Chapter 53 – Combat, Not Hunting (2)

I immediately drew Jeremy Scott’s magic gun.

Since things had turned out this way, the fight could not be avoided.

However, this entire group could not go out.

“Only Natasha and I will go out. The rest of you, wait inside.”

“What? You don’t even know exactly what is attacking us, yet only two of you are going out?”

“Yeah, what kind of nonsense is that. Our lives are on the line, so we should do this together.”

The Wayne brothers and the Ford siblings protested, asking what I was talking about.

I was grateful for their response wanting to join us, but this decision was not for their sake.

It was for me to survive.

“There is nothing you can do if you go out without proper weapons. You will only get in the way.”

In a situation where even having weapons was barely enough, they had to step out empty-handed, which would make them nothing but a burden.

It only meant that the number of people to protect would increase instead.

“I understand what you mean. Take care of yourself, Aileen. If it seems impossible, just come back inside. If we are stranded for several days anyway, the embers will eventually send an investigation or support team.”

“If you die before keeping your promise, I will curse you for the rest of my life.”

It was Thomas and Will Ford.

Like the clever guys they were, having understood the meaning, they each threw in a word.

While I was checking the magic gun under their encouragement, Natasha asked about the plan.

“Do you have a plan in mind?”

“I’m not sure either. For now, we have no choice but to climb onto the roof of the off-roader and assess the situation.”

Actually, there was no proper countermeasure.

Since it was my first time seeing a mutant, the existing common sense regarding snowy wolves would not apply.

“Be careful. You must think of it as facing a completely new enemy.”

Even Jenkins was sparing his words, other than the advice to aim between the eyes.

Just as he said, it was an unfamiliar mutant whose changes were unknown.

He had judged that a clumsy piece of advice might lead us to our deaths.

However, since taking the high ground is always advantageous in a fight, we simply climbed onto the roof.

There was no cover or concealment on the snowy fields, leaving us with no other choice.

Click.

Before climbing onto the roof, I gestured toward the six-seater off-roader following us.

It meant to pull up close and run side-by-side.

I planned to use the two off-roaders as stepping stones.

Because in combat, one had to secure as wide a footing space as possible.

“Let’s go up.”

After finishing the explanation of the situation to Jenkins, the driver of the adjacent vehicle, I stepped onto the roof first.

I grabbed the hand of Natasha, who was trying to climb up behind me, and pulled her up.

Though neither of us said a word, we stood back-to-back and divided our surveillance sectors.

Whoosh!

Along with the strong wind, snowflakes slapped our faces hard.

Perhaps due to that, no presence could be felt around us.

They were stealthy creatures in the first place, and with the natural noise being this loud, identifying their location was difficult.

Natasha, keeping a low posture, was also scanning the surroundings with a tense expression while tightly clutching her magic gun.

Because if the creature’s size was as expected, leaping to attack us would be child’s play.

If we did not stay alert, we might die.

“Phew…”

However, I focused intensely to feel my sixth sense, the mana sense, along with my three senses that surpassed human limits.

With this sensation, it felt like I could find the creature.

Because in the end, even this damn mother nature was a type of magical phenomenon created by Icing Techwind.

‘Where are you?’

At that moment, I closed my eyes and shut my ears instead.

If all of nature was indeed a part of a magical phenomenon as I thought, relying on ordinary human senses was a blunder.

Distinguishing the creature through the mana sense would be the only way.

As I breathed deeply to feel the mana, the surroundings that had been dyed in darkness when I closed my eyes began to be colored in blue light.

The ground turned as if blue luminescent sand were glowing, and the air was filled with falling clusters of blue stars.

It was a strange and ecstatic experience for me as well.

‘All of these contain mana…’

Those were all ice and snow.

The things that constructed this world due to the runaway of Eternal Magic.

Feeling the mana now, I was newly realizing the reason my dark vision was so filled with blue light clusters.

At the same time.

“……”

I felt it.

A fast and massive mass of magic rushing fiercely toward us from beyond the blizzard that filled this world.

It was in front.

Bang! Bang! Ba-bang!

There was no hesitation in my finger pulling the trigger.

However, it was not because I was confident in my shooting.

It was because I believed in my sixth sense, the mana sense.

And as the result of that belief appeared before my eyes:

Drrrrr…

A snowy wolf, having died instantly with its forehead pierced, appeared, sweeping along the snowy ground at the same speed it had been running.

Its size was truly that of a mutant.

* * *

“……”

Natasha McGrain could not believe the situation unfolding before her eyes.

There lay a massive snowy wolf that had stopped in front of the off-roader, dead.

It was not even because Aileen had shot toward the invisible blizzard and hit the forehead precisely.

It was the astonishment stemming from the fact that he had detected the wolf’s movement under these adverse conditions.

“Just how on earth…?”

Even she, the top agent of the intelligence organization ‘Radiance’ secretly founded by Herman Melville, could not hide her emotions.

Whether it was hitting the target with a bullet or capturing the wolf’s position, it was simply not something a human could do.

At this point, she wondered what the point of the report on Aileen Vale even was.

