Black Badger

“Humanoid Creature?”

Ami stretched her head forward and muttered.

“Did they turn it on?”

“I do not feel anything nearby, though....”

I answered with every nerve sharpened.

In truth, I could not feel the presence of any kin close by. The nearest one was on the mountain.

Only one... but still.

Why is he not coming to kill me?

Thinking this, I swept my eyes around.

I could feel on my skin that every senior was tense. Inside that tension, I honed my senses further and probed the surroundings.

“Could it be a deserter Badger?”

Like Jin.

“Jin Silver?”

“But the zone where Hilde met Jin and this place are in opposite directions.”

“The chance he is alive is low....”

Ami pointed this out in a dull tone, and Ricardo added a mutter of his own to my hopeful whisper.

All of them gripped their weapons and stared out the windows.

A herd of insignificant Creatures wandered sluggishly across the road.

And in the middle of that, a traffic light working eerily fine.

Yun spoke in a blunt voice.

“Forget Jin Silver or whatever, the problem is—where is the electricity coming from.”

“Could a humanoid Creature have turned it on?”

“And how would they turn on electricity.”

Yun spoke with the intonation of someone who might die of frustration because no one else saw the core issue.

“And even if, by some miracle, they figured out how to produce electricity—why would they use that precious energy on a traffic light?”

“Maybe there is a Creature stuck to it that produces electricity.”

Carl Dow abruptly broke the silence.

I nodded while listening because I had been thinking the same thing.

Yun also seemed to believe that was the most reasonable explanation. I saw him nod.

“Do you have any guesses~?”

Ricardo grabbed the shoulder portion of the passenger seat and leaned out.

I looked into the hazel eyes of my senior.

“There are many Creatures that produce electricity.”

“That eight-foot ghost-thing that came to catch Hilde last time also used electricity. Remember?” 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

“Before the type.”

Yun cut Ami off.

“I want to know the location. Hilde, you can sense and control Creatures, right?”

I should explain this properly now.

I nodded. It was a good question.

I had been thinking of explaining it properly anyway.

Staring at the blue signal light, I answered.

“First, within the range I can sense, I do not feel any Creatures we need to be wary of. While we advance, I will explain more about this ability.”

Without a word, Yun started the car again.

The car continued along the road at around 50 kilometers per hour. We passed the green light and drew closer to the mountain’s foot.

There must have been a small village at the base of the mountain. The damaged houses drew my eyes.

I began explaining while keeping my gaze fixed out the window.

“For convenience, let us call the sense of detecting other life forms ‘sixth sense.’ Sixth sense manifests very strongly between kin. Meaning that no matter how far my kin are, I can always sense what direction they are in.”

“For Creatures that are not your kin, the distance is limited?”

“Yes. Training extends the range, but ultimately there is a restriction in sensing other species. And Creatures that are close enough and manageable can be handled. ‘Creature’ here refers to life forms we can sense with this sixth sense. We cannot sense normal animals like pigs.”

“Are there Creatures you cannot control?”

Ami blinked as she asked.

I met her eyes and smiled faintly.

“Yes. If a Creature is strong, it cannot be controlled. The higher the Creature’s class, the harder it {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} becomes to handle. We used to call those who were gifted at controlling Creatures handlers.”

“You cannot control your kin?”

“It is impossible. And there are some Creatures considered uncontrollable. We used to call them upper-class Creatures.”

“I get it. Like a dragon?”

At Ami’s question, I smiled wider.

“Dragons were one of them. Until the greatest handler of our time succeeded in controlling one.”

Kairos had succeeded in controlling a dragon everyone believed truly impossible.

Asked how he did it, he always gave a standard answer: eat well, sleep well, exercise, and take interest in Creatures. He had been a genius handler and also a brilliant gambler.

Now I understood the message he left behind completely.

But his story did not matter, so I changed the subject.

“Anyway, if something we should worry about approaches, I will inform you in advance. For now everything looks fine. At least until we reach the mountain.”

“That is a convenient function~....”

“Right?! He is like a living drone!”

“Can you turn that sense off?”

Yun spoke abruptly.

His voice low, emotionless.

I captured his cold, clean-cut features with my eyes.

“You would need a skilled magician to hide presence. That is the only method I know. They might have invented something new since then, but....”

“I was asking the opposite.”

Yun rolled his eyes toward me briefly; our gazes met for a second.

Eyes like cold crystals soon turned forward again.

“Can someone make you unable to feel your sixth sense.”

“Ah.”

Understanding, I gave a bitter smile.

There was no pleasant way to explain this.

The mountain grew larger and larger.

At the mountain’s base, something heavy stirred.

Detecting that presence, I answered.

“It is possible. Just like sight can be taken, our sixth sense can also be forcibly taken. Through violence.”

