Denver International Airport made Narita look like a convenience store.
Everything was wider, taller, and louder. The terminal corridors went on forever, lined with restaurants, shops, and screens showing American football highlights. People walked around in shorts and flip-flops, talking on their phones at a volume that would've gotten them dirty looks on a Tokyo train.
And then there was Honoka.
She hadn't seen what the girl was wearing before. So, now, Suzume spotted her as they came through the customs gate, standing off to the side near a gift shop with a bright red t-shirt pulled over her regular clothes that read "I ? AMERICA" in big white letters. She had two tiny American flags in her hands. She was waving them.
"Honoka."
"Suzume-san! Look what I found!"
"When did you even buy those?"
"There was a shop right after we got off the plane! They had magnets too but I didn't have enough dollars." She waved the flags harder, smiling brightly. "Isn't this great?"
Suzume sighed.
[... Adorable, though.]
They made it through customs without incident, though an airport employee near baggage claim recognized them and asked for a selfie. Suzume froze up and smiled with all the charisma of a cardboard cutout while the woman held her phone out. Kasumi leaned into the frame and looked like a model.
Outside arrivals, the Colorado sun hit Suzume's face and she squinted. The air was thinner and drier than Tokyo, and mountains lined the western horizon like a wall.
A girl was standing by the curb holding a sign.
The sign read "DUNGEON RESCUE GUILD" in English on top and, underneath it, the same thing in Japanese, though the handwriting was a little shaky on the kanji. The girl holding it was shorter than Suzume had pictured, maybe 160 centimeters, with blonde hair pulled into a messy ponytail and freckles scattered across her nose and cheeks. She was wearing jeans and a college hoodie, and she was bouncing on her heels.
The second she saw them, she rushed over.
"Oh my god, hi! You're here! You're actually here!" Oh. Her Japanese was good, a little accented but fluent, the words tumbling out fast. "I'm Madison, Madison Cole, we emailed, I can't believe you actually came, thank you so much, seriously, thank you—"
"It's nice to meet you," Suzume said, and Madison grabbed her hand with both of hers and shook it so hard that Suzume's glasses slid down her nose.
"Sorry, sorry, I'm just— okay." Madison took a breath, collecting herself. "I rented a van. It's over there. I figured you'd have a lot of gear so I got the biggest one they had, but, uh, it might still be a little tight with nine people."
"Nine people in a van," Rina said from somewhere behind Suzume. "Fun."
It was, in fact, not fun.
The van looked massive from the outside but had somehow been designed by people who didn't believe in legroom. Suzume ended up pressed against the window with Kasumi squeezed in next to her, their shoulders and thighs touching. Hikari, Sora, and Takeo took the back row. Rina sat in the middle with Honoka and Emiko. Yumi called shotgun.
Madison pulled onto the highway heading west toward Boulder, and the Rockies grew larger and larger through the windshield with every passing minute.
"So," Suzume said, trying to focus on something other than the warmth of Kasumi's leg against hers, "tell us about your father's team."
Madison's grip tightened on the steering wheel.
"My dad's name is Marcus Cole. He's a Berserker-class, Level 73. He's been doing this for years, ever since the System first showed up." She kept her eyes on the road. "His team had four other members, all A-Rank, all veterans. They'd cleared dozens of dungeons together. This one was supposed to be routine."
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
"What happened?" Hikari asked from the back, her tablet already out.
"They went in on a Tuesday. The dungeon's up in the mountains, about forty minutes west of Boulder. A-Rank, confirmed. They'd scouted it beforehand and estimated a four-day clear." Madison swallowed. "By day five, they hadn't come out. By day six, Rocky Mountain Vanguard officially declared them killed in action."
"After six days?" Suzume asked.
"After six days." Madison's voice went flat. "That's guild policy, apparently. If a team doesn't return within 48 hours of their estimated clear time, they're marked KIA and the insurance process begins."
The van was quiet for a moment.
"I asked the guild to send a rescue team," Madison continued. "I begged them. I went to their offices, I called every number I could find, I talked to anyone who would listen." She shook her head. "They said the insurance payout was cheaper than a rescue operation. And besides, there was no guarantee he was even alive, so why risk more people?"
Suzume stared at the side of Madison's face. The girl's jaw was tight and her knuckles were white on the wheel. She looked like she was about to cry, but she was holding it together through sheer stubbornness.
