Chapter 161: Beg the Way They Begged
Every time a fist slammed into his face, teeth rained out of his mouth, and every blow to his chest rang with the sound of ribs and organs being pounded into pulp.
The merciless beating went on and on.
Edward cast skill after skill in a desperate frenzy to pry Walfred off him. But for some reason, every single one was canceled the moment he used it.
"Khak! Ugh! Bleugh!"
Right after vomiting up blood and chunks of viscera.
Edward knew it in his gut.
If this kept up, he was really going to die. So Edward cried out urgently, as if offering a deal.
"S-stop! Without me, the shelter..."
"Don’t care."
"Maintaining the shelter’s temperature, it’ll be impossible..."
"I said I don’t care."
Ignoring every last offer.
Walfred silently continued the violence.
By the end of it, Edward’s limbs were twisted into grotesque shapes, and some of his joints had burst clean through his skin.
Only then, on the very brink of death, did Edward’s arrogance finally break.
"P-please, spare, spare me."
"..."
"If you just, spare me, I’ll do anything... Kek!"
Watching the man grovel pathetically for his life.
Walfred whispered in a dry voice, without the faintest ripple of emotion.
"The people you threw out must have begged just like this."
"Th-that’s..."
"But you didn’t even pretend to listen."
So why should I spare you?
Asking that in return, Walfred rammed his hand into Edward’s mouth. Then he activated [Rapid Freeze] very, very slowly.
To make him suffer the same agony Jenna had been forced to endure while buried in the snow: the pain of a body slowly freezing over.
"...! Mmph! Mmf! Gkk!"
Edward thrashed like a madman.
The agony of extreme cold freezing his blood, his nerves, every last vessel one by one was beyond imagination.
An extreme torment, like tens of thousands of ice needles stabbing into every single organ. Before long, Edward’s eyes rolled back white.
A short while later.
Thump!
Edward’s body, which had been convulsing as if in shock, went limp. His heart had stopped, and his ragged breathing could no longer be heard.
Walfred hurled the half-frozen corpse to the floor.
And then.
Crunch! Squelch!
He stomped its head flat.
As if to finish the job for good.
For the very man who had rallied the hunters to seize control of a shelter housing thousands, it was a hollow end.
Afterward, Walfred turned his head.
Toward the woman in her late twenties staring blankly at him from the corner.
---
Meanwhile, at that very moment.
Elma stared vacantly at the gruesome scene before her, half out of her mind.
At first, she had been bewildered.
A man smashing through the ceiling out of nowhere, followed by the appearance of a young dragon. Of the two, what shocked Elma most was, without a doubt, the dragon.
’A Frost Dragon...!’
It was a bit on the small side, but the silver scales and that distinctive chill made it unmistakable. A Frost Dragon, the frost-attribute Boss Monster.
A horrifying creature that would reign as an SS-rank Boss Monster once fully grown. But there was an even more staggering fact.
’A F-Frost Dragon, following a human?!’
The Frost Dragon was trailing after the unidentified man as if he were its master. The sight plunged Elma into utter disbelief.
’Unless you have the nature attribute, taming a monster should be flat-out impossible...’
And even the nature attribute couldn’t tame every monster. Taming became impossible at even the Elite level.
Yet he had tamed a Boss Monster?
What’s more, the man appeared to have the frost attribute, not nature. As her common sense shattered before her eyes, Elma couldn’t hide the confusion on her face.
Just then.
Crack!
The A-rank hunter Jared died on the spot.
With his head crushed in.
Elma’s eyes flew wide open. Physical abilities that could kill an A-rank hunter that easily, without even using a skill...
’...S-rank, at the very least.’
Elma swallowed hard.
But as far as she knew, there was only one S-rank frost-attribute hunter in all of the New America Republic.
And that hunter was a different gender from the man before her, not to mention she had gone missing in a gate long ago, her very survival unconfirmed.
’Which means...’
He had reached S-rank after the Antarctica Gate was unleashed.
In other words, after the world froze over. And in just seven months, no less.
’...That’s impossible.’
Even she, the youngest person in the New America Republic to ever reach S-rank, had needed more than two full years to ascend from A-rank to S-rank.
On top of that, his face was so unfamiliar she was certain she had never seen him even before the Antarctica Gate was unleashed.
That meant he had reached S-rank not from A-rank, but from a rank far, far lower. As she reeled at the scarcely believable truth.
Crunch! Squelch!
Edward’s head was crushed to pieces.
And the brutal slaughter came to a close.
The man shook the blood off his hands as if it were nothing, then looked her way.
"Elma. Right?"
"...Yes? Ah! I mean, yes."
Belatedly snapping out of it, Elma gave a dazed reply. Walfred pulled out the list Gordon had given him earlier and handed it to her.
"Take it."
"Wh-what is this...?"
"The hunters Shelter Chief Gordon asked for."
"...! Then! Don’t tell me you came from the Coral Cave Shelter?"
"That’s right."
Walfred confirmed it calmly.
Then, pointing up at the completely collapsed ceiling, he added an explanation.
"Twenty of them are gathered in the room at the end of the stairs on the floor above. Join up with them and evacuate somewhere safe."
With that emotionless instruction.
Walfred turned away without a shred of hesitation. Seeing this, Elma hurriedly reached out and called after him.
"W-wait!"
"...?"
Walfred looked back.
Eyes churning with a mix of ferocious rage and hollow emptiness.
The moment she saw those eyes, she felt her breath catch in her throat. But it was only for a moment. Forcing herself to withstand his gaze, Elma pressed on.
"I was just, w-wondering where you’re headed..."
Why do you want to know?
Walfred almost asked, then closed his mouth.
He had no intention of dragging out the conversation. So he spoke in a flat voice, as if issuing a notice.
"To wipe out everyone who took part in this."
"...What?"
Elma echoed blankly.
Did that mean he wasn’t done after taking care of Edward and the other ringleaders, but was going to erase the entire hardline faction involved in this incident?
"W-why go that far...?"
"I already told you."
Meeting her faintly trembling eyes.
Walfred answered without a hint of doubt.
"They touched someone they never should have touched."
"...!?"
The moment her gaze met Walfred’s.
Elma’s shoulders shrank inward.
And she understood, on pure instinct.
’If...’
If she interfered with what he was doing or tried to stand in his way, even a little, she too might end up like the corpses strewn across the floor.
The moment that realization hit her.
Elma froze like a statue.
Clomp!
Meanwhile, Walfred left the petrified Elma behind and walked straight out of the room.
Just as he had said.
To sweep away every last one of the hardline faction hunters involved in this incident, without leaving a single one alive.