Chapter 194: Open up wasteland |
After all, tonight's commotion was so great that many people would want to clarify the situation.
Pestoya's nocturnal visit was a minor episode, and the rest of the night was anything but quiet, with several uninvited guests arriving one after another at the Unicorn Inn.
There were second-order and third-order assassins, all adept in stealth.
I figured it was probably the Umbrella Organization, or perhaps spies from those forces wishing Rena harm.
To avoid giving anything away and to avoid the hassle of constant harassment, Su'en simply shared a bed with Mr. Mirror for the night.
It wasn't presumptuous; both parties were very calm.
With such a master at his side, Su'en didn't have to worry about his own safety and actually had a rare good night's sleep.
...
The next morning, the inn was awakened early by the stern chiding of the old butler, Anthony.
Su'en got out of bed and also put together an adventurer's outfit for himself, complete with a trench coat and a cowboy hat.
"Thousand Stripes" was still washing up, so he went downstairs and sifted through a pile of letters at the front desk to find the latest briefings and messages.
These were simple newspapers produced by information brokers, printed overnight, all about the latest intelligence on the camp.
They were pricey, but sold well.
Su'en glanced at the newspaper, which mentioned last night's attack at length.
However, it was very rough, with no details about the identity of the assassins beyond "mysterious person."
He also saw the hidden message left by Sabina, and had a rough idea of the Umbrella Organization's next moves.
The people from the Umbrella Organization were indeed still monitoring, but they had lowered the file level, reducing the threat significantly.
While Su'en was reading the newspaper at the front desk.
A few people came down the stairs, and turning his head, he saw Rena leading her personal maidservant down.
After one night, the young lady's face no longer bore sadness but was filled with seriousness. She was dressed in liquid leather, not the standard model from the Black Tower Academy, but a higher-grade alchemical product with special modifications. She was equipped with a pistol, dagger, mechanical vest, and tactical belt, along with a gas mask...
What was more remarkable was the mechanical case on her back, painted with a red cross, which was military-grade individual medical equipment.
It seemed that the young lady was prepared to fight personally.
Su'en glanced at her, his eyebrows slightly raised, naturally noticing certain changes in her.
As if overnight, her immaturity had faded, replaced by a touch of maturity.
Rena saw Su'en and nodded, a form of greeting.
...
Unlike the hunting parties of other families, which could number in the thousands, the Reiss family had only four or five hundred people.
Aside from the hundred or so family guards brought by Rena, there were only a few medium-sized hunting parties from the Cross Society.
The group met outside the camp in the tent area, immediately drawing whispers and points from all around.
"Shh, if I remember correctly, that's Anthony, the Reiss family's butler. I didn't expect the old man to have advanced to third-order."
"I saw last night's battle, he's indeed strong. Too bad, with so few people, I'm afraid they won't make it to the center of the city area before they're wiped out..."
"Did you hear the Unicorn Inn was attacked by assassins last night?"
"Assassins? Those weren't ordinary assassins, I heard..."
"So it was sanctioned by the Black Tower, no wonder the other branches of the Reiss family are so active. Looks like there's going to be a change of power..."
"..."
The news of Rena's best friend Yulia's family being wiped out had also spread throughout the camp, and no one dared to approach the Reiss family's main house team anymore.
Rena remained expressionless amidst the idle chatter.
The team didn't linger and set off directly along Route 16, heading northeast to the Dawn Ruins.
...
With a third-order professional leading the way, Su'en's team moved quickly.
The monsters in the outer ring of the ruins couldn't stop the team's progress. Moreover, since most of the outer ring had already been explored, there wasn't much reason to linger.
After a few small-scale battles, by noon, they had already reached a section of the broken city wall.
This was the landmark for entering the middle ring of the ruins.
The team crossed the wall and continued to move deeper inside.
As the team ventured further, the frequency of monster attacks increased.
Before long, they arrived in a large area of unexplored building ruins and stopped.
