Lucia stumbled through the rift behind me, staggering around like a drunk. I held onto her shoulder and supported her. Unfortunately, she barely lasted a few seconds before the rift nausea got to her. I patted her back gently while she kneeled a few steps away from the rift.

  We exited out into a small cave. From here, Ysron Caves spread out into a fairly large mine. F-rank, of course. This rift was pretty simple, and the enemies within should be easy enough to take care of. Especially if Lucia was fighting from range. The boss might be a bit trickier, but it’d probably be fine.

  [Nighteye shakes her head. ‘Probably’ and ‘fine’ should never be used together.]

  Whatever. Why do you always… wait, give me a second. I just learned this term… hmm… back seating? Yep, that was it. Why do you always backseat me? Come clear a rift yourself and then we can talk.

  [Nighteye’s ears pull against her heard. Come be a Constellation and then we can talk. Can’t even talk to the OS smh.]

  SMH? What was that? Steal my heart? Was that supposed to be a brag? Go bug someone-

  “S-sorry.” Lucia wiped at her mouth, not quite meeting my eyes.

  “First time. Natural.” Finally, someone worth talking to.

  “Still.” She shook her head as if disappointed in herself. She hefted her SMG and looked around the caves. “Now what?”

  Oh! Almost forgot. I stretched my hand into my pocket, forming earplugs of Ebonshroud. I handed two of them over to my charge and put two in my own ears. Her guns would be super loud down here bouncing around the mineshafts.

  Lucia took the offered earplugs. “Thanks. What’s in this place anyway?”

  ”Faceless.” I led the way out into a mined tunnel. Wooden beams supported the tunnel, keeping it from collapsing. The walls were marred with pickaxe marks, and lanterns flickered occasionally to provide dim lighting.

  Lucia rubbed at the grip of the mk5. “That doesn’t help much… What do they look like? What are they? How do they attack? Do they use weapons?”

  Tink! Tink! Tink!

  ”…” I pointed ahead toward the source of the noise.

  A humanoid figure clad in a jumpsuit and helmet swung a pickaxe again and again, whacking away at the wall. Fragments of stone and dust flew with every swing of its pickaxe. It made no reaction to us watching it even though we stood out in the open. It’s mind, what was left of it anyway, was single-handedly focused on mining.

  Lucia peeked over my shoulder. Her eyes twitched and she hesitantly shifted from foot to foot. ”I-is that a person?”

  I patted her on the shoulder encouragingly. “Monster.”

  “R-right. Right… okay. Can it not see us?” Lucia asked. “Or hear us?”

  ”No.” It was one of the reasons I picked this rift out specifically. The faceless wouldn't react unless we were right up on them. It’d give Lucia more than enough time to line up a shot, and we shouldn’t have to deal with more than one at a time until much further in.

  The plan was still to just get her some experience, Skills, and to see where she was at before taking on anything harder. The Skills part was the most important. She could always scrap them later for better stuff, but having at least something would make me feel a little better. Especially the boss’s drop at the end if we lucked out enough to get it.

  “Okay. I- I got this.” Lucia hyped herself and raised the Arcanite SMG. As soon as the Faceless was in her line of sights, her hand started shaking. She looked back toward me. “Sorry… you probably think I’m stupid don’t you? It just- it looks too much like a person.”

  “I know.” I gently pushed her arm away. She dropped the SMG, pointing it at the ground. Maybe I should’ve picked a different rift after all? Something with cute bunnies or dogs, maybe. “Back?”

  ”No… no. I-“ Lucia sighed and pulled her her gun back up, grasping the SMG tightly. A look of determination crossed her-

  Rat-tat-tat!

  A spray of shots fired off. They went wide for the most part, sparking down the mineshaft and impacting along the walls. She held the trigger, pointing in the general direction of the Faceless, and dumped the entire mag. By the end, the kick had her pointing at the roof almost ninety degrees off from where she started.

  Surpsingly, a few of the bullets actually hit. They punched holes through the monster’s body like a way heavier caliber. Arcanite’s fault, probably. The monster dropped and went still, pickaxe clattering to the ground. It was a bit messy, but that was one down.

  “…?” I mimed firing the gun, jerking my arms up and down to imitate burst firing.

  Lucia dropped the gun into its sling and rubbed at the back of her head. “I- I forgot… sorry. I’ll do better next time.”

  … if she had ammo left. At this rate, we’d be out of bullets before we even got to the more challenging spots in this place, let alone the Boss. No way I was letting her go into melee either. If she was this nervous and stressed from just this, she might freeze up with in melee combat.

  [Nighteye glares at you. Can’t you be more nurturing?]

