I didn't know why they took me.
That thought kept circling in my head as we moved through the reinforced corridor that led deeper into the operational wing of the bunker. Not the residential sectors, not the training halls I'd grown used to over the past weeks—but the places where real decisions were made. Where people went out and didn't always come back.
I wasn't special.
I wasn't strong.
And I definitely wasn't reliable.
If anything, the last mission in the yellow zone had proven the opposite.
Yet here I was.
My boots echoed dully against the metal floor. The lights above flickered faintly, as they always did—old systems, stretched far beyond what they were ever meant to endure. The air smelled of oil, recycled oxygen, and something faintly burnt. I could hear distant voices, orders being barked, the hum of machinery powering up.
Ahead of me walked Varek Eshen.
Captain of the Third Division.
He moved with the kind of ease that only came from experience—shoulders relaxed, hands loosely in his coat pockets, as if we were heading to a casual meeting rather than a reconnaissance mission outside the bunker walls. His long coat swayed slightly with each step, the dark fabric marked with faded insignia and claw-like scratches that no one had bothered to repair.
Behind me were two other operatives from the division. Veterans. They barely spared me a glance.
I was the odd one out.
And everyone knew it.
"So," Varek said suddenly, without turning around, "you're quiet."
I blinked, realizing I'd been staring at the floor.
"Sorry," I replied. "Just… thinking."
He chuckled. "That's dangerous."
I frowned. "Thinking?"
"Yeah. Most people who think too much out there either freeze up…" he tilted his head slightly, glancing back at me with one sharp eye, "…or start asking the wrong questions."
I swallowed.
Was that a warning? Or a joke?
Probably both.
We stopped near a reinforced door marked with faded hazard symbols. A guard stepped aside after scanning Varek's badge, and the door slid open with a heavy hiss. Inside was a briefing room—smaller than I expected. A holographic table stood in the center, projecting a rough, flickering map of the surrounding zones.
Yellow zone borders.
Fragmented terrain.
Unstable markers.
The world outside the bunker, reduced to broken lines and warning symbols.
"Alright," Varek said, stepping inside. "Let's get this over with."
The veterans took positions near the wall. I hesitated, then stood awkwardly near the table, unsure where I was supposed to be.
Varek leaned against the edge of the hologram, arms crossed.
"You're probably wondering why you're here," he said casually.
I nodded. "Yes, sir."
"Drop the 'sir.' Makes me feel old."
"…Why am I here?"
He studied me for a moment. Not like a commander evaluating a soldier—but like someone examining an unfamiliar tool, trying to decide if it was useful or not.
"To be honest?" he said.
I met his gaze.
"We took you because we were curious."
I blinked. "Curious?"
"You survived your first outing. Barely." He smiled faintly. "You froze up, nearly got yourself killed, and needed Ami to pull you back from the edge."
My chest tightened.
"And yet," he continued, "you didn't run. Even when you should've."
I didn't know how to respond to that.
"I thought you were just another rookie with more courage than sense," Varek went on. "But Ami doesn't usually bother remembering names."
My heart skipped a beat.
"…She remembered mine?"
He shrugged. "Didn't say she liked you."
That sounded more like her.
"So yeah," he concluded. "We're taking you along. Not because we expect anything from you. But because I want to know what kind of person freezes in front of monsters… and still comes back the next day."
That answer didn't comfort me.
If anything, it made things worse.
One of the veterans snorted quietly. "So he's a test subject."
"More or less," Varek replied easily.
I clenched my fists.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
The hologram shifted. A section of the map pulsed faintly.
"Outer yellow zone," Varek said. "Near an old transit district. Structures are mostly collapsed, monster activity is low to moderate."
"Low to moderate," I repeated.
He smiled. "Compared to red or black zones? Yeah. You'll live."
That wasn't reassuring.
As the others reviewed equipment, I found myself standing there, useless again. My gaze drifted to the flickering map, to the broken outlines of streets and buildings that no longer existed.
Yellow zone.
Still dangerous. Still lethal. Just… survivable enough that people pretended it was safe.
"Captain," I said hesitantly.
Varek looked at me. "Hm?"
"Can I ask something?"
"You just did."
I ignored that. "About the barons."
The room grew just a little quieter.
The veterans exchanged brief looks, then went back to checking their gear.
Varek's expression didn't change—but something sharpened in his eyes.
"What about them?"
"I've heard a lot of things," I said carefully. "Different stories. Different versions."
"That's usually how myths work."
"They're real," I said. "I've seen one."
He nodded slowly. "Most people have. At least once."
"They say the barons got their power from… divine hands."
I hesitated before adding, "Is that true?"
For a moment, Varek didn't answer. He tapped two fingers against the edge of the hologram, watching the light distort around his hand.
"Officially?" he said at last. "No one knows."
