Chapter 157 - 155 — The Way Out II

I looked.

The second opponent had gone nowhere near the place I expected him to go. He had stayed wide until I committed to the swordsman, then cut behind me toward my teammate.

The man with the knee brace had already moved to the wall and brought his training weapon up, but the longer weapon was keeping him at a distance where he could not use it effectively.

I had enough time to finish the swordsman.

I did not have enough time to finish him and prevent the other man from reaching my teammate.

I broke off the exchange.

The swordsman came after me, but I was already crossing back toward the wall. A short acceleration carried me into the space between the longer weapon and the man I was protecting, and I caught the padded head on my reinforced forearm before it could reach his shoulder.

The impact was controlled.

It still went through my arm and found every place that had been unhappy with me since Floor Two.

I caught my balance, forced the weapon away from my teammate, and drove the attacker back far enough to give us room.

"Move," I told the man beside me. "The passage, now."

He did not wait to ask whether I had finished the fight.

He pushed away from the wall and started toward the partitions.

I turned to follow him.

The swordsman had already recovered and was moving into the space between us and the entrance.

That was when I understood what the two of them were doing.

They were not trying to beat me.

They were making me choose which one I wanted to stop.

I could win either exchange. I had no doubt about that. The problem was that winning the wrong exchange would leave the person behind me exposed, and the exercise would be over before I could do anything useful about it.

I changed direction and moved toward the passage rather than either opponent.

The swordsman stepped across to cut me off.

I activated Snare on his leading foot as he committed his weight.

> **[Ability Activated: Snare.]**

His body continued forward while the foot remained where it was, and he had to drop his shield toward the floor to prevent himself from falling.

I passed him without striking.

The opening was enough to reach the partitions before the second opponent could circle around them.

My teammate was halfway into the narrow passage.

"Keep going," I told him. "I’ve got the entrance."

"Then stop telling me to keep going."

He was breathing harder than when we had started, but he had not stopped moving. He put a hand against the partition to steady himself and continued toward the far end.

I turned back.

Both opponents were approaching.

The narrow passage prevented them from coming at me side by side, which made it much easier to deal with the man in front. It also meant my teammate had nowhere to go if I allowed an opponent past me.

I considered planting my feet and using Antaeus.

With stable ground beneath me and the passage restricting their angles, I could hold the entrance against either of them. It would be a perfectly sensible way to stop an attack.

It would also leave me standing in one place while the person I was supposed to extract continued moving away.

If the opponents changed their approach, I would have to abandon that position anyway.

I let the thought go.

The swordsman entered first.

I met his shield with my left forearm, stepped outside his weapon, and caught the strap across his shoulder with my free hand. He tried to turn into me, but the narrow passage gave him little room, and I used his movement to drive him against the partition.

A controlled burst of Aten flared across my right gauntlet.

He stopped trying to recover his guard.

The instructor called him out of the exercise.

I released him immediately and turned toward the second opponent.

The man with the longer weapon had not followed his partner into the passage.

He was going around it.

There was another opening farther down the court, and he had apparently decided that trying to fight me in a corridor was less useful than reaching the person I had left at the other end.

I looked over my shoulder.

My teammate had almost reached the exit.

The second opponent was moving faster.

I went after him.

I could have picked my teammate up and carried him the last few metres.

The thought lasted until I looked at the distance between us and remembered the last time Talaria had brought me to a stop with another person’s safety depending on how well I controlled my own movement.

Talaria converted one step into explosive acceleration. It did not make the person I carried any more capable of surviving that acceleration, and it certainly did not help either of us stop.

I could reach the exit quickly.

That was not the same thing as bringing someone there safely.

Instead, I crossed the open section alone and came in from the opponent’s right, forcing him to turn away from my teammate.

He reacted immediately.

His weapon swept toward my legs, using its reach to keep me outside striking distance, and when I stepped clear, he moved again to prevent me from closing.

He was good.

I had spent enough time fighting people who were stronger than me to appreciate someone who understood that he did not need to meet my strength directly.

I glanced toward the exit.

My teammate had stopped beside the final partition. The last stretch was open, and the opponent could reach him if he got past me.

"Stay there," I told him.

The man with the longer weapon saw where I was looking.

He feinted toward me, then moved around my left side.

I did not chase his weapon.

I stepped into the route he needed to take, caught the shaft near its padded head, and pulled it across my body before he could bring the other end around. He released it rather than let me drag him off balance, and came forward with his empty hands already raised.

I respected the decision.

I also had no intention of giving him a second weapon.

A short burst of Aten sent a controlled flare across the ground between us. He pulled back from the heat, and I used the moment to close the remaining distance.

The exchange lasted only a few seconds.

He blocked my first strike, tried to turn me toward the partition, and nearly caught my injured wrist when I shifted my guard. I changed hands, trapped his arm, and put the reinforced knuckles of my right gauntlet against the centre of his protective vest.

The instructor called the strike.

The opponent relaxed.

"Out," the instructor said.

I released him and stepped back.

My teammate was still standing beside the partition.

"Are we finished?" he asked.

I looked toward the marked doorway.

"Not until you get there."

He gave me an annoyed look that was almost certainly deserved, then pushed away from the wall and walked the remaining distance.

I stayed beside him.

When he crossed the line, the instructor ended the exercise.

I removed my gauntlets while the other Players collected their equipment.

My left wrist had begun to ache again, but it had held through the exercise, and I had not used enough mana to make the effort particularly expensive.

The result was good.

Both opponents had been eliminated. My teammate had reached the exit, and nobody had suffered an actual injury.

