Chapter 37: Second Blood
[A cadet has been eliminated. Remaining participants – 119]
I could only give a wry smile, staring at the notification.
’And so it’s begun.’
"I wonder what got them."
"Maybe it’s because they kept rushing toward the city like certain people want to."
Pointedly ignoring Lily’s comment, both Maki and I stepped out. The girl eventually followed us with a sigh.
My hood and scarf combination protected me from getting bushwhacked a second time by the wind. However, even through them, I could still feel it cutting at my cheeks.
The wind had been picking up momentum, slowly but steadily.
Visibility had also noticeably worsened. The edges of some of the farthest buildings were already blurring into the snow.
It would only continue to get worse until it grew into a full-on blizzard. Luckily, that wouldn’t be any time soon, at least not before we reached the city.
I asked Lily.
"How long can you keep that ability of yours active? Also, what’s its range?"
She gave me a muffled reply.
"Straight use? About fifty-five minutes scanning for vibrations within a radius of twenty meters. But it’s a bit hard to sense anything through this thick snow."
’That’s an issue.’
I considered it a bit, before asking again.
"But you can still sense things, right?"
"It’d have to be really strong, or really close."
"That’s fine then. Can you turn your ability on and off every two seconds, and tell us if you sense anything?"
She nodded, before going to meet Maki, who already stood ahead of us. The moment Lily joined up with her, they both began moving.
I didn’t follow immediately. I waited until they were roughly four steps ahead before following, crossbow at the ready.
The suburb was rather modest in size, possessing only three streets. It didn’t take long to find the exit.
It was a collapsed gate right next to the remains of a small playground. Whatever was previously written on it lay completely unreadable due to wear over the years.
Beyond its slumped form lay a snow-covered path, cutting through a field of skeletal trees.
Moving at a measured pace, we crossed the threshold into the forest.
The moment we did, I began searching the trees and the shadows they cast, looking for even the slightest hint of movement.
’Nothing.’
Still, I kept in a state of vigilance. Until...
I heard Lily’s voice.
"To the right!"
Just then, the snow to her right burst open, a pale, desiccated hand emerging from it to grab her ankle.
Maki had already begun moving, drawing and swinging her rapier on course to intercept the hand. She was a beat too late, as the hand had already caught Lily’s leg by then.
Maki’s blade reached it before it could do anything else, severing the limb cleanly.
I was moving by then as well, leveling my crossbow in the direction of the snow cloud that the monster had left while bursting out.
Activating [Error Sense], I adjusted myself into the perfect firing stance.
The moment I caught the slightest hint of a head through the snow, I pulled the trigger.
The monster’s head exploded in a spray of black blood.
[Noble hunter, you have slain a fledgling whelp: Shambler]
[Bounty points: 2]
I let out a sigh of relief at the notification.
Maki was right next to Lily, who’d fallen into a sitting position.
I gave the environment a cautious scan before walking toward them.
"Are you alright?"
Lily gave me a shaky thumbs up. However, her blanched face told a different story.
Maki spoke.
"She’s just a bit shocked."
’Understandably so.’
I nodded before bending down to her level, looking at her ankle.
"The bastard grabbed your foot. Do you think you can still walk?"
Lily gave a shaky reply.
"Y-yeah. I think I can."
"Alright, that’s good then."
I turned to Maki.
"Can you help her up? I need to go retrieve my bolt."
She tossed me a thumbs up.
"That’s fine. Good shot, by the way."
"Thanks."
I left the two, cautiously heading in the direction of the monster’s corpse. The moment I reached it, the smell of hot sewage assaulted my nose.
’Ugh...’
Trying my best not to gag at the olfactory assault, I took a proper look at the monster.
It was a pale, skeletal thing.
Humanoid in stature.
Bone-white, hairless skin stretched thinly over its rotten, emaciated flesh. Its limbs, head, and torso were mismatched and crudely fused together, creating an utterly disgusting sort of asymmetry.
’How does this thing even move?’
Still, ignoring all that, I looked to its skull. More accurately, what used to be its skull.
My bolt had cracked the thing like an egg, spilling its contents along with dark, tar-like blood onto the snow.
I sighed, before tentatively shuffling through them, in search of my bolt.
Soon, I found a faint metallic glint shining beneath a piece of grey matter. Sure enough, when I picked it up for inspection, it turned out to be my bolt.
I wiped the gunk off it as best I could into the snowy ground, before reloading my crossbow with that same bolt.
I turned to face the girls again.
By then, Lily was up.
She gave me a thumbs up as our gazes met, before Maki added,
"Let’s slow down our pace a bit."
I took a look at the ever-increasing snowfall, then at the road, then back at her, before sighing.
"Sure."
Better safe than sorry.
---
Luckily, we didn’t encounter any more incidents on the path.
While there’d been about two more ambushers lying in wait, Lily detected both on time, allowing Maki to eliminate one while I eliminated the second.
I tried giving her a chance to take the second Shambler, but she couldn’t muster up the courage to do it.
All of this came at the cost of using her ability constantly, taking up roughly twenty minutes of its use time, giving us only thirty-five more minutes of use.
We’d be needing much more than that, because before us lay the road to the city.
From what I’d seen from the hill, it could take between an hour and an hour and a half to cross it, depending on how we paced ourselves.
And with the constant threats of ambush, we’d definitely need to slow down.
I sighed, before walking up to the two. Both had already paused at the threshold leading to the main road.
I began.
"How many minutes of use do you have left?"
Lily seemed a lot less confident than she’d been earlier.
"About thirty-two."
’So it’s even lower than I expected.’
"I don’t think it’s going to be enough to get us to the city."
Maki chimed in.
"Can’t she go back to switching it off and on?"
I shook my head.
"No, we need it turned on constantly here, especially with the wreckages lying around."
She considered it a bit more.
"Then how about just switching it off when we aren’t near any wreckages? It’d put us at more risk of an ambush, but it’s easier to defend against one in open terrain."
’That... could work.’
It would last a lot longer if we only used it near possible hiding spots for monsters. While there was still a risk of some hiding in the snow, like back on the path...
The highway had a lot more suitable hiding spots in the wreckages, so not many Shamblers would choose to hide in the open drifts.
"That works, but we need to switch formation. Lily should be between us."
Maki accepted the arrangement easily.
The reason was obvious.
She had much better reflexes than Lily, so she could easily respond to most ambushes, as far as it wasn’t overwhelming.
Placing Lily in the middle still put us both within her ability’s range. It also stopped us from having to step in to save her in case she locked up again.
"You heard that, Lily?"
"Yeah..."
Her reply was somewhat weary, as she stared at something.
Following her gaze, I found the dark, towering silhouette of the city looming solemnly in the distance, its features blurred by the whitish haze of snowfall.
Maki tapped her back gently, before speaking.
"Come on, let’s go."
She started walking forward after that.
Lily stared at her back for a bit, before clenching her teeth and following the girl.
I trailed about two steps behind her.
The road itself seemed to be a two-way interstate. The majority of the wreckage was concentrated on the lanes leading out of the city.
Naturally, we followed the road that was leading into the city.
However, the wreckages here were only relatively fewer in comparison. It was still a considerably large amount, cluttering sightlines and creating pockets of deep drift.
It didn’t take long to come across our first wreckage. A large car so battered in shape that I couldn’t make heads or tails of its previous model or type.
Lily’s voice stopped us.
"There’s something inside."