"And unofficially?"
He smirked. "Unofficially, it sounds like nonsense."
I frowned. "But you don't deny it."
"Because denying it would be just as stupid as believing it outright," he replied. "We've all seen what the barons can do. Strength, abilities that don't follow any known laws. Some of them don't even age the same way anymore."
That sent a chill down my spine.
"So you think there really were… hands?" I asked.
"I think something gave them power," Varek said. "Whether that something was a god, a parasite, or just a freak anomaly—who knows?"
He looked directly at me.
"But whatever it was, it didn't do it for free."
I remembered the stories. The rumors. The whispers about barons losing pieces of themselves. About their abilities reflecting their fears.
"And you?" I asked quietly. "Do you trust them?"
Varek laughed softly.
"Trust? No. I work with them when I have to. Pray they're on our side when things go wrong. And hope they never look at me the way they look at monsters."
That image unsettled me more than I expected.
I nodded, unsure what else to say.
"Good question, though," he added. "Most rookies don't think that far ahead."
I didn't answer. Thinking ahead had never helped me before.
The briefing ended soon after. Gear was distributed. Routes were finalized. Exit protocols reviewed.
As we moved toward the outer gates, Varek slowed his pace until he was walking beside me.
"One more thing," he said quietly.
"Yes?"
"You asked about the barons," he said. "But you didn't ask how to become one."
I stiffened.
"That's because I don't believe people like me get chosen."
He gave me a sideways glance. "Smart answer."
"…Is that true?"
He didn't respond immediately.
"Let's just say," Varek said eventually, "that if those 'hands' really exist… they don't care about what you want."
We reached the massive gate that separated the bunker from the outside world. The metal doors loomed before us, scarred and reinforced a hundred times over. Warning lights blinked red.
Beyond them was the yellow zone.
Beyond them was everything I'd sworn never to face again.
As the gate mechanisms began to move, I felt something strange.
A sudden pressure.
Not pain. Not exactly.
It was like… fingers.
Cold. Heavy. Gripping.
I sucked in a sharp breath and looked down at my right hand.
Nothing.
My fingers trembled slightly. I flexed them once. Twice.
The sensation faded.
"…Guess I'm more nervous than I thought," I muttered under my breath.
The gates opened fully.
And we stepped outside.
The first thing that hit me was the silence.
Not the calm kind. Not peace.
It was a hollow, stretched silence—like the world was holding its breath, waiting for something to break it.
The bunker gates closed behind us with a deep, echoing clang, sealing us off from the last illusion of safety. The sound lingered, bouncing off ruined concrete and twisted metal, before finally dissolving into nothing.
Yellow zone.
Collapsed buildings leaned toward the cracked streets like corpses frozen mid-fall. Rusted vehicles lay scattered everywhere, some half-sunken into the ground, others torn open from the inside. Black stains marked the pavement—old blood, burned flesh, something worse. I tried not to think about what had made them.
The air felt wrong. Thinner. Heavier. Like it pressed against my lungs with every breath.
"Eyes open," one of the veterans muttered. "No heroics."
I nodded, even though he wasn't looking at me.
We moved in a loose formation, weapons ready. Varek walked at the front, unhurried, his gaze constantly shifting—rooftops, windows, alleyways. Ami was nowhere in sight. I wasn't sure if that was intentional or if she was simply operating somewhere ahead of us.
The yellow zone wasn't empty.
It just pretended to be.
Every shadow felt deeper than it should've been. Every sound—metal creaking, distant rubble collapsing—made my shoulders tense. I kept remembering what Varek had said.
We took you because we were curious.
That didn't make me feel safer. It made me feel exposed.
"So," Varek said casually, breaking the silence, "how're you holding up?"
I hesitated. "Fine."
"Liar."
I glanced at him. He wasn't even smiling.
"…I've been worse," I admitted.
"Good. Means you're still thinking."
We passed what looked like an old transit station. The entrance had collapsed inward, forming a jagged hole that descended into darkness. Something moved down there. I felt it more than I saw it.
Varek noticed my stare.
"Don't worry," he said. "That's not our problem today."
That didn't mean it wouldn't become one.
As we continued deeper, the veterans began setting up sensors—small, blinking devices attached to walls and broken streetlights. The zone felt… restless. Like it didn't appreciate being observed.
I swallowed and forced myself to keep moving.
"Captain," I said quietly, lowering my voice. "You mentioned the Order of Teneris before."
Varek glanced back at me. "Yeah?"
"What exactly are they?"
He exhaled slowly, as if debating how much to say.
"Fanatics," he said finally. "They worship the Abyss. Call it the 'Mother of All Life.'"
That made my stomach twist.
"They believe monsters are the next step of evolution," he continued. "That humanity is obsolete. That the world is correcting itself."
"And they're strong?" I asked.
