Ant Hell (3)
We still had plenty of food.
Several times a day, more people staggered into the central area, covered head to toe in wounds.
Most of them were like us — people who had chosen the heart of the Domain not out of some desperate urge to bolt, but to first find a way of staying alive.
Until now, the order of that place had rested on one man's shoulders.
Kang Do-hyun.
He calmed the frightened, doled out the food, and smothered every clash before it could catch fire.
And then, quite suddenly, I found myself curious.
He claimed to know Sapi, and yet the two of them barely exchanged a word.
A man who knew Sapi's past...
I walked over to Kang Do-hyun. He watched me come, and gave away nothing in his face.
"Sapi's companion, are you? What is it?"
"I was hoping to ask you about Sapi."
"Sapi?"
"What exactly were the two of you to each other?"
Kang Do-hyun thought it over for a moment. Then he laughed.
"Same hometown, the two of us."
"Were you friends?"
"No." He shook his head. "We just grew up in the same village. Wasn't like we ever really knew each other."
"...Then what kind of person was Sapi, back then?"
A short silence. Kang Do-hyun stared off at some faraway point before he finally spoke.
"Naive."
...?
"And a kinder kid than anyone I've ever known."
"...Sapi was?"
"Yeah." His smile turned bitter at the edges. "Why else would I be using the past tense?"
He let the words hang in the air.
"After that incident..."
He said nothing more. He turned away as though severing the conversation at the root.
"Sorry, but I've got a meeting to prepare for."
"Oh... of course."
All I could do was watch his back as he walked off.
Sapi had a past like that?
Nothing about it connected to the Sapi I knew.
It was our fourth day trapped inside the Domain.
Then, all at once, the central area began to stir. A man was pointing at the forest, shouting.
"The fog is thinning!"
Every head turned outward at once. And it was true — the white blanket that had smothered the forest hung far thinner than before.
Theories came pouring out from every side.
"Is the fog user weakening?"
"Or has he withdrawn his power altogether?"
Kang Do-hyun stroked his beard.
"Most likely a sustained-type ability."
"Sustained-type?"
"The kind that keeps running for a set time even after its user walks away."
His eyes stayed on the fog as he went on.
"It's spreading like something with no hand left on the reins."
"Which means..."
"...there's a good chance the user has already left this place."
Faces lit up all around.
"Then has Neo-Salvatio pulled out?"
"Could be."
For one moment, there was hope.
But then someone raised a hand.
"Hold on."
A man dressed for the road — an adventurer, by the look of him.
"We still don't know this Domain's rules, do we."
"Then let me tell you one thing."
A man dressed like a cleric drew a deep breath.
"Three days ago, I saw the thing in this fog."
"The thing?"
"The monster this Domain spawned. It killed three of my companions in an instant."
"You're sure that wasn't just because you were weak?"
"No." He was adamant. "That thing is a gimmick."
"And..."
"It sets traps. That's everything I know."
This time it was a man in a conical straw hat.
"I have something as well. Chances are there are four ways out of this place."
"Based on what?"
"North, south, east, west. Neo-Salvatio had one elite posted at each point of the compass."
A few faces brightened.
"So there are four exits."
"Better odds than I'd expected."
The hope didn't last long.
From a corner of the clearing, a man half-consumed by monsterization spoke up, quiet as falling ash.
"I've been as far as the south."
Every eye went to him.
"Then why did you come back?"
The man was silent for a long moment.
"The exit."
"It had been destroyed."
The air froze solid.
"That's impossible."
"Exits can't be destroyed."
"It's the one absolute rule of a Domain."
The man nodded.
"That's what I believed, too."
"But I saw it, plain as day."
"Broken."
No one had any words left.
Then a woman in a nun's habit spoke, slowly.
"...I think I know who did it."
"Who?"
"Barkane."
Gasps broke out all around.
"You can't be serious..."
"That monster?"
"He was alive? All this time?"
I alone stood there, dumbfounded.
"...Who's Barkane?"
It was Kang Do-hyun who answered in my place.
"A master of Ether. The finest researcher this world ever produced. And, at the same time... the most unethical human being it ever knew."
Despair spread through the crowd like a stain.
"Then... couldn't every exit already be destroyed?"
And then Sapi — silent until now — opened his mouth for the first time.
"No."
Every gaze swung toward him.
"What makes you say that?"
"Because they need to get out, too."
A beat of silence.
"If they crushed every exit, then Neo-Salvatio couldn't escape this Domain any more than we could."
Someone pushed back.
"They could have broken them on their way out."
