Chapter 117: Skinwalkers
After mulling it over, Walfred made up his mind and spoke to Colton.
"Where’s the shelter?"
"...! Y-you’ll help us?"
"We’ll see when we get there."
Walfred slyly dodged giving a definite answer.
Even so, Colton nodded, apparently satisfied enough with just that.
"It’s close by! I’ll show you the way."
Afraid Walfred might change his mind,
Colton wiped the tears smeared across his face and took the lead. Walfred cleaned the bloodstains off Elsa’s face and followed behind him.
***
On the way to the shelter with Colton,
Walfred demanded an explanation about the monsters that imitated people, and soon he was able to hear the story of the creatures from Colton.
"They’re called Skinwalkers."
"Skinwalkers, huh..."
A name that suits exactly what they do.
Walfred let out a small snort of laughter. Meanwhile, Colton continued with a grim face.
"They devour people and steal their bodies and memories. Then they imitate the person they ate, and telling them apart is extremely difficult."
Monster classification rank: unknown.
Now that he knew the creatures’ name, Walfred suddenly looked at Colton and tilted his head.
"Aren’t you a non-Awakened?"
"Ah, yes. That’s right."
"Then how did you learn all this?"
"I heard it from the Pharmacist."
"...The Pharmacist?"
"Ah! She’s the one who managed our shelter."
Helen, a nature-attribute B-rank Hunter.
Before the world froze over, she had run a pharmacy in the neighborhood for many years, which was why everyone called her the Pharmacist.
Walfred nodded quietly.
Then he threw out another question.
"When did the Skinwalkers first appear?"
"I don’t know the exact date, but my guess is about two weeks ago."
Roughly two weeks before now,
a strange phenomenon had occurred between Savannah and Brunswick, and Helen and the Hunters had gone out to investigate.
Here, Walfred tossed out a question.
"What do you mean by a strange phenomenon?"
"I’m sorry. I don’t know the details either..."
Colton trailed off.
From what he’d heard, information about the phenomenon was shared only among the Hunters. After a short sigh, he steered the conversation back on track.
"And that evening, the Pharmacist, who had gone out to investigate, came back. Alone."
"...She came back alone?"
"Yes. She said the Hunters who went with her were stuck in the area where the phenomenon occurred."
Along with that somewhat murky answer,
Helen had gathered every member of the shelter in one place.
"After that, the Pharmacist said she had something to tell us and asked us to come into her room one at a time."
"Out of nowhere? She didn’t say why?"
"No. She only said it was urgent, so everyone did as they were told. Me included."
From what he said, Helen was someone the shelter members trusted deeply. So everyone went through the one-on-one meetings without any suspicion.
"What happened in those one-on-one meetings?"
"Hmm, nothing special, really. She just touched my forehead and hands, one after the other, and then said I could go."
It was the same for everyone else.
Once the one-on-one meetings were finished, Helen delivered shocking news to them all.
"That’s when she told us about the Skinwalkers."
Monsters that eat people and imitate them.
According to her, the area where the strange phenomenon had occurred was crawling with Skinwalkers.
"She said the reason the Hunters couldn’t come back was that at some point, Skinwalkers had slipped in among the investigation team."
A situation where no one could tell who was real.
If they came back carelessly in that state, things would spiral out of control. In that sense, the judgment of Helen and the Hunters had been correct.
"The next day, the Pharmacist left the shelter, saying she would go request help from shelters outside Savannah. And then..."
All contact was lost.
At that, Colton let out a frustrated sigh, and then his face hardened again.
"Then, on the second day after the Pharmacist left, the Hunters suddenly returned to the shelter."
"What...?"
Walfred’s eyes widened.
"Hold on, then what about the Skinwalkers...?"
"From what I heard, they said every problem had been dealt with. After that, the Hunters shared information about the Skinwalkers with everyone, just as the Pharmacist had."
But the problem wasn’t solved.
If anything, the Hunters’ return created a new one. As the days went by, people began to disappear, one by one.
