Enter the Void

Sector Gamma-7. Of all Level 1 zones, it was the largest by a considerable margin — the place pathfinders called the Underground Labyrinth. Somewhere within its endless dark, a small party was drifting through the ruins.

"Mister! Look at this!"

They were a curious pair: Ash, quietly turning Santa's advice over in his mind, and Akina, curled up in a corner of the ruin with her portable flashlight. She swept the beam across the find and murmured, delighted with herself.

"This is called an energy cell. They say it stores power in a completely different way than what we use — way more energy packed into something way smaller!"

"Is that so?"

Ash answered absently, his attention already wandering back to their surroundings. It paid to be ready for whatever threats might be waiting.

The Outer. In other words, the ruins of an ancient civilization. What he had only ever glimpsed through dry lines of data was, in the flesh, far more desolate than he had imagined.

Collapsed structures stretched in every direction, and the sediment of thousands of years had buried the place so thoroughly that stepping inside felt like descending into a lightless cellar. Even the air carried a faintly rank, sour tinge, and every ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠footfall left an imprint of gray dust. Now and then a draft would slide down one of the corridors, resonating with the dark until it broke into a low, echoing moan that rolled away into the distance.

To Ash, all of it was a threat. The space was unfamiliar enough as it was, and with an atmosphere this grim, vigilance was the one luxury he could not afford to drop.

Akina was a different story entirely. From the moment they had entered the ruin she had been combing every wall cable and mystery circuit board with shining eyes, chirping happy exclamations the whole while. Where on earth did she find that nerve? What in the world was it rooted in? Even now, as he stared down the shadowed corridor, Ash found himself wondering.

An overly passionate technomancer and an overly cautious assault. On the surface it was a comical pairing, yet in truth, each was faithfully attending to the job at hand. Akina the technomancer had no choice but to scrape together anything of value in this ruin, and Ash the assault's primary duty was to keep her alive while she did.

"Hm. Broken. This one's a dud, too."

Akina tossed aside the energy cell she'd been caressing so fondly a moment ago. The hollow shell clattered away along the floor.

"Wouldn't that fetch a poor price as well?"

Akina nodded at his question. "Yeah. It's garbage. I mean, you couldn't expect to find easy money in a Level 1 zone anyway. Other pathfinders already stripped the place clean."

"Which is precisely why we took the mapping contract, no?"

"Hehe. Exactly."

Contracts. For pathfinders venturing beyond the city, they were inseparable from the work itself. These were people, quite literally, exploring an unknown world — which meant that every scrap of their experience was valuable intelligence in its own right.

The contract Ash and Akina had taken, mapping, was the most common kind of all. Go into an unexplored region and draw the map. That was the whole of it.

"Mister, how much farther to the contract zone?"

At her question, Ash called up the Gamma-7 map he had saved. The chart unfolded across his optical sensors, and once his calculation finished, he answered.

"About two kilometers, as the crow flies."

"Hm."

Akina deliberated for a moment, then made up her mind. "This isn't getting us anywhere. From here on, I say we ignore everything and head straight for unexplored territory."

"Sound reasoning."

"There'll be a little something worth eating there, right?"

The truth was, mapping contracts paid poorly. Plenty of pathfinders took them anyway, because they also meant, in other words, that the region had yet to feel anyone's footsteps — virgin ground, up for grabs. If you were headed into unexplored land anyway, why not pick up a little pocket change along the way? A mapping contract was essentially that: a side hustle.

Ash knew this as well as anyone, and he nodded. "There are surely a few tasty morsels waiting."

Akina burst out laughing. "Don't say stuff like that in your fancy old-timey voice! Sometimes I swear you're more obsessed with credits than I am."

"We are in debt, are we not? And to a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠living old master who treats us kindly, no less. The most important duty of a debtor is repayment at the earliest possible date. Would you not agree?"

"...Uh, yeah... about that..."

Akina's words trailed off into something curiously vague. Ash turned to look at her.

"...You weren't planning to pay it back, were you?"

"What? No? Of course I'm going to pay it back!"

"When?"

"...In ten years?"

What manner of petty villain was this? And she'd already had both hands in his pockets once before.

While Ash shook his head in silence and began assembling a full lecture on the subject of moral character, Akina — who read the warning signs well enough — hurried to change the subject.

"Two kilometers is nothing! Come on, let's go!"

Watching her stride ahead without a flicker of fear, Ash let out a long sigh.

"Haaaah..."

