"Those guys are having a field day huh?"
Eric stood beside Guilliman on the elevated ridge, looking down at the movent below with a wide, easy smile spread across his face.
Down in the underground field, the B-ranks were working.
The days following the abomination kills had opened sothing up. With the three abominations removed and the remaining colony disoriented and leaderless, the Black Back Crab population had beco accessible in a way it never would have been under normal circumstances. Wayfarer after Wayfarer falling in clean succession, the B-ranks moving through the space thodically, unhurried, like people finally given permission to eat at a table that had always been just out of reach.
The war raging deeper in the valley was doing them a favor they hadn’t asked for.
The beasts were preoccupied. Attention pointed outward, toward the territorial conflict between the Red Mane Lions and the Silver Fur Baboons. The internal structure of the Black Back Crab community was fracturing slowly and quietly, and nobody above ground was noticing.
The population was being swallowed.
Gradually. thodically.
One Wayfarer at a ti.
"Hehe." Guilliman smirked and looked sideways at Eric. "You’re one to talk."
Eric had arguably enjoyed himself more than anyone else during this entire stretch. The numbers told the story clearly enough. Level 16 to 17, and now pressing hard against the ceiling of 17, close enough to 18 that a few more solid hunts would probably push him over.
If the conditions held for another day or two, Athen might walk out of this valley with two A-ranks instead of one.
Eric laughed and said nothing, which was as good as an admission.
"Hahaha, what are you two talking about?"
The Jackal materialized behind them with that wide grin he seed to carry regardless of circumstances, appearing over the ridge like he had been there the whole ti and just decided to announce himself.
He looked good, all things considered.
Better than he had any right to, honestly.
The expedition had handed him sothing he genuinely hadn’t expected going in. A few clean beast kills, the right conditions, and a level up he hadn’t thought possible in this context. Level 16. He had crossed it sowhere in the middle of everything, almost without noticing until it registered on the panel.
These situations usually didn’t go this way. Most of the ti the B-ranks walked away with paynt handed down from the higher ranks, a cut of the take asured out by people with more authority. Direct gene points from actual kills were rare. The kind of field access they had enjoyed these past days was rarer still.
Once in a lifeti, maybe.
He was still smiling about it.
"Yeah....."
Guilliman’s attention shifted.
Down below, River Bandit had co into view at the base of the ridge. He looked up, found Guilliman’s position, and lifted a hand in his direction.
Not a wave exactly. More like a flag. Co here.
Guilliman took the read imdiately, gave a short nod, and started down toward him.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,
They walked together, moving away from the ridge and the noise of the B-ranks working below.
"We just received orders from Athen." River Bandit kept his voice level, eyes forward as they moved. "They’re sending a strike group into the valley. S-rank at the head. The target is a treasure inside Red Mane Lion territory."
Guilliman kept pace and said nothing yet.
"There are rewards attached. A personal level-up mission. An echo at Wayfarer rank minimum." River Bandit paused briefly. "The ssage ca in fast. There wasn’t much lead ti."
Athen had spotted an opportunity in the chaos of the war and moved on it without waiting. While the Red Mane Lions were pointed outward, attention split across a territorial conflict that stretched across the whole valley, their internal zones were comparatively exposed. A window. A narrow one, but real.
Athen had decided to walk through it.
"I see." Guilliman nodded slowly.
He parsed it quietly as they walked.
He was the only one River Bandit had pulled aside. That detail wasn’t accidental. The conclusion ca quickly. A-ranks only. The mission was significant enough that B-ranks wouldn’t be included in whatever was going into Red Mane Lion territory with an S-rank at the front.
Sothing important was on the other side of this.
"Are you going?" Guilliman asked.
He watched River Bandit’s face as he said it.
There was information the man hadn’t fully shared yet. The gaps in what he had said were as telling as what he had said. If River Bandit wasn’t going, it ant the risk profile was higher than the reward framing suggested.
River Bandit smirked.
"I’m two levels from S-rank." He let that sit for a second. "What do you think?"
The calculation behind the answer was obvious once you understood the position. A mission like this, with an S-rank leading and a personal level-up reward attached, could push him to level 24. Pair that with the assisted advancent reward and he would be standing at the first threshold for S-rank consideration.
It wouldn’t guarantee anything.
S-rank was its own phenonon entirely. eting the entry requirents didn’t an crossing the line. Most people who reached that threshold spent years standing at the door without opening it. The gap between the highest A-rank and the lowest S-rank was not a step. It was a chasm.
But you had to be at the door first.
This mission put him there.
He probably didn’t expect Guilliman to understand the full weight of all that. Guilliman had just crossed into A-rank days ago.
"If that’s the case," Guilliman said, "I don’t mind going."
River Bandit stopped walking.
Not dramatically. Just a slight break in the stride, a fraction of a second where his forward motion paused and his eyes moved to Guilliman with sothing unreadable in them.
He had approached the other A-ranks already.
Every one of them had said no.
People with history, with established ranks, with combat records in this valley and others like it, had heard the sa briefing and passed without hesitation.
And this kid, fresh into A-rank, still carrying the energy of soone who hadn’t had ti to develop a healthy fear of the things that warranted fear, was standing here telling him he didn’t mind going.
He opened his mouth to push back.
"Think about it for a few days. There’s no need to rush into–"
An orb appeared.
No warning. No sound preceding it. It simply materialized around both of them in an instant, light and energy pressing close, and the ground beneath their feet stopped being the ground.
Movent. Fast and direct. Pulling them deeper into the valley without asking.
"There’s no ti to think."
The voice ca from inside the orb.
Calm. Completely unhurried.
At what appeared to be a fixed point within the moving light, a man sat in a wheelchair, eyes pointed forward into the depths of the valley ahead. He didn’t look at either of them when he spoke.
"All we can do is do."
The orb charged forward.
The ridge, the B-ranks, Eric’s smile, the Jackal’s easy laugh, all of it fell behind them as the valley swallowed them whole.
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