Chapter 172: It Swallows Gates
Once the existence of the White Whale had been laid bare, a heavy silence swallowed the room.
It couldn’t have gone any other way.
An S-rank Boss Monster, and one whose body ran some thirty-two hundred feet long at that. On top of which, the troublesome detail that it flew.
"How are we supposed to fight something that big..."
"...Wouldn’t it be better to just run?"
Maybe that was why.
Pessimistic opinions poured in from every direction.
Even Gordon only let out a low groan.
Elma, on the other hand, kept going with a flat expression, as if her explanation was far from finished.
"Next, I’ll go over the information we’ve gathered so far through the Greenland channel."
Maybe it was that distinctively calm voice of hers.
The hunters, rattled a moment ago, gradually settled and turned their attention back to her. Elma met their eyes and held up three fingers.
Then she folded them down one by one as she spoke.
"First, when the White Whale moves, it brings a massive snowstorm with it. The scale of the storm is reportedly on par with a small hurricane."
The words had barely left her mouth before murmuring broke out around the room.
"A snowstorm?"
"That sounds a lot like..."
"Doesn’t that sound like the Leviathan?"
The creature presumed to be the boss of the Antarctica gate.
The Leviathan was likewise famous for traveling wrapped in a colossal storm of ice.
The resemblance seemed to knock the fight out of the hunters all over again. Meanwhile, Elma continued.
"Second, in any place the White Whale has passed through or lingered in, the temperature plunges far below average and stays at or below 148 degrees below zero for some time afterward."
"A hundred and forty-eight below..."
"Ugh, that’s the worst possible news."
Sighs and groans went up on all sides.
Hunter or not, nobody lasted long in weather like that.
In other words, facing the White Whale meant fighting for your life inside a blizzard on the scale of a small hurricane, in cold well past a hundred and forty degrees below zero.
"...Moments like this make me envy the frost attribute."
Aria muttered it while looking at Walfred.
She had a point. Every frost attribute hunter possessed Cold Resistance, which meant blizzards and extreme cold affected them comparatively little.
There was something she didn’t know, however.
For Walfred, the colder the surrounding temperature got, the more it went beyond simply shrugging off the cold. His physical abilities were actually enhanced by it.
[Blessing of the Frost Dragon: Absolute Zero]
A special skill that dramatically strengthened his body for every additional degree the temperature dropped once the ambient temperature fell to 148 below or lower.
Add to that [Cold Awakening], the special ability recently unlocked through [Cold Resistance], and his physical capabilities would be far greater than before.
Which was exactly why...
’This actually works in my favor.’
Walfred was quietly pleased.
Then Elma folded down her third finger and wrapped up her briefing on the White Whale.
"Third, and honestly this is the strangest part. Since its first appearance, the White Whale has swallowed every single gate it has come across along its route."
"It swallows gates...?"
"Yes. It doesn’t discriminate between fully cleared gates and gates that have only just appeared."
Elma nodded at Gordon’s startled question.
The revelation landed as no small shock on the other hunters, Walfred included.
"Swallowing gates? What for?"
"I’ve never seen anything like it..."
The hunters were thrown.
While nobody else could bring themselves to speak, Walfred tossed out a question.
"What happens to the gates it swallows?"
"Nothing has been confirmed on that yet."
Elma shook her head.
As if to say the limits of their information were clear.
Walfred pressed his lips shut, his question unanswered, and Gordon stepped in with one of his own.
"Has Greenland made any attempt to take it down?"
"There were several attempts in Nuuk, Sisimiut, and Ilulissat, but from what I’ve heard, all of them failed."
Elma quietly sighed.
Her expression turned bitter, and then, as if suddenly remembering something she’d overlooked, she added,
"Oh, and during those attempts, Nivi, an S-rank hunter attached to the Qinngorput shelter in Nuuk, reportedly went missing mid-battle."
Nivi.
The moment that name came up, Gordon and several of the veteran hunters widened their eyes.
"Nivi, as in..."
"The one they called Nuuk’s hope?"
"That’s the one. She was a light attribute hunter who was promoted to S-rank after the Antarctica gate release, and she drew a lot of attention worldwide."
The disappearance of a prodigy who could fairly have been called the face of Greenland’s hunters.
Maybe that was why.
Word was that after she vanished, Greenland lost its will to take down the White Whale entirely. The news drew pained expressions from everyone.
Everyone except Walfred.
"I’ve got a question."
Whatever.
Hunters from other countries didn’t concern him.
The only thing he cared about was the threat closing in on Key West. Walfred met Elma’s eyes and asked,
"Where is the White Whale right now?"
"As of the last confirmation an hour ago, it’s passing over Ilulissat Icefjord."
"And when does it get here?"
"Well, factoring in its average flight speed..."
Elma closed her eyes, lost in calculation.
A moment later, having finished the math, she spread out four fingers.
"About four days."
"Four days, huh..."
Only four days.
That was an awfully tight window to prepare for a Boss Monster hunt. As the reality of how soon the White Whale would arrive darkened everyone’s faces, Elma added one more thing.
"Oh, and for your information..."
"...?"
"The White Whale’s projected route originally had it heading for the waters off Georgia, but yesterday afternoon it abruptly changed course toward Key West."
The instant she finished, Aria asked back with a startled look.
"Wait, why the sudden change?"
"...I don’t know either."
Elma let out a long sigh.
As if it made no sense to her whatsoever.
Walfred, though, was the exception.
’Yesterday afternoon?’
Wasn’t that exactly when he and Elsa had left Savannah and headed for Key West? Something about it sat wrong with him, and he turned back to Elma.
"What time, exactly?"
"Sorry?"
"When did the White Whale change direction?"
"Hmm, let me think..."
Elma searched her memory for a moment, then seemed to land on the precise time.
"I believe it was just before the Leviathan passed through the waters near South Key West."
"..."
At that, Walfred understood.
The moment the White Whale had turned from the waters off Georgia toward Key West lined up exactly with the moment he and Elsa had arrived on the island.
And with that realization, a chilling suspicion crossed his mind.
’Is it coming for Elsa?’