Smugglers. That was clear from all the rifles strewn about the cramped hideout that these two orcs and one centaur apparently lived in. Highly illegal without a license, and even then, nobody ever carried more than one. This cave had dozens. But, were it not for those rifles, the way they immediately converted into battle mode and lunged at Amelia and Hummer made them come off as more of hardened mercenaries than anything else.

When Amelia made her open wish that she would have more powerful foes to face, She did not imagine that, a few weeks later, she would have her face smashed in by a centaur’s fist. But that was exactly what happened here.

Her vision went spiraling as she crashed into the empty cooking pot and then fell on top of the smoked-out fireplace. Her clothes, now covered in ashes, absolutely reeked. But those were the least of her worries, because this was the first time she had been pummeled so thoroughly in a long while.

Activating olfactory dampeners.

Sensory level at fifteen percent.

You’re welcome.

Thanks, but that had almost no impact except to distract her from the fight at hand.

Hummer tried to hold her own, jabbing her sword in quick succession to make sure the female orc did not draw too near. But every step she took back, she got closer to the wall, where she would be too cornered to continue. With all the tables blocking the space around here, and the three giant-sized smugglers, there was practically no room to maneuver at all.

Amelia needed to cover the distance and protect her companion. So she did the sensible thing and smashed the table in front of her. Cleaved it straight in half—

And the weapons went flying all over the room. The bags of blastpowder, open and now flying through the air, spread out over the room like smoke bombs. A dagger very nearly cut through Hummer’s throat, but she smacked it away with her sword, and it stabbed through the male orc’s club. He tossed the weapon aside and grabbed Hummer by the throat instead.

“Ack!” Hummer yelped.

He growled at her unintelligibly, then yelled something in Orcish. The female orc turned around just in time and blocked Amelia’s strike towards the back of her head; she wielded a long rifle in both hands with its butt as a blunt weapon, but it was too slow; the orc smacked it away and then kneed her in the belly.

It hurt like hell, but it would have hurt worse had Amelia actually had a stomach in there. Instead, she recovered quickly and maneuvered around the woman with the newly opened-up space. The blastpowder had finally spread out throughout the room, blocking the view of everyone but her. So she used it to her advatnage.

She grabbed the male orc in a choke hold and yanked his neck back until he let go of Hummer; she fell to the ground, gasping and coughing, just as the male orc screamed in pain to alert the others. The two tangoed around until Amelia bumped into someone behind her—the centaur, who held a fully loaded flintlock to her face.

She ducked—

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE—

Just enough time to avoid the blast—

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE—

The cardboard boxes on the bunk bed exploded into a confetti of torn-up, fiery paper as the bullet impacted—

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE—

But not enough time to avoid getting her ears blown out.

Activating auditory dampeners.

Sensory level at ten percent.

Please use the Repair Module to improve ear function at your earliest convenience.

Permanent physical damage detected.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeee...

This time she was a little bit more legitimately thankful.

In the process of avoiding the flintlock shot, she had let go of the orc, who had now turned around and begun lashing out her with all his might. She absorbed blow after blow, suffering as much pain as her overclocked body would allow, and probably significantly more than that. One punch to the face chipped off a portion of rocks. Usually, the stony side of her was the more durable and deadly, but unfortunately, no skeleton or muscle sometimes meant she simply took direct damage.

With a room this cramped, [Harmonic Ring] would have been perfect. But it would also be something that would eviscerate Hummer and probably sent shrapnel right into Amelia herself. [Mana Burst] was similarly unpredictable with its wide range. So she had to hold back and take the attacks.

“Do we really have to fight?” Hummer screamed out, now sparring with the female orc and indeed pushed right up against the wall. Amelia could barely hear her with the audio dampener on. “Who are you three?”

“We can’t let Fleet’s Pride find out about any breaches,” the centaur said in a deep baritone. “They’ll kill us all.”

“We’re not North Sunwell!” she shouted back.

“Shut up,” the female orc said, attempting to yank Hummer’s sword away from her. But it was not successful. Hummer instead pulled back and made the orc lose her footing for just one crucial second—

Wherein Hummer stabbed the sword straight through her chest, piercing her leather armor.

