Chapter 122: The Log Went No Further
Chapter 122: The Log Went No Further
After securing the shelter management log, Walfred opened the notebook, hoping it would contain some useful information. Soon, entries written in an elegant hand came into view.
-----
[□/□. Sunday]
I was elected shelter manager by a vote.
The burden of suddenly carrying hundreds of lives on my shoulders is heavy. Still, for the sake of the people who believe in me, I need to pull myself together.
I’ve got this.
-----
After becoming the shelter manager, Helen recorded the pressure and hardships she felt as a leader directly in the log. From there, relatively ordinary entries followed.
People newly Awakened as Hunters.
The first day they fought a monster.
How they’d started farming at the cleared gate at a gas station near the shelter, and so on.
Flip!
None of it was information he particularly needed right now, so Walfred turned the pages quickly.
How long had it been?
The hand that had been flipping through the pages suddenly stopped in midair. A string of words had caught his eye.
-----
[□/□. Saturday]
The search team reported an anomaly.
(*Anomaly: A widespread white fog has appeared around the industrial complex toward Brunswick Airport. It has persisted for days since it first appeared, showing no sign of dissipating.)
After discussing it with the Hunters, we concluded it might be an abnormal phenomenon related to a gate.
We plan to begin an investigation soon.
-----
’White fog. Abnormal phenomenon.’
Walfred zeroed in on those two phrases.
Checking the dates recorded in the management log, he found that the entry had been written about three weeks ago.
And three days after that point, the results of the investigation were recorded.
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[□/□. Wednesday]
Results of the first investigation.
We’ve concluded that the fog in the industrial complex is not an ordinary natural phenomenon.
The fog is strangely white, and it has been taking on a shape as time passes. How do I put it? Like the dome of the Capitol building?
Calling it dome-shaped seems about right.
-----
The moment he read that entry, Walfred grasped what the fog really was.
’So it was a White Dome after all.’
He’d suspected as much, so he wasn’t surprised.
Ever since he’d found snow made of pure mana inside a Skinwalker’s body, he’d had a feeling this was the case.
-----
[□/□. Friday]
The search team reported an anomaly.
(*Anomaly: A pack of White Boars that had been expanding its territory toward the industrial complex fled the moment they spotted the fog, without so much as a backward glance.)
Other monsters won’t go anywhere near the fog-covered area either. Why is that?
...I’m uneasy. I have a bad feeling about this.
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[□/□. Sunday]
The industrial complex has been engulfed by the fog.
What’s more, the fog has begun to expand outward beyond the complex, as if it’s swelling. There’s still some distance between it and the shelter, but we can’t afford to relax.
We have to prepare for the worst.
-----
Just like what Walfred had experienced, the White Dome at the Savannah industrial complex had apparently begun to expand as time went on.
But having read this far, Walfred tilted his head, unable to make sense of it.
’Something’s off here...’
If it had swallowed the industrial complex and even begun expanding, the White Dome must have grown enormous.
Yet he had never seen a White Dome.
Not even when he’d looked down from the sky on Elsa’s back. And that question was answered the moment he saw the entry on the next page.
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[□/□. Wednesday]
The fog over the industrial complex has vanished.
-----
"...What?"
The White Dome vanished? Just like that?
Walfred’s eyes went wide.
’If the White Dome disappeared...’
As far as he knew, there was only one possible reason.
The one who created the White Dome.
A frost-attribute Boss Monster being exterminated.
He knew this well from firsthand experience, from when the Frost Spirit King was exterminated in Philadelphia.
-----
What on earth was that fog?
And why did it suddenly disappear?
I don’t know the exact reason, but something tells me we can’t just leave this alone.
I should put together an investigation team.
-----
Helen, who had no way of knowing any of this, decided to dispatch an investigation team to find out why the White Dome had vanished overnight.
And finally.
-----
[□/□. Friday]
The investigation team of Hunters is assembled.
We depart tomorrow morning.
I pray nothing goes wrong.
-----
And so Helen and the investigation team left the shelter to look into the abnormal phenomenon at the industrial complex.
That was the final entry.
The log, which had filled every page to the margins, went no further. Quietly closing the notebook, Walfred organized the information he’d just gained, one piece at a time.
’First, the reason the White Dome disappeared.’
The hypothesis he’d come up with earlier seemed most likely.
That the frost-attribute Boss Monster that created the White Dome had been exterminated.
But there was a problem with that hypothesis.
[Powerful Enemy Extermination Alert]
The message that appears whenever an Elite Monster of A-rank or higher is exterminated. And if a Boss Monster is exterminated, the alert appears across the entire New America Republic.
Just like when he’d exterminated the Spirit King.
But he hadn’t seen any such alert recently. Just as Walfred was furrowing his brow at the contradiction,
"Yaaawn."
Elsa, nestled in his arms, let out a yawn.
The moment he registered her presence,
’Ah, come to think of it...’
He suddenly remembered when Elsa’s life had been threatened by the Bone Drake. And with that, a new theory flashed through his mind.
’What if something similar happened here?’
The Boss Monsters that appear alongside the creation of a White Dome are usually young, immature specimens.
Elsa had been that way, and so had the Spirit King.
’In that situation, what if a powerful monster like the Bone Drake came after its life?’
Unless it had a large number of servants like the Spirit King did, it would have been helpless to defend itself.
Of course, this too was only a hypothesis, but if it was correct, all the questions so far would be resolved.
It would also perfectly explain why no Powerful Enemy Extermination Alert had appeared: it wasn’t an extermination by Hunters, but a conflict between monsters.
’Then Helen and the investigation team, unaware of all this, entered the industrial complex and ran into the Elite Monster that had devoured the Boss Monster.’
And that was probably how the Skinwalker crisis began.
That was where Walfred’s reasoning ended.
Just then,
"Mnngh..."
Elsa, who had been dozing off, suddenly lost her balance and smacked her head against the desk. The impact knocked the shelter management log to the floor.
Thump! Fwip!
The notebook lay splayed open.
And in that instant,
"Huh?"
Walfred’s eyes went round.