level_main_08-05_beg

Hui-chieh:

No one would offer the Infected any help. We were no volunteer army. We had nothing like the 'Brave Wok' from the age of Mikhail the Huge Ears. We had no city of our own, and we hardly even had fields to hill up.

'The Originium grows on our skin, and the scant few weapons we hold are stark. The snow in our mouths melts into our water, our stomachs are filled with grass seed and bark. '

And so they sang. I learned a good few of those in short order.

We were just some Infected with nowhere to go.

I became more and more sure. Coming to the Northern Tundra first was the right choice. Nothing but people with nowhere to return, and nowhere to go, wherever you went.

The Infected in the cities, singled out by the common folk. The races of each country looking on one another with suspicion of their differences. Only out on the tundra do people become a little simpler.

I wanted to go back south. But this time, I probably wouldn't be going alone.

Infected dying of frostbite and hunger on the tundra is not the same as Infected dying of their illness on their own land.

The Infected should pioneer their own city. If Ursus doesn't allow it, then Ursus should be changed.

Exile, abdication, leaving the country—in the end, you were still a homeless vagabond. Whenever you told of a place that'd admit the Infected, you were telling a fairytale.

If the Infected wanted to regain their dignity, they needed strength, unity, and a change in the status quo.

If we could gain the backing of the Infected guerrillas, then maybe this quest of ours would have some chance of success.

It was important for the Infected to regain their confidence. It was crucial for us to have any sense of meaning in our lives.

No doubt about it, it's here.

Those patrolmen set up new sentries around the abandoned city. Those black-swaddled, black-shelled vermin... chewing away at the crops, leaving not even a scrap for us.

...This city's been derelict for over ten years, now.

Its core facilities were towed away, and none of its inhabitants stayed behind. The buildings and city plates left might someday be pulled apart and picked clean, too.

Which noble's turf was this, originally?

Baron Neva, knifed to death in a riot. Every possible heir of his within a hundred kilometers had already been uprooted.

Who did it? Sounds vicious.

Royalists. The First Army had plenty of them.

I don't get it. Talulah, you said a few days ago, right? The Great Rebellion was carried out by the current Emperor and the old military noblemen?

So why would the army help the Emperor kill nobles?

The principal force driving the Great Rebellion was the age before it... those Ursus military nobles who stood to gain everything from Ursus's epoch of relentless outward expansion.

After the new Emperor ascended, it was natural they'd spit out every city, all the resources, and the entire population they'd swallowed up.

At that time, most of Ursus's army was under the direct control of the military nobles. But the royalists were no slow thinkers. One fewer noble meant one less share of the spoils.

Then, once they'd disposed of those nobles, the silver made its way back to their pockets. The risk was high, but they had the capital to make that foray.

And that's why, during the Great Rebellion, past the cities all saving their own hides, the royalists probably inflicted the biggest losses on the families with a hand in the rebellions.

So they say. If it was the actual rebel armies who held the advantage in the Great Rebellion...

Then the royalists would've been hanged and the Emperor placed under house arrest, consent forced by the prerogative of all those goddamned putrefying nobles littering the military.

All the lordly dukes and their armies would've split Ursus up into countless smaller regimes—at least, internally, they were sure things would go that way.

And don't forget, back in reality, all those young officers on the rise after the Great Rebellion played out weren't siding with the new Emperor. They were probably just siding with the money.

...I see. At the end of it all, it was still fought for money.

Correct.

Hah. You have answers for everything, don't you, Talulah?

...The one who taught me all this was so arrogant, he didn't even care how much I took in. I could probably rattle that crap off without even thinking about it.

That's enough. God knows you're plenty smart. Why come here, then? You already said any place a person could live is long gone.

How'd you figure anything out of all their nonsense ramblings these past few days... how'd you figure out the Patrol Unit would be here?

All the villages in the area were planning to move. If a Catastrophe's not coming, then that only leaves one reason.

It's the rotten patrolmen, coming to stay. If it were some army passing through, the villages wouldn't dare think of moving.

It should be because the harvest season's just ended. The Patrol Unit will carry out their routine inspections now, making sure the tax collectors haven't gone into the villages yet.

The nearest city still operating is Shiraziberg. It's mainly light industry. It's only stopped over here to procure resources at most.

Most villages in the vicinity don't have a landholder protecting them, so those rotting patrolmen have flocked in from all over. They must've seen things were ripe for the picking.