  Hey now, I was just saying… besides, we were both thinking it. Not like we brought an armory’s worth of ammo down here. And isn’t it better to be pragmatic here? I could be very nurturing in places that weren’t dangerous… just ask Nivia? She’d tell you. I- I’m very nurturing. The most, even.

  [Nighteye’s whiskers twitch. Right, Nivia, the inanimate object.]

  Don’t say that, cat. You’ll hurt her feelings. Who’s the one that sucked at nurturing now?

  I moved past Lucia and crouched next to the faceless. One of the stray bullets had slammed through the Faceless Miner’s head, killing it almost immediately. I flashed a thumbs up at her. “…!”

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Up close, it was a twisted creature, looking as though it was once something humanoid. A tumorous growth covered its face in a mask of bulbous flesh, and its body was gaunt and worn as if it’d been starved for months. Not that it’d be able to eat anything with no orifices anyway. Every defining feature was covered by the cancerous growths.

  Contamination had evidently eaten away at the being that this used to be, draining it of individuality. No emotion- no sentenience remained in its hollow shell. Only instinct drove it to mine until disturbed. A horrid fate, with complete loss of self as they were slowly warped into a monster. Death was preferable. Trust me. I knew from first hand experience. Different contamination, close enough result.

  Lucia walked up behind me, reloading her SMG. ”Yeah... One down.”

  I carefully formed an Ebonshroud dagger and stabbed, aiming for its chest. I covered up the scene with my jacket when I saw Lucia looking a little green around the gills. Must have a weak stomach like Raging Bull. “Core.”

  She mutely nodded, and walked away to keep watch. Not that we really needed such a thing in this place. The Faceless weren’t the most attentive monsters. We’d have to put in way more effort if we wanted them to swarm at us.

  We moved on, leaving the fallen Faceless. We ran across several others on the way through the mineshafts, each of them taken care of just as easy as the last. Easier, even. Lucia’s aim improved after the first one, and the nature of the Faceless made them a breeze. By the last few, she even managed to use just one mag for four.

  I dug my dagger into the chest of yet another Faceless. Lucia hesitantly spoke up behind me. “Is this… it? I thought it’d be a bit more… dangerous?”

  ”F-rank.” I shrugged. Just the way these low-level ones went. At least, from what I’ve read and experienced.

  As long as there was even basic knowledge and fighting capability, they wouldn’t be a threat to most Wardens. Or even most equipped civies for that matter. The only reason so many people were stuck at F-rank was thanks to a lack of will or fear. Besides, why clear rifts when they could make Nytes with a safe and cushy job just for being a Warden? Or, if they had a good Trait, from just using said Trait.

  If the majority of low-rank Wardens actually applied themselves fully? D-rank would be the most common without any issue. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure, but it seemed C-rank was where actual prowess and equipment was needed outside of simple tactics.

  “Still…” Lucia stared down at the dead Faceless. The resistance and disgust that’d been on her face after the first Faceless had faded away to a bland muteness. “The board made these out as super dangerous like I would die at any moment.”

  ”Could clear. D-rank?” Probably. She had mediocre gun skills, at least, so it wouldn’t be that bad… but I had yet to see how she’d react once something actually got up in her face. Ambushing as we had been only went so far. From what I’d seen, D-rank was where positioning and all of that really started to matter

  We continued on, stopping at a T-intersection. The sound of pickaxes radiated from one of them, and the other was caved in. Looked like one of the wooden support beams had collapsed under the weight of the cave.

  Lucia plucked a rock from the pile and tossed it to the side. “Think there’s anything back there? There’s hidden loot rooms in rifts, right?”

  “…?” I hadn’t heard of that yet. I could probably go grab a pickaxe off one of the dead Faceless if she wanted in. “Dig?”

  “No.” The teenager backed away and shot the collapsed cave a critical look. “It’ll probably take a few hours to get through that with just picks. Maybe if we brought in some proper mining equipment?”

  Right, she probably knew better about caves and mineshafts than I did. Cernobog was supposed to produce some kind of industrial mining equipment, yep? “This way.”

  I pulled the sword from my hip and shield off my back, readying myself for combat. I hadn’t had to do much since we got in here, but that’d change coming up. If the Faceless from before were the tutorial, then up ahead was the first major fight.

  The mineshaft led out into a massive cavern. Scaffolding clung to the walls everywhere, supporting dozens of Faceless mining away. There were maybe two dozen of them in total. About a quarter of that were on the ground, loading mine carts with ore.

  In the center of the space, a supervisor looking creature walked around with a clipboard. Its limbs were triple jointed, appearing like a monster pretending to be human. Unlike the others, it had eyes. The fleshy mass smothering its face had been dug away by a clawed hand, trailing dry tears of blood down its ‘face’.

  “…!” I pulled Lucia back just as she was about to step out into the cavern.

