Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-Two - The Buglings

  Convincing Fran to come was surprisingly easy. A quick text letting her know that I'd found an E-rank portal that we could hit and she was onboard. She did say that it helped that it was the weekend, where she wasn't as busy

  Becky... was a bit harder to convince. "How much?" Becky asked.

  "How much what?" I asked.

  "Money? I though that was obvious from like, context clues," Becky said. "I don't do things for free. Sometimes I'll do them for cheap, tho."

  I rolled my eyes. "Fine. The reward is the amount of growth you get from finishing an E-rank portal. And you'll get to meet the other woman I work with. I recall you mentioning seeing her in a video?"

  "Oh, the blonde with the villain hat?" Becky asked. "Yo, she was cool-looking!"

  "I'll let our costume designer know that you approve," I said. "Think of this as a... test, I guess? We're looking for a few more people to help out."

  "Help clearing an E-rank portal?"

  "No, with something bigger. Nothing I'll say over the phone, though. Maybe tomorrow, after we're done?"

  Becky snorted indelicately. "You're trying to tempt me with secrets... fuck, it's kind of working. Okay, fine. But you're paying for lunch."

  That sealed it. I promised to pay for a post-portal dinner for the three of us. We'd probably be hungry anyway, hitting up a portal was hard work.

  With that done, I set a fresh Save, then knuckled down and did some research. I was going to hit the portal solo in the morning. I... wanted to share in the bounty a little, but I was pretty sure I could solo that portal anyway. And I didn't need to look bad in front of not one, but two cute women.

  Obviously, the solution was to cheat by seeing how deep into the portal I could go on my own, and the first step there was seeing what I could find out about the monsters within.

  I'd seen one of them when I ducked into the portal for the first time. I'd even kicked it around. So, I had a decent mental image of what we were dealing with. That didn't mean that I had a name for them.

  So, I went online and looked up some bestiaries. There were a good number of them available. Some were corporate, and demanded that people pay a monthly subscription for access, but there were a few that were made and curated by random nerds. As it turned out, people would geek out over anything, especially if it was something that could be fit into categories and neat little boxes.

  It took me a solid hour to narrow down my search to something less vague, but I did stumble onto the right monster eventually.

  The main image on the wiki was a slightly grainy image of a monster about as tall as my hip. It was taken in a room with some fluorescent light, with the monster obviously locked up in some sort of cage.

  The name section had a pretty long entomology. The current name was 'bugling' but that was more of a nickname. The real name was Eldur-bug, and it had a long latin-sounding name as well, Cerebromantis Infirmis.

  The second name gave me pause. Eldur? Wasn't that my boss in Squad B?

  I dug into it, and it turned out that the guy who'd first discovered and started the process of categorizing and exploring the taxonomy of the Cerebromantis Infirmis was one Freidrich Eldur. He looked a lot like the Eldur I knew, only... not entirely. He had the same eyes and some of the same facial features, but Freidrich was a few years older and a lot skinnier.

  On a hunch, I looked up Eldur on the Luna Corp site and was surprised to discover that his real name was Carl. Eldur was his family name.

  Weird coincidence, that. But it looked like the Eldur family was pretty big, and they had a lot of rankers and were mostly located around Germany and Austria. Maybe Eldur... Carl, that was, had a reason to be in Fortress ENE? Or it was all just an innocent coincidence. The Cerebromantis Infirmis had been discovered in Europe before they were found here in North America.

  The monsters had a long, narrow head, with an oversized brain and thin eyes recessed into a rather sharp skull. They had two sets of mandibles. I was sure that someone who knew insects better would be able to name them, but as far as I could see, there were 'big' ones and smaller ones. The bigger looked like they were designed to grab onto things and the smaller looked like scissors over their mouths.

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  They had six legs, though the two fore-legs had different claws than the rear four, so more like... hands, kinda? They were reportedly able to use basic tools, but they weren't tool-makers. At most they'd pick up a stick or a rock, though the wiki did warn that they liked to make traps.

  Usually those were pitfalls with like, a layer of spit and dirt covering the hole. Their excrement was a sticky, cement-like liquid that they used to make walls and build their hives.

  Basically, we were going to have to watch out for monsters coming at us from strange angles.

  Sure, the portal was an E-rank one. I'd felt how relatively weak it was when I stood in it. That didn't mean that it would be smart to underestimate it. That's how people died in stupid ways.

  I slept rather fitfully, then woke up a bit late, got dressed, had a light breakfast, and then headed out with a backpack loaded with guns and supplies.

  The portal showed up in a warehousing unit. One of those long buildings with dozens of rentable spaces with garage-style doors at the front and enough driveway room to move a truck around in.

  The doors each had the logo and signage of a different company on them, or at least large numbers. The one I was looking for was 51, which was on the fifth row in, first door on the right. I moved around on my bike until I made it, then parked it as close to the wall as possible.

  It was a pretty busy area. People were moving in and out of some of the other warehouses, and it looked like a few smaller businesses ran entirely out of their rented space, which I supposed made sense.

  Still, for all that a few spaces were busy, not all of them were.

  Unit 51 was currently unused, so the large door at the front was conveniently left unlocked. I grabbed the handle, twisted it, then tugged the door open and shoved it upwards.

  The space within was dark and rather poorly lit, but that changed when I walked over to a panel on one wall and tripped on the breaker for the lights.

  No portal. Just a few old boxes, some dust and junk left on the floor, and old signage leaned up against the far wall, probably from whichever company ran this place previously.

  I brought my bike in, since... well, trucks were moving just outside, and I didn't need it swiped. Then I closed the door from inside. It'd probably look sus as hell for anyone who saw me, but I'd rather not have the portal entirely visible. Maybe when I came with the girls I'd rent a car or something? Hmm, that'd be something I'd have to think about.

  Anyway, I started looking over my gear. The handgun would probably be overkill for the buglings, but it was usable one-handed, technically. My sword was a must, and my combat knife was a good side-option as well.

  So, what to bring as a primary? The rifle, or the shotty?

  I debated for a moment before settling on the shotgun. Cheaper ammo, and it was a little punchier. Besides, I might not have been a gamer, but even I knew that in close quarters, one should always pick the shotgun.

  I loaded it full of buckshot, then slid some extra in a back pocket. I was going in with my biking leathers instead of the armoured leotard and my usual gear. I did clip on a flashlight to my coat though, and a second one to my belt. It was dark in there, last I checked.

  The portal showed up an hour after I'd finished preparing, which meant an hour of sitting on cold concrete looking at memes on my phone.

  Standing up, I cracked my knuckles, stretched my back out to limber myself, then cast See Darkness and Sooth Minor Pain on myself, just in case. This was probably going to be an easy one... probably.

  Only one way to find out, really. Shouldering my gun, I stepped up to the portal, then stepped into it.

  ***