Or rather, possessing no respiratory organs to sigh with, he had his voice module produce a close imitation of the sound.

How long had they followed the corridor? Ash reached out and caught the shoulder of Akina, who was walking ahead of him.

"Shh."

He clamped a hand over her mouth before she could say a word. Startled, Akina's eyes went wide as saucers.

"What's wrong?"

It was barely a whisper.

Ash didn't answer right away. He simply stared, hard, into some point deep within the darkness. Then, after a moment—

"Do you hear it?"

"Hear what?"

"A sound. Beyond that darkness... something is there."

And by cruel coincidence, the direction Ash was staring was the very path they had been about to take.

"Is it — is ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it people?"

Fear had seized her all at once, and Akina's voice trembled faintly. But this was no time to dwell on it. Ash slowly drew the steel blade strapped across his back.

"I cannot say. But it does not sound like anything a person would make. More feral than that... something in it that sounds like suffering."

Something was there. That single fact alone was enough to drain the warmth out of the air. The easy, almost cheerful mood of moments ago sank and vanished in an instant.

"So, Mister."

"Yes, Mister."

"We have two options. The first is to abandon this path and seek another way around."

"And the other?"

"We assess the situation, and if it seems worth the attempt — we cut our way through. Which will you choose?"

"We cut through. If you're okay with it, Mister."

"I thought as much myself."

Ash took a single step forward.

"From here on, I take the lead."

Akina nodded without a word. The two of them began moving slowly toward the source of the sound, and at some point the strange, keening cry had grown loud enough to reach Akina's ears as well.

They passed the wreckage of collapsed buildings and heaps of discarded scrap, and just as they finally drew near the source of the noise—

-Kyeeeeeek!

The scream rang out louder than before.

Ash signaled Akina to wait here, then advanced alone down the narrowing passage. The passage's end came quickly. And there, at last, Ash came face to face with the thing behind the sound.

"Kyeeeek!"

"Krrrrk...!"

They were shaped like nothing alike. One was a human being down on all fours; another was a human with its skeletal frame jutting through skin gone gaunt. There was one with nothing but legs — dozens of them — and one whose four limbs shuddered and quivered as though it were dancing.

In truth, calling them human was a courtesy. Only the general silhouette was convincing; their faces had melted away, and scales of some kind sprouted across every inch of their bodies. It was enough to freeze the blood. Perhaps a fully monstrous form would have been easier to stomach — it was the faint, lingering traces of their former humanity that made the horror unbearable.

Ash understood at once what these things were.

If there's one common point, it's that every damn one of them is ugly as sin.

Grotesques. Creatures twisted utterly by infection with the Weird Sickness — the very things Santa had spoken of.

They were gorging themselves on something, scrambling and snapping at each other in competition for it. Ash adjusted his optical sensors and brought the image into focus: a human corpse. It had almost certainly been a pathfinder who came to map this unexplored region. Someone like him and Akina. Ash chose to think no more about it.

At the same time, he made his judgment: this was his chance.

Four Grotesques in total. Every one of them absorbed in its meal.

Ash burst from the passage and closed the distance in a single breath. The steel blade in his hand drew a line of lightning. The Grotesque it touched split in two, spilling black blood.

"Krrk?"

It happened in the space between heartbeats. Having felled the gaunt one, Ash swung again before the creatures could even grasp what had occurred — and the four-armed thing had its skull pierced clean through.

The remaining two shrieked and lunged from either side: the ceaselessly trembling dancer, and the one with dozens of legs.

A monster that defied all reason, striking from both flanks — any ordinary fighter might have faltered. But Ash simply stood there, serene and unmoved. He cleaved the nearer of the two, the dancer, and in the very same motion drove his blade through the many-legged one's face.

"Kyii — kyiiieeak!"

Even impaled clean through, the Grotesque would not die. Instead it flailed, dozens of legs thrashing, trying to kick its attacker away. So Ash turned the edge vertical and split it straight down the middle. The creature came apart along that line, viscous black blood streaming down in ropes.

...

A desolate silence settled over the chamber that had been filled with grotesque uproar. All that remained standing there was a single humanoid, gripping a steel blade.

Ash was about to call for Akina when, on a sudden thought, he lowered his head. His gaze had found the spot where the corpse lay. The human being the Grotesques had been devouring moments ago — his eyes were still open, glaring wide, as if whatever had been done to him were more than he could forgive.

Ash could not bring himself to simply turn away. He knelt and drew the eyelids — grown cold long since — gently down, and offered up a brief word of rest for the dead.