Chapter 4

Chapter 4
“Push the wheelchair and follow us. The two of us will move ahead.”
“Ah, yes. But.”
“......?”
“Are you a soldier? Or a Hunter?”
“I’m a civilian.”
“But then how do you fight so well? I just couldn’t......”
The middle-aged man was still trembling with fear, and yet it was obvious that he was also deeply ashamed.
He was probably beating himself up over the fact that he had failed to evacuate his disabled wife in time and failed to protect her properly.
But I had no intention of blaming him.
In truth, this was normal.
If an ordinary middle-aged man—someone who was neither a trained soldier nor a Hunter—could fight monsters well, that would have been stranger.
Even Hunters often fell prey to fear when driven into a desperate life-or-death situation.
I had seen countless bastards abandon their comrades and run just to save their own skin.
Compared to that, this man was doing fine.
At the very least, he had not thrown away his disabled wife and fled alone just to survive.
“You were brave enough, so don’t blame yourself too much.”
I encouraged him sincerely.
This was an age in which everyone fought to survive.
The non-Awakened fought too, each from their own place, for their own survival and for the safety of their families.
Like this man.
Like my father.
That was even more true in a situation like this.
When [Transference] struck without warning, it took at least thirty minutes to an hour for the military, police, and Hunters to reach the scene.
So civilians had to know how to fight as well.
“But......”
The man lowered his head.
“You really did well. Thank you.”
The woman in the wheelchair clasped the man’s hand tightly.
“If you hadn’t found the courage to fight, we would have died before these people arrived. I love you, honey.”
Whoa, they were practically dripping honey.
The way the woman looked at him was full of tenderness.
And the way he looked back at her was the same.
I did not know whether they had children, but at this rate, they might end up with a late-in-life baby after today.
“For now, we do not have time for this, so sir, hold your wife’s wheelchair. And reload while you’re at it, just in case.”
“Ah, understood.”
“However.”
My hand touched the back of his hand as he changed the magazine.
“Try not to take that gun out unless you absolutely have to. I do not want to die from a bullet you fired. Understood?”
“I’ll remember that.”
“If you make it out alive, get some training whenever you can. I know you’re busy, but what good is any of that if you die? No one is always going to be there to save you.”
“Ah, yes. I plan to.”
“Let’s go.”
When I checked the drone’s thermal feed, I could see monsters converging like a pack.
Yeah. Gunfire always drew monsters.
We needed to hurry.
***
Bang! Bang bang bang!
Boom! Boom!
Ratatatatatatatat!
Even while we moved, gunfire and explosions kept echoing from far away.
Thud-thud-thud-thud!
Overhead, one Black Hawk helicopter and three Apache attack helicopters armed with Hellfire missiles flew across the sky.
Not only heavily armed military and police units, but even aerial assets had been deployed. It looked like they were in the middle of a full-scale battle against the monsters.
“Here! Here! Over here!”
The guard shouted himself hoarse at the helicopters, then apparently decided that was not enough and pulled out a signal flare.
“Don’t.”
“Huh?”
“I said don’t fire that flare, unless you want to die.”
“Why?”
The guard looked completely unable to understand.
“It’s faster to leave by helicopter than on foot. And safer.”
“Do you think the monsters do not have anything in the air?”
“Hm?”
“Look.”
I pointed at the sky.
“Kyaaaak!”
“Kyaaaaaak!”
Flying-types.
Several dozen bat-like monsters appeared from somewhere and started attacking the friendly helicopters.
They were the creatures humanity called [Gargoyles], and that name too was just one humanity had given them.
How would humanity know what monsters were really called?
“Aaaaagh!”
I could see one soldier falling from a helicopter.
Fwoooosh, boom!
One of the Apache helicopters ended up crashing into an apartment building and exploding.
“Anyone still want to go by helicopter?”
No one answered.
“If you still want to fire that flare, wait until after we leave and do it by yourself.”
“S-sorry.”
“Let’s move under the trees and through the brush. Otherwise those Gargoyle bastards are going to grab us like prizes from a claw machine.”
As I moved, I checked the time.
‘There isn’t much time.’
This [Transference] was an incident that humanity’s conventional weapons and tactics could not resolve.
Hunters would be deployed soon, but it would not be enough.
There were simply too many monsters transferring in for manpower alone to push them back.
At times like this, the best method was to flatten the entire area with bombardment, reduce the monsters’ numbers, and then have Hunters move in and close the core of the [Transference] phenomenon—in other words, the Gate.
In other words, our apartment complex was soon going to be reduced to a wasteland by bombardment.
WEEEEEEEEEEEEEOOOO!
Sure enough, a siren rang out, and an announcement immediately followed.
Attention, residents. Bombardment is scheduled to begin in thirty minutes, so all residents are requested to leave the area immediately. We repeat. Bombardment is scheduled to begin in thirty minutes....
