Chapter 114: Nobody Walks at Night
[PwincessMargaret]: Oh, Walfred.
[PwincessMargaret]: You’re finally online.
She spoke as if she’d been waiting for him.
Puzzled, Walfred asked,
[Me]: Is there something you wanted to tell me?
[PwincessMargaret]: Ah, well, the thing is...
[PwincessMargaret]: We’ve run into a bit of a problem.
A problem? What problem?
The Spirit King had been taken down, and more than anything, there shouldn’t be any monsters left in downtown Philadelphia. When he asked why, Margaret’s reply came quickly.
[PwincessMargaret]: To be precise, there’s a problem with the two cleared gates our shelter has been using as food bases.
[Me]: What kind of problem?
[PwincessMargaret]: The gates have frozen over.
[PwincessMargaret]: The water, the ground, even the crops we were growing, all of it froze solid. For all practical purposes, they can’t be used as food bases anymore.
The inside of the gates had frozen.
At those words, Walfred’s expression hardened.
He had seen a scene much like the one Margaret described before.
’The gate at Lower Manhattan Tech District Hall.’
The F-rank gate, [Blue Hole].
With its mild tropical climate and a wide open sea, it was a place where people could be fully self-sufficient.
But after it fell within the White Dome’s range,
the entire interior of [Blue Hole] froze over. Snow fell endlessly from the sky, and the ecosystem there was completely wiped out.
’This is a lot like back then.’
Though it wasn’t exactly the same.
At the time, [Blue Hole] had still been within the White Dome’s range, but Philadelphia’s White Dome had vanished along with the Spirit King’s extermination.
’And yet it’s still frozen...’
Could it be that once a place was touched by the White Dome even a single time, this happened?
As he was mulling over that theory,
[PwincessMargaret]: Walfred?
[PwincessMargaret]: You didn’t ghost me, did you?
Margaret messaged him again.
Snapping back to attention, Walfred told her in detail about everything he had been through.
Once he finished explaining the whole story,
[PwincessMargaret]: Hmm, the White Dome, huh...
[PwincessMargaret]: That’s a plausible theory.
Margaret replied in a tone that said she agreed with his reasoning. Along with it came a message tinged with frustration.
[PwincessMargaret]: Ugh, it’s just one thing after another.
[PwincessMargaret]: I thought taking down the Spirit King would be the end of it. Who knew this would happen.
[Me]: Tell me about it.
Walfred played along lightly.
But only for a moment. Margaret bounced back as if she had never been discouraged at all.
[PwincessMargaret]: Still, what’s done is done, so I won’t dwell on it. Right now, finding a new food base takes priority.
[PwincessMargaret]: So just a little while ago, we gathered everyone’s opinions and decided to relocate the shelter.
Her decisiveness was something else.
Walfred marveled at it. At the same time, he understood her decision.
Now that the world had frozen over, farming was practically impossible outside of gates.
So while they still had food to spare, they needed to find a gate where farming was possible, or where they could be self-sufficient, as soon as they could.
[Me]: Have you decided where you’re relocating?
[PwincessMargaret]: We’re still discussing it.
[PwincessMargaret]: For now, Columbia and Washington DC are our top candidates.
Not a bad choice.
Neither was all that far from Philadelphia, so it would greatly ease the burden of travel on the non-Awakened.
Meanwhile, Margaret’s reply continued.
[PwincessMargaret]: Anyway, once the relocation site is confirmed, I’ll contact you again.
[Me]: Sure. I hope you find a good place.
[Me]: And take good care of Erica.
[PwincessMargaret]: Of course.
[PwincessMargaret]: Talk to you later.
With that,
the private chat with Margaret came to an end.
After browsing the boards a while longer, Walfred realized quite some time had passed since he’d arrived here and logged out of the community.
’I should get some sleep.’
For tomorrow, when they would arrive in Key West.
Walfred sat leaning back against the cot where Elsa lay and closed his eyes.
But in that moment,
a sudden sound made him open his eyes again. He had heard footsteps, faint but unmistakable.
Not one set, but several.
’Who’s there?’
The footsteps came from outside the station office.
From the direction of the east exit stairs.
Walfred’s nerves went on high alert.
’A monster? Or a person?’
Footsteps that careful yet that regular most likely belonged to people.
But if they were people, they had no business wandering around this deep into the night. As he stared toward the east exit, question after question running through his mind,
Thump, thump!
The footsteps closed in fast.
Moments later, a group of men and women in cold-weather gear appeared along with the glow of flashlights. Then, the instant a beam swept across the inside of the station office,
"Gah!"
"Wh-what the? A person...?"
Startled voices rang out.
Naturally. They probably never imagined anyone would be here.
Unlike the shaken group, Walfred studied them with calm, level eyes.
’Three men, one woman.’
Armed with nothing more than steel pipes.
Nothing else about them stood out as a concern, but he didn’t lower his guard. Then a young man’s eyes went wide as he muttered,
"Don’t tell me, an outsider...?"
"That’s right."
Walfred admitted it readily.
There was no particular reason to hide it.
"And who are you?"
"W-we’re... the night search team."
"...A night search?"
Searching at night?
Maybe before the world froze over, but these days the very idea of a night search was nonsense.
Visibility was nonexistent, the blizzards got worse, and monsters became far more active.
’Something’s off here.’
Walfred’s eyes narrowed.
The nonsense about a night search was one thing, but the man was in rough shape too. His intermittently darting pupils and ragged breathing were proof enough.
Just then,
"So who’s that girl?"
A woman who looked to be in her late thirties pointed at Elsa through the station office window. Walfred gave a light shrug and answered,
"My daughter."
"Your daughter? But her hair color..."
"Family stuff. It’s complicated."
It wasn’t a lie.
It really was complicated. Then Walfred put on a firm expression, as if to say drop it.