067 Under Attack - Part 5 - Mark’s POV

  I stared at the prisoner, tied up and miserable, wondering what the hell kind of mess we’d just stepped into. My hands were still trembling slightly from the minotaur fight, the adrenaline slow to burn out. The rotten stink clinging to my jacket wasn’t helping.

  “So,” I said, trying to steady my breathing, “the ESPer Association’s involved. Or at least... someone claiming to be.”

  I turned toward Professor Merrick. “Prof, what do you think?”

  Merrick’s expression didn’t change much… still that careful, guarded neutrality he was so good at… but there was a flicker in his eyes. Like a blade sharpening.

  “The ESPer Association…” he began, slipping the gun back into his coat. “For all their good intentions and very real flaws, they’ve been a reliable pillar of the world for over a century now. Thanks to the current chairman.”

  I nodded slowly. Everyone knew about the chairman… at least vaguely. A hardliner. A reformer. Somebody who cracked down hard on corruption, and who’d practically rebuilt the Association from the ground up after the Chaos Years. If anyone inside the organization was playing rogue games like this... they had to be damn good at hiding it.

  Merrick continued, voice low. “Chairman Novak is not the sort of man who tolerates betrayal. His policies are strict, and he has a very... personal hatred for anyone who abuses their authority.”

  He tilted his head slightly, studying the tied-up man like he was a puzzle piece. “If there’s a conspiracy brewing under the Association’s nose, then either the perpetrators have a lot of guts...”

  Merrick’s eyes narrowed. “Or someone powerful enough to blindside even Novak is involved.”

  I swallowed hard. Neither option sounded remotely comforting.

  The ESPer Association wasn’t just some local club… it was a global organization. They regulated ESPers, kept rogue dungeons in check, maintained peace treaties with alien species that we’d discovered after the rift expansions... hell, they even handled the Adventurer Reforms when it turned out the world was a lot bigger, scarier, and less human-centered than anyone originally thought.

  Sure, they got a bad rap. Old guard, outdated superiority complexes, way too many members who still thought humans were the pinnacle of evolution. Not to mention, the PR disasters. Every time an ESPer went berserk or a Dungeon War broke out, the Association ended up looking like a bunch of arrogant, incompetent overlords trying to save face.

  But still... they weren’t bad guys.

  They were necessary. And the thought of that foundation being rotten from the inside made my skin crawl.

  Greg whistled low, reading the mood. “Man, this whole thing just keeps getting better and better, huh? What’s next? The King of Mars sponsoring the operation?”

  “Don’t joke,” Merrick said sharply. “This is serious.”

  Greg threw up his hands in mock surrender. “Hey, just trying to keep it light before we get assassinated or something.”

  I ignored their back-and-forth, my mind racing. If the Association was compromised… or at least part of it was… then Lady Enoch was in way more danger than we thought. This wasn’t just some rogue group of dungeon delvers looking for cash or fame. This was planned. Organized.

  And political.

  The prisoner squirmed against the vines holding him, drawing my attention back. I studied him carefully. He didn’t look like some mastermind. He looked like a thug. A disposable foot soldier. Somebody used to getting ordered around and not asking questions.

  He wasn’t the brains of the operation. Just a pawn.

  Which meant there were bigger players we hadn’t seen yet.

  Greg stepped closer to the prisoner and crouched down, resting his elbow on one knee. “You’re real sure you don’t know any names?”

  The man hesitated again, but Greg smiled thinly. “Because, y’know, my friend here…” he jerked a thumb at me, “he brought a special friend to the party.”

  He pointed straight at the bobbing, rotting minotaur head still tied to my belt.

  The guy went pale as a sheet.

  I sighed and crossed my arms. “He’s not kidding. Start talking, or you get a new bunkmate.”

  The prisoner broke almost immediately. Fear had a way of speeding things along.

  “Okay, okay! Look, I… I don’t know names, alright? But I heard ‘em talking. Some code stuff. They called one of their bosses ‘the Peacock.’ Swear to God, man. That’s all I know!”

  The Peacock.

  I exchanged a glance with Merrick, who frowned deeply.

  “Not much to go on,” he muttered. “But it’s something.”

  Greg shrugged. “Better than nothing. Besides, ‘Peacock’ sounds like a guy who’s just begging to get punched in the face.”

  I almost laughed. Almost.

  Instead, I focused on what was ahead.

  This forest. The estate. Lady Enoch.

