Chapter 108

The first thing the 8th Platoon Leader saw when she opened her eyes was the wide hexagonal roof of the tent and the sunset that had fallen before darkness arrived. She closed her eyes as if squinting, needing time to adapt to the bright and intense light, and placed the back of her hand over them. Then, the gauze attached near her forehead touched the back of her hand.

As she fumbled with the unfamiliar sensation, her head throbbed. With that discomfort, she forcibly opened her eyes and turned her body, and although a slight dizziness arose, it was tolerable.

"Platoon Leader!"

As she half-raised her body, the platoon member who had been waiting beside her called out to her with a moved expression.

"Are you alright?"

The 8th Platoon Leader, after scanning the worried face, said while trying to relax her expression that was scrunched up from the glare,

"...I'm fine. How long was I lying down?"

"It seems about three or four hours have passed. Ah, please wait a moment. I'll call the medical team."

The platoon member immediately left the tent to run to where the medical team was to convey the news that the platoon leader had woken up. The 8th Platoon Leader looked at him and touched the gauze on her forehead again. It seemed she had been unconscious for quite a long time, contrary to her expectations.

When her gaze was directed at the back of the member, the commanders of the Southern Branch could be seen outside the tent, walking with busy steps while wearing serious expressions. After blankly staring at them for a moment, she suddenly had a question.

'...Why is the Southern Branch here?'

As she saw the commanders, not the liaison officers, she immediately began to assess the situation by looking around.

Come to think of it, this large tent she was in was only used when there were many personnel to accommodate, and it could no longer be seen in the 1st Battalion's base camp after the procession was divided and moving with a small number.

Outside, the armbands of the Southern Branch could be seen here and there, and most of the passing members wore badges on their combat uniform collars indicating they belonged to the Southern Branch. This place seemed to be the Southern Branch's camp.

The 8th Platoon Leader, whose question had now changed to why she was here, completely raised her body that had been half-lifted and stepped her feet from the temporary bed to the ground. Then, the outside situation came into view at a glance, and the late afternoon sunset breeze passed through the open tent entrance.

It could have been dismissed as trivial, but that breeze made her feel a sense of unfamiliarity.

It was something that couldn't be felt on the dry and arid plains, and the feeling was excessively hollow and familiar. The breeze also contained the smell of wet soil and an unknown fishy odor, so she stood up from her spot as if enchanted. Then, she stepped out of the tent, following the breeze.

"Platoon Leader?"

The other 1st Battalion members who had been waiting near the tent discovered her suddenly coming out and gathered around. They were delighted to see the awakened platoon leader, but when she tried to head somewhere, they hurriedly stopped her. She looked quite unstable, moving as if possessed, even though she had just woken up and her physical condition wasn't very good.

However, the 8th Platoon Leader pushed away those arms blocking her and followed the hollow breeze swirling around. She walked slowly, but before she knew it, she was running at full speed.

The Southern Branch members who were moving supplies and materials also looked at her running mindlessly with puzzled eyes. The 8th Platoon Leader passed by those members and the site where the camp was located, being aimlessly led by the flow of air.

After running to the point of being out of breath for a moment, the energy of the wind she had been following stopped and lingered in the void not far away. As she took one more step forward, there was a thudding sound, and the ground crumbled. At that, the 8th Platoon Leader took two steps back while looking down. Then, she blankly stared at the sight in front of her from that spot.

"..."

Below her feet was a cliff.

Following that cliff with her gaze, she saw a vast wasteland where everything was mixed together, and traces of what had been there could no longer be found. Rocks and withered grass roots were buried in piles of earth, and occasionally, the corpses of monsters that had failed to escape were grotesquely twisted. In the distance beyond the wasteland, members of the Southern Branch could be seen searching for something, and the wind that had brushed past that far place swept over the black hair of her standing on the cliff.

"Platoon Leader, where are you going!"

The platoon members who had followed pulled the platoon leader who was precariously standing in front of the cliff. Because of that, she was dragged back a few steps and slightly frowned at the stinging sensation near the arm grabbed by a platoon member.

Looking down to see why, her wrist was slightly swollen, and red handprints could be seen there. And the moment she saw that, suddenly, a part of the memory before losing consciousness came to mind.

The unknown mineral thrown by the outsider who she thought was unconscious. And the golden barrier that unfolded in front of her eyes before she could even recognize that it was flying toward her. Even the voice shouting at her to avoid it.

As she retraced her memories, she suddenly realized that the two people who had been with her at the time were nowhere to be seen.

She turned back and asked the platoon members who had followed her,

"Where are Leonardo Blaine and Kenis Weber?"

At the platoon leader's question, the expressions of the platoon members became not just perplexed but rapidly darkened. They looked at each other's faces and refrained from speaking. Feeling something strange about that, the platoon leader urged them to answer, and they, who had been hesitating, opened their mouths with difficulty.

