Chapter 170: Recognition
The deepest part of the Coral Cave Shelter.
This was where one of the two fully cleared gates the shelter possessed was located.
A B-rank gate: the Silent Farm.
Living up to its name, the place boasted rich, fertile soil, and it had long served its purpose as the Coral Cave Shelter’s main production base.
Because the Silent Farm shared the same time cycle as the outside world, entry was prohibited at night.
Going in after dark wouldn’t accomplish much beyond swiping crops, after all.
And yet now, deep in the night, the vortex in front of the off-limits gate rippled once. A moment later...
Thud!
Someone stepped out through the gate.
A woman in her late twenties wearing a light blue coat over a lightweight parka. The instant she appeared, everyone waiting nearby turned toward her at once.
They were the hunters of the Coral Cave Shelter.
"Well now, look who it is."
A man in his fifties at the front of the group walked over to her. Gordon, the chief of Coral Cave Shelter and an A-rank hunter with the lightning attribute.
He made a big show of it, grinning wide.
"If it isn’t the pride of the New America Republic, the youngest S-rank hunter alive, Hunter Elma herself."
"...Don’t tease me, sir."
Elma, the chief of Coral World Shelter and an S-rank hunter, let out a sigh.
Her history with Gordon went back to before the world froze over. They’d belonged to the same guild once, working side by side.
Back then, Elma had been the rookie, and Gordon had helped her out in all sorts of ways.
That was why, even now that the guild itself no longer existed, she still addressed him with the deference of a junior to a senior.
"Been a while since I’ve seen your face."
"It has."
After a warm handshake, Gordon brought it up casually.
"How’s your body holding up?"
"Same as ever. Wasting away, bit by bit."
Deep-Sea Blood Venom.
A poison that weakened her body the more she used her skills.
Thinking of it, Elma smiled bitterly. When Gordon’s expression darkened a little, she hurried to change the subject.
"What about you, sir? Have you been well?"
"Well enough, until I nearly died recently."
"What? What happened?"
"A gate went into release at Smathers Beach."
Gordon answered evenly.
Then he described the battle against the Krakens. How they’d gone up against hundreds of monsters and come within a hair of being wiped out.
"So there we were, surrounded, and I’m thinking this is it. Then some hunter I’d never laid eyes on shows up and flips the whole thing on its head."
A hunter who turned the tide alone.
An overwhelming powerhouse who froze the entire battlefield in one stroke and wiped out the Krakens in moments. Listening to the surreal description, Elma’s eyes went round.
Because it called to mind the man she’d seen before coming here. The one who had carried out a massacre on a staggering scale.
"Was he a frost attribute..."
"That’s the one. Sounds like you already know."
Gordon nodded.
Then he pressed on, making no effort to hide the worry on his face.
"More to the point, how are things at your shelter? I heard the hardline faction had taken it over..."
"That’s all been dealt with."
"Dealt with? You handled it yourself?"
"No. The hunter you just mentioned showed up and turned the whole thing upside down."
Elma explained what had happened.
How a frost attribute hunter had appeared out of nowhere and slaughtered every hunter in the hardline faction, A-rank hunter Edward included.
The confirmed death toll came to more than a hundred hunters. Gordon, however, was less shaken than she’d expected.
"Hmm. So that’s how it went."
As though he’d anticipated it to some degree.
Seeing that, Elma pulled a crumpled, folded note from her pocket and handed it to him.
"You wrote this list, didn’t you?"
"...I did."
After checking the names on the note, Gordon nodded.
"He asked me whether there was anyone at Coral World Shelter who shouldn’t be killed. I wrote it down just in case, but I never thought he’d actually go and..."
Recalling the conversation before Walfred left the shelter, he let the sentence trail off, his face troubled.
He’d guessed the man’s anger ran deep, but slaughtering over a hundred hunters was beyond anything he’d imagined.
A heavy silence settled over the area.
It didn’t last long, though.
"All right, enough small talk."
Gordon changed the subject as if drawing a line under it.
As if he had no intention of discussing that matter any further. Then he turned back to Elma.
"So why did you ask me over chat to gather all the hunters at B-rank and above?"
That was the reason he was down here so late at night.
Elma had requested a one-on-one conversation, saying she had something urgent to pass along.
Then she’d told him she would be visiting the shelter shortly, and asked him to assemble only the Coral Cave hunters ranked B or higher.
"If this is about how to handle the non-Awakened at Coral World Shelter..."
"It isn’t."
Elma shook her head.
"That’s something we’ll have to discuss eventually, sure, but not now. Right now there’s something far more important and far more serious."
"Something serious?"
"Yes. It’s no exaggeration to say every life on Key West depends on it."
"...What?"
Gordon raised his eyebrows.
Because when someone like Elma, an S-rank hunter of all people, put it that strongly, it meant this was anything but ordinary.
"What exactly are we dealing with?"
"Well..."
Just as Elma opened her mouth, the sound of multiple footsteps came from the corridor outside.
Footsteps drawing steadily closer. Elma gave a small shrug.
"I’ll explain once everyone’s here."
"That’d be best."
Gordon nodded as well.
A short while later, eight hunters arrived in answer to the summons.
"You called for us, Chief?"
The B-rank hunters of the Coral Cave Shelter.
That was when Elma’s gaze wavered ever so slightly.
Because she’d spotted the man who, only a few hours earlier, had carried out a massacre at Coral World Shelter.
And in that same instant, he looked back at her.