  “Is something wrong?” Lucia looked ahead, her hand tightening on the grip of her gun.

  This spot was warned about heavily by the forums. Although the Faceless didn’t have good perception, the same couldn’t be said for the supervisor. And the supervisor could control the rest of the Faceless, so rushing out was a quick way to get surrounded.

  I pushed her back into the safety of the cave and motioned to the supervisor across the chamber. “…?”

  ”Kill it? I can try…” Lucia frowned, lifting her gun to aim at the monster. The creature bent unnaturally to inspect a mine cart full of ore, jointed limbs folding in a way that looked wrong.

  Her mk5 barked and ether-clad bullets lanced from the barrel. The area around us briefly grew brighter, illuminated by the fire pouring from her. She fired again and again in quick bursts, ensuring the thing went down.

  The first burst clipped the supervisor, staggering it into the minecart. A screech ripped from its throat while it took several more shots, sounding horribly muted and guttural thanks to the fleshy mass covering its mouth. The rest of the Faceless stopped and eerily looked right at us.

  Before the supervisor could do anything else, a final burst from Lucia slammed into its head, blasting through in a spray of gore. It collapsed, its safety helmet falling uselessly beside it.

  Lucia reloaded behind me. “S-sorry! It warned the others.”

  I braced for the rushing tide of Faceless, holding my Ebonshroud shield and short-sword at the ready. “‘S fine.”

  ”I-if you say so.” She shakily slammed a new mag into the mk5, firing past me into the waves of Faceless. Several died before they could even approach. With them all grouped up, it made it way easier for her to do some significant damage.

  The first closed the gap, swinging wildly with its pickaxe. I caught the mining tool on my shield and forced it to the side. While it was staggered, I stabbed out with my short sword. Ether flowed down the blade, and Etheric Reinforcement shrouded it. The blade sliced through the Faceless’s head like it was butter.

  The creature dropped, becoming a stumbling block for the rest of the monsters behind it. A burst flew just to the side of my head, clipping a Faceless lunging toward me with its pickaxe. It dropped and was immedietly trampled by its brethren, becoming just another corpse in the steadily growing pile.

  The fire support from behind stalled when Lucia’s gun clicked, allowing the Faceless to move toward me uncontested. I threw out a Horizontal Slash, catching two of them across the chest. They staggered back, blood leaking from fresh wounds and slowing the horde.

  I slid forward and caught another in the chest with my shield. It flew back into the ground. A quick thrust to the head finished it off. The horde recovered once more and pushed just in time to meet wild sprays from Lucia’s reloaded gun. Three more died in quick succession.

  Pickaxes, as could be expected from a tool designed for mining, didn’t make the best of weapons. They’d work in a pinch, but they were too unwieldy and slow, full of gaps to exploit. The weaknesses became even more apparent in a horde where they couldn’t get a full range of motion.

  I used those gaps perfectly, keeping the onslaught back with bashes of my shield and quick slashes of my sword. My aim wasn’t to kill them as much as keep them back to let Lucia finish them off. She fired bursts intermittently and steadily cleaned up the monsters.

  It wasn’t exactly quick, but it was easy. I never felt truly challenged, which was a bit of a shame. As could be expected from F-ranks, I guess. I blocked one last pickaxe, tossing it to the side with my shield. I shoulder slammed the Faceless, sending it sprawling to the ground behind me. Several Arcanite bullets pierced its head, dropping it.

  “T-that all of them?” Lucia shakily slammed another magazine into her mk5 and held it high. At least she knew to keep her guard up after a fight.

  I wiped my sword on a Faceless’s jumpsuit, ridding it of rotten blood. I eyed the cavern for a moment before dropping back into a neutral guard stance. “Yep.”

  “Haah.” Lucia leaned against the side of the mineshaft and checked her ammo. “Three mags left.”

  The inevitable issue with guns—ammo. It should all be fine though. We were near the end of this rift, and she had the pistol just in case. “Just boss.”

  I moved forward to start clearing out ether cores. I dragged the corpses to the side and neatly cut through them one at a time. Just in case, I kept my head on a swivel and constantly tracked Lucia’s position.

  Lucia headed over to the mine cart and picked up a piece of ore. “Such a shame we can’t take these out with us. It’s so high quality.”

  “Yep.” Stuff taken out of rifts usually ‘despawned’. There were some special circumstances and exceptions I’d read about, but that was the general trend.

  She tossed the chunk to the side and moved back to me. “D-do you need help?”

  “…” I shook my head. She was already holding up well, but making her cut into one of these things? That’d be pushing her too far, too fast. Best I just took care of it. See, annoying star? I could be nurturing. Nighteye didn’t deign to reply to me.

  Once I extracted the cores, we moved on. The Muffled Musketeer at the end of the Ysron Caves awaited us.