing.

  Myrah knelt down and set the rifle’s bipod onto the platform. “Get their attention, but let them get closer. With monsters like these, it’s difficult to gauge the effectiveness of bullets, and I won’t be able to make more.”

  She added, “I have ten shots and maybe one more spell left in me.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t make you do all the work,” Aidan said.

  Crushing one of the earrings now in his hand, Aidan moved to the staircase and threw the remnants into the air.

  “Flare!” Aiden shouted.

  The dust igniting into a flash of red energy.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  The closest wolf turned its head and howled, drawing the other two wolves' attention. The first stalked toward the fire cautiously, then picked up speed when it caught sight of Aidan and Myrah.

  BANG

  The first bullet smashed through the wolf’s forehead. Myrah didn’t have time to wait-and-see, so she fired twice more in quick succession, destroying the wolf’s liquid-shadow body.

  The second wolf was hot on the tail of the first, making it difficult for her to adjust. Aidan wrapped a coat around his left arm and made his way down the steps.

  “I’ve got second!”

  He reached inside his vest and drew a folding knife, its locking mechanism making a distinct ratcheting noise as he opened the fifteen-inch blade. Catching sight of the wolf accelerating, he vaulted over the railing of the remaining stairs.

  Aidan misjudged the wolf’s speed and was tackled before he could reach the ground. Unable to escape, he baited the wolf into biting down on his covered arm.

  The enchanted coat’s minor barrier flashed from blue to red—pierced in two seconds.

  Luckily, two seconds was all he needed.

  After flipping his knife downwards into an ice-pick grip, Aidan let the wolf pull his arm across his body. Once the wolf had momentum, he jerked toward it and skewered the monster’s head.

  Black gore covered Aidan’s face, stealing his sight.

  The wolf continued to tear into the coat and was fast approaching his skin. He yelled, letting built up fury power his stabs until, finally, the shadow collapsed.

  Up above, Myrah’s focus was entirely on the third wolf.

  Miss.

  Miss.

  Two bullets went wide as the wolf zigzagged. Rather than climb the staircase, the wolf vaulted upwards, directly at Myrah. She squeezed the trigger again, hitting the monster’s body and causing it to slam into the railing beside her. She took advantage immediately, quick-drawing her pistol and obliterating the wolf in a hail of automatic gunfire.

  ———

  Myrah cancelled the spell that was holding her rifle in place.

  I never did get clarification on how to balance ‘making sure they are dead’ with ‘ammunition management’.

  She hustled down the stairs, finding Aidan wrapping a torn coat around his heavily bruised arm.

  “I’ll go get my things; I brought a few potions that should help,” She said.

  “I used one already. I think it’s mostly superficial,” he grimaced, “have you seen anything like this before?”

  “No, nothing like this,” Myrah replied, helping Aidan make a makeshift sling.

  He nodded at Myrah’s wrist, now tattooless. “I was hoping SCALE had some kind of training for this.”

  Dammit.

  SCALE: Sanctification, Containment, Arbitration, and Law Enforcement. Some called them the magic police, though in practice they were an advanced tactical team. They took a more public role post-war, when multiple guilds merged with government agencies to create a “united” international agency that would take on powerful threats.

  The Anti-Magic Taskforce was common knowledge—any random person asking about it wouldn’t cause her to bat an eye. But membership (outside of a few intentionally publicized, powerful members) and the spirit resistance tattoo were deliberately kept secret.

  Myrah wobbled from a wave of fatigue. “I won’t disrespect you by trying to lie. How did you know what that tattoo meant?”

  “I never saw them personally, but someone I knew helped guide an agent out of the Mugen Mori. It’s a training thing for their Judges, right?”

  Myrah was unable to hide her shock.

  There is no way a civilian should know any of that.

  *I* didn’t know that.

  She shifted uncomfortably. “Unfortunately, I’m not—was not—anything like that. I was just a task force member for a few years.”

  “Ok. If it has anything to do with Kossetsu, please let me know. I want to help him too.”

  That's it?

  She grabbed her backpack from the second level. “We should focus, I doubt that was the last of them. Let’s fall back to a guard post or adventurer’s camp.”

  They made their way out of the motel, but stopped when they heard a peculiar sound from behind the building.

  BOING

  “What is that cartoon-sounding…?” Aidan asked, before nearly being bowled over by three people scrambling around the corner.

  “Gah—” he gripped his arm.

  “S-sorry!!!” Cried a blond-haired girl, sprinting past him.

  Myrah leapt to the side, barely avoiding a cat-eared boy running on all fours and a stocky dwarven girl.

