Chapter 52
Chapter 52
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 52
Chapter Title: Subway (1)
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I bolted upright.
My head spun, but I didn’t collapse. Covering the communicator dangling from my ear with my palm, I stared blankly ahead.
Where the hell am I? How did I end up in this mess?
The last thing I remembered was falling with the creature.
And then…
Right. I hit the water.
There had been a wide river stretching out at the bottom of the canyon. That brutal collision was my final memory. I must have hit the surface wrong and blacked out.
I sat there in a daze, slowly looking down at my body.
My combat suit was soaked. The sharp stench of blood assaulted my nose. But it didn’t seem to be mine.
Probably from the creature I stabbed with my sword. I could feel that I’d pierced its body clean through.
With both hands, no less…
Huh?
My sword.
My sword. Where’s my sword?
I frantically patted myself down. The sword I’d stabbed into the creature’s body.
Why is it gone?
[Hilde!]
As I groped around wildly, a sharp voice pierced my ear.
[Get it together!]
“Yes?”
My senses snapped back.
My vision and hearing flooded in at once. An unfamiliar scene burned into my eyes—one I’d never seen before in my life. The surroundings were quiet. A river flowed right beside me. Beyond it stretched a desolate clearing.
The sun hadn’t set yet, but everything was dark. The trees weren’t that dense, there were hardly any signs of a city, and what little remained was buried under faded grass.
And there, sprawled on the ashen clearing, was a long corpse.
The creature that had climbed up from the canyon.
I straightened my back.
“Aide.”
[Report your situation.]
There was an unmistakable tension in Ska’s voice.
[Get your head straight.]
He was always so composed. Among the people I’d met in Black Badger, I thought he had the most leisure about him. Yoon had ennui, Ye-hyeon had gravitas, but Ska had ease.
Not right now, though.
I pressed my palm firmly against the communicator barely hanging from my ear.
“I think I blacked out after hitting the river. I’m in a plain at the bottom of the canyon now, and the creature I fell with is dead across the river.”
[Any other creatures?]
“Doesn’t look like it…”
I whipped my head around.
But there wasn’t even a hint of movement, let alone the sound of insects. It was quiet enough to set my nerves on edge.
And why is it so dark? The grass is faded to gray, and the few trees lack any vitality or color.
Overgrown tracks covered in plants and an old train car lying beside them were the only signs that humans had once lived here.
I tensed up and answered slowly.
“There’s nothing around.”
[Hilde.]
Ska’s response came heavy.
[Your feet.]
My feet?
“Under me?”
[Nothing under your feet?]
I looked down.
What could possibly be under my feet…?
That’s when I figured out why everything was so dark.
And why Ska’s voice had been laced with such tension. I froze, staring at the ground beneath me. I faced something completely unexpected and forgot how to speak for a moment.
A place where humans no longer dwelled, reclaimed by nature.
The ground was covered in black mold.
“No, not mold—mushrooms?”
[Mold is fungus.]
Ska gently corrected my mutter.
I reflexively admired how gentle the correction was. There was no hint of pity for my ignorance in his voice. If it had been Yoon, his tone would have dripped with, “Talking to someone dumber than a chimp is exhausting.”
Not that it mattered right now.
[More precisely, it’s mycelium. Creature mycelium.]
Ska said.
[The fruiting bodies of the same creature that blanketed A Zone will soon sprout up to devour the dead creature and you. See any movement?]
“Yes.”
The massive black mold was slowly extending tendrils.
I rose slowly, eyes fixed on the ground. I could see the net-like black mold creeping densely toward my feet.
This is insane.
It looked grotesque covering the vast ground, but was it really that threatening?
As I cautiously lifted my right foot, the Aide’s explanation continued.
[The main body’s deep underground, so cutting off the fruiting bodies won’t kill it. The mycelium’s size is ridiculous too. The moment the fruiting bodies break the surface, run. We still haven’t found a way to kill it.]
Seriously?
[The creature carrying your unconscious self probably got eaten by it after drifting into this area.]
I looked up.
I shifted my gaze to the corpse across the river. Only now did I realize it was covered in black mold.
This is crazy. Ska was right.
Plus, there was a tracker implanted under my fingernail. The Command Staff had put it there to protect me from the unknown “Reen.” They could track my location with it. They couldn’t tell the seniors deployed outside the Core, but they must have checked my position the moment they got the report.
The signal probably kept going as I floated downriver until it stopped here at the shallows.
[It was digesting that creature, so it left you alone.]
No sooner had he finished than the ground under my feet began to writhe.
I stared in awe at the shrinking creature corpse.
“The ground under me is moving.”
[Thirty seconds until it sprouts.]
Ska advised calmly.
[Run like hell. Any last words, say them now.]
“Yes. Like hell… Wait, last words?”
[The Command Staff doesn’t give detailed orders to Black Badger agents outside the Core unless it’s the Territorial Reclamation War.]
Now the net under my feet was seamless and dense.
The moment I tensed my calves, Ska’s heavy voice struck my ear.
[Except when a Black Badger’s life is in immediate peril.]
Shwooo!
Shwick! Sprout! The fruiting bodies erupted. My vision filled instantly with tentacle-like growths. Black stems burst from the ground.
I ran in panic.
The mold piercing my legs, trying to envelop my body.
What the hell is this!
I didn’t want to die to mold. Especially not this nerve-like, grotesque stuff creeping over the ground.
“Argh!”
I ran.
Like a madman. I nearly tripped. A fruiting body surging from underground had clipped my heel.
This won’t do. I need to head for the river.
Feeling the ground erupt wherever my feet landed, I ran desperately.
