Ant Hell (2)
We kept walking, on and on, toward the heart of the black forest.
The only thing different from before was that a party of four, Jeanne included, had joined us. More people meant more strength — and, at the same time, more people I couldn't trust.
Someone who could see the future, as I could, ought to choose the safest possible road. And yet there was exactly one reason I moved with them: the path to the center would be next to impossible to force through without their power.
And at least as far as the future had shown me — Jeanne's party had never once betrayed us.
"Hold on. Stop."
Difrio of Jeanne's party raised a hand and brought the whole group to a halt. At the end of his gaze, a thick fog was swallowing the forest ahead, wall to wall.
Seeing it, Jeanne murmured quietly.
"A rule of the Domain?"
I shook my head.
"No."
"...Your basis?"
Difrio's question came out sharp — then he quickly softened his tone.
"Sorry. I'm a little on edge right now."
I kept my eyes on the fog as I explained.
"The Ether's degraded."
"So?"
"This isn't Ether the Domain itself produces. It's an ability someone is actively maintaining."
Jeanne's eyes narrowed to slits.
"How can you tell?"
"The Ether's flow is different."
I pointed at the fog.
"Power born of a Domain has to circulate at a constant rhythm. This is ebbing, little by little."
"In other words—"
"—the fog is being sustained by an ability user feeding it Ether without pause."
A short silence passed.
Difrio was the first to speak.
"...I'm convinced."
Jeanne nodded as well.
"Then we go in."
Inside the fog was far more dangerous than any of us had imagined.
The first thing we heard was the thrum of wings. Then came the insects — hundreds of them. Beetles the size of grown men. Mantises with black wings. Blast bees no bigger than a palm. Every last one a monster corroded by Ether.
"Here they come!"
Dozens of them swarmed us at once.
-Crack!!
Lebetri's blade split the first insect clean in half, and Bitch scattered honey across the ground.
"Gotcha!"
Several bugs found their legs welded into the honey — and in that same instant, Jeanne swung her flames. Fire carved a single road through the forest.
"Forward!"
Difrio threw himself into the very front and crushed a giant bug flat under his fist, while Robb reshaped his mechanical arm to hold back the swarm pouring in from behind. Each of them was doing their part.
And still the insects would not thin. Kill them — more came. Cut them down — more still.
"This will never end!"
Jeanne clenched her teeth. I already knew: wiping out every insect was impossible. Keep killing like this, and all we'd do was hold things exactly as they were.
"Jeanne!"
At my voice, every head turned.
"We're breaking through!"
Jeanne faltered.
"What?"
"If we fight here, we die!"
Robb picked up my words without a beat's delay.
"Milady."
"This man's judgment is sound."
"Right now, breaking through comes before fighting."
Jeanne weighed it for a moment — then made her call.
"Difrio!"
"On it."
"Difrio and I will carve the road!"
"Lebetri, left side!"
"Bitch, hold the rear!"
"Robb, you're last!"
Everyone moved at once, and we began to run.
Every swing of Difrio's fist burst insects apart; Jeanne's flames opened the way ahead; Lebetri leapt in a dead straight line, reaping the remaining monsters; Bitch flung honey behind us, dragging down the pursuers' every step.
And yet the farther we ran, the stranger it felt. The insects looked like they wanted us dead — and still, at every decisive moment, they left us a way through. No... this wasn't a chase. It was a drive. Someone was herding us toward the center, precisely as they intended.
Then it happened.
"Gah!!"
Bitch went down. A massive caterpillar had its jaws clamped around her ankle. She wrenched at her leg, but dozens more insects came flooding in from behind. There was no time.
I converted my pistol into its grappling hook.
-Thwip!!
The hook flew and punched clean through Bitch's shoulder.
"Oh, son of a—"
Before she could even finish, I hauled the hook back with everything I had. Her body came sailing through the air, and I caught her just as she arrived.
"That hurts!!"
"Better than being dead."
"...Fair point!"
Sapi was already at work treating her shoulder.
We didn't stop. We kept running — how long, I couldn't say. When I glanced back, the insects had, at some point, stopped following. Even the wingbeats that had smothered every direction were gone, as if they had never existed. The forest air had changed. This was the center.
What greeted us was no battlefield.
Improvised shelters woven from branches stood all around; warm smoke curled up from campfires; some people were having their wounds treated, others tending to their weapons. It was enough to make you forget, for a little while, that this place was a Domain at all.
But not one face wore a smile. Everyone stayed wound tight, bodies angled so they could snatch up a weapon at a moment's notice.
Then someone at the heart of the camp took one look at Sapi's face and started toward us.
"Sapi. Good to see you."