I was satisfied.

The instructor came over carrying his tablet.

"Completed," he said.

"I noticed."

"You also crossed most of the court twice because you left your teammate exposed during the opening exchange."

"I came back."

"You did."

He looked toward the man with the knee brace, who was sitting on a low bench and removing it.

"If he had been genuinely injured, he might not have had enough mobility to get clear before you returned."

"I wouldn’t have pursued the first opponent if he hadn’t been able to move."

"Perhaps. That’s something you would have had to determine before the fight began."

I looked at the man removing the brace.

He glanced up and shrugged.

"I told you I could walk. You never asked how long I could keep doing it."

He was right.

I had asked how quickly he could move. I had not asked how far he could manage before he needed to stop.

During Floor Two, Hana had been very specific about what Mara could do after her injury. Mara could still contribute with her spear. She could still move, provided she did not put too much weight on the damaged leg.

None of that had made her capable of running from a Warden.

I had seen how quickly a route became dangerous when somebody could no longer move at the pace the rest of the group expected.

I looked back at the instructor.

"Then I should have established his limits before we started."

"Yes."

"And I should have given him a route he could follow without needing me beside him every second."

The instructor nodded.

"That was the useful part of your second approach. Once you stopped trying to remove every threat before moving him, you began creating space he could actually use."

I thought about the swordsman I had left pinned near the entrance.

He had been a threat I could defeat. I had chosen to leave him there because the other opponent had been closer to the person I was supposed to protect.

It had not felt particularly impressive at the time.

It had worked.

"What happens if there are two injured people?" I asked.

"That depends on the injuries, the route, the people available to help, and what is pursuing you."

"Three?"

"The same answer, with more things that can go wrong."

"And twelve?"

He looked at me for a moment.

"Are you asking about your father’s expedition?"

"Yes."

He set the tablet against his side.

"Then this exercise isn’t going to answer your question."

I glanced toward the exit.

The distance from the starting point was not particularly impressive now that I had crossed it without anybody trying to kill me.

I had known the layout beforehand. My teammate had been able to walk, and both opponents had been trying to stop an evacuation rather than kill the person I was escorting.

I had been able to observe their positions, use my abilities without worrying about a building collapsing around us, and complete the route without losing contact with the person I was protecting.

Christopher had taken twelve people into a floor whose objective was still disputed.

I did not even know what sort of terrain they were standing on.

"No," I said. "It isn’t."

The instructor watched me for another moment.

"Would you like another exercise?"

"Not the same one."

"What would you change?"

"More injured teammates. Separate routes. Opponents who can reach people I can’t see."

"That becomes a team exercise."

"I know."

"Then you’ll need a team."

I opened my mouth and stopped.

There it was again.

I had come to the training ground intending to find out what I could do, and the answer had brought me back to people I could not simply order into following me.

Krüger had told me to contact him when I had something worth discussing.

I had one successful extraction exercise and a list of questions about Floor Three.

That was not yet a plan.

"I’ll arrange it when I know who needs to be involved," I said.

The instructor nodded.

"Then I suggest you begin by finding out what happened to the people you’re trying to prepare for."

I looked down at the gauntlets in my hands.

That was what I had been trying to do since the previous evening.

I had read the expedition summaries. I had compared casualty figures, withdrawal outcomes, and conclusions that disagreed with one another.

I had learned that I could get one injured person out of a controlled training exercise.

The part I still did not understand was why experienced Players had gone into Floor Three and failed to bring their own people home.

The instructor was right.

I needed the people who had actually been there.

I changed out of my training gear and had my wrist checked before leaving the facility.

The medical staff told me what I already knew: it had tolerated the exercise, but I was not to treat that as permission to spend the rest of the afternoon fighting.

I agreed.

I even meant it.

By the time I reached the operations area, my wrist had settled into a dull ache, and I was considering whether I could persuade somebody in the kitchens to give me a meal large enough to make up for the one I had missed.

My phone vibrated.

I stopped beside the corridor window and looked at the screen.

The notification was from Myrmidon operations.

My request for the additional Floor Three material had been updated.

I opened it.

The message confirmed that the operations staff had identified firsthand material available for my review. It also made clear that the request for the remaining records had not yet been fully resolved.

There was no promise that the material would explain Floor Three’s objective.

There was no assurance that it contained a method of withdrawal.

I had not expected either.

What mattered was that I could finally begin examining what the survivors had actually reported instead of relying entirely on the summaries prepared afterward.

I looked toward the east hall.

Somewhere beyond it, people were still working through the ordinary business of the clan. Equipment needed repairing, Gates needed clearing, and teams needed preparing whether the Nolan expedition returned tomorrow or remained inside Floor Three for another week.

My father had left with twelve Players.

I had no way of knowing what was happening to them now.

I could sit here and wonder, or I could spend the time becoming someone who would be useful if I eventually reached him.

I put the phone away and headed toward operations.

At the desk, the same staff member who had helped me the previous evening was working through another set of documents.

He glanced up when I approached.

"You received the notification?"

"Yes. I’d like to see what’s available."

He looked at the gauntlets hanging from my hand.

"Have you come from training?"

"An extraction exercise."

"How did it go?"

"I got the injured man out."

"That sounds successful."

"It was."

He waited while I looked toward the reading room.

"The problem," I added, "is that I knew where the exit was."

The staff member considered that for a moment, then turned to his terminal and opened the records prepared for my review.

"Perhaps these will help."

I took the reading terminal from him.

For the first time since unlocking Floor Three, I was not looking for a way to enter it.

I wanted to know how the people who had survived it had managed to leave.