Terraforming (3)
With sweat beading down my temples, roughly thirty minutes had passed since we began climbing the mountain.
The mountain was in far worse shape than we'd expected. A considerable portion of it had already been infected by an Anomaly.
So we hurried to explore and survey the area.
This mountain was nothing like the mountains we knew. It was blanketed in plants that couldn't be found on Earth, and even the ground itself seemed infected — the grass and soil had changed into something entirely unfamiliar.
We collected samples to study the changes, though I couldn't help pausing now and then to marvel at how different everything looked from Earth.
And because I kept stopping to gawk, my senior barked at me.
"Yanma! Focus! What are you daydreaming about?"
"S-sorry, sir! The scenery around here is just so mystical…."
My senior let out a sigh, then warned me not to space out and end up lured away by some Anomaly.
"Yes, sir! Understood!"
"Right. Now get back to work."
Thankfully, I didn't get chewed out too badly. Relieved as I was, I knew another lapse in attention would earn me a proper scolding, so I moved quickly.
At some point, I found myself wondering how the other teams were doing. Bracing myself for trouble, I asked.
"Senior. How are the other teams faring?"
"Hm? Oh, not all that different from us, really."
"I see. Understood."
Luckily, he didn't accuse me of just trying to slack off. Instead, I got a picture of the other teams' situation — apparently they were in pretty much the same boat as us.
Oh, right — our Anomaly Exploration Corps is made up of investigation squads drawn from each research lab. In other words, members of the same squad can be teamed up together.
But the moment this corps entered the mountain, it scattered. A substantial part of the mountain had been infected by the Anomaly, you see.
We spread out to cover a wider area. Though, listening to my senior, I couldn't help thinking it might not have been bad to stay together.
But we'd already dispersed, so it remained nothing more than wishful thinking.
Anyway, we worked hard — exploring, recording, sampling, collecting. Time flowed steadily on as we pushed deeper and deeper into the mountain.
"Ah, great."
My senior held his radio up to the air and waved it around this way and that. When the problem refused to resolve itself, he grew irritated. What was going on?
"Senior. Is something wrong?"
"No signal."
"What? Then…."
"Right. From here on, it looks like we'll have to operate autonomously, per the last standing orders."
Oh, come on.
Apparently the deep mountain terrain, combined with the Anomaly's domain, had knocked out all our communications. The other squad members tried their phones too, but we were officially out of coverage.
"Still, there's no way an Anomaly would go after huma— mph!"
"Yanma! That's a flag! You never say that kind of thing!"
My senior scolded me for saying things I shouldn't, then let me go. Freed, I caught my breath and shot him a look of wounded injustice, but it didn't land at all.
"By the way, senior. You know the word 'flag,' too?"
"Yanma! I'm not that old!"
Eek.
I fled from my senior's shout. Not far, of course — I just happened to spot something new worth collecting, so I scampered over there.
It felt like a withering glare was drilling into my back, but I ignored it. My colleague, who had followed me, sighed and called me hopeless.
"Haah. Just digging your own grave, huh."
"Ahem. W-would you help me with this?"
"…Fine."
He didn't abandon me, at least. We were busy working away together when my senior called us over. Was I about to get yelled at again?
I approached him with my heart in my throat — but nothing like what I feared happened.
"Time to start heading to the rendezvous point."
"What? Already?"
"Yep. It's your first time on a mountain, so listen up — you always descend early. The sun sets fast in the mountains."
With that, my senior ordered us to properly organize everything we'd collected. I answered that I would and started sorting through my bag.
After about thirty minutes of tidying up, the sun was already setting. It was barely hanging by its lower edge on the horizon?
I checked the time — not even five o'clock yet. Just as my senior said, the sun really did set early up here.
"Alright! Let's move!"
We began our descent behind my senior. But had we let our guard down? Or had my senior miscalculated?
Less than thirty minutes into the descent, darkness fell. My senior muttered a quiet curse.
"Damn it. Is it because of the Anomaly?"
"Senior. What do we do?"
"What do you think? We turn on our flashlights and keep going."
My senior quickly pulled out a flashlight. Seeing that, we took ours out too and lit the path ahead.
With our vision secured, we started walking again — but this turned out to be a poor choice.
Rustle… rustle…
"Hm? What's that sound?"
I shone my light toward the noise. Nothing there. Then my colleague, walking in front, asked what I was doing.
"Ah, I thought I heard something."
"Some wild animal?"
"Maybe, but… hold on."
My colleague suddenly stopped and stared at me like I'd lost my mind. But I was gripped by a sense of wrongness. The same sound had come earlier, and we'd dismissed it as wildlife back then.
But could there really be animals here? This forest was infected by an Anomaly….
The instant that realization hit me, I screamed for my senior!
"Senior!"
Too late. Or was it my scream that drew it?
The cause didn't matter. What mattered was that a beast cloaked in vegetation had just thrown itself at my senior!
"KYAAAH!"
"UAAAAAGH…!"
In an instant, everything dissolved into screaming panic and chaos!
