Tanking her backlash with only handholding is kind of awful, but she does have a silo that's specifically outfitted to make sure she won't die from it, so. Just the aches and pains in her joints and uncomfortable stiffness. And the headaches. And the low core body temperature that she needs to constantly keep bringing up what feels like every five minutes. It's not as bad as what Tae-gun suffered for the past five years, and her backlash is better than most on the 'able to be countered' front. She will bear this discomfort with grace and dignity and absolutely no puppy eyes at Tae-gun. (Even though she now really misses snuggles.) Sleep handholding is fine. She is fine.

Volcanic Range is... not one of the S-rank dungeons she's likely to be very useful in. It's in the name, see. A fire esper is not going to be great at burning something that is already molten rock. She knows why she's here, and it's to be Tae-gun's partner. Which stings more than it should, really, because logically speaking the fact that she's allowed to go in at all is a serious compliment to her abilities and competence, and her major goal is absolutely to save as many lives as possible, not assuage her ego, but. ... It still stings. Not that she's going to display this complicated feeling where literally anyone can see. She is perfectly professional and just a teensy bit tired and backlashed. It's fine. She's fine.

(This is still ultimately better than waiting for the confluence to start, even if this is more actively uncomfortable.)

By now Tae-gun knows her well enough, though, that even without her showing it he... he gets it. There are many ways in which the two of them are similar, and in her shoes he'd be feeling wretched to be there only to be some other esper's arm candy. He can squeeze her hands (they've taken to handholding as much as they can, even outside their silo, provided there aren't cameras directly pointed at them) and offer her as reassuring a smile as he can.

"Ready?" he asks, commscreen open in front of him with the teleport destination marked on the map. They're about to be stared at by international media, which Tae-gun is already used to but Hye-jin is not—well, at least not this degree of international, Korea and Japan are next-door neighbours but Mexico is very much not—so he wants to make sure she's prepared for it.

"Ready," she says, giving his hands a squeeze in return, then releasing them. Mostly on his account; she's of the opinion that if anyone reads into esper handholding that's their problem.

Hye-jin actually suspects she's going to like international media more than either the Korean or Japanese media, on account of how nobody here is aware that she speaks some English. In order to ask her any questions they'd have to ask her in a language most people on this continent don't speak! That doesn't mean people won't drag translators in to try it, but the barrier of entry is higher. Instead they'll just be judging her by her looks and the way she carries herself, and: she's used to that, really.

On the bright side, amongst the suite of bullshit tech espers have access to is incredibly good simultaneous translation, so that they can communicate across language barriers like the one they're about to face. Of course, with languages whose structure is as different from each other as Spanish and English are from Korean and Japanese, "simultaneous" is relative, and there's still always some delay and awkwardness. Thankfully, they're all professionals, and short, to-the-point, unambiguous communication is a skill they've all had drilled in.

Also, Tae-gun himself goes abroad often enough that people know him and know he speaks perfect English. Hye-jin is about to be scrutinised.

He's sorry.

vworp

Dungeons that get more powerful and dangerous also get bigger portals, for some reason. For a named dungeon like Volcanic Range, the diameter is about three times Tae-gun's height, and it's floating five meters above a large intersection in Mexico City. A very wide area around it has been cleared and cordoned off, and there are six separate canopy tents and a grand total of fifteen support staff plus a medical team of ten.

Tae-gun and Hye-jin will be part of a team of five esper pairs, and out of the other four, two are already there.

Hye-jin will give them a courteous and excessively Japanese bow and otherwise attempt to leave it at that. Talking is how the media gets you. She will avoid doing that outside of the dungeon if possible, thanks.

The other espers disagree. One, in particular, a Mexican woman with pure white hair and golden irises, walks confidently towards Tae-gun. "Mr. Lee, good to see you again," she says in English, offering him a hand to shake.

"Likewise, Ms. Rodriguez," he replies in the same language, shaking her hand firmly. He then turns to look at Hye-jin and switches back to Korean. "Ana Marta Rodriguez is a Mexican S-rank esper with telekinesis powers. She has a lot of experience and working with her has always been a pleasure." Then to Rodriguez: "This is my partner, Kim Hye-jin. She is an A-rank esper with fire powers, and one of the most competent people I have ever met."

She has her translator up and, after a couple of seconds for it to finish rendering the Spanish translation of those sentences, says, "It is an honour to meet you, Ms. Kim." She extends her hand to shake, too.

Haaaaandshaaaaakes, she hates them.

