Chapter 155: Poison With No Cure
Gordon hastily tore a page from his notebook and wrote down the names of those who had to be spared. Then he handed the list to Walfred and said,
"It’s roughly thirty people, but..."
Walfred took it.
He skimmed the list with his eyes.
[S-rank hunter, Elma.]
[B-rank hunter, James.]
[B-rank hunter...]
The first name he saw was Elma’s.
Walfred agreed that she was no enemy.
According to the memories of the past he had seen through the Mark of the Afterimage, Elma seemed closer to the side opposing Edward and his gang.
As his eyes traveled down the list, Walfred’s gaze stopped at one particular spot.
[B-rank hunter, Ruby]
[C-rank hunter, Hugo]
[C-rank hunter, Hayden]
Familiar names.
Walfred turned to Gordon and said,
"These three are already dead."
"What? Wh-what do you mean...!?"
"We found their bodies in the incinerator."
He explained the whole story.
Earlier, while searching the basement of Coral World Shelter, they had discovered bodies in the incinerator, and those bodies were the very hunters on the list.
At those words, Gordon’s face stiffened.
"Is that, really true...?"
"Yes. Aria saw them too."
"Uh, well, that’s true, but."
All eyes suddenly turned to her.
Aria nodded along in a daze, then turned to Walfred, voicing her doubt.
"But, how could you tell...?"
The bodies they had found in the incinerator had been nothing but charred lumps. Burned so badly you could hardly make out their faces or features.
So how had he figured out who they were?
Aria looked at Walfred as if asking exactly that, but no answer came.
"Well then, I’ll be off."
As if he had said all he needed to say.
Walfred tucked the list away and turned around.
Aria, who had been staring blankly, hurriedly grabbed him.
"W-wait a second!"
"...?"
"I’ll come with you. Without me, it’ll take at least half a day even at top speed."
"No, it’s fine."
Walfred shook his head firmly.
"I have a much faster way."
"A faster way? What do you mean..."
Aria voiced her confusion once more.
But this time, too, no answer came.
Turning away without a word, Walfred took Elsa’s hand beside him, gripping it tight, and said,
"Elsa, let’s go."
"Okay!"
Elsa nodded energetically.
A short while later.
Leaving behind a blank-faced Aria, Walfred left the shelter without another word.
---
South Key West, Coral World Shelter.
The S-rank hunter Elma, who had been fast asleep, suddenly shuddered violently. Then she bolted upright as if in a seizure, coughing harshly.
"Cough, cough!"
The coughing went on for a while.
When she finally opened the palm she had pressed over her mouth, it came away soaked with dark red blood.
Elma’s face darkened.
’...My body feels heavy.’
That wasn’t all.
Every breath brought a tearing ache deep in her lungs, and the tremors and seizures were getting worse by the day.
Elma knew it in her gut.
Her limit was drawing near.
"Haah."
She let out a sigh, her chest tight with frustration.
Elma had once been a hunter who claimed the title of youngest S-rank ever, a rising star and the pride of the New America Republic.
But now she was nothing more than a woman living on borrowed time, whose breath could stop at any moment.
’...How did it ever come to this?’
Her body had been ruined two months before the world froze over, during the raid on a gate that had appeared in the waters off Charleston.
[S-rank Gate, the Sea King’s Citadel]
At the time, Elma had taken on the raid alongside her fellow S-rank hunters, and in the end achieved the highest contribution of all, successfully clearing the gate.
But the joy was short-lived.
On the verge of death, the gate boss, the Sea King Beast, spewed venom at Elma in one final act of defiance.
’And then...’
Drunk on the thrill of victory, she failed to dodge and was drenched in the venom. When she came to her senses, she found herself poisoned by a bizarre, deadly toxin.
-----
[Deadly Poison: Deep-Sea Blood Venom]
[Rank: Unknown]
[The mana of the deep sea erodes the body, causing it to gradually weaken until death.]
▶Body weakens with every skill used
▶Life force decreases with every expenditure of mana
-----
Given that hunters inevitably consumed mana every time they used a skill, the Deep-Sea Blood Venom was nothing short of a death sentence for a hunter.
Afterward, Elma poured everything into curing the poison. She sought out famous healers at home and abroad and downed every miracle elixir she could get her hands on.
’But it all failed.’
No matter what she tried, the poison would not lift.
The one small mercy was that as long as she didn’t use her skills, the poison wouldn’t progress.
So she had come to Key West to recuperate, and it was while she agonized over how to live from then on.
’The Antarctica gate broke open.’
And just like that, the world froze over in an instant.
From then on, Elma used her skills relentlessly to protect people from the monsters, fully aware that her own body was being devoured in the process.
Through it all, the poison spread uncontrollably through her entire body, until at last she ended up in this state.
’I’m not afraid of dying.’
From the moment she chose the life of a hunter.
She had already made peace with death.
But even if she had to die, she wanted at least to fulfill her duty as shelter chief to the very end.
Yet a danger was approaching that threatened to trample even this final wish without mercy.
’...The White Whale.’
An S-rank Boss Monster of the frost attribute.
Judging by its observed path, the White Whale coming to Key West was all but a foregone conclusion.
Why it was heading straight for this place, she couldn’t say, but...
’If we can’t avoid it, we have to fight.’
However slim the odds.
They couldn’t just roll over and take it.
That was why, today, she had summoned the shelter’s core hunters to her room.
To reveal the existence of the White Whale, which she had kept hidden until now, and to discuss countermeasures against it.
’Realistically, our most important asset is...’
The A-rank hunter of the fire attribute, Edward.
He possessed the attribute most needed when fighting frost-attribute monsters, and in terms of raw combat strength, he was second only to Elma herself.
The problem was that Edward was profoundly selfish and greedy by nature. Even so, there was no question he was essential to bringing down the White Whale.
That was why, the night before, Elma had given advance instructions to the hunter James. To bring Edward to her room as soon as day broke.
But long past the appointed hour, there was still no sign of him. Just as doubt began creeping across Elma’s face.
Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap!
Frantic footsteps echoed down the corridor, and then the door burst open. A moment later, the hunter James came stumbling inside, out of breath.
"Ch-Chief!"
"...!?"
The moment she saw him.
Elma’s face went rigid. His entire body was drenched in blood.