Black Badger

Everything unfolded quickly.

Even William Walker’s inclusion.

Walker arrived fully armed and boarded the transport without a word. Ami was the pilot. Since our craft had no windows, I couldn’t tell how the transport passed through the portal.

But that wasn’t the important part.

Walker stayed silent until everyone had boarded.

Only after the transport doors closed—and the sound from outside was sealed—did he finally speak.

“Is Hildebert the squad leader?”

Kai answered for me.

“Yes.”

“Senior.”

We’d been so busy reviewing the intel that no one had actually explained things to him.

I lifted my head from the tablet, cursing my own negligence—only for Walker to cut off whatever explanation I was about to give.

“There’s no need to cover it up with lies.”

A ripple of tension spread through the cabin.

“You think I’ve been doing the problem-solver job half-heartedly?”

I stared directly at him.

Deep eye hollows, a weighty voice.

The engine hum filled the silence.

“Can you explain what you mean?” I asked.

“Let’s start with the fact that the Commander personally approved my inclusion.”

A statement with layers of implication.

“You convulsed and spilled your guts in front of the old spider.”

“Yes.”

“That strangely low-regeneration rookie of ours displays absurdly high combat skill... then had another seizure after seeing a humanoid Creature corpse. And now, for some reason, humanoid Creatures have begun appearing outside the Core.”

By now, I had nothing to say.

When I gave him an awkward smile, Walker finished without changing expression.

“And you still hoped I wouldn’t know?”

“I didn’t realize you were watching me that closely.”

“A few months ago, I went straight to the Commander to confirm it.”

At that blunt remark, Yun—who had been scanning the drone feed—twisted his head toward him.

“You came to my house?”

“Yes.”

“What’d he say?”

To my surprise, Yun didn’t get angry.

Walker replied politely.

“He told me, ‘You sure like showing up at my house.’ He confirmed what I asked. And told me to keep quiet until the time came.”

“How much did you hear?” I asked.

“That you’re a humanoid Creature aligned with the human side, and that only a handful of Badgers know this.”

At that, he laced his thick fingers together, eyes glinting in the shadows of his deep eye sockets.

“Anything beyond that isn’t necessary right now.”

A practical stance.

I appreciated it. Nodding, I set the tablet down in the aisle. I wedged it between my feet so it wouldn’t slide during turbulence, then projected the hologram.

This wasn’t the time to mince words—we needed clarity more than secrecy.

I briefed the squad on the Creatures the drones captured. For monsters already registered in the Creature Index, I skipped the explanations.

After covering that, I explained the basics of the rescue plan.

“Jack will infiltrate from the rear.”

I couldn’t skip explaining his undetectability to Walker, so I summarized it.

“He’s invisible to sixth-sense detection.”

“You’re sending him alone?” Sophia asked, rifle braced between her thighs.

I nodded.

“Jack was once the world’s greatest Handler. He might not be able to eliminate every Creature inside, but slipping past their attacks will be no problem.”

“I thought some Creatures can’t be handled?” she pressed.

“That’s why we draw their attention from the front.”

No way they wouldn’t notice me approaching.

“We’ll split into three groups. One holds the entrance, one goes inside, and Jack enters through another route.”

“Fifteen minutes to arrival,” Ami announced from the cockpit.

I checked our position on the wall panel.

Zone S wasn’t just difficult to enter—it was almost impossible to escape. If the transport was damaged, we’d have no way out. We’d have to wait for backup, likely dying before they arrived, surrounded by Creatures.

Naturally, there were no portal devices installed there. Which meant Ami was practically excluded from frontline action—her job would be to protect the transport.

The rest were divided into an insertion group and a non-insertion group.

Before explaining the “nest,” I began calling out the insertion team—

But then Kairos, who had been sitting quietly with his arms crossed, straightened his spine.

“...Things just got troublesome.”

“What is it?”

When I asked, he lifted his head and looked at me.

“There’s a Pressure-Fiend.”

I pressed my thumb between my brows, unable to hide my reaction.

Ricardo raised an eyebrow.

“That’s... what now?”

“A chimera with the ability to increase pressure on anything within its line of sight.”

It wasn’t a natural lifeform. A laboratory creation—hence classified as a chimera.

Creation success rates were low. Successful control rates were even lower. Most Pressure-Fiends killed their creator instantly—bursting their brain the moment they opened their eyes.

Then they would walk out over their creator’s corpse and slaughter everything until they were put down.

Among imperial citizens, they were feared nearly as much as Wraith-Lords. Though Wraith-Lords were deadlier, they preferred ruins, so encounters were rare. Pressure-Fiends, on the other hand, occasionally appeared in populated areas, blowing apart people’s brains and organs. Many victims died without ever realizing what killed them.

As chimeras, they were nearly impossible to detect or control—unless you were their creator.

The fact that Kairos sensed one from this distance was absurd.

Sophia raised a brow.

“So just being seen by it means death?”

“With high probability, yes. That’s why we’ll choose those best at infiltration—myself, Yun, and Kai.”

“What does it look like?” Kai asked.

I checked the sharpness of my daggers.

“It looks human, head hanging low. Usually drags its feet when it walks. Its eyes are nearly flipped upward, but its hair covers its face. Many people mistook it for a vagrant right before dying.”

