Chapter 51 - Operation (3)

Most of the creatures were dealt with now...

How was I supposed to get back?

For a moment, I stood motionless, looking out over the dizzying gorge and the cliff on the other side. The creatures whose names I knew would be plummeting down without a hitch. But the one that might be level seven or eight would still be rampaging.

Not that going back would help.

Was Ami all right? I stood thinking, sword in hand. All the seniors seemed to have joined her, so surely nothing too terrible would happen. The noon sun beat down on my head. I stood still, trying to catch the sounds coming from across the gorge.

Those sounds soon drew closer.

"Wow!"

The footsteps stopped, and Ami and Tvein appeared on the opposite cliff. Dangling on Tvein's back, Ami brightened when she saw me.

"Hilde, you did it!"

"Ami!"

Her name escaped me reflexively. Thankfully, she looked intact. I breathed a sigh of relief, then examined her more closely.

She was paler than before and didn't look well. If she were fine, she wouldn't be dangling from Tvein's back like that. Still, all her limbs were intact, and she was conscious.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine!" Ami craned her neck and shouted. "Glad you look okay too."

"Thanks to you... Did you two come ahead of the others?"

"She wouldn't stop being a pain in the ass."

Tvein frowned, glancing sideways at Ami on his back.

"Her Majesty wanted to know if you'd fallen in."

"Weren't you worried, Jason?" the round-eyed senior asked from across the gorge. "Bringing down an intact bridge isn't easy, you know."

Tvein rolled his eyes but didn't argue. Instead, he leaned forward a little, as if trying to see the bridge I'd dropped. A few strands of his light blond hair fell forward.

"What the hell?"

Explosions, the seniors' shouts, and the crackle of the creature's electricity came from a short distance away. I took in the scene unfolding behind Tvein as he craned his neck. The creature was running this way—a ghostly thing wreathed in blue electricity. The seniors followed on motorcycles, all but surrounding it.

It would be here within a minute.

Regardless, Tvein kept peering down the precipice.

"What did you use to bring it down?"

"Yeah. There aren't any blast marks."

"Oh. I cut it down with my sword," I answered readily.

Their gazes snapped to me. The man and woman who'd been looking down raised their heads in unison and stared. Tvein's vivid blue eyes and Ami's black ones bored into me.

Their reactions were polar opposites.

"What kind of bullshit is that?"

"Wow!"

Tvein gave a derisive snort, as if telling me to stop talking nonsense, while Ami cheered from his back.

"Hilde, you really are good with a sword!"

CRACKLE, BOOM!

Blue electricity tore across the ground. A tremendous explosion battered my eardrums. The bolt struck precisely where Tvein had been standing, but before I could shout a warning, he nimbly twisted out of its path.

The blond senior frowned, his lips twisting into a smile.

"Persistent bastard," he spat, watching the creature draw closer by the second. "Looks like they never finished making the damn thing..."

Enormous eyes. Eyes brimming with resentment and hatred. Gray strands covered its elongated face. It closed the distance in an instant, its gaze riveted on me. Bullets rained down from Aki and Iho behind it, black blood spraying like ink from each impact.

But it didn't stop.

It didn't even look back. Green and Walker fired cannons as casually as they might wield pistols, yet its eyes didn't so much as shift. Those eerily human, bloodshot eyes with their black sclera remained fixed on me.

Its obsession looked almost desperate. It really did hate me.

What had I ever done to you that was so wrong? I couldn't remember a thing.

If only you could speak, like that level-ten creature Yehyeon had stabbed to death. Then I could fill the gaps in my memories, and you could air your grievances.

But of course reality wouldn't be so easy.

It was truly close now. Without the gorge, it would have run straight into me. Green shouted from the motorcycle he was riding in pursuit.

"Keep pushing it!"

Iho, Aki, and Walker were chasing alongside him.

"Drive it into the gorge!"

CRACK, CRACKLE!

BOOOM!

Another electrical explosion followed. The attack radiated from its gray body in a beautiful scattering of light.

It was powerful enough to send anyone it hit flying, motorcycle and all. They would have had trouble getting straight back up. Luckily, the seniors leaned their motorcycles over and evaded it. The creature had slowed down.

Ah. Its left arm was gone.

Now the gorge was right in front of it.

"Now."

That was when Tvein, who'd moved aside to watch, sprang forward. He'd set Ami on the ground sometime earlier, and now his vicious grin widened to reveal straight teeth.

"Fuck off already!"

A kick, supplemented with just the right amount of gunfire.

Only then did I see the textbook method for fighting a giant creature.

According to my training officer, Jason Tvein was a "vulgar moron riddled with a pointless inferiority complex toward Yehyeon," but his "decent skills give him at least some reason to be alive."

In short, he was good.

The creature lost its footing. It happened in an instant. Had its left arm still been attached, it wouldn't have collapsed quite so completely. It pitched forward headfirst.

That was over...

... Hm?

The creature I'd thought was toppling forward curled into a ball. Its black-sclera eyes, which hadn't stopped glaring at me even as it fell, disappeared from view. It was tucking its body in as if to reduce wind resistance.

Then it pushed off the cliff's edge like a springboard.

The creature leaped into the air.