I was stunned too, but I forced myself calm and threw myself at the Anomaly. I drew the knife sheathed at my right thigh and drove it straight into the thing.
"Let my senior GO!!"
My eyes met the Anomaly's.
Boing, boing.
Following the Anomaly Exploration Corps, I ran face-first into a small problem. Namely—
"Hmm… I lost them. Dehet?"
I'd lost the Exploration Corps.
No no, wait! I have an excuse!
I was admiring the forest around me— ahem. I was merely keeping watch for any Anomalies in the vicinity, that's all, and they slipped away.
…What's with that look of pity!
For the record! I never imagined the Exploration Corps would scatter to the four winds and explore separately!
Ahem. In any case, the fact remained that I'd lost the corps. Which meant I needed to come up with a plan.
"Hmm… should I track them with Future Sight? Like I did with that man who got bewitched by the yellow raincoat."
Good idea!
I immediately peered into the future. And beheld countless plant zombies.
"Woooow."
Oh my, an unusually distinctive exclamation just slipped out, didn't it?
I was startled by the plant zombies. Well, my ears and tail had been on alert for a while now.
I had only looked at the future of one member of the corps I'd been following — so why on earth was I seeing plant zombies? The answer was simple.
"Because in the near future, they become plant zombies!"
They turn into plant zombies in the near future. And that fact meant the Exploration Corps was already beyond saving.
"The forest all looks the same whether it's changed or not, so tracking them isn't exactly easy either."
Chasing down the corps on my own was hopeless. Naturally — the corps was currently split into teams and spread out across a wide area.
What's more, the forest was hard to navigate before the transformation and just as hard after. With no proper paths to speak of, it was even worse.
So rescuing them wouldn't be simple either. In other words, to say it once more: the Exploration Corps was doomed.
"Hmm… what to do."
Should I just wander around all over the place?
Gut it out with sheer manpower?
But I'm not on that close terms with those people.
I worried, and worried some more. My ears and tail drooped quietly, worrying right along with me. A few minutes must have passed like that when suddenly, my ears shot straight up!
"That's… the sound of screaming?"
I went still, cocked my ears, and triangulated the source of the noise. It didn't take long to pin down — roughly five kilometers to the northeast of here.
"Looks like trouble's already found them."
Apparently that future I glimpsed had arrived ahead of schedule. I immediately broke into a run toward the source of the screams.
I stepped onto a branch and leapt to the next, bounding from tree to tree. After a few minutes of branch-hopping—
I spotted people under attack from an Anomaly. No — not people. Everyone but one had already been taken down.
The last one remaining was swinging his knife for all he was worth, trying to drive off the Anomaly — the plant zombies. But did anyone really think plant zombies would be scared of a knife?
They kept closing in on the man. Right up until I showed up.
"Get LOST!"
I delivered a flying dropkick straight into the plant zombies!
They crashed into each other from the impact of my kick and went sailing off into the distance! Home run!
Thanks to my home run, my tail is swishing about in sheer delight. Naturally, I'm feeling pretty great myself!
While I was savoring that little high, the man's voice reached me.
"S-Spoiler Fox?! Why are you here?!"
Apparently my entrance shocked him. Seeing him this flustered made me want to tease him even more.
So I thought about what to say, and then a brilliant idea struck me. Heehee.
When I flashed a smile that promised I was about to do something, the man's expression turned anxious. Seeing that, I took a single step toward him.
He took two steps back, so I matched him with two steps forward. I advanced, and he retreated — a slow-motion chase.
But this glacial pursuit couldn't last. Because the man backed straight into a tree. The moment I saw that, I closed the distance in a flash.
"H-hiihk!"
paralyzed with terror, the man finally crumpled to the ground. Thankfully, he hadn't wet himself.
I walked right up to his nose with an ever-deepening smile plastered on my face. Then, with my most mischievous expression, I spoke.
"RAWR."
I even made cute little claws with my hands. Then I held perfectly still.
Gradually, the man's expression began to shift. From a face frozen in fear to one utterly baffled as to why he was not, in fact, being eaten.
Watching that transformation, I doubled over clutching my belly.
"AHAHA! Look at your face! You're hilarious!"
"Ah. Hahaha…."
Only then did the man realize he'd been played. The hollow way he laughed suggested he'd finally caught up with the situation.
Of course, I laughed for a good while longer before getting to the actual point.
"You looked like fun, so I followed you!"
"Haha. R-right."
The man still hadn't fully recovered. Fair enough — he'd thought an Anomaly was about to eat him, only to learn it had all been a game.
Anyway, I told the man to hurry down the mountain. Then I headed over to the plant zombies, who were still tangled up in a heap, unable to get up.
The plant zombies seemed to have been born only moments ago and lacked any real strength. So I hurried over to put them out of their misery, gently.
"Excuse me!"
"Hm?"
The man I'd rescued called out from behind me. When I turned around, he was waving his hand in gratitude.
"Thank you!"
Hm. Another peculiar person, this one.
So I'd found yet another oddball besides Lee Ju-in, I thought. I simply waved back and went about my business.
Behind me, the man began his descent down the mountain.