Ice cream. Neo wished he had been able to eat ice cream before he came here. Before the only edible thing around him became tasteless nutrient packets. Before he made the choice of dying for his home.
"Captain, the core is exactly 0.8km away from us." Dina, the designated tracker, moved beside Neo to give him a report.
He hummed, then looked behind him. A fallen world stared right back.
Three weeks ago, a hundred and twenty-one people had departed Mars and entered through an SS-Class Gate to get to Earth. It was a mission to clear the Dungeon inside before the creatures would break out and wreck havoc on Mars, leading to one of the greatest devastation on human life recorded.
The SS-Class Dungeon was the highest ranking one both planets had seen since they began to appear in the year 2756. Since the solar system went through an extremely toxic radiation belt that changed all life forms.
Earth had fallen fifty years ago and the humans on the planet became mindless creatures.
'Bizarros.'
Odd and ugly creatures. Ugly creatures who liked to eat human flesh and cause trouble. When Bizarros escaped a Gate and made their way into Mars, all that followed was destruction.
The humans on Mars were forced to respond to their former kind with the same level of brutality to maintain peace and order. Weaponizing the gifted to become Hunters.
People like Neo.
"Scout the safest route." Neo canceled the irrelevant thoughts in his mind. "We move immediately."
His team of one hundred and twenty people had already been shortened to twelve, including him, after three weeks. The mission needed to be wrapped up as soon as possible.
"... There is no safe route." Dina whispered.
Neo turned sharply. "What?"
"The locator says there are hundreds of Bizarros ahead who are extremely packed around the core. Behind us, more Bizarros are moving to group with the ones ahead. To our left and right—"
"Stop." Neo bit out and cussed, "Fuck."
Green fire burned the dead brown forest around. Even the plants lost their colors here, and oxygen combusted wrong.
They had already run out of supplies five days ago. A group of Bizarros had messed with their gadgets two days ago.
And among the twelve people remaining, only a single person held a portal watch that could create a Gate opening up to Mars and lead them back home should they fail to fix the core of the Dungeon.
But they couldn't fail and go back now. They had come so far, lost too many people, made too many sacrifices. They had to clear this Dungeon.
The only way was forward.
"We go forward." Neo said with strong resolve.
"There is no forward!" Someone from the group shouted.
"We have to go back home. Regroup and return—"
"Return to what exactly!?" Neo snapped. "Have all of you forgotten that we're the only ones!? We're the only trained Hunters and Restorers on the planet! 'We have to go back home', go back home to what? Disgrace? Failure?
"Who are we going to regroup with? The civilians who have never even seen a Bizarro before?? Get it together, we go forward. We fix the core, then we go back home. That's the mission!"
"How can that mission still be valid? There are just two Restorers left! Do you think Alex and I can fix the core of an SS-Class Dungeon!?" A young Restorer snapped back at Neo.
It would be close to impossible. Neo knew the math.
The average C-Class Dungeon needed at least five Restorers with a power ranking of about C-Class or higher to fix its core. Though this kid and Alex were both A-Class Restorers, it wasn't going to be enough.
But still… they had come so far.
"We. Go. Forward." Neo stuck to his decision, forcing the words out of his mouth.
"I am the Captain of this mission. Obey me or desert. And you all know the punishment for deserting." Neo looked at the eleven people still standing, indirectly threatening their lives.
None of them were able to say a word. Neo accepted it as understanding and turned around.
"Let's get moving. Make a formation to protect the Restorers. We end this today." Neo ordered.
Weak responses came from behind him. They soon marched forward and met the Bizarros around the core.
The mutant creatures came in small sizes like cats and dogs. As they were once human, they had creamish and pinkish coloration. Bulging eyes rolled in their sockets, ears elongated like knives. Fingers and toenails ended in claws. And their teeth… all canines.
They had a mean bite and a firm grip. So it was best to avoid even getting touched by them.
Before he rushed forward, a black thin line materialized in front of Neo. It looked like tangled wisps of shadows with a handle. But to the people who knew what it was, that thin line was considered one of the most dangerous weapons in existence.
Neo's Needle.
He grabbed it midair and it became solid. Neo wasted no time in swiping his needle across three Bizarros that came running towards him with open mouths.
Their heads separated from their bodies in less than a second.
Neo sliced and split Bizarros, killing them like flies.
It was easy to kill Bizarros. Stepping on their heads, stabbing them, dismembering them, even punching them too hard could lead to their deaths.
The issue was that there were always too many. The exhaustion from killing Bizarros drained both mental and physical power, driving most Hunters to their own death.
In the span of a few minutes, Neo had killed maybe twenty or thirty Bizarros. But more kept coming. And they were all hungry for flesh.
