Chapter 98

The new recruit Leonardo had been searching for was lying face down on the ground with his eyes tightly shut. The stimulating ringing in his ears from the recent explosion made him feel extremely dizzy.

He struggled to grab hold of his fleeting consciousness and barely managed to open his eyes. Then, using his trembling arms to support his upper body, he sat up halfway.

Feeling the wind blowing stronger than before, he rubbed the dirt off his face with his sleeve, then stared ahead with relatively clearer eyes.

He saw a steep cliff completely collapsed just less than 1 meter away from where he was sitting, with the wind whistling through it.

"Ah, ahhh!"

With the sheer cliff looming right in front of him, his arms and legs moved on their own to survive.

As he crawled backwards, pieces of rock fell from the edge of the collapsed cliff and screams echoed, amplifying the sense of terror. The new recruit, shaking from confusion, tried hard to think about what on earth had just happened.

This place was definitely inside a cave located halfway up the mountain, and he had been holding the outsider they had arrested here. Then, when that outsider attempted to escape, he threw something at him, which caused a huge explosion, and the impact completely blew away the inside of the cave.

He stood up on legs that trembled like a newborn foal, leaned his hand against the wall, and looked around.

The floor had completely collapsed, but the ceiling of the cave had only partially fallen, so its shape still remained, which seemed to be the reason he wasn't crushed to death.

However, if the unstable cliff were to collapse again while passing under that precariously remaining ceiling to get out... He didn't even want to imagine the result.

The new recruit first fumbled at his waist to find the radio to request help from his seniors. But the radio that should have been there couldn't be felt. As he looked down at his belt in bewilderment, a man's voice came from behind.

"Looking for this?"

Startled, he turned around to see the outsider he had been wrestling with earlier grinning and waving the radio.

He also seemed to have been caught in the explosion, as he looked a complete mess. The recruit was so genuinely resentful of the man who caused this situation that he ran with all his might to snatch back the radio.

"Give that back!"

"Can't do that."

Although the man had a small build, he was as nimble as a thief, so he unexpectedly wasn't easy to catch. Moreover, he occasionally pretended to throw the radio over the cliff, so the recruit had no choice but to stop and not approach any further.

The man, having already grasped the recruit's pattern, teased him for a while, then suddenly threw the radio on the ground and started stomping on it to break it.

"Wh-what are you doing!"

Seeing this, the new recruit exclaimed, pushed the man away in one go, and picked up the radio. However, the sensor that had been lit up was already shattered and dead. He held the radio in both hands, made a tearful face, then said threateningly, his expression distorted.

"Now, in addition to the crime of unauthorized entry into state property, you'll be punished more severely for obstruction of official duties!"

"Yes, yes, go ahead and do that. Oh my, how scary. Can you even arrest me without handcuffs?"

The man mockingly imitated the recruit's tone with an indifferent expression. The recruit glared at the man, his face turning bright red as he huffed and puffed.

"The platoon members are already here nearby to support me! Don't even think about running away."

"How many times have you said that now? Aren't they all tied up unable to handle a single Monster?"

"...They'll be here soon!"

The man lightly brushed off his words and rummaged through the bag he was carrying in front. The new recruit drew the sword at his waist and pointed it at the man as soon as he put his hand in the bag, but had to hesitate again when the man took out a blue mineral from inside.

Earlier, there was a big explosion when he threw that thing. The man smiled viciously, seeing the recruit's expression that was clearly frightened.

"If I was afraid of some Council underling, would I have come here?"

"Y-you're not going to throw that again, are you?"

"That depends on you."

"If you throw it again, the cave will really collapse this time. Then we might both die. Calm down first..."

The recruit tried hard to appease the man, but then a growling sound came from outside the cave where they were standing.

As the two reflexively turned their heads, two Dermocas were crawling upside down with their claws dug into the ceiling.

Those things had been chasing them constantly earlier, so they had fled in a daze and ended up flowing into this place, but they never dreamed the monsters would come looking this deep, so both of their bodies froze.

Before setting out on this subjugation, the new recruit had heard countless times from his seniors, "If you see a Dermocas, don't think about fighting and just run away unconditionally." So he promptly grabbed the outsider by the collar and shouted in his face.

"Run away!!"

"Wai- wait. Cough-"

He practically dragged the outsider and flew deep into the cave like crazy. Then, as if that action was a signal, the two Dermocas hanging upside down thrust out their claws and jumped in, chasing right after them.

The recruit ran with all his might, tears streaming out, at the monsters' roars coming from behind. He couldn't understand at all why they were chasing him this persistently. 

