Fortune and Flight

"Found it," Bennett murmured.

He turned away from the desk and exited the captain's stateroom without delay. Their sweep of the fifth deck had been nearing its end anyway. But as he led his party down the central stairwell, his boots came to an abrupt halt.

A fresh cluster of presences had tripped his awareness.

Because he had not channeled his psionic energy into the scan, the sensory sweep had only encompassed the first few cabins nearest the landing. Even so, ten distinct signatures registered within that narrow radius alone. Considering that more rooms stretched along the corridor, there was no telling how many more hostiles waited in the dark.

Signaling his comrades to hold their ground, Bennett crept down the metal stairs.

The bridge superstructure was forged of heavy structural steel. Left unchecked, every boot heel would strike like a hammer on an anvil, echoing through the hollow corridors no matter how carefully one trod. With Silent Steps engaged, however, Bennett made no sound at all. He glided down the flight like a phantom, then pressed his ear against the bulkhead.

Honing his senses onto a single point, muffled murmurs filtered through the steel plating.

"…Are you certain they're coming this way?"

"I told you, yes."

The voices were kept to a cautious whisper to maintain the element of surprise, but unless they communicated purely in writing, Bennett's trained ears were more than sharp enough to catch every word.

"Still… is this really a good idea?"

"What's your problem now?"

"I mean, we didn't take this contract outside. We met the client inside the dungeon… and he's completely shady. Nobody even knows who he is."

"What's the difference whether we take a job inside or outside? Gold is gold."

"Fair enough, but that bastard felt wrong. Those clothes, the way he carried himself…"

"Quit worrying. When your company and mine hit them together, there isn't a bastard alive who can walk away."

A joint attack? That meant at least two mercenary companies were lying in wait. In that case, the total number of hostiles far exceeded the initial count captured by his passive Detection.

After a second's calculation, Bennett continued forward until he reached a cabin positioned ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠slightly short of the hallway's midpoint—the very room harboring the two men he had just overheard. Confirming that their hushed whispers were still droning on, Bennett leveled Shooting Star.

Thud. Thwack.

Imbued with psionic energy, the twin bolts punched cleanly through the steel hatch and drove straight into their marks on the other side. Two stifled groans followed as the men collapsed. Simultaneously, Bennett flooded his senses with psionic energy and unleashed Detection at full output.

Like an expanding tidal wave, his otherworldly perception rippled across the entire fourth deck.

Topographical details and the exact positions of every concealed ambusher flooded his mind in sharp clarity. At bare minimum, every single one of them was a mana practitioner, with a handful of Elite-tier combatants sprinkled among their ranks.

"We're blown!"

Bennett raised Shooting Star without missing a beat. His sights snapped first to the Elite-tier figures capable of wielding Aura.

Th-th-thump.

"Gah!"

An Elite-tier warrior could deflect or endure Bennett's psionic bolts for a reasonable duration—provided they had already manifested an Aura shroud across their entire frame. But when Aura was merely drawn across a held weapon, as was the case now, their flesh remained no tougher than that of an ordinary mortal. Unless they managed to parry the projectile directly, their heightened realm made little difference.

The Elite-tier fighters anchoring both mercenary outfits collapsed before they could even display their prowess. To be exact, bolts took them through their vitals before they could even cross their thresholds.

Thud. Crash!

The heavy sound of bodies hitting the floor reverberated from within the cabins. Even so, their deaths bought their comrades a sliver of time.

Slam!

Though their elites were dead, the surviving mercenaries kicked open their cabin doors and spilled en masse into the hallway.

"Kill them!"

They swarmed the cramped, narrow passage like an angry hive. At the same moment, the rest of Bennett's party emerged quietly from the stairwell behind them.

"Missile Shower."

At the sudden female voice drifting from their rear, several mercenaries whipped around in alarm, only to be greeted by a dense swarm of pale-white Magic Missiles hurtling straight into their faces. Void of elemental affinity but backed by crushing concussive force, the arcane salvo shattered the rear of the mercenary formation.

"What the hell is behind us?!"

"Shit! Enemies in the rear!"

A few survivors, battered off their feet by the blast of missiles, frantically whipped out knock-off repeating crossbows and aimed them back down the corridor.