He knew in his heart that this was a suicide mission. The head of his Hunter Training Institute had told him, as the captain of the mission, that even if only one person made it back to Mars, it would be okay.
As long as the Dungeon was cleared, the casualties would be worth it.
Neo had understood that Mars needed a hero. And there was a chance it wouldn't be him.
Though he wished he had cherished his family more before leaving them. Wished he had told his sister he loved her, hugged his mother, played cards with his dad, and eaten ice cream too.
"Fuck…" Neo swore in spite.
He gave his all into killing the Bizarros, materializing three other shadow weapons—a spinning blade, a crossbow, and a gun.
He split his consciousness into four, operating all the weapons at once. His head throbbed in pain, screaming for him to stop. But he didn't.
The only way was forward.
The core of the Dungeon shone with a murky color ahead. There were obvious cracks to the large oblong shape that had half its size buried deep into the ground.
But the Bizarros around the core had reduced to a countable number.
When Neo noticed this, he yelled, "Restorers, make way to the core and begin the Restoration Process!"
Seeing the finish line, Neo felt excited in a way, so his last kills were a bit more messy as he designed the bodies of the Bizarros with his blade without any proper technique.
"We did it. I did it!" A rare smile appeared on Neo's lips. He turned around, thrilled. "Guys! We did… it."
The tempo of his excitement reduced when he saw what was behind him. Bodies upon bodies. Piles of Bizarro limbs and black blood everywhere. Not a single person standing.
"Guys?" Neo's voice almost trembled.
Where were his teammates?
Neo stepped on the bodies of Bizarros, his eyes scanning the ground in search of his teammates. The first one he found was Dina. There was a gun in her mouth and a hole through her head.
She had… killed herself.
Next was Thomas, half of his face was in the mouth of a nearby Bizarro.
Just like that, Tony, Erika, Samuel, Dawn… Neo found each of their bodies. They had either killed themselves or allowed themselves to get eaten by Bizarros.
The mental and physical exertion had overexhausted them. He hadn't noticed it because he had only thought of moving forward. He thought of the people back home and forgot the ones beside him.
"... I'm sorry." He whispered an apology of regret in the silence.
He reached to cover his face with his trembling hands that were stained with murky blood, but then the sound of harsh breathing made it to his ears.
Neo looked around, quickly pinpointing the area it was coming from.
He scrambled to his left and began to fling the bodies of Bizarros, opening a way to see who was still breathing.
"Haaah—!" Alex sucked in a deep breath, coming alive after the Bizarros on top of him were removed.
"You're still alive!" Neo exclaimed, pulling Alex upwards. There were a few injuries on the Restorer's body and his gaze was a bit unsteady, but the most important thing was that he was alive!
"The others?" Alex looked around, showing signs of being concussed.
"They're gone." Neo informed him.
"But…"
"Listen to me. We still need to fix the core and get out of here." Hope returned to Neo's heart. "You can fix it, right?" His eyes shone as he looked at Alex.
"Fix the core? I can't even feel my fingertips. Captain, I… can't do it." Alex admitted with a weary appearance.
Neo's demeanor changed. "Your position as a Restorer is to Restore. Station yourself at the core and fix it."
His authoritative side surfaced again.
"I c-can't do it. I'm exhausted. A few moments ago, I thought I was d-dead and now—"
"You're alive. And the mission is ongoing." Neo completed the sentence.
Alex looked at him like he was insane. But before he was able to say so, they heard the loud sounds of screeching and growling.
More Bizarros.
Some meters away, a large horde of Bizarros were rushing towards the core, towards them. Their sizes were bigger than the last horde. Some of the Bizarros were even as tall as Neo.
Fuck. They needed to fix the core and get out of here as quickly as possible.
Neo turned around to grab Alex but he saw that Alex had put up a distance between the two of them whilst holding up a black watch. And behind Alex was a growing interplanetary Gate.
"... What are you doing?" Neo asked with an incredulous tone.
"I'm going home. This mission failed." Alex responded with a leveled voice, the concussion clearing from his countenance.
Neo's features crumbled. "We haven't fixed the core and—"
"I told you that I can't fix it! I'm not going to die here, Captain. You can, but I won't." Alex said with a fierce expression.
The gate behind him had already grown to the size of a double door.
"Goodbye, Captain." Alex waved, a look of guilt flashed on his face.
Before Neo could say anything, Alex already fell into the Gate. Neo rushed to grab him but was too slow.
"Hey! Wait—!" The Gate closed just before he could reach Alex.
That was the last portal watch and the last Restorer. The core was still unfixed. The only remaining way to leave the Dungeon was to clear it by killing every single Bizarro.
Neo gnashed his teeth. He really wouldn't get to eat ice cream again. Fuck.