Chapter 87 – The Great Crossing (2)

‘So I am leaving the ember left by my father in this manner. How futile. It is so futile…’

Randolph, who with difficulty raised his body that had become a rag due to the ruthless violence of the plunderers, sobbed.

He could not hide his bitter grief at the fact that he had to leave this ember soon.

‘Even if it was merely this place called the leader’s room, I spent my entire life here…’

A one-room office that would be completely packed if two people entered.

This place, which was not just simple but even shabby, was Randolph’s life itself.

It was the space he had inherited from his deceased father during his youth.

The legacy left by his deceased father, the founder and the first leader who established this ember.

Therefore, this place and the entire ember were, to Randolph, the legacy inherited from his deceased father and his everything.

However, the history of the ember accumulated over a century, which he had inherited and protected, was being extinguished by the plunderers’ raid.

This old ember, boasting a history of a hundred years, had come to its end through a single raid by the plunderer bastards.

“No, it’s not… this is all my fault as the leader. It is my fault for thinking everything would work out…”

However, Randolph considered the culprit of all these events to be not the plunderers, but his own incompetence and complacency.

It seemed at first glance that the ember’s inability to avoid the future of downfall was due to missing the golden time for resource supply because of the plunderers’ raid, but that was not the true reason.

The true reason was that the hunting squad, which had headed to the snowfields to obtain food prior to the snowstorm, was wiped out by mutants.

It was not a matter of magic stones, but that food had become scarce in the first place, and by losing almost the entire population in charge of labor, the very future of the ember had vanished.

“I should have checked one more time. I should have checked…!”

It was Randolph, the leader, who had ordered the hunters to hunt just like any other day.

At the time he issued the command, he did not even dream that mutants were lurking outside, and although he had no way of knowing, not knowing did not serve as an excuse.

Because he was the leader.

Though it was speaking in hindsight, his choice to not search thoroughly before entering the snowfield made the hunters get wiped out, and ultimately permitted the plunderers’ raid, making the ember walk the path of downfall.

“Father, Father… I am sorry. This unworthy son has ended up extinguishing the ember you left behind.”

Randolph, who had ruined the ember raised by his deceased father with his own hands, wailed.

Steeped in long peace and inertia, Randolph’s guilt for losing everything his deceased father had achieved was presenting him with unspeakable pain.

And did he lose only the ember?

He had also lost his only remaining son in the process.

Thud!

“Adolf, open your eyes. How can you sleep so motionlessly in this cold place? Aren’t you cold, you rascal…!”

Randolph, who came out to the square dragging his staggering body, slumped down, hugged his son’s corpse in his arms, and began to wail loudly.

Adolf, the youngest of three sons, was the only flesh and blood left to Randolph after his two older brothers had lost their lives during a hunt.

Whether it should be called fortunate, Adolf, who was lame, had not participated in the hunt and luckily preserved his life.

However, even he had now followed his two older brothers.

Randolph, hugging the cold corpse, realized painfully at this moment.

That there was nothing he had protected, from this land inherited from his father to even his family.

The only things remaining were regret, despair, sorrow, and pain.

“Lord Randolph…”

“What on earth should be done about that…!”

“…This is all because of the damn ice age. Just what, and how much more, are you trying to take from us!”

Randolph’s weeping, his shoulders heaving, filled the square.

The citizens grieved, felt sorry, and raged along with that intensity.

Having lived together for decades, they were no different from family, even if they were not connected by blood.

Moreover, although they said Randolph’s complacency had caused such a disaster, who on earth could have foreseen the bizarre phenomenon of mutants?

Unless it was a large city like the Immortal Embers, any leader of any ember would not have predicted this situation.

While everyone was submerged in sorrow in that manner, Aylen Vale’s calm voice, contrasting with Randolph, resounded in the square.

“The core dismantling is complete. Since we are now ready to depart, everyone please follow me.”

To the citizens wandering without a place to go after losing their home, and to Randolph as well, those words were like a hammer awakening them to the cruel reality.

Everyone knew they had to leave.

However, no one could take a step.

Because this land held a meaning for them that was more than just an ember.

Abandoning such a land could not possibly be easy.

“I am sorry, but you must bury the bodies of your family members here and go. I will give you a grace period of ten minutes, so please organize things within that time.”

Whirrrr…

With the background of the operating sound of the Eternal Embers, which had lost its core, slowly fading along with the blowing hot wind, Aylen slowly walked away.

Even until then, the citizens could not make a single movement.

Because the corpses, which had been left neglected until now due to the plunderers’ exercise of force, were rolling around here and there.

Ten minutes was too short a time to give them a proper funeral.

Particularly, when Randolph, who was the leader and the father of three young men, was holding the corpse of his only remaining… no, only formerly remaining son, who could move hastily?