The orc staggered backwards in shock, long before the pain actually set in, but after the shining red blood had already begun to spew out. The male orc screamed an obscenity in Orcish and ran over to the female to help her, giving Amelia a moment to catch her breath, but further cornering a now-weaponless Hummer.

The centaur came down with his club and nearly bashed her in the face, but she rolled aside and then got underneath the dining room table. When his hooves came near, she shoveed upwards and flipped the table over in his direction. He just managed to catch it and toss it towards the bunk beds before Amelia rolled underneath one of the weapons tables.

He approached slowly, with caution, expecting her to do it again, not able to see the flintlock below her that she frantically loaded up with powder on the ground and a stray bullet.

Powder, bullet, cock, roll, charge, fire. Powder, bullet, cock roll, charge, fire. She repeated the steps to herself incessantly.

When she finally acted, She pushed table backwards instead—into the two orcs—and rolled to the side. When the centaur failed to react in time, she charged right up to him—normally, a poor move, but here, the only one she could reliably make. He grabbed her sides with both his giant hands, but failed to capture her arms.

She raised the flintlock to his face, and his eyes went so wide she could see the individual sparkles of his bright green eyes. Eyes that no longer existed once she pulled the trigger—

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee—

The hands let go of her and the body collapsed onto the floor—

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee—

Amelia landed on her feet and threw the flintlock pistol into the back of the male orc’s head as he held the female orc by the shoulders. He turned around just in time to see her kick to the face, then a punch with her left hand.

As he reeled backwards, Amelia activated [Throwing Hands] and sent her right fist—glove and all— careening into his skull. It came back to her, and she launched it again. Three times, then four. All of them direct hits. He gurgled something out, and he did not yet fall to the ground, but he was dazed to the point of uselessness.

Hummer, for her part, took care of the female orc all on her own. She yanked the sword out of her chest, then stabbed again in a different spot. Then, in the stomach. The female orc grasped at her body, as if holding it tight would save her from losing all her blood, and she fell down to her knees. She looked over to her near-catatonic companion, but the man was already out, and tears filled in her face. Amelia gently pushed on him, and he collapsed, dead.

She had little time to live, as well. Before Hummer could stab the orc one last time, Amelia stepped in front of her.

“One question,” Amelia said. “You use synth, right?”

The orc looked baffled by the question, and not one hundred percent conscious, either.

“Synth. Do you use it?”

“Y-yeah...” the woman blurted, struggling greatly just to speak with all the blood over her.

“Who’s your dealer?” she asked, but immediately revised the question to, “Do you know any synth dealers on Floor 4?”

“Northeast... By the bracken forest... Big white door.”

“Anything special about it? Anything suspicious?”

But the orc had already lost consciousness by the time she asked. Amelia bent down and, with one of the knives on her belt, slit her throat and ended it quickly. Hummer looked away and gagged.

Amelia turned her audio dampeners off. The ringing in her ears had mostly subsided, and the entire room was eerily still. Almost perfectly silent.

Amelia and Hummer dared not move for several moments, as if just to confirm that the fight was over.

And it was.

“Apparently,” Amelia said as she stood back up, “the smugglers did not want us to find this cave.”

“Seems like it. Why didn’t they just, you know, threaten us and make us leave? Why did they have to attack?”

“Fleet’s Pride, whatever that is. Have you heard of it?”

“Name sounds familiar, but I don’t keep up with the news too often, sorry. It reminds me too much of home.” Hummer looked down at her sword and her hands shook. “I killed her, Amelia. My first one.”

“Mm.”

“I was in the Royal Guard for two years, you know. Big responsibilities and all. We went into battle during the War of Three Islands, but I never had to... I’ve seen it all before, but it’s different when it’s me.”

“Always is,” Amelia said. “You won’t get used to it.”

“Oh.”

“But there’s always people who will support you.”

The unspoken implication hung in the air, and Hummer picked it up with a soft smile, then changed the subject. “Big white door, northeast section?”

“Yes. We wasted too much time here. We need to—”

A pack of melanoids, attracted by the loud noises and smell of mana-filled corpses, came shambling through the entrance, claws bared.

“This is never going to end,” Hummer moaned, clasping her sword and reentering a fighting stance.

Amelia cracked her knuckles. “Yes it will. We just have to fight our way through it.”

They did.