# 004

"What was that?" Madison stops dead in the middle of the road when a noise that should not be heard in the Slime Forest gets carried to us on the wind.

"That was trouble. Stay behind me and watch our backs." I order and grab the communication crystal from my bag. "Dad! I think we might have a dungeon break! I just heard a wolf howl on the wind."

"What? What's happening?" Madison is freaking out and looking around at every sound while I wait for dad to get my message and send a reply. "What's going on, Cole?"

"Shit! You're right." Dad's voice issues from the crystal before I can tell her to calm down. "It looks to be between you and town, just turtle up and wait for me to get out there. I just need to inform the guild head first." A scream travels to us on the wind just then.

"Mason!" Madison charges forward blindly when she hears her twin's scream.

"Fuck! No can do, Dad. Gotta rescue some idiots." I stuff the crystal back into my bag and start casting all the defensive spells and buffs I can on Madison and myself as I chase after her. "Fucking idiot girl, now you can run?"

"You have to save him." She pleads while running pell-mell towards danger.

"Give me your sword." I steal it from her again before she trips and stabs herself with it. "Do exactly what I tell you to, and you might live. And, just pray that it's only wolves."

"..." She blanches and opens her mouth before closing it with a nod and saving her energy for the run.

"Down!" I push her out of the way with one hand and use the sword in my other to hack at the neck of the wolf that was leaping for hers. "Grasp!" The beast is already dead, but it can still hurt us before it bleeds out, so I make the earth snag its hind paw. "Get up! Move!" Lifting Madison from where she sprawled on the ground, I drag her forward towards where her brother's screams are coming from.

I have to hope that he doesn't die before we get there, but the fact that his screams haven't already been cut off fills me with dread.

"Fuck!" It just had to be wargs, didn't it? Wolves, even dire wolves, are easy enough to handle, but these fucks are smart, tough, and vicious. "Mother-fucking Lightning!" I hurl my strongest attack spell at the pair that are toying with Madison's brother.

"Mason!" She dives for him, not heeding the fact that my spell only killed one of them.

"Idiot girl!" I shout and draw the surviving beast's attention away from her just in time to save her life. "Sleet! Ice-Chains! Fucking Freeze!" My spells slow it just enough for me to get in range. Feinting with the sword, I stab my belt knife into its eye with a surprise lunge when it dodges to one side.

"Cole, help." Mason passed out as soon as his sister got there, but he's still breathing, so he can wait.

"We're safe, turtling now. Watch out for the wargs." I send a message off to Dad and then stab a very expensive piece of enchantment into the ground; the earth itself forms a dome around the three of us, swiftly transmuting itself into steel as soon as the device activates. "Let me see him. Scan! He's just passed out." I drop to my knees a second later, the mana drain and adrenaline crash of the fight finally hitting me.

"Cole!" I wince when her shout echoes off the dome.

"I'm fine. Quit shouting." I hiss back at her. "Gods, did you think that anyone can just throw lightning around with impunity? That shit costs and that's not even counting all the other spells I was tossing about." I shrug off my pack and lie down on my back, wishing that I kept some mana potions in there.

"I'm sorry." She sniffs and starts blubbering. "I'm so sorry. Thank you for saving him, for saving me." I just nod and let her get it out of her system.

"Just settle in, Madison." I hand her a handkerchief with a tired smile. "Dad and the Guild master will close the dungeon, but it's going to take them a while."

...

"Are you alright over there?" The idiot girl's squirming woke me up from the light daze I was in about an hour later.

"..." Her face flushes the deepest I've seen it yet.

"You're doing the pee-pee dance, aren't you?" I sigh when she hides her face. "Just go over there, the slimes will take care of it." I roll away to give her as much privacy as I can in this tiny space. Only a few of the slimes I collected earlier got in here with us, but even a single one is enough to deal with that.

"No peeking!" She hisses at me, making my eyes roll involuntarily. "And, cover your ears or something; I can't go knowing that you're listening."

"For fucks sake." I huff, but plug my ears as she asked. "...are you done yet?" I ask a minute later.

"Just wait until the slimes are done." I can hear the embarrassment in her voice even with my ears plugged.

