“…You came back.”
The owlbear beastman looked at me and said that.
His expression was filled with an unmistakable complexity.
I shrugged.
A new hero had arrived, and this was the reaction?
The owlbear beastman was certainly a dignified gentleman, but at times like this, the vampire had his better points.
“As expected! I knew you would return! I believed in youuu!”
The vampire had said he would stay even if I didn’t come back, yet he seemed the happiest of all.
He let out such a roar of joy that my ears hurt.
In the midst of that, the vampire was quick on the uptake again; the moment he saw my face crumple, he clamped his mouth shut with a gulp.
Very good.
Once things had calmed down for a moment, the owlbear beastman cautiously opened his mouth.
“May I… ask you one thing?”
“Yes, old-timer.”
“Why did you come back here? My hearing is rather good, so I heard at least a little of your conversation with that officer. You would have been better off……”
Now that he mentioned it, this old man’s ears really didn’t seem ordinary.
He was the one who’d said he could occasionally hear sounds from the blackout zone even at the refugee camp far away in Gangnam.
So, anyway.
As for why I had refused the offer from an officer who had gone out of his way to make every possible accommodation for me……
“How should I put it, it’s… never mind. Let’s just be honest. What am I supposed to do?”
I flopped down into a chair and let my wings droop.
“Even if I go back like this, you know how it’ll be, don’t you? My parents will spend all day worrying themselves sick over that bitch of a younger sister who won’t ever come back. And me? I’ll hold a funeral for a few days, then feel awkward under my parents’ eyes and do nothing but play games until destruction comes and I die. I don’t want to end up like that.”
I truly wasn’t worried about that bitch. It was just that I knew how things would play out if I left her behind and went down like this.
It wouldn’t be a particularly happy future.
“But you saw them, didn’t you? Rather than face those things, that would probably be better.”
He wasn’t wrong.
He wasn’t wrong, but……
‘Ah, damn it. Why does this old man keep trying to shake the resolve of someone who’s already made up their mind?’
At this rate, I might suddenly change my mind and say I was going home after all.
Of course, that temptation only lasted a moment.
I looked up at the owlbear beastman with a confident expression and said,
“I’ll tell you this. I just can’t imagine that bitch dying so easily. The same goes for your family, old-timer. They’re alive.”
“How can you be so sure……”
The one who cut into those words was, absurdly enough, the vampire.
Color returned to his pale face as he shouted,
“You irreverent man! An angel speaks, and yet you cannot have faith!”
“…Please don’t react like that.”
“Yes, sir. It seems I got too excited.”
The vampire stepped smoothly back with a blank expression.
I was briefly impressed by how fast he switched stances.
“…Anyway, he isn’t exactly wrong. I don’t have any proof, but I keep feeling that way, like a kind of conviction. Don’t angels have prophetic abilities or something?”
The vampire immediately poured cold water on that.
“To be honest, no. We can only receive the Lord’s revelation and convey His words.”
“…Then let’s just let that part slide. But how about holding on to even a little hope? What if, by some chance, by one chance in ten thousand, they’re alive? Can you turn away from that possibility?”
“I……”
“At least I can’t.”
Saying that, I straightened up and stretched.
“For some reason, I feel like that bitch is alive, and that’s why I can’t go back. If I’m going back, I should at least drag her back by the hair.”
“…You are foolish. And stupid. This is recklessness.”
“Aren’t you the same, old-timer?”
At that, we both chuckled at the same time.
From the moment we decided to stay in the first place, it had been an utterly foolish thing to do.
“Since our bodies have mutated and we’ve gained strange abilities, shouldn’t we at least be able to put up a fight against those grotesque monsters?”
At those words, everyone laughed hollowly.
I laughed too.
But in truth, if I’m being honest, it wasn’t as if I was mentally prepared either.
The brutal scene shown to me by that coated-or-whatever mimic beast still wouldn’t leave my mind.
I couldn’t even begin to imagine facing things that approached pretending to be human, only to smash you in the back of the head.
Honestly, I was scared. Terribly scared.
But the image of the officer calmly predicting our destruction was vivid before my eyes.
One way or another, if their predictions were right, those monsters would eventually break through the containment line.
It was a question of whether I took the beating later or took it first.
In that case, I might as well choose the side where I at least had a chance to grab that bitch of a sister by the hair.
To be honest… I was worried about her too.
