The first thing the 8th Platoon Leader saw when she opened her eyes was the wide hexagonal roof of the tent and the sunset that had fallen just before darkness arrived. She closed her eyes, squinting as if to shield them, needing time to adapt to the bright and harsh light, and placed the back of her hand over them. Then, the gauze near her forehead brushed against her hand.
As she fumbled at the unfamiliar sensation, her head throbbed. With that discomfort, she forced her eyes open and turned her body. A wave of dizziness rose, but it was tolerable.
“Platoon Leader!”
As she half-raised her body, the platoon member waiting beside her called out with a moved expression.
“Are you alright?”
The 8th Platoon Leader scanned his worried face and, while trying to relax her expression still scrunched from the glare, said,
“...I’m fine. How long was I out?”
“It seems about three or four hours. Ah, please wait a moment. I’ll call the medical team.”
The platoon member immediately left the tent, running to inform the medics that the platoon leader had awakened. The 8th Platoon Leader touched the gauze on her forehead again. Contrary to her expectation, she realized she had been unconscious for quite a while.
When her gaze followed after the departing member, she saw the commanders of the Southern Branch outside the tent, striding with serious expressions. After staring blankly for a moment, a question suddenly struck her.
‘...Why is the Southern Branch here?’
Seeing the commanders instead of liaison officers, she immediately began assessing the situation by looking around.
Come to think of it, this large tent was only used when many personnel had to be accommodated, and such a tent hadn’t been seen at the 1st Battalion’s base camp after the procession split into smaller groups.
Outside, armbands of the Southern Branch could be spotted here and there, and most passing members wore badges on their collars indicating their branch. This place was clearly the Southern Branch’s camp.
Now wondering why she was here, the 8th Platoon Leader lifted herself fully from the temporary bed and placed her feet on the ground. The outside view opened at once, and the late-afternoon breeze swept through the open entrance.
It might have seemed trivial, but that breeze carried an unfamiliar sense.
It was something never felt on the dry, arid plains—excessively hollow yet oddly familiar. The breeze carried the smell of wet soil and a faint, fishy odor. Drawn as if enchanted, she rose and stepped outside, following it.
“Platoon Leader?”
The other 1st Battalion members waiting near the tent saw her sudden appearance and quickly gathered. Delighted at first, they stopped her when she tried to walk off. She looked unstable, moving as if possessed, still weak after just waking.
But the 8th Platoon Leader pushed past their arms and followed the hollow breeze swirling around her. Slowly at first, before she knew it, she was running at full speed.
Southern Branch members hauling supplies stared, puzzled, at her mindless dash. She passed them and the camp, swept forward by the pull of the air.
After running until breathless, the energy of the wind stopped, lingering ahead in the void. As she took one more step, the ground gave way with a thud. She stumbled back two steps, then stared blankly.
“...”
Below her feet yawned a cliff.
Her gaze followed it down to a vast wasteland where everything was broken beyond recognition. Rocks and withered grass roots jutted from mounds of earth, and the grotesquely twisted corpses of monsters that had failed to escape were half-buried. In the distance, Southern Branch members searched the ruins, while the same wind that had swept that far place now brushed across her black hair atop the cliff.
“Platoon Leader, what are you doing!”
The platoon members who had followed pulled her back from the edge. Dragged a few steps, she frowned at the sting where one had grabbed her arm.
Looking down, she saw her wrist swollen and red with handprints. And in that moment, part of her memory before losing consciousness returned.
The unknown mineral hurled by the outsider she had thought unconscious. The golden barrier that unfolded before she realized it was flying at her. And the voice shouting for her to dodge.
Retracing her memory, she suddenly realized the two people who had been with her then were nowhere to be seen.
She turned to the others and asked,
“Where are Leonardo Blaine and Kenis Weber?”
At her question, the platoon members’ expressions darkened. They glanced at each other, silent. Feeling something wrong, she pressed them, until one finally spoke with difficulty.
“Both are currently missing. We’re searching with the help of other battalions.”
“...Missing?”
It took a long moment for the word to sink in. Her face slowly sank into futility. She repeated it in disbelief, even mouthing it silently, then touched the gauze on her forehead again.
The members looked bitterly at her. There was worse news still.
“Why? Is there another problem?”
Sensing more from their expressions, she pressed further. One finally answered, glancing at her.
“...Platoon Leader, the Commander is missing as well.”
“...What?”
Her shocked face looked as though she had heard the unthinkable. The members told her what had happened while she was unconscious. As she listened, the color drained from her face.
The 8th Platoon Leader shut her trembling eyelids tight.
Confusion struck, and her headache flared violently.
According to them, the camp she had awoken in was a temporary base set up by part of the 9th Battalion of the Southern Branch near the collapse site. Their search was desperate because their battalion commander had been caught in the collapse as well.
When the 1st Battalion reached the ravine just before it gave way, Kenis and Leonardo were already gone, and both the Commander and the 9th Battalion’s commander had leapt into the abyss after them. In that chaos, she lost consciousness and was rescued, now standing here unscathed.
Piece by piece, the truth sank in. She had no face left to show her comrades, no dignity to lead her men.
Her head felt as though it would split apart.
What tormented her most was the last image she recalled before blacking out again.
As she opened her eyes, a strap digging into her abdomen from the halted fall, she glimpsed a figure receding into darkness. What flickered last in her vision was the golden light that had bound her, held her aloft—and then fallen after.
He had let go on purpose, vanishing into the endless dark with that distant figure.
It was probably to catch the falling man.