"Currently, both of them are missing. We are searching with the help of other battalions."

"...Missing?"

It took quite some time to accept the word 'missing'. Eventually, her face was gradually stained with a deep sense of futility. She repeated that word as if she couldn't believe it, and even chewed on it, then touched her forehead with the gauze attached again with her hand.

Seeing the platoon leader like that, the members had a bitter expression. It was because there was even worse news left.

"Why? Is there another problem?"

When the 8th Platoon Leader sensed that there was something more from their expressions and asked, one of the members opened his mouth with difficulty, glancing at her.

"...Platoon Leader, the Commander is currently missing as well."

"...What?"

To the platoon leader who asked back with a shocked face as if she had heard something she shouldn't have, the platoon members conveyed what had happened while she was unconscious. As she quietly listened to the story, the color gradually drained from her face.

The 8th Platoon Leader tightly closed her trembling eyelids.

As confusion came, the headache suddenly became severe.

According to the platoon members, the camp where she had opened her eyes earlier was a temporary base camp set up near the collapse site by a part of the 9th Battalion of the Southern Branch that had moved. And the reason they were putting effort into the search operation was that their battalion commander was also caught in the collapse.

At the time when the 1st Battalion arrived at the ravine just before the collapse, Kenis and Leonardo were already out of sight, and the Commander and the 9th Battalion Commander of the Southern Branch had gone missing after jumping off the cliff to find them. In the midst of that, she had lost consciousness and was rescued, standing here unharmed on her two feet.

As she became aware of those facts one by one, she had no face to see her comrades and no dignity to lead the platoon members as a platoon leader.

Her head felt like it was going to split.

What tormented her even more in the midst of that was the last scene in her memory of the moment when she had briefly regained consciousness.

As she opened her eyes, exhaling a breath as the rebound from the stopped fall pressed down on her abdomen with the belt strap, she saw a figure growing distant into the darkness in her hazy consciousness. And what had flickered in her vision before losing consciousness again was the distinct gold color that had tied her to something, hung her up, and fallen after her.

He had let go of his hand on purpose and disappeared into the endless darkness along with the distant figure.

The reason was probably to catch the falling person.

After using teleport for three people, his condition had rapidly deteriorated, and it was quite serious to the extent that even the 8th Platoon Leader could feel it. So even when climbing up the cliff, she had taken the lead with him below...

No, even when she first discovered him under the collapsing cliff, his energy at that time was far from the mana he originally possessed.

In such a situation, letting go of his hand and falling together to save a Council member unrelated to him, was it something possible in common sense?

'He could die.'

He really could die.

"Ha..."

The 8th Platoon Leader let out a deep sigh. The confusion wouldn't subside at all, but now that her direct superior was missing, she had to make a judgment on what to do next.

She raised her head and grasped the number of 1st Battalion members who were sunk in gloom. She couldn't just stay still. It wasn't the time to despair.

At that moment, two other members were seen wandering in the air in the distance, then discovering this direction and flying over. One was her platoon member, and the other was a member of the 6th Battalion of the Central Branch, judging by the embroidery on the combat uniform.

"Platoon Leader Russell, you were here! We've been looking for you for a while."

"Platoon Leader, where did you go as soon as you woke up!"

The 6th Battalion member urgently descended, saying he had been looking for her. The member who came with him was the platoon member who had gone to call the medical team.

The 8th Platoon Leader, who had no time for deep thought, first turned her head to the 6th Battalion member and asked,

"What's the matter with the 6th Battalion?"

"Ah, Battalion Commander Rivera told me to check on the platoon leader's condition and come. And she said to bring you immediately if you had regained consciousness."

"...The 6th Battalion Commander did?"

The 8th Platoon Leader asked back with a puzzled face.

Then, she suddenly remembered the ability possessed by the 6th Battalion Commander.

* * *

Delua tapped the 8th Platoon Leader's shoulder and said,

"Emma Russell, the tracking specialist platoon leader of the 1st Battalion, the future of the Central Branch depends on you."

Hearing that, the 8th Platoon Leader made a perplexed expression.

"Pardon?"

"Your main attribute is wind, and you're B4-grade, right? The Commander talked a lot about you. You must be disoriented with the head injury and having just woken up, but I'd like you to help me a bit."

The place she arrived following the 6th Battalion member was the middle of a wasteland covered with piles of earth. There, a part of the 6th Battalion of the Central Branch and Battalion Commander Delua Rivera were present.

And behind her, a magic circle of a huge scale, which must have involved many people, was drawn on the ground.

The 8th Platoon Leader looked at that magic circle and asked Delua,

"What are you trying to do?"

"We need to find the people buried underground. But right now, all the pursuit members of the Southern Branch who can sensitively feel the flow of air are away somewhere else. So, Platoon Leader Russell, you are absolutely necessary."