No matter how much I said I wasn’t worried, family was family. There was no helping it.
*
In the end, only six of us decided to stay here.
A number that could be considered many, or few.
Aside from me, the owlbear old-timer, and the vampire who kept going on about the Lord, the remaining three were an orc, a canine beastman close to human, and a naga with snake-like scales sprouting from his skin.
“…May I take it that those of you here will be civilian cooperators?”
The officer, who had returned while adjusting his beret, looked us over as he spoke.
There was still regret in his eyes over the fact that I hadn’t gone back, but the die had already been cast.
“Very well. I will respect your decision.”
The officer gave a brief salute.
A trace of relief, and at the same time a heavy sense of responsibility, passed over his face.
Now that we had decided to stay, half of our lifelines were effectively in his hands.
“I am Captain Kim Hyeongcheol of the Martial Law Command Special Response Team. From now on, I will be in charge of your operational control.”
Captain Kim introduced himself without any unnecessary words.
Then he immediately led us away.
“There is no time. We will begin by assessing your combat power at once.”
The place we headed to was deeper inside the underground parking lot.
All the vehicles had been cleared away, and the floor was divided with tape into something like a makeshift training area.
Sandbags, discarded tires, and unidentified military equipment were scattered here and there.
“Visibility inside the blackout zone is limited to ten meters. We don’t know what kind of situation you may encounter, or when. Therefore, we need to quantify your mutation abilities as accurately as possible and determine how to employ them tactically.”
Captain Kim glanced at an adjutant holding a chart.
“First, we’ll check the physical enhancement–type mutants.”
The ones he pointed out were the large orc, the canine beastman, the naga, and the owlbear old-timer.
In effect, everyone except me and the vampire had been called forward.
The orc was the first to step out hesitantly.
Green skin, tusks protruding from his mouth. At a glance, he was an orc straight out of a fantasy novel.
However, because he was wearing a suit, he somehow gave off a rather intellectual impression.
“Please lift that rebar over there.”
“T-this? It looks too heavy……”
The orc man pointed in confusion at the rebar lying on the floor.
It was a lump of metal as tall as the orc himself, and even at a rough glance it looked like it easily weighed several hundred kilograms.
“Hmm, I’ll try, but I wonder if it’s really possible… H-huh…?”
The orc, who had been lacking confidence, lifted the rebar far too easily.
And without even a shout of effort, up it went.
As if he were lifting Styrofoam, he slung the rebar over his shoulder.
“…It actually worked?”
“Muscle strength unmeasurable. Estimated at over one ton.”
The adjutant recorded it in a dry voice.
Next was the canine beastman. His overall physical abilities had developed greatly, along with abilities related to his sense of smell.
He could distinguish the scent of all the chemicals placed far away.
And the naga……
“Y-you’re not going to hit me with that hammer, are you…?”
Since he had grown scales, they tried to conduct a hardness test on them… but unfortunately, the circumstances didn’t allow for it.
It wasn’t as if they could peel off his scales to test them either, so they moved on for the time being.
‘…Still, our fighting power is a lot stronger than I expected, isn’t it?’
Honestly, I was a little surprised.
I’d thought their appearances had merely changed grotesquely, but every single one of them was on the level of a human weapon.
At this rate, couldn’t they just rip apart a mimic beast or whatever with brute force?
That thought was almost enough to make me complacent.
“Next. Kim Jihu.”
Captain Kim called the vampire’s name.
Apparently, this fanatic’s name was Kim Jihu.
“Yes! Servant of the Lord, Kim Jihu, reporting!”
His eyes were still sunken as he answered in a voice brimming with military discipline.
Captain Kim frowned slightly.
“I heard you possess exceptional regenerative abilities.”
“That is correct. Since the Lord has granted me an immortal body, does that not mean I am to endure pain and save the masses?”
“…Let us confirm it directly.”
Captain Kim signaled to the adjutant.
The adjutant took out a dagger and handed it to the vampire.
Without hesitation, the vampire cut his own palm.
Slash.
Fresh blood spilled everywhere.
But at that moment—
Sssss.
With a sound like boiling blood, the split wound closed up in an instant.
Unable to hold back at the wondrous sight, I asked,
“Can you use Blood Demon Arts too, by any chance?”
“…What is that?”
…Ah.
The joke I’d thrown out because I couldn’t stay depressed forever had ended up triggering my PTSD.