Chapter 96
"Haa..."
Every time I opened my mouth, a long stream of white breath poured out.
Looking at the pure-white blizzard raging beyond the gymnasium's high windows, I repeatedly rubbed my numb hands together.
The past few days had truly been a time for which even the word hell was inadequate.
Originally, this enormous indoor gymnasium was a somewhat flimsy safe zone for those of us living nearby, but it was still the only home where we could find solace.
After the world was destroyed by monsters, people with nowhere else to go gradually gathered here and naturally formed a community.
Since no one was better off than anyone else, we shared clothes, divided the food we scavenged fairly, and stubbornly held out.
As a result, we were able to adapt well to the changed world.
But one day, this absurd cold suddenly arrived.
'It's a little better today.'
The temperature plunged to dozens of degrees below zero in an instant.
Most people had come to the gym wearing short sleeves or light outerwear, only to be trapped in the blizzard before they could evacuate.
The flesh-rending wind and blizzard froze the city outside and completely halted everyone's movements.
Even more desperate were the monsters that emerged from the white snow.
They were enormous ape-like monsters covered in pure-white fur, their red eyes glinting ominously.
After seeing them crawling silently through the blizzard and prowling around the gymnasium, none of us dared to go outside.
Going out meant certain death.
There was no way anyone could fight something like that in a blizzard where it was difficult even to walk—
"I think I've become an Incarnation."
Then someone said it.
The man who had been muttering dazedly while looking at the blue system window had received a Constellation's blessing that day, then gone outside alone with a weapon.
"What about that man?"
"He went outside..."
"He's insane, in that blizzard..."
Everyone tried to stop him, but he went outside without paying them any heed.
And, astonishingly, he hunted one of those ferocious white-furred apes and returned with boxes.
"Please take this."
"...Are you all right?"
"Yes."
"Get some rest first, quickly. Your bandages..."
Although his entire body was covered in sharp claw marks and minor injuries and he was bleeding, he smiled broadly at us.
It was the moment the only person who could properly fight here—and our savior—was born.
From that day onward, we established a survival method of our own.
While he drew the apes' attention or hunted them outside, the more agile members of the remaining group formed teams and searched nearby buildings or old boxes for food.
Thanks to that, we were able to survive from day to day without starving to death.
But the ape monsters were far smarter than we had expected.
By now, they no longer attacked recklessly.
They began forming thorough formations and launching coordinated attacks, ambushing people who were searching for boxes in the deep snow.
The situation deteriorated rapidly.
It became too much for that man alone to handle the swarms of apes pouring in, and because of their relentless interference, we had far too little time to search for boxes.
Eventually, the inevitable happened.
"What's happening?"
...The box team hasn't returned."
"Huh? How long..."
"Five hours."
"...Five hours in this blizzard..."
The first box-search team, made up mostly of sturdy men, had disappeared in the blizzard.
Calling it missing was just a euphemism; they had probably—
When word of their disappearance spread, the gymnasium filled with despair and fear.
Unable to do anything else, we hastily formed a new box team and sent them outside once more, but the result was terrible.
Even the Incarnation struggled against the apes' ambushes, and the new box team had to flee back screaming without finding a single box.
And so, for the first time, we went hungry for two full days without obtaining even a single morsel of food.
To make matters worse, when we looked through the gymnasium's windows, their numbers had increased rather than diminished.
Now dozens of white-furred apes were lying in ambush near the gymnasium, waiting only for the right moment to smash through this thin metal door and enter.
"I'm hungry..."
"I'm cold..."
With hunger, cold, and the terror of being isolated, the atmosphere inside the gymnasium sank into despair.
It was then, when the only sounds heard here and there were muffled, stifled sobs.
Clutching the bandage around his shoulder as blood seeped through it, the Incarnation staggered to his feet.
"I'll go out alone."
Everyone's eyes focused on him at his words, spoken in a cracked voice.
"I'll go out alone and lure those apes far away from the gymnasium. Then, once they chase me and move away, everyone can escape in another direction."
"No! What are you saying?!"
"Are you crazy?! If you go out now, you'll definitely die!"
