I glanced over my shoulder at the subtle click of a safety being flicked off behind me. It seemed they weren’t keen on leaving witnesses.

  They had stopped about ten feet away, watching me with their weapons raised and ready.

  The merc leader pulled off his heavy helmet, showing off his sharp features and swept-back hair. He would have been good-looking if he wasn’t looking over our injuries like a predator looking at his next meal.

  I turned my gaze back to Myra’s prone form. Her faintly rising and falling chest was the only sign she was still alive.

  “How’d they even manage to take out the Reaver though?” The merc asked his cronies, his head tilting to the massive corpse before he looked back at me. “Well, doesn’t matter, time to clean up loose ends.”

  “Why?” My fists clenched at my sides as I turned to face them, a cold anger spreading through me.

  “Why? You were just unlucky. Don’t make this personal.”

  Something inside me snapped.

  Don’t make it personal? How was anything that happened to us not personal!? All I wanted was to help Valerie. To live in peace! Was that really too much to ask?

  A cold fury took root inside my soul at the injustice of it all. Was there even any point in trying to tie my morals to a city with none?

  I slowly pushed myself to my feet, quietly pulling Myra’s rifle behind me, carefully keeping it out of view as I turned to face them.

  “Don’t make it personal?” My tone was cold as ice as my fingers tightened around the rifle’s grip. “It’s been personal from the start.”

  I whipped the rifle up and pulled the trigger.

  He never saw it coming.

  A single beam of red light punched into the lead merc’s face, blasting it into bloody chunks that splattered off his armor.

  There was a brief moment of silence where time seemed to slow as his bloody corpse fell backwards before smashing into the cold stone floor.

  I dove for cover, barely dodging the spray of lasers that filled the space I’d just been standing in as they finally reacted.

  “Do you know what you just did!?” One of them yelled in fury as they blasted away at the cover that stood between us.

  Shit! I was pinned down!

  They reacted far quicker than I expected, but their lack of skill saved me from being cut to ribbons at least. My nanites could probably heal a laser wound given enough time, but I didn’t want to test that theory.

  I needed to find a way out. A new angle.

  The smell of melting stone began to sting my nose as the mercs continued their relentless assault.

  It was only a matter of time before they grew a brain and flanked me. My eyes darted around, looking for something, anything to even the playing field.

  A small pebble bounced off my head, knocked free by a stray laser round. My eyes widened as I looked up, an idea already forming in my mind’s eye.

  The stalactites! I could shoot them down onto the mercs without exposing myself!

  I pointed the barrel upwards at the base of one of the larger stalactites that already had cracks running through it and fired, the super-heated beam impacting it at its base. The pointed rock snapped free with an audible crack and plummeted down toward the unsuspecting mercs.

  The deadly beams of light suddenly ceased as the thundering crash echoed throughout the cavern, giving me a brief moment to act.

  Pushing myself out of cover, I leveled Myra’s rifle at the mercs. The dust that was kicked up from the fragmented stone hindered my vision, working like an improvised smoke grenade.

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  I could barely see anything through the dense cloud, so I relied on my hearing instead. A hacking cough caught my attention, drawing my gaze to left of the debris.

  I squinted through the swirling cloud as two mercs staggered out, coughing and sputtering. One was clutching his arm as it hung at an odd angle, obviously broken. The other was more alert, bringing his rifle up as soon as he saw me.

  I didn’t give him the chance to fire.

  I pulled the trigger, the deadly beam tearing a hole straight through his chest plate. He was dead before he hit the ground.

  His injured friend screamed in panic and turned to flee, not even attempting to fight back. But he was too slow. My rounds impacted his unprotected back, frying his lungs and heart.

  An eerie stillness settled across the cave.

  My breath came out in deep, steady huffs. I’d killed again, but the expected shock didn’t come. I didn’t feel sick, I just felt empty… resigned.

  Maybe the nanites were somehow suppressing my emotions. Or maybe I was just become a monster. I didn’t know.

  I shook away the feeling and approached the settling dust cloud. I needed to check for survivors, and take them out before they became a threat.

  “G-guys… H-help… me…” A choked gasp came from one of the bodies as I approached.

