Not Too Late
Their condition is still good. Doesn't seem like we're too late.
I drew a breath as I checked on the three of them. The real problem with this path was how much harder it got when you were dragging people down it. People always say downhill is more dangerous than uphill, but still.
Honestly, even hauling three people along was reaching my limit.
I was only human, after all.
Going without sleep all night and dragging people down for hours straight was no easy feat. Every now and then my head would throb and a small headache would settle in. Whenever that happened, I stopped right away, sat down, and steadied my breathing.
It was an unavoidable problem on these high plateaus where oxygen ran thin.
"Alice-nim…."
"Yeah."
"The sun's coming up."
"Yeah…."
My nerves were fraying. If there had ever been a day my nerves were this tightly wound, it had to have been the day I caught those poachers.
That day, I had to kill people.
Not a single tear had fallen when I took a life, but looking at a corpse with blood still dripping from it still left me stressed all the same.
Today, people might die.
That was far more serious than killing someone. Because the soldiers lying collapsed here were people who had devoted themselves to their country.
Someone's friend. Someone's family. Maybe someone's father, or someone's older brother…. There were a thousand names you could call them by.
The moment these soldiers died, every last one of those names would vanish into this bitter cold.
Sacrifice was noble—but if you didn't have to sacrifice, that was better still.
I thought back to when I killed the ancient Alberoelva.
I had watched noble people die right in front of me, impaled on its bladed scales. All of it had been because of the Anomalies. Because I, standing at the center of those Anomalies, hadn't prepared thoroughly enough.
That was why, when Disastro came, I prepared as thoroughly as I possibly could within my means.
I wanted just as badly to save these soldiers.
In a world like this—where even I was still managing to live—they couldn't be allowed to die.
I was already carrying enough. The future itself sat on my shoulders.
I didn't want to shoulder anything more. Someone dying was never a pleasant thing. The weight I already carried was heavy enough that I didn't want to think about the hard things that came with it.
"Haa…."
The sun was rising.
Which meant I hadn't slept once from last night through to morning. And we still hadn't come far enough down. It was a truly troublesome situation.
Pina's hands were full carrying the bags and my greatsword for me, and even with their armor stripped off, the three soldiers were heavier than expected.
We were so exhausted that conversation itself had dried up.
All that remained were footsteps and the sound of bodies being dragged.
I thought it would stay that way until the end.
"…Uh, Alice-nim."
"Haa… a monster?"
"No—over there…. There's royal army."
Royal army?
I let out a breath and lifted my head.
Just as Pina said, several royal soldiers were walking along. They weren't much different from us, though. Someone among them must have been injured; they were carrying people too.
My strength completely drained, I muttered,
"I'm going to have to ask for help."
If we kept going like this, I was going to collapse myself.
"Hey—!"
Evan whirled around in surprise at a woman's voice that shouldn't have been audible among the royal army, scanning left and right.
"Did you hear that just now?"
"…Sir Knight. There's a hunter over there."
"What?"
Why would a hunter be in the tundra region?
Evan squinted toward the spot the soldier indicated. Someone stood far off in the distance, and another figure was running this way.
"What should we do?"
"…I'll handle it for now. The ones carrying the wounded keep walking. The rest of you, follow me."
"Understood."
Evan peeled off from the lead with six soldiers in tow.
The royal army and the hunters had clearly divided their zones.
A hunter being here meant the agreement had been broken. Evan fretted over how to handle the situation.
"Hah… hah… h-hey…."
"…You."
It was the supporter who had been beside the Master Hunter.
Her name was Pina, if he remembered right.
Only then did Evan realize who was watching them from far away.
"Why are you people here?"
The voice sounded familiar somehow.
Evan's face was hidden behind his helmet visor. Pina hesitated, listening only to the voice, then somehow managed to place him.
"…Ah—you're the one Alice-nim wiped the floor with."
"……."
Evan clamped his mouth shut without a word.
"Right. So what's your reason for being here? I was under the impression your zone was toward the coniferous forest."
"…Th-that's not the problem!"
Pina couldn't bring herself to explain that getting caught meant they were innocent, so she changed the subject.
"We found three soldiers collapsed. Alice-nim carried them alone all the way here."
Evan asked in surprise,
"Three of them collapsed?"
Pina nodded.
