- Unknown Village, Avalon Empire’s territory–

- inside the catacombs, underground prison -

- 2130hrs, local time -

“What? Save them? Don’t you see their current condition? Then again, our objective isn’t them. We need to keep moving.” Jaeger was rather sceptical about saving the confined children, especially since they were twenty meters deep beneath the ground. Escorting more than two of them is already quite a hassle, as they need going to need to exfiltrate the village right when they are back on the surface.

“And we’re just going to let these kids die here!?” as the two raised their voices. One of the children suddenly cried in terror, “No!! Please!! I’ll be a good child!! It hurts!!” she said, cowering in the corner of her confinement room. 60k glances where the little girl cried, grimacing as he looked through his thermal visor that the girl was in a violent seizure.

Jaeger sympathises, although…. “we’re mercs, not peacekeepers or humanitarian soldiers. You remember we’re here because ABEL hired us, and they technically made a pact with the Apollyon Kingdom. There’s absolutely no reason for us to keep refugees right now” Jaeger looked behind 60k into another room in silence, “then again, just look at their condition. They’re badly beaten up. Some probably have cranial injuries and leg fractures. And look, one of them doesn’t seem to be moving at all. Can they even be saved?”

“but-“

“We have our orders, Lieutenant! And I’m not gonna repeat myself!”

60k went silent even though he wanted to say something about it. Then again, Jaeger has a point; they’re not in the military; they’re paid to complete their task that’s riskier than most operations and most likely to be expendable in most cases. They then continued proceeding deeper, having Coyote taking the lead in the front. But as they’re going to leave, Jaeger stops in his tracks and glances back at his shoulder, looking back at the lined-up prison rooms behind him for a short moment to where the little girl is still crying, having his empathy return for a brief moment and shrugging it off moments later.

The cries’ echoes faded as they went deeper underground. The team was quite grateful that night vision technology existed as it was pitch black. Normally, night vision goggles won't work under pitch-black lighting though they came prepared as their weapons are equipped with Infrared illuminators; it works as a low light flashlight that won’t blind the user with blinding lights. With their equipment at hand, they only took 10 minutes to reach the deepest part, which is a large man-made cave with a ceiling that is layered with mixed limestones and ceramic. There are more than five massive pillars surrounding the centre platform area. Around them are stone bridges enough to fit five people to walk at the same time. The surrounding water flowed down from some holes in the ceilings above, which also refracted the torches and somehow some light that most likely came from the moonlight from the surface.

It was quite a beautifully surreal place, yet it felt ominous. Especially the centre stone platform, which has a massive sigil circle engraved onto it, looking out like it was made by a cult. Which, technically speaking, it is. Jaeger and his men slowly walk down the stairs that lead to the stone bridge. The three are in a wedge formation, this time Jaeger being the lead. They’re aiming here and there, overly cautious.

“Alpha lead to Hornet’s nest. Are you seeing this?” he asked through his radio. There was some interference in their comms, but regardless it went through even though he couldn’t hear from the other side clearly due to the immense static sounds.

“…opy Alp… we’re confirming it with…. age, standby.”

“Understood”

It took a minute for Headquarters to send a reply, “Alpha, conduct SSE and… ow the place sky high. Confir… by… age that i… he objective. Shi..! yo… conec… unsta…”

In that moment, Jaeger’s call was cut off. Yet, at least he got a confimation about the target. “alright, you heard him. Coyote and I will conduct SSE. 60K, place explosives around this place. Probably blowing out those pillars will work fine.”

“On it”, 60K replied and proceeded to jog to the first pillar to plant an explosive charge. Jaeger and Coyote split out to each of the ends of the bridges that connected to the centre stone platform, going through the tunnels again.

Jaeger slowly walked along the corridor he went through. It has some unlit torches hanging on every several meters. It was quite a long one, somehow not having any rooms. He asked Ofnir to display the mapping of the place again to see if there was anything around. As he zoomed in and out, panning here and there around the 3D map of the catacombs. He found several points that looked like a room. He then slowly makes his way there, having his rifle still up and on high alert.

He finally arrived at a junction that was lit up by several torches. On the left, there was a normal-looking wooden door; across it, there was a rusted metal gate. He picked the left one first, checking if it was locked and deployed a micro drone through the keyhole to see anything inside. Apparently, the door leads to a room that looks like a dorm area. As he noticed the door wasn’t locked, he opened it slowly and threw a flashbang inside, setting a series of flashing lights inside. As it resided, he could hear some cries, yelling about how it was suddenly blinding and loud. He kicked the door sending it flying, shattering as it hit the wall across due to the immense power the exoskeleton gave, shocking the people that were inside.

“s**t, that was too much, I think….”

[no s**t, sir, you didn’t breach the door. You blew it to smithereens.]

“thank you for your unneeded comments Ofnir. Very cool. That aside…”

Apparently, there were two people inside who already had a sword and a dagger drawn out, but since they were stunned due to the flashbang grenade, Jaeger stormed inside the doorway and set his weapon sights at the armed men.

“ON THE KNEES! NOW!”

“wha-! Who in the world-!?” one of them said as he regained some of his vision. The dimly lit room could only make him see Jaeger’s silhouette from the doorway. “ughh… I don’t care who it is! He’s not supposed to be here! KILL HIM!”

Not even a single step was taken by those men; six suppressed gunshot was fired, though they echoed throughout the corridor. The two limped down to the ground, blood spilling out from their bodies and head to the stone floor, where they lay dead. Jaeger scanned the area, noticing that there was nobody else there. He then checked on who he shot, kicking the corpse and rolling it to the side to see their faces. It was the priest earlier and his curate, who was younger than Jaeger himself. He then looks around the place. Books, scriptures, etc., are scattered all over their desks. He picked one up and opened its pages, trying to gather information from what was inside. Some of the books are truly just religious scriptures, so he neglects them as he doesn’t want to disrespect them, but as he opens one certain journal, it has ominous notes written inside.