It was a decision that showed not the slightest consideration for the elderly, the weak, or the infirm, but I could not say I failed to understand it.
In general, [Transference] only grew more severe with time.
If left alone, stronger monsters transferred in greater numbers, which led to even more casualties and property damage.
So they had no choice but to carry out the bombardment, even at the cost of civilian lives.
“Let’s move faster.”
I pushed the group onward as quickly as I could.
“Kyaak!”
“Kyaak!”
A few Goblins blocked our path.
“I’ll handle it, so point your muzzle somewhere else.”
“Ah, yes!”
Thunk, thunk!
I split the Goblins’ heads open with the axe and forced a path through.
With the proper training, even a non-Awakened person could handle 1-Star monsters well enough.
It was only possible because at this point in my life, as an officer candidate, my stamina and strength were already fairly well developed.
“Huff, huff.”
Even so, I could not help getting a little out of breath.
I might have been a Supporter, but back when I was a Hunter, dealing with a few lousy Goblins like this had never been enough to disturb my breathing even once.
“Let’s avoid using guns unless we really have to. The noise is bad enough, and those things react sharply to the smell of gunpowder too.”
“Ah, yes!”
“Understood.”
We hurried on, but our pace was still very slow.
Part of that was because one of us had mobility issues, but even beyond that, it was impossible to move quickly while avoiding the Gargoyles that controlled the air and the monsters lurking nearby.
NO SIGNAL!
On top of that, the drone was knocked down by a Gargoyle, so we could no longer observe the situation around us.
We still had around five hundred meters left before we could get out of the [Transference]-stricken zone.
Five hundred meters was not especially far, but thanks to [Transference], the surrounding area had been transformed into rugged mountain terrain, which made movement difficult.
“Let’s leave the wheelchair behind. It would be better if you carried your wife on your back.”
“Understood.”
The man hoisted the woman onto his back, while the guard and I moved with one taking the front and the other the rear.
Had we gone maybe another hundred meters?
“Stop.”
A bad feeling made me halt for a moment, and then the grass around us rustled before several monsters slowly crawled out and surrounded us.
Along with the Goblins we had fought earlier, there were Gnolls with hyena heads, and even Trolls.
A whole variety of them had shown up.
“W-what do we do?”
The guard turned to me and asked.
Boom!
Instead of answering, I pulled the trigger on the shotgun.
“Kehk!”
The Gnoll charging at me was blasted backward, and at that, the monsters lunged at us all at once.
***
We fought a brutal engagement against the monsters.
Boom! Boom!
Bang bang bang!
Not just the guard and me—even the middle-aged man set his wife down and poured bullets into the monsters.
But the monsters were far too numerous, and as for the Gnolls and Trolls, the bastards could shrug off one or two shotgun blasts without trouble, so their numbers showed no sign of thinning.
‘We’re burning through too much ammunition.’
Empty magazines were starting to pile up at our feet.
“Agh!”
The guard screamed.
“Kyaaaak!”
A Goblin had leaped onto the guard’s back and was wildly slashing with its knife.
I immediately dropped the shotgun and brought the axe down, splitting open the Goblin’s skull on the guard’s back first.
Thud!
The guard collapsed.
“Cough, urk!”
The lower part of his neck had been sliced open by nearly a third, and blood was surging out in heavy gushes.
‘Damn it!’
I needed to stop the bleeding first, but there was no room to give first aid.
‘Get him out first.’
Boom! Boom!
I fired the shotgun to knock back the approaching Troll, then grabbed the guard by the back of the neck and dragged him away.
“Don’t lose consciousness! Press down hard with your hand and—oh?”
Huh. Look at this bastard.
Bang bang! Bang bang bang!
The guard was showing real grit.
“Cough!”
Even as he coughed up blood in thick spurts, he was pressing hard on his neck with his left hand to stanch the bleeding, while using his right hand to fire the carbine and pour rounds into the monsters.
‘No matter what, I’m getting you out alive.’
His fighting spirit caught on in me like wildfire.
Who was it that said the non-Awakened were helpless?
Even a mere apartment security guard had this kind of resolve!
‘Focus.’
It was while I was firing one careful shot at a time, mindful of my ammunition.
Clatter!
A chain flew in and wrapped itself around a Troll’s neck.
Shhhk!
The chain, lined with sharp blades along every link, tightened around the Troll’s throat and severed it as if grinding it apart.
Thud......!
The Troll’s severed head rolled across the ground.
‘Earlier than I expected.’
I did not need to look with my own eyes to know who had arrived.
At this point in time, in this place, there was only one Hunter who could be wielding chains.
Smiling faintly in glad recognition, I turned my head.
A heavily armed Hunter was staring at us with an expressionless face.
A bladed chain was clenched in her hand.
Choi Yura.
Call sign: [Bloody Mary].
She was the Hunter who, in my previous life, had led me, my mother, and my younger sister out of this place.