"It's just pee." I shake my head, but wait until she gives the all-clear.

"How much longer do you think it will be?" Maddie says in a quiet voice. "And, how did you know it was a dungeon?"

"The mana around here is the wrong type and nowhere near dense enough to support wolf spawns." I sit up and face her. "A dungeon was just the most logical option. It must be a baby not to have been discovered by all the newbie adventurers that trample through the woods here. Too bad it went rogue already; that might have brought some real life to the town, maybe even get it a Gate installed."

"How do you know all this?" She looks at me wonderingly. "I thought you were just a tamer, but you can throw around magic like a mage. And, you seem to know everything there is about adventuring. I mean, you're not much older than me and mason, but you might as well be a full-blown adventurer."

"I've been out in the field almost since I was old enough to walk." I explain. "Hells, I've been solo hunting since I was ten. And, Dad is a Magical Researcher. Think really brainy Wizard. I'd have to be almost as stupid as your brother not to have picked up a bit of magic by now."

"I heard that." He grumbles and blinks the sleep out of his eyes.

"Shut up Mason." She pulls him up into a bear hug. "Cole took on two wargs, single-handedly, to save your ass. If he wants to call you an idiot, then you're an idiot, you idiot."

"Alright, alright. Just let me go." He tries to push her off. "And, uh, thanks." He ducks his head just like his sister does when she's embarrassed.

"Thank your idiot sister, she's the one who ran towards your scream." I sigh and lie back down to wait, using one of the slimes not on latrine duty as a pillow. "I've been telling her since she started following me earlier that you two were going to get yourselves killed, but that doesn't mean that I could just stand by and watch it happen."

"No more adventuring!" Madison smacks him over the head with each word. "We can't even handle a few slimes, let alone real monsters. We're done! Period!"

"Y-yeah." He nods shakily. "I don't even want to face a slime after that. Have you really been doing this on your own since you were ten?"

"Yeah." I smile. "Mom and Dad weren't happy about it, but Dad, for all his strengths, is a really shit tamer. So, when Mom had the twins, he tried taking me out to collect slimes, but I'd get frustrated at how slow he was and give him the slip."

"Hehehe." Maddie giggles at that.

"Eventually they decided I'd be fine, as long as I had a few trinkets like this, that is." I gesture to the dome around us. "He's been working on this since then and the damned thing could probably stand up to a dragon by now, let alone a few wargs. Just wish he could get the communication crystal to work through it, I'd love to know how much longer we have to sit in here."

"Uh, you're not the only one." even his pee-pee dance is just like his sister's.

"Go over there; the slimes will take care of it." I point to where his sister went and then close my eyes.

"No peeking." I crack up laughing then.

...

*tap tap tap*

"About fucking time!" I reach for the enchantment and switch it off. "What took you so damned long? It was just a few wargs." I start bitching at dad as soon as the dome sinks back into the earth, normal soil once again.

"Hahahaha." The local Guild leader busts up laughing at that. "That's what I tried to tell him, but he wanted to do it by the numbers, and then spent half an age examining the rogue's core."

"Should've fucking known." I huff and shrug into my bag. "You're lucky I caught that rabbit earlier; these two didn't have any rations on them, and listening to their stomachs rumble almost had me dropping the damned shield."

"Oh?" He perks up. "How'd the air filter work? I didn't smell anything when it opened."

"It's fine." I roll my eyes and pull out the crystal to contact Mom. "Hey, Dad finally got off his ass to let me out of the bubble. I'm fine and we'll be home in a bit."

"Uh... knew I was forgetting something." He gets a sheepish look and then starts blushing when Mom's reply comes in.

"I'm glad you're okay, sweetie. And, Gerald, I'm going to kick your ass for taking so long when you get home. I just know you were screwing around with the damned dungeon core instead of letting Cole know it was safe."

"I'm going home." I announce. "You two, stay out of the fucking woods." I start for home without waiting for a reply. I know they already said they would, but they're both idiots.

"Eeek!" Mason squeaks when a few dozen slimes crawl out of their hidey-holes to follow me.

"Seriously, boy?" The Guild master starts laughing. "I think he's right about you two finding a safer way to spend your time."

...