Silberna's Recon Team (2)
“Miss!”
Anna rushed toward Silberna, calling out to her in alarm. But Silberna immediately reset her stance, grinding her teeth.
“I’m fine!”
She couldn’t exactly call herself unharmed after taking a direct hit from the yeti’s throw, but Silberna brushed it off like shaking dust from her hand and gripped her spear with both hands again, as if to prove a point.
“Heh heh.”
The yeti toyed with a human skull like it was playing a game of catch. And then—
“Kyaaah! Aaah! S-save meee!”
Sharen was being overtaken by the black liquid gushing from Pollu’s body.
“Sharen!”
In the abruptly dire situation, Isaac moved the fastest.
“Stay still!”
“I-Isaac! Isaac!”
Sharen grabbed onto Isaac as he approached. The black liquid writhing across her chest was spreading further. Isaac tried to calm her as she begged hysterically for her life, but—
“Save me! Please save me!”
“Ngh! I got it, so calm down and let go of my arm!”
Even for a seventeen-year-old girl, a direct descendant of the Helmonts had grip strength Isaac couldn’t withstand. He couldn’t shake off the arm she’d seized; Sharen was already a tearful mess, completely losing her composure.
“Calm down!”
Smack!
In the end, Isaac swung his hand wide and planted a fist squarely in Sharen’s face. It wouldn’t hurt much even if it connected fully, and it wouldn’t leave a mark anyway.
“I-Isaac?”
Sharen momentarily loosened her grip, unable to believe he’d hit her.
“Stay still!”
In that brief instant, Isaac grabbed the flat back of his sword—Pulsun—with a short grip and pressed it to the nape of Sharen’s neck.
Riiip!
Her clothes tore straight open, exposing her pale skin. Isaac ripped her top clean off and hurled it away. The black liquid clinging to it writhed on the ground, devouring the fabric.
“It’s gone! Sharen, it’s off!”
“H-heuk?! H-heuk?!”
Sharen frantically felt herself over with both hands. Confirming it was truly gone, she burst into tears and threw herself into Isaac’s arms.
“Waaah! Isaac!”
“Get a grip and let go! That hurts!”
This wasn’t the time for this, and with Helmont strength like that, it wouldn’t be strange if one of Isaac’s bones snapped.
While Isaac was handling the situation, Meladic Drakemoor stared at Pollu Blackhand, who had collapsed trembling on the ground.
“Pollu?”
Black liquid kept pouring from his mouth and wounds. As it began enveloping him, Meladic floundered, not knowing what to do.
“Don’t get close!”
Isaac warned Meladic even as he struggled to pry off the still-clinging Sharen. Then he checked on the yeti—the fight had already begun there.
Clang!
“……”
Silberna silently swung her spear, batting away the yeti’s bone club. In the rapidly shifting chaos, she looked coldly veteran-like with her lips pressed tight.
‘Damn it.’
Isaac knew better. She was just pretending to be calm; in truth, she was acting more emotionally than anyone.
She’d just agreed that they needed to retreat right now. But the moment she clashed with the yeti, she was swinging her spear for all it was worth, desperate to kill it.
“Anna! Grab Silberna’s and Sharen’s greatswords!”
“Y-yes! Got it! Miss, snap out of it!”
Isaac ended up hoisting the still-shaking Sharen onto his back. Regrettable as it was, there was no spare capacity to save Pollu too.
“Meladic, leave Pollu for now and let’s escape—!”
“I-Isaac?!”
Meladic’s voice filled with dismay. Isaac whipped his head around. There, Pollu—buried in the black liquid—was slowly rising, as if lifted by it.
“Forget it, just run!”
As Isaac bolted, the others matched his pace and fled. Silberna bit her lip until it bled, turning her back on the yeti. Meladic shouted an apology to Pollu as he took the lead.
“Ingaaaan!”
Unlike the others, the pursuing yeti didn’t ignore Pollu. To it, he must have looked human like the rest; it swung its massive bone club sideways to swat him aside. But the black liquid blocked it, sparking a battle between the two threats.
Silberna’s recon team managed to escape that way.
* * *
Crack!
By a frozen stream. A sharp sound cut through the piled snow, startling a mountain hare into flight.
Silberna’s head snapped to the side from the slap, and she glared at the man who’d struck her.
“That was the worst.”
Isaac’s words pierced her heart like an awl. Silberna’s eyes welled up for a moment, but she had no retort.
She was the leader. She had no choice but to admit everything had gone catastrophically wrong.
“……Sorry.”
“Sir Isaac! The miss did her best too!”
Anna hurriedly defended her, but Isaac’s sharp gaze didn’t soften.
“I clearly said not to fight the yeti there, and you agreed, Silberna. But the second you looked away, you got fixated on it and couldn’t even assess what was happening with Pollu and Meladic!”
“That’s……”
“If that fight dragged on? A normal yeti, maybe we could handle it, but that was a named beast. The moment other monsters from the mountains swarmed us, we’d all be dead!”
“Anna, Isaac’s right.”
She hadn’t fulfilled her role as leader. As certainty grew that her comrades from the Mallidan Wall had died by that yeti’s hand, she’d been overwhelmed by the urge not to let it live.
“For the sake of dead comrades, I forgot the living ones right beside me for a moment.”
“……”
“Sorry. There’s no excuse for that.”
Silberna bowed her head. Silence fell.
