Hyrin jumped up, somehow already breathing heavily again, and held her sword up in front of her to create some distance between them. It’s not like she had actually expected to be able to hit him, but she had hoped that he would at least have shown any kind of expression that meant this wasn’t that easy for him either. Or that he would have at least had to try to evade. But she should’ve known better after what she had seen this man do in the city only a few days ago. This man who was barely even human. Who had killed a house class drake with a smile as if it had been nothing. Rather than dreaming about impossible scenarios, she should just be grateful he hadn’t sent her flying to the other side of that training hall.

“What are you waiting for?” He asked. “Coming up with a strategy?” He gave her a teasing grin. “Lemme tell you right now that it won’t matter either way.”

I know that, she wanted to yell at him, but she kept her mouth shut. Just because he claimed there wasn’t a strategy that could help her win didn’t mean it was true. There had to be something that could help her. Something about the way he moved, or any part of his body that was some kind of weakness. But despite her best efforts, it was pretty clear she hadn’t been any kind of fighter in her previous life either. Even if he had some kind of weakness, she had no idea where to look or how to spot it.

She lifted up the sword and charged at him again, jumping from left to right in order to throw him off, but he just let out an amused chuckle and casually kicked her left foot out from under her right at the moment she planted it in front of him. She swung up in the air and landed flat on her back, releasing a painful groan.

He crouched down next to her again, shaking his head. “Have you ever heard the definition of insani-”

She threw her arm up in the air before he could finish his sentence, swinging the sword towards him. He scoffed as he leaned back slightly to avoid it, as if he had seen it coming from miles away.

“It’s the way you move and tense your muscles,” he graciously let her know. “It’s both too obvious when you do it and something you should be paying attention to on me as well, rather than just blindly swinging that thing at me hoping it will hit if you just do it often enough.”

She breathed fast. Her lungs burned and her entire body felt so heavy she wasn’t sure she’d be able to get up again, especially not after that useless advice. She had been paying attention. But that didn’t automatically mean she could actually see it.

“Get up and try it again. This time, stay low and approach fro-” A deafening blaring that she immediately recognized cut him off and she dropped the sword to cover her ears.

“Does it need to be this loud?” She yelled and the captain snorted as he got up.

“They get louder and the sound changes for every class,” he informed her in a loud voice. “I guess you know what recognizing this one means?”

She crawled up, staring at the alarm, still catching her breath. A house class. Somewhere in the city, a monster like the one they had faced just a few days ago was raging and destroying everything in its path. She turned back to the captain, but he had already disappeared. Instead, vice captain Leyleina yelled a bunch of orders at all of them and before Hyrin could even move, the others ran towards the door.

Were they supposed to join the fight? She wondered in shock. After she had just so overwhelmingly been woken up to reality? No amount of training would ever get her to Captain Harumi’s level. None of them. The vice captain had been right. Captain Harumi was one of a kind. Inimitable. If they went out to fight a monster like that the way they were now, they would all die.

“Hyrin!” Seren grabbed her arm and pulled her along so she wouldn’t stay behind in that hall all alone.

“It’s going to be okay,” he told her as if he had seen right through her despair. “We’re just going to lay down suppressing fire. We’ll be in the very back. It’s going to be okay. I’ll…” he glanced at her but then swallowed the rest of his words, even though Hyrin knew what he had so boldly wanted to say. As if he would have the strength to protect her when something went wrong. But it was like his unspoken words had woken her up from her daze.

She had been the one who wanted to enlist. She had been the sole reason Seren had enlisted. How could she chicken out now? And why? Because she got her butt kicked by a master sword fighter? A seasoned veteran in the dragon slaying game? She clenched her fists as she ran after Seren. What kind of idiot was she?

None of them had a uniform yet, and they didn’t have time to go look for and try one on anyway. They just followed their seniors wearing their black sweatpants and white shirts. Seren jumped into the back of one of many vehicles and held his hand out to her, pulling her up in the van with him. She looked around, but she didn’t recognize any of the other six people in the back of that van. She searched the grounds for Row and Lily, but the other recruits had all gotten scattered and climbed into other vehicles.

“Here.” One of those six with them opened a metal chest at the front of the van and pulled two rifles from two rows of neatly stowed weapons. “These are the simplest ones. Just aim and pull the trigger.” He pressed his own weapon against his shoulder and looked through the scope to show them how it was done.

“Make sure you stand firm,” one of the others warned them. “They have a pretty big kickback.”

The one who had given them the rifles nodded. “And they’re single shots, so you have to pull the trigger for every shot you want to fire. Here.” He leaned over and pointed at a little handle on the side of Hyrin’s weapon. “That’s the safety, push it up when the fight begins and back down when we’re done.”

