899 Only Hope

Gasping for breath, Sunny rolled out of the shadows and fell on the wet rocks at the edge of the rolling waves. Streams of water flowed from his armor, and his whole body was trembling.

"C-cold... ah, s-so cold..."

Gritting his teeth, he stood up and shivered as the wind assaulted him. At that moment, not even his Ascended constitution and the Memory of Ice could protect him from being chilled to the bone.

But even then, the claws grasping his heart were much colder.

"Curse it..."

Sunny took a step forward, stumbled, then righted himself and stopped. His fists were clenched.

'Ariadne. It must have been the Ariadne.'

The broken piece of the hull, the brass button, it all made too much terrible sense. Of course, this evidence alone was not enough to make a definite conclusion, but Sunny was sure of it.

His intuition told him that much.

No one was coming to rescue the people trapped inside LO49.

...And the Terror was going to descent upon them soon, without a doubt.

Suddenly forlorn, Sunny glanced at the wall of the fortress with a lost look on his face. A few moments passed, accompanied by the howling of the wind. Then, he looked down, closed his eyes, and groaned.

"Ah... I'm so tired."

It was the cold that made him shrug off this moment of indecisiveness and start to move. No matter the situation, he had to get somewhere warm first.

One step, and he was on top of the wall. A second step, and he was standing on one of the streets of the settlement. A third step, and he suddenly appeared in the corner of a research laboratory where a group of scientists, including Professor Obel and Beth, were staying under guard.

The young woman was the first to notice him. She was slightly startled by the sight.

"...Ascended Sunless? What are you doing here?"

Sunny looked at her and forced out a pale smile.

"Don't mind me. I just got cold outside."

He stared at Beth with a strangely heavy expression for a few moments, and then shook his head.

"In any case, I'll be going now."

Sunny had to see Verne first. He dried himself off, then went back to the security center, feeling the urgent sense of alarm growing louder and louder in his head.

Before, Sunny had not known its source, and thought that he had days to discover it. But now, he wasn't so sure...

Maybe there were only hours left before the disaster his intuition was warning him about would happen.

...Maybe even minutes.

***

"...You're not listening."

Sunny glared at Verne as the seconds ticked away. Tick-tock. With each second, their fates were coming closer to being sealed. And yet, the tall Master was being difficult.

"I am listening."

Sunny suppressed the desire to hit the table with his fist. Not only would the table shatter and create a lot of noise, but it would also not help his argument in any way. More than that, he was too tired, and had no energy to go around breaking furniture.

"Then why the hell are you not doing anything?!"

Verne sighed.

"What am I supposed to do?"

Sunny blinked.

"Gather everyone, load them into the transports, and drive away from this cursed place! What else?!"

Verne looked at him for a while, his frown growing deeper.

"With all due respect, Sunless, you are not making a lot of sense. You are trying to convince me that the Ariadne is not coming, but your only piece of evidence is a button and a piece of metal that you found underwater. We both know how much junk and old wreckage was left in the oceans after the Dark Times. That armor fragment could have come from anywhere, rust or no rust."

Sunny wanted to answer in anger, but managed to hold himself back. Verne was not wrong to doubt his rather unsubstantiated theory. Any good leader would question the validity of such information. The problem was that Verne did not have the benefit of being intimately connected to the Strings of Fate, like Sunny was. He did not have Sunny's intuition.

He was blind to fate.

"Listen... this is what my gut is telling me. Staying here would be a terrible mistake."

Nevertheless, Verne remained unmoved. He lingered for a few moments, and then shook his head. His next words sounded polite, but had a sense of weight to them.

"I can't gamble with the lives of fourteen hundred people because of your gut, Sunless."

"This damned fool!"

Sunny let out a frustrated sigh.

Verne... was an experienced government officer. From their brief but intense partnership, it had become clear that he was reserved, methodical, and did things by the book. He had received orders from Army Command to reinforce LO49 and wait for the naval rescue, and that was what he was determined to do. Breaking an order was not an easy thing for him. His mind was not flexible enough.

"You have to admit that I at least might be right. So, staying is also a gamble. We are outside the parameters of standard procedure, Verne! Can't you think for yourself, for once?"

Although that last statement was a bit rude, Verne did not react much. He just stared at Sunny with his usual serious expression, then turned away and sighed. A few moments later, he said quietly:

"It doesn't matter, anyway."

Sunny scowled. The words caught him by surprise.

"What the hell does he mean?'

"..What?"

The older Master looked down.

"Sunless...... we are cut off from Army Command. The situation in the north is bad. We don't know how bad, but it has to be dire for so many Nightmare Creatures to travel freely through the mountains. The last thing we heard was that several Titans had emerged. We don't even know if any of the siege capitals still stand."

As he spoke, his tired face grew darker and darker.

"The terrain between here and the last known encampment of the First Evacuation Army is a maze, with countless swarms of abominations prowling in the dark. Our tech is barely working, if at all. Our soldiers are all exhausted or on the verge of collapse. What I am trying to say is that a convoy transporting hundreds of civilian non--combatants won't survive the journey. Not with what we have left to protect it."

Verne gritted his teeth.

"So, it's not that I refuse to entertain the idea that the Ariadne won't arrive. It's that I can't.. because that ship is our only hope."

His words echoed in the empty room of the security center. making Sunny feel even colder.