The gymnasium was instantly filled with voices trying to dissuade him.
People grabbed him and shook their heads.
This wasn't luring them away; it was unmistakably suicide.
On top of that, his body still bore the deep cuts and bruises inflicted by the apes over the past few days, along with yesterday's injuries, and he looked as though he could barely walk properly.
"This may be our last chance. We have no food, so later we won't even have the strength to run... And I happened to see something yesterday. If you walk straight from the intersection ahead toward the convenience store, there's a boundary where the blizzard stops. Once we get past it... it'll be better than here, at least."
His determined gaze as he spoke of luring the monsters away already held the desperate resolve to throw his life away.
Faced with that gaze and their small desire to survive, no one could stop him any longer.
***
Ssssss—
The heavy metal door of the gymnasium opened, and the sound of the whipping blizzard could be heard.
Clutching his bandaged shoulder, the man stepped forward into the biting wind.
"Haa..."
White breath scattered each time he opened his mouth.
The biting wind had already numbed the tip of the man's nose and ears.
Even so, he tightened his grip on his weapon with grim determination.
"Hoo... Let's go."
He began moving forward cautiously, on high alert.
Because of the blizzard, he could see only a few meters ahead.
Cold sweat ran down his back at the tension of wondering whether the apes with their red eyes glinting in the white snow might leap out at any moment and bite through his neck.
'I can't get hurt around here. I need to get a little farther—'
Far away, he saw the shape of a huge white-furred creature half-buried in a snowdrift.
And that shape was facing him.
"...Have they already spotted me?"
Still, there was only one.
I can handle it.
The man drew on the Constellation's power to its limit beneath the pressure bearing down on his heart.
Every muscle in his body tensed, and energy gathered around his weapon.
Having prepared to clash at any moment, he approached carefully, but soon his eyes narrowed in puzzlement.
Strangely, the giant ape did not move at all.
"...Huh?"
As the man approached, he suddenly sucked in a breath.
The head of the white-furred ape that had tormented them so terribly had been hideously blown apart, as if a giant watermelon had been crushed.
It looked as though its head had been pulverized by some tremendous impact.
"...Did they fight each other?"
The man reached that conclusion at the sight, but this wasn't the end of it.
As he looked around, the man's face began to fill with horror.
Although blurred by the blizzard, ominous red eyes were scattered here and there across the white snow, and near each one lay the corpses of apes whose heads had been blown apart.
It wasn't one or two.
Dozens of apes that had been near the gymnasium had already become cold chunks of meat buried in the snow.
"What in the world is this...?"
It was then, while the confused man stood there blankly.
Beyond the dense white blizzard in the distance, he saw the silhouette of something approaching with a heavy sound.
Boom—! Boom—!
"No way, is that...?"
The silhouette slowly emerging from the blizzard was grotesque beyond description.
Four legs, and a single sharp horn thrust high toward the sky.
A human upper body.
"A-a centaur?"
The man instinctively aimed his weapon and took a step backward.
Perhaps that thing was what had done this to the apes.
But the instant the silhouette fully emerged from the blizzard into his view, the Incarnation could no longer say a word and froze in place with an incredulous expression.
Looking closer, the figure wasn't a creature from mythology.
The horn that had been thrust toward the sky was actually a spear held by a young girl,
and the four legs and heavy, stony body belonged to some kind of stone monster carrying her.
...Since it was carrying a girl, perhaps it was more like a summon than a monster?
As he stared blankly, the girl had somehow already approached right in front of him and spoke.
"I've come to save you."
"Huh? Ah."
At those words, the man opened his mouth.
He had been desperately waiting to hear those words, but he had never imagined that this moment would truly come.
So when it finally arrived, the man began blurting out worries she hadn't even asked about.
"...This place is really dangerous. The monkeys keep coming endlessly..."
"It's all right."
"There are a lot of people in the gymnasium, so even the food..."
"It's all right."
"...You don't seem to have even a bag, so do you have a place to stay nearby?"
Otherwise, how could she say she would be able to provide enough food for so many people?
Even the price of food was gradually rising on the Gallery's trade board.
The girl smiled and said,
"There's a train nearby."