Chapter 150
The group continued scanning their surroundings in alarm, but there was no one in sight. Only time passed, steadily and uneventfully.
“What are we supposed to do? This is our first time here, and we don’t even know what’s dangerous. What we do depends on your instructions, Captain Balmung.”
Growing impatient at being unable to move, Parna readied her staff and approached Balmung to ask for instructions, all the while keeping watch on their surroundings.
“...I’ll go out first. You all wait here. If there’s something nearby... it should make some kind of move once I go out there.”
Balmung’s expression turned resolute, and he stepped beyond the range of the stealth-camouflage barrier deployed across the elevator shaft.
Everyone watched tensely as Balmung boldly ventured alone into the danger zone.
“...Doesn’t look like there’s anything here.”
Balmung walked out and circled the area covered by the stealth camouflage, confirming that nothing was there. The place where Parna and the others stood was surrounded by ruined buildings overgrown with grass. They had been sharpening their senses and watching the buildings, wondering if something might be hiding inside one of them, but they could sense no sign of anything lurking and watching them. Balmung seemed to decide it was safe and started back toward them.
“...Behind you! Run, now!”
But in the next instant, a shout rang out so loudly it echoed. It hadn’t come from Parna and the others, who were supposed to be safe, but from Balmung, who was supposed to be in danger.
“Ugh... Uwaaaah!”
Everyone reacted to Balmung’s voice and turned around. The sight was so horrific that it seemed impossible it had happened in only a few seconds, and one of the Resistance members let out a scream.
Rex, Menou, and Takako grimaced at the carnage that had unfolded in an instant, while Kururu, Parna, Tina, and Alice stared wide-eyed, speechless at the grotesque sight they’d never seen before.
“What is that...? When did it get here?”
Parna, on the verge of losing her will to fight, steeled herself and gripped her staff again, realizing that she would be next if she did nothing. In that instant, the three Resistance members standing farthest from Balmung had been killed.
“What is that...? A monster?”
“No. It’s too strange to be a monster... It looks far too much like a human.”
Tina and Rex were intimidated by the bizarre beings, but tried to assess the situation.
The beings were pitch-black. Black, mist-like stuff clung to their entire bodies. Beyond their round, glowing yellow eyes and vaguely human forms, there was nothing distinctive about them.
“Cannibals...! Why are they here? No... how did they get inside this place with its stealth camouflage?!”
One of the Resistance members muttered those words, their face filled with terror.
“Those are... Cannibals?”
Seeing them with her own eyes, Tina understood what Balmung had meant when he said they were nothing like demons. They were more like monsters. No, they were even more cruel and hideous than monsters, and somehow terrifying.
Parts of the three slain Resistance members’ bodies had been torn away, and three Cannibals silently devoured them, one each. Their mouths gaped wide, impossibly large for their otherwise docile-looking forms, and they bit into their prey with the ravenous vigor of starving ghouls, all without a sound.
That’s right. There was no sound.
Though the victims had met gruesome deaths, parts of their bodies torn away, not a sound escaped them. Even as they were being devoured, there was no sound. That was why none of them had noticed their comrades being killed behind them.
“Front line! Form a circle around the rear line! Don’t give them a chance to get behind you!”
While everyone was bewildered by the sudden carnage, Balmung calmly issued orders. The others, who had frozen in shock, immediately obeyed, forming a circle around Merry and the rest of the rear line.
“What are you planning to do? What good will a circle formation do?”
As they formed the circle, Takako moved beside Balmung to get a better grasp of the situation and asked him that.
“I’m still figuring that out... Cannibals never make a sound. If you turn your back, one will sneak up on you without a sound and kill you before you even realize it’s there. They’re the most troublesome assassins on Earth.”
“When you say they don’t make a sound, do you mean no matter what they do?”
“That’s right. They absorb every sound they cause with that black mist. Even if you scream while you’re being killed, no one will hear you... And on top of that, they’re incredibly fast.”
As Balmung spoke, a Cannibal soundlessly appeared right before Takako’s eyes. For less than a second, it stared fixedly at her before opening its mouth wide.
“Takako-san!”
Alice noticed it first and shouted to warn Takako, who was on the verge of having her head bitten off. But the attack was so sudden and happened in an instant that Takako could only stare wide-eyed, frozen and speechless.
“Ngh!”
But as her mind went blank, Takako’s survival instinct, honed through battles with monsters, took control of her body. She swung her right leg straight up, driving it into the abdomen of one of the Cannibals that had rushed her, and kicked it high into the sky with tremendous force. Her Skill added an explosion for good measure.
“O... O-oh?”
Perhaps it was an unexpected counterattack, because Balmung stared at Takako in shock.
“Phew... They really are fast. That was close.”
“H-hey, hey! You can see its movements?”
“More or less. It caught me off guard, so I thought I was done for. But I was faster... That’s all there is to it.”
“I-I see.”