Chapter 66 – Incident (10)

Five snow wolves were sniffing and searching the nearby houses thoroughly.

Hiding behind a wall and spying on them with held breath, I tightly gripped my magic rifle with hands that had begun to sweat.

‘Five of them in this place alone… Just how many of them are roaming the Ember?’

There are five in only one out of the twelve sections.

Based on that value, it had to be assumed that as many as sixty mutants were tearing through the Ember.

‘No, there’s no way there are that many.’

However, I shook my head.

The man who had come to the tavern having lost an arm had run from Section 12, which was to the north.

Since the commotion about mutants invading had also first arisen then, their invasion route had to be Section 12.

If so, it was reasonable to assume that all the citizens of Section 12 who had not yet evacuated were dead…

‘Even so, I can’t give up the search. This is a matter of trust, and a matter of a leader’s qualifications.’

The fact that there were no living people did not serve as a reason to give up the search.

Because, as I had told the squad leaders at the hunting squad headquarters, this was a direct issue concerning the solidarity of the Ember.

Above all, Ailen Vail who risked death to search for survivors even in an obviously hopeless situation… No matter how I calculated the gains and losses, I could not give up this title.

The anecdote of Demian Vail deciding to remain in this nameless Ember was still talked about to this day.

To stand tall as a leader, I too had to create at least one impressive anecdote that would be engraved in the minds of the citizens.

‘Okay. Still, let’s avoid combat as much as possible. It’s dangerous to handle five of them at once.’

Thinking that way, I actually felt grateful for this tense moment.

They said crisis was opportunity; the variable of the mutants was accelerating my plan to ascend to leadership.

I began to construct a plan, feeling my mind and body stabilizing.

‘Rescue and rendezvous are the goals. For now, there is no other way but to lure them away.’

At first, I thought of sniping.

Because I had a history of piercing between their eyes even atop the boundless snow where one could not see an inch ahead.

Although darkness had fallen, it was not a difficult task to slay them in the Ember where the view was wide open due to the Eternal Embers.

However, that was only the case when defeating them individually.

I did not feel that I could kill as many as five mutants before they reached me.

I hadn’t known when looking from atop the off-roader, but the intimidating presence of those met on flat ground was greater than expected.

One-against-many fights had to be avoided.

Thud!

A piece of building debris thrown in the direction I had run from hit the ground and made a loud noise.

The mutants moved as intended, and I moved stealthily, even throwing off my coat to reduce noise.

‘There’s no way such a crude trick will last long. I must move quickly.’

Snow wolves possessed quite high intelligence.

During the days when I played a hunter, I had personally felt that capturing them with traps was impossible.

It meant they would soon find the source of the noise.

And sure enough.

‘One, two, three, four, five…’

Growl!

When I counted to five in my head, the mutants scattered all at once and began to search the surroundings thoroughly.

Since there was a sound but no figure in sight, they thought that prey was somewhere nearby.

‘Even so, it’s already too late.’

However, I was already running down a dark alley, having bypassed their radius.

Although it was close because their reaction was faster than expected, the diversion was successful.

I sprinted toward the edge of Section 12 like that.

There was no process of entering houses to search within that.

Because I could tell whether there were people inside the buildings simply by spreading my mana sense widely.

At this speed, it was clear that I would be much faster than the other sections where they went in groups of seven.

However, although the search was smooth, the real problem lay elsewhere.

‘Still no response felt?’

I had run quite a long distance and passed quite a few houses, yet I had not found even a single life reaction.

What this implied were two things: one was that everyone had evacuated.

However, considering the number of mutants and their invasion route, that was nonsense.

Then only one hypothesis remained.

‘Are they all dead? Every single one of them…’

It was despairing, but the most likely story.

Setting aside the area before meeting the mutants, it was highly probable that everyone in the areas prior to that had been killed.

As if to prove it, in my sight as I stopped for a moment, only devastated shacks and their debris lay scattered.

With that, I retrieved my widely spread mana sense. Keeping it maintained caused considerable fatigue.

Patter-

However, no matter what happened, I had to head to the rendezvous point, so it was just as I stepped forward.

“…?”

I stopped my feet.

Some sign of presence had been heard from beneath the building debris I had just passed.

Expanding my mana sense once again, I could hear small voices.

“Sob, sob… What about my husband? My husband…!”

“Goodness, I understand your feelings, but please be quiet! If those bastards are still roaming around here, we are all dead…!”

Those were the sobs of a few women and the voice of an old man soothing them as if chiding.

Having pinpointed the location, I secured the safety of the surroundings and immediately headed there.

‘Is it below here?’

The source of the sound was underground.

There was a ring attached in an awkward shape to the wooden board used as flooring, which seemed to be a door leading underground.

Clack-!

When I pulled the ring to open the door, as expected, six people were gathered in the narrow space that looked like a basement storehouse.