“Weak points?” Yun asked.

“Not much different from humans. But the head is the most effective target.”

“And if spotted?” Kai asked.

“Hide behind me.”

The atmosphere snapped at my flat tone as I tucked the dagger away.

Everyone except Walker and Kairos stared at me like I’d lost my mind.

Startled by their looks, I added:

“Uh—I can recover even if my body explodes. As long as my brain doesn’t rupture, I’ll survive. And I’ve killed multiple Pressure-Fiends before.”

“So basically,” Yun summarized, “if we fail to detect it approaching—or if we’re in an area where we can’t escape its line of sight—we could all have our brains burst at once.”

“...Correct.”

Pretending otherwise wouldn’t help.

And no one here was afraid enough to need sugarcoating.

Ricardo exhaled a disbelieving laugh, crossing his legs. The existence of such a creature was absurd to him. Sophia and Kai didn’t bother hiding their dread.

Yun, meanwhile, looked fascinated—trying to understand how such a thing was possible.

After a moment of pondering, he asked:

“When you say human-shaped, do you mean they used a humanoid Titan as a test subject?”

Of course he’d figure that out instantly.

Suppressing the disgust rising in me, I nodded.

THUD!

Something landed on top of the transport.

The craft dipped sharply before stabilizing. Everyone looked up.

It wasn’t a Creature.

What was it?

Everyone tensed—except Ami.

“Something sat on us,” she reported casually.

...Right.

“The craft’s fine, so let’s just go.”

She didn’t slow down.

Should we really ignore that?

But she knew aircraft better than anyone; no point arguing.

The seniors relaxed slightly.

I ignored whatever was perched on the transport and continued.

We needed to finish the nest briefing before arrival.

A nest—a terrarium of twisted monsters forming their own ecosystem.

A gathering point for “tainted things,” amplifying malignant influence.

“If breathing becomes difficult, report immediately.”

Many people experienced respiratory distress in nests.

“There should be something like a giant flower. Shu and the humanoid Creature will be inside. It acts as both shield and nutrient core.”

“Fourth floor.”

Kairos’s voice cut through the cabin.

Everyone looked at the red-haired Handler.

His orange eyes glowed faintly as he gazed into empty air.

“The flower is on the fourth floor. That’s where the most Creatures—no, the most humanoid Creatures—are gathered. The Pressure-Fiend is wandering on the third floor. The Grave-Wight on the fifth. High Lich on the second.”

“...Why can’t I sense things that precisely?” Walker asked.

“This one is just a mutation-level outlier in sixth sense,” I said with a bitter smile.

Even I hadn’t known he was this sensitive.

“Roughly 350 Creatures,” Kairos continued, unfazed. “Plenty outside the building too, but oddly, none entering the schoolyard. Some kind of boundary.”

“We should keep him,” Ricardo muttered, thumbing toward Kairos. “He’s basically a walking Creature radar...”

“When fighting non-humanoid Creatures, you won’t find anyone more capable than Jack,” I replied.

“Then why did we lose so badly in the First War if we had someone like this?” Yun asked.

For the first time since we left the Core, Kairos turned his attention to the group. Until now he’d been entirely focused on scanning monster signatures.

He smiled gently, politely answering:

“There are limits to handling Creatures. And sensing them doesn’t mean stopping them. The Creature that infiltrated the Science Wing last time—had I faced it—I wouldn’t have lasted ten minutes.”

...Hard to believe.

I held Kairos in higher regard than that.

He was the only man who ever handled # Nоvеlight # dragons in the Empire. He won every handling tournament for decades. When the world collapsed, he stayed to the end, saving countless citizens.

There was a reason I trusted him to go in alone.

I believed fully that Kairos would return safely even after infiltrating the building by himself.

“Just don’t go overboard,” I said.

What worried me wasn’t his survival.

“Your presence—and the existence of my kin inside the Core—must remain hidden. If you go wild with a handled monster, the enemy will realize you’ve returned... and that despite being back, your presence still can’t be detected by sixth sense.”

“I understand.”

He answered obediently—even flicking his tongue with a hint of regret.

...Good grief.

A subconscious gesture.

Being near so many Creatures again must have awakened his Handler instincts.

Just as the Children of the World Tree felt hollow when cut off from the Tree after crossing into Earth, Kairos must have felt hollow being cut off from Creatures.

But he had to restrain himself.

We needed him concealed until the moment he would be used against our kin strategically—

“What’s the point of all this effort to kidnap the kid?” Kai asked suddenly.

The question yanked my thoughts back to reality.

“They tried several times, didn’t they?”

How much should I answer?

I didn’t know the whole truth myself, and speculation wouldn’t help the mission.

Should I say “I don’t know,” or “I’ll answer later”?

As I hesitated, Walker cracked his knuckles—each finger sounding like it could pop a skull.

“What matters is that this isn’t a ransom case. The child herself is the objective. They’ve achieved their purpose, so now they’re using her where they need her.”

A heavy silence fell.

We stayed quiet until the aircraft reached the target point.

Until Ami—expressionless—said, “Prepare to drop.”

***

The squad stepped onto Zone S.