Chapter 144: Behind the Conference Room Door
Jenna, a junior at Brooklyn Girls’ Academy.
She still vividly remembered the day the world began to freeze.
It was the first day of her class trip, right as they were heading to their lodgings at Coral World Resort after finishing the day’s itinerary. Breaking news flashed across the screens, and the sky turned white.
And not long after.
The temperature plummeted.
[The Antarctica Gate raid has failed]
The resulting gate liberation caused the entire world to freeze over at a terrifying pace.
To make matters worse, spatial rifts of all sizes tore open in midair, and countless monsters poured out. The streets descended into chaos in an instant.
[Aaaaaahhh!]
[H-help! Somebody help me!]
[Stay back! Kyaaah!]
The streets turned into a slaughterhouse in the blink of an eye.
While everyone stood frozen, staring blankly at the carnage.
The first ones in the group to snap out of it were the teachers chaperoning the students.
[Kids, get to the resort, now!]
[There’s no time! Hurry.]
The teachers fought desperately to evacuate the students to the resort, even resorting to drawing the monsters’ attention or luring them away.
As a result, more than half of the teachers met horrific ends, but thanks to their sacrifice, the students made it safely to the resort.
Afterward, the students, all trembling with fear, called their families. Jenna was no different.
But.
’...I can’t get through.’
The lines were dead.
The internet was down too.
And as time passed, the cold crept into the resort building itself. To escape the brutal chill, the students moved down into the basement.
There were, at least, two silver linings.
One was that Coral World Resort’s underground facilities were far more massive than anyone expected.
And the other was...
[Everyone, calm down!]
The one who wiped out every monster inside the resort.
A powerful rallying point had appeared, someone capable of uniting the panicked crowds.
’S-rank Hunter, Elma.’
She was quite the celebrity.
Perhaps thanks to her title as the youngest S-rank in the New America Republic, she’d appeared on TV fairly often.
Once the chaos died down.
Word spread that Elma was at Coral World Resort, and countless Hunters and non-Awakened flocked there from all across Key West.
And one month later.
The group of survivors at Coral World Resort came to be known as Coral World Shelter, growing into a massive shelter with over three thousand members.
’At first, everything went smoothly.’
The Hunters fought off the monsters that threatened their survival, while the non-Awakened searched for supplies or farmed inside cleared gates.
It was an ideal arrangement, with everyone focused on doing whatever they could, giving it their all.
But it didn’t last long.
Two months ago.
When a new group of roughly twenty Hunters joined, the balance that had held between the Hunters and the non-Awakened fell apart.
’A-rank Hunter, Edward.’
A fire-attribute Hunter, rare as they come.
Joining with a number of B-rank Hunters in tow, he leveraged his considerable savvy and skill to claim the position of the shelter’s deputy administrator in one fell swoop.
That was when the problems began.
The first thing to change was the rations.
Coral World Shelter pooled all the food produced in the gates and the supplies secured through outside searches, then distributed everything according to a ration ratio.
Until then, the ratio had been about 1 to 5.
For every 1 share of food or supplies a non-Awakened received, a Hunter received 5.
’That much was fine.’
A fivefold difference, but nobody objected.
The Hunters took on work far more dangerous than anything the non-Awakened did.
Call it hazard pay.
But after Edward became deputy administrator, the Hunters’ ration ratio shot through the roof.
[Hey, did you hear?]
[Apparently a freshly Awakened Hunter’s rations are ten times higher than a non-Awakened’s?]
[And from C-rank up, the gap is nearly thirty times. Is that true?]
At first, everyone assumed it was just a rumor.
But soon, the amount of food being distributed shrank enough for anyone to feel it.
Jenna herself lost thirteen pounds in a single month. The long-suppressed anger finally exploded, and fierce protests followed.
Increase the food rations, they demanded.
’But...’
The only answer they got was that it would be looked into.
Nothing changed.
Then, the following night, disaster struck.
Whoooooosh!
The night a cold snap arrived with a blizzard.
The fire-attribute Hunters responsible for maintaining the shelter’s internal temperature suddenly vanished. And among them was the A-rank Hunter, Edward.
When morning came.
The sound of wailing rose from every direction.
[M-Mother! Open your eyes, please...!]
[Oh, my child! No!]
That night had been especially cold.
Eleven elderly people and six young children succumbed to the cold and passed away.
Meanwhile, the fire-attribute Hunters who had been absent through the night offered a shameless excuse.
[It looked like a gate had appeared near the shelter, so we simply stepped out to investigate.]
It was an absurd excuse.
If a new gate really had appeared near the shelter, an evacuation order would have been issued.
But there had been no evacuation order.
What’s more, the follow-up investigation revealed there hadn’t even been any signs of a gate appearing.
And from that day on.
The non-Awakened refused to work.
No more outside supply searches, no more farming inside the gates. Even when the Hunters tried to browbeat them, the situation only grew worse.
Perhaps she finally realized how serious things had become.
In the end, Elma stepped in to mediate.
[We will hold a meeting.]
Six Hunter representatives.
Six non-Awakened representatives.
Twelve people in all would gather to discuss the food ration issue. Once the date was set, the non-Awakened elected one representative from each age group.
’And...’
Jenna was chosen as one of them.
The representative for the minors.
It was an obvious choice, really. She’d earned everyone’s trust by looking after not only her classmates but also the children who’d lost their parents.
Time passed, bringing things to the present.
The non-Awakened delegation arrived in front of the basement conference room for the meeting. Staring at the firmly shut door, Jenna swallowed hard.
’It’s a little scary, but...’
Her legs trembled with nerves.
Honestly, she wanted to run.
Beyond this door waited a room full of Hunters who looked down on the non-Awakened.
But she couldn’t run.
’If you don’t act, nothing changes.’
The words her uncle, her only family, always used to say.
Recalling them, Jenna steeled her resolve.
And then.
"Yes, come in."
With Elma’s voice from beyond the door, the firmly shut door swung wide open.