  His torso was crushed under a large piece of rock. He had taken his cracked helmet off and was feebly attempting to grab something from his belt.

  Medical Foam…

  I doubted it would help him. As severe as Myra’s wounds were, his were far worse. His lower half was almost completely separated from his upper body.

  Why didn’t I feel disgust or horror at seeing this?

  His eyes widened in fear as he finally noticed me stepping over him.

  “P-please wait—”

  I didn’t let him finish, blasting a hole through his skull.

  Why did I feel so… empty?

  There were two other survivors in similar states as the first. That single thought echoed in my mind as I dispatched them with ruthless efficiency.

  A small cough coming from Myra brought me back to reality, and I quickly rushed over to her. Her face was less pale now, and it looked like her gaping wound was healing somehow. The edges of her belly were pink and tender like a freshly healed burn.

  I bent down for a closer look.

  Surprise flashed across my face when I saw new flesh slowly growing around the wound. The Medical Foam was much more potent than I’d realized.

  At this rate, she would be completely fine in a few hours… but would the rift last that long? The app did say this was a temporary rift, but I still didn’t really know what that meant.

  The one where I first met Myra had closed in a few hours, but I didn’t know if that was because of external factors or an innate function of the rift.

  Doing more research before attempting this rift would have solved those issues, but hindsight was twenty-twenty.

  For now I would loot what I could from the mercs while I waited for Myra to recover.

  Unfortunately, most of their gear was damaged from the falling stone, but I did manage to salvage a working rifle and a few fresh magazines from the corpse of the merc leader, as well as a few canisters of Medical Foam and armor pieces I could use later.

  I had just finished up taking the last canister when I heard Myra stir. I turned to find her pushing herself into a sitting position, her wound all but completely gone. The pink, tender flesh was the only evidence that she had even been injured at all.

  “W-what happened?” she groaned, clutching her head before glancing dazedly around the cavern. Her eyes wandered across the still glowing blast marks, the broken bodies, and the loose stones where the stalactite had impacted. Her gaze finally settled on me, holding her rifle and the scavenged gear.

  “You got hurt by the Reaver,” I said flatly, tossing her rifle back to her, “The mercs came back in after we killed it and tried to kill us. They failed.”

  “…You did all this? How did-” surprise tinged her voice as she stared at me with wide eyes, before shaking her head and looking away, “No, it doesn’t matter. What’s important is that you survived, that we survived.”

  Her hand went to the torn hole in her armor, her fingers brushing against the freshly regenerated skin and muscle.

  “And once again I’m saved by the sacred Medical Foam. Always worth the high price tag,” she threw me a cocky smile as she brought herself to her feet.

  “Should we leave?” I asked ignoring her attempts at humor, closely watching her in case she was faking her recovery.

  “Not yet,” she shook her head, pointed at the fresh corpse of the Reaver, “We need to harvest its mana stone. One from something this large is worth a LOT.”

  ———

  “So what now?” I asked as we stepped out of the rift and onto the loud streets of the Undercity. Strangely, I felt even less safe out here than I did inside the rift.

  “Well, if you have the time, we should head to the guild and let them know about what happened here,” she sighed heavily, tilting her head back tiredly, “We can sell the mana stone there too. The guild will pay market price for it. We could get more from selling it ourselves, but in doing so you risk letting thieves know you have it. It’s usually better to just sell directly to the guild.”

  “I see,” I responded with a sigh of my own, letting my shoulders finally relax. I had leveled up three times from that encounter and was now at level four, with three perk points waiting to be spent.

  I probably should have looked through the skills, but I was tired, and didn’t really want to do anything but crawl under my covers and sleep off the stress of the day.

  I could get back to leveling later.

  “Since your first rift went so wrong, how about you give me your shard ID and I’ll handle the rest. Go home and take it easy, okay?” she gave me an understanding smile and gently squeezed my shoulder, picking up on my reluctance, “I’ll send over your share later, okay?”

  I gave her a grateful smile and nodded, exchanging IDs before parting ways.

  Perhaps I should take a rest day, refresh a bit after the shit-show I managed to walk away from.