By Zephyria The new member Leonardo was looking for was lying on the ground with his eyes tightly closed. The dizziness was extreme because a stimulating tinnitus was ringing in his ears due to the impact of the explosion just now.
He struggled to hold on to his mind, which he had let go of for a while, and barely opened his eyes. Then, he supported his upper body with his trembling arms and sat up halfway.
Feeling the wind blowing more strongly than before, he rubbed the dirt on his face with his sleeve and stared at the front with his eyes, which had become relatively clear.
Then, less than 1m away from where he was sitting now, he saw a bottomless cliff where the floor had completely collapsed and the wind was blowing freely.
“Ugh, ughaa―!”
As the desolate cliff was lurking close by, his arms and legs moved involuntarily to survive.
As he crawled backwards, pieces of stone fell from the edge of the collapsed rock wall, and screams echoed, creating a sense of fear. Amidst the confusion, the new member tried to recall what on earth had happened a little while ago while trembling.
Clearly, this was inside a cave located on the mountainside, and he was holding the outsider he had arrested here. At that time, the outsider tried to escape and threw something at him, which caused a huge explosion, and the impact blew away the entire inside of the cave.
He stood up from his seat with legs trembling like a newborn foal, and looked around while holding his hand against the wall.
The floor was completely collapsed, but only some of the ceiling of the cave had fallen off, so the shape was still there, so it seemed that he had not been crushed to death thanks to that.
But if he passed under that precariously remaining ceiling to get out, and the unstable rock wall collapsed again… he didn’t even want to imagine the result.
The new member groped around his waist, searching for the radio to request help from his seniors. But the radio, which should have been there, was not felt. As he looked down at his belt in confusion, a man’s voice was heard from behind.
“Looking for this?”
Surprised, he turned around and saw the outsider who had fought with him earlier smiling and shaking the radio.
He was also a mess, probably because he had been caught up in the explosion. The member was sincerely resentful of the man who was the cause of this situation, and rushed at him with all his might to take back the radio.
“Give it to me!”
“That won’t do.”
The man was small, but his movements were nimble like a pickpocket, so he was not caught as easily as expected. In addition, he occasionally pretended to throw the radio off the cliff, so he had no choice but to stop without being able to get closer.
The man, who had already figured out the member’s pattern, teased him for a while and then suddenly threw the radio on the ground and started stomping on it to break it.
“Wh, what are you doing!”
The new member was shocked to see that and pushed the man away in an instant and picked up the radio. But the sensor that had been lit up was already broken and had died. He grabbed the radio with both hands and made a crying face, then distorted his expression as much as possible and said as if threatening.
“Now, not only will you be charged with trespassing on state-owned land, but you will also be severely punished for obstructing official duties!”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Oh, I’m so scared―. Can you even arrest me without handcuffs?”
The man mimicked the new member’s tone with a nonchalant expression and ridiculed him. The member’s face was flushed red as he glared at the man.
“The squad members are already coming to support nearby! Don’t even think about running away.”
“Do you know how many times you’ve said that now? Isn’t it a situation where you’re all tied up because you can’t even handle one demon beast?”
“…They’ll be here soon!”
The man lightly brushed off his words and rummaged through the bag he was carrying in front. As soon as the new member saw him put his hand in the bag, he drew the sword he was wearing on his waist and pointed it at him, but he had no choice but to hesitate again when the man took out a blue mineral from inside.
That was because a big explosion had occurred when he threw that earlier. The man gave a mean smile when he saw the member’s clearly frightened expression.
“If I was going to be afraid of the Council bastards, would I have come here?”
“Y, you’re not going to throw that, are you?”
“That depends on what you do.”
“If you throw it again, the cave will really collapse this time. Then we might both die. First, calm down….”
The unit member was trying hard to coax the man when a growling sound came from outside the cave where they were standing.
As the two reflexively turned their heads, two Dermokas were crawling upside down, their claws embedded in the ceiling.
They had been running away frantically from these creatures earlier, ending up here, but they never dreamed they would be found in this deep place, so the two froze.
Before setting out on this subjugation, the new unit member, who had been told countless times by his seniors, “If you see a Dermokas, don’t even think about fighting, just run,” grabbed the outsider by the collar and shouted in his face.
“Run away!!”
“W-wait a second. Keuk—.”
He practically dragged the outsider, flying madly into the cave. As if that action was a signal, the two Dermokas that had been hanging down bared their claws and leaped in, chasing after them closely.
The new recruit sped up, tears welling up in his eyes from the monsters’ roars behind him. He couldn’t understand why they were chasing him so relentlessly.
