Black Badger

[It’s not working.]

That single line transmitted over comms became the starting point.

[Neither cold weapons nor guns. None of it.]

It wasn’t that they didn’t understand what was happening.

The same thing had occurred when Code Red was issued at Black ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) Badger Headquarters. But back then, Hildebert and his kin had been present. Sometimes, the Black Badgers would talk about that day—men and women suddenly breaking into song on the battlefield. Not a single word was understandable, yet the melody had felt strangely sacred. And when the song ended, the Creatures would collapse as if struck by divine judgment.

The problem was... no one had expected that to happen again.

[Fall back to the portal!]

Richard Green’s command came down.

[Full retreat to the rear!]

It was not a command he gave lightly.

But Ami understood why a man who hated turning his back on Creatures more than anything would issue such an order. To borrow Hildebert’s words, the Creatures—those that could not be harmed without “consecration”—were tearing through their formation.

If they could crush them with overwhelming firepower, it would be different.

But they didn’t have that kind of firepower right now. Nor did they have someone who could consecrate their weapons.

More precisely—one was missing, and the other didn’t have enough hands.

Hildebert could not help anyone else right now.

WHOOOOM!

A white wind erupted from the ground.

Like a massive wave collapsing in pale foam, the wind surged upward, scattering the clouds above the knights’ heads. As if proclaiming them the protagonists of the battlefield, the clouds were pushed outward in a perfect ring, drawing a black circular arena across the sky.

The remnants of the wind lashed at everything suspended in the air. Ami, who had been fighting a flock of eagle-like creatures, was caught in the gale and shoved backward.

“Ahh!”

She couldn’t let herself be pushed too far.

She slammed on the brakes midair. At the same time, she wrapped a wire around the neck of a Creature that had been blown back with her and looked down over the battlefield.

Below her—

They were being pushed back.

The Badgers were steadily retreating deeper into Center Core. The destroyed Core device was already far behind them.

CLANG!

The sound of blades colliding rang out.

Mixed into it were the crack of self-destruct drones and gunfire. Exploding grenades. A tide of Creatures surging forward. Some buildings and vehicles were already ablaze, and ash from the flames drifted into the air on the wind.

They were retreating as ordered—but even that was far from easy.

Ami whipped her head back and forth, searching for where support was most urgently needed.

[Blood injection!]

At the voice that burst through the comms, she straightened instinctively.

It had been a long time since she’d heard Sophia shout like that. Ami’s heart dropped as she scanned the battlefield.

[B-type! Requesting B-type blood injection!]

B?

Carl Dow was A.

Sophia herself was O.

If it was B...

[Green! Fall back!]

Richard Green’s blood type.

Ami’s heart clenched tight. Even as she cast her wires into the sky in a grid, like throwing a net into the sea, she frantically scanned the battlefield.

It wasn’t hard to find him.

As always, Richard Green was at the very front.

He must have been fighting nonstop there. His blood injections were probably already depleted. His ammunition must be gone too, and his blade likely dulled beyond use.

And now even a swarm of Creatures immune to ordinary weapons was closing in.

He needed a blood injection.

[We’re out!]

[Nothing here either!]

Ami whipped her head around like a madwoman.

B-type.

Who else was B-type?

Ah.

Wasn’t Giacomo Ro B-type?

Forcing down the rising panic, Ami dove rapidly, retrieving the web of wires she had spread across the sky.

CRRRRRACK!

With a sickening crunch, a flock of bird-type Creatures was crushed to death.

Ami shot back upward without even blinking at the blood and chunks raining down on her.

And soon, she found him.

Her longtime comrade.

It had been a long time since Ami had seen Ro get hurt.

BANG!

He wasn’t smart—but he had absurd luck.

“Ro!”

But luck, it seemed, didn’t last forever.

Ami saw him get hit by a projectile fired by what looked like a mage. Horrified, she cut through the air.

“Ro! Ro!”

“What?!”

Giacomo Ro snapped back.

“What is it, Peanut?!”

“Your blood!”

Ami shouted, her voice shaking as she landed beside him.

“You’re bleeding like crazy!”

Ro looked at her, puzzled.

The adrenaline surging through him in the middle of battle had dulled his sense of pain. He watched Ami, pale as a sheet, fumbling through his pants pocket.

Just moments ago, he had cleanly slaughtered an entire group of Creatures.

He stood now behind a mountain of corpses. It annoyed him that he’d run out of ammo—there were still plenty of targets to shoot.

Why the hell was ammo always short?

No one had their basics straight. Ro grumbled, brushing dust off his shoulder—

—and something struck his neck.

“Ah!”

He grabbed at his neck and realized a small Badger had just jammed something into it.

“What was that?”

“It’s an antidote for Green Dream, idiot!”

Ami screamed.

Startled by her volume, Ro flinched and frowned.

“Why are you yelling like that?”

“There’s no blood injection.”

Ignoring his complaint, Ami’s voice trembled.

“They need B-type. We need to find a B-type blood injection urgently, but you don’t have one either...!”

Only then did Ro feel it.

Dizziness.

Why am I dizzy?

Confused, he collapsed onto the ground. His vision spun violently. His lower body wouldn’t respond, and his chest felt unbearably tight.

What the hell?

“Did I get hit...?”

“Too late!”

The moment she shouted that, his comrade grabbed him and took off into the air.

The dizziness intensified.

Ro struggled, irritation flaring. He was on the verge of vomiting from the nausea, and he had no idea what was going on. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

But Peanut didn’t listen at all.

When he kept snapping at her, she finally shouted back.

“I’m taking you to oppa!”

Huh?

Whose oppa?

“You and Richard both need blood injections!”

Ro tried to say he didn’t need one—

But the next moment, he was slammed into the ground. If not for his ridiculous endurance and experience, he would have thrown up all over Peanut’s back.

