Dungeon Core Infestation Part Two

I had cut down so many goblins with my sword. Miko had knocked out at least three of the commander orcs, but the dungeon core was generating more enemies faster than we could handle. We were eventually forced back into the maze of cubicles by the sheer number of enemies, only managing to escape when Miko pulled a device from her backpack and threw it into the air.

"Boss! Cover your eyes, now!" she shouted.

I immediately did as she suggested.

Even through my closed eyelids, I understood what happened next. The device exploded in a brilliant flash of light, rendering all the monsters in the area temporarily blind. When I reopened my eyes, I saw Miko signaling for us to take cover in the cubicles.

"So... How long are the effects going to last?!" I asked Miko as we ran deeper into the maze. Some of the walls were already melted through, and strange bat-like creatures were scattered on the ground. Many of them had arrows sticking out of their bodies, and others were simply burnt to a crisp. Someone had been busy, I thought as the mental image of Aki came to mind. I hoped she was okay.

"Ten... maybe fifteen seconds?" Miko huffed, lugging the weight of her backpack as she ran. "They won't have caught up just yet. But boss, you gotta pop the safety off my shooting. Let me unleash Miko madness on these bozos. I know I can clear them out in no time flat, just like the first floor."

"No, Miko," I replied. "We need to watch out for collateral, and you are not very good at that. I don't want you tearing down the entire building."

We reached the end of one of the cubicles and turned left, instantly coming face-to-face with another orc boss, this one holding an axe.

"Human. Food."

He lifted his weapon over his head, prepared to split me down the middle. But Miko immediately jumped in front of me, her machine gun already spooling up to fire.

"Eat this, uggo!"

She pulled back on her trigger, prompting the multiple barrels on her weapon to spin while shooting rounds of superheated blue energy. The blasts connected with the orc, sending him flying back and crashing into the opposite wall of cubicles. However, because Miko's weapons weren't set to overkill, per my request, the orc had only fallen unconscious. Just like the others, he had tanked most of the damage.

"Thanks, Miko," I said, showing appreciation for the shorter girl's efforts. If it wasn't for her, I’d have been axed in two a second ago.

"Don't mention it, boss," she replied, keeping her eyes locked on her weapon as she swapped out the mana crystal from its compartment for a new one she had fished from her backpack. She gave the gun a little bump on its side with the palm of her other hand when she was done reloading. "Them orc bosses might be waking up and closing in on us soon. We gotta find Aki so we can mount an assault and clear a path for her and the employees."

"Right!"

We resumed running through the maze of cubicles, this time searching for our blonde-haired companion. I alternated between my lightning magic and using my sword to fight off the hordes of goblins we encountered along the way. Miko also alternated between her machine gun and ice blaster, rapidly chewing through her reserves of mana crystals that powered her weapons. I was starting to get tired; using so much magic was making me feel a little light-headed.

We followed the trail of melted walls to find Aki, and after a few minutes without running into her, I reached for my walkie-talkie. But before I could radio in...

"Aki!"

Miko shouted when we turned a corner and finally met up with them. They were all huddled together in the center of the maze. It was a much larger area.

Aki was in rough shape.

Her ponytail had come loose, her jacket was torn at the right shoulder exposing the black tank top underneath, and the quiver she was carrying on her back only had two arrows left inside. Her face was also covered in bruises. Luckily, there didn’t seem to be any blood. She must have come under a lot of fire during her solo mission to rescue the office workers. And from the scared but relieved faces of the people behind her, it was clear she had succeeded.

"Aki, you okay?" I asked as I stepped a little closer to her. She didn't appear to be trembling; she didn't look worried or frightened. Instead, she looked calm. Focused. Determined. The face of my level six fire mage who had everything under control, including herself.

She nodded.

"Yes, Captain," she said with a smile. "All of me is accounted for and ready to go. Ze demon tried to emerge through my emotions from all of ze violence, but I told myself it was not senseless killing. It was for the mission. To save ze people."

"That's good, I'm glad you were able to control it," I added, returning a smile of my own.

For a moment, we just stared at each other. In the middle of all the chaos, with all the madness occurring around us, for some reason, I temporarily found myself focused solely on Aki's eyes. They were so bright. They were so violet. They were so... comforting.

In that moment, it was as if all my worries were melting away into the infinite void of nothingness. And that smile, oh my God that smile. I could kill a man for that smile. This was strange. Why was I feeling this way? At a time like this, to boot.

Our gaze lingered for what was nearing a small eternity before it was broken by the bickering of a few office workers waiting behind Aki.

"So... are we still getting rescued or what?"

"Shut up, they're having a moment. It's romantic."

At the sound of their argument, Aki and I quickly looked away and refocused our attention back to the mission. I cleared my throat as I spoke.

"My apologies," I said as I addressed the crowd in my best captain’s voice. "We are getting each and every one of you out of here. Miko." I turned to face the shorter girl. She jumped to attention. No doubt she had been fiddling with the settings on her gadgets while I wasn't looking.

"I've been thinking, and you're right."

"I am?" she asked, surprised. "I mean... Of course I am," she confirmed, puffing out her chest in pride. Then she looked at me in confusion. "What am I right about?"

"As your captain, I shouldn't stop you from being who you are, or doing what you do best," I said, noticing from the corner of my eye that we were slowly being surrounded by orcs and goblins on all sides of the maze. Aki and Miko soon noticed it too. The creatures had found us and were aiming to box us in.

If only I hadn't ordered Miko to nerf the settings on her machine gun, the orcs would have been dead, and we wouldn't have found ourselves slowly being overwhelmed by the enemy on all sides.

"But rather," I continued, "I should trust you and help you control it."

The office workers had also noticed our predicament and were beginning to panic. Aki was reaching for one of her remaining arrows. Breaking out was not going to be easy. Unless.

