By Zephyria Nero’s closed eyelids twitched and then snapped open. The red eyes that were revealed through them were out of focus and remained still for a few seconds.
The sky that was immediately visible was strangely bright yellow. At the same time, familiar Magic Power tingled and flowed down his limbs.
The senses that had been dormant awakened one by one in response to it. Nero blankly moved the tips of his fingers and gradually regained his senses. Just as a throbbing, mysterious pain spread throughout his body, he belatedly realized that he had been unconscious until just now.
“Huff—.”
Nero, who had taken a quick breath, jumped up as if he would bounce out. He bent his upright upper body crookedly, placed his hands on the ground, and hurriedly looked around.
His dazed expression was full of confusion, but at that moment, a strong vibration and a bright light came down from above his head. Feeling puzzled, Nero reflexively raised his head.
‘……?’
The sky he saw again through his eyes, which were squinting at the glare, was somehow strange. The sky above, which was clear without a single cloud, was shining gold.
Not only that, but the Commander’s Magic Power was overflowing like air in all directions, so Nero intuitively knew what was happening even though he had only woken up a short time ago.
There was no time to slowly grasp the situation. Feeling the successive vibrations, he tried to get up from his seat immediately. But as soon as he put his weight on his legs while placing his hands on the damp ground, an indescribable pain rushed in, and he frowned involuntarily.
“Ugh—.”
Nero, who had staggered for a moment, slipped on the muddy mud and slumped down. He lowered his head and looked down at his legs, which had no strength, and saw a swollen ankle protruding from under his soggy pants.
He had definitely injured the same place before and it had been neatly healed by someone he didn’t like. As he pondered why it had happened again, he recalled that he seemed to have unconsciously kicked away a block of ice that was breaking through the Aura and flying towards him at the moment of the explosion.
The reason why the surrounding ground was wet seemed to be because the ice had melted and seeped into the soil, causing it to become like this.
As he massaged his bluish ankle, which seemed to have doubled in size, Nero recalled the heavy ice that had half-destroyed his leg and grumbled.
“It’s damn hard.”
In the meantime, more than 90% of the ice wall that had soared high had disappeared, leaving only a part of the lower end that was stuck in the ground. The Barrier Stone that the unit members had been trying so hard to protect was also shattered into pieces and scattered everywhere.
If so, then that monstrous monster must have already escaped a long time ago and flown away somewhere. As soon as he thought that far, Nero put strength into his opposite leg and hurriedly raised his body. The Commander’s Magic Power was felt while the monster had escaped, so it was the worst situation no matter how long he had been lying down.
He barely managed to stand on both feet on the ground and immediately tried to leap into the air. But at that moment, he felt a presence not far away. When he turned his head, he made eye contact with someone who was staring at him.
The other person was an ordinary unit member wearing the Council’s combat uniform, and although there were a few scratches on his face, he looked relatively unharmed to have been caught in the explosion. Rather, judging from the fact that he was holding the armpits of a corpse or an unconscious person, it seemed that he was moving the fallen to a suitable place.
It was a commendable scene of taking care of his comrades, but Nero stopped all his movements as soon as he met him. He couldn’t even breathe. The reason was simple. That face was quite familiar.
Probably the owner of the Guise that he was wearing now. Felix Montero was there.
“…….”
“…….”
As the silence grew quite long, Nero groped his face with his hands before anything else. It was to check if he was wearing a gas mask right now.
But contrary to his expectations, what he touched was bare skin. No wonder it was easy to breathe, the mask had been taken off.
As the situation was grasped, only one word lingered in Nero’s mind.
‘I’m fucked.’
What is the probability that a human who has seen a doppelganger will keep it a secret? Even he had made a fuss as if his eyeballs would fall out when the Commander first disguised himself as his face.
Moreover, an ordinary unit member who doesn’t even know that such magic exists might think that the situation is a dream if he encounters someone who looks exactly like him.
‘Dream?’
Nero thought that his thought that had suddenly come to mind was quite plausible, and he decided to subtly change his mind that had been losing hope. And this time, he began to worry about how he should deal with this guy. If he just knocked him out like this, he might wake up after a good night’s sleep and really think it was a dream.