Tak-tak-tak-tak—

A volley of bolts rained out, but none could bypass Edgar. Against his towering, reinforced shield, the stubby projectiles of the degraded crossbows bounced off like pebbles. Bracing behind the barrier, Edgar charged forward with relentless momentum.

Trapped between Bennett and Edgar, the mercenaries dissolved into sheer panic. Ahead of them, Bennett was raking the corridor with continuous automatic bursts from Shooting Star; behind them, an immovable iron wall was grinding forward, choking off any path of retreat. Caught in that lethal vice, there was virtually nothing the mercenaries could do, no matter how desperately they flailed.

"Aaaaargh!"

"Damn it, stop—choke!"

Far from bringing their superior numbers to bear, they were systematically erased within seconds. The clamor of shouting died away, leaving the narrow passageway steeped in breathless quiet. Crimson spray ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and severed viscera painted the metal walls and floorboards.

"Quite a welcoming party," Erika remarked, stepping over a fallen body. "Must be around twenty of them."

"Looks like it," Bennett replied.

Despite the enemy's head count, the skirmish had concluded with ruthless brevity. Decapitating the mercenary leadership before the battle even began had made all the difference, followed by crushing the rank and file in a brutal pincer of firepower and brute force.

Bennett walked back to the cabin where the leaders had fallen. Two men lay on the floorboards. Bennett hooked his boot under the one on the right and flipped him onto his back. Unlike his partner, who took a bolt square between the eyebrows, this man had been struck in a non-fatal spot. He was still breathing.

Bennett planted a hard kick into his ribs.

"Gah-hah!"

The unconscious man jolted awake, gasping violently for air. Blinking against the blur of consciousness as he took in his surroundings, the man recoiled in terror the moment his eyes landed on Bennett.

"Y-You!"

"You mentioned taking a contract inside the dungeon," Bennett said flatly. "Who commissioned you?"

"…H-How did you know that?"

Bennett lifted the muzzle of Shooting Star.

"I-It was a man in bizarre clothes! His way of talking was eerie, unnatural—like his lips and his voice weren't in sync!"

"Did he give a name?"

Even as he posed the question, Bennett was already convinced that the figure was Ra'al.

"He didn't give one! B-But he told us that once the job was done, we were supposed to head down to the basement!"

"The basement?" Bennett's brow furrowed.

"This ship is massive, right?! I never gave it any thought until he told us, but he said there's another level beneath the lower decks! He said to find the sector marked with the number ninety-nine!"

"Was there anything else unusual about him? Anyone accompanying him?"

"T-That…" The man strained his memory frantically before blurting out, "It felt like he wasn't alone, but I couldn't see anyone with my own eyes!"

"Are you saying they were concealed by invisibility?"

"I don't know that much! M-Maybe they were just keeping their distance… I can't say for sure!"

Bennett pressed him with several more inquiries, but the man had exhausted everything of value.

"Understood."

"I-I told you everything you wanted to know! Please, spare my l—"

The sentence was cut short by a bolt tearing through the center of his forehead.

Bennett stripped the mercenary leaders of their equipment. As expected of guild heads, their gear was quite decent, even if not top-tier. When he stepped back into the corridor, his party members were already methodically stripping the remaining corpses.

Looting regular mercenaries was always a gamble. Combatants tackling Hard difficulty rarely carried garbage, yet carrying their bulky arms and armor was not always worth the encumbrance against spatial limitations. Oftentimes, a velvet pouch of cut gemstones or gold rings sewn into a mercenary's undergarments fetched far more coin than their battered breastplates.

After helping them pocket the truly valuable spoils, Bennett led the way straight down to the third floor. Cabins 301 through 310, as well as 311, were his targets.

Perhaps because these quarters had been reserved for military personnel, the doors featured locking mechanisms entirely different from the decks above. Naturally, before the door ram strapped to Edgar's forearm, they folded just as easily in a single blow.

BAM!

Cabin 311 had served as a recreational lounge. Inside sat a broad, felt-topped table and long wooden cues meant for some unknown game of the dungeon world, alongside dense, glassy spheres rolling idly across the floor. Aside from a few scattered personal trinkets, the room offered little of note.

"Pry the rest open."

"Understood."

