The Dead and the Living
"Director Gong, you came prepared yourself, I see?"
"Well, there's always a first for everything."
"Tsk, have ye no shame? I laid out the whole board for ye and ye still couldn't catch him."
"From what I can see, he took quite a beating, though?"
"If he couldn't even manage that, he might as well drop dead. Look here. I got one of his arms, ye know."
Montage held up Sde's severed arm.
"I'm gonna carry this arm around till I've taken Sde's goddamn head. That bastard's a two-legged man now. He can't live long like this."
"Fair enough — having an actual arm does make tracking easier."
There existed pathfinders with Gifts that could track a target's location using a piece of their body.
They were extremely rare and hard to hire, but with something like this in hand, putting pressure on Sde wouldn't be difficult at all.
At the very least, it meant predicting his range of movement would be far easier than before.
"Anyway, that bastard Sde is a piece of shit that's done nothing but harm to this world, so we're definitely catching him."
"Still, we'll need better countermeasures for that smokescreen of his next time."
"That is the problem. It feels like the fog's gotten even thicker somehow."
"……?"
"I mean, it wasn't like this when he was operating around Ark. I'm sure of it. I don't know what that fog actually is, but…… it's getting stronger."
"Could it be magic, Director Gong? Or not?"
Pacific cut into the conversation.
"Magic comes in such an enormous variety. I'd assume it's some kind of magic too, but who knows. It could be something else entirely. The thing we've been calling fog might not actually be fog at all."
"Either way, we came prepared based on what we remembered from before, and that fog turned out to be more powerful and potent than we expected. Once you're inside it, you can't see a damn thing."
"So next time we run into it, nothing will have changed?"
"Not quite. Next time, we'll spread out wider than this and encircle him. Wider than the fog's range, even. Then where's the bastard gonna run?"
"Basic in principle, but it's a sure method."
"Right. Though it'd be even better if we could figure out what the fog actually is. So listen, Director Gong — if ye turn up anything, contact me right away. There are plenty of folks around Ark who'd pay good money for intel on Sde."
"Oh, come on. You'd charge me for that kind of thing? Just tell me for free. Are we really the type for that? You'll hurt my feelings."
"Ah. Right? You're right. We're not that kind of relationship."
A smile crept across Montage's lips.
"How was the vacation?"
Won-goo stepped forward and greeted her.
The person he was greeting was Yang Jin-seon. Of the Yang Sisters.
"Vacation? More like a rest cure."
"Given how you're talking, I take it you've fully recovered."
"Can't stay dead forever, can I?"
With that, Yang Jin-seon cast a discreet glance around. The area was in the middle of frantic construction.
"Planning to build a private shelter here?"
"You really think so? The monsters coming down are getting stronger by the day. It's no small source of stress."
"That bad?"
"Yeah. No pushovers, these. An Ogre came down last time."
"An Ogre?"
"Yep. A somewhat underdeveloped one, but still."
"If it's Ogres, isn't this place turning a decent profit?"
"I'm telling you, they're getting stronger and stronger. You think this is a business?"
"Ah…… fair point."
"Besides, a lot of our people are tied up in this place. Even bagging an Ogre wouldn't leave us with much to show for it. Do you have any idea how much we've poured in here?"
"Killing the Arctic Giant would be profitable, though, right?"
"That depends entirely on how much information you manage to pull. So? Think you can come up with an estimate?"
"I'll give it a shot."
"You know the drill. If the estimate doesn't pan out properly, I'll have a hard time settling the bill. It'd be one thing if it were just our own crew handling it, but there are a lot of eyes watching right now."
"You already paid me for the last job, and now you're asking for that too? I'd have done this one for free if you'd just asked."
"That's not how we do business."
Yang Jin-seon gave a wry smile. Compared to before, her face seemed to have lost some of its brightness.
That said, she didn't exactly come across as gloomy or crushed under trauma either. More like someone who'd been through a major ordeal and come out a little more mature for it.