Sharen, wrapped in a coat, trembled as she tugged at Isaac’s clothes.
“I-Isaac. I’m…… s-so…… c-cold.”
“……”
Sharen had nearly died. If that black liquid had fully engulfed her, her survival wouldn’t have been guaranteed.
It was a stroke of luck that the recon team had come in leather armor. ‘If it had been plate……’
It would’ve taken ages to strip off, and Sharen would’ve been consumed by then.
Isaac hugged her to warm her even a little. Sharen burrowed deeper into his embrace, her shaking subsiding as she sniffled.
‘She’s still just seventeen, after all.’
She’d acted tough and nonchalant earlier, but she’d never faced real mortal peril at her age. The moment she realized she could actually die, terror had gripped her hard.
Especially since her sword—honed her whole life—had proven utterly useless.
‘That helplessness must have amplified into pure terror.’
“I messed up too. When we ran, we should’ve headed straight for the wall, but I just…… went wherever without thinking……”
Meladic mumbled an awkward apology then. The mood turned into a sudden contest of owning up to faults.
Meladic, who’d led the charge, had panicked and veered off course. If they hadn’t stumbled on the stream, they might still be running.
“It’s okay. We just took a detour; we’re not farther from the wall.”
Anna forced a smile, checking the map to reassure them.
“Uh, no campfire, right?”
“Probably not. Technically, this is still monster territory.”
Anna shook her head at Meladic’s follow-up suggestion. They needed to conserve energy to trek back to the wall without even a fire.
But the cold made it grueling. Sharen clenched her lips to endure, but the chattering of her teeth echoed.
She looked freezing. Isaac undid his shirt buttons and pulled her close again.
“Skin-to-skin should warm you up a bit.”
“I-Isaac……”
“It’s to survive. You’re our second strongest after Silberna. Conserve your strength fully.”
Sharen’s eyes welled up at his words, but she buried her face to hide it.
“Yeah, got it.”
As their breaths mingled with white puffs in the frigid air, Sharen whispered softly.
“But Isaac…… how are you so calm?”
The others looked to him at her question. No one could deny that the man with the least combat experience had stayed the coolest and judged best.
If even Isaac had hesitated, two or three of them might not be here now.
“I’ve nearly died plenty of times.”
He muttered with a wry smile.
Before his regression, his injured leg kept him from fighting, but he hadn’t been absent from the battlefield. Amid the transcendents’ onslaught, brushes with death were cruelly equal-opportunity.
‘At least that’s a relief.’
He’d worried his judgment might cloud once he drew his sword. But the earlier crisis proved it a false fear, and he felt relief on that front.
“Achoo!”
All eyes turned to Silberna. She looked startled herself, wearing a dumbstruck expression.
“You’re cold too, miss?”
“No, I’m fi—”
Silberna’s words halted as she recalled Isaac’s earlier rebuke alongside her own lapse in judgment.
“Yeah, it’s cold.”
She nodded, realizing her condition as their top fighter directly tied to their survival.
Then Silberna strode over and enveloped both Isaac and Sharen in a group hug.
“Mind if I join?”
At her suggestion to stick together for body heat, Isaac smiled faintly.
“Of course. It’s only natural.”
She wasn’t letting pride get in the way; she was making the best call possible now.
‘Teach Silberna one thing, and she improves fast.’
Action before overthinking—that was her type.
“You two too. We need to preserve body heat.”
At Silberna’s order, Anna hurried over to join the huddle. Meladic hesitated awkwardly before extending an arm to hug Isaac’s back.
Clustered tight against the cold to conserve strength fully, they felt not just shared warmth, but a swelling camaraderie that heated them from within.
But it didn’t last.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
The ground shook with footsteps.
“Seekoom! Seekoom!”
The yeti’s voice dragged differently than before. The deodorant scent hadn’t fully faded, letting it track them this far.
As Silberna moved to react urgently, Isaac asked her,
“Silberna, can I trust your judgment this time?”
His question felt like a test, but she nodded without hesitation.
“Trust me.”
Even as the thudding grew closer, she calmly scanned Anna’s map. Then—
“We intercept.”
She declared it, gripping her spear at the ready.
“Running’s impossible anyway. With our stamina, we can’t shake a named yeti.”
Everyone nodded. Even warmed a bit, their frostbitten bodies still creaked.
“So we kill it before it calls other monsters. Quick and clean.”
“You sure?”
Silberna had already clashed with it once. A normal yeti wouldn’t be her match, but this was a named one—with intelligence.
Those types were several times harder than average beasts.
“I’ll make up for it.”
That was all she said. She gripped her spear tight and declared it.
That was enough.
As the others prepared to meet the approaching yeti, Sharen slowly pulled away from the huddle and took a deep breath.
“……”
Isaac watched her steadily. Could she really fight?
Doubt flickered, but—
“I’ll definitely—keep you alive.”
Sharen gripped her greatsword, reciting it like a vow, resolve hardened.
“That way, I can sort out these feelings…… and have a chance to say whatever.”
They say kids grow up in an instant. Isaac felt like he’d witnessed that moment.
In the face of death, Sharen had felt and realized something that shifted her entire worldview.
“We have to avenge Pollu!”
“Yes! We absolutely do!”
Meladic and Anna agreed, readying themselves. Then—
Thud! Thud! Thud!
From the direction of the footsteps.
“Kuhahahahahahahaha!”
Pollu’s tearing mad laughter echoed.