Chapter 148: Emergency

“…” After getting ready, Nadir and I headed toward the city as fast as we could. I even used my powers, and Nadir combined his with mine so we could leap forward at incredible speeds and descend slowly, almost as if we were gliding. Unfortunately, it still took us a full thirty minutes to get there. That was way too long.

“W-What the hell is that?!” I exclaim in shock at the scene before me. The city is infested with monsters, and they aren’t weak ones, either. I can easily tell that some of them have the Demon and Hunter Classes. I can’t assess the threat from this distance yet, but they’re hunting people and destroying everything in sight.

“That’s… Nightmare…” Nadir murmurs as I look at an entire neighborhood submerged in flesh covered in eyes. It seems even powerful monsters have decided to join the party. We also see several Kairas fighting. It looks like everyone who was available has come out to fight.

“Hey, Nadir, could my students be there? Yes or no?!”

“Yes, they could be. They came back when I did, too.” I consider running to one of the support bases, but Nadir grabs my hand.

“What are you doing? We need to arm ourselves properly and—”

“I think this might be Nemesis’s doing… It looks like we didn’t have as much time as we thought… Don’t you find it strange that so many powerful monsters are attacking in such a short time? There’s no practical way so many monsters could invade the island without being detected by Aurora Island’s radar. Besides, look. They seem to have emerged from the city, because the surrounding areas don’t show any signs of destruction like they would if the monsters had come from outside or from beneath the island.”

“…Humans turned into monsters…” I murmur, and Nadir agrees that most of the monsters we’re seeing used to be human.

“Damn it… Contaminating our blood with filth didn’t help. Nemesis still used the sample she stole… So…” I realize that getting involved in this fight is far too risky because we’re clearly the main targets.

“I think they’re looking for us, Nadir. What do we do? We can’t just sit here and do nothing.” Nadir looks around, then pulls me toward a car on the street. He smashes the window, opens the door, and shoves me inside.

“…!?” He tells Nexus to start the car for them, then begins driving at high speed. His rough handling catches me by surprise.

‘He’s nervous…’

“The car will partially hide us from the monsters. We’ll look like ordinary civilians trying to escape. Besides, if they’re really after us, we need to avoid being found… Nexus, inform the base that I, Commander Nadir, am the primary target of this monster attack, and tell them there’s an 83.5% chance this is a Nemesis attack.” Nadir doesn’t mention that I’m a target, too, so I adjust myself in the car and keep quiet.

‘Where the hell did he get that percentage?! He’s just making up numbers… Whatever… The car’s slow because I’m so heavy…’ He drives skillfully through the streets, dodging the monsters in our path.

“[I’ll inform the base immediately, Commander Nadir… We’ll send reinforcements to your location—]”

“No. Tell them to send a small ship. We’ll draw the main threats away from the city. Have the reinforcements head to the coordinates where the ship lands. And Zenith, we’re leaving the island. It’ll be easier that way.” Nadir unexpectedly takes charge. I know he’s a commander, but I’m usually the one who takes command.

“You’ve gotten better at this.”

“Two years without you helping me forced me to improve. Now, Nexus, hurry up. We need that empty ship immediately. I’ll drive straight to Fifth Street in Block 75. The ship needs to be there by the time we arrive.” Nadir looks at the car’s camera and punches it.

“Nemesis can affect technology. I think she’ll be able to see us through the cameras if we’re careless, Zenith.” I look out the window and see several monsters chasing us. I glance beneath the car, then stomp through the undercarriage, breaking the metal well away from anything important.

Nadir keeps driving while I drop five grenades out of the car. We continue forward as an explosion erupts behind us, followed by a gigantic cloud of smoke.

“Nice trick,” he says, making an extremely risky turn to avoid a monster.

“You, too. You’ve learned to drive pretty well.” I quickly reload the weapons and toss him a pistol. Who would’ve thought Nemesis would attack today? It was a completely unexpected surprise attack.

