Polar Night (2)
"Life detection? Now that's a handy artifact."
"It's saved my neck more times than I can count. Anyway, take a look at this. The red dots represent the monsters..."
Lovrick placed two fingers on the disk the way one might operate a smartphone, and pinched them inward. Red dots bloomed outward from the edges of the display.
At first there were only a few, but with every manipulation of the disk their numbers multiplied geometrically, until they had swallowed nearly the entire screen.
All of these are monsters?
"As you can see, the monsters are steadily closing in on the village. If we calculate the distance, our margin of time is roughly... about an hour."
"Faster than expected."
"I'd love to simply lend you the artifact, but it's been bound to my mana for too long. I'll keep you updated whenever I get the chance."
"Good. Then let's get started on personnel placement."
···
"Bring the iron plates over here! They're heavy, so watch yourselves!"
"Food rations, this way!"
Everyone except the main fighting force moved as one body under the Village Chief's direction. All the supplies that had been piled up in the warehouse were unleashed and scattered in every direction.
Bam! Bam!
The seven-meter palisade was getting yet another upgrade.
Each time Gunter's hammer came down, the iron plates fused into the wooden wall, warping into strange new shapes, while a few of the people stationed at the top followed in his wake, splashing an unidentifiable liquid that etched intricate geometric patterns into the surface.
"I never get tired of watching. One swing of a hammer and matter just... reshapes itself. He startled me half to death the first time too, when he repaired my sword—just up and started swinging without a word of warning."
"Back in the day we jokingly called it Alchemy. It was one of the essential training courses for Awakened."
"Come to think of it, everyone doing it back then was in the production division, wasn't it?"
"Being able to fiddle with a material's molecular structure was a huge advantage. It was an era where new materials popped up every single day..."
As the people busied themselves, it took no time at all for the village to transform into a full-fledged military fortress.
Built on a hill to begin with, the settlement now commanded an astonishing height—one that even monsters with their enhanced physiques could never hope to breach.
The merchants gawked at its grandeur and muttered among themselves.
"They've got guns and bullets coming out their ears. What kind of village owns this many weapons?"
"And we're the ones who brought some, but this stockpile must've been built up long before we arrived."
"Impressive. The Chief must be loaded. The last pioneer village I visited had all of ten guns to its name."
Anyone strong enough to pull a trigger—man, woman, young, or old—took position on the walls.
Monsters showed no mercy to the weak or the elderly, so in a way it was only natural. Even so, the little ones were locked away in the shelter.
"So you're the ones Alta called Rank 7. Pleasure's all mine."
Alta introduced us to Lovrick and his companions.
We didn't have much field experience and weren't registered with the Guild, but when Alta brazenly declared that our combined strength was worth at least Rank 7, Lovrick's face brightened considerably.
And when he learned that Noah possessed healing abilities on top of everything else, his jaw nearly hit the floor.
"Healing must be rare, then?"
"Rare? It's practically nonexistent! And someone who can maintain themselves in top condition while also awakening a healing ability? That's an extreme exception! Keep a tight hold on your partner. People will be trying to poach her from every direction."
I nodded at Lovrick's warning.
Since psychic abilities were intertwined with a person's very nature, finding someone who cared more for others than for themselves—healed enough to awaken a healing talent—would be next to impossible.
And if Noah's true appearance were exposed in this state... it was obvious what would happen.
My thanks to Alta for slipping us the mask artifact in advance.
"You three will move with me."
···
"Monsters! It's all over for us! WAAAAH—!"
"Shut up!"
Thwack.
"Alta, you did control your strength, right? He's not dead, is he?"
"Not dead."
Barely had the combat-ready fighters climbed atop the walls when the monster horde came into view in the distance.
We'd already guessed the scale through Lovrick's artifact, but still—the numbers were staggering.
A pale-faced young man worked himself into a hysterical fit, and one swift slap from Alta knocked him out cold.
"Pathetic fool. Sophia's down there ready to fight, and this is what he does. Somebody ought to just cut the thing off."
"Gunter actually gave her permission for that?"
"Sophia is an excellent marksman. Gunter knows full well there's no pulling her to the rear at a time like this."
"She does shoot well... though I have to wonder how much good ordinary guns will do. Wouldn't it be better to have everyone shelter..."
I asked in a low voice, watching the fighters steel their resolve.
Against anything Rank 7 or above, conventional bullets would be nearly useless.
"No. They're absurdly expensive, but the Chief supplied bullets coated in magic stone. Those will work on the stronger monsters too—and the best shots got something even better."
"I see... they had that covered too."
"Money makes the world go round. Anyway, our mana isn't infinite, so we need the guns to handle the trash mobs. Don't let your guard down either... they're almost here. Get to your positions."
"Stay safe."
"Hah. Who are you worried about, exactly? Worry about yourselves."
In the span of that brief conversation, the monsters had closed a considerable portion of the distance to the village.
The moonlight caught the twisted faces of the monsters leading the charge.
It was time to head to our assigned post—the rear gate.
···
TA-TA-TA-TA-TANG!
The battle began at the front gate, where Alta stood.
Gunfire, punctuated by the screams of monsters.
Even without seeing it, the situation there was easy enough to imagine.
Lovrick, assigned to the rear gate with us, rattled off the plan ahead at near rap-speed.
"Let me go over it once more. We are currently surrounded on all sides."
"That's right."
"We've set up devices to lure the monsters toward the front and rear gates, but they could still climb the palisade from other directions mid-battle. So the other mercenaries will pair up and fortify the west and east. You don't need to worry about those sectors."
"Understood."
"You youngsters are surprisingly calm, I'll give you that... Muscle-mountain! You! Get your head in the game!"
Lovrick's voice suddenly boomed as he singled out Ivan, who had been crouching beside us.
