Insomniac Player

A woman’s voice answered without even greeting him. "You’re the one applying for the scout position?"

She sounded young. And irritated.

"Yes!"

"What level are you?"

"Level ten."

The voice paused for a moment, then snapped. "...What?"

"I’m level ten," Damien said again.

Her tone sharpened immediately. "Are you trying to commit suicide?"

"...Excuse me?"

"Our lowest member is Level Eighteen. The strongest is Level Twenty. And you thought a Level Ten should join us?"

He rubbed the back of his neck. "...I’m applying as a scout. I’m not planning to fight."

Silence again, shorter this time. "So you actually know what a scout does."

"I believe so."

"Hm." Her voice eased, just barely. "We don’t need another damage dealer. We need someone who can observe, detect traps, and avoid getting everyone killed."

"hehe, I can do that."

Another pause, longer, like she was weighing it. "We’re government sponsored. But don’t expect heroic rewards. The payment is only ten gold coins."

His eyes went wide. "...Only?"

Ten gold coins. His entire fortune right now was ten gold coins.

He answered before he’d finished thinking it through. "I accept."

She paused. "...That was fast."

He grinned into the phone. "When do we leave?"

A sigh came through the line. "I’ll send the coordinates." A beat. "If you die, don’t haunt me."

The call disconnected.

➤[Application Accepted]

◇◇◇

The next morning, Damien arrived fifteen minutes early. The meeting point sat near one of Viremont’s eastern districts.

Military vehicles ringed the enormous gate, soldiers posted along the perimeter, medical tents pitched a safe distance back. Government workers moved in and out of command trailers without slowing down.

Everything looked deliberate. This wasn’t like an ordinary gate. Something about it had earned real attention.

He looked up. The gate itself stood like a colossal rust-eaten sword driven straight into reality, dark crimson cracks spidering through the air around it. Every so often, a metallic screech leaked out from inside, like thousands of blades grinding against each other somewhere deep in the rust.

"Creepy," he muttered.

"You’re Sleepless?"

He turned. A woman approached, cigarette hanging loosely from her fingers. Short black wolf-cut hair, chocolate skin, sharp amber eyes. Her left arm was fully mechanical, gears turning slow and quiet beneath dark steel plating. Her right hand wore an identical glove despite being flesh and bone underneath. A long crimson dress sat beneath a matching combat cloak, and every step she took looked like it cost her nothing at all.

She stopped in front of him. "Level Ten." Her face gave away nothing. "So you’re the idiot."

Damien laughed, a little awkward. "I’ve been called worse."

She held out the mechanical hand. "Doctor Smoke."

"I recognized your voice. You’re the leader."

She nodded once. "Unfortunately."

He shook her hand. The metal fingers were warmer than he expected.

Another voice cut in. "My. What a cute little boy."

Damien turned toward it and immediately regretted it. The woman walking toward them might have been the strangest person he’d ever laid eyes on. Long white hair trailed behind her, a black blindfold stitched with a white cross covering her eyes, dark cloth wound around both arms and most of her head. Everywhere the cloth didn’t reach, her skin was on full display, chest, waist, most of her stomach, black underwear visible through the loose fabric wrapped around the rest. It looked like someone had started dressing her as a nun and given up ninety percent of the way through.

She smiled, slow and playful. "So. You’re the new scout?"

Damien nodded carefully. "...Yes."

She circled him once. "Oh. He’s actually handsome."

Doctor Smoke sighed without looking over. "Don’t start."

"I’m only appreciating talent." She winked at Damien and pressed a hand to her chest. "My alias is Naked Nun."

He nearly choked. "...That’s certainly a name."

She laughed, bright and unbothered. "It gets people’s attention. Every time."

She leaned in close enough that he caught a trace of her perfume. "If we survive this, I’ll show you what’s under the rest of the cloth."

Doctor Smoke’s hand shot out and smacked the back of her head. "Behave."

"Aww." Naked Nun pouted. "No fun at all, you."

Before Damien could recover, someone else was already closing the distance.

A tall woman approached, jet-black hair catching the morning light strand by strand, dark green robes over embroidered gloves and high boots, everything about the outfit tailored close to a curved, deliberate frame. A polished staff floated at her side without anyone holding it.

Her eyes reached him and dropped, taking in his boots, or the lack of them. A small frown formed. "Bootless." She said it like the word tasted bad.

Doctor Smoke shrugged. "Government assigned."

"I understand." The mage didn’t introduce herself. She didn’t need to; her profile floated up on its own.

➤[Alias: Madam Marvel.]

➤[Class: Mage]

Damien offered a polite smile anyway. She was already looking past him. "...Well. Nice meeting you too."

Finally, a bright voice rang out from behind him. "Hi!"

He turned to find a petite girl skipping toward him, no older than seventeen by the look of her, two long blue ponytails swinging past her waist. A miniature school uniform, pleated skirt, sleeves covered in little charms that clinked when she moved. Her grin was wide enough to make Doctor Smoke and Naked Nun look like they belonged in a different story entirely.

She waved both hands. "I’m DeluluGirl_404!"

Damien blinked. "...That’s your alias?"

She nodded, proud of it. "Cool, right?"

"...Unique."

"I know!" Without asking, she grabbed his hand in both of hers. "I’m so happy a scout joined! I saw your application come through. I voted yes."

Doctor Smoke didn’t turn around. "You vote yes for everyone."

"I like making friends." She bounced on her heels.

Madam Marvel murmured, not quite under her breath, "One day that’s going to get you killed."

Delulu stuck her tongue out at her. "Blehh."

Damien laughed despite himself. Something about her, the volume, the total absence of self-consciousness, pulled up an image of one of the younger kids from Saint Mary’s, the ones who used to tackle-hug him at the door every evening.

Doctor Smoke ground her cigarette out under her boot. "Enough introductions." She turned toward the gate. "It’s opening."

The air around it warped violently, another metallic shriek rolling out from somewhere inside, a rust-colored mist curling into the open air.

Doctor Smoke rolled her mechanical shoulder once. "Let’s move." She walked forward without waiting.

Madam Marvel followed a step behind her.

Naked Nun passed Damien slow enough to lean in. "Stay alive. I’d hate losing such pretty scenery." Her shoulder brushed his on the way by, deliberately.

Damien stood frozen. "...She’s terrifying."

DeluluGirl giggled. "Don’t worry, she’s like that with everyone."

"...That really doesn’t make it better." He shook his head.

Doctor Smoke glanced back, already impatient. "Move."

Delulu gasped like she’d remembered something urgent. "Leader!"

"What."

"You should probably explain the mission! He’s new!"

"If he applied, he already knows what we’re doing." Doctor Smoke didn’t break stride.

Delulu puffed her cheeks out. "...You’re impossible."

Without another word, Doctor Smoke stepped through the swirling crimson portal. Madam Marvel went in right behind her. Naked Nun flashed one last wink over her shoulder before vanishing into the light.

"Sorry," Delulu said, a little sheepish. "Our leader isn’t great with people." Then she disappeared through the gate too, and Damien was alone.

He looked at the portal, then back at the military camp behind him, then at the portal again.

"...I have no idea what I just signed up for." He’d pictured something else entirely walking in, a disciplined government unit, careful briefings, an actual battle plan laid out on a table somewhere. Instead he’d gotten a chain-smoking doctor with a mechanical arm, a half-dressed nun who flirted with anything that breathed, an aristocratic mage who’d already decided he wasn’t worth a second look, and a girl whose username belonged on a meme page.

Damien stared at the crimson portal and let out a long breath. "...I’m already regretting this."

He took one last breath and stepped forward. The rust-covered gate swallowed him whole.