And then,
"...We soon realized."
That Skinwalkers had slipped into the shelter.
From then on, as time passed, people grew more and more distrustful of one another. As a result, the shelter was now on the verge of falling apart completely.
Just as the story was winding down,
"Ah! We’re here. That’s the place."
They had arrived at their destination before he knew it.
What came into view next was a steel barricade built into a massive rock wall. Beyond it, a cave of considerable size could be seen.
[Savannah Wine Cave]
A place once famous as a tourist attraction.
Now, it was said to serve as a large shelter for the survivors of Savannah. As they neared the barricade in front of the cave,
"Stop, stop right there!"
a voice rang out, blocking their way.
Three young men beyond the barricade.
Armed with fire axes and the like, they came out past the barricade and shouted.
"This area is currently off-limits to outsiders."
"Sorry, but you’ll have to go somewhere... Huh?"
"Colton?"
The three men’s eyes went round.
As if they recognized Colton. A moment later, the young men asked, puzzled,
"Why are you back so soon?"
"And the people who went with you? More to the point, those two are clearly outsiders..."
At the string of questions, Colton sighed and explained everything that had happened.
Meanwhile, Walfred set Elsa, whom he had been carrying on his back, down on the ground. Then, pointing at the young men listening to Colton’s story, he said,
"Elsa. Among those men over there, are there any monsters pretending to be human, like before?"
"Nope, none."
Elsa sniffed the air, then shook her head.
Thankfully, it seemed they were all human.
Meanwhile, around that time,
"Wh, what did you say?"
"You’re telling us your whole team was those people-imitating monsters? E-even Kayla?"
"That’s right."
"That can’t be..."
Once the full story was told,
the young men wore stunned, hollow expressions.
But only for a moment.
Of the three, the one with especially dark, tanned skin shot back with a fierce look on his face.
"...How are we supposed to believe that?"
"What?"
"For all we know, the real you already got eaten by a monster, and a monster imitating you is standing here lying to us!"
"Donovan."
Colton spoke calmly, but the young man called Donovan showed no sign of settling down and kept shouting.
"Just look at the fact that you showed up with outsiders...!"
"These people came to save us."
"Save us? How, exactly?"
"They have the ability to tell humans and monsters apart. That’s how they figured out that Kayla and the others were monsters."
"...!"
Donovan’s eyes widened a little.
But only for a moment.
"No. Now I trust you even less."
"Donovan!"
"Don’t yell at me! I, I really can’t trust anyone anymore. Not you! Not Seth or Charlie, not the Pharmacist, none of them...!"
Donovan clutched his head and screamed.
At the sight, Colton pressed his lips shut. With a look that said he understood exactly how the young man felt.
That was when it happened.
"Hey, you there!"
An unfamiliar voice came from deeper inside the cave.
A moment later, a sturdily built man with curly brown hair stepped outside. He furrowed his brow with a menacing scowl.
"What’s all this commotion?"
"Ah! Hunter Garrett."
"Well, the thing is, Colton, who went out earlier, came back with outsiders..."
"What? Outsiders?"
Garrett’s face crumpled.
He glared daggers at Colton.
"Colton. Have you lost your mind? You know full well what state this shelter is in, and you bring outsiders here?"
"H-Hunter Garrett. But these people are..."
"Shut it. Move!"
After roughly shoving Colton aside,
Garrett turned his glare on Walfred.
"Hey, you two. Our shelter isn’t taking in outsiders for the time being. So while I’m still asking nicely, you’d better get out of..."
"Sniff sniff. Ah!"
And in that instant,
Elsa, who had been sniffing the air, opened her eyes wide.
Then she pointed at Garrett.
"Not human."
"...What?"
Not human, just like that, out of nowhere?
Garrett’s face twisted into a scowl as he glowered at Elsa.
"What is this little brat talking..."
But he never got to finish.
The moment he turned to look at Elsa,
Splat!
an ice axe came flying out of nowhere and blew Garrett’s head clean off.