Black Badger

He hadn’t looked at me with anything other than disgust all the way up until we faced Kairos.

I wanted to ask again, but I couldn’t bring myself to.

I opened my mouth, then closed it, over and over.

The short-haired senior didn’t care about my reaction.

“I’ve been thinking a lot. Especially after I met Blackjack.”

“Jack?”

“You said you’d split apart and fought too. Then that means you lost someone precious to the hands of your own kin.”

Sophia had one arm draped over the knee she’d pulled up.

Her eyes didn’t leave me.

A gaze as sharp as when she used to shoot hatred at me pinned itself into me.

“So technically you’re a veteran. And I’ve been thinking maybe I hated you only as a Creature. Even though there’s probably no one who wanted to stop the war more than you.”

“All of a sudden?”

“No. Just from watching you.”

She explained calmly.

“You’re too good of a person to hate.”

What the hell?

I was scared.

I flinched and pulled back.

As I worked hard to scoot backward and put distance between us, Ami, who had been standing and watching, said:

“The caterpillar is moving.”

I ignored her and fled with ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) all my might.

Then suddenly I hit something.

My back struck a fallen tree trunk.

Unable to widen the distance any further, I looked at my senior, who was clearly not in her right mind.

Is this really Sophia Kip?

Isn’t this Jaeyeon in disguise?

It was a pretty reasonable suspicion, but as I backed away, the senior who hadn’t blinked once finally spoke.

“I still hate you sometimes.”

“Ah.”

So it is her.

I let out a reflexive sigh of relief—then she continued.

“But I’m trying to accept that you did your best, so stop getting beat up like an idiot.”

I raised my head and met her eyes.

There were black eyes. And now I could no longer read the emotions in those sharp eyes. They used to be so easy to read. Under those long eyelashes, there used to be only hatred and sorrow, and a bottomless sense of loss.

But now there was a mixture of emotions I didn’t recognize, hiding her thoughts.

Only the crackling of the campfire and Sophia’s voice filled the space.

Sophia let out a long breath.

“I’ve been thinking I should finally get out of this loss.”

She lowered her eyes and murmured almost to herself.

“It won’t be as easy as saying it, but... I should try....”

This time I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

Because I knew very well what that desperation was. Falling into a pit of rage and loss and losing your everyday life.

I wanted to help her climb out of that pain, even just a little. I knew how agonizing a loss you can’t fully understand is.

Loss never disappears, but you can at least get used to the hole.

If I could help in any way....

“So don’t keep getting beat up.”

Suddenly Sophia shot me a piercing gaze.

“Don’t accept unjust hatred like it’s normal. For the sake of the kin who followed you, and for me—who’s trying to move forward because of you.”

“...Yes.”

I answered slowly.

“I will.”

Sophia stared at my face.

Then she rose and walked toward where her sleeping bag was.

People’s eyes flew toward her, but she didn’t blink once. After reaching her sleeping bag, she began preparing for camp as though nothing had happened.

Yun, Ami, and Ricardo also calmly went back to work.

Only I stood there blankly for a while, unable to pull myself together, until Carl approached and bent down to my level.

“Hilde.”

The senior called me with his usual rough, husky voice.

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re excluded from the night watch today, so you’d better move your sleeping spot.”

“I’m excluded?”

Why? I’m the squad leader.

And I don’t remember deciding that.

When was that decided?

I blinked in confusion as I asked again, and the seniors snapped their heads toward me.

More precisely, Ami, Ricardo, and Yun looked at me and immediately got annoyed.

“This bastard... if you wanted night watch, then you shouldn’t’ve gotten your ass kicked~?”

“You gonna start a mutiny, Hilde? A squad-leader mutiny!”

“You want me to smack the back of your neck and help you sleep?”

“No.”

I recoiled at their exploding reactions, leaning my upper body back.

I wanted to raise my palms, but both my arms were tucked inside the sleeping bag, so I failed.

I had no choice but to blink repeatedly to express my feelings.

“I wasn’t saying I want to do it, I was just asking when it was decided....”

Nobody believed me.

The experienced squad members finished setting up the camp quickly. They ignored my frustration and arranged the night-watch order among themselves. After deciding the order, they chose their sleeping spots, then dragged me into the center of the circle made by their sleeping bags.

I squirmed and resisted, but it was useless.

The seniors acted regardless of my opinion.

Soon the atmosphere became one of settling down to sleep. Carl, the first to take watch, sat against the tree I had been leaning on earlier, and the other seniors sank into their sleeping bags.

The rustling slowly quieted.

I stared up at the winter sky with its beautiful moon and murmured to myself.

“I’m definitely the squad leader....”

“Let us sleep.”

“Hilde, shut uuuuup.”

The Choi siblings immediately piled on with scolding.

Complaining further wouldn’t get me anywhere.

I closed my mouth and lay there forlornly in the center.