The difference in monster strength between the middle and outer rings, separated only by a low, crumbling wall, was significant.
The outer ring was mostly populated by first-order and lower aberrant and abyssal creatures, while the middle ring saw the appearance of second-order, third-order, and even super-order special monsters.
Beyond the middle ring was the "forbidden zone" for small and medium-sized hunting parties.
Almost any encounter with a group of social monsters could wipe out a medium-sized hunting party led by a second-order professional.
The fog in the air grew thicker, and the atmosphere became increasingly tense.
This was a true "high casualty area," and no one dared to be careless.
Commands from the team leader came one after another over the communicator.
"Everyone, stay sharp! Watch for any movement. After entering the middle ring, don't talk loudly, don't fire at will..."
"Team three, nine o'clock direction, team two, three o'clock direction... Assassins, spread out and scout, watch for monsters and suspicious followers."
"Everyone, start searching this area according to the plan!"
"..."
The team spread out in a lotus formation around Miss Rena.
The Cross Society's hunting parties were funded by the Reiss family, and the members were essentially "bonded laborers" who had signed contracts. They were responsible for the most dangerous task of clearing the way ahead.
Su'en and "Thousand Stripes" didn't do anything special, just followed the path-clearing team and started their hunt.
Here, there was little difference between the head and tail of the team; monsters could attack anyone at any time.
The building ruins in the middle ring area were denser, with structures as tall as ten-story buildings around them.
In addition to residential buildings, there were large structures like opera houses, city halls, and bathhouses.
Like a lush primeval forest, these large buildings were also the favorite haunts of monsters.
And not just on the ground.
Such a vast city also had a complex sewer system, far more intricate than Old London.
Su'en's current auditory perception allowed him to clearly sense the scurrying sounds coming from those sewer entrances due to their arrival. In those dark caverns, it was as if pairs of eyes were peering at them, these unwelcome visitors.
This was the territory of aberrant creatures.
...
The fog in the ruins was thick, with no lights and low visibility.
Large-scale flares couldn't be used carelessly, so the team members had to rely on the limited vision provided by alchemical night vision devices, cautiously feeling their way through.
Princess Theresa's mission required each family to carefully explore their respective routes to find something they still didn't know what it was.
Therefore, the team needed to carefully inspect each building, check for suspicious targets, and break every cursed space.
The exploration was slow.
After the tasks were distributed,
Su'en followed "Thousand Stripes," leading a team from the Cross Society to explore a residential building.
The team members were all unfamiliar faces, apparently all "newcomers" recruited by the gang later on.
Separated from the main team, the team members spoke without so much restraint.
"Boss Thousand Stripes, why do we have so few people in our group this time? I see other families' hunting parties have at least a few thousand people... I heard that our patron is in crisis?"
"Sister Thousand Stripes, there was such a big commotion in the city last night... What happened? I heard the princess's residence was attacked?"
"They say that the princess from the Duke's mansion is Old London's 'Number One Beauty,' is that true?"
"Heh heh, this time those noble lords from the inner city have to come hunting with us, right? Our lives are cheap if we die, but they'll be at a big loss..."
"..."
The bottom-tier hunters viewed their lives cheaply, having already prepared to face death by choosing this line of work.
Their attitude was rather optimistic.
Especially seeing the inner city people hunting with them, they seemed to take a heartless pleasure in their misfortune.
They didn't know the relationship between Thousand Stripes and Rena, so they spoke without concern.
The group chatted and joked all the way.
The atmosphere was much more cheerful than the gloomy elite guards from the inner city not far away.
Still alive,
Chat about women,
Earn money,
Gossip...
That's enough.
The happiness of the bottom-tier hunters was that simple.
The monsters in the ruins were dense, and the dilapidated building they were exploring was home to a group of creatures identified as [Abyssal Blood Sentinels].
The "squeak squeak squeak" sound was incessant, and Su'en had already noticed these creatures that looked like hairless white monkeys with human faces and large mouths.