“holy sh-… what the hell is this? I mean, it’s just a magic research thing, but all of this is just equivalent to sacrilegious teachings….”

[should I scan it and save it to my database, sir?]

“yes, do it. It’s a precaution if we lose this journal on our way back. This should be enough for us for now.”

He then picked up the books that he deemed needed to be brought back and shoved them inside his daypack, and quickly walked out of that area back to the massive cave where 60k is at. As he arrived back at the bridge again, he could see Coyote coming out from the shadows of the other catacomb corridor across him. Coyote jogged towards him and shrugged.

“Nothing on my end. It’s just a storage room filled with consumables and other objects that I don’t recognize.”

“did you bring one or anything?”

“No… I don’t think bringing one is a good idea. Some of it gives a lot of ominous vibes that gave me chills. Other than that, I took some pics of it so HQ and the indigenous could examine it or something.”

“… you do know we’re about to blow this place sky-high, right?”

“Hey! At least the pic I took could provide evidence on what they’re doing.”

Jaeger then checks his wristwatch, noticing that the time is rather off from the current local time. Regardless, Jaeger could know that they’d been in the cave for more than forty minutes. They need to be quick if they need to get out of the village unnoticed. But to his surprise, as they were about to call 60K, the two heard a lot of footsteps coming from the direction they came from. Coyote hid behind one of the pillars across Jaeger’s. The number of footsteps got louder and louder until they stopped right on the stairs that led to the platform.

“trespassers! We know you’re here! Show yourself! Or your comrade here will face the consequences!” a female shouted. Her tone was rather heavy as it echoed throughout the hall.

“stay hidden. When I give the signal, throw a flash and suppress the hell out of ‘em,” Jaeger whispered through the radio, which got a thumbs up from Coyote, who was leaning at the pillar.

Jaeger emerged from his cover, standing in the middle of the pathway to the platform. The reflected moonlight above shone at him, who was wearing a full-on black Multicam outfit, slightly grey body armour and helmet. His gun is lowered on his sling, not wanting any hostilities with the people who hold his teammate captive, either 60K or Point. But as he looked closer, it was 60K instead. A sword is mere inches from his neck. Another person is pointing a spear behind him, while there’s another person with a staff which looks like a mage. And the leader of the group which is a man in his white armour, sharp hair and a scar on his cheek, glaring daggers at Jaeger

“I see you decided to show yourself. Very wise of you,” the female, who was the suspicious nun, has an evil smug. The rest were the adventurers that they encountered earlier in the abandoned shack.

“so it’s you, the guy that got detected by my [presence detection] skill. That same aura of yours just reeks death all over you.” Jaeger chuckled at the man’s statement. “what’s funny?”

“no, it’s just you said the same thing my mother told me. To be fair, I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“that wasn’t even a compliment! Furthermore, who are you, people?! How can you traverse this catacomb without a torch or a map?!” the man shouted. Pointing his unsheathed sword at him with a scornful look

“funny that you asked that while not putting any suspicion towards this damn place. Then again, let go of my men. We’ll spare your lives.”

“hah!? Are you blind? You probably only have a knife to fight us, and we completely su-“The man’s words were cut off as he suddenly heard the guy that had his sword on 60k’s neck scream in agony as Jaeger’s shot penetrated the man’s right hip and crumpled to the ground, holding the bullet wound to stop the bleeding. The man in white armour’s eyes grew wide in horror as he looked at his friend crying in pain. As he glanced back to Jaeger, the merc had his rifle up already. The man knew from Jaeger’s stare, aura, and everything about him that he wasn’t someone that he should mess with. He’s facing someone that’s far more dangerous than any B-class monster he and his party ever faced. Even the nun was extremely shocked at it too.

“Millia! Cast a high-level barrier while healing Klein, and retreat! I’ll try to hold him off!”

“h-hey! What about the quest I’ve given to you!” the nun frantically tried to hold the adventurer’s retreat but to no avail. The man in white armour neglected her. “hey!”

“Sorry miss, but this quest doesn’t fit your request. These ain’t normal trespassers. They have better weapons than us which we don’t know. I’m not going to risk my friend’s life for this.”

The mage awkwardly cast multiple spells at once, making a magic sigil appear in the ground, and a semi-spherical-shaped luminous barrier was summoned. Though they thought they were safe, Coyote, who was hiding, emerged out from his cover as he saw Jaeger’s hand, which was the signal that he aforementioned and threw a flashbang towards them, lay down, and deployed the bipod of his machine gun. 60K saw what Coyote was doing, quickly dived down to the right and covered his head, which confused the adventurers.

BANG BANG BANG BANG

The flashbang sparked brightly with multiple bangs, blinding the group.

“rain ‘em hell.”

Thunderous rattles echoed throughout the Catacombs. The mage girl and the nun shouted in fear as the casted barrier was rained down with lead. The incendiary ammo, which reacted with the barrier, caused massive fumes of smoke. Clouding the stairs and around it. As Coyote ran out of ammo in his box magazine, he quickly grabbed another box and reloaded his machine gun. Though, as he finished reloading, 60K shouted at them.

“You f**king idiots! Are you trying to kill me or something!?”

“My bad dude! At least you survived, right?”

“survive my ass! That was f**king scary you dumb**s!!”

Between their banter, the mage girl is now cowering in fear while the rest of her party is pretty much in shock as to how they survived that. Standing up again from his cower, the man in white armour was even more surprised to find that their barrier had nearly got shattered. Several more bullets and it’ll be his last quest along with his party.

“dear goddess… what in the world is that weapon….”