"So, with that said," I brandished my sword as I simultaneously turned and cast a protection magic around the employees. A blue dome soon covered all of them, securing them from any stray fire.

"Miko." I turned my attention back to the brown-haired girl. "Weapons to max, blast us a route to the elevator! Now!"

Miko's eyes widened in shock, her breath suddenly catching in her throat. She was never expecting such an order, from me no less. However, she quickly recovered, and a devilish smirk soon eclipsed her face. "Your wish is my command, dear captain," she said, grinning. "Time to cause some Miko mayhem."

What followed was Bazooka Babe at her finest, Miko fully unleashed. Everything happened so fast, but adrenaline made it feel like it was happening in slow motion.

As all of the monsters simultaneously charged towards us, Miko plucked a device from her belt and chucked it in the air. Since I had already seen the thing in action, I already knew what it was and what it did. Apparently, so did Aki.

The device exploded in a bright flash, and when I reopened my eyes, everybody was temporarily frozen in blindness, everyone except Miko, Aki, and me. However, the shorter girl wasn't done yet.

While the monsters halted their charge and staggered around disoriented, Miko set her backpack on the ground. She rummaged around and pulled out a few things: another machine gun, what resembled a small rocket, a grenade, extra attachments for her weapons, and an MP3 player she immediately plugged into one of her ears.

What the—? I couldn't even ask her why she had brought a device like that to the middle of a mission.

She loaded the grenades onto her belt, fixed the attachments to her weapons, and the moment she hit play on her MP3 player, Miko was fully immersed in the world of her guns and whatever music she was listening to.

Then the symphony of explosions began.

"Kum gaga yamaaaaa!"

Miko was now dual-wielding her blasters as she sprayed nonstop plasma fire into the enemy ranks in front of us. Orcs, bats, and goblins were blowing apart under the relentless might of her shooting, made worse by the fact they simply couldn't retreat or run away since they all couldn't see. The attack was so devastating, entire cubicles and walls were being blown apart and incinerated under the onslaught. It was an unbelievable amount of collateral, the kind that could only be caused by my trigger-happy gremlin, and right now, it was exactly what I needed to get us out of here.

She briefly stopped shooting to pluck her grenades from her belt, throwing all of them at the monsters trying to flank us from the left. Then she turned to fire off her rockets at the ones on the right. It seemed like the monsters could all see again.

I couldn't do much since I was preoccupied with shielding the rescued office workers with my protection magic, so I signaled to Aki to handle the monsters that were trying to sneak up on us from behind. Yup, they could definitely all see again, and were more agitated than before.

Receiving my orders, Aki got into position.

"Fire Rush! Volcano blast!"

Whoa... That was a new one.

Aki unleashed a burst of fire, much bigger, redder, and hotter than I had ever seen her flames before. The swirling embers engulfed the entire army of orcs and goblins behind us, roasting every single one of them and turning them into piles of bones and ash. As soon as she was done, she stopped firing and turned to flash me a smile and a thumbs up. A little shocked from the carnage, I managed to return a nervous smile of my own. Why were the women on my squad casually packing so much destructive potential?

"Elevator sighted! Up ahead!"

I was speechless at the sight before me. Miko had single-handedly cleared out all of the remaining mobs on the floor. No orcs or goblins were left alive. Even the maze of cubicles had been destroyed in her pursuit to find us a way out.

"Nice shooting, gunner," I said to her. "Alright, everybody, make a break for the elevator now! Before the dungeon generates more monsters."

I released my grip on the protection spell, allowing the office employees to run towards the elevator. Luckily, they all fit inside, including Aki.

"Vait, aren't you guys coming?" Aki asked.

"We still need to find the dungeon core and destroy it," I told her. "Just help guide the office employees out to safety. There might be respawned goblins on the first floor again, so I need you to protect the workers from them."

Aki hesitated, but then nodded. She pushed the button for the first floor, and the elevator doors slid closed as the car went down. When the car came back up, it was empty.

"Alright, ready Miko?"

"Ready!"

We hurried into the elevator, and I immediately pushed the button for the sixth floor. Since the office workers were safe, there was no need to waste our time on the other floors. Maybe if I were hanging out with a bunch of high school friends, then systematically clearing out each section would be a fun idea for a Saturday night out. But right now, we were on a mission. We needed to kill the core before the entire structure collapsed.

The elevator doors dinged and slid open. Surprisingly, unlike the previous floors, not much had changed here. It still looked like an executive boardroom, with just a handful of irregularities. Instead of a bunch of slimy businessmen wearing suits, seated at the long center table were instead stone golems wielding spears.

The moment they saw us, they rose to their feet. However, before they could move another inch, Miko jumped in front of me and immediately opened fire.

"Ello, boys. Management has a message. You're fired."

She blew apart the entire room, splintering wood, bursting concrete, turning everything inside into ash and soot. By the time she was through, there was nothing left but smoke.

"Well, I guess I'll go look for the core then," I said, trying to hide the squeak in my voice and the sting in my eyes. This was so much collateral damage. Beyond the additional truckload of paperwork that would eat my life for a month, I’d be lucky if we didn’t get reprimanded for this, which might very well leave a permanent ink on our record. But...

"Nice shooting, Miko," I said to the shorter girl.

"Aye aye, boss. Just doing my job."

It took me some time, but I eventually found the dungeon core underneath the nearly destroyed center table. It was directly in front of one of the seats. I guess somebody on the board of directors didn't like how management was handling things and decided to take matters into his own hands. But it wasn't my job at the moment to figure out who.

My job was to destroy the large, pulsating, egg-shaped orb rooted underneath the large desk. And with a quick swing of my sword, that was exactly what I did.