They could use stones as projectile weapons, with a force comparable to bullets.
Fortunately, their defense was weak, and ordinary bullets could kill them.
With Su'en and "Thousand Stripes" in the team, they didn't encounter any risks.
They cleared their way through, and the loot was good.
"Ha ha... these monkeys actually dropped cursed materials. The drop rate for materials from the monsters in the middle ring city wall is so high. The patron said the materials are ours to keep, we're going to make a fortune this time."
"Let's see if we can make it out alive first..."
"But speaking of which, the standardized firearms from the inner city are stable, they don't jam. Our patron is really good, the equipment each of us got must be worth hundreds of thousands..."
"Yeah, I heard that the hunting parties of the Steam Party and the Crow Gang have much worse conditions than ours. They don't even get equipment, they have to buy their own bullets..."
"With this equipment, even if a second-order monster comes, I dare to confront it!"
"..."
Not sensing any troublesome monsters in the building, to speed up the exploration, the team split up.
The team leaders took groups of ten and headed to different floors.
Su'en and "Thousand Stripes" found a corner to sit leisurely, ready to provide support in case of an emergency.
Reports came through the communicator from time to time.
"Reporting to the commander, a small-scale monster attack was found in the opera house, and it has been cleared."
"High-order aberrant creatures found in the red brick building, requesting high-order combat support!"
"Commander, a 'cursed space' was found in the broken building at ten o'clock. Preliminary judgment is 'C-level space', please advise."
"..."
Gunfire erupted densely in this part of the ruins, and the clearing was proceeding methodically.
...
In terms of individual strength, Rena's team was actually not inferior to any hunting party.
Even among the best.
With a third-order professional and more than a dozen second-orders.
The hundred or so direct guards Rena brought from the family were mostly well-trained formal professionals. They had the best firearms and mechanical armor available on the market, and their combat power was strong.
But this team also had a fatal flaw.
That was the small number of people and low margin for error.
When encountering wild beasts, numbers were the guarantee of survival.
And when encountering high-risk cursed spaces, that was truly fatal.
Because Princess Theresa had issued a death order.
No matter what, once a cursed space was discovered, it had to be explored and broken.
It meant that if a team led by a first-order professional went into an unknown level cursed space and didn't come out, then they had to send in a second-order;
If they were wiped out again, send in a third-order...
Until they kept sending people in to explore.
But in reality, most cursed spaces could be probed multiple times to find a solution.
If there were enough people, using slave groups to probe could also gather a lot of information.
Like the [1911 Hotel] Su'en encountered last time, theoretically it was "T-level," but if a few hundred people died, some methods of breaking it could always be determined.
So, numbers were crucial.
And Rena's team didn't have this opportunity to make mistakes.
There were only a few hundred people in total.
The loss of each team meant that their overall chance of survival decreased by one.
In the end, high-order professionals had to personally probe the spaces.
And the density of cursed spaces in the middle ring area was much higher than in the outer ring, with several cursed spaces discovered in the ruins they were currently in.The deadliest part was...
Even knowing the danger, there was no chance for deceit or trickery!
Because the team was accompanied by three white-helmeted "supervisory troops," who were from the inner city's military. Their task was to oversee the wilderness hunting teams, reporting the battle situation and progress at any time.
Once they died, or if the wilderness hunting team refused to execute orders, experts from the Black Tower would come over.
...
It looked like it was only a dozen or so kilometers from the central ring to the core of the inner city, but the progress of pioneering was very slow.
For the whole day, the team Su'en was in only managed to clean up a few blocks nearby.
The first day's battle was fierce, with more than thirty people dead and many injured.
The team did not continue to advance but chose to camp in a sturdy building and light a fire.
It's worth mentioning that Miss Rena had been busy since the battle began, always active on the battlefield.
