Black Badger

I raised my body after giving a faint smile.

A pain came to my chest and then disappeared, but aside from that there didn’t seem to be any particular problem. I must have hit around my chest when I fell.

My hand was cut, but the wound wasn’t very deep.

White snow was spread across the ground.

“Oh, you’re not dead.”

Ro, who had been sitting on a huge rock nearby, blinked.

“I thought you were dead because you weren’t getting up.”

“Senior.”

You seem to be fine.

I didn’t bother asking.

He didn’t seem like he would answer anyway.

Instead of spitting out useless words, I got up and looked around.

I could feel Creatures swarming everywhere. Several groups were circling around us as if surrounding us. The corpses of Creatures that Jonathan and Ro must have taken care of were piled around. I could see parts of the snow soaked red.

But Seba wasn’t nearby.

He was overhead, observing us from the sky.

What is he aiming for.

“Have you gotten in contact with the others?”

Let’s handle what we can. First, identifying our squad members.

I fumbled around for my radio and looked at Jonathan.

Jonathan didn’t answer; instead, he furrowed his brows and held out his hand.

“Treat your hand first.”

“Ah, the wound isn’t deep, so I’m fine.”

“Hand.”

...He doesn’t seem like he’ll be persuaded.

I resigned myself and held out my right hand.

Jonathan immediately grabbed my right hand and pulled out a bandage from his combat uniform pocket.

While receiving the senior’s skilled treatment, I asked again.

“Do you perhaps have a radio? Mine seems to have fallen into the train.”

Without a word, he handed me his radio and went back to wrapping the bandage.

I turned on the radio with my left hand and searched for the squadmates’ signals.

Fortunately, before long, a familiar voice came through.

[Hilde.]

“Yun!”

I couldn’t hide my relief.

“Are you all right?”

[Yeah. Give the situation report first.]

Yun’s report was clean.

The content also eased my mind a little. He said that he and Ricardo, who had run toward the train to stop it, were completely uninjured. That was because Ami grabbed them quickly right before the collision and pulled them out of the train.

As soon as they escaped, flying-type Creatures bombarded them with attacks, so the three of them killed all of the Creatures.

Ami, the only one able to fly, put the two of them down and went after Seba.

The problem was that, in the course of all of this, Ami’s boots had run out of power.

[It was already cold so the usable time was short, and the charger is in the train!]

She spoke in a voice tinged with sadness.

[But most of the cars fell to the south side of the bridge. We’re on the north side right now.]

We were on the south side of the bridge.

I exhaled a white breath and gauged the situation.

The current time was 2:30 p.m. Attacks weren’t pouring in right now, but it was a situation where we didn’t know when they would start, and the squad was scattered.

And three of my squad members were on the north side of the bridge. The other two, apparently, weren’t reachable. Meaning their life or death was unknown.

The situation wasn’t good.

I first worried about the safety of the others, including Kai and Sophia.

I faintly furrowed my brows and cast my gaze toward where the tracks and the laid bridge should be.

“Let’s regroup at the bridge.”

I wasn’t sure how far we were from the bridge.

“We’ll also head to the bridge.”

[Yeees.]

Ricardo’s voice.

[Understood.]

Yun’s voice followed, and the conversation ended.

After checking the radio one more time, I handed it back to the senior who had been looking at me.

“Thank you, senior.”

Jonathan stared at me.

It was the sort of gaze a cat gives a bug stuck on a wall. He was the type to look through people, but this kind of look was rare.

It seemed he had something he wanted to say.

Wearing a slightly troubled smile, I broke the silence.

“What is it?”

“Why are the squad members reporting to you?”

“I think it’s because I got separated from everyone alone.”

I figured he might ask.

“Those two usually tease me often.”

I answered nonchalantly.

Jonathan slowly nodded.

I curved my mouth in a smile and turned my gaze to Ro, who was sitting on the rock chewing an energy bar.

“Did you hear the conversation just now, Senior Ro?”

“Huh?”

Ro blinked at me.

He didn’t hear.

“What conversation?”

“Let’s go back to the bridge.”

I smiled faintly without showing surprise or disappointment.

“We decided to meet up there.”

Yun’s evaluation of Giacomo Ro suddenly jumped into my mind.

Before this mission, Yun had looked at me and said calmly:

There’s no doubt Giacomo was born with incredible luck. If not for extraordinary luck, he would never have survived this long with that intelligence.

At the time I simply replied, “Well, to you, most humans are stupid,” and left it at that.

Thinking back, Yun’s assessments were harsh but always accurate....

Even Ami didn’t correct her older brother’s assessment.

“We can’t stay here forever, can we?”

“Where’s the bridge.”

“I’ll lead the way.”

After answering, I turned to Jonathan, who was gripping his sword and scanning the surroundings.

“Senior. Let’s go.”

“I’ll walk in front.”

The senior took his gaze off the thick trees and walked toward me.

“Step back.”

He didn’t refuse.

I only needed to watch the rear.

And if something happened, I was confident I could intervene at the right moment. I was confident I could handle the Creatures circling us by myself. If Seba joined in, the situation would get a bit tricky, but even then it didn’t seem like the advantage would be lost.

With no complaints, I began walking.

Snow covered the ground, and pine trees towered into the sky.

We walked through the forest in silence. As Jonathan and I moved forward, Ro grumbled, “Where are you going?” and then hastily followed us.