"How long will it take?"
"Give me 48 hours, for starters. By then I'll have a solid estimate. If the intel I gather turns out to be garbage, I'll just cut my losses and get out. How's that?"
"48 hours……"
"That's too tight?"
"Our intervals keep getting shorter."
"Really not an ordinary Giant, is it."
"Nope. The name's familiar, but you might as well treat it as an unknown monster."
"How much shorter have they gotten?"
"Right now it's a 13-hour gap between waves. Soon it'll be down to 12."
"Twice a day."
"And I already told you — smaller Ogre-types are starting to mix in. No telling what comes next."
It had been two days since they'd dealt a near-annihilating blow to Ganjeol Point.
They'd repelled quite a number of monster waves, and thanks to that, the losses suffered in the battle against Ganjeol Point had been mostly recouped.
"I mean, they do pop up in sudden spikes sometimes."
"Exactly. That's what we're worried about. In cases like this, the difficulty can climb out of nowhere. Like a tower."
"Understood. I'd like to see the combat zone first. Which way do I head down?"
"Let's just sync our watches first."
Won-goo pointed at his wristwatch.
"Three and a half hours."
"Remaining?"
"No. That's how long it's been since the last wave."
"Got it."
"We've put up warning signs, so steer clear of those zones on your own. You should be fine for up to eight hours."
"Yes. I won't need to watch for that long anyway."
Won-goo answered with a nod instead of words.
The Yang Sisters, having synchronized their time, vanished from sight.
The Yang Sisters didn't use all 48 hours. By the time they returned, roughly 40 had passed.
The survivors were busy repelling the monsters flooding into the camp.
Even though the Arctic Giant's domain hadn't existed for very long, a substantial facility had already taken shape around the camp.
A sturdy wall of concrete and brick, about two meters tall, wrapped around the camp's perimeter for a good hundred meters.
Watchtowers dotted the area in considerable numbers.
Two Ogres.
And a horde of countless goblins was pouring in.
The survivors were holding the line at the wall.
THUUM!
When an Ogre brought down its massive club, snow sprayed in every direction.
Fortunately, no survivor had been caught by the Ogre's overhead smash. They'd dodged by a hair's breadth, and not even a single injury resulted.
But every one of those swings was pure terror in itself.
No matter how potent an enhancement-type Gift might be, taking a direct hit from a club swung by an Ogre of that size made surviving intact a genuine gamble.
The Ogre possessed tremendous strength, but its weakness was that it wasn't all that agile for all that power.
It had enough speed that an ordinary human could never hope to escape it — but for survivors whose enhancement had progressed sufficiently, dealing with it wasn't impossible.
Besides, Ogres weren't particularly intelligent, which meant their attack patterns were limited.
If an Ogre's higher-ranking superior ever showed up, the whole atmosphere would change from that moment on. But a pair of ordinary Ogres posed no real threat to the survivors of Sabbath as things stood.
After all, the very best forces Sabbath had to offer were all swarming the camp.
"Fresh! Not that side! The other side. Yeah, the other side."
"Okay!"
They had even moved on to attempting a live capture of the Ogre.
The battle with Ganjeol Point, plus the many drills they'd run together at the camp, meant the fighting flowed more smoothly than ever.
A handful of nimble survivors split the Ogre's attention, while the rest cleaned up the goblins scattered around its feet.
Then the remaining survivors wrapped the Ogre up using the Tail Dog's tails.
Tail Dog tails were the kind of material even an Ogre with its monstrous strength couldn't snap.
The reason they'd almost never captured large monsters before was partly because, even after subduing one, they'd had no way to restrain it.
But on the last hunt they'd slaughtered Tail Dogs in numbers you could honestly call a massacre, and thanks to that, they'd acquired an enormous stockpile of tails.
There were so many that disposing of them all at once was difficult, which meant plenty were still left over.
Enough to wrap the entire body of a six-meter Ogre, over and over.
