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Bermuda Chapter 94
🕑 Added 2024-05-10 11:10:49 +0000 UTCChapter 94
The scattered, acrid smoke lingered around again, making his eyes sting. Nevertheless, Leonardo silently gazed at Hugo without blinking once.
This person was, how should he put it... really strange.
'Does he even know what it means to wait?'
He had a knack for rendering people speechless.
His waiting and his own waiting would differ in their desperation and weight as much as his trust and his own trust.
Even though he felt it was deception, he foolishly wanted to believe again because this person's gaze and voice gave him enough trust to believe his words, or because he himself was truly a fool. It was one of the two.
Or it could be both.
While he felt it was amazing that he could say such things to him, there was also a defensive thought that he wouldn't be able to fully understand his position as much as he had hoped.
Leonardo tightly closed his stinging eyes, then opened them. His head felt numb. Originally, when complex thoughts and emotions rushed in at once and reached a limit, his mind would become dazed, and that was exactly the case now. Moreover, it seemed to be more so because he hadn't been able to sleep properly recently.
Because of that, his mouth was in a ragged state, and swallowing was also uncomfortable, perhaps because his throat was swollen. Leonardo, who was swallowing dry saliva, slightly parted his lips to let out a voice to bring out that discomfort.
"You―."
Boom―!
At that moment, a loud sound reverberated, shaking the area around where the two were standing.
*
About 15 minutes before the roar occurred, somewhere on the border between the eastern and southern sectors of the Elder Millie Peninsula.
Some members of the 9th Battalion of the Council's Southern Branch were constantly wandering on top of a huge ruins. It was because the heavy downpour that had continued for several days had washed away the piled-up volcanic ash, revealing much of the hidden ruins.
The soaked ground had turned into a swamp where soil, volcanic ash, and grass roots were entangled, causing feet to sink deeply. The members of the 9th Battalion of the Southern Branch walked through such ground, patrolling the inside of the ruins to see if there were any hidden monsters or people, and left markings.
Usually, when it came to buildings in ruins, there were many straight-line-shaped paths and structures, but the buildings in this hidden ruins had many curved shapes.
They were all simple in shape, roughly stacked with flat stones, but for curved buildings constructed by people of the past at least several hundred years ago, they were quite sophisticated.
Of course, their height was not very high, and huge tree roots and grasses were densely covering the surface as if swallowing them, so most of them were not intact.
Nevertheless, they were generally located on a spot that wouldn't sink into the swamp by piling up stairs high and building structures on them, and judging from the openings that served as windows and doors, it was clear that civilization had developed.
The abandoned homesteads, with no one around and traces of long years, evoked a quiet eeriness as if they were abandoned lands.
Walking along that strange and desolate path, the platoon leader suddenly spotted a faded stone statue and stopped, staring at it as if enchanted. It was because he seemed to have seen several statues of similar shapes in the place he had just passed.
The statue, which took the form of a woman, somehow looked lonely, and as he faced those carved, empty eyes, it felt as if he was being sucked in.
A damp and humid wind blew, and only the sound of leaves brushing against each other lingered in his ears. At that moment, he heard someone calling him from afar.
"Platoon Leader, please take a look at this!"
The platoon leader, who had been staring at the statue, immediately turned his eyes and approached the place where the platoon member was calling.
It seemed to be a place where a pillar was erected between huge piles of stones to create an entrance, and there were four more members, including the one who had called him. And they were looking at something inside, illuminating it with light balls. The platoon leader approached and asked,
"What's going on?"
"Isn't this... a monster's nest?"
The platoon leader, who immediately examined the inside, saw large, bluish-white eggs surrounded by sticky, slimy substances. Some of the eggs had cracked shells, and the contents inside seemed to have already disappeared. He, who had approached as if bothered, changed his expression to a serious one and said,
"This... Tsk, it seems too open to be called a monster's nest. Besides, aren't the eggs too exposed?"
"We also thought it was a bit strange, so we're telling you."
A faint steam flowed out from the broken eggs they were looking at, as if something had just hatched and come out.
"It doesn't seem like it's been long since they hatched, right?"
"It seems so."
"If this place is a nest, the adults would have been guarding it right before hatching, and it would have been located deep inside where it's quite difficult to find... It seems more like the eggs were moved before hatching rather than being a nest."
"Do they also move eggs outside the nest? Isn't the nest the safest place?"
"I'm not sure about the reason either... Anyway, it's not an environment where a nest is likely to be."
While they were closely examining the scene they were seeing for the first time, another member compared the appearance of the eggs in front of them with the characteristics of eggs he had noted in his notebook.
"None of the known monsters lay eggs that look like this."
Then, the member who had been talking with the platoon leader added,
"Ah, I heard that among the mutant individuals reported a few days ago, avian and reptilian types were additionally discovered. Although no eggs or young were found at that time, considering that mutant individuals are continuously being discovered, the adults of these eggs may also be unknown individuals."
"Then there's a high possibility that they are eggs of mutants. But what's the point of us speculating? Let's contact the expedition team first. Who has the radio?"
"It's you, Platoon Leader."
"...Oh, damn-, I'll do it."
"Yes, understood."
The platoon leader, who had been peering inside, came out to contact the expedition team, scratching the back of his head in annoyance. And he used the radio to call the nearby expedition team, but there was no response from them, perhaps because the distance was a bit far and communication wasn't working.
"So annoying... This isn't working again."