She shed the delicate and arrogant air of a rich young lady, personally joining the medical team and appearing wherever medical support was needed on the battlefield, treating the wounded with her own hands.
Rena's medical skills were quite good, more professional than most of the wilderness hunting team's medics.
Even now, while resting at the camp, she was busy in the wounded's tent.
Because a lady of her status was personally involved and busy on the front lines, the wounded were not only without complaints but were excited as if they had been injected with chicken blood.
"Oh, Miss Rena, my life... it's not worth such an expensive potion..."
"My God, Miss Rena actually stitched up my wound herself..."
"To serve Miss Rena is the honor of my lifetime..."
"..."
The view of gratitude and resentment among ordinary wilderness hunters was very simple.
If you treat them well, they are willing to give their lives for you.
Normally, after a fierce battle, the wounded would greatly affect the morale within their team.
But because of Rena's dedicated treatment, not only did it not disperse morale, it actually brought them closer together.
In the current situation, only by uniting as a team was there a greater chance of survival.
In the nearby tent area, everyone saw everything that was happening.
...
In the individual tent, Su'en and Mr. Mirror were having a simple meal.
Mr. Mirror, looking at the busy Rena, remarked, "This girl has finally come to her senses..."
"She really has changed a lot."
Su'en nodded, taking a bite of the bread in his hand.
Then, he asked, "Mr. Mirror, are you planning to leave?"
He remembered that this person had said before that they would leave upon entering the ruins.
"Yes. In the next couple of days, I will find an opportunity to leave. There are very important matters to deal with."
Mr. Mirror seemed to think of something and said, "When that time comes, be careful yourself. Those supervisory troops have been watching you. And there are a few with ill intentions around Rena, it seems they have been bought off."
Su'en was not surprised and replied, "Yes, I've noticed too. I received information before that the Umbrella Organization's people still haven't given up their suspicions."
He was aware that throughout the day's battle, there were always a few gazes on him.
It seemed they wanted to detect any clues from his fighting style, to confirm whether he was "Su'en" or if there were other connections.
Mr. Mirror asked, "Can you handle it?"
Su'en replied indifferently, "No problem."
"That's good."
Mr. Mirror did not say much more; she had a good opinion of Su'en's abilities.
Thinking of something, she added, "Oh, one more thing. The deeper you go into the ruins, the more powerful the monsters become. When the time comes, be careful to avoid these areas..."
Su'en listened carefully, committing it to memory.
After Mr. Mirror finished speaking, he asked the question he had been curious about for a long time, "Mr. Mirror, where do all these monsters in the ruins come from?"
The monsters of the Dawn Ruins had been killed in such large numbers, yet they kept coming endlessly, which was a bit against common sense.
Logically, the monsters in an area should satisfy an ecological chain.
After killing some, the numbers should become scarce for a long time.
But in the ruins, there were always new, unseen monsters appearing, and their numbers were never lacking.
Mr. Mirror thought for a moment, her tone becoming somewhat serious, "They come from the cracks in the planes."
Su'en heard a new term and was slightly surprised, "Cracks in the planes?"
"Yes."
Mr. Mirror said this, and seeming to think of something, her eyes showed a heavy expression.
She glanced at Su'en and continued, "Beneath this city of Dawn, there is actually a space channel that connects to a different plane. In ancient texts, that plane is called the 'Abyss.' It's something that existed in the last era, and it's said that the alchemists of the Akavia civilization used this channel to wage war on other planes. Unfortunately, such a powerful civilization also disappeared, and no one knows what happened... When Sir Isaac established the city of Dawn here, on one hand, it was to explore the true secrets of that civilization's interrupted era, to pursue the ultimate in alchemy; on the other hand, it was to guard this plane's crack, to kill those otherworldly creatures that mistakenly enter our plane from the Abyss..."
After a while,
Su'en also understood.
During the "Dawn Era," the once powerful Akavia civilization that could wage war across various planes suddenly disappeared from history.
