Chapter 102
Chapter 102
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 102
Chapter Title: Back to That Place (2)
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There was no more conversation after that. We bolted down the stairs. Ricardo took the lead. I couldn’t keep up with his pace.
My chest kept hurting. It felt like the pain was getting worse from running.
But if I let it show, they’d obviously leave me behind on the surface, so I didn’t say a word.
We raced up to the 14th floor, where we could go no farther.
From the 14th floor on, the stairs were buried under debris and unusable. So we flung open the stairwell door and emerged into the hallway. The hallway wasn’t intact either, so we cleared away the rubble blocking the path as we headed for the windows.
Ricardo tied a wire around my body.
“You have wire?”
“It’s not a weapon, so they didn’t take it~.”
According to him, only Ami used wire as a weapon.
The senior perched on the windowsill and leaned his upper body out.
Fortunately, it was a bright moonlit night with no wind.
Ricardo attached the suction pad on the wire to the building wall, so we could climb up the exterior.
“You can climb up, right?”
“Yes.”
The man vanished out the window, and I followed, leaning my body out after him.
Below my feet stretched the wasteland, tinged bluish in the air.
No real conversation took place this time either. We climbed the wire, facing the cold air.
Then Ricardo suddenly stopped ascending and smashed a windowpane.
Crash!
Shattering glass inside.
The senior jumped in.
I hurried after him.
Huh.
The sight that unfolded left me speechless.
I hadn’t wanted to see a scene like this again. When I’d been trapped in the building with Porden, no one was buried under rubble. When Ricardo and I had been buried in the hallway, only Marie was pinned.
But this was different.
We’d entered through a 19th-floor window. The stadium ceiling—that is, the 19th floor—had collapsed, crushing the spectator seats below.
Most people probably wouldn’t even have bodies left to find.
I turned my head away from an arm protruding from between concrete slabs like a sandwich.
It was eerily quiet.
All the lights were shattered, so we had to rely on moonlight for visibility.
I stood at the highest point and looked down. My eyes, adjusted to the dark, made out the stadium far below. Half of it had caved in.
The northern section, where Ricardo and I had been, had crumbled.
The opposite side was covered in debris, but the floor there hadn’t collapsed.
It was exactly where the waiting area had been.
The elder who’d been torn apart had sat there briefly. Maybe that’s why no bomb had been planted nearby, since it was his waiting spot. Facing this hopeful reality, I exhaled the breath I’d been holding.
“Senior.”
I called out to Ricardo as he descended the slanted rubble.
I followed, putting strength into my feet.
It was so quiet I didn’t need to raise my voice.
“Do you know roughly where?”
“More or less.”
Ricardo didn’t turn around.
Instead, he pressed steadily toward one spot. Quickly, but not recklessly. I was impressed that even as he hurried toward the stadium, he didn’t slip or kick debris and upset this precarious balance.
His speed didn’t slow even with moonlight as the only light source.
Dust hung thick in the air.
For a while, I focused only on descending to the stadium.
“Winter!”
Ricardo finally leaped from the edge of the rubble onto the remaining stadium floor.
“Fisher!”
I jumped down too, from a height nearing two stories, landing on the stadium.
The places to check were limited anyway. I ran toward the waiting area, careful not to stumble and fall into the stadium pit below.
“Senior!”
I flinched.
Ricardo and I both startled at the same time.
But the shock that had set my heart pounding soon turned to joy.
You’re alive.
The tension gripping my anxious heart eased. I let out a breath I hadn’t even realized I was holding. Deep relief settled on Ricardo’s face as he approached the waiting area buried in rubble.
“Winter.”
He cautiously touched the debris covering the waiting area.
“Give me a situation report~….”
“Oh, Asil….”
Why Asil?
“Thanks to you covering us with weapons, we didn’t get crushed, but Asil’s condition…. The poison’s circulating, I think. Creature poison, so….”
“Calm down and breathe~.”
“Thanks to the space you made with weapons, we didn’t get buried alive? The ceiling caved in, but luckily the weapons were sturdy….”
“Winter. Breathe.”
I heard Barbie struggling to steady her panting breaths.
I walked over to Ricardo.
Then, squinting, I groped to check the shape of the rubble.
“I can’t see anything.”
I tried to pinpoint exactly where Barbie’s voice was coming from.
“Breathing’s getting stuffy, head hurts too. Probably low on oxygen, but more than that, Asil’s breathing is getting worse….”
“Waiting for backup will be too late.”
Ricardo made a quick decision and turned to me.
I nodded.
Thud!
With an extra pair of hands, it went much faster.
We shoved the debris covering the waiting area down into the collapsed stadium below, piece by piece. My hands got cut by protruding rebar shards and sharp concrete, but there was no time to care.
We cleared away several heavy chunks with thuds.
Repeating this revealed the waiting area, squished down flat like a crepe cake.
The waiting area ceiling, bent downward.
More rubble piled endlessly on top.
If Ricardo hadn’t hastily covered the top with his weapon, Barbie and Fisher would’ve been sandwiched and crushed. I frowned at the concrete sandwich cross-section now visible before me.
The situation still wasn’t good.
“Leg.”
Ricardo pointed out curtly.
Barbie, who now saw us under the moonlight with the rubble cleared, lifted her head.