While Edgar busied himself breaching the remaining doors, Bennett inspected the interiors. The first prize he discovered was a heavy tactical vest. The design bore a subtle resemblance to the vest he had retrieved from the security office in the Infiltrated Lab, yet differed in several details. Its substantial weight stemmed from thick, rigid inserts resembling iron plates. In the dungeon world, such gear was known as a plate carrier, though Bennett had no knowledge of that terminology.

What he did recognize, however, were the ammunition magazines lodged in its pouches.

He slid one free from its upside-down slot. Brass cartridges gleamed within—the same 5.56mm live ammunition he had encountered before. Four thirty-round magazines were slotted across the vest. To his disappointment, the firearm itself was nowhere to be found.

Bennett moved on to the adjacent room. Rather than weapons, this cabin contained bizarrely packaged rations sealed within heavy plastic packaging, labeled in an unfamiliar dialect of the dungeon tongue.

An entire crate of the rations sat stacked in the corner. Though Bennett tilted his head in mild bewilderment, he swept the box into his sub-space pouch nonetheless. He had heard that certain eccentric nobles and scholars on the continent developed a curious appetite for dungeon foodstuffs. Unfamiliar artifacts carried inherent risks, but bringing them back to verify their commercial value was second nature. A careless dismissal could mean throwing away a small fortune.

When Bennett stepped into the next cabin, his footsteps paused.

Unlike the barren rooms before it, a human skeleton lay sprawled across the bunk, clad in a military uniform of foreign cut and pattern. The camouflage differed in both tint and pattern from the South Korean military fatigues he had uncovered previously. Stitched into the chest fabric was more text in that same script:

Again, it was the unfamiliar variant of the dungeon tongue. Searching the room, Bennett unexpectedly recovered a handwritten journal penned in Korean. Though the handwriting was somewhat uneven, it was legible enough to read without difficulty.

The journal ended abruptly, smeared with dark, dried blood.

Everyone snapped?

The pieces began falling into place. The United States—an empire of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that dungeon world—had captured Ra'al and sought to transport him to South Korea for experimental purposes. But en route, Ra'al had worked his foul trickery, corrupting those aboard and leaving the vessel to drift aimlessly.

Bennett searched the rest of the cabin. Alongside another plate carrier like the one he had found earlier, he recovered the soldier's complete combat kit.

Clack.

An intact military rifle, a Glock pistol identical to the one he had encountered before, spare ammunition, and magazines. Evidently planning to make a desperate final stand, the soldier had kept an entire metal ammunition crate tucked away. The loose rounds alone numbered in the hundreds.

Considering that all the firearms they had scavenged so far amounted to a single Glock and an empty machine gun with five or six loose cartridges, this haul was an absolute windfall.

"Whoa…"

The party members, who had peered into the cabin to watch, breathed sighs of admiration. Having already witnessed the devastating potential of such weaponry, their appreciation was all the greater.

"Wait, what are these?" Edgar asked, picking up several round objects resting inside an open case in the corner. Cupping one in his palm, he tossed it lightly into the air and caught it. "They're pretty small, but they've got real heft to them."

"Are they meant to be thrown?" Erika chimed in, mimicking a pitching motion with her arm. "Their shape seems made for throwing."

"Hmm. You might be right," Edgar mused. "Still, as heavy as it is, I can't imagine hurling a lump of iron like this would cause that much damage on its own. There's some writing stamped on the casing—do you recognize this dungeon tongue, Leader?"

Bennett glanced down at the olive-drab spheres and shook his head. "Unfortunately, it's an unfamiliar script. Looks like English, the language of America."

Though numbers were stamped on the shell, their practical purpose remained impossible to deduce from the digits alone. There were three grenades in total.

"Pack them all for now," Bennett commanded.

"Boss."

"…"

"Boss!"

"Huh?"

Robinson jerked his head around, blinking back to reality. Tanner, his second-in-command, was vigorously shaking his shoulder.

"Man, what the hell did that guy say to you? You've been staring blankly into space this whole time. Why are your eyes so bloodshot?"

"I'm… I'm fine."

"You don't look fine at all. Whatever. What did that fellow want?"

"He offered us a job."

"A commission?"

"He wants us to assassinate someone who entered the dungeon."