And the people of that civilization left behind a sealed space channel underground.
But due to the passage of time, some cracks appeared in the seal.
Some Abyssal monsters slipped through.
And the "dark spirit force" actually overflowed from another plane.
Su'en was also curious whether those powerful alchemists who could hunt gods were destroyed or migrated to other planes...
...
In the ruins, especially in the central ring area, don't expect to get a peaceful night's sleep.
The previous battle attracted monsters from far away, and the sound of gunfire continued intermittently all night.
Not just their group, but almost the entire Dawn Ruins were like this.
Su'en and Mr. Mirror talked for most of the night.
This mysterious big shot didn't seem to avoid discussing some ancient secrets with Su'en.
She seemed like a witness to that period of history, knowing a lot of information that others simply couldn't know from historical records or other channels.
...
The next morning, the team broke camp and continued towards the core city area of the ruins.
Another day of fierce fighting, and although many ancient relics were harvested, the casualties became more and more serious.
Even, because of exploring an A-level cursed space, a second-tier professional died.
The central ring city area of Dawn City was a dangerous place that even Mr. Mirror mentioned with a furrowed brow.
Let alone this kind of carpet-style wilderness hunting operation.
It was almost no different from sending oneself to death.
However, the good news was that there were dozens of teams throughout the city "sending themselves to death" at the same time.
Like a net tightening, it also dispersed the monsters in the ruins, reducing the pressure on individual teams significantly, and some large monsters were driven to the center of the ruins by the commotion from all directions.
Mr. Mirror originally planned to find a reasonable excuse to disappear from the team, but "Thousand Stripes," with the persona of a second-tier professional, was not easy to come by.
And coincidentally, on the second night of camping, the team encountered a "Nightmare Ghost Fog."
This drifting black fog was very sinister; once someone entered, they would disappear, like a head-eating monster.
In fact, its essence was a kind of "moving cursed space."
Whether one could come out alive after entering was one thing; even if they did come out, they would appear in another place due to the space moving.
The ghost fog approached, and Mr. Mirror detected the anomaly in advance, and Su'en also felt the abnormal spatial energy fluctuations in the fog.
Conveniently, this was also a reasonable excuse.
Then the "Thousand Stripes" led the duty team, coincidentally, into the ghost fog that looked no different from ordinary fog, and the entire team disappeared without a trace.
An hour later, the entire camp was in chaos.
To avoid the fog, they moved overnight, hastily retreating to the previous night's campsite.
...
"Thousand Stripes" disappeared, with an unknown fate, and Miss Rena was heartbroken but became even more resilient.
However, the wilderness hunting had to continue.
This hunt was doomed to end in tragedy from the start.
Rena was also mentally prepared.
After entering the central ring of the ruins, the dark spirit force in the air had become so dense that everyone's filter masks were hardly ever taken off.
Mr. Zolo became completely isolated.
In the team, he only had "Thousand Stripes" as an acquaintance, and now he was gone, appearing very solitary all day.
Su'en knew that in addition to those three supervisory troops, there were other experts in the team watching him.
Therefore, he needed to completely separate the identities of Zolo and Su'en.
Two days later, a special report was sent to the Umbrella Organization's higher-ups: "Zolo Serna, confirmed as a close-combat second-tier professional, proficient in combat skills, weak psychic fluctuations, combat style leans towards the ranger profession... Highly unlikely to be the SS wanted criminal Su'en, recommendation to downgrade file level to C!"
And almost at the same time as this "Zolo" was still active in the Reiss family's wilderness hunting team, the Oliver family's hunting team was attacked.
A Crow Gang executive was killed, three second-tier
The assassin was a secretive person wearing a crow mask, adept at controlling invisible zombies and black scythes.
It was none other than the SS wanted criminal Su'en!
...
On this day, the team finally reached Su'en's destination for this trip, the super-large cursed space—[The Central Prison of Dawn City].
P.S. Still struggling with the text, only one chapter.