Like humans, Ogres varied considerably from individual to individual. Some fell short of four meters, while others were giants pushing seven.
If ordinary Ogres could differ that much, their higher-ranked kin were even more wildly diverse.
The Ogres attacking this time were no exception.
Two Ogres had appeared, but one was a small specimen barely over three meters.
The one the survivors were binding right now, however, was a big one, over six meters.
Needless to say, the bigger the captured monster, the higher its value.
"Hyun-sung! Forget the face — wrap the neck first!"
"Yes, sir!"
The Ogre was bound in countless loops of cord.
It looked like a colossal prey animal caught in a spider's web.
The Ogre tried to thrash free, but far too many lines had already been wound around it.
Even so, the Ogre stood ramrod straight, roaring and straining against its bonds — all while staring at its fallen comrade, the Ogre lying dead beside it.
Hunt monsters long enough, and you'd confirm it time and again: they had emotions too.
And those emotions were little different from a human's.
Some individuals, after all, showed a ferocious maternal instinct.
But the survivors gathered here had long since become numb to those reactions.
"Pacific. You're up."
"Got it."
Pacific wheeled his wheelchair forward as if he'd been waiting for exactly this moment.
And then, a massive scythe revealed itself.
Far larger and heavier than the weapons Pacific usually carried.
It had to be.
He'd pulled it from the Fishers' arsenal — one of the few weapons there he could actually handle.
Pacific used the momentum of his wheelchair to sweep past the Ogre's feet, carving into it with the scythe.
Carving, so that the rigidly standing Ogre would come crashing to the ground.
GRAAAAAGH!
Every time the great scythe sliced through one of the Ogre's Achilles tendons, a roar of agony unlike any it had uttered before tore out of its throat.
"What kind of weapon makes an Ogre scream like that?"
"You got here fast. Good news?"
"To some extent, yes."
"That's not the answer I was hoping for."
"I couldn't help it. This is a first."
"A first?"
"Yes."
Won-goo stared straight into Yang Jin-seon's eyes.
They were not the eyes of someone who'd failed at a job.
Not the slightest flicker of uncertainty.
Which meant even that 'to some extent' information was very likely worth a considerable price.
"That thing's a dedicated anti-Large Species weapon. Deals hemorrhage damage to any monster above a certain size."
"Ooh……"
"It may not look it, but that thing's expensive."
"It does look expensive."
"No, I mean genuinely expensive. They say it's a replica of a Named item."
"A replica?"
"A Named item called Vache's Sickle. I've never even seen the real thing myself."
"Then maybe it's never been released into the Field?"
"That's one possibility."
Won-goo turned his gaze back to the Ogre.
As its Achilles tendon was cut down to the thickness of a fist, the Ogre began to sway.
Won-goo shouted.
"Now! Reel it in!"
The Trailer lurched into motion.
Attached to its rear end were the lines binding the Ogre.
KUUUURUMPH!
The Ogre collapsed with absurd, boneless ease.
The survivors pulled further back around the falling giant.
"Nice work."
"Congratulations, Director. That's incredible."
"Incredible my ass. It's not like this is the first Large Species ever captured."
"Still, this might be the first time it's happened outside a Shelter Quest, no?"
"First in this region, maybe. Who knows. There are definitely survivors out there somewhere who specialize in hunting Large Species."
"Congratulations all the same. A live one sells for a hell of a lot more than a dead Ogre."
Won-goo chuckled at that.
Yang Jin-seon wasn't entirely wrong.
After all, they had hit the jackpot — that much was fact.
"That's true, but…… this just barely breaks even. We've been bleeding badly lately. Enjoy the celebration while it lasts — what did you find out?"
Yang Jin-seon's expression shifted to dead seriousness in an instant.
"Director. I don't think this thing is actually an Arctic Giant."
"……?"
Gong Won-goo's eyes went perfectly round.
"What kind of bullshit is that?"
"I'm saying it might be something of an even higher order."
"……"