"…Tsk, sounds shady as hell." Tanner leaned in closer and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Looked to me like that guy didn't have two coppers to rub together. Did you even verify if he can pay?"

Tanner's skepticism was justified. Taking on contracts without confirming the client's liquidity was a classic way for scavengers to end up bleeding for nothing.

"His ability to pay is beyond doubt. He had entire chests of gold coins."

"Oh. Well, that's a relief, then."

Suddenly, an image flickered in Robinson's mind, and he shook his head with abrupt determination. "Gather the men. We move out immediately."

"Right now? Where to?"

"The client gave us coordinates. He said if we march to the designated position right this second, we'll intercept the target."

"Boss, you know you're acting seriously weird today, right?" Tanner grumbled, but he nevertheless whistled the crew together. "New contract, boys! Fall in, we're moving out!"

"Move out!"

Trusting Robinson and Tanner as their seasoned commanders, the scavengers formed ranks without objection.

Robinson led the vanguard. Though he had gotten turned around multiple times on their way up, his feet now moved with eerie certainty. He navigated the ship's labyrinthine corridors without a shred of hesitation, turning corners as if guided by an invisible hand.

Tanner, marveling at the sudden change, sidled up beside him. "Are you positive we're heading the right way?"

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Robinson answered with words that seemed to bubble up unprompted from the depths of his mind: "Don't you trust me? Stop whining and follow. I'm going to make us rich."

"…Fine, if you say so."

After marching for quite some time, Robinson came to a dead halt.

"Boss?"

"…This is it."

"Sir?"

"The targets will pass through here." Turning to his company, Robinson barked out crisp orders: "Set up the ambush. We unleash maximum firepower the second they show their faces. Mages, spiritists, archers—you carry the brunt of this."

"Got it."

Tanner nodded, though he couldn't shake the nagging impression that Robinson's eyes were glassy and strangely unfocused. In fact, he had seemed hollow like that ever since he spoke with that client. Still, the thought was fleeting. Odd or not, an order was an order, and Tanner's duty was to see it executed.

Robinson's party boasted far more ranged combatants than frontline fighters. In short order, they secured advantageous high ground atop shipping crates and structural steel beams, while their few melee warriors were handed crossbows to bolster the firing line.

"Wait, someone's coming!"

"I see them."

"Are you sure that's them? There's only four of them… Boss?"

The next moment, Tanner's jaw dropped.

Robinson had reached inside his coat and retrieved a spell scroll. Tanner knew that scroll well. They had received it as a reward after bailing out a powerful wizard in the past. Robinson had bragged that it contained an infallible single-target destruction spell, guaranteed to obliterate anyone below the realm of a Master.

"Y-You're going to blow that on them?!"

Robinson's gaze remained fixed on the four-man party advancing down the hall, centering on the man walking at the front. Studying the leader's features, Robinson gripped both ends of the parchment. Just a channel of mana, a tear of the seal, and the spell would—

"…Huh?"

"Boss? What is it now?"

Tanner saw it clearly. The dull, hypnotic haze that had clouded Robinson's pupils suddenly vanished, replaced by stark, lucent clarity.

Robinson blinked rapidly in sheer bewilderment, glancing around the corridor before looking down at his own hands. The instant his brain registered what he was holding, a strangled screech tore from his throat. He dropped the scroll as if it were a white-hot coal.

Clatter!

"Boss?! Why'd you drop something so expensive—"

"R-Retreat!"

"What?! Out of nowhere?! We've got the whole ambush set up, why the hell would we—mmph!"

Robinson slapped his palm over Tanner's mouth, nearly suffocating him.

"You suicidal moron! Don't you recognize that bastard?!"

"…Mmph? Who is he?"

"Haah! You blind idiot!" Robinson thumped his chest in frantic agitation.

Tanner was just thinking that his leader finally sounded like his usual self again when Robinson hissed the name:

"It's Bennett!"

Tanner's blood ran cold. "THAT Bennett?!"

"Yes!"

Poking his head past the edge of the shipping container, Tanner squinted. The distance had closed enough for the lead figure's calm, lethal profile to come into sharp focus.

"Holy shit! Let's get the fuck out of here!"

By the time Bennett's party crossed into the kill zone, the corridor was deserted—save for an immaculate, six-figure spell scroll rolling across the steel deck.