Chapter 158: Something Snapped
After leaving the Coral Cave Shelter.
Elsa quickly returned to her true form. Then, with Walfred on her back, she beat her enormous wings and flew in a straight line toward South Key West.
How long had it been?
[Daddy! We’re almost there!]
A voice heard through telepathy.
Walfred nodded.
A short while later, after flying on through the fierce blizzard and heavy snow, the destination came into view.
And when they reached the skies above the resort.
Whoosh!
He leapt off at once.
Without a moment’s hesitation.
Falling at a terrifying speed, Walfred steadied himself in midair and landed in the snow.
Ruuumble!
A heavy tremor shook the ground.
Walfred moved off in search of the stairs leading down into the shelter’s basement. As he did, he brought to mind the target he needed to find above all else.
’...Edward.’
The leader of the hardline faction that had risen in revolt, and the very man who had driven Jenna to her death. That one, no matter what, he intended to erase.
Next, he would hunt down and deal with every hunter who had taken part in this, and finally secure the hunters on the list Gordon had entrusted to him.
Having set his priorities.
Walfred found the stairs leading to the resort’s basement and entered the shelter. There, he spotted familiar shapes: colorful, iridescent fragments.
’Afterimage Fragments.’
Reading the memories of the past through them, he tracked the places where Edward was likely to be.
A short while later.
Walfred arrived at a huge room on basement level three.
"This is..."
A large table and chairs.
A space reminiscent of a conference room. A large Afterimage Fragment happened to be lying on the floor, so he immediately used the Mark to peer into its memory.
Flash!
Along with the now-familiar burst of light.
Scenes of the past overlaid themselves on his surroundings.
What appeared was the sight of dozens of hunters locked in a heated argument.
[Argh! Why take the long way around when there’s an easy path right there! I really don’t get it.]
[That’s my line!]
The first person he saw was Edward.
Then Ruby came into view. The two were locked in a fierce standoff, their opinions clashing.
As he quietly watched.
’...Huh?’
Walfred’s eyes suddenly flew wide open.
How could they not?
In the very center of the remembered scene, a face he knew all too well, a face he had longed for, revealed itself.
[I’ve come here as the representative of the shelter’s minors. My name is Jenna.]
It was Walfred’s niece, Jenna.
Even amid the hostile atmosphere surrounding her, Jenna offered her greeting without flinching.
Then, speaking for the non-Awakened and their miserable circumstances, she went on to ask for improvements to the unfair treatment they received, including their ration rates.
And then.
[Ha. Your right to survive? Have you forgotten that the only reason you people are still alive is because of us?]
Edward, lounging arrogantly back in his chair, sneered at Jenna.
At the way he berated Jenna, Walfred’s face twisted into a scowl before he even realized it. Meanwhile, Edward kept talking.
[If you want something in the first place, then instead of mobbing in here and making a scene, shouldn’t you show some proper sincerity first?]
[Sincerity?]
[That’s right. For example...]
A sticky, repulsive gaze crawled openly over Jenna’s body. The instant Walfred noticed that look and clenched his fists.
Edward smiled foully.
[How about easing the loneliness of us hunters risking our lives out there? In bed, say?]
The moment he glimpsed that much of the memory.
Something in Walfred snapped.
"That son of a bitch!"
Kaboooom!
Forgetting even the fact that he was peering into a memory of the past through the Mark of the Afterimage, he swung his fist into the nearest wall.
The wall collapsed whole under his monstrous strength.
And with it, the afterimage memory overlaying the scene dissolved like smoke. Perhaps because he had exerted physical force, the memory itself was destroyed.
"How dare he say that filth to her..."
Just the sight of him leering at Jenna with those disgusting eyes made Walfred want to tear him to shreds.
And then he threw out garbage like that?
Walfred ground his teeth.
Moments later, he strode out of the conference room, his eyes brimming with fury. And as he combed through every place Edward might be, turning the shelter inside out.
"So anyway... this time... and then..."
"...I said! Ha, seriously..."
The sound of a conversation drifted from a room beside the stairs leading down to basement level four. Without hesitation, Walfred walked up and kicked the door in.
Crash!
The door flew off with a single kick.
Maybe it was the dramatic entrance?
Every gaze in the room snapped toward Walfred at once.
"Wh-what the?"
"You bastard! Who the hell are you!?"
"How did you get in here?"
The first thing he saw was three armed hunters.
Behind them, people bound tightly in steel chains lay sprawled across the floor. At a glance, they looked to be hunters who had opposed the hardline faction and been subdued.
Which meant they were probably the hunters on the list Gordon had written for him.
"Hey, asshole, don’t ignore me, answ...!"
Just then.
One of the hunters lunged at Walfred. Swinging a steel pipe glowing red-hot.
And.
Thwack!
His head flew clean off.
It happened in the literal blink of an eye.
The body, robbed of its head in an instant, crumpled where it stood, and the eyes of the two hunters who witnessed it from behind bulged as if they might pop out.
"Wh-what?"
"What the, holy shi...!?"
Only then did the two grasp the situation.
But it was already far too late.
Thwack! Thwack!
Two short, heavy sounds of impact.
The pair, who had tried to activate their skills against Walfred, met the exact same end as the first hunter.
Afterward, gripping the ice axe in a reverse hold, Walfred cut through the chains binding the captive hunters.
Moments later, the freed hunters looked around at the blood-soaked room and recoiled in shock.
"Gah! What in the..."
"D-did you do this?"
Shock, confusion, wariness, and more.
The freed hunters stared at him with a whole range of reactions. Instead of answering, Walfred pulled out the list Gordon had handed him.
"I’m going to call out names. When you hear yours, raise your hand. Sawyer."
"Uh, I’m Sawyer, but..."
"Preston."
"Th-that’s me!"
Walfred read through the list in a dry voice.
With each name called, the hunters raised their hands, their faces an even mix of anxiety and tension.
The final tally came to twenty people.
Most of the hunters on Gordon’s list were here. The only ones still unaccounted for were the shelter chief Elma, James, and a handful of others.
’Should I call it lucky, finding them all in one place?’
Or unlucky, since he had ended up handling his lowest priority first?