“Sounds like it was done often enough.”

“It was capital punishment.”

A cruel execution applied to rebels.

My kin instinctively frowned whenever that punishment was mentioned.

I heard the sense of severance was extreme.

Many had said they would rather choose execution than be cut off from their kin and thrown alone into the world.

The process itself was said to be excruciatingly painful.

“But Hilde, you have experienced losing that sense before.”

Ami’s quiet voice pulled me from old memories.

“Were you not fine then?”

“Yes. Back then I did not even remember that such a sense existed.”

“But forgetting and losing are different....”

Ricardo, who had been silent until now, inserted himself into the conversation with an eerie tone.

I turned my head slightly further to meet his gaze.

“Be careful.... If I were a humanoid Creature, the moment I subdued you, I would cut off that sense first....”

I laughed shortly.

But I did not bother adding that doing so would be risky since both sides would lose awareness of each other—and that this was why authorities did not easily remove the sixth sense for dangerous criminals who were not sentenced to death.

No need to explain that now.

I simply looked forward again.

There were some Creatures moving toward the car, but Yun lazily maneuvered the vehicle to avoid them.

We drew closer and closer to the mountain.

And with that, the presence of Creatures grew stronger.

The presence of the kin in the mountain also grew.

A Creature moved.

“In about three minutes, we will encounter a Creature that will burst out from under that red roof.”

The seniors immediately prepared for battle.

Convenient—no need to give orders.

Maybe this was why they let me take squad leader roles easily.

“It is about 3 meters in length, 2 meters in thickness. I do not know what it is. Looks like a Creature contaminated and mutated.”

“Can you handle it?”

Carl asked, pulling his mask up to his nose.

I heard Ami opening the military vehicle’s roof hatch, but I did not take my eyes off the front.

“I am not good at handling. I also do not particularly like it.”

“Hunting, then.”

This time Yun asked.

I looked at the building with the red roof coming closer and smiled.

“That is no problem.”

Screeeeeech!

A scream shook the road.

A giant maw burst out from the building.

From the three-way split maw, a tongue split in two shot out.

As it charged toward the military truck at terrifying speed, Yun turned the steering wheel ninety degrees and braked hard, while Ami jumped out through the roof.

The rest of the team exited the horizontally stopped vehicle, using it as cover as they opened fire.

Rat-tat-tat-tat!

Precise gunfire.

The seniors’ bullets pierced the maw and the body cleanly.

Screeeeeech!

“I have nothing to do.”

WHUD!

I watched Ami shred the mangled Creature’s torso into pieces with her wires.

Flesh and blood rained down.

“Everyone is so skilled.”

“No, it is just that there are oddly few Creatures around here.”

Ami landed lightly and approached us.

A senior brushed muscle fibers off her shoulder without interest.

“That is why nothing is happening. Normally A Zone is swarming with Creatures.”

“And our team is way too strong~.”

Ricardo loaded his gun with a slow smile.

“It is not a combination they would normally put together....”

Carl and Sofia silently holstered their weapons.

I listened to the sounds of the finished fight as I waited.

While waiting, I cast my gaze far ahead. Beyond the scattered remains—only a little farther and the mountain began.

Strangely pale.

There was no fog, yet it felt oddly pale.

As I was rolling the small suspicion around, my gunner called out.

Yun, who had not even stepped out of the vehicle, looked at me through the open passenger door.

“The traffic light is on again.”

Right.

The traffic light at the last intersection.

It glowed red.

I fixed my eyes on the stop signal.

Quietly watching it, I took a few steps forward.

One step.

Two steps.

Three ste—

“Shit.”

The sensation hit.

A presence surged in and suffocated me. I could not take another step.

My body froze under a presence that felt like it would burn my nerves.

The voices did not reach me clearly.

With my eyes widening, I muttered.

“Thunder?”

The ruler of lightning.

Called that because it freely controlled electricity. Even Kairos, who had controlled a dragon, had laughed that he never wanted to face it.

Our unit always avoided the mountain range where it was said to dwell, and ambitious knights had climbed the mountain to defeat it for fame only to never return.

A presence more overwhelming than fire-type dragons.

A Creature that Kyle and I struggled with every time we met it.

A species we would never face on rainy days.

“Why is it on the opposite side of the mountain?”

This area was already Thunder’s domain.

Realizing that, I regretted passing that traffic light.

The one that glowed blue.

I should have realized that was where the lightning dragon’s territory began.

***

“The mountain smells good.”

Ami beamed.

“Right, oppa?”

“Watch where you step.”

“I am watching. Does it not smell sweet, Hilde?”

“Yes....”

I answered gloomily as I climbed the mountain.

“The air is refreshing....”

On the way to the seed storage.

We were, at this moment, hiking.