Sapi shook his head.
"A Domain cannot be touched from the outside."
"Not even Barkane is an exception to that."
"What about Domain Residue, then? They could have used that."
Sapi mulled it over for a moment — then drew a piece of Domain Residue from inside his coat.
The whole crowd jolted at the sight of it.
With that alone, they could walk out of here safe and sound.
People surged toward him at once — but Sapi was one step faster, and crushed the Residue in his fist.
Crunch!
Nothing happened.
"It seems they've blocked the Residue as well."
"Impossible... even the Residue doesn't work?"
The crowd went quiet again.
Sapi went on, calm as still water.
"The only confirmed fact is that the southern exit was destroyed."
He spread three fingers.
"Which leaves us three directions still."
"Our odds are one in three."
At that, a man asked in a trembling voice:
"...And if we run into the Domain's monster?"
Sapi did not hesitate.
"Then it's over."
"Which is why we have to make our choice first."
"Choose what?"
"The bait."
Murmurs rippled through the crowd.
I stepped forward.
"Bait, is it... and who exactly would that be? I don't much like piling all that responsibility onto one person."
Sapi shrugged.
"I couldn't say."
"No — that isn't quite it, either."
His gaze swept across the crowd.
"Every one of us is the bait."
"...Meaning what?"
"We form three teams. East, west, and north."
"If all three move at the same moment, the Domain's creature cannot chase every one of them."
I turned it over in my head, then nodded slowly.
"...And while it's occupied, the other teams search for the exits."
Sapi nodded as well.
"Exactly."
A brief stillness followed. Then the shouts began.
"Anyone heading east, over here!"
"Healers wanted!"
"I'm a detection-type — please, take me with you!"
"We could use a defense-type too!"
One by one, people began to scatter — each of them staking their own survival, each choosing the team to stake it on.
Watching them go, Kang Do-hyun came over to Sapi.
"Sapi."
"Yes?"
"Come east with me."
The east. Even now, it was where the strongest ability users were gathering, all of them orbiting Kang Do-hyun — which presumably meant the best odds of walking out alive.
Sapi didn't so much as pause to weigh it.
"I'm sorry, but I must decline."
"...May I ask why?"
"I've already chosen the person I'm following."
His gaze turned, unhurried, toward one person.
Red hair. A woman marked with burn scars.
Jeanne. Me.
Kang Do-hyun tracked his gaze, then looked back at Sapi's face.
"So she's the one with her hand on your wheel?"
"No. I'm following the one who takes the wheel in someone else's place."
"Hm. You've always been like that." He grunted. "Still — hold your own wheel someday. That's the only way you'll have no one to resent, and nothing to regret."
"I've already decided. No more regrets."
"Well. If that's how it is..."
Kang Do-hyun walked off toward his own team.
I went over to Sapi and asked.
"Last time, when he helped us, Kang Do-hyun seemed strong. Wouldn't it be better to go with him?"
Instead of answering, Sapi turned and walked toward someone else.
"Sapi?"
It was me he was walking toward. Jeanne.
Sapi came up to me and asked:
"Whose team will you join, Jeanne?"
"I'd rather be a snake's head than a dragon's tail. I'm going west. And where are you headed, Sapi?"
"I intend to follow you, Jeanne."
"I'm sorry — what?"
"Well, you see, I'm rather fond of a snake's tail, too. A snake that gathers people, especially."
For a moment, I couldn't say a word.
There was something wrong with what he'd just said.
No — to be precise, I understood it, and at the same time I didn't understand it at all.
Kang Do-hyun's side had more of the strong. The odds of surviving had to be higher there.
As of right now, the west team was best described in a single word: leftovers.
The east under Kang Do-hyun had drawn names you'd recognize from reputation alone. The north had claimed the specialists in detection and defense. The west, meanwhile, hadn't even managed to assemble one proper combatant.
The wounded, rejected by every other team. Those whose abilities were judged useless in battle. Those carrying too much baggage to move alone. The unchosen, drifting through the clearing one by one with nowhere left to go.
And Sapi wanted to join that team.
Which was exactly why I couldn't understand it.
"Why do you want to follow me?"
Sapi answered as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"Because you can gather people, Jeanne."
"The east has far more people."
"Plenty of strong ones, certainly."
Sapi glanced briefly at the crowd gathering in the east. Voices were already rising there over who would stand at the front, who would hold command. The strong acknowledged one another — and not one of them would place himself beneath the rest.
"But the moment one of them falls into danger, the others will leave him behind and move on."
"You won't, Jeanne."