After teleporting three people, his condition had deteriorated badly, serious enough that even she could sense it. That was why, climbing the cliff, she had gone first while he remained below...
No, even when she had first spotted him under the collapsing cliff, his energy had already been far from what it once was.
And yet, in such a state, he had let go and fallen to save a Council member unrelated to him. Was that even possible by common sense?
‘He could die.’
He really could die.
“Ha...”
The 8th Platoon Leader let out a deep sigh. The confusion wouldn’t leave her, but now that her superior was gone, she had to decide what to do next.
She lifted her head, counting the 1st Battalion members sunken in gloom. She couldn’t remain still. It wasn’t the time for despair.
Just then, two figures appeared in the distance, flying this way. One was her platoon member, the other marked with the insignia of the 6th Battalion of the Central Branch.
“Platoon Leader Russell, you’re here! We’ve been searching for you.”
“Platoon Leader, why did you leave the tent right after waking!”
The 6th Battalion member landed urgently, explaining he had been looking for her. The platoon member with him was the one who had gone to fetch the medics.
The 8th Platoon Leader had no time for reflection. She turned to the 6th Battalion member first.
“What does the 6th Battalion want?”
“Ah, Battalion Commander Rivera ordered me to check your condition. She also said to bring you immediately if you were awake.”
“...The 6th Battalion Commander did?”
She asked back, puzzled.
Then suddenly, she remembered Rivera’s ability.
****
Delua tapped the 8th Platoon Leader’s shoulder.
“Emma Russell, tracking specialist of the 1st Battalion—the Central Branch’s future depends on you.”
Emma’s face grew perplexed.
“Pardon?”
“Your main attribute is wind, and you’re B4-grade, right? The Commander praised you often. I know you’re disoriented after that head injury and just waking, but I’d like your help.”
The place she had been brought was a wasteland buried in earth. Part of the 6th Battalion of the Central Branch and Commander Delua Rivera were there.
Behind them, a vast magic circle had been inscribed in the ground, clearly requiring many hands.
Emma ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) looked at it and asked,
“What are you trying to do?”
“We need to find those buried underground. But all the Southern Branch’s trackers attuned to air are away. So, Platoon Leader Russell, we need you.”
At the mention of finding people, Emma’s spirit sharpened. Her face set with desperate resolve. She answered with fierce eyes,
“What must I do?”
Seeing that steel in her gaze, Delua smiled with satisfaction.
“Here, where we’re standing. Do you know what this place is? When a landslide sweeps people away, this is the likeliest area they’d be buried. It’s also relatively low, with less risk of further collapse.”
Emma glanced down at the earth beneath her boots.
“From now on, my battalion and I will lift the piles of earth here. When we do, you’ll read the air beneath and judge if anyone is there. I hear it takes great skill to sense air currents underground—but it’s your specialty.”
“Yes, it is.”
Delua’s words matched Emma’s expectation.
But with Rivera’s own ability, surely they could have found survivors already? Hours had passed since the collapse began.
As if to answer her thought, Delua went on,
“But we’ve run into problems.”
“What kind of problems?”
“First, the range of my spell isn’t wide. Even with my members lifting the earth, it covers only a fraction of this vast land. So the task will be repetitive, requiring patience.”
“...”
“Second, the soil is soaked after days of rain. Until now, I had 6th Battalion members with wind attributes assisting. But they said the air passing through wet soil is too faint to detect. It won’t be easy for you either.”
Emma nodded grimly.
“And third. This one may be less certain—but I found something strange about this peninsula’s land.”
Delua tapped the ground with her boot.
“There was an empty space below. Until the mountain collapsed.”
A few hours earlier, when the Dermocas swarm on the plains had been wiped out by Hugo and Leonardo, Delua’s battalion had been mopping up stragglers and pursuing escapees.
They had expected some might hide in mountain tunnels, but not such overwhelming numbers. Identifying their base became critical.
The creatures, clever, seemed to sense pursuit and scattered instead of fleeing to their lair.
In response, Delua concealed dry grass on their bodies to track them, and eventually discovered some entering a hidden tunnel.
Digging further, they uncovered a massive underground space.
“It seems the tunnels absent on the plains cluster near the large peaks. I believe it’s a kind of magma chamber.”
A magma chamber forms deep underground, 1 to 10 kilometers below the surface. The Elder Millie Peninsula had risen from volcanic activity, with magma flowing inland from undersea volcanoes.
Thus, its magma chambers had risen too, leaving hollow spaces after eruptions ended.
“But the place was odd. Inside, I could use only about half my mana, as if something suppressed it. And the monsters’ energy vanished.”
“Were there minerals, like mana-restraint stone?”
“No. If so, it wouldn’t have been strange. There was nothing of the sort. And so I lost them.”
Emma’s expression shifted subtly.
It was indeed strange. To suppress mana or conceal energy, there must be minerals, magic stones, or human-made barriers. Yet this peninsula was long abandoned, overrun only by monsters.
“Anyway. The flows below differ from above. Which means our mana won’t reach that deep. So it’s all the more vital to sense air currents caused by movement—not mana.”
Delua gripped Emma’s shoulder, met her eyes.
“What do you think—can you do it?”
Emma focused on the air brushing her fingertips. The wind between them felt unusual.
“Of course. Leave it to me.”
At that, the magic circle behind them began to glow. The 6th Battalion members moved into formation to assist Delua’s spell. Delua turned to the glowing circle, then smiled back at Emma.
“Alright. Let’s begin.”