Hyrin nodded, trying to remember everything they said as she got used to the weight of that weapon in her arms. It was heavier than she had expected and the cold feel of the steel against her hands made it feel… too real. All of it.

“Don’t worry.” The woman next to her pulled the black mask that seemed to go with her uniform down to show the two of them a reassuring smile. “We’ll have dealt with this in no time. You two just stay back with the other recruits and try shooting once or twice. The only reason we’re taking you along is for you guys to get used to seeing them.”

Hyrin exhaled. She hadn’t even realized she had been holding her breath. The truth was that getting used to seeing those monsters was the last thing she wanted to do, but if that meant she wouldn’t actually have to suddenly fight it she would take it. Which may have been what they were actually after by taking them along like this.

Next to her, she noticed Seren covering his mouth and she turned to see that his skin had gone pale white and pearls of sweat had formed on his forehead. With every sharp turn the van took, they got pressed against the back or had to struggle to stay sitting, and she could see Seren tightly shut his eyes and desperately fight to keep the contents of his stomach from spilling out. Not sure what else to do to help him, she moved slightly closer, pressing her shoulder against his to help stabilize  him a little more. He gave her a grateful glance, but then quickly closed his eyes again.

The moment the van came to a stop and the doors opened, Seren jumped out and ran into the nearest alley, no doubt to do what he could no longer prevent. Hyrin wanted to follow him to see if she could help or at least make sure he wouldn’t be alone, but the others pushed her in the opposite direction.

“Find him later!” The woman who had reassured them before told her as they started running. “Right now you have to join the others and follow orders!”

Hyrin clenched her jaw, but followed them anyway. Seren had run in the opposite direction of where the alarm was coming from, which meant he would be farther away from the drake than any of them. As long as it didn’t break through their defenses, he would be safe staying behind.

She pressed the gun against her shoulder, although still aiming the point at the ground.

“There!” The woman yelled so Hyrin could hear her over the alarm. Not that she had needed to be told where to look. The cry of this bright red house class made that horrible alarm sound like less than a whisper.

It was longer and more slender than the blue one they had seen before, but its muscles looked tighter and more defined. It looked like a red, well-trained version of that blue one. It had destroyed a row of houses and climbed on top of their remains as if he were building a nest to sleep in. Its barbed tail swung from left to right, making it difficult for anyone to approach it and judging from its incessant, high-pitched growls, it had realized that too.

“A house class two,” the woman next to her let her know. “Meaning it’s not all too big, but it does look fast.” She stepped in front of Hyrin. “Stay here and watch carefully.”

Hyrin obeyed, pressing her rifle against her shoulder and cheek. From this distance, her bullets probably wouldn’t even reach that monster, but at that moment, aiming her weapon at the drake was the only thing that stopped her from turning around and running away.

The six they had been in the van with joined the others and each one of them ran towards the drake, spreading out and surrounding it so perfectly that Hyrin was sure someone had to be giving them orders that she couldn’t hear. They released a salvo of bullets into the drake and small cracks formed in its thick red scales as they exploded. Cracks that had already closed again before they even had the time to pull the trigger again.

Did that mean they wouldn’t be able to weaken it enough for the captain to attack it? Hyrin wondered breathlessly. What if they wouldn’t be able to create a hole in its chest and expose its heart like before? Would Captain Harumi be able to cut through those scales with his sword?

“Hey! Hyrin!” One of the other recruits, which she recognized by her white shirt, came running towards her.

“Vice captain Leyleina told us to help evacuate,” she told Hyrin. “Apparently there are still civilians around.”

“What?” Suddenly, all feeling returned to Hyrin’s body. She lowered her gun. “Let’s go.”

The girl, who she was pretty sure was called Alina, led her through several streets, farther away from the drake. All throughout the area, Hyrin noticed the other recruits walking around, knocking on doors and telling civilians where they had to evacuate to in loud voices to overcome the alarm. Even though Hyrin was pretty sure that each of these civilians who had lived here their entire life would know where to go much better than the sixteen of them who had just plopped into existence a few weeks ago.

“You take the end of that street, I’ll take this one!” Alina told her and Hyrin quickly obeyed, running into the main looking street Alina had pointed out. 

All throughout that four-lane street, cars and bikes had been abandoned in the middle of the road, some of them still even had their headlights on.

She walked in the middle of the road, glancing inside the cars and looking around for stragglers.

“Hello?” She yelled. “Anyone still left here? Please evacuate immediate-” She froze as a deafening, inhuman screech tore through the air, ripping through her eardrums. She almost dropped her weapon as she pressed her left hand and right shoulder against her ears to protect them from damage.

She knew that cry. She had heard it before, from right in front of her. It was the dying cry of a drake calling for backup. She crouched down, hiding behind the open door of a car, scanning her surroundings, waiting for what was about to come.