They cowered, thinking they had been discovered by mutants, but upon confirming my face, they began to ask various questions in relief.

“Ailen, how did you come here?”

“Did you deal with all the mutants? What about the other people? You couldn’t have come alone, right?”

Perhaps thinking the situation had ended with the appearance of me, the scoundrel, the tension faded from their faces.

However, because the work was only just beginning, I placed my index finger to my lips and said in a lowered voice,

“Please be quiet. The mutant wolves are still roaming around outside.”

“Still…?”

“Currently, the hunting squad is rescuing survivors from each section and escorting them to the leadership and the Magic Engineering Department. I came to Section 12 alone.”

“You came alone? What do you mean by that…?”

“We were short on manpower. However, since Section 1 and Section 11 agreed to join as soon as they finish searching, there is no need to worry.”

I spoke calmly to reassure the women.

However, the old man who had been chiding the women began to express anger as if I were talking crazy.

“Going outside and heading to the center in this situation? Do you think just a few hunters can defeat those monsters?”

“…”

“I’d rather hide here until it’s over. I’m not going. If you want to go, go on your own.”

It was true.

Because they had preserved their lives without being detected in this chaos.

However.

“There is no guarantee that they won’t return here, and there might be additional ones joining them.”

There was no guarantee that such luck would continue in the future.

But the old man still remained stubborn.

“You said the hunters would join. Can’t they just protect me here?”

“What the hunters must protect is the Ember as a whole, not individuals. If they remain just to protect you alone, who will protect the citizens who fled to the leadership and the Magic Engineering Department?”

“What, an individual? Then does that mean old, worn-out me is not a citizen of the Ember?”

“There is no more time to argue. I clearly gave you a chance. The choice was made by you.”

Since he was ignorant and stubborn and showed no sign of listening to reason, I pulled the women outside first.

When it looked as if I would truly leave him behind, the old man finally came out, pretending to yield.

“If even one of us dies, that is entirely your fault, Ailen. Understood?”

Why did he keep picking on the person trying to help?

The old man grumbled even after coming outside.

“Shut up and follow. A mutant might hear us.”

I earnestly wished to leave him behind because guys like him always caused trouble, but I could not do so.

Because we had to save even one more person to make them the driving force of the Ember.

A few minutes of moving like that with the baggage attached.

“You arrived not too late.”

“It is a relief you arrived alive. Honestly, I didn’t think you would make it.”

We were able to face the survivors and hunters from the left and right sections gathered at the rendezvous point at the end of Section 12.

I approached Sullivan, the squad leader of Section 11, and the squad leader of Section 1.

“Were there no mutants in your section?”

“Not a single one was there, whether they already swept through or moved to another section.”

“The same goes for Section 1. Thanks to that, we arrived safely, but… I can’t call it a relief as I suspect they might have moved to another section.”

It was something I could not understand.

Section 12 was the section hit by the initial attack, so if they moved to other sections as they said, shouldn’t Section 1 and Section 11 have suffered the second most damage?

However, the five beasts seen earlier might be all of the mutant pack, and since we had to head to the leadership and the Magic Engineering Department immediately, it was not the time to think further.

“I discovered five mutants in Section 12. Just in case, it would be better to bypass through another section.”

“Then I will guide the way.”

It was just as we were about to head to the center, leading the survivors under the leadership of Sullivan, the squad leader of Section 11.

“Please save our husbands and sons, please…!”

Those were the five women rescued from the basement earlier.

They began to wail loudly as if they did not care whether mutants came or not.

‘Come to think of it, I think they were looking for their husbands earlier too…’

There was clearly some story to them blocking the front.

“Please speak. What is the matter?”

I asked, helping up the woman who grabbed my trouser cuffs.

She, who was sobbing, wiped her tears and opened her mouth with difficulty.

How desperate she was, her tone of voice had already changed to respectful speech.

“The husbands and sons of us five are out there. They went out there to mine glacial stones. Please save them…”

“Went out to work? External activities were prohibited due to the snowstorm, so what do you mean by that?”

“It is precisely because of that snowstorm. Because of that snowstorm, our husbands and children… Sob!”

Their heading outside the Ember was because of the snowstorm.

As I stood still at the words that were completely incomprehensible, another woman took up the speech.

Her subsequent words left everyone, from the hunters to the rest of the citizens, speechless.

“They said we don’t know how long the snowstorm will last! They said nothing must go wrong even with the Eternal Embers… that’s why they went out.”

“…”

“So please save them. Please do not turn away from those who volunteered to sacrifice for the Ember. I beg of you like this, please…”

Those who had been about to rebuke them for violating the rules and going outside just a moment ago had no choice but to keep their mouths shut.

The righteous who had set out for unscheduled work even in this freezing weather out of concern for the safety of the Ember.

Just who could criticize them?

Before long, only a heavy silence flowed over the gathering.