  We were sitting on top of a conspiracy big enough to drag the entire ESPer Association’s reputation through the dirt. Maybe bigger.

  And someone out there wanted us dead before we could figure out the whole picture.

  “Fresh out of prison?” Merrick asked, gesturing lazily at the skinhead’s sorry choice of wardrobe.

  The man sneered at us, but there was a glint of unease in his eyes. “Northvale Prison,” he muttered. “I was promised my sentences would be cut if I cooperated.”

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  I snorted. Cooperated…what a cute way to put it.

  Greg stepped closer, eyeing the shifting walls of trees and vines surrounding us. “Alright, genius, how do we leave this magical maze?”

  The man shrugged helplessly, his shoulders scraping against the tightening vines. “I don’t know.”

  Wrong answer. Merrick’s smile didn’t even reach his eyes as he crouched down to the prisoner’s level. His voice dropped into something colder than steel. “You know.”

  The prisoner shook his head frantically. “I don’t! I swear!”

  Merrick sighed, almost theatrically, like he was already bored with the conversation. “Well then,” he said, rising to his feet and dusting his coat off, “if you really don’t know, I’ll have to kill you and take our chances. For all I care, you are the cause of this labyrinthine situation… and if killing you breaks it, well... all the better.”

  The vines responded to Merrick’s casual threat, Greg using his ESP to control the vines, coiling tighter, drawing a pained grunt from the prisoner. He twisted against them, trying to find room to breathe. His eyes darted to me and Greg and back again.

  “Seriously, man?” said the skinhead, scoffing, trying to sound braver than he looked. He jerked his head in our direction. “You’re gonna kill me in front of these kids?”

  Greg’s grin was pure venom as he stepped forward, flipping the skinhead the middle finger right between the eyes. “You think we’re soft because we’re just academy students?” His voice practically dripped with fury. The vines answered Greg’s mood, tightening again with a sickening creak of wood against bone.

  “I’m looking forward to my first kill,” Greg added casually, cocking his head as if he was asking about trying a new restaurant. “Wonder what I’ll feel. Disgust? Joy? Something in between?” His smile sharpened. “Guess I’ll find out.”

  The skinhead’s bravado cracked. His gaze shot to me, desperate. “Hey, you won’t let them kill me, right?”

  I didn’t answer immediately. Instead, I bent down, grabbing the dead minotaur’s head by one of its massive horns. The weight of it sent a jolt through my arms, but I held it firm, dragging it upright enough for him to see the gore-slick skin close up.

  “This thing?” I said quietly. “A simple graze from its hide and you’ll rot alive. Pretty curious, don’t you think? You just happened to be lying in the middle of nowhere, nice and cozy, with a dead minotaur beside you?”

  I let the words sink in. I wanted him to stew in the same unease that had been twisting in my own stomach since we’d entered this cursed forest.

  The man swallowed hard, lips trembling. He knew he was cornered. He could keep lying and risk a very ugly death, or he could come clean and maybe live another hour.

  “It’s my ability,” he croaked. “I can make undead.”

  Greg gave a low whistle. “Oh, that’s just great,” he muttered. “A necromancer. Why are the creeps always necromancers? Why are the creeps obsessed with raising the dead?”

  Merrick didn’t seem surprised. If anything, he looked like he had been waiting for that confession all along. He paced around the prisoner slowly, boots crunching against the mossy ground.

  “You raised the minotaur,” Merrick said. It wasn’t a question. It was a cold fact.

  The man nodded miserably. “It wasn’t supposed to attack anyone! It was just supposed to roam... create distractions... make the labyrinth work better.”

  “Better for who?” I demanded.

  The prisoner grimaced. “The contractors... the ones who set this up. I don’t know their names! They paid off some guards at Northvale, they sprung me, they gave me this job. Said if I made it easier for their team, they'd make sure I never saw a prison cell again.”

  Merrick chuckled, humorless. “And you believed them.”

  “They had credentials! They had Association badges!” the man cried, struggling uselessly against the vines. “They said this was all sanctioned! That it was for national security!”

  Greg clicked his tongue in disgust. “National security, my ass.”

  The forest seemed to breathe around us, a soft ripple of magic and malevolence still lingering. The trees shifted slightly, and for a moment I thought I saw something—or someone—watching us from the gloom. But when I blinked, it was gone.

  Merrick crouched again, so close the skinhead had to lean back awkwardly. “Here’s what’s going to happen,” the professor said. “You’re going to guide us out. Every trap, every twist, every detail you know. If you’re useful, maybe you walk out of here in one piece. If you’re not...”