"Very," he replied. "They don't fear corruption. Some of them actively embrace it. Artificial mutations, rituals, abyss-touched weapons."
That explained the tone he'd used earlier.
"If we'd run into them instead of monsters," Varek said, "this mission would've gone very differently."
I didn't ask how.
We reached the designated reconnaissance point—an open plaza surrounded by half-standing buildings. Visibility was decent. Too decent.
That's when I heard it.
A low, wet sound. Like something breathing through torn flesh.
"Contact," one of the veterans whispered.
Shapes began emerging from between the ruins.
Small at first. Twisted. Crawling.
Dead-class monsters.
Their bodies were malformed, stretched in unnatural ways. Limbs bent at wrong angles. Empty eye sockets glowing faintly. They moved fast—too fast.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
"Formation!" someone shouted.
The veterans reacted instantly. Gunfire erupted, echoing across the plaza. One monster burst apart into dark mist—but three more took its place.
I froze.
My feet wouldn't move.
The world narrowed. Sounds dulled. The monsters blurred together with another memory.
Screams.
Blood.
My mother's voice.
I couldn't breathe.
"Move!" someone yelled.
I didn't.
The monsters lunged—
—and then the pressure hit.
Not fear. Not killing intent.
Something heavier.
The air itself seemed to bend.
A figure landed between us and the monsters with a thunderous crack.
Ami.
The ground fractured beneath her boots. Her presence alone made my chest tighten. Even from behind, I could feel it—that oppressive pressure, like standing too close to a storm.
The monsters hesitated.
That was their mistake.
Ami moved.
I barely followed her motions. One moment she was standing still, the next she was already among them. Her blade flashed—once, twice—and bodies fell apart as if cut by something far sharper than steel.
She didn't shout. Didn't hesitate.
She annihilated them.
But it wasn't easy.
More monsters poured in from the surrounding ruins. Larger ones. Sōsharenn—Consumed-class. Their roars shook the air.
Ami gritted her teeth. I saw it now—the strain. The way her shoulders tensed, the split-second pauses between strikes.
She was strong.
But not invincible.
"Fall back!" Varek ordered.
The veterans retreated in sync, covering each other.
I still hadn't moved.
The world snapped back into focus when something struck my face.
Hard.
I stumbled backward, pain exploding across my cheek. I hit the ground, gasping.
Ami stood over me, eyes cold.
"Get up," she said.
Her voice cut through the fog in my head.
"I said—get up."
I forced myself to my knees, shaking.
"Don't freeze," she continued flatly. "If you do, you die. Or worse—you get someone else killed."
She turned away without another word and rejoined the fight.
Watching her then, I understood something.
She wasn't protecting us.
She was eliminating obstacles.
The last monster fell with a distorted screech. Silence returned, heavier than before.
Ami stood amid the remains, breathing hard.
Then she walked toward me.
Her gaze pinned me in place.
"How pathetic," she said.
She grabbed my chin, fingers pressing just enough to hurt, forcing me to look at her.
"Why did you come here?" she asked. "I don't need people who die like flies."
I opened my mouth.
No words came out.
I'd thought I was stronger. Thought I'd changed.
I hadn't.
"Answer me," she said, leaning closer.
"I—"
"Oi."
A new voice cut in.
Casual. Amused.
We both turned.
A man approached from the edge of the plaza, hands raised lazily. Tall. Broad-shouldered. A wide grin plastered across his face.
"Oh?" he said. "Ami, already picking up boys?"
He laughed. "Did I interrupt something? Hope I didn't ruin the kiss."
Ami froze.
Then her face turned red.
"You've got the wrong idea!" she snapped, releasing me instantly.
The man chuckled. "Relax, relax."
He stepped closer and looked me over.
"So you're the rookie, huh?"
I straightened awkwardly. "Uh… sorry, but who are you?"
His grin widened.
"Who am I?" he said. "Good question."
He spread his arms slightly.
"Varek Eshen. Captain of the Third Division."
My breath caught.
The captain… himself?
He clapped a hand on my shoulder.
"Well," he said cheerfully, "since Ami's taken such an interest in you—I think I'll bring you along for something fun."
"Me?!" I blurted out. "I'd rather not—"
"You know the theory," Varek interrupted. "About the first place the 'god' descended. Where its body might still be."
My blood ran cold.
"Let's go check it out sometime."
I stared at him.
"And don't worry," he added, laughing. "We'll bring your girlfriend too."
Ami turned and stormed off toward the bunker.
"…She's not my girlfriend," I muttered.
Varek patted my shoulder.
"Sure, sure."
As we headed back, the strange sensation returned.
A grip.
Tighter this time.
I looked at my hand again.
Nothing.
The feeling vanished.
I exhaled slowly.
Just nerves, I told myself.
It's nothing.