I walked while sensing the groups of Creatures circling the area.

I had no initial expectation that our formation would stay intact.

I just wished that this impulsive curly-haired senior, whose thoughts were impossible to read, wouldn’t suddenly peel off mid-way....

Ro peeled off.

“Senior.”

“What’s this.”

Ro suddenly walked diagonally and looked down at something.

I quickly followed behind him.

“Where are you going.”

“Is it dead?”

Ro poked something with the tip of the rifle he held.

I narrowed my eyes at the silhouette that only looked like black plastic.

A Creature I didn’t know?

But I didn’t feel any presence.

“It’s not moving.”

“Senior. It’s probably nothing, let’s just go.”

“Huueck!”

“Uwaaaah!”

Whatever had been at the tip of the rifle suddenly jumped up.

At the scream it let out, Ro let out a shout and stumbled backward.

I froze mid-step and opened my eyes wide.

What.

“Oh fuck! Why is something dead coming back to life!”

“Hey, lower the muzzle! Don’t point it at your squad leader, you brat!”

Chen?

I stared blankly at the other squad leader who was getting up, irritated.

The man who had been lying face-down in the snow raised his body. What had looked like a lump of dark cloth turned into a tall, lean man with snow stuck to him.

The long-limbed man brushed the snow off himself.

Ro grumbled, turning his body, saying he had almost pulled the trigger out of shock.

Your sense of camaraderie is practically zero.

The sequence of events, completely devoid of common sense yet accepted as if it were normal, left me bewildered. I stood speechless and watched the men return to me.

I should never get mad at Sophia Kalak again.

While I was reflecting, Chen looked at me and Jonathan and relaxed the frown on his face.

“Swordmonkeys are here?”

It’s not easy to call swordsmen something so crude.

“At least you won’t die.”

Chen Koenig.

A first-generation war hero. Always stuck to Jason Trevain, earning the nickname “Ijin-yi” from Ami. According to Ami, he “doesn’t have any particular malice and laughs a lot.” According to Yun, he “has no insides, and without Trevain’s permission he can’t even wipe his own ass.”

Watching the senior brush the snow from his head, I smiled faintly.

“Let’s go to the bridge.”

If we were lucky, we might find a working four-wheeler or motorcycle that had been loaded in the cargo cars.

“We decided to meet those we’ve contacted there.”

“Oh, okay.”

Chen strolled over and naturally positioned himself between me and Jonathan.

“Let’s just not die~.”

With our number going from three to four, we walked again through the white pine forest.

***

What does Seba want.

At first I thought he was trying to kill me with the train accident.

It was a strategy fitting for him. And it may indeed have been the main strategy.

But if that were the case, now that the strategy failed, he should have left immediately. There was no advantage left for him.

Seba was a fairly skilled handler. But he wasn’t as good as Kairos, and without his familiars he wasn’t good enough in direct combat to crash into us himself.

He was famous for using nasty methods, though.

He had undergone illegal experiments using his own body and become a chimera the Empire strictly forbade.

He was in the same category as Rose. A criminal who escaped from the underground prison and jumped into the last dimensional gate to Earth.

He was also someone who burned with inferiority toward Kairos, whether in the Empire or on Earth.

Kairos only paid him the minimal courtesy a fellow handler would deserve.

“A person of decent skill. Fighting him wouldn’t be fun, though.”

That was something Kairos once said. Although he looked like a good-natured red-haired handler to anyone, he would occasionally become frighteningly cold like that.

Well, I agreed with Kairos.

I wonder if Kairos was training well inside the Core.

“That humanoid Creature’s gone now, right?”

Chen’s uneasy voice came out.

I didn’t answer and simply left slow footprints in the snow. I held my sword with my bandaged right hand.

I wasn’t worried about Seba’s attack, but the cold worried me.

It was winter, so the sun would fall quickly, and we were currently scattered in a place without a Safe Point. Nature’s power was overwhelming. With the added sensory loss from cold and darkness, the situation would deteriorate rapidly.

Ah, wait.

I think I know what Seba is waiting for up there.

He’s ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) waiting for the cold to swallow us. Soon it would be night, and the temperature would drop even more.

Nature is always a lethal enemy.

“Where’s the closest Safe Point, I wonder.”

I muttered as we walked toward the bridge ahead.

“We should find somewhere to endure the night before the sun sets.”

“Hey. There’s no way we’re reaching a Safe Point today. Start preparing to camp, rookie.”

“There might be a working vehicle in the cargo cars, right?”

“It’s not a distance you can move with that.”

Chen grumbled and scratched his head.

“It doesn’t look like there are many Creatures around. It’s much better to just stand up a couple of fallen train cars and sleep inside. Let’s burn a fire with motorcycle gasoline.”

Camping it is.

I exhaled a small sigh at the unpleasant development and continued walking, then stopped when I came upon the train wreckage.

The train buried in white snow.

Supplies scattered everywhere around it.

A cold blade of wind scraped across my cheek.

“Oh fuck! Even the network is dead!”

Chen checked not his radio but the phone used within Zone E and swore.

“The damn network always cuts off at the important times!”

It wasn’t coincidence; Seba must have done something.

To isolate us completely.

I slowly walked toward the wreckage, breathing out a white puff of air.

It was going to be a long night.