She will nonetheless participate in this dreaded ritual. "The honor is mine."

They're... actually pretty compatible? Not, like, wildly so, but above-average for sure.

"Are you going to be leading our group, Ms. Rodriguez?"

"I will, yes. The remaining members of our group should be arriving shortly, and then we'll brief." Flash of light, another pair teleporting in. "And we're almost all here. Excuse me," she says, walking over to the new arrivals to greet them.

Tae-gun always finds it really goddamn strange how Westerners call him by his family name. He just can't get used to it, no matter how many times it happens.

... huh. Weird to meet someone she's compatible with out here in the proverbial wild. With her extremely obvious and publicly known backlash, she's accustomed to only relying on arranged (potential) partnerships.

Anyway, not important. She will be paying attention to the briefing, and attempt to be any comforting to Tae-gun with her presence. (She can tell he doesn't like the social rules changing on him. She'd hold his hand about it, but there are now cameras.)

And once the last pair arrives a couple of minutes later, Rodriguez gathers them all up to introduce them all to each other (including their respective ranks and powers, and of course they're all As and Ss here) and then start the briefing.

Volcanic Range is not one of the oldest dungeons on record, but in the years it's been around for it's gotten quite a fearsome reputation—and, really, the fearsomeness to back it, too. It's one of the somewhat rare dungeons that doesn't even try to kidnap people at all, opting instead to send out monsters to find people and bake them alive. And of course, people under these monsters' ministrations take a lot longer to die than they would if they were exposed by these amounts of heat from any other sources, as dungeons always try to keep their victims alive for as long as possible. For this dungeon in particular, the survival rates of people who escape the monsters is abysmal, since once outside their zone of influence the tissue damage will often be sufficient to be lethal, so it is paramount to not let monsters escape at all.

The inside of the dungeon is open air: there is a sky, and an expansive horizon. But the place is blazingly hot, decorated by crisscrossing rivers of lava, burning forests, and active volcanoes. The sky is perpetually a deep dark red that reflects the fires, and burnt and burning ashes fly in the scorching wind. What's more, the dungeon is old enough that it has in fact expanded to cover a lot of its horizon, and at least some of the forests and volcanoes visible in the horizon are actually real and visitable. The terrain is rocky, dry, and uneven, with the mirages helping it conceal numerous tripping hazards lying in wait to get you to fall on your face and suffer a third-degree burn or worse.

If that were all it was, though, it would not be an S-rank, even with some reasonably scary monsters.

First, it kills comms and electronics. They're all advised to just leave phones and other gadgets behind, because they just won't be useful in there. They'll need to navigate using their regular senses, no tech assistance available. Not just that, but sensors have a range limit enforced upon them, when they're not entirely noped by the dungeon, so they can't even compile a very good map of the dungeon in any way other than literally going out and seeing.

Second, you can't stay anywhere for too long, as the rocks that make up the ground will literally start animating itself into golems anywhere there's anyone, and the place's got lava just below the surface everywhere (and if that's not realistic: fuck you, the dungeon does not care about realism, it wants you to burn) so that continually destabilises the terrain. That also means that they can't do the normal thing of having a medical team stationed inside right next to the portal that they can do with other dungeons as they would probably all be killed and the entrance area would be made impassable.

Third, the place is huge. That's it, that's the third item, it's just had so long to grow and searching it for the core is really difficult.

Fourth, there are dragons, some larger than mammoths, all with scales tougher than steel and capable of breathing fire that melts rock.

Fifth, every monster it produces explodes on death, Balrog style. The dragons' explosions are enormous, while the golems' get larger depending on how long it's been since they spawned (so you want to kill them quickly) (and so, of course, if a golem does break past the dungeon portal that is an emergency as killing it in an area with civilians will cause unacceptable levels of collateral damage.

And finally, sixth, like many other S-rank dungeons it produces numerous identical decoy "cores" that all monsters will protect with their lives and which, if destroyed don't do anything. ...well, besides exploding.

In summary, no one actually has any ideas for how to permanently close this dungeon. Whenever it appears they try to systematically explore it, get attacked by monsters, occasionally find a core-alike, draw a specialist sensor in to verify whether it's the real core, it never is, they try destroying it anyway, it explodes, the dungeon remains. So the best they can do, really, is keep the monsters at bay until the dungeon decides to leave. Typically, this is done by sending a team in, staying in for two to six hours, and then being replaced by a new team later, rinse and repeat.

