Black Badger

Chapter 102

There was no more conversation after that. We dashed up the stairs. Ricardo took the lead. I couldn't keep up with his speed.

My chest kept hurting. It felt like the pain was getting worse from running.

But if I showed it, they would obviously leave me behind on the surface, so I didn't let it show.

We ran up to the 14th floor, where we couldn't go any higher.

From the 14th floor on, the stairs were buried under debris and unusable. So we flung open the stairwell door and headed into the hallway. The hallway wasn't intact either, so we cleared away the rubble blocking the path as we made our way to the window.

Ricardo tied a wire around my body.

"Do you have the wire?"

"It's not a weapon, so they didn't take it~."

According to him, only Ami used wire as a weapon.

The senior perched on the windowsill and leaned his upper body out. Fortunately, it was a bright moonlit night with no wind.

Ricardo attached the suction pad on the wire to the building's exterior wall. So we could climb up the outside of the building.

"You can climb up, right?"

"Yes."

The man disappeared out the window, and I followed, leaning my body out after him.

Below my feet stretched the wasteland, tinged with a bluish haze in the air.

No real conversation happened this time either. We climbed up the wire, facing the cold air.

Then, at some point, Ricardo stopped ascending and smashed a windowpane.

Crash!

The glass shattered inward.

The senior jumped inside.

I quickly followed behind him.

Huh.

The scene that unfolded left me speechless.

I never wanted to see something like this again. When I'd been trapped in the building with Poden, there hadn't been anyone crushed under rubble. When Ricardo and I had been buried in the hallway, only Marie had been pinned.

But things were different now.

We'd entered through a 19th-floor window. The arena's ceiling—that is, the 19th floor—had collapsed, and the fallen ceiling pressed down on the spectator seats.

Most people probably wouldn't even be found as bodies.

I turned my head away after seeing an arm sticking out from between the concrete sandwich.

It was eerily quiet.

All the lights were shattered, so we had to rely on moonlight for visibility.

Standing at the highest point, I looked down. My eyes, adjusted to the dark, caught the arena below. The arena was half-collapsed.

The northern section, where Ricardo and I had been, had caved in.

The opposite side was covered in rubble, but the floor there didn't seem to have collapsed.

It was right where the waiting area had been.

The spot where the elder, who'd been torn apart, had been sitting for a moment. Maybe that's why they hadn't planted bombs nearby, since it was his waiting spot. Facing this hopeful reality, I exhaled the breath I'd been holding.

"Senior."

I called out to Ricardo as he descended the slanted rubble.

Following him down, I put strength into my feet.

It was so quiet I didn't need to raise my voice.

"Do you know about where?"

"Roughly."

Ricardo didn't turn around.

Instead, he moved steadily toward one spot. Quickly, but not recklessly. I was impressed that even as he hurried toward the arena, he didn't slip or kick debris and disrupt this precarious balance.

His speed didn't slow even with moonlight as the only light source.

Dust hung thick in the air.

For a while, I focused only on descending to the arena.

"Winter!"

Ricardo finally jumped from the edge of the rubble onto the remaining arena floor.

"Fisher!"

I leaped down from a height nearing two stories onto the arena.

There weren't many places to search anyway. I ran toward the waiting area, careful not to slip and fall into the arena below by mistake.

"Senior!"

Whoa.

Ricardo and I both flinched at the same time.

But the shock that made my heart pound quickly turned to joy.

He was alive.

The tension gripping my heart from anxiety eased. I exhaled a breath I hadn't even realized I'd been holding. Deep relief settled on Ricardo's face as he approached the buried waiting area.

"Winter."

He carefully touched the rubble covering the waiting area.

"Give me a situation report~...."

"Ah, Asil...."

Why Asil?

"Thanks to the senior covering us with weapons, we weren't crushed, but Asil's condition.... The poison's spread, I think. Creature poison, so...."

"Calm down and breathe~."

"Thanks to the space you made with the weapons, we didn't get crushed to death? The ceiling did collapse, but luckily the weapons were sturdy...."

"Winter. Breathe."

I heard Barbie trying to steady her panting breaths.

I walked over to Ricardo.

And, squinting, I groped to feel the shape of the rubble.

"I can't see anything."

I also tried to pinpoint exactly where Barbie's voice was coming from.

"Breathing's getting stuffy, head hurts. Probably low on oxygen, but more than that, Asil's breathing is getting worse...."

Waiting for support would be too late.

Ricardo made a quick judgment and turned to me.

I nodded.

Thud!

With an extra pair of hands, it went much faster.

We pushed the rubble covering the waiting area down into the collapsed arena below, piece by piece. My hands got cut by protruding rebar fragments and sharp concrete, but there was no time to care.

I shoved aside several heavy pieces with thuds.

Repeating that revealed the waiting area, compressed like a crepe cake.

The waiting area's ceiling bent downward.

Even above the ceiling, rubble had piled endlessly.

If Ricardo hadn't hastily covered them with his shape-shifting weapon, Barbie and Fisher would have been sandwiched and killed. I frowned at the exposed cross-section of the concrete sandwich before my eyes.

The situation still wasn't good.

"Leg."

Ricardo pointed out curtly.

With the rubble cleared, Barbie, now able to see us under the moonlight, lifted her head.

