Kyra was the first to react. She cried out with proper urgency, "Quick! Back to the first room!"

  No one moved. Instead their eyes turned to Noemi, the designated team captain, who took a moment longer to come to the same conclusion as her.

  "Let's move it!" Noemi ordered.

  The team scrambled back through the previous door. It had a crank on both sides, and she caught Noemi staring at it before slipping through.

  "Such an obvious problem," Noemi muttered to herself. "Staring us in the face the whole time. How did I not notice?"

  "There will be time to dissect our mistakes later," she said. "Right now the team needs you to keep your mind in the moment."

  With her sensitive ears, she picked up Alba whispering to Lucas as they ran back through the third chamber. "Did you see how fast that crank was turning? Even Gabin has to take it slow. Whatever's on the other side, it isn't struggling at all."

  But the biggest danger wasn't what was trying to come through that fourth door. It was all the doors they'd left behind unsupervised.

  They were back in the second chamber. There was one door left between them and the first chamber, where the portal was.

  But they were too late.

  The doorway was blocked by two goblin shieldbearers. Backing them up was a second row of shieldbearers. And behind them was an assembly of goblin spearmen being reinforced by a continuous trickle coming in from the sides.

  The only thing keeping their mistake from turning into an outright tragedy was that monsters couldn't pass through a portal until a dungeon reached its breakout stage. The workers in the repair shop were safe.

  Noemi snapped into action. "Gabin, seal off the room behind us. We need to delay the strong ones until we clear a path to the exit. Alba, Lucas, you're on me."

  Gabin dutifully grabbed the crank and started turning while the others focused on the goblins at the door.

  Noemi probed at the goblin shieldbearers, trying to create an opening for the back row to land a hit. In an open field she could have taken them out without assistance, but their positioning in the doorway eliminated all her advantages.

  For most D-rankers, this situation would have only been a mild inconvenience. The difference in sheer physical strength would see an F-rank goblin's shield break in only a few full-strength strikes from a D-rank swordswoman. But Kyra quickly came to understand that Noemi hadn't only been neglecting her endurance training.

  "Uh, captain, we've got another problem." Alba pointed to a side door that was slowly cranking open.

  Noemi cursed. "All right, new plan. We can't allow ourselves to be surrounded."

  Noemi grabbed the crank and started winding the door to the first room closed while Alba and Lucas continued to pepper the goblins with ranged attacks to discourage them from rushing in. The goblin formation remained in place behind the door and made no attempt to stop it from closing. Shieldbearers were defensive by nature and weren't likely to take the initiative without a hobgoblin to lead them.

  "Captain! We've got a problem!"

  This time the cry came from Gabin. His door, with only a small gap to go, seemed to have gotten stuck. While he was straining with all his might, the crank had stopped turning. No . . . just ever so slightly, it was moving back the other way.

  "The two of you finish this up," Noemi ordered and ran over to assist Gabin.

  Together Alba and Lucas grabbed the crank. It was awkward without the space for all their hands until Alba fished out a spare leather strap and used that to pull. With both of them digging in their heels and putting all their weight into it, the crank slowly, very slowly, started to shift.

  The shieldbearers remained as passive as ever, and the spearmen behind them had no way through, so Kyra left the side of Alba and Lucas and made her way over to Gabin. There she topped up his stamina, and this restored enough of his strength that even without Noemi's help, he could keep the crank from turning back.

  Then it was back to Alba and Lucas, who were already beginning to struggle. A top-up got them moving again, and then it was back to Gabin once more. Meanwhile Noemi was at the third door, the one that had started moving only moments ago, and it was only a matter of time before the fourth door started moving too.

  The moment was fast approaching when Kyra would have to decide how much of her power to reveal, or if she was willing to let these people die. Before Teelameer, it would have been an easy decision. There were more lives at stake in her secret than these four. And she'd spent the months since, telling herself she'd done the right thing.

  She couldn't see a way out of this that didn't require her intervention. There was no way to disable the cranks or door mechanisms, as built-in dungeon features were nearly indestructible, even against high-grade magic. Fire that could melt stone back in Concordia would only scorch the surface of a dungeon wall.