She looked at us joyfully, then followed Ricardo’s gaze.
“Oh.”
The senior let out a flat voice as she saw her right calf pinned under rubble.
“Yeah. Lucky only one leg’s pinned.”
“Should’ve covered wider.”
Ricardo’s voice was stiff.
He meant the silver ceiling now covering Barbie and Fisher. It was bearing the weight of the pressing debris well.
Barbie smiled at the grim-faced man.
“No. Then it wouldn’t have been thick or high enough, and we’d both be pancakes. My fault for not lying flat. See, Asil’s not pinned.”
“Can’t clear what’s on the leg.”
“You can tell at a glance.”
Tears streamed down Barbie’s face nonstop, but she kept smiling.
“As long as we survive, I don’t care.”
I should’ve paid more attention.
When the elder torn by the creature issued his warning, I shouldn’t have brushed it off. I looked at Barbie’s pinned leg with a heavy heart.
Even with Green Dream antidote, that leg was beyond saving.
It had been perfectly fine just hours ago.
“Get Asil out first.”
Barbie met my eyes as I bit my lip.
“Look at his arm. It’s completely swollen. He took the hit for me…. What if he dies?”
“He won’t….”
Ricardo bent down and injected antidote into Asil’s arm. Then he pulled the limp, silver-haired senior out from under the silver ceiling onto Barbie.
The man handed Asil to me.
“Take him down.”
“You have to come too.”
I replied as I took Asil.
“The morphing weapon won’t hold much longer. Neither will this floor.”
“Agreed.”
Barbie reached toward the stadium.
“I’ve been hearing weird noises from above since earlier. Hurry and inject the antidote, then cut the leg. And get him out of here.”
Ricardo drew a long breath.
He seemed to be barely suppressing oncoming hyperventilation.
Yeah. He’d held it together so well until now. In a place where countless people had been crushed to death. Even I felt my mind fraying, so it must be worse for him.
But there was no time to calm him.
I handed Asil back to him and said,
“I’ll do it.”
Ricardo glanced over, meeting my eyes.
He was sweating coldly again.
“Go down, Senior. I’ll follow right away.”
“Yeah.”
Barbie murmured dazedly, staring up at the silver ceiling.
“You handle a sword well. It’ll hurt less if you do it.”
No time for sentiment.
Guilt and sorrow had no place right now. I bit my lip and waited for Ricardo’s decision, as he eyed the layered rubble atop the morphing weapon and the stadium floor narrowing just from us standing there.
Suffocating silence blanketed the area.
Ricardo decided quickly.
“Come right after.”
“Yes.”
“Winter.”
Ricardo gripped Barbie’s outstretched hand tightly, then let go.
“Hold on.”
Barbie let out a small laugh.
Lying there, she even waved cheerily at the senior hoisting Asil and climbing the stadium wall.
Once he was gone, she turned her head and looked up at me.
“Sorry for leaving you behind.”
What rubble could make a sword?
I didn’t answer Barbie. I spun around, clutching the antidote syringe, and scanned the surroundings quickly. Something sharp and straight, the right size to grip, with a usable edge.
I quickly picked up two pieces of rubble from the stadium corner.
Then I clashed them together to shape them.
“Ah!”
Barbie screamed suddenly as I approached with the rubble.
“Now that it’s time, I’m scared!”
“It’ll be over quick.”
Something I’d done often…. Usually on battlefields.
Back then, I’d cauterized with a red-hot blade, but luckily we had antidote now.
With Enhanced Body active, the wound would seal fast once the leg was cut. It wouldn’t regrow, though.
I stuck the syringe needle into Barbie’s arm.
“Looks like I’ll live.”
Good.
I pocketed the syringe and lifted the rubble I’d set down. Then I examined the boundary of her calf pinned under the heavy concrete. Her body protruded straight out from under the silver ceiling, buried.
Had to do it in one go.
“Senior.”
“Yeah?”
“What generation are you?”
“Huh? Me?”
Barbie’s eyes filled with puzzlement.
“I’m tenth….”
Snap.
It cut clean.
Barbie screamed.
Ignoring her shrill cry, I pulled the freed body part out and lifted it. The senior’s body emerging from under the silver ceiling. As she straightened her bent left leg, the imbalance with her right became starkly clear.
No sentiment.
I hoisted the senior onto my shoulder and leaped toward the stadium wall.
“Sorry.”
I climbed the rubble and jumped, scrambling up onto the stadium.
Crawling quickly up the slanted debris, I muttered,
“Sorry, Senior.”
“For what.”
Barbie mumbled from my back.
She buried her face against me, tearing at my shirt.
“What’re you sorry for? What….”
“If I’d been just a bit faster….”
“No.”
She cut off my words firmly.
Then, face pressed to my back, she added,
“Thanks for coming back.”
Her voice didn’t waver, unlike before.
“Thanks for getting me out….”
If only I’d paid more attention.
If I’d known Marie was a limb. If I’d handled things more wisely while maintaining Enhanced Body alone. If I’d caught the creature sooner, or not ignored the elder’s final warning. If I’d carried Ricardo and run to them. Maybe none of this would’ve happened.
Endless regrets assailed me as I headed for the window.
Over the mistakes I’d made.
Until the time came to shove self-blame aside, when we had to climb down the building exterior.