She looked at us with joyful eyes, then followed Ricardo's gaze.

"Ah."

Seeing her right calf pinned under the rubble, she let out a flat voice.

"Yeah. Lucky only one leg got crushed."

"Should've covered more area."

Ricardo's voice was stiff.

He meant the silver ceiling of the shape-shifting weapon now covering Asil and Barbie. It was holding up well against the weight of the pressing rubble.

Barbie smiled at the man furrowing his brow.

"No. Then it wouldn't have been thick or high enough, and we'd both be flat as pancakes. My fault for not lying straight. Look, Asil didn't get crushed."

"Can't clear the stuff on the leg."

"You can tell just by looking."

Barbie kept smiling even as tears streamed down her face.

"As long as we survive, it's fine."

I should have paid more attention.

When the elder, torn by the creature's hand, issued his warning, I shouldn't have brushed it off. With a heavy heart, I looked at Barbie's crushed leg.

Even if we administered the Green Dream Antidote, that leg was beyond saving.

It had been perfectly fine just a few hours ago.

"Take Asil out first."

Barbie met my eyes as I bit my lip.

"Look at his arm. It's completely swollen. He took the hit for me.... What if he dies?"

"He won't...."

Ricardo bent down and injected the antidote into Asil's arm. Then he pulled the limp, silver-haired senior up onto Barbie.

The man handed Asil to me.

"Take him down."

"You have to come too."

I replied as I took Asil.

"The shape-shifting weapon won't hold much longer. Neither will this floor."

"Agreed."

Barbie reached toward the arena.

"I've been hearing weird noises from above since earlier. Hurry and inject the antidote, then cut off the leg. And get me out of here."

Ricardo took a long breath.

He seemed to be barely suppressing hyperventilation.

Yeah. He'd held up well so far. In a place where countless people had been crushed to death. Even I felt my mind fraying, so I could only imagine how he felt.

But there was no time to calm him.

I handed Asil back to him and said,

"I'll do it."

Ricardo turned his head slightly and met my eyes.

He was sweating coldly again.

"Go down, senior. I'll follow right away."

"Yeah."

Barbie murmured blankly, staring up at the silver ceiling.

"You handle a sword well. It might hurt less if you do it."

I couldn't get sentimental.

Dwelling on guilt and sorrow wasn't the time right now. I bit my lip and waited for Ricardo's decision, watching him scan the layered rubble over the shape-shifting weapon and the arena floor that felt cramped just with us standing there.

A suffocating silence settled over the place.

Ricardo decided quickly.

"Come right after."

"Yes."

"Winter."

Ricardo gripped Barbie's outstretched hand tightly, then let go.

"Hang in there."

Barbie let out a small laugh.

Lying there, she even waved to the senior climbing the arena wall with Asil on his back.

After he left, she turned her head and looked up at me.

"Sorry for leaving you behind."

What rubble could serve as a sword.

I didn't answer Barbie. I spun around, syringe of antidote in hand, quickly scanning the surroundings. Something sharp and straight, sized to fit in my hand, with an edge that could cut.

I quickly picked up two pieces of rubble from the corner of the arena.

And I clashed them together to shape them.

"Ah!"

Barbie screamed suddenly when she saw me approaching with the rubble.

"Now that it's time, I'm scared!"

"I'll make it quick."

I'd done this often.... Usually on the battlefield.

Back then, I'd cauterized with a red-hot sword, but luckily, we had the antidote now.

With my augmented body state, the wound would seal quickly once the leg was cut. It wouldn't regrow, though.

I stuck the syringe needle into Barbie's arm.

"Feels like I'll live."

Good.

I pocketed the syringe and picked up the rubble I'd set down again. Then I examined the boundary of the calf pinned under the heavy concrete. The body part sticking straight out from under the silver ceiling, buried.

I had to do it in one go.

"Senior."

"Yeah?"

"What cohort are you?"

"Huh? Me?"

Barbie's eyes filled with confusion.

"I'm tenth...."

Snap.

It cut cleanly.

Barbie screamed.

Ignoring her shrill cry, I pulled out the freed body part. The senior's body emerged from under the silver ceiling. As she straightened her bent left leg, the imbalance with her right leg became starkly clear.

Don't get sentimental.

I hoisted the senior onto my shoulder and leaped toward the arena wall.

"I'm sorry."

Climbing over the rubble, I jumped up onto the arena.

Crawling quickly up the slanted debris, I muttered,

"I'm sorry, senior."

"For what."

Barbie mumbled from my back.

She buried her face in my back and tore at my shirt.

"What for? What...."

"If I'd been just a little faster...."

"No."

She cut off my words firmly.

And, face buried in my back, she added,

"Thanks for coming back."

Her voice was steady, unlike before.

"Thanks for getting me out...."

If I'd paid more attention.

If I'd known Marie was a retainer. If I'd handled things more wisely while maintaining my augmented body alone. If I'd caught the creature a bit faster, or hadn't ignored the elder's final warning. If I'd run to them carrying Ricardo, maybe this wouldn't have happened.

Endless regrets assailed me as I headed to the window.

Over the mistakes I'd made.

Until the time came to push the self-blame aside because we had to climb down the building exterior.