CH 8

Please note that this is a super slaughter☆TIME.

“Captainnnnnnnnnnnn!!”

At the sight of the captain collapsing in front of me, I involuntarily let out a scream.

The discomfort in my head has returned to its original itchy feeling.

“Damn, where the hell did that come from!”

“The sound of wind slicing… and something reflecting…! Let’s hurry up and get out of here! It is most likely a sniper! The direction is possibly 11 o’clock!”

“Even if you said to leave here, where are we even supposed to go!?”

“I spot a shadow of a building at 3 o’clock! Let’s head there first!”

“Damn it! I’ll never forgive anyone for what they did to captain!”

With my comrades leading the way, I start making a run towards the shadow of the building.

And there, the discomfort strikes once more.

“! What the hell…?”

By the time I said that, the gravity of the situation has already settled on the sight of Alpha 4 being toppled over into the swamp and having his chest impaled by a gigantic bug.

And yet my discomfort has not subsided.

“You son of a b*tch!”

Alpha 5 readies his gun and is about to fire at the giant bug.

But at that moment, the wolves are gnawing at every part of Alpha 5. It is evidently a fatal wound.

“Alpha 2, Alpha 3, escape!”

“Understood!”

“Damn it, damn it, damn it!”

Hence, the only thing I could do is to run anyway to elude the discomfort in my head.

I wonder how long I have been fleeing. I estimate we have been running for at least 10 minutes.

Alpha 6 and I have escaped to a house we stumbled upon. While we were escaping, Alpha 2 strayed away from us.

“Hah, what the hell is this place!”

“Don’t make a fuss… What if they are on to us?”

I hastily glance around after hearing that. However, there is no sign of discomfort… no, that discomfort in me is likely a sign of their presence.

“What are we going to do now…?”

“Do you think we have any hope of prevailing in a proper combat with them…?”

“It’s impossible… even I can tell that much.”

“Then we’ll just have to sneak away to the entrance without them discovering us…”

“Without knowing the distance and direction…?”

“No, if the location of the house hasn’t shifted, I can figure out the general direction from the address of this house.”

“That’s a relief.”

I think there’s a semblance of hope now. Although we still lack a countermeasure against them, if we can escape to the entrance, things will probably turn out for the best. My breathing has stabilized. The equipment should be adequate to deal with the situation.

“Let’s move, Alpha 6. Strike while the iron is hot.”

“Yes, Alpha 3, but I don’t think that’s the correct phrase to use in this situation.”

Alpha 6 and I rise to our feet and search the house for the address of this house. Once it dawns on us which direction to take, it also becomes crystal clear that we are already more than a kilometer away from the entrance.

“Then all that matters is time.”

“By the time we reach the entrance, even an hour would have passed.”

“Well then…”

“Yeah… the two of us shall initiate our own private retreat.”

Alpha 6 and I dash out of the house and begin to bolt in the direction of our destination…

But the next thing I know, Alpha 6 is being dumped into a black swamp by many small child-like creatures of a distinctly separate hue than those around us, and in the blink of an eye, he is reduced to a dried-up corpse.

That discomfort invades my mind.

Apparently, these “something” had targeted only Alpha 6 first and had paid no heed to me. I suppose that’s the reason I didn’t encounter the same discomfort.

“What the hell…?”

These “something” are drawing closer to me while cackling. I thought they resembled children who take delight in crushing ants.

And I begin to flee with all my might, with no sense of direction or anything else.

To me, everything is already a jumble. The only thing I know with certainty is that all the members of Alpha Squad are dead apart from me, and my immediate fear is that if I make a wrong move, I will soon join them as a corpse in a heartbeat.

At this point, all I can do is continuously run, trying to avoid the discomfort.

Before I realized it, I had drifted into a forest made of eerie trees and a combination of plants and concrete, a sight I have encountered from time to time in this labyrinth. If I were to describe this landscape succinctly, I would call it a mangrove forest fashioned by concrete.

“Where is this place…?” I murmur to myself as I advance through the mangrove forest.

As I am about to pass through the mangrove forest, I vaguely recognize the entrance door like an airlock.

My heart overflows with exultation. And then, I am prepared to break free from this labyrinth at once.

Yet, at that instant, a much stronger sense of discomfort than I have ever experienced before washed over me, prompting me to turn around and look back.

“This… this can’t be right…”

Simultaneously with the searing impact on my body, what I witness are red eyes glowing in the cave and an arm formed of wood puncturing through my body. Then there is Alpha 2, speared into the top of the tree like a butcher-bird prey impaled on the tree for later consumption.

“Game over, well, this is what happens for the first-timers, isn’t it?”

I am in a private room provided by the labyrinth, which is the boss’s room from the intruder’s point of view while watching the last image of Alpha Squad projected on a screen.

“All except one were annihilated by surprise? That’s impressive.”

“But, well, the benefit of status is enormous, isn’t it? I could lift one person up and send them smashing into a tree.”

To tell the truth, this time I left the boss’ room and participated in the battle line for the sake of getting accustomed to the situation.

As a consequence, the man known as Alpha 2 died, and none of his attacks were effective against me. Well, it can’t be helped that I possess a body of fog.