He tried to create some distance by making turns here and there, wandering haphazardly through the cave, but he soon faced a dead end and had no choice but to stop.
Then, as if knowing that they had nowhere else to run, the monsters howled and slowed down, approaching them as if toying with them. The long, torn, hideous maw that appeared as soon as he turned around seemed to be laughing at his predicament, and the new unit member’s eyes welled up with tears.
‘Why did I apply to the 1st Division?’
He should have just applied for a position working comfortably at headquarters. He bitterly regretted his choice to endure all sorts of hardships and join the 1st Division for what glory.
Next to him, the outsider, who had been dragged by the collar, coughed, gasping for breath, and then, finally feeling better, widened his eyes and shouted at the unit member.
“Hey! Are you trying to kill me? Is the Council allowed to treat citizens like this—”
“This is all because of you, mister!”
The new unit member yelled back at the man who was arguing with him, then suddenly rubbed his reddened eyes and began to sob.
The man blinked, startled once by the volume of his shout and twice by the fact that a Council unit member was crying in the face of a demon beast. He wondered what kind of guy had come here.
The new recruit thought he was about to die, so he didn’t care about anything else. He just missed his mother.
His radio was broken, so he couldn’t call for backup from his seniors, and he had never been on the front lines alone in a battle against a demon beast, so he had never actually caught such a large demon beast, nor did he have the courage to do so.
Moreover, the thing in front of him was a Dermokas, which was supposed to be avoided if possible among all the demon beasts. But now there was nowhere to run.
As he tore at his hair in despair, the blue mineral in the man’s hand caught his eye.
The man tried to hide it when he saw the unit member’s eyes, which seemed a little crazed, turn to the mineral, but the unit member snatched the mineral from the man’s hand faster than ever. Then, before the man could stop him, he threw it at the Dermokas with all his might.
Thud—.
As soon as the mineral left his hand, the unit member crouched down, put up a barrier, and squeezed his eyes shut, but he only heard the sound of the thrown mineral hitting the Dermokas’s hard head and nothing else happening. He cautiously opened his eyes.
He had thrown it prepared for the mineral to explode and engulf him as well, but instead of exploding, it just seemed to have angered the monsters by throwing a rock at them. He looked back at the man with a confused expression and asked.
“Why isn’t this exploding?”
“…Idiot, did you think it would explode just by throwing it?”
“Then hurry up and throw it, mister!”
“I’m not a mister!? And this stuff is expensive!”
As the unit member grabbed the man’s bag full of minerals and tried to push it forward, the man hugged the bag with both arms and resisted as much as possible.
Kyaaak—!
The sight of the two prey arguing in front of them seemed to have further enraged the Dermokas, and they howled sharply again and charged. The new recruit reflexively drew his sword and stood in front of the man.
Even though this man was a target for arrest, he remembered the Council’s spirit that he should be at the forefront in a crisis situation.
Of course, his courage was commendable, but the problem was that he had his eyes tightly closed and couldn’t see the target at all, and the hand holding the sword was trembling.
“Hey, you idiot! You have to look ahead, ahead!”
The man was frustrated with him for closing his eyes and just holding the sword, but he was just as scared of the monsters, so he hid behind him and just shouted.
However, he thought that if he kept this up, he would die before he could take these things out and sell them, so he finally took out one of the minerals from his bag. It was just as the man was about to throw the thing in his hand at the Dermokas.
Kieeeek—!
The Dermokas, which had run right up to them and opened its red maw, made a bizarre noise, twisted its body, and fell to the side.
The unit member felt like the monster had come right up to his nose, but when nothing happened again, he cautiously opened his eyes again. He had the absurd thought that he might have a talent for swordsmanship and that was why the monster had died.
When he looked ahead, he saw the house-sized monster collapsed, and behind it, another monster was writhing and screaming, its vulnerable wrinkled back pierced. The one who had stabbed the burning flame sword into the monster pushed the stiff body away with his foot and pulled out the firmly embedded sword.
As he pulled out the sword, green liquid splattered on the cave wall, and soon the wall began to melt with a sizzling sound. The new recruit’s legs gave way, and he collapsed, relieved to be alive.
The man, who had lightly dealt with the two Dermokas in the blink of an eye, shook off the acidic liquid dripping from his sword and strode forward, his black cloak and golden hair fluttering, and asked.
“Are you okay?”
The new unit member had the illusion that there was a halo behind him. Perhaps it was because the flames floating around him were burning particularly intensely in the dark cave where there was little light, and his reflected golden hair and eyes seemed to shine even brighter.
At this moment, seeing him looking the most respectable in the world, the new unit member burst into tears and called out to him, sobbing.
“Blaine-nim—! Waaah….”