I couldn't deny it outright.
He spoke as though he knew me. And I didn't care for that one bit.
"A nature like that won't help you survive."
"I know."
"And you still intend to follow me?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
Sapi didn't answer right away. His gaze brushed across the burn scars on my face.
Strange eyes. Not the eyes of a man looking at a stranger — the eyes of someone who had known me a very long time.
"The ones who remain until the end are not the strong ones."
"They're the ones who refuse to give up on people. Right to the very end."
I couldn't tell what he was basing that on. But Sapi was certain — and his certainty settled on my shoulders like a weight.
"Let me say this much in advance."
I looked at Sapi, and at the handful standing behind him.
"I am no great commander."
"I know."
"I can't promise to save everyone."
"I know that too."
"My judgment could well be wrong."
"That's all right."
The answers came back without a single snag, every time. In the end, I was the one who fell silent first.
"...Do as you please."
"Thank you."
Sapi inclined his head, lightly.
From a distance, the onlookers murmured among themselves.
"Why is Sapi going over there?"
"I heard he turned down Kang Do-hyun's offer."
"You think he knows something we don't?"
But curiosity was all it amounted to. Nobody approached. To them, the west was still the deadliest choice on the board.
Before long, a man came shuffling toward us, hesitating with every step — a young man with his entire left arm wrapped in cloth.
"Um..."
His eyes darted between me and Sapi.
"This is the team heading west, yes?"
"It is."
"Would you... take me with you?"
His voice was small. I looked at his arm. Blood had already begun to seep through the cloth.
"Your ability?"
"I can make metal a little harder."
"A little?"
"...About enough for one sword."
It wasn't a worthless gift in a fight. But the wound had evidently gotten him turned away everywhere else.
"Did you ask the east? The north?"
The man hung his head.
"They said a wounded man slows the whole column down."
Sapi said nothing, only looked at me. He was leaving the decision to me.
I let out a short breath.
"Then follow."
The man's head snapped up.
"Truly?"
"But if you fall behind, don't expect us to wait."
"I won't fall behind. Thank you."
He bowed, again and again.
Even after he joined, little changed. The strong never came. Instead the unchosen found their way to us one by one: a healer with no talent for combat. An old man too weighed down by his heavy shield to run. A girl left helpless for a long while after every use of her power. A pair of siblings turned away from every team for the crime of bringing the younger one along.
Every one of them had a reason. And every one of those reasons had shut them out of the other teams.
Looking at them all made my head ache.
"Sapi."
"Yes?"
"You said I could gather people."
"I did."
"This isn't gathering people. This is inheriting everyone no one else would take."
Sapi glanced around at them once.
"Isn't that roughly the same thing?"
"It is nothing of the sort."
Sapi smiled, small and unreadable.
I didn't like that smile. But it was already too late. The people with nowhere to go had gathered around us — this was not the team the strong had chosen, but the last door the unchosen had come knocking on.
From the east, someone sneered in our direction.
"That lot will be wiped out before they even get moving."
A few of our people dropped their heads at that.
I looked at them for a while. Then I spoke.
"Anyone who wants to leave may leave. Right now."
No one moved.
"It's true that ours is the weakest team here."
Expressions darkened.
"But that doesn't mean a single person gathered here is useless."
I looked at them one at a time. Pushed aside in the fighting. Abandoned over their wounds. Turned away for carrying someone else.
"If you want to survive, you use everything the people beside you have. No one is strong alone. At the very least, not on this team..."
Silence held for a moment.
It wasn't a hopeful speech. It wasn't a promise to save everyone. It was only the plain, cold arithmetic of survival: to live, we had no choice but to do it together.
And still, little by little, the heads around me came up.
Beside me, Sapi murmured:
"A snake that gathers people, after all."
"Sapi."
"Yes?"
"Call me a snake one more time and I'll send you west. Alone."
"I'll bear that in mind."
He said it soberly enough, but the smile never left his lips.
I looked once more at the people gathered in the west. We weren't strong. We weren't well-built, either — every last one of us carried weaknesses, and the circumstances that had carved them. And maybe, just maybe, that meant we would find it hard to throw each other away.
Deep in the darkness, a figure clad in golden armor — the only thing that glowed in that blackness — posed a question.
"Hey. Can you truly find that clever mongrel?"
"But of course. How about you place a little faith in me, hm?"
"And how am I meant to trust the word of a mongrel?"
"Even if I'm wrong, you will have results to show for it. Besides — my name is not 'mongrel.' It is Barkane."
"Fine. I'll trust the mongrel. Just this once."
