The new arrivals did, indeed, turn out to be one of the splinter groups of the Erebus Field survivors. There were many more people in their caravan than in Sunny's caravan, but none of the soldiers held a higher military rank than him, the most senior officer among them being an Awakened lieutenant named Carin.
Needless to say, there were no Masters among them, either.
So… ironically, he ended up being in charge again.
Sunny had been responsible for six Awakened and two civilians after leaving Lo49, which suited him fine. Then, more than three hundred refugees and several dozens of mundane soldiers joined them.
Those numbers seemed like a joke now.
After the Erebus Field survivors joined his group, Sunny found himself in command of a significantly larger force. There were more than four thousand civilians currently sheltered in the crowded resupply station, as well as five hundred mundane soldiers. Lieutenant Carin had many Awakened warriors with her, as well as four new Sleepers.
Sunny sent the latter to their nameless counterpart, placing the young man in charge.
The guy had turned out to be quite resourceful, and Belle's mentorship seemed to be bearing fruit. Not to mention that his core was close to being saturated already.
In the end, there were now three full Awakened cohorts — and a half — under Sunny's command. There were also twelve powerful MWPs being piloted by mundane specialists and more than enough powered armor suits for the soldiers, which drastically increased the caravan's defensive ability.
The vast supply reserves of the underground station suddenly did not look so inexhaustible anymore.
'Ah, this is going to be a headache…'
Studying the crowded depot, Sunny grimaced. The increase in power and in the number of tools at his disposal was welcome, but he would have to rethink his entire strategy as to how to traverse the two thousand kilometers separating them from Falcon Scott.
Before, Sunny had mostly put his efforts into avoiding combat engagements, meticulously circumventing Nightmare Creatures and only attacking those swarms that could not be bypassed. But with a caravan this large, that was not an option anymore. There was just no way to perfectly hide so many people.
Luckily, the caliber of threats they could take on also increased. With several cohorts of Awakened and a small army under his command, Sunny would be able to simply roll over many swarms, maybe even cut a path through the weaker hordes of abominations.
But all of that required a lot of mental adjustment, and even more work for his shadows. His map would also have to be updated to account for the changes in the caravan's composition.
'Oh, well. No sleep for me today, it seems.'
Walking toward the Rhino with a slightly exasperated expression, Sunny couldn't help but hear bits and pieces of the conversations the new arrivals were having with the members of the initial convoy.
"...I don't think any of us can survive."
"What's that? Cheer up, man. The Devil himself is with us, so who can be against us?"
"Oh… so it's that Master Sunless? No wonder the name sounded familiar. I heard about him, even though he was assigned to a different division. Still… what can one man do?"
"Damn… what can't he do? I swear to the dead gods, I saw him kill a hundred Nightmare Creatures with a single arrow once. There was also this one time when he summoned a whole damn bridge out of thin air for us to cross a canyon. Hell, the man fought a titan to a stalemate just yesterday… actually, I am not even sure that it was a stalemate.
All I know is that the Captain came back, but the titan did not…"
A corner of Sunny's mouth twisted up a little. His people were surely fond of embellishing his deeds, but he was not going to intervene. At this point, anything that raised morale of the troops was a good thing, even if it was not entirely based in truth.
He climbed into the Rhino and walked to the command suite, studying the new faces among the usual participants of strategic meetings. Sunny already knew Awakened Carin, but the two mundane officers she brought for debriefing were strangers.
"Let's start."
What he wanted to know first was how Erebus Field had fallen.
The truth... turned out to be as disturbing as Sunny had thought.
As he had suspected, the city had been destroyed very recently. In fact, it had just happened two days ago, around the time he and his people were deciding to try their luck by charging the coastal highway.
The main culprit of the disaster was also familiar… it was none other than his good friend Goliath.
'...Damned bastard.'
After missing for the better half of two months, the stone giant had suddenly emerged from within Mount Erebus, breaking through one of its slopes and causing a whole side of the volcano to collapse. The resulting conflagration and the flood of lava had little chance of destroying a city that had been well-fortified against exactly such an event, even if on a smaller scale…
However, that was before the towering colossus smashed through the city defenses, destroying the grandiose magma barriers, drain vents, and most other contingencies the government had put in place.
With the perimeter of the siege capital breached, a titan rampaging on its periphery, rivers of lava flowing through the broken barriers, and hordes of Nightmare Creatures using the chance to get inside, there had been nothing that the First Army division stationed at Erebus Field could do to stop the cataclysmic assault.
The few Masters of the accompanying Awakened force had joined forces to stall Goliath for as long as they could while the soldiers desperately tried to evacuate the civilians.
That was probably where Davis and his cohort of Irregulars had perished.
Lieutenant Carin did not know how many people had made it out of that hell in the end, but judging by her expression, it was probably much less than the total population of the city. The last thing she had witnessed before leading the caravan away was the colossal figure of Goliath, turned incandescent from bathing in the molten lava, plunging into the ocean and disappearing under the dark waves.
From where the titan had emerged the next day to attack Sunny's convoy.
…After Carin was finished speaking, a somber silence settled inside the Rhino. No one knew what exactly to say.
Eventually, Sunny sighed.
'Their nightmare is over…'