Insomniac Player

The battlefield had become hopeless. The four women stood back to back, surrounded on every side.

Hundreds of ordinary knights advanced in tight formation. Twelve Elite Knights circled them, patient, like wolves that already knew how this ended. Behind it all stood the Knight Commander, greatsword resting on one shoulder, still hadn’t so much as swung once at full strength. He didn’t need to. Standing there was enough.

Doctor Smoke’s eyes swept the field once. "...We’ve lost."

Nobody argued. Not even Naked Nun. She lowered her black sword to the ground, point first, and let out a slow breath. "Tch."

Madam Marvel’s breathing had gone ragged. Even an elite mage had limits on how many large-scale spells a body could push out. Delulu had already dropped the sniper for dual pistols, firing on the retreat, backing up a step for every shot.

Every second bought more knights on the field, not fewer. Doctor Smoke ground her cigarette out under her boot and opened the party channel.

---

➤[Party Communication]

Doctor Smoke: Raid aborted.

Doctor Smoke: Everyone.

Doctor Smoke: Use your Return Stones.

---

No hesitation, no last stand for pride’s sake. The mission was over. Staying now just meant dying for nothing.

Madam Marvel reached into her inventory. Naked Nun did the same. Delulu already had a glowing crystal in her palm.

Then another voice cut into the channel.

"Uh." Damien. "...I don’t have one."

Silence. Nobody spoke.

Doctor Smoke’s eye twitched. "...What?"

"I don’t have a Return Stone."

For a second, even the battlefield seemed to hold its breath. She turned her head slowly toward the castle.

"You. Absolute." A long inhale. "...Idiot!" Her voice carried louder than any war cry the knights had managed all day. "You should have told me!"

"I didn’t even know Return Stones were a thing!"

"They’re for leaving the gate in an emergency!"

"I know that now!"

Doctor Smoke’s fists clenched hard enough that the metal fingers on her prosthetic groaned in protest. "...I recruited an actual idiot."

Naked Nun laughed despite everything. "I like him even more now."

"This isn’t funny!"

Madam Marvel’s voice came through calm as ever. "Where are you?"

"Standing in front of the staircase to the fifth floor."

Doctor Smoke went still. "...Already?"

"Yeah."

"You reached the Lord?"

"Almost."

"...."

A roar tore out from somewhere deep inside Ironfall, metal on metal, loud enough to shake the ground.

The Knight Commander stopped mid-stride. His crimson eyes lifted toward the highest floor of the castle, and something new moved behind them, quick, sharp, unmistakable.

He turned and sprinted for the castle without a word, the earth cracking under every step.

BOOM!

BOOM!

BOOM!

"...Commander’s heading inside!" Delulu shouted.

He ignored the four of them completely, and the Elite Knights peeled off after him like hounds off a leash.

Doctor Smoke’s pupils shrank. "...He’s sensed Damien."

Madam Marvel didn’t wait. She drove her staff into the ground. "Not happening." Mana surged, circles blooming beneath the charging line.

RUMBLE!!

A stone wall tore up out of the earth, denser and taller than the last one. The Commander didn’t slow.

"Again!" Doctor Smoke shouted.

Madam Marvel’s jaw locked, and a second wall rose behind the first. Then a third, three barriers stacked between him and the castle door. She dropped to her knees the second the last one finished, spent.

The Commander swung.

BOOOOOOOOOM!!

The first wall came apart in a spray of stone shrapnel. The second held, for now, and the Elite Knights started climbing rather than waiting for him to break through it.

Doctor Smoke’s face hardened. "...Change of plans."

She looked at the others. "Sleepless has no Return Stone."

Nobody spoke.

"If we leave now, he dies."

There was no argument to make. No route out for him existed. Fifth floor, hundreds of meters from the main gate, with an army, a dozen Elites, and the Commander standing between.

"Only way he lives," she said, "is if he kills the Lord."

Naked Nun grinned through the exhaustion. "...Sounds almost romantic."

Doctor Smoke ignored that and raised one hand.

➤[Skill Activated: Instant Heal]

Green light washed over the four of them. Not a full recovery, but enough to stand back up straight.

"We hold." She lowered her hand.

Madam Marvel nodded. "Still got mana potions."

Delulu slammed a fresh magazine home. "I’m good!"

Naked Nun swung her sword back onto her shoulder. "Let’s buy our sexy scout some time."

Doctor Smoke watched the Commander tearing through the second wall. "We’re not winning this. But every Elite we put down is one less thing waiting for Damien if he makes it back out."

She lit another cigarette, took one drag, and smiled through it. "...Let’s make this government funding worth something."

The four of them charged.

◇◇◇

Damien climbed the last staircase with every explosion outside rattling through the stone under his feet, walls collapsing somewhere below, steel ringing, magic roaring in the distance.

Then the party channel went quiet.

He frowned. "...Doctor?"

No answer. His pulse jumped. "...They stayed." They hadn’t left, because he couldn’t. He tightened his grip on the dagger at his hip. "I’ll finish this. No matter what."

He reached the final landing. A wide corridor stretched ahead, ending in a pair of iron doors nearly eight meters tall, rust-streaked, ancient carvings across the surface showing kings kneeling before a single armed figure.

The throne room. The Lord waited on the other side.

He crossed toward it slow, breathing even, heartbeat steady. One hand found the First Blood dagger. The other pushed against the door.

GRRRRRRRR...

The doors swung inward. Cold mist rolled out over an endless carpet leading toward a distant throne, where one figure sat perfectly still.

He stepped inside.

Then the whole castle shook.

BOOOOOOOM!!

Closer this time. Dust rained down from the ceiling.

BOOM!!

The tremors kept building.

He froze. "...No."

Not explosions. Footsteps. The kind that shook a whole castle with every one of them.

The Commander had broken through.

He looked back toward the entrance, the vibrations closing the distance faster with each passing second, then ahead, where the Lord still hadn’t moved an inch from the throne.

Death was sprinting toward his back.

He tightened his grip around the dagger, pulse strangely calm despite it all.

"...There’s no way back now."