"Is everybody okay? Radio still functional? Respond." Jihyo immediately checks the team's status after the impact.

"Yeah we're all fine. No scratches or anything." Jungyeon responded.

"Sana, what's our current location?" Jihyo asked again.

"I have no idea but there are high signs of life according the my radar but... there is no one in the vicinity." Sana replied.

"Alright. Jungyeon, get out there first and signal us if it's safe to follow. Everyone else, get ready to fire." Jihyo commanded.

Jungyeon jumped out of the pod and scanned the area. Shotgun in hand, ready to blow anything that moves.

"Sector clear. No entities in sight." Jungyeon made sure of this.

Everyone else including me hopped out, still with our guards up. We were welcomed with the night sky but a glowing moon in the distance that illuminates our surroundings and thin grassfields everywhere. Vines but no sign of trees. A chilly wind blows. 

"Still nothing, Sana?" Jihyo was still feeling that there's something strange about the place.

"It's really unusual, high signs of life on both aerial and terrestrial." Sana doubted the peaceful scene.

Darkness suddenly surrounded us quickly. The light of the moon was blocked. It wasn't a cloud.

It was a swarm of what we identify as jellyfishes. It was like a hive of jellyfishes. They were a lot. Trust me when I say this.

A lot.

"Wah! It looks so scary... But also beautiful." Chaeyoung said.

"Do you think they're hostile?" Tzuyu asked.

"Let's just consider everything as hostile in this scenario." Nayeon said.

"Nayeon is right. These are creatures, not people. Probably not negotiable at all." Mina agreed.

"Speaking of people, have you detected any?" Dahyun asked Sana.

"None at all, sweetie. What's the next course of action, Jihyo?" Sana responded.

"Stay here around the pod. Me and Momo will try to scout the area." The leader taking her role and dragging her with me.

We separated ways.

The places was too empty. Sana even said that there's sign of life in the area and even if we say the tech is faulty, which is not, I can also feel it too.

What if something popped up behind me and pinned me down before I can do anything? And the communication jams? And-

Let's just not.

Putting my fear aside, I walked in the dimly lit forest and noticed something even more unusual. There were chest from the cargo we carried if I remembered correctly. It was locked by a pay wall. I checked my credits and I didn't have any. Nil.

"Guys, do you have any credits?" I asked through the comms.

"...That's actually something we overlooked. Let me check."

"We got none. Looks like we got stripped from it... Why?" Sana responded.

"Looks like one of our cargo's chest have landed here. And you gotta pay to open it." I said.

"If the chests are there, it's most likely that our containers where we keep our money have scattered too." Nayeon deduced.

"Ah, this woman is still really observant with money." Side-comment from Jungyeon.

"I found containers and money with it. My credits went up." Jihyo said.

"Mine went up too. How convenient!" I replied.

"Looks like everyone's credits got added. Interesting. Shared money but will it be also be a shared consumption? Momo, how much do you need?" Sana asked.

"25 credits." I replied

"We only got 10 credits at the moment. Jihyo, find more containers. Momo, stay there." Sana ordered.

 I stared at the chest. With intent.

Well it is a chest after all... Hehe.

Made to be opened at the right time. Hidden to others and those who deserve it can see what's inside.

In a few minutes of staring at the damn thing, a slurping sound was heard from behind.

I turned my back into a wide mouth of some eldritch monstrosity, opened to bite a piece of me.

My reflexes kicked in and I immediately sliced the creature's head off.

"A creature that's our size which seems like a humanoid but has hands and wings like a... Lemur." I reported back to them.

"Wait. Have you opened any containers, Jihyo?" I asked.

"No. Did you just gain credits by killing the creature?" Jihyo asked.

"It seems so. What kind of people designed this system?" Sana laughed at the dark discovery.

"Well at least we can say that they're hostiles. We have an excuse to kill." Nayeon said.

"There's also metallic platforms in this place. Also found some containers. Seems like a military post. What the hell were they running here?" Jihyo with another question while opening said containers.

"I have 25 credits now and will open the chest." I eagerly spent my money on this thing.

The chest contained a somewhat green-colored scarf. I felt like there was something odd about it though.

"Sana, I got a green scarf. What does it do?" I reported immediately.

"Wait, let me check the army's item database..."

"From what I've seen here, it's the Hermit's Scarf. It's description says that it should give you a chance to evade anything that's supposed to damage you." Sana said.

"I'd say that you absorb it. You can't kite as good as us." Jihyo said.

"This is actually the first time that we'll use this tech." I said.

"All of this is classified and contained in the military. I think I already know why." Jihyo said.

"I don't even know that these existed." Jungyeon said.

"I'm gonna head back now." I said.

I was walking back to the pod. I was feeling like more of those "lemurians" would come out and get me. I had my sword on, ready to counter-strike.

Fortunately, I got back safely.

"Guys, head here. I found a teleporter deployed in here. We might get back to the HQ through this, or at least somewhere safe." Jihyo said.

"Sounds good, we'll follow now." Jungyeon said.

"Time to do work, Minjoong." Tzuyu said to the acrid.

Minjoong started to run, sweating green goo from God knows where only for a few seconds. Sped our movement though.