Ivan stammered, jumping out of his skin. The tension was written all over him.
"Ivan. Relax. I'll be watching over you, so don't panic. Where'd all that confidence of yours go?"
"Yes sir! I'll give it my best shot, Hyung-nim!"
By tremendous luck on the village's part, Ivan—who had survived Alta's special training (?) over the past few days—had succeeded in awakening his mana.
His mana reserves were thin, barely scraping Rank 9, but...
given his characteristic monstrous strength, his effective combat power was closer to Rank 8.
Though with his first real battle being a melee of this scale, there was no telling how much of that strength he'd actually get to show.
KRRRRAAAH—!
As if refusing to wait even for a brief strategy meeting, monsters began appearing at the rear gate as well.
The first to reveal themselves were the horned wolves that had been appearing so frequently of late.
Roughly one and a half times the size of ordinary wolves, they approached with their white horns thrust forward.
"All right! Here they come. Everyone, battle stations! Hold fire until they're in effective range—"
BANG!
Before Lovrick's command had even finished, one of the marksmen stupidly pulled his trigger.
The bullet did nothing but kick up a little puff of dirt before vanishing.
Lovrick whirled toward the sound and roared.
"WHO fired that?! Quit wasting ammunition!"
"Eep... s-sorry, sir!"
"...Here they come, here they come! Nobody fires until I say so!!! The next son of a bitch who shoots early is DEAD!!"
Lovrick, who had spoken to us like a perfect gentleman, was now roaring curses with veins bulging at his throat.
But perhaps thanks to that outburst, not a single soul pulled a trigger until the horned wolves were well within close range.
"FIRE—!"
PA-PA-PA-PA-PANG!!
At Lovrick's command, dozens of gun muzzles erupted in an irregular rhythm of flame.
The underdeveloped firearm construction didn't pack much power, but a gun was a gun.
Each shot delivered a deafening report and a fitting dose of physical force—and with gravity thrown in, they came raining down from above.
KYENG!
A portion of the tightly clustered horned wolves took the hit.
They broke from the pack and went tumbling across the ground in sorry heaps. Some had taken fatal hits through vital points; others were merely wounded.
"Good. Now fire at will!"
Bang! Ta-tang!
Three pre-loaded guns per person.
People passed off their spare guns and kept up the barrage.
The rain of hundreds of bullets shredded most of the converging wolf pack.
Yip yip...!
One surviving horned wolf sprang at the palisade with a nimble leap—only to slide straight down the oil-slicked surface and crash to the earth. The creature with its twisted ankle was finished off with a single shot.
"...They shoot better than I expected. I was worried we had an idiot in the ranks, but no."
"They do regular marksmanship practice."
"Do they now? The Chief really must be loaded. Pioneer village or not, there's no way they'd have the spare resources for training like this..."
Lovrick had been on edge, watching for any monster that might make it over the wall. Seeing the vast majority of the horned wolves cut down by gunfire alone, he murmured his admiration.
"Other villages aren't like this? The pioneer villages, I mean."
"Well... I've been to a few other places, and this atmosphere is unusual, to say the least. There's usually a lot of friction between people. But the folks here have real solidarity. It's a rare thing."
Ah, that'll be thanks to Granny Ryu.
She'd screened applicants from the very beginning, so no one with a rotten heart had ever made it inside the walls. In a place this dangerous, infighting between residents would have been a poison to the village's unity.
"Huh? Th-that one's climbing—!"
Just as the people were struggling to reload the slow-loading guns—
A horned wolf the size of a house suddenly erupted above the palisade.
It flung its jaws wide and charged straight at the defenseless people below.
SHREEEEE—!
CRUNCH!
But before it could even snap its jaws shut, a dagger came shrieking through the air and punched through its brow, snuffing it out instantly.
The corpse seemed for a moment to hang on the lip of the palisade, then tumbled over the edge and rolled inside. The people scattered, shrieking, out of its path.
"Gentlemen. Perhaps save the chitchat for later?"
"Ah... my apologies."
"Sorry about that."
Noah, wearing a band from which throwing knives hung in a row, drew out a fresh blade and chided me and Lovrick.
"Whew— the young lady's no slouch either. That strength is no joke. No visible muscle, yet this much power? Her mana reinforcement efficiency must be excellent."
There was a reason I'd abruptly reassigned Noah to ranged attacks.
I'd decided I could no longer put her in close-quarters combat.
Last time was far too close a call.
Looking back, her clash with the Shadow Bear in that old forest had been a harrowing thing.
She moved so naturally that I sometimes forgot—Noah's body was, at its core, a machine.
Unlike me, the concept of recovery simply did not apply to her.
If she ever breaks down...
According to Noah, she had several years left—but that was under ordinary living conditions.
Underwent intense combat, there was no telling when her body might give out.
And so, after much agonizing, the solution we'd landed on was putting her in charge of ranged attacks.
"That one's quite large. Probably an alpha-class specimen."
"Monsters like that usually get bumped up half a rank. Taking one down in a single throw... those daggers, are they some kind of special weapon?"
"No? Gunter hastily threw them together for us. Shall I share some with you? We have plenty."
"I'm fine. I never learned to throw."
Fortunately, Noah exceeded even me in raw strength and precision, so this approach was yielding unexpectedly good results.
She could now fight while minimizing wear on her body.
But this wouldn't last forever either—we needed to find a way to sustain Noah's body, and fast.
If it really comes to it, we could always go back to the lab...
"We can manage for now, at least."
I pushed the stray thoughts aside and looked out over the land beyond the village.
Horned wolves lay sprawled across the ground in pathetic heaps.
Guns were undeniably effective—convenient, really.
"For now, perhaps. But who knows how long this strange phenomenon will last..."
I looked up at the sky.
Still, there was no sign of the sun rising.