He ran around the inside of the cave in a disorderly manner, trying to gain even a little distance by turning this curve and that, but soon faced a dead end and had no choice but to stop right there.

Then, as if toying with them, knowing they had nowhere left to run, the monsters slowed down and approached, howling. As soon as he turned around, seeing their hideously ripped open maws that seemed to be laughing at him now that he was cornered, tears welled up in the new recruit's eyes.

'Why did I apply to the 1st Battalion?'

He should have just comfortably applied for a desk job at the headquarters. He deeply resented his past choices for entering the 1st Battalion, enduring all sorts of hardships to attain wealth and glory only to end up like this.

Beside him, the outsider who had been dragged along by the collar coughed his lungs out, then finally seemed to catch his breath and shouted at the recruit with narrowed eyes.

"Dude! Are you trying to kill me? Is the Council allowed to do this to citizens-"

"This is all because of you, mister!"

The new recruit yelled at the man who was arguing with him, then suddenly started sobbing, rubbing his bright red eyes.

The man blinked and stared at him, surprised first by the volume of his voice yelling at him, and second by the fact that a Council member was crying in front of Monsters. He wondered what kind of guy had come here.

The recruit thought he was about to die right now, so he couldn't see straight. He just wanted to see his mother.

Since the radio was broken, he couldn't request support from his seniors, and he had never been at the forefront of a battle with Monsters alone, so he had neither the experience nor the courage to catch such large Monsters.

Moreover, the ones in front of his eyes right now were Dermocas, which he had been told to avoid if possible among the many Monsters. But now there was nowhere left to run.

As he was holding his head and standing there in a daze, the blue mineral the man was holding suddenly caught his eye.

When the man noticed the recruit's eyes, which seemed to have gone a little crazy, turning towards the mineral, he tried to hide it behind his back, but the recruit snatched the mineral from the man's hand faster than ever before. Then, without giving the man a chance to stop him, he threw it at the Dermocas with all his might.

Thud-

As soon as the mineral left his hand, the recruit curled up his body, put up a barrier, and shut his eyes tight, but only the sound of the thrown mineral hitting the Dermocas' hard head and falling could be heard, and nothing else happened.

He had thrown it, prepared to get caught up in the explosion himself, but forget exploding, it was like he had just thrown a rock and provoked the monsters' anger. He opened his eyes slightly with a confused face and asked the man.

"Why isn't this exploding?"

"...You idiot, you think it'll explode just by throwing it?"

"Then hurry up and you throw it, mister!"

"I'm not a mister! And do you know how expensive this is!"

As the recruit 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.

Kyaaaak-!

Perhaps the sight of the two prey bickering in front of them further provoked the Dermocas, as they let out a sharp cry and charged. At that, the recruit reflexively drew his sword and stood in front of the man.

No matter how much this man was a target for arrest, in a crisis situation, he thought of the Council's spirit that he should stand at the forefront before anyone else.

Of course, his courage was admirable, but the problem was that he had his eyes tightly closed, unable to see the target at all, and the hand holding the sword was trembling.

"Hey, you idiot! Look ahead, look ahead!"

The man shouted at him while hiding behind, feeling the same fear of the monsters but finding the recruit frustrating.

However, feeling like he would die before even taking these things out to sell, he eventually took out a mineral from the bag. Just as the man was about to throw it towards the Dermocas...

Kieeek-!

The Dermocas that had run up to right in front of them, opening their bright red maws, twisted their bodies with a bizarre sound and collapsed to the side.

When it felt like the thing had come right up to his nose but nothing happened again, the recruit slowly opened his eyes. He had the absurd thought that he might have a talent for swordsmanship and the creature had died.

Looking ahead, the huge thing was lying collapsed, and behind it, the other one had its vital wrinkled back pierced through and was flailing while screaming. The one who stabbed a blazing fire sword into that struggling monster kicked the stiffened body away with his foot and pulled out the deeply stuck sword.

As he pulled out the sword, green liquid splattered on the cave wall and soon began to melt the wall with a sizzling sound. The recruit sat down with his legs giving out, thinking he was saved.

The one who had lightly disposed of the two Dermocas in the blink of an eye shook the acidic liquid off the sword, then approached with a flourish, his black cloak and golden hair fluttering, and asked.

"Are you okay?"

The new recruit had the illusion of a halo shining behind him. In fact, in the dark cave with little light, the flames floating around him in particular blazed up fiercely, so his reflected golden hair and eyes seemed to shine more brightly.

At his appearance, which looked the most admirable in the world at this moment, the new recruit called out to him, shedding tears profusely.

"Mr. Blaine-! Wahhhh..."