Perhaps the ones who died in this place were everyone in this ember.

However.

“…Let us go.”

“Pardon?”

“Will you fall into useless sentimentality about being unable to abandon this home and die along with the ember?”

“That is…”

“Losing three sons this time, there is one fact I felt painfully. The fact that nothing is more valuable than life.”

“Lord Randolph…”

“Let us live, let us survive by any means! The lives of our children who perished in vain must definitely be used in that way. Definitely…”

Randolph, rising after merely closing his son’s eyes, began to lead the way in the direction Aylen had disappeared.

However, when no footsteps were heard behind him, he stopped briefly and spoke.

Without looking back toward the rear where his son still lay and the extinguished Eternal Embers was, he was looking forward.

“Although not a single drop of blood is shared, all of you are also my family. Even if I lose the ember, I do not want to lose any more family. So please come with me. It is this old man’s last request.”

“…”

The elderly man’s voice, barely hiding his sorrow, rose as white breath.

The steam, thickened by the chilly cold, seemed as if to reveal his heavy heart.

“We will follow. We will be with you, Lord Randolph.”

“Someday… someday we will definitely return and rebuild the ember. All of us together.”

“We must. Of course we must!”

Randolph, beginning to walk while looking only forward, abandoning all lingering attachments, and following him, the five hundred or so citizens began to move.

The moment announcing the beginning of the impossible great snowfield crossing was so miserable.

* * *

After recovering the ten mana guns, which were the spoils of war obtained from killing the plunderer bastards, and the core of the Eternal Embers.

Two off-roaders carrying patients, and about five hundred people set foot on the snowfield.

The journey to the new ember, which took a week by off-roader and twice as long, two weeks, on foot, had finally begun.

Although it was a large-scale procession, the formation was simple.

One off-roader at the front to clear the heavily accumulated snow path like an icebreaker, and one off-roader at the rear to control variables such as mutants or stragglers.

And in between, about five hundred people were marching.

However, until that simple-looking formation was arranged, there had been a quite complex process.

“How do you plan to arrange the escort?”

“If it’s the escort…”

“We possess only twenty mana guns in total. We must escort all of this large crowd with that, but how could that be possible? Unless it’s you, me, and Natasha.”

The arrangement of the escort to protect the people from mutants was the problem.

Just as Jeremy said, the mana guns were not sufficient to escort the vast area of a procession of about five hundred people.

To arrange the personnel sparsely was not an option, since in the first place, the mutants were bastards that could not be dealt with alone.

“Can we not use the hunters of this ember as combat force for the time being? At any rate, they also won’t expect us to protect them perfectly. In the first place, this is also their fight.”

A hunter who had volunteered following Sullivan spoke cautiously.

There was no mistake in his words.

Looking at it coldly, this ember was destined to perish anyway regardless of whether we intervened, and this crossing was their struggle to survive.

Ultimately, the subject of the fight was not us, but them, who had become refugees.

However, it was not a method that I had not thought of myself.

“According to Randolph, the hunters all went missing in the Boundless Great Snow a week ago. And they were most of the young men of this ember.”

“…!”

It was already a question I had asked Randolph and received an answer to.

And I had no choice but to cleanly abandon the idea of mobilizing them.

Since it was not just the hunters who were missing, but even robust adult men were scarce.

Thus, the ones who ultimately came to hold the mana guns obtained from the plunderers were two young men and eight women.

They were burning with fighting spirit, their courage multiplied by a hundredfold due to anger, but…

“Anger is a good driving force, but it does not last long. It would be better to treat them as non-existent. It will be fortunate if they do not become a hindrance.”

Courage without skill is merely recklessness.

Even that paltry courage would be like an illusion that would quickly vanish upon facing mutants.

Ultimately, we had no choice but to face the conclusion that we must protect all of these people solely with our expedition members.

“Hmm…”

No matter how much I rolled my brain, an answer did not emerge within the limited manpower and resources.

However, it was just that we lacked the courage to say it out loud; we already knew the answer.

And the person who had to speak the uncomfortable answer was none other than myself, the expedition commander.

“We proceed like this.”

“That means…”

“The premise of escorting that many people with merely this amount of personnel is wrong from the start. We have no choice but to accept sacrifices.”

The atmosphere of the expedition, faced with a reality they could do nothing about, sank heavily.

At least for now, Jeremy also said nothing.

It seemed to be because he also thought there was no other clever scheme.

“For now, minimizing the damage is the best we can do. Let us try as much as we can.”

With those words, we announced the beginning of the perilous crossing.

The departure was exactly 542 people.

However, no one knew how many would remain at the end of that journey.

An invisible war cloud was hovering over the quiet Boundless Great Snow.