He kept waiting for a response on the radio, slowly looking around with his hands in his pockets. Then, he suddenly realized that except for the three members inside with him, the other one was nowhere to be seen. Without much thought, he was holding the radio and asked the members behind him, tilting his head.
"Hey guys, where did Dylan go?"
"Pardon?"
The members inside also checked the personnel inside the pillar and noticed that one of their colleagues had disappeared. They hurriedly came out and looked around. Then, they spoke with a puzzled expression.
"Until just now... he was here with us."
"So, where did he go now?"
The platoon leader sensed that something was wrong, lowered the radio, and asked coldly. Two members quickly jumped on top of the structure to find their missing colleague, but his figure was nowhere to be seen as if he had evaporated.
The platoon leader felt the humid wind blowing once more in the strange atmosphere. As a faint smell of blood mixed with that wind, he gently grasped the sword in the scabbard and said,
"Everyone, gather around me."
Feeling that the platoon leader's air was unusual, the members all approached him, stood back-to-back, and grabbed their respective scabbards. The platoon leader frowned and lamented while watching the silent surroundings.
"Ha, I should have checked as soon as I thought they had hatched not long ago."
One of the members asked in a trembling voice.
"Is there... something nearby?"
It was then. As soon as the member asked, a growling sound began to be heard from somewhere. As the members tensed up and drew their swords, the sound that had been coming from only one side gradually spread to several places and slowly closed in on them in an instant, surrounding them.
The wide-eyed members held their breath and pressed their backs even closer together.
As they were concentrating on their sight and hearing, being vigilant like that, suddenly something rushed at them at a fast speed from on top of the pile of stones where the unidentified eggs were.
Kyaaaak—!
"Above!"
As the member who saw it leaped forward to confront the creature, the platoon leader grabbed his arm and pulled him hard, then rolled to the side together to gain distance.
And as soon as he swung his sword and unleashed a sword energy, the creature's body was split in half, and green slime burst out, soaking the stone floor. The ground splattered with that slime slowly melted away, emitting hazy smoke.
"It's a Dermoca!"
Simultaneously with the platoon leader's shout, Dermocas, who had appeared from who knows where, popped out one by one from the bushes and wandered around, surrounding them. As if they had been hiding and waiting, their number was considerable.
Seeing the overwhelming number, the platoon leader unleashed another sword energy towards the front, but the creatures quickly dodged it, causing only the nearby structures to be shattered. The stone statue they had been looking at earlier also had its neck blown off.
However, the power of the sword energy that could partially destroy stone structures must have been quite threatening, as the Dermocas surrounded them but kept a certain distance and didn't recklessly rush in.
Nevertheless, the numbers were still greater on their side, so the members, including the platoon leader, couldn't move and were only in a standoff.
In the midst of that, the creatures suddenly roared threateningly at the platoon members, and the wrinkled lumps on their backs began to twitch and tremble.
As the members were watching the creatures' sudden behavior with tension, a huge sound reverberating in all directions and a fierce vibration were suddenly felt with a boom—.
"Wha-, what?"
A heavy impact that shook the ground to the extent of making their legs tremble was transmitted. For a moment, their vigilance was slightly disrupted by the surprise. In the meantime, the lumps on the backs of the twitching Dermocas repeated contraction and relaxation, pumping as if their hearts were beating. One member moved his lips as if dreading.
"Platoon Leader, could that be... that thing?"
The platoon leader, who gulped at that, answered.
"...It's calling its kin."
Meanwhile, the platoon leader's mind was very confused with tangled thoughts.
'Is that the egg of a Dermocas? Wait a minute, weren't they mammals that give birth to young?'
'No, no. No one has seen their proper nest. Because it hasn't been discovered yet. The fact that they give birth to young was also a speculation, not a certainty.'
The creatures' hides looked considerably wrinkled and rough, and their eyes weren't visible, perhaps because they had degenerated due to relying on ultrasound. Instead, their jaw joints were abnormally developed.
As the closest creature opened its mouth, making a threatening sound, blood-mixed saliva dripped from its bright red maw. That stimulating and bizarre appearance was enough to evoke disgust and fear just by looking at it.
"Lucas."
"Yes."
"Those creatures, didn't you say they have high intelligence?"
"Yes, that's right. Because they can read fear. I heard we shouldn't show it."
Kyaaaak—!
The platoon leader smiled bitterly at the creatures' frenzied sounds threatening them from all directions.
"If you're not afraid of something that looks like that, are you even human? Ha... Damn, we're in big trouble. The radio isn't working either."
"What do we do now? There are too many of them... Do we retreat?"
The platoon leader, who had been gripping the sword handle and agonizing over the member's words, opened his mouth as if he had made a decision.
"If we go a little further from here, our platoon guys will be there. You go and call for some support. The rest of us will rescue Dylan with me."
"What? You're not going together?"
Their colleague Dylan was already being dragged around with his head bitten by the sharp teeth of a Dermocas. Putting aside the fact that his body was limp, he obviously had zero chance of being alive as he was chewed up with holes as if he had been stabbed. However, the platoon leader nodded even after seeing that and said,
"We have to at least bring back the corpse."
The member named Lucas stared at the determined side profile of the platoon leader and nodded along. Then, he immediately prepared to jump upwards.
The members gathered around Lucas as if to escort him and stepped back, and the Dermocas swarmed in more and more as if to strangle their breath. Eventually, the platoon leader's low voice brushed by.
"Make sure to call for support. Go quickly."
Comments
Katsura Kureha
"We have to at least bring back the body", while I understand the sentiment, maybe you should worry about those who are still alive first, unless all of you want to join him.