[Yeah... I know that look. I had that same look for months.]
"We'll do our best to find him," Suzume said.
Madison glanced at her, just for a second, then back at the road.
"Thank you."
Emiko leaned forward from the middle row.
"Madison-san, I want to go over the payment arrangement, if that's alright. We discussed a preliminary figure over email, but I'd like to confirm before we proceed."
"Yeah, of course." Madison nodded. "Whatever the amount is, I'm paying it. I already set aside the money. And I want to be clear about something." She looked at Suzume through the rearview mirror. "Whether you find him alive or... or not, I'm paying. You came all the way here. You're putting your lives on the line. I just want closure, one way or another."
Emiko nodded and pulled out her tablet to go over the details.
---
They arrived in Boulder around noon.
The town sat right at the base of the mountains, smaller and quieter than Denver, with a main street full of outdoor gear shops and coffee places. Madison pulled up to a hotel that looked like it had been built sometime in the last century and recently renovated just enough to charge modern prices.
Emiko handled check-in while everyone hauled their bags inside. Room assignments went up on the group chat within minutes.
Suzume stared at her phone.
Room 204: Aoi Suzume, Hayakawa Kasumi.
She looked up at Emiko, who was sorting through keycards at the front desk.
"I put everyone in pairs based on operational compatibility," Emiko said without looking up from her tablet. "Hikari-san is with me, as we need to coordinate logistics. Yumi-san is with Honoka-chan. Rina-san is with Takeo-kun since they're both low-maintenance. And Sora-san gets a single because he's the highest-ranked combat member and needs proper rest." She handed Suzume a keycard. "That leaves you and Kasumi-san."
"Operational compatibility," Suzume repeated with a scoff.
"Operational compatibility," Emiko confirmed with a wink.
---
That evening, they gathered in the hotel's conference room. Madison had brought her laptop, and she set it up at the head of the table and started pulling up files.
"Okay, so." She turned the screen around so they could all see it. "This is everything I have on the dungeon. My dad shared a lot with me before he went in."
The screen showed a rough map of the dungeon's first three floors, drawn from data collected by previous scouting teams. The layout was vertical, descending deeper into the mountain, with narrow corridors connecting larger chambers.
"So, here's the thing about A-Rank dungeons." Madison looked around the table. "They're not like lower-ranked ones. You don't just walk into a cave and fight your way through hallways. A-Rank dungeons are... they're like their own worlds."
She clicked to the next file, which showed a wide-angle photo taken from just inside the portal.
Suzume leaned forward. Instead of the tunnels and corridors she was used to seeing, the image showed an open sky, a rocky mountain landscape stretching out in every direction, with what looked like multiple structures and cave entrances dotting the terrain in the distance.
"When you step through the portal, you're basically standing in the wilderness," Madison continued. "There are multiple locations spread out across the map, each with their own monsters, their own layouts. Think of it less like a dungeon and more like a region you have to explore." She clicked again. "Common monsters in this one include Stone Wardens, Level 65 to 70, Granite Crushers at Level 72, and on the deeper end, there've been reports of something called an Abyssal Golem. Level 78."
Hikari was writing all of this down. Sora, next to her, was studying the screen without blinking.
"My dad's team planned to reach the boss chamber on floor five by day three, clear it on day four, and exit." Madison pulled up the last file, a series of text messages. "This was the last message I got from him. Day two, 4:47 PM."
The message read:
Floor 3 cleared. Heading to 4 tomorrow. Everything on schedule. Love you, Mads.
Madison stared at the screen for a second too long before clicking it off.
"After that, nothing."
Hikari looked up from her notes.
"Madison-san, you mentioned earlier that you'd found local Players willing to assist. Can you tell us about them?"
"Right, yeah." Madison straightened up. "I managed to recruit three A-Rank Players from the area. They're not cheap, but they're experienced, and they agreed to meet us at the trailhead near the dungeon entrance, ASAP." She looked around the table. "With them, plus Sora-san, that gives you four A-Rank combat players for the actual dungeon."
Suzume nodded. Four A-Rank Players plus Hikari, Kasumi, and the rest of the team for support. It wasn't perfect, but it was a lot better than what they'd had on the flight over.
"Good," Suzume said. "We'll meet up and, uh, come up with some sort of a plan."
The meeting wrapped up.