  That also ruled out any ideas of digging their way out. When in a dungeon, you had to play by the dungeon's rules and use the layout it gave you instead of modifying it to your advantage.

  The only way out was through one of these doors.

  For the monster competing with Gabin for control of the crank to match the D-rank shieldbearer in raw strength, it no doubt had to be the boss of the dungeon. If Noemi and Gabin could take it on two-on-one, they had a fighting chance.

  But that was a big if. There was no telling how many subordinates it had picked up along the way.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  The door to the first room they'd already tried and failed. It was too well blockaded.

  That left only the side rooms.

  She turned her attention to the third door where Noemi had hold of the crank and noticed something strange. The door was sliding the wrong way. Noemi was helping the monsters open it up.

  Noemi saw her staring and shouted to her. "I'm going to clear this room out, and then we're going to let the big one break through!"

  "Wait for Alba and Lucas!" she shouted back.

  Noemi shook her head. "I had a peek at what's on the other side. I can handle this!"

  The sound of snapping leather cut off her protest. It was Alba's strap. A hobgoblin must have found its way into the first room, and now the crank was working against them.

  But there was a bigger problem. Now that the goblins had leadership, they could begin advancing into their chamber. Alba and Lucas both came to the same understanding and abandoned the crank to move and cover the doorway.

  Meanwhile the hobgoblins at Noemi's door had squeezed their way into the room. They'd taken some nasty stabs from her sword in the process, but it was still five on one. The odds favored the D-rank hunter, but time was running against her.

  Gabin looked over at the battle. "Hold on, I'll come help!"

  "You stay there and buy me time!" Noemi ordered.

  Gabin looked torn, but hair by hair the crank continued to slip, and he remained where he was to slow it down.

  Noemi went all-out from the get-go. The nimble estoc matched her agile grace, the weapon and the master perfectly suited for one another. It was like lightning in her hands, flashing brilliantly in the fire from the sconces lining the walls as it found its way into the gaps in the enemy's armor.

  The battle flowed across the room, the hobgoblin formation in disarray as Noemi danced around and in between them. Her movements were faster and more fluid than Kyra had seen from her before. This was the fruit of all those hours of jealous training, pushed to her limits by necessity and her duty to her team.

  But as the fight wore on, the flaw in Noemi's approach became clear. The gaps in the armor existed where they did for a reason. All the vital points were covered, so she could never land a fatal blow. And while the injuries on the hobgoblins were slowly accumulating, this was simply a pace that Noemi couldn't sustain.

  Back at the first door, Alba and Lucas were peppering the goblins with arrows and spells to keep them from pushing through. Alba turned away momentarily to aim her bow at the churning melee in the center of the room. She let an arrow loose.

  A solid hit! The arrow pierced through the metal armor in a way Noemi's estoc couldn't easily do. The hobgoblin arched its back in surprise, and this opening was all Noemi needed to close in and drive her sword into its exposed neck.

  The first hobgoblin was down!

  Alba was already tracking the next hobgoblin with her bow and let loose a second arrow. It flew on target toward the creature's neck. But with the fall of its friend, the hobgoblin had taken notice of the long-range threat, and just in time it dropped down into a slide, and the arrow sailed harmlessly overhead.

  Except the arrow wasn't harmless.

  Archers are taught to always be mindful of what lies behind a target. Such a simple and obvious concept is something that must be repeated until it's drilled into their bones, and even then it can be forgotten in moments of high pressure.

  Unfortunately for Alba, what lay behind the target was Gabin's shoulder.

  "Oh my god!" Alba cried. The shock of her mistake had her momentarily frozen in place, helping with neither Lucas at the door nor Noemi in the battle.

  Kyra rushed over to Gabin's side and pulled at the pauldron to get to the wound. She wasn't familiar with armor because neither she nor her disciples ever wore any. Gabin had to instruct her to help remove his gauntlet first and then how to get around to the straps.

