Chapter 88: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

The machine guns hammered without pause.

Along the airfield’s outer defenses, two water-cooled heavy machine guns poured fire across the sand. Brass casings rained beneath them, and the air stank of gunsmoke, hot oil, and steam.

Two hundred meters beyond the trench, tangled belts of barbed wire covered the approaches. Dozens of bone-bladed creatures charged through the blowing sand. Bullets tore bloody chunks from their bodies without stopping their advance.

"Cease fire! You’re wasting ammunition. Let them reach fifty meters!"

A man in a leather coat stood on the raised firing position, signaling the gun crews to stop as he watched the creatures approach.

Behind the sandbags, five or six people huddled over heavy ammunition boxes. One wore a crumpled designer suit; another had sand-caked sneakers. None looked dressed for the same occasion, much less a war. Now they all wore the same expression, shoulders hunched and teeth chattering.

They had good reason to fear the creatures. Two days earlier, they had watched one zigzag into a crowd with terrifying speed. The newcomers had opened fire in panic, hitting one another while the creature slipped between them, carving through bodies with its bladed arms. Within moments, the defensive line had become a scattering of severed limbs.

But the people calling themselves veterans frightened them even more.

"Reload! Move your ass!"

A hulking man with a heavy shield kicked a dazed young newcomer in the back, nearly knocking him flat.

"Keep standing there and I’ll use you to plug the fucking breach!"

The young man stumbled, scrambled for an ammunition belt, and hurried it over to the gun position.

The creatures cleared the outer wire and entered the fifty-meter range.

"Fire!"

Both machine guns opened up. Their crossing streams of fire shredded the charging pack, but a few scattered creatures broke through. Two unusually large ones leaped straight toward the guns.

"About time we got some exercise."

The big man grinned and advanced with an alloy tower shield held in one hand.

The first creature slammed into it with a heavy metallic crash. Its bone blades struck sparks from the shield, but the man holding it did not give an inch.

A stocky figure sprang in from the flank.

He was bald, with an old scar running from his temple, across his right eye, and down to his jaw. It gave his face the look of something that had once been split apart and badly put back together. He carried no gun, only a sharpened entrenching shovel.

The blade swept into the gap between the creature’s neck vertebrae.

Bone cracked. Its head flew free, spraying black blood across half the bald man’s face. He turned toward the next target, shovel still in hand.

The second creature had already slipped past the shield bearer and reached the rear of the position.

The newcomers scattered, screaming and scrambling for cover. Their flight left the young man in sneakers directly in its path.

As the blades came down, he snatched a bolt-action rifle from the ground and fired without aiming.

The shot burst one of the creature’s eyes.

Blood and fragments of the eye sprayed from its face. It crashed into the sand, shrieking and thrashing.

The young man’s terror gave way to wild excitement. All he could think of was the rule he had seen upon entering the trial—

Kill monsters. Earn points.

He dropped the rifle, drew his bayonet, and lunged forward.

The slap landed with the crack of breaking bone.

The man in the leather coat had stepped up beside him. One backhand sent the newcomer flying three meters across the sand. He hit the ground and spat blood and broken teeth.

"My face...!"

He curled around the pain, clutching his crushed cheek.

The man in the leather coat ignored him. He drew a revolver and put three rounds into the thrashing creature’s head, blowing it apart.

A faint white mote rose from the corpse and sank into the back of his hand.

He holstered the gun and walked over to the newcomer. A polished boot settled on the hand covering the young man’s face, pressing it into the swollen cheek. He ground his heel down.

"Got sand where your brains should be?"

He spoke quietly.

"We feed you. You carry our ammunition. We get you through these seven days alive. That’s charity enough, and you think you can help yourself to my kill points? My loot?"

The other newcomers shrank behind the sandbags, heads lowered.

"Did I forget to explain the rules?"

He bent down, seized the young man by the hair, and pulled his face out of the sand.

"The monsters are ours. The points are ours. Anything they drop is ours. Your job is to carry what we tell you to carry. Reach for our share again, and I’ll tie you to the wire for bait."

He looked around at the others. Each newcomer he fixed his eyes on shrank back, trembling.

"Everybody clear?"

"Yes! Clear!"

"Then get off your useless fucking asses and count that ammunition!" he roared. "What the fuck are you waiting for?"

They scrambled for the boxes and loose belts, fumbling them in their haste to reach the guns. None dared stay within his reach.

...

With the fighting over, the smoke began to thin.

Steam hissed from the machine guns’ cooling jackets. The shield bearer propped his tower shield against the sandbags, accepted a hand-rolled cigarette from the bald man, and took a long, satisfied drag.

"Fuck, I love rookie trials. No watching your back for some bastard waiting to stick a knife in it. These things are brainless—work out how they move and they’re walking targets. Between the guide payout and the kill points from this wave, I can afford my bloodline upgrade when we get back to Paradise."

"Think bigger."

The man in the leather coat lounged against the sandbags, turning the white loot chest he had just obtained over in his hands.

"We still collect thirty percent off this batch when we get back. Protection fee. That’s the easy money."

Farther back, a woman in a gray cloak sat alone on a wooden ammunition crate.

Her legs were crossed, her expression cool. Strips of worn, rune-marked cloth wrapped her short wooden staff, and several carved tooth charms hung at her chest. She had barely involved herself in the fight, using a gravity spell only to slow the creatures’ charge.

She left the men to their conversation and polished the gray crystal at the tip of her staff with a soft cloth.

"Don’t start spending it yet."

The bald man wiped blood from his face and glanced at the chest.

"Both of you. You’ve been in Paradise long enough to know better than to tempt fate. Get through the last day and collect. Then you can celebrate."

"What’s the matter, Chen? Leave all your nerve behind with that scar?"

The man in the leather coat snorted.

"It’s a rookie trial. What could possibly go wrong? You think they’re going to—"

[WARNING!]

A blood-red overlay flooded every Contractor’s vision. A piercing alarm sounded inside their heads.

[Unidentified cross-world interference detected.]

[An anomalous entity has entered this world.]

[Entry location: Current combat zone.]

[Regional difficulty revised: Tier One → Tier Two — EXTREME LETHALITY.]

[Previous main survival mission voided.]

[Revised main mission: Survive until the end of today.]

[An emergency Scarlet Bounty has been issued to all Contractors.]