As she heard the words about finding people, the 8th Platoon Leader's spirit noticeably changed. Her expression became determined to the point of making those who saw it feel her desperation. She spoke to Delua with sharp eyes,

"What should I do?"

Seeing her intelligent and tough-looking eyes, Delua showed a satisfied smile.

"Here, this place where we are standing now. Do you know where this is? When a landslide occurs and people are swept away with the earth, this vicinity is the place with the highest probability of them being buried. And it's also a relatively low-lying area with a comparatively low risk of additional collapse."

The 8th Platoon Leader glanced down at the ground she was standing on.

"From now on, I'm going to temporarily lift up the piles of earth around here together with our battalion members. At that time, you read the flow of air underneath and determine whether there are people or not. I heard that reading that flow of air requires quite a high level of ability, but I heard that's your specialty."

"Yes, that's right."

Delua's words were as the 8th Platoon Leader had expected.

However, with her ability, it seemed she could find the people buried in the ground even without her, so it was quite questionable that they hadn't found them until now, several hours after the collapse occurred and the search operation had been ongoing.

As if answering the 8th Platoon Leader's question, Delua continued,

"But there have been a few problems while conducting the search so far."

"What kind of problems?"

"Hmm. First, the range of my magic's invocation is not that wide. Even with the help of our members lifting the earth, it will be an extremely small part compared to the scale of this vast land. So this work will be a patience-requiring repetitive task."

"..."

"And the second is that the soil is wet due to the rain that has fallen for days. Until you woke up, we had selected members from our 6th Battalion who could manipulate wind and were proceeding with the search. But the members said that the air passing through the wet soil is quite faint, making it difficult to sense anything. It probably won't be an easy task for you either."

At her words, the 8th Platoon Leader nodded in agreement.

"Lastly, the third. Actually, this might not be accurate, but I discovered something a bit strange about this peninsula's land."

Delua tapped the ground a couple of times with the tip of her military boots.

"There's an empty space below here. No, there was. Until the mountain collapsed."

A few hours ago, when the horde of Dermocas that had appeared in the plains was annihilated by the combined efforts of Hugo and Leonardo, Delua and the 6th Battalion of the Central Branch had been handling the remaining creatures and chasing after the fleeing ones.

Although they had expected the Dermocas to be hiding somewhere on the mountainside due to their nature of digging tunnels well, they had never imagined that there would be such a large number, so it was necessary to identify the creatures' base.

However, perhaps because they were smart, they seemed to quickly notice the pursuit following them and tried to scatter and flee to random places instead of their main base.

In response, Delua moved dry grass that was not noticeable and attached it to the creatures' bodies, then followed them at a certain distance. As a result, she was able to spot them wandering around other places and entering a hidden tunnel.

And when they dug into that tunnel, a huge space hidden underneath was revealed.

"It seems that the tunnels that weren't in the plains are positioned mainly near large peaks. I think that place is a kind of magma chamber."

A magma chamber was a space formed deep underground, about 1 to 10 km below the surface. And in the case of this Elder Millie Peninsula, it was a peninsular terrain formed as the ground was uplifted and the magma from volcanic islands and undersea volcanoes flowed into the inland.

Therefore, the existing magma chambers also rose in altitude as the crustal plates were uplifted, and Delua's speculation was that the unknown space widely existing under the large peaks now was that magma chamber, and some parts remained as empty spaces after volcanic eruptions ended.

"But that place was strange. I followed the creatures and went inside, but in that space, I could only use about half of the mana I could normally use. As if something was suppressing mana. And the energy of the monsters that had entered the tunnel suddenly disappeared."

"Were there minerals like mana restraining stones nearby?"

"No, if there were such things, I wouldn't have thought it was strange. There was nothing like that at all. As a result, I lost the creatures."

The 8th Platoon Leader's expression subtly changed.

It was certainly strange. To suppress the mana of other creatures or conceal their energy, there should be minerals of the mana restraining stone series, magic stones, or devices or barriers intentionally created by humans. But to say such things were installed, this peninsula was just a land that had been abandoned for a long time.

There's no way such things would exist in this land overrun by monsters...

"Well, anyway. It's clear that there's a different flow below here than above. That means, in other words, our mana might not reach that deep underground. So it's all the more important to sense the flow of air itself that can occur when people move, not mana."

Delua put her hand on the 8th Platoon Leader's shoulder again, met her eyes, and asked,

"What do you think, can you do it?"

At Delua's question, the 8th Platoon Leader concentrated on the air brushing her fingertips as if awakening her senses. The wind flowing between her fingers was unusual.

"Of course. Leave it to me."

At that moment, the magic circle drawn behind them began to glow. Then, the 6th Battalion members moved to their designated positions and took a formation to assist Delua's magic. Delua turned around, looked at the glowing magic circle, then smiled at the 8th Platoon Leader and said,

"Alright, let's go."