Lying there pale-faced, staring blankly at the sky, Ro muttered,

“Ugh, damn it... Peanut, do you even know driving etiquette?”

Ami was already gone.

With no strength left to get up, Ro simply lay there, staring at the sky filled with monsters.

And then—

At the edge of his vision, he saw Ami fighting a flying Creature that looked like a grim reaper.

He watched as she tried to block its scythe-like attack with the sole of her foot—

—and got blown away.

“Ahh!”

THUD!

A Badger slammed into the slope behind him.

Then came the sound of something tumbling down.

With no strength to move, Ro took the full impact as Ami rolled straight into him.

At the same time, something stabbed into his arm.

A blood injection.

Ami, who had rolled down the slope together with the Creature, had held onto it the entire time—and now injected it into his vein.

Ro spat out the mud and bits of Creature entrails that had gotten into his mouth, then pushed himself up.

He shoved aside the corpse of a massive spider-like thing that had been pinning Ami down.

Ami lay face-down, frowning deeply, not moving.

“Hey!”

Ro grabbed her and hauled her up.

“Get up. You got taken down by something like that?”

“My whole body aches...”

“That’s what happens when you get hit like an idiot! But where did that thing go? I was gonna personally take revenge.”

“I could only find one B-type injection.”

Sniffling, Ami wiped the mud off her face with her forearm.

Creature blood smeared across her arm, so instead of removing the dirt, it only stained her face red.

Neither of them cared.

“It’s a good thing oppa had at least one spare B-type injection. Ro, let’s go up. Reinforcements just entered the portal zone from headquarters.”

“Go up where?”

Ro asked—then grabbed the back of Ami’s neck and pulled her back to avoid a landslide of Creature corpses crashing down.

Eyes wide, Ami turned her head and saw what lay ahead.

“This is bad.”

She looked up the slope where the sounds of battle echoed.

“We have to go protect the portal device. Oppa looks busy dealing with a mage—he doesn’t have the capacity to watch anything else. If the device gets destroyed, we’ll all die before Hilde wins.”

“What are you talking about?! I can still fight!”

“There aren’t enough blood injections!”

As Ro snapped irritably, Ami snapped back.

Then she kicked her boots into gear to launch upward—

But something caught.

Like a mixer blade jammed by a hard object, a strange grinding sound came from the tip of her boot.

“What?”

Ami lifted her foot, startled, and looked at the underside.

“Come on—!”

An endless avalanche of corpses poured down the slope.

Standing before it, Ami tried several times to activate her boots, but failed. Pale-faced, she stared down at what had effectively become dead weight.

At this rate, climbing that slope with bodies constantly pouring down would be impossible.

Maybe she should just take them off—

“Let’s do it like this.”

At Ro’s voice, Ami looked up.

“I’ll carry you up. Just hang on tight.”

“Me?”

Her eyes widened.

“How are you going to run while carrying me? And you don’t even have any ammo left!”

“I’ve got a secret weapon for times like this.”

Ro ran a hand through his curly hair and let out a weary sigh.

Ami stared at him—

Then her eyes widened as she saw what he pulled out.

“You brought that?”

“Of course.”

Grinning, Ro swung a chain with a spiked iron ball attached.

“What was it called again? Ah. Like a rabid dog, right?”

Ami didn’t bother correcting him—it wasn’t “rabid dog,” it was something else—and she definitely didn’t admit she wanted one.

Instead, she moved quickly.

She couldn’t leave the boots behind. If she brought them to Yun, he might be able to fix them. And if they were fixed, she could immediately return to support those running out of blood injections or ammunition.

So she loaded her gun and obediently tucked herself against Ro’s side.

Thanks to the last-second transfusion, the man who had been dying was now full of life again.

A man whose luck never seemed to run out.

“Uraaaaa!”

With an energetic shout, Giacomo Ro began charging up the slope, swinging the spiked chain with one hand.

THUD! CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!

RATATATAT!

Ami added firepower.

RATATATATATATAT!

“Let’s go!”

Ro ran upward, stepping on the sliding mass of Creature corpses like an escalator moving in reverse.

At the same time, he swung the chain, smashing Creatures lunging for his throat into pieces.

“Let’s go go go go go!”

A pair of Black Badgers climbed the slope.

Under normal conditions, they would have been much faster—but neither of them was in peak condition, so it took time. Sometimes they slipped. When Ro’s iron ball lodged into a Creature’s roots and wouldn’t come free, or when Ami failed to shoot a Creature rushing from another angle, they were swallowed by the pile of corpses and tumbled back down.

But every time, one of them would stab a hand—or the flail—into something, preventing themselves from being dragged all the way back to the start.

They endured the avalanche clinging to the slope.

Then they climbed again.

Their nails broke. Their bodies were torn by fragments of Creature corpses and shattered weapons.

Neither of them cared.

Ro’s iron ball smashed through something massive with antler-like horns.

They were almost at the top.

Once they got there, they had to run to the portal device.

Reinforcements would come from headquarters.

They just had to hold out until then.

Climbing the last stretch, Ami thought—

There aren’t enough blood injections.

Richard Green needs one.

She still didn’t fully understand how their enhanced bodies worked, but she knew blood was essential for recovery.

Like how pelvic bones, where microvessels don’t pass through, heal slowly.

Blood vessels and blood itself were critical—that was how Samuel had explained it.

So blood injections, one of the medical field’s breakthroughs...

Ah.

“Ami!”

Just as she reached the top, drenched in blood, Creature fluids, and dirt—

She heard Tom shouting urgently.

And something rushed straight toward her.

The blade of an axe.

Moving fast enough to split her skull in two—

CLANG!

Yun’s bullet struck the axe mid-swing.