Charles III

But that's a story for a different time.

The point is Martha never could get past Charles's past love life. Besides the fact that he himself still appeared hooked on his memories of Sarah, he never even looked at Martha in that way. No lust, or anything besides business. To his credit though, he hadn't ever looked at anyone else like that either.

Charles Yawned as he stood up from his spot. It was time to get to work. His squad was under strict orders to investigate the edge of the new expanse and report any anomalies within six hours, and it had already been one. It was time to get a move on. He grabbed his ax(1) and approached his group

"Alright you all, stop playing around, it's time to get back to work. We've got five more hours to scout out this expanse before we have to back at base."

"Aww, come on Leader, can't we have five more minutes?" That was Carn, the squad's resident swordsman. He was cut from a lazy breed, but when it came down to it he could be counted on. He wasn't picky either, as long as he got to kill something he was happy.

His complaint was met with murmurs of agreement before Charles slammed his ax into the wall. "We're moving now! We don't have time to laze around and mess this assignment up. Who knows, this might be our promotion mission." Charles yanked his ax back out of the wall before hoisting it over his shoulder. "Now get your asses up and pack up. We leave as soon as possible."

"Yes sir!" Six salutes greeted his words. Even if someone on his team had a complaint, when faced with the orders from the up top they couldn't say a word wrong. Not that they did anyway, his team had been with Charles for years. Little things were just understood.

Charles and his squad headed out, following their current tunnel downwards towards the new expanse, currently codenamed E-3-17. Expanse E-3-17 was just discovered after all, and no one cared to name it yet. That could come if they could conquer it.

---

After about an hour of scouting towards the expanse, Martha picked up a reading on her scanner.

"Leader, I'm picking up something here. It looks like a fight between five lifeforms. Four appear to be the acid centipede, variant classes."

"What, so the centipedes are fighting each other?"

"No sir, they seem to be fighting the fifth lifeform. This... The fifth lifeform is a worm. I'm not picking up any other information."

"So we've discovered a new life form. Is it a variant of any worm species we know? Martha?"

"Oops, sorry Leader." Martha had gotten caught up in the battle, just like she always did. Even the weakest of fights still stole her away.

"The scanner reports no known similarities of powerful worms, though interestingly enough this one bears a resemblance to an earthworm. Additionally, it's power level is mark two, and the centipedes are the same. The difference is that this wormlike creature is showing enhanced levels of intelligence, in fact, it's as smart as most humans!"

"Alright then, mark it as a level one threat, and let's move on. It's not worth our time to focus on such pitiful creatures."

"Yes sir!" The group proceeded to move on.

Around ten minutes later, Martha once again alerted Charles. "Uhh, Leader, you might want to take a look at this."

"What is it? Another fight get your focus, Martha?"

"No sir, actually it's the same fight. Currently, the scanner is reading signs of increasing levels of force, on the level of minor bombs."

"Oh! Interesting. Anything else Martha, or can we move on?"

"Actually yes sir. The force levels are reaching dangerous levels, an impending explosion is-"

BOOOM!

"Well there you go, sir. The scanner is reading levels of a category two bomb, and the source is the fight from earlier. Life signals show one survivor, the worm."

Charles' eyes narrowed. "So a worm just made a category two bomb?"

"It looks like it sir."

"Well track it then! Squad, change of objective. Redirect course to Martha's direction and prepare for combat. We've found ourselves an anomaly. "

The squad all went into a state of heightened awareness. This wasn't a joke, anomalies were dangerous. Essentially, an anomaly could be anything the scanner couldn't recognize. It could be harmless, in theory at least, but most of the time they were far more dangerous than their surroundings. That's why the squad got prepared.

"The worm's signal has been locked on. Proceeding to track." This was Martha's bread and butter. After all, she was the main scout and the best in her field for her age. What else would you expect from her if not the best?

The squad proceeding to track the worm, tailing it from a decent distance. The worm looked disheveled, and its power readings were low and unstable, the typical signs of a life and death battle for a lifeform. Personally, Charles couldn't get his head around that he was wary of a worm. A worm of all things! Still, it was better to be safe than sorry. Or worse than sorry, dead. Not that he thought it would come to that. It was just the third layer after all.

They tracked the worm for quite a while, mostly due to its slow speed. Besides being hurt, it was a worm after all, so it wasn't going to be very fast. Martha was in charge of taking the lead, actually scouting ten meters closer to the anomaly than the rest of the squad. At one point they almost lost it, when it decided to dig a tunnel, but the trusty scanner helped them get back on track. Finally, after two hours of trailing, the worm reached its nest. It proceeded to find a comfy spot and pss out, much to the relief of the scouting squad.

"Finally! Mark this location as dangerous, a level three danger. Then we head back immediately!" Charles was ready to go back, and this had to be reported immediately, so the squad swiftly left. They went back to base, and marked the area of the anomaly. No one would ever take a chance with an anomaly. It was just too dangerous.

(1) Ax: It's literally just another wat to write axe, and I'm too lazy to put another e. chill.