“So, what’s the plan, Commander? At this point, I’m just a civilian catching a ride.” I make a little joke about the situation as he drives up a ramp over a monster using a truck as a makeshift ramp.

“The plan is to find a clearer area to fight. With all these monsters here, killing Nemesis is impossible. But while the Kairas deal with the monsters already here, we can go after Nemesis and defeat her with help from any other Kairas who show up.” I look outside the car and see Aya following us with seven drones.

That’s all we’ve got because we weren’t ready yet. She seems to be able to distract some of the monsters, but the drones are slower than the car. She’s actually taken longer than us to get here, even though she came at maximum speed.

‘Flying sure is convenient. She didn’t have to worry so much about the trees…’ I give Aya a thumbs-up through the window while Nadir makes another dangerous turn.

“Yes, indeed… Anyway, this problem isn’t that serious up here. Maya will handle the monsters without much difficulty. She’s on the island. The biggest problem is…” Nadir trails off as the car suddenly shuts down completely. I watch Aya’s drones plummet to the ground as every electronic device around us begins powering off.

“…It’s her.” Nadir quickly gets out of the car, and I follow him. We start running. We’re not far from where Nadir requested the ship, and the ship is reinforced with Vector materials, so it shouldn’t have shut down.

“Things are getting intense. I hadn’t adapted Aya’s drones to withstand this yet,” I murmur as we cross a street and reach our destination.

“He’s late… I suppose that makes sense. The military wouldn’t just release something like this out of nowhere, but they must have authorized it given the situation requires more flexibility,” Nadir murmurs as we look toward the direction where the flesh is swallowing entire buildings.

“What goddamn awful luck we have, Nadir…” I mutter, just before hearing a faint humming sound as a small ship arrives.

“Well, looks like luck has finally smiled on us.” Nadir grins as we run toward the ship, but several monsters spot us and seem to go berserk.

“Not that much, Nadir, not that much!!! Luck isn’t on our side THAT much!” We get inside the ship, and he quickly takes control while I take over the weapons, starting up everything we’ve got.

“Do you know how to pilot this thing?” I ask nervously, activating all our defenses as he begins to ascend.

“Of course I do. Things may have gotten hectic, but that doesn’t erase my driving skills. Hold on.” The ship shoots forward at incredible speed as I see a monster stretching wildly in an attempt to chase us.

“S-So fast! Nadir, go higher!! Higher!!” I tell him as he tries to accelerate as much as the ship will allow. The monster keeps stretching, its four legs looking like giant rubbery ropes. The weapons quickly open fire and bring it down.

‘It was actually keeping up with our speed!!? That’s Mach 12!!!’

“Haa… That was insane. Activate the shields, Nadir. Let’s get as far away as we can, but not so far that we lose access to reinforcements.” I try to take command.

“Already done.” But Nadir is much faster than me.

“Okay…” I settle back into my seat a little more calmly. The ship’s cabin isn’t very spacious, but at least it’s fast.

“…NADIR! TURN LEFT!!” I sense something moving at an absurd speed through the air. Nadir tries to turn, but the ship is struck on the side. An entire section is torn away, and we begin plummeting. At this altitude, we’ll crash outside the island.

“What was that?” he asks as the wind rushes into the cabin, its roar almost drowning out his voice. Fortunately, the safety system activates, stabilizing the cabin’s interior so we aren’t thrown out.

“Nemesis!!” I shout at him. He tries to steer the ship despite the enormous missing section, allowing it to glide a little better while he searches for a suitable place to crash-land.

‘That bitch jumped all the way from the island’s surface to this insane height? What a monster… That was a kick, wasn’t it?’ I couldn’t make it out clearly. It happened too fast.

“H-Hahaha, a soldier’s life is always full of crazy shit,” Nadir says with a nervous laugh. I agree, knowing we’ve been found. The fact that she attacked the ship so aggressively proves that we’re indeed her targets.

‘This is going to be complicated…’