Even if it was just a suspicion that he was suspicious, if the story spread that he had encountered a human who looked exactly like him, it would be enough for those who knew him to guess that the target was affiliated with Dark Silver. If that happened, the military Headquarters might really get wind of it, as the Commander had feared.
He had gone all out, saying that he only trusted him, that he should tell him honestly, and that he should give him a justification. He couldn’t leave any loose ends and become a burden to him. He had to resolve this situation somehow.
Nero swallowed hard and prepared to Teleport behind Felix. It seemed like it would be clean if he moved in the blink of an eye and immediately hit the back of his neck.
But suddenly, Felix in front of him put the person he was moving down in place and rushed towards him with a desperate look?
Nero, who had hesitated for a moment, took a step back and tried to hide his embarrassed expression.
‘What? Is it a surprise attack?’
Nero, who was completely unprepared for the other person’s bold action, reached for the jackknife he had put in his back pocket. He had taken the knife out of his pocket halfway, ready to threaten him as soon as he got any closer, but at that moment, Felix, who had gotten some distance closer, suddenly stopped in front of him. Then, he looked at Nero up and down and asked with wide eyes.
“Hey, are you okay?”
“……?”
Nero hesitated in a different sense than before when the other person suddenly asked him how he was doing. But soon, seeing Felix’s eyes, which didn’t seem to have any will to fight, he folded the knife he had been trying to take out and put it back in his pocket.
“I thought you had seriously injured your leg, so I moved you over here first… How did you get up?”
“…….”
“Oh, before that, I’m glad you seem to be safe. There aren’t many people who have woken up, so I thought almost everyone was wiped out.”
The ‘real’ Felix Montero sighed, saying that he was really relieved. His face was very pale, and he seemed to not want to believe this situation.
Nero was dumbfounded by his actions. It was surprising enough that this area was a field of corpses and that he was standing on two feet. But why wasn’t he surprised to see someone who looked exactly like him when he wasn’t blind?
Nero was just silently watching the other person, not knowing how the situation was going, for fear that he might act strangely and arouse some suspicion.
But suddenly, a chilling thought flashed through Nero’s mind as he blinked his eyes. With a feeling of disbelief, he slowly turned his head to look at the half-melted ice wall that was as tall as a person.
“I think you’re a member of the same 3rd Battalion as me, but what happened here? I barely survived from the 118th peak, but suddenly I was told to move here, so I came and…….”
Felix seemed to have a lot to say about this maddening situation, and without waiting for an answer from Nero who had just woken up, he began to ramble and complain. But when Nero saw the color of his own hair reflected in the opaque ice wall, he felt even more like complaining to Felix instead.
The guy in front of him clearly had hair somewhere on the boundary between brown and dark green, but his own reflection showed a strikingly vivid red that felt both familiar and unsettling. While he was unconscious and unable to control his Magic Power, the Illusion magic had unwittingly faded.
In that brief moment, Nero couldn’t hear a single word being said, and only one phrase circled in his mind again.
‘I’m so fucked.’
Someone had seen his true form on the peninsula. This was absolutely something that should never have happened. Red hair and red eyes weren’t particularly rare, but if there was even the slightest possibility that someone who suspected him was here, the situation was bad.
If the Captain found out about this, he’d probably never want to see me again. Nero’s legs trembled uncontrollably, tangled in countless worries. Amidst this, whether Felix was perceptive or not, he saw Nero’s state and asked with concern.
“Hey, are you really okay? Your legs are shaking a lot… Come over here first. I don’t know what’s causing it over there, but it’s chaotic with the sound of bombardment. This area is relatively better. I’ll take you to dry ground so you can sit and rest.”
Saying this, Felix took Nero’s arm and slowly led him somewhere. Nero stared at him with a dazed expression and was dragged along helplessly like a paper doll.
Even so, he kept glaring at the side of Felix’s face and the back of his head, constantly watching for an opportunity. Looking around for anyone conscious nearby, it seemed it was still just him and this guy.
If I just make a move now, maybe I can get through this quietly somehow.