It was disgusting but I was more amazed by the fact that something so disgusting could be so...

Anyway, moving along. Area was still clear. We saw the metallic platform that Jihyo said. It looks really similar to the military settlements that they make whenever they deploy infantry to areas they needed to defend, whatever their motives for the area were. It just has me asking myself.

What the hell did they do in this place?

It's swarmed with jellyfishes and looks like an alien area. Trees are little to none for what seems to be a forest. None of it came into the record. Not even Jihyo, Sana and even Jungyeon know about what happened here.

We came in front of the teleporter, all hoping we could return home.

"What if this takes us somewhere even more dangerous?" Dahyun doubted the decision we were making.

"It's not like we're gonna do something here." Chaeyoung argued.

Jihyo the teleporter.

"Something's very wrong here. Life signs started rising!" Sana was in shock.

We felt the ground shake.

More lemurians started to rise up from the dirt!

The jellyfishes started to descend and our guards went up.

"Set the turrets up already, Sana! Get ready to fire at will!" Jihyo commanded.

The turrets were planted, one on the platform and one on the ground. Sana was inside the turrets' reach.

"Keep them away as I lay down the mines so I can fire the harpoons securely!" Sana said.

"Momo, Dahyun, Tzuyu and HAN-D, you're in-charge of the open areas. Mina, Chaeyoung and CHEF, go for the chokepoints. Nayeon, Jungyeon, Minjoong and I will be on roam. From now on, that's our default setup." Jihyo commanded.

"We need to hold for two minutes for the teleporter to be charged up." Sana reminded us.

We immediately went to our spots, pumped up with adrenaline.

The lemurians striked but their efforts were no match. They were fragile and weak enemies past theit initial jarring stance and looks.

The waves of lemurians and jellyfishes in the air were not to be ignored, though.

It was sooner or later until another foe emerged. Stone golems rised up from the ground with a thunderous clap behind Jihyo.

Jihyo was in the middle of her combat roll when it happened, headed to the the golem's direction.

"Jihyo, watch out!" I dashed into her location to stun the golems and she then blasted the golems, using all of her abilities.

"These things are tough to beat down!" She said.

They were very durable and the fact that our weaponry was being challenged, there's more to this whole situation than just creatures attacking us.

As were beating them down, I felt an intense electric shock behind me, enough to make me scream. A jellyfish stung me.

Jihyo immediately shot it down.

"Don't forget about your surroundings, Momo!" Jihyo shouted.

The rest were handling themselves well, standing their ground.

It was already two minutes. Nayeon immediately went to the teleporter.

"It says that we have one remaining enemy!" Nayeon said.

"It's really encouraging us to kill?" Tzuyu knew there was something wrong with everything going on.

A white flash surrounded us and a burning sensation was felt.

The shadow beneath us was getting bigger as we noticed that a humongous jellyfish following us.

"What the hell is that thing?" Chaeyoung said.

"My spotter said that it's a Wandering Vagrant. The military has a record of this?" Mina said.

"Whatever that is, destroy it." Jihyo said.

The Wandering Vagrant saw us and started to excrete six bioluminescent orbs, all targeted to Nayeon.

"You came for the wrong girl!" Jungyeon shouted in anger, bashing the giant jellyfish with her shield. The Vagrant didn't flinch.

"What!?" Jungyeon was surprised.

"It's okay, I can kite it while running. Just attack while it's chasing me. I can dodge the attacks easily."

Us melees were having a hard time chasing it and the ranged ones were on full effort trying to shoot it down while moving. We were running around the whole place before we knew it.

Mina got sick of the chasing and started to charge up a shot.

"Line it up." She said.

As the Vagrant was moving in a straight motion, the spotter immediately scanned it.

Mina pulled the trigger and the shot went through it, blowing it up.

"Wow. It never fails to amaze me." Chaeyoung was clapping.

"Oh look, there's something glowing yellow from the Vagrant." Dahyun said.

"Absorb it." Sana said.

"Omo. I saw another ability in my HUD!" Dahyun said and immediately tried it out.

A strong gas came out of her suit and the six bioluminescent orbs came after, blowing up in the air.

"Whoa. Watch it!" Tzuyu said. Minjoong also "barked."

"Look! There are three chests in here." Nayeon said inside a cave-like structure.

"Open it up, I'm pretty sure we have credits by now." Jungyeon said.

Sana shared the item database to our suits so that we could scan items when detected. A Crowbar, Mortar Tube and Rusty Knife were found. I don't know why they're used like proper nouns either.

"Deal +50% damage to enemies above 80% health. Huh. Sounds useful for me." Mina said and took the Crowbar.

"On hit: 9%chance to fire a mortar for 170% damage. I have a high fire rate, let me take it." Jihyo said.

"On hit:15% chance to bleed an enemy for 4x35% damage. Let the CHEF take it, the cleavers go through enemies." Nayeon said and Sana let out a grin as she heard this.

"How do you guys compute the percentages?" Chaeyoung said.

"Shush." Sana said.

"Let's go to the teleporter now, no more chests laying around in this area." Jihyo called.

We then went to the teleporter and used it, hoping that we would return home.