  Someone in the group yelled, “W-we’ll get help!”

  Myrah shelved her confusion and searched the location the young adventurers came from. Halfway between the motel and the Mugen Mori, six human-sized mushrooms were bouncing around a single figure.

  Myrah approached and got a better look at the lone fighter. He was a bald, muscular dwarf with a close-cropped beard and wore metal plates covering important vital areas—adventuring armor.

  He ducked under two of the mushrooms, causing them to collide and squeeze their (unnervingly cute) eyes in pain.

  An iron-colored aura radiated from the dwarf’s wrapped fists as he punched another, blowing a hole through the mushroom’s body.

  Myrah went prone and aimed her rifle at the frenzy. Fortunately, the mushrooms ran into themselves on their own accord. When she caught two stunned mushrooms in her sights, she sent bullets between both of their eyes. They fell more easily than the wolves, disintegrating into black smoke after a single shot.

  The dwarf took the opportunity to grab a mushroom monster by the stalk and tore it in half, spraying black blood like a sliced artery. Myrah turned her attention to the remaining two, but when she tried to fire, she only heard a sharp grind.

  She pulled her eye out of the scope. “Jammed!”

  Aidan stepped forward.

  The two remaining monsters went into a frenzy, leaping and bouncing in unpredictable patterns. One hip-checked the dwarf and knocked him over, while another jumped at its bent-over comrade and used its head to send itself hurtling toward Aidan and Myrah.

  In one swift motion, Aidan cut the palm of his hand and threw his knife. When it collided with the flying mushroom, he squeezed his bloody hand into a fist.

  The mushroom—and his knife—exploded in midair.

  When the smoke cleared, the dwarf was standing alone and spitting out a chunk of mushroom flesh.

  He didn’t spot the hail of black acorns lobbed from the forest, now almost directly over him.

  I don’t have time for this!

  Myrah kicked her legs around and spun to her feet.

  “Second Chord,”

  「Enchain」

  A golden chain extended from the ground and wrapped around the dwarf’s legs. Ignoring the blood dripping from her nose, Myrah jerked her hand backwards, pulling the dwarf to their side.

  Once he was safe, the chain shattered and sent him rolling backwards.

  No more Chords left…

  She fell to one knee and was hit by a swell of nausea.

  The dwarf said, “What was that?”

  Acorns splattered on the ground where he had been just seconds before. Their black goo turned brown and formed into human-looking monsters made completely of tree bark.

  “Lesser Ents, we need to evacuate!” Myrah said, giving the hobbled dwarf an arm to lean on and magically disassembling her sniper rifle.

  When they turned the corner of the motel, five more puddles in the parking lot bubbled into tree creatures.

  The ents were not the only new combatants: a flock of doves appeared from nowhere and surrounded the monsters.

  A tall man wearing blue silk robes dropped from the roof of the motel, landed on the railing, and glided into the fray. He sliced through dove and monster with no wasted motion, alternating between targets with a single-edged blade that changed color after every kill.

  White to kill a monster, black to kill a dove.

  Speed and finesse made his sword a paintbrush, and the black-on-red mist his work of art.

  The last ent fell, and three others ran onto the scene: a fox-eared teenage boy and two identical, antler-bearing girls in green robes. The two deer girls, each with only one antler on the side of their head, rushed over to the injured group.

  They can’t be more than eighteen…

  Getting a nod from their new patients, the left-antlered girl laid her staff’s glowing orb onto the dwarf, and the right-antlered girl tore a page from a thick tome and placed it over Aidan’s arm.

  “Is everyone okay?” The girl with the right-side antler and tome asked, her demeanor calm.

  “Yeah,” Aidan breathed in sharply, “thanks.”

  “Please stay still!!” The other girl healing the dwarf pleaded.

  The swordsman strode over, opening his outer robe and letting it fall around his waist. He sheathed his blade and left it hovering in the air beside him. Myrah made sure she wasn’t showing any blood, then turned and took note of the colored tattoo peaking below his shirt sleeve.

  A branch with pink and white blossoms? It’s too big to be a guild tattoo.

  Stop.

  Don’t read too much into it right now; his robe has pictures of blue flowers—maybe he just likes the aesthetic. Take any help you can get and keep everyone alive.

  The newcomer's voice reminded her of a wealthy high elf, though tinged with underlying angst. “Do you know what’s going on? We were camped nearby and felt a terrible presence coming from the forest.”

  “The Mugen Mori is punishing us for some reason,” Aidan said, gritting his teeth and pulling his arm out of the sling.