The Aileen she met in person was a completely different entity from the person in the report.

She could not even understand how such a person could be a scoundrel obsessed with women and alcohol.

Since, from their first meeting until now, he had shown a decisive side, never losing his calm and composure under any circumstances.

But what was truly amazing was not his decisiveness, but his execution, moving without hesitation while trusting his own judgment.

‘Was this what he meant when he referred to it as talent?’

Herman Melville, who had expressed that Aileen possessed potential.

Natasha thought that perhaps this side of him was precisely the potential Melville had spoken of.

“It’s hard to express it simply. To use an analogy, it’s like a curtain fluttering… It would be correct to say that the regularity of the falling blizzard was disrupted only in that direction.”

“…….”

“Anyway, that’s how it is.”

When Natasha remained silent at the abstract expression, Aileen, looking sheepish, spoke as he tucked the magic gun into his waist.

However, Natasha understood deeply.

Sensory perception was originally difficult to explain, and she, who was trained through high-intensity instruction, had also relied on her senses to lead missions to success numerous times.

Perhaps she was the only one who could understand his explanation.

Natasha stopped asking meaningless questions and turned her head toward the snowy wolf.

“By the way, what on earth is that?”

“Indeed.”

“It seems clear that it is a mutant, but why did such a thing come into existence?”

Natasha truly did not know.

It was a fact that had never been heard of or seen even in her organization, Radiance, which prided itself on gathering the latest information on the continent most rapidly.

This was definitely a phenomenon that had appeared recently.

As Natasha was at a loss, Aileen, who had gone down from the roof to examine the wolf directly, replied carefully.

“It seems to be a phenomenon that occurred due to magical reasons.”

“If it’s for magical reasons… are you saying it didn’t occur naturally?”

“Eternal Magic. If not for that, this bizarre phenomenon cannot be explained.”

Even before this, there had always been mutations or changes in living organisms caused by Eternal Magic.

Such as the hides of beasts becoming thicker or their fur growing longer.

However, those were merely natural changes, having evolved to adapt to the altered environment.

Yet the body size becoming several times larger was of a completely different nature from adapting to nature.

This incident was clearly different in character from the previous ones.

A dramatic change of this level had to be viewed as a magical phenomenon.

Aileen added an explanation.

“It is indeed a magical phenomenon, but it is hard to say it didn’t occur naturally. Since mana itself is a part of nature. However…”

“However…?”

“It is even further from a common sense situation. You will know the reason as you can see.”

The reason could be understood without explanation.

Where on earth could a beast of this size, which could make even an off-roader shake, exist? This was simply a man-eating monster.

Also, if it came into being due to the runaway phenomenon of Eternal Magic, the possibility of it continuing to appear in the future was high.

In the not-so-distant future, these monsters would be roaming the vast snowy plains in packs.

“A tremendous change will come to the continental situation…”

“Probably.”

Natasha, looking beyond the mere emergence of mutants to what lay ahead, murmured, and Aileen also nodded.

His serious expression made it look as though there was a major setback to his plans.

‘Does he really intend to become a leader?’

It seemed that Herman Melville’s words about Aileen wanting to become a leader, not a magic engineer, were true.

Otherwise, there was no way a person who seemed like a cold-blooded man would show his emotions so strongly at the words ‘continental situation.’

Soon, after searching the area and confirming that the situation was settled, Aileen gestured, and the people who came out late widened their eyes and shouted.

“It really was a snowy wolf.”

“This… if we present this to the academic society, the entire embers will be turned upside down. Can’t we take this back to the embers?”

“Something like this is roaming around outside…?”

They were Jenkins, Will Ford, and Willers in turn.

Aileen waited for the shock of the remaining six to fade, then drew a dagger and stabbed the wolf’s heart.

Plunge!

“Watch closely.”

As everyone frowned at the sudden action, Aileen split the wolf’s chest deeply, even thrusting his arm inside.

Clack! Clack!

His dagger, penetrating the soft flesh, made a sound inside that should not have been possible.

“What is that? Why does it sound like that?”

Will Ford said.

Though he did not know for sure, based on the location, it was not the sound of hitting a bone, and if it wasn’t a bone, there was no part inside the body with that level of hardness.

However, Aileen replaced his answer by pulling something out of the wolf’s body.

Held in his hand was a magic stone the size of a fist.

“Why is that coming out of there?”

“No, what on earth is this…?”

Everyone, with one heart and mind, could not hide their consternation.

The magic engineers based on magic engineering, and the hunters based on their experience.

To that extent, a magic stone growing inside a living creature’s body was something incomprehensible to everyone, regardless of their profession.

Since a magic stone was something that could only be obtained by refining glacier stone.

However, Aileen’s words that followed were even more shocking.

“This is both a magic stone and an organ. It was unified with the heart.”

“……!”

This was something that would shake the common sense of this world, and at the same time, a colossal event that would bring about a transformation in the era of magic engineering.

However, Natasha was not swayed by that fact and asked the essence:

“How did you know the magic stone was in there and pull it out?”

“That…”

Aileen merely chose his next words carefully.