This is not to say, of course, that they're not going to be trying. Two of the five pairs—Tae-gun and Hye-jin being one, Rodriguez and her partner Montenegro being the other—have long-range exploration as their duty. They'll be going in opposite directions and trying to find something, anything that might prove to be the real core. They're chosen for their extreme mobility, of course, with Rodriguez being able to fly herself and her partner using her telekinesis and Tae-gun being able to do the same with his ice constructs, but now that Tae-gun has a partner who can help with his backlash he is also a damage-dealing powerhouse himself, which will allow him a lot more flexibility in his job.

High damage-dealing, mobility, and defensive capabilities: you need at least two out of those three to be of meaningful use, here. Tae-gun, with Hye-jin, now has all three. Hye-jin has two.

The one she's missing is the defensive capabilities, but she's somewhat more fireproof than other comparable espers, even when her actual immunity is to her own fire. So, uh. Two and a half? Two and one quarter? She will be treating it as nonexistent regardless, but it's still better than most people get. She is, objectively speaking, extremely fortunate.

At least she has something to do; her role here (besides being arm candy) is going to be navigator for their duo. Tae-gun, as the one with an esper power that actually counters this place, and furthermore also primarily responsible for transporting them, will be kind of too busy to stop and do any calculations to make sure they're actually checking a new area that hasn't already been covered by another shift. Electronics don't work, ordinary paper doesn't survive the ambient heat, but guess what? Certain kinds of paper made from dungeon materials can handle this. Guess who put a lot of resources and research into trying to counter this dungeon? That's right, anyone with any sense, because the Volcanic Range sucks and it could show up anywhere! So she's got a compass, an extremely fire resistant pen, graph (dungeon) paper, what's already been partially mapped by other teams, and hopefully enough quick and dirty cartography training to not completely bungle their scouting duties. Her work is not only to get things right, but also check everyone else's work in the search pattern they're working from, and waste as little of the sensor's time as possible on map cleanup and verification that they're exploring new ground.

Anyway. Ready as she'll ever be. She actually feels better about this now that she's here and she has a definite and useful job.

They're not the first group in, so even though dungeons get stronger every time they appear, there probably won't be any surprises. That's just a "probably", though; these dungeons are smart, and not beyond lulling people with a false sense of security by hiding its aces in its sleeves. This isn't theoretical, either, every confluence there are multiple dungeons that do this exact thing, so they really should not let their guard down.

That said... in they go, the esper with the overpowered shield powers going first to survive any potential ambushes waiting for them.

Hye-jin and Tae-gun don't wait to go in before being on his ice hoverboards, and as soon as they're through Tae-gun immediately takes to the air, looking up to make sure there aren't any dragons overhead waiting for them to get too busy with whatever might've been waiting on the ground.

That was all, as expected, an excess of zeal; the area surrounding the portal is clear of monsters.

Good. Okay; brief pause for everyone to verify the available landmarks and get an accurate heading, and then they're off. Tae-gun is entirely welcome to do his usual cool guy surfing on ice hoverboards, but Hye-jin will be sitting and furthermore demands a desk. A tiny ice desk. She keeps an arm looped around his ankle, carefully entwined between trousers and socks, but with enough skin contact to be equivalent to handholding. It's, uh, not her favorite position, and the media is absolutely going to have opinions about the way this looks, but they both need their hands free, and skin contact is kind of important. So. This is what they're doing, even if she kind of does look like the little arm candy nerd hanging on the back of Tae-gun's somewhat literal ice coattails. It's fine. She has a job, and that's what matters.

She will of course also be keeping an eye out and be available for support, but, like. It's fire versus lava. She doesn't expect to be able to do as much as he will. His turn to do the brunt of the work and for her to cover his gaps! Oh how the tables have turned.

They, like, discussed this in advance, so it's not fair to say it was a surprise, and objectively speaking it's not even really that much skin contact. However, there's just something about her lifting his trousers up to touch him that just feels... it feels...

It's fine. He's fine. He's done entire dungeons with an erection before. He's not unused to it. He's even done it around her before—arguably, that was one of his first experiences of running a dungeon with her. And the guideline of "go see a doctor if your erection lasts longer than four hours" doesn't apply to him anyway; if he did that, he just wouldn't ever leave the hospital, and he is demonstrably fine.

It's fine.

No, genuinely, he is fine, and outside the electrical shock caused in the immediate aftermath of the touch, going directly from his ankle to his nether regions, he can focus perfectly confidently. Once they're properly inside and clear that there's no immediate danger he gives Rodriguez and Montenegro a nod, and then off they go to their designated exploration area.