If I can just get to the flowing water, it’ll be safe…
[Don’t go to the river!]
His sharp warning made me skid to a halt just short of the riverbank.
[Jumping in will just slow you down! You think there’s none under the riverbed?!]
Splash!
Black fruiting bodies pierced the surface.
Water sprayed everywhere. I twisted away, the uneven mold surging behind me. Fuck! Is this really mold? I gritted my teeth and leaped with every step. They said it regenerates even if cut, it’s insanely fast, the main body’s underground, and it’s ridiculously huge.
How did something this grotesque end up here?
How did it take root on Earth? No one was around to answer my questions. No time to think anyway. I just ran like an idiot. I knew if I stumbled or fell even once, those tentacles would pierce and smother me, digesting me whole.
It didn’t seem to hate me specifically.
It just indiscriminately devoured anything alive. Ska shouted in my ear to hang in there until I escaped the infested ground. Direction didn’t matter.
Small mercy. No time to think about where to run. Even one more second on the ground and my instep would’ve been pierced.
I slipped into the runner’s high from the sprint.
An ecstatic trance with only the wind in my ears.
But it wouldn’t last. My breath was already ragged.
My legs were turning to stone. I’d nearly gotten pierced multiple times when I eased up even a little.
How far does this crap extend? Physiological tears welled up from the wind. Or maybe tears from foreseeing a pathetic death—I couldn’t tell.
Ska yelled something, but I couldn’t make it out.
Whoa.
This is really the end…
“Hey!”
A sharp shout snapped me out of the runner’s high.
I blinked wide-eyed.
The voice came from someone poking their head out of a subway entrance a few meters away.
“Over here!”
Into the subway?
Angela had told me never to go into subways.
But this wasn’t the time for that. I had to do something to escape the creature blanketing the ground.
Plus, that subway entrance—the building was covered in black mold, but the inside looked clean.
No other options anyway.
Survive first!
I bolted toward the person leaning out.
“Hurry inside!”
He grabbed my arm as I reached the entrance.
“Before those things get in!”
The man shoved me down the stairs, then thrust a device forward.
The device generated a strange barrier. Legs buckling, I stared blankly as the black fruiting bodies plastered themselves against the transparent shield.
Luckily, it ended quickly. The translucent barrier blocked the mold. Solid concrete floor. The man who’d sealed the entrance scooped up the immobile me, descended the stairs, lifted an iron door, and entered the subway car.
Then he lowered the iron door again, blocking out the surface light.
A gray space unfolded before me.
I’d survived once more.
***
The communicator didn’t work.
They said subway interiors usually had poor signal. Static crackled through, and as I frowned, the other approached. He yanked the communicator from my ear as I sat slumped.
“Give it here.”
He took it casually, examined it, and clicked his tongue.
The man pocketed the communicator.
“It’s completely dead.”
Then, eyeing my still-heaving breaths, he beckoned with a finger.
“Catch your breath and follow. Can’t sit here forever.”
The man never removed his black mask while speaking.
“You’re not planning to sprawl out and nap here, right?”
So, ten minutes after starting to follow this nameless man.
An empty subway echoing with footsteps. A chilling space. I trudged along, staring at the man’s back.
Oddly, the subway corridor had power. We passed a stopped escalator. He hadn’t spoken or even glanced back since we started walking.
He hadn’t asked my name.
Or given his.
“Hey.”
My low voice bounced off the empty subway walls, echoing.
“Who are you?”
“Your senior, like the sky above.”
He replied without turning.
Crisp footsteps. I trailed him clumsily, muttering wearily.
“Are you human?”
“Can’t you tell?”
“Black Badger?”
“That’s right.”
“But you can’t be official Black Badger.”
At my murmur, the man ahead stopped.
I halted too, taking in his unmoving back.
A gray space. So pristine it was hard to believe we were outside the Core.
Standing in a place like a city subway at 2 a.m., I regarded the still human.
“If you were official Black Badger, the Aide Ska would’ve said someone was coming to rescue me…”
“They probably didn’t know I was here.”
“No communicator either…”
“Signal’s shit down here.”
“Did my communicator crap out?”
“You’re the one who said it had noise.”
“That on your waist.”
The man twitched slightly.
“My sword, right?”
“…Yeah. I picked it up.”
“And the left one’s a signal jammer.”
He turned his head slowly.
I didn’t move. My strength hadn’t returned, and what was the point anyway? So I just watched him wearily.
The man turned slowly. I eyed his sharp gaze.
He had green eyes. Far more vivid than Ricardo’s.
Truly human eyes.
“I’ve seen it in Yoon’s lab.”
“Oh. That bastard’s still alive?”
He shot back casually, then chuckled.
He tugged at his mask slowly. As it came off, his features emerged gradually.
Long hair cascaded over his shoulders. A clear beard from not shaving in ages.
The face typical of those long cut off from civilization.
The man tossed the mask to the floor.
“I thought that greenhorn Ska giving orders must’ve gotten Ye-hyeon killed. Guess you’re all still kicking? Or not. If Yoon’s dead, Ye-hyeon’s probably gone too. But Yoon wouldn’t drop just because Ye-hyeon did.”
“Deserter?”
I whispered tiredly.
“Did you flee outside the Core?”
Like me, escaping Reen.
Outside the Core. Outside civilization. Outside the organization. Fleeing everything that bound him.
To a place crawling with creatures, where maybe freedom was all there was.
“Living out here as a missing person? I didn’t think there’d be a Black Badger like you.”
“Smart junior.”
He approached quietly and pressed a knife to my throat.
“Come along quietly.”