"What?"

"Fucking hell."

"Hilde!"

Ami straightened up from where she'd been slumped on the ground.

"Dodge!"

SHING!

I cut diagonally. I launched the strike before the creature soaring toward me could land.

Cutting down an opponent that had leaped into the air like that was surprisingly convenient. Dodging in midair wasn't easy.

Ah. A large target called for a large strike.

I swept the sword through a broad semicircle. The creature's body was driven back, black blood spraying in the shape of a waning half-moon.

SKREEEEE!

A thoroughly inhuman scream rang out.

This time, it really fell. Its gray body rapidly dwindled. Once I'd confirmed it was dropping into the gorge, I casually lowered my sword tip to the ground. Then I waited quietly for the blade to cool before slipping it neatly into its sheath.

Hot sunlight beat down, tempered by a cold wind. A brief silence settled. The air, which had been filled with splattering flesh, electrical explosions, and gunshots, suddenly went quiet. Only the sound of wind sweeping through the dry city tickled my ears.

Aki was the one to raise her voice in that silence.

"Did you see that?"

She pointed at me and turned to Iho.

"Iho. Did you see? Did you see?"

"I did. But..."

Across the gorge, Iho let out a dazed huff.

A little bewildered, I looked at the seniors opposite me. They stood gathered at the edge of the gorge, staring at me with widened eyes. It was a familiar scene, but it felt a little different from last time. Their eyes held neither hostility nor betrayal. That was surprise.

The surprise of seeing something unexpected.

Seriously. Had you found it that hard to believe I could use a sword...?

"Yun was right. You're useful with a sword in your hands."

Green's gruff voice carried on the wind.

"Good work. I'll ask what you are later."

"Oh. Thank you."

"For now, we're returning to the safe point."

Arms folded, he fixed me with an intense stare.

"Come over here."

"... How am I supposed to get across?"

"I'll fly over and get him."

"No. Your boots are half wrecked, Ami. Who knows when they'll give out?"

"You weren't taught how to use a wire?"

Aki caught Ami's arm as she tried to stagger forward. Beside the pouting Ami, Richard Green repeated the question. I was about to disappoint him again. I hadn't even known wire use was something I was supposed to learn.

I nodded from across the gorge.

"No, sir."

"Iho. Bring him over."

"Yes, sir."

Iho stepped forward.

I watched him pull out the wire hanging from the side of his motorcycle. A sharp spearpoint was attached to its end. Gripping a section of the wire, Iho swung the point in circles through the air. Then he flung it over.

I stamped on the spearpoint as it landed squarely at my feet.

"Should I bury it?"

"Yeah. Bury it and step on it."

I did as instructed.

Iho was across in no time. He gripped the wire and leaped into the gorge like Tarzan, then promptly planted himself against the cliff face on my side. I leaned out to watch him busily climbing the wire. A primitive method. Well, sometimes primitive methods were best.

After scaling the cliff to stand beside me, Iho pulled the anchor out of the ground. Then he patted my shoulder.

"Good work."

"Not at all. You did all the hard work."

"Let's get across. It's a bit of a brute-force approach, but we're strong, so it works well for us."

Perhaps some of his sense of betrayal had faded; he was speaking to me as freely as before. He held out the wire with the spear shaft attached.

"Now, I'll demonstrate, so watch closely. This one's yours..."

Traitor.

A voice rang out. Probably inside my head. Or from the bottom of the gorge.

I seemed to be the only one who'd heard it. Whether I alone could hear it or simply happened to be the only one who did, I couldn't tell. What I did know was that every sense I had went on edge at that voice. And that I instinctively felt it approaching at a terrifying speed.

It was climbing up the cliff.

It would snatch Iho and me and fall with us. It would never let go. It would try to smash Iho against the cliff and kill him. It couldn't grant me such an easy death, so it would put me in its mouth and crush me to death.

That intuition flashed through my mind in an instant. A long black hand shot up over the gorge.

The seniors' sharp shouts. Gunfire.

If I hesitated, I'd be too late.

I shoved Iho, who was standing with his back to the gorge, to one side and ran toward the enormous hand rushing into view. Then I leaped into the air and drove my sword down.

SHUNK!

From above to below. A heavy strike.

Long fingers wrapped around my body in pain.

Feeling the keenly honed blade pierce its target precisely, I fell with the creature that had climbed up the cliff.

* * *

An anguished voice brought me back to consciousness.

["...de. Hilde!"]

A familiar voice.

["Hilde! Where the hell are you!"]

It was Ska Owen.

Why was Ska Owen's voice in my ear?

I blinked, thinking dully. My body was heavy. My mind was foggy. My limbs wouldn't obey me. I couldn't think clearly enough to make sense of the situation.

I lay there in a daze, resting my right hand—the one part of me that moved relatively freely—on my forehead. I didn't answer Ska's repeated calls.

Couldn't I just sleep like this for a bit? If I could hear Ska's voice, I was probably inside the core. If this was a hospital room, I'd sleep a little longer and answer when I woke up...

My fading consciousness snapped awake at Ska's next shout. At the words that drove reality home with a sharp edge.

["Hilde! Why the hell are you in Area A!"]

Fuck.