  Once the pauldron was off, she carefully pulled the arrow out, making sure the arrowhead came with it. A stream of blood followed it out and it began to slow thanks to Gabin's hunter regeneration. She placed her hand over the hole to close it instantly and within seconds had restored all the tissue within.

  The entire process took far too long, and she didn't actually need direct access to the injury site, but it was necessary to do it this way because she was only supposed to be an E-rank healer.

  Once the pauldron and gauntlet were back on, Gabin gave his shoulder a couple of shrugs to test its mobility and then reached for the crank again.

  "It's too late for that," she said, pointing.

  While everyone had been distracted, the fourth door which they'd left unattended was now partially open. Not quite enough to fit a goblin yet, but it wouldn't be long.

  Gabin looked around at Noemi's battle still raging on while Alba and Lucas continued to keep the goblins at their door at bay. And through his own door they could already see the big hulking form of the dungeon boss.

  "We're completely boxed in," he said with undisguised anxiety.

  She grabbed his arm. "I have a plan. Let's regroup."

  He followed her across the room to Alba and Lucas's door. The hobgoblin in the first chamber was barking angry orders at its subordinates, but the F-rank shieldbearers in the front were being kept rooted in place by a constant barrage from the two hunters.

  Alba turned to Gabin with a look of concern. "I'm so sorry about earlier."

  Gabin shook his head. "We all make mistakes."

  Kyra pointed at the goblin shieldbearer formation, which was now three rows deep. "A D-ranker like you can plow through that, can't you? Clear a path to the portal, make sure Alba and Lucas get out safe, and I'll go fetch Noemi."

  Gabin didn't waste time arguing. He put his shoulder against his tower shield and, with a running start, rammed into the goblin formation. While the first row was staggered, the formation held, and the shieldbearers began stabbing at Gabin with their swords.

  Fortunately Gabin was the most heavily armored out of all of them, and his plate armor withstood the onslaught while Alba, Lucas, and Kyra piled in to help. While the others were distracted trying to disentangle Gabin while trying not to get stabbed up themselves, Kyra took the opportunity to put her foot against a goblin shield and give it a gentle push.

  The formation fell apart with the entire column of shieldbearers falling over.

  "There's an opening!" she cried.

  The other three hunters saw their chance and trampled over the fallen goblins to make their way into the room, unleashing a constant stream of arrows and ice to keep the enemy in disarray.

  Kyra left them to their luck and turned her attention back to Noemi. The team captain had whittled the hobgoblins down to two, who were barely holding on.

  But now there was a new entrant to the battle, its bulk filling the entire frame of Gabin's door. The dungeon boss itself, a D-rank hobgoblin knight captain, kitted out in full plate. One blow from its mighty two-handed sword could cleave a civilian in half.

  Swarming in behind it was a team of hobgoblin auxilia. Unlike their captain, these soldiers weren't particularly strong or well armored, but were instead known for their speed and mobility. Their javelins were a flexible weapon, able to be thrown from a distance or used like a spear up close.

  At her best, Noemi was faster than all of these. But exhaustion had clearly overtaken her, as her strikes weren't landing as they should. While she was still nimble enough to avoid the knight captain's attacks, the auxilia were able to match her movements and wall her off from rejoining the others.

  The hobgoblins weren't taking any risk and had simply decided to wear her down.

  Noemi noticed her presence and shouted, "Kyra! Leave with the others! I'll slip through and join you guys in a minute."

  "How are you going to do that?" she replied.

  "Just leave it to me. If I can't handle a few hobgoblins, I don't deserve to be your captain."

  She could tell that Noemi already knew her likely fate. The fire still burned in her eyes, as it did in all soldiers fighting to the death, but the spark of hope was gone. She fought now only to provide a distraction for her team to escape.

  Kyra looked to the door into the first chamber. It was a better outcome than she could have expected, to save three lives out of the four. But there had been a question on her mind since Teelameer: What if there was a way to save more?

  Against Noemi's protests, she walked toward the melee, and the hobgoblin auxilia turned to face her.