"Good to see you too, old man Kang Do-hyun."
Lebetri plainly had no idea who this Kang Do-hyun fellow was, or where on earth Sapi had ever met him. So I whispered, pitched for her ears alone.
"An old comrade of mine. We met back in the Fairy Forest."
"Oh...."
The center looked nothing like what I'd expected. I knew the Domain's rules held weaker sway at its heart — but peaceful, like this? Of course, the situation itself was anything but peaceful. And yet the reason it still felt that way was...
"Sapi, looks like water and food are nothing to worry about here, huh?"
"Looks that way, Jeanne."
In stark contrast to the black forest, the center overflowed with water and food. It looked like a land of plenty — and that was strange. The rules had little influence here, yes. But this abundant?
And so the man in the red coat... Kang Do-hyun began to speak.
"When we first entered the Domain, we woke up here at the center."
"Then you must have been safe. So why linger here instead of searching for an exit?"
At that, Kang Do-hyun spread two fingers.
"Two reasons. The first is that we were hoping survivors like you would make it to the center."
"That reason I can believe."
"Right. The second reason is Neo-Salvatio."
"Neo-Salvatio?"
Jeanne, who had been listening quietly beside us, reacted to the name. Even Sapi's expression — mid-question — hardened into something dead serious.
"I don't know what Neo-Salvatio's aim is, but they're keeping us penned inside the center. They do bar others from entering as well — though they attack far more weakly than when we try to leave."
"Then your first reason makes sense. You're gathering enough people to mount a proper search for the exit?"
"That's right."
To Sapi's question, Kang Do-hyun simply gave his assent. But Sapi, doubts apparently still lingering, asked on.
"But if all we do is wait, nothing changes, does it?"
"Don't worry about that."
"Your basis?"
"Others made it into the center besides you lot. We heard their stories."
"What stories?"
"Someone with an ability called Insight ran the numbers. The enemy's food stores amount to two days' worth at the least, five at the most — and nothing beyond that."
Hearing that, Bitch barged into the exchange between Sapi and Kang Do-hyun.
"Then can't we just ride it out? That fog outside, those monsters — it's all the work of Neo-Salvatio's ability users anyway, right?"
"Right."
Kang Do-hyun agreed. But Sapi, still wearing his doubts, asked once more.
"Then isn't holding out here exactly what Neo-Salvatio wants?"
"True enough.... But you got a better way?"
Sapi was the type to shatter an opponent's scheme like this one. He would never sign off on the present plan. But his answer was nothing like what I had expected.
"Then we have no problem. We rest here. And Jeanne — weigh it carefully, and decide for yourself whether to rest or what to do."
"Understood, Sapi."
And with that, Sapi went off to find a comfortable spot and lay down.
"Lord Mir. I used my ability to drive them into the center, but will this truly be all right?"
The one voicing his doubt was a man with the head of a giant hornet, and the one he addressed was a woman with brown skin, white hair, and a snow-white uniform.
"It's fine. All we have to do is buy time — and wait for the hunter to come out."
"Do you truly trust that man?"
"Where in all of Neo-Salvatio would you find anyone who knows Ether or Domains better than Barkane? We trust him, we wait — and the moment the hunter shows himself, we simply make our escape."
He held his silence for a moment, then opened his mouth.
"Three days from now. The instant the hunter awakens — we are the winners."
When Kang Do-hyun left, a brief silence followed. Lebetri looked around her.
The people were alive. But not one of them wore the face of the living. Some slept with their weapons still clutched in their hands. Some stared at photographs of family. One man sat before a campfire, drawing his sword across a whetstone — though the blade had long since been worn smooth; there was nothing left to grind.
A woman with a child in her arms carefully split her medicine in two and fed the child the larger half. She made to swallow the rest herself — but one look at the child's face, and she tucked the medicine into her pocket instead.
Watching her, Bitch muttered under her breath.
"Why isn't she taking it?"
I answered in her stead.
"She's trying to keep the child alive first, I'd say."
"What a soft one, huh."
Bitch stuck out her tongue, sneering at the sight. Just then, a wail rose from somewhere far off — a young man was charging headlong toward the forest.
"I can't take this anymore! My father could still be outside this Domain!!"
A few people tried to hold him back. In the end, he bolted out beyond the center.
A short while later, a single scream tore through the trees.
"AAAAAAGH!!"
And then — nothing. Not one more sound. The center fell quiet again, as if nothing had ever happened.
For the first time, the smile drained off Bitch's face.
"...Kid had way too big a heart."
Lebetri, too, gazed at the forest without a word.
Only I kept my eyes closed.
As I thought... the future had not changed.