  He let the threat hang. He didn’t need to spell it out. The vines tightening around the man’s ribs made it crystal clear.

  “Y-Yeah,” the skinhead stammered. “Yeah, okay. I’ll help! I swear!”

  I watched him squirm, feeling nothing. No pity, no anger.

  The skinhead lay coiled in Greg’s vines, breathing hard, his eyes twitching with a manic energy that set every nerve in me on edge. He grinned suddenly, showing us his tongue… and there it was, a small, black pill resting on it like a promise of bad things to come.

  “What's that—” I started, but it was too late. He snapped his mouth shut and swallowed.

  “The entire forest’s gonna help you into an early grave!” he crowed, showing his true colors, his voice cracking into a shriek. Then he started laughing… sharp, broken sounds that rattled through the trees.

  It seemed skinhead was just buying time…

  Merrick didn’t waste a second. He calmly drew his sidearm and pulled the trigger. The shot rang out, neat and final, and the skinhead’s head jerked backward with the force. Blood sprayed across the mossy ground.

  But he didn’t fall.

  Instead, he smiled.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, in a voice that sounded far too alive for someone with a fresh hole through his forehead, “but I’m already dead.”

  The vines that had been pinning him down recoiled as if burned, writhing backward. Greg stumbled, looking stunned, as fresh vines shot out from the nearest trees and wrapped around his arms and legs, binding him in place.

  “The forest is now my domain!” the skinhead shouted, rising to his feet with an unnatural fluidity. His body swayed like a marionette on invisible strings. “If I kill you lot, I was promised a seat at the table, and I will gladly take it for myself!”

  “Ah, shit!” Greg roared, struggling against the vines that yanked him off his feet. He slammed onto the ground with a heavy thud, twisting and kicking uselessly. “I knew this guy! It’s that homicidal ESPer from two years ago… the Necro Keeper, Nerun!”

  From the bullet hole Merrick had left in Nerun’s skull, something slithered. Fat, glistening worms poured down his face and neck in a grotesque waterfall, wriggling into the dirt, into the trees, into everything around us.

  Without warning, Nerun lunged for Merrick, mouth wide in a howl.

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself,” I muttered, stepping between them. My knife flashed once, embedding itself deep into Nerun’s chest.

  He paused mid-lunge, looking down at the blade like it was more of an annoyance than an injury. His malicious glee never wavered.

  “Ah,” he sighed almost wistfully, lifting his gaze to mine. “I can’t kill you. The contract required me not to kill you. But hurting you... that’s allowed.”

  His hand shot out, grabbing my wrist. Before I could jerk away, he twisted, flipping me over his shoulder with brutal efficiency. My back slammed against the ground, and the air whooshed out of me.

  But I was already moving.

  I reached into the well of my ESP—Nth Person—grabbing hold of Nerun’s psychic signature. It was like slipping into a skin I wasn’t meant to wear, but it worked. I hijacked his ESP for a split second, assuming his ‘person’ and wrenching control away from him.

  Nerun’s hand spasmed and let go of me. His right foot buckled without warning, and he crumpled forward like a puppet with cut strings.

  Merrick took his chance. I saw his gun lower slightly as a series of invisible, pinpoint explosions rippled through Nerun’s skull. The air around his head shimmered like heated glass, each blast hitting with surgical precision.

  Nerun’s body flopped helplessly onto the dirt. But the victory was short-lived.

  The forest around us didn’t calm down. If anything, it grew wilder. The trees moved with slow, deliberate intent, their branches twisting into clawed shapes that reached for us. The ground trembled beneath my boots, and new vines hissed through the underbrush like serpents ready to strike.

  “What the hell...?” I breathed, turning in place, trying to see where the next attack would come from.

  And then I heard it. Laughter. Wild, shrieking, unhinged laughter, echoing from every direction at once.

  “As long as my power lives...” the voice howled, shrill and triumphant, “I will live forever!”

  The sound made my blood run cold. It was Nerun’s voice, but it wasn’t coming from his crumpled body. It was coming from the trees. From the worms. From the very forest itself.

  “Just what the hell kind of pill did he eat?!” I shouted, backing closer to Merrick, who was already reloading his gun with a deadly calm.

  I didn’t know if we were still fighting Nerun… or if we were now fighting the entire cursed world he had left behind.

  And honestly? I wasn’t sure which was worse.