...Originally, they were just a ragtag organization of rogues tracking down the Infected. Now they're all old geezers on a rampage who'll stoop to any low.

Then let's wipe them out. Our days here'll be a lot more peaceful if we do. We should.

We don't have the capacity.

Huh? So what the hell are we here to do?

—'Aegis.' 'Aegis' are attacking the sentries here.

...Guerrillas?

Right.

Infected guerrillas? ! Damn, that's... man, Emperor above...

It isn't easy to make contact with them. We've been piling up information for three whole months, and now we've finally scooped an opportunity.

Didn't care much when you said a few days ago we were looking for another group, but if I'd known you were looking for... for guerrilla fighters. Man.

But. Um. You have an easy time linking up with the southern city Infected. Is it really that hard to get in touch with these guys?

If you want to survive in the city, you need to be proactive about your intel and collaborators.

If you want to survive out on the tundra, what you need is solid tactics and a lifestyle that keeps Ursus's spies guessing at all times.

The Infected have plenty of Messengers, and the Infected have their own methods and channels to get the signal out.

The guerrillas? The guerrillas will only ever talk to the tundra Infected.

The guerrillas don't want to be found, that's the thing. Neither do they want to join up with anyone.

They accept the Infected into their own group, and train them to become fighters. They're probably not exactly like I'm hoping, but the guerrillas are still undoubtedly going strong, with no signs of slowing down.

—At the very least, there have been two small guerrilla bands who've exchanged resources with Infected settlements ten kilometers out.

Even if the local Infected won't talk, it wouldn't have been the Army who left those fire pits outside their villages.

Okay, here's what they're here to do: destroy this freshly built sentry outpost, and make sure the patrolmen go down with it.

Everyone, sit tight here. Be on alert. Patrolmen could be fleeing through these parts.

It's a long way out from Shiraziberg, and the sentries have barely set up. They won't hold out.

They'll retreat. As long as they haven't been annihilated by the guerrillas, that is.

Hide yourselves. If we run into two or three Patrol Unit bands at once, we won't be able to take them.

Talulah?! Are you going alone?

Let me. If we want to make contact with the guerrillas, we'll need to show them we're not hostile.

And if we end up skirmishing, you could just as easily escape.

Are you treating us like cowards?!

I've never met people braver than you. And that's why, to your fellow Infected compatriots, you are crucial. If they want to be alive down the line, that's all the more reason they need you.

Which is the better choice: you live, or we sacrifice more for my sake? It should be plenty obvious.

You're still looking down on us.

I've put in a great deal of thought into this decision. And everyone will be better off, by the way.

So don't run your mouth.

You're just pissed, now!

Like we're not all burning inside! If you think we don't understand you, newsflash—it feels like you don't bother getting what we think, either.

A 'decision' means nothing to us. We came back with you all the way from the Northwest... and it wasn't for any 'decision.'

You fight well! You let us all eat, you taught us a hell of a lot more than we knew before.

I don't understand you well, but as far as I'm concerned, you're different from the city-dwellers, or even the Infected in the mines.

You just don't want us to die, right? Talulah, look at us. Think we're scared? We're no cowards!

Bet it never crossed your mind. Compared to drifting endlessly, we're a hell of a lot more prepared to die with you!

What if I told you I saw this coming long ago, and just hoped you wouldn't do it this way?

Why?

Because I won't die.

It's okay. Let me go. Less casualties this way, too. Besides, I'm—*chuckle* 'the Deathless.'

In the words of a repulsive monster.

Wait... Talulah, like hell we let anyone look down on us! We don't want them to think we're begging for them. Just let us come with you!

No!

Only executioners rank people by the murder in them. You've already won respect for the fact that you stepped forward.

If anyone looks down on you, that's the one who truly deserves to be scorned.

Fine.

—Wait, Talulah! You're seriously going with just a single sword?!

A list of names and a book of frequency numbers, too!

Remember, my friends! These are far more important than my sword!

Talulah regretted it a little.

She didn't run into the stomach-dropping terror that was the guerrillas. She didn't catch sight of their iconic aegis. She never so much as glimpsed a single worn-out Ursus armament. Nor any of the fabled towering Sarkaz who walked with the guerrillas, even.

For better, or for worse... she encountered the Yeti Squad.

And it was cold.

She lit a fire, and jumped into the last of the Patrol Unit's watchtowers, out of the startled, certain gaze of a white-wrapped group of Yetis.

Careful the list doesn't burn. It's so cold, though. Too cold, she thought.

Need to warm this place up a little.