Ricardo... when is he going to give that wedding ring back? I held the question in my heart, unable to voice it.

***

Carl woke me.

“Hilde.”

I shot upright.

“It’s morning.”

Holy shit.

I blinked at the winter sunlight melting the frost.

When did I sleep so deeply?

Alarmed, I tried to grasp the situation. Last night I had slept like a corpse that wouldn’t notice being carried away.

I’m not usually like this.

I always sleep lightly. I scolded myself for sleeping so defenselessly in an open spot and scrambled out of my sleeping bag.

The seniors were finishing cleanup of the campsite. It was almost done, and preparations to leave were nearly complete. They had clearly let me sleep as long as possible.

There goes my squad-leader dignity.

Suppressing a sigh, I quickly cleaned up my area.

White breath puffed out as the others moved silently.

When I finished getting ready, Ami came over.

“Rick just came back from Chen’s squad.”

“Really? You could’ve woken me.”

“They barely slept over there. They took two functional motorcycles and went as far as they could until comms came back, to return quickly.”

Oh.

“They got orders. Chen’s squad is to return. We have three working motorcycles including ours, so we’re supposed to ride back and wait for the return train. There’s one supply train heading back.”

“So there’s a train going into the Core. Good.”

“Yeah. Our squad stays here and waits for Trevor’s arrival.”

“Trevor?”

I’d heard that name yesterday.

I retraced the conversation from the train that now felt so distant.

“He’s the NPC from the Round Tower, right?”

“Yep. He’s bringing a vehicle to pick us up.”

Come to think of it, the Round Tower was in Zone E.

Zone E was wide, so it would take time for him to get here.

Anyway, having clear orders felt refreshing. And they made sense. If I remembered right, Chen’s squad had been tasked with procuring supplies—but the supplies were all spoiled now, so they had nothing left to do.

Meanwhile, we were supposed to rest at the E-Zone shelter, then head into Zone C.

No one had serious injuries, and there was no reason to abort the mission.

And I wasn’t about to return over something like this.

“We’ll be taking most of the supplies from the train, I assume.”

“Yeah.”

Ami checked her fully charged boots and nodded.

“The order is to hand over Chen’s supplies to us too.”

We headed for the bridge.

The campsite wasn’t far. After walking over the snow, the mountain of Creature corpses and the collapsed train soon came into view. The seniors, already assembled and ready, came into sight as well.

Carl was among those waiting with the motorcycle on his back.

Chen, Ro. David and Joon, who had joined us safely later.

And Jonathan Kudo.

He was turned away from us, sharpening his sword.

“You wait here for a sec~...”

The green-eyed senior stretched out his arm and blocked my path.

I froze.

“Did you give him the wedding ring?”

I whispered it while watching the squad members walk past.

“He gets really anxious if he thinks it’s lost.”

Ricardo’s eyes narrowed.

Maybe I shouldn’t have said that.

I looked up at the senior facing me. He knew Jonathan far better than I did, and cared for him far more. He was a meticulous person—of course he would’ve remembered to return it.

I was just meddling.

As I was regretting it, Ricardo broke the silence.

“He didn’t even know it was gone....”

Huh?

“The ring?”

“Yeah...”

“Kudo?”

How is that possible?

He was the one who lost his mind and ran back into a ruined building just to retrieve the ring from Sara’s hand.

The one who had acted like he couldn’t see anything except that ring?

Blinking, I struggled to process what I was hearing.

Around us, the other squad members were talking to Chen’s people. The sharp wind carried the voices. Ro teasing Ami. Chen asking Carl for something.

In the noisy murmur, Ricardo sighed.

“And you... after getting beat up like that, you’re still worrying about that~?”

“How am I supposed not to.”

“You didn’t learn anything from what Sophia told you....”

“No. I won’t get beat up like that again.”

But that and this were different matters.

“But Kudo isn’t a heartless bastard. You know what I mean.”

“No idea...”

He totally understood me and was pretending not to.

I stared at him with a sulky expression, but Ricardo didn’t indulge me.

He stared at me with narrowed eyes, then turned his body.

“Go rest behind that tree~.”

I followed his words and walked toward Chen’s squad.

Sensing the nearby Creatures, I hid behind the tree.

At this point there was no choice, but I still wanted to tell Jonathan my identity myself if possible.

I sat with my back to the tree and sharpened my sword repeatedly until Chen’s squad departed.

***

“Trevor is, you know.”

We were sitting under the bridge eating something between breakfast and lunch when Ami suddenly spoke.

“He really likes Yun-oppa.”

“What?”

I lifted my head from the canned food and blinked.

“Yun?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

The question came out of my mouth unfiltered.

“Why, out of all people, would he like Choi Yun?”

“Right?”

Yun chimed in without looking up from his canned food.

“It’s unfortunate. I like you, not Trevor. Isn’t that right, Hildebert?”

...Fuck.