  Myrah glanced toward Aidan. They hadn’t known each other long, but she knew Aidan’s slight nod to her signaled he was fine trusting them—for now.

  It’s quite the luxury having someone that can balance trust with suspicion.

  “I don’t think this is finished,” Myrah said, offering her hand to the swordsman, “I’m Myrah, and this is Aidan.”

  The swordsman kept his leather gloves on and shook her hand. “My name is Song, the one holding the covered cage is Charon—”

  “I’m Nayeli!” The girl with the left-sided antler interrupted.

  “…And I’m Maria, her sister,” the other added, sighing.

  They all turned to the dwarf dusting himself off.

  “Sigurd,” he whispered.

  His voice still quiet, Sigurd said to Aidan and Myrah, “Thanks for your help. It seems my friends were not friends.”

  Cowards.

  Myrah smiled, hiding her disgust at the previous adventurers.

  “I’m glad we could help. You were a force to be reckoned with in that fight.”

  “Thanks.”

  Song said, “We should decide: do we stay here in the event additional monsters appear, gather more people, or contact Trivia?”

  Their choice was decided for them.

  The complex symbols of a magic circle appeared underneath the entire motel, covering it in a dark glow at a terrifying pace.

  Myrah dropped and punched the ground with all of her might.

  「Halo」!

  Blood spilled from Myrah’s mouth and multiple fingers broke. She pushed through the pain and tried to expand her circle’s boundary to the edge of the opposing circle. The unbearable presence started to consume her, but she managed to overwrite enough of the tracings underneath them, shattering both circles.

  Myrah had never heard of anyone using the same Chord twice in the same encounter. She’d also never constructed a circle of that complexity or size.

  The price she was now paying made sense.

  Myrah coughed up more blood and, barely staying conscious, fell into Aidan’s arms.

  —Song Yingxi—

  The twins rushed to the fallen mage’s aid, while Song turned to the chill-inducing presence coming from the motel’s roof.

  Looking down on them was a different kind of ent. Though it still looked like it was modeled after a human, it was at least ten feet tall, and every limb was thicker than three lesser ents combined. It jumped down, collapsing part of the second-floor walkway and sending a shockwave that knocked the two healers to the ground.

  Its gnarled head became an open-mouthed mask, frozen into a permanent scream. Among the eight tentacle roots emerging from the ent’s back, two curled together and became a pseudo-halo behind the back of its head.

  Hideous whispers and the stench of rotting wood assaulted the group, causing Myrah to fall unconscious. While the rest of them fought back against its aura, the ent groaned:

  “P…”

  “PUNISSH….”

  “PUNISHMENT”

  Two of the back roots lifted it up into the air.

  “Charon,” Song said, keeping his eyes on the monster.

  “S-song.”

  Song glanced over.

  A thin root pulled itself from Charon’s stomach, sending him and his birdcage to the ground.

  The magical glow from Charon’s artifact faded to black.

  Song readied his blade, eyes burning with fury.

  Its aura is unreadable. Does it have a weak point?

  CRACK

  Song braced his blade with his off-hand, barely absorbing a blow from one of the tentacle-roots. The root adjusted and used him as a springboard to ricochet toward Charon and Nayeli.

  Aidan scrambled in front of them as a metallic voice rang out:

  「Bastion」!

  Seconds before hitting Aidan, an iron shield materialized and destroyed the roots on impact.

  It’s not your fault, Allos.

  Full plate armor clanked as the last member of his party rushed over and picked up his shield.

  Song shifted his focus internally.

  Let your aura exist within their aura.

  He closed his eyes and imagined a white lily.

  Erase ego.

  His muscles twinged, feeling a foreboding ripple in the surrounding mana.

  Song didn’t know any of the Lily School’s chants; whispering a single word would have to do:

  「Step」

  The lily’s first petal turned red.

  He jumped from the top of the minivan to the second level of the motel. He continued his path around the ent, narrowly slipping between the four roots trying to impale him and the debris being thrown in every direction.

  On the ground level, Allos carried Charon to the others.

  He said, “Song will keep its attention, we will have to attempt to deal the final blow.”

  “I’ll keep the mage stable. Left untreated, her mana burn could spiral,” Maria said, tearing out a blue, rune-covered page from her book.

  Nayeli shook away tears and placed her staff over Charon’s gushing wound. “Charon! It’s going to be ok!”

  “Big guy, can you control anything apart from the shield?” Aidan asked, taking off his vest.

  “Yes.”

  “Can I see that gauntlet? I have an idea.”