"Yes. They're still alive. But I don't know how much longer we can keep moving them. Alice-nim is at her limit right now too. Please help us."
"……All right. We'll go at once."
Evan clenched his fist.
He still didn't know why the Master Hunter was here, but Alice had worked alone to save three soldiers she didn't even know.
That much, at least, he couldn't disparage.
Evan felt even more ashamed of the thoughts he had carried until now.
And then he stood before Alice.
"…Hunter."
"You came."
Just as Pina had said, Alice was in no good state. Her eyes were haggard, and her lips were cracked dry.
Evan looked back along the path she had taken. He had no idea from how far she had dragged the soldiers, but the snow scraped bare along the trail they had left made it clear enough they had come from a great distance.
Evan approached Alice and untied the rope slung over her shoulder.
The rope that had been digging into her armor and clothes finally released her.
"I won't ask why you're here. ……You did well."
"Yeah. Thanks."
Alice staggered a step back.
Evan checked the fallen soldiers' conditions. Their body temperatures were steady, and their breathing was even.
She must have kept sprinkling Thermal Powder along the way and managed them carefully the whole time.
Evan hoisted one soldier onto his back and ordered his subordinates to carry the other two.
He looked at Alice and asked,
"…Planning to head back with us?"
"For now… I need to go rest a bit myself."
"All right."
Evan turned his gaze away and walked on with heavy steps.
Carrying three completely limp people alone….
She really was remarkable—and broad-minded on top of it.
He was disgusted with himself for having been jealous of someone like her instead of respecting her.
Whether we should call it luck or not, the only monsters we met on the way were the gentle sort.
We returned to Lacrima safely without a single engagement.
Four soldiers who had collapsed after running into something—and me, who had entered the tundra on top of that.
With those two incidents overlapping, the outpost erupted into chaos.
Rescuing four soldiers meant that six soldiers and one knight were currently missing, their fates unknown.
On top of that, I was about to get every possible complaint thrown at me for breaking the agreement.
But the one who spoke up in my defense was none other than the knight who had returned with us—Evan.
"If the hunter hadn't been there, we would have saved only a single soldier."
Whatever the agreement had been, the fact that the soldiers had come back alive carried far more weight.
The agreement itself was meaningless in a situation like this to begin with. We were facing a shared problem.
Even General Gero had nothing to say about it.
Anyone could see I had done a good thing, so criticizing someone who had brought three men back alive would only tank morale across the board.
"…Right. Thank you."
The general actually expressed his gratitude to me.
I was a little thrown by that.
Was it calculation, or was it human?
All sorts of thoughts crossed my mind, but more than anything I just wanted to finish the report quickly.
Above all, I wanted to sleep.
The tension of having barely managed to save people had drained out of me all at once, and the sleep that came crashing in was impossible to fight off.
Afterward, General Gero spoke with Evan separately, while Pina and I reported what had happened to Adelaide, nodding off the whole time.
"We didn't find anything…. But I think that monster is in the tundra snowfield region…. I'm sure of it."
"…Is that so."
Adelaide nodded with a grave expression.
"Unexpected losses. One knight and six soldiers vanishing…. So they engaged that monster…."
"That'll be it."
I yawned wide and rubbed my eyes.
Pina beside me was already asleep on her feet.
"Anyway, we're going to rest a bit…. We haven't slept. Then we'll head out again tomorrow. We have to find that monster."
"Can't you rest a little longer?"
"The situation's too serious."
I gave the worried Adelaide a soft smile.
"If anything happens while I'm sleeping, tell me."
"All right. I understand. Both of you, go rest at once. You've truly worked hard."
I poked Pina awake.
"Let's go inside and sleep."
"Yeees…."
Pina answered in a voice that was practically dying.
I smiled a little at the sight of her.
For now, I could set my mind at ease. The situation was serious, but at this rate, finding Neveumano would only take a moment.
The only thing that bothered me a little was that Neveterde would be right beside it.
In the end, Neveumano had laid hands on humans.
Once things had come to this, neither the royal army nor the hunters could simply let it slide.
Neveterde's treatment would become ambiguous as well.
Neveterde would almost certainly stand and fight alongside Neveumano.
Even if it had shared feelings with us, the two of them had been partners who had lived together for long years.
I didn't deliberate long. My sleep-deprived, frayed mind made the decision quickly.
Whatever blocked the path ahead had to be cleared away.