Chapter 195
“Ugh—ghk!”
The man who had tried to strip Eloi collapsed to the ground, clutching his groin. It was soaked red with blood.
Eloi spat and muttered,
“Where do you think you’re pulling out that filthy thing? It’s small anyway.”
“Y-you…?”
“What, you maggot? Just crawl off and die.”
Crack!
Eloi easily shut down the man’s protest.
With a single punch, his consciousness was blown away.
Leaving the man crumpled like a puppet with its strings cut, Eloi stepped out to where Zeon was.
That place, too, had already been taken care of.
Among the intruders, only the leader remained standing with his sanity intact.
His face was twisted beyond recognition.
“H-how? The toxin of the Four-Eyed Bat completely paralyzes the human nervous system. You shouldn’t even be able to stay conscious…”
“That’s only if you’re caught off guard.”
“Then you were prepared in advance?”
“Isn’t it stranger to stay defenseless in an unfamiliar place?”
Zeon asked with a puzzled expression.
In this hellish world, the most frightening thing wasn’t monsters.
It was other humans.
Only humans deceive their own kind and take lives.
Moreover, the Steel Fortress had not been welcoming from the moment they entered. In such a situation, it would be more abnormal not to prepare anything at all.
Fortunately, they had an antidote potion created by Brielle.
Thanks to it, they were able to easily neutralize the nerve gas made from the Four-Eyed Bat’s toxin.
“Grr…! You bastards dare to deceive me? I’ll kill you all!”
The leader shouted in rage.
In that instant, a black aura spiraled around his body.
He fired the dark energy toward Zeon and shouted,
“Anxiety, confusion, paralysis!”
“A curse.”
Zeon immediately recognized the nature of the energy.
That black aura was the embodiment of a curse.
If struck, it would paralyze the mind and weaken the body.
Zeon raised a wall of sand around himself.
The curse failed to penetrate it and dissipated.
“…What?”
“Why don’t you get some sleep, old man?”
Levin stepped forward and released lightning into the man’s neck.
Crackle!
With a spark, the man’s eyes rolled back as he lost consciousness.
Levin could now freely control the intensity of his current. Finely adjusting it to paralyze only the central nervous system was effortless for him.
Eloi looked at Zeon and said,
“What are you going to do? They tried to kill us. Are you just going to let them go?”
“I’m thinking.”
“What’s there to think about? We should find the ones behind them and crush them.”
“And after that?”
“After what?”
“Can you take responsibility?”
“Why think about responsibility? You just beat them first.”
“There are two thousand people.”
“…What?”
“That’s the number of people living here. Which means two thousand lives are at stake.”
“Damn it!”
Eloi cursed as she grasped the meaning behind his words.
Zeon and his group would leave eventually.
But those two thousand people would remain here.
If they recklessly killed Gerwen and his group, no one could predict what would happen to the future of those people.
Careless interference would drastically change the lives of everyone in the fortress.
Intervening without being able to take responsibility wasn’t Zeon’s way.
Eloi sighed.
“Ha… You really live in such a complicated way. What’s wrong with keeping things simple?”
“I once almost got tens of thousands of people killed by acting without thinking.”
“…You’re joking, right?”
“……”
“…You’re not.”
Eloi’s eyes trembled.
She had guessed Zeon had a past he couldn’t speak of—but she had never imagined it was something that immense.
Zeon spoke with a lonely expression,
“It may not make sense from the outside, but this place has its own ecosystem. If we interfere carelessly, all of it will collapse.”
These were people who had survived independently for a hundred years.
Living without outside contact had naturally narrowed their perspective.
Even so, they had endured with their own rules and command structure.
Would they really be able to adapt if their leadership suddenly vanished?
Zeon was doubtful.
“Even if change happens, it has to come from within. That way, the aftereffects can be minimized.”
“Damn it… Then it’s better to just leave without interfering.”
“Let’s go to Elder Holtran’s house. If we tell him what happened, he’ll come up with a solution.”
“Ah, that old man? Yeah, that works.”
Holtran was someone from within the Steel Fortress.
If he led the change, the people might follow.
“But where’s his house?”
“I’ll find it.”
Levin stepped forward.
Turning ghost-like, he began moving swiftly between the buildings.
Though there were many awakened individuals in the fortress, none noticed Levin in his spectral form.
Only after ten minutes did he locate Holtran’s house.
Even though it was late at night, the house was brightly lit.
Inside were Jacob, Lucy, and several others.
All of them were followers of Holtran.
Among them, the oldest-looking man slammed his fist down and said,
“We cannot leave Gerwen as he is. Many people have been ruined after becoming addicted to the drugs he spread.”
“Look at Jacob and Lucy. They almost died. He kept his own faction’s children safe but deliberately sent those two to gather Sun Flowers.”
People spoke passionately, venting their anger, while Holtran listened with his eyes closed.
Their frustration had reached its peak.
Gerwen controlled the Steel Fortress through drugs refined from Sun Flowers and through the water supply.
The drugs controlled the awakened, and the water controlled the residents.
Because of that, nothing could be done without his permission.
This place was Gerwen’s kingdom.
Holtran and his close aides opposed his tyranny, but realistically, there was little they could do.
“If we keep clinging to this isolation policy, everyone will eventually perish. We need to change by interacting with the outside world.”
“No matter what, we have to establish trade with a place called Neo Seoul.”
Listening secretly to their conversation, Levin thought,
‘So there are people who want change after all.’
Levin returned to Zeon and Eloi and told them everything he had overheard.
Zeon made a decision.
“Take us to Holtran’s house.”
“Yes!”
They all headed there together.
“Wow! This place is basically heaven.”
After looking around inside the Steel Fortress, Aslan whistled.
Though he didn’t say it, Duduyan thought the same.
It had only been an hour since they infiltrated the fortress, yet they had already surveyed most of the interior.
Contrary to expectations of tight security, the internal defenses were extremely lax.
The entrance was no different.
Two awakened stood guard, but it was merely for show, making infiltration deceptively easy.
Since the entrance sat seventy meters above ground level, they had grown complacent.
Aslan asked Duduyan,
“What should we do?”
“We kill all the awakened and take everything.”
“…Figures.”
“That’s how we survive.”
Duduyan answered without the slightest hesitation.
After failing to plunder the Pegasus strike team, their supplies of food and water had worsened. If they didn’t find a solution quickly, the families of the Red Storm Brigade would starve.
Duduyan stroked the hilt of her dagger and said,
“I’ll assassinate the leadership. You prepare things so the boss can get in easily.”
“Okay.”
Aslan replied with a grin.
Duduyan vanished into the darkness in an instant.
Like a true dark elf, she blended perfectly into the shadows.
Having seen it many times, Aslan wasn’t surprised at all.
“Guess I’ll get moving too.”
Within the Red Storm Brigade, Aslan’s role was infiltration and intelligence gathering.
His job was to provide accurate information so Urtian could make cold, calculated decisions.
Normally, that was all he did.
There was no reason to take greater risks—but in a situation like this, he had to.
He swaggered toward the entrance of the Steel Fortress.
“Who’s there?”
“What?”
The awakened guards raised their weapons in surprise.
Aslan calmly replied,
“It’s me.”
“…Who?”
“You don’t recognize me? That hurts.”
His natural demeanor made the guards tilt their heads in confusion.
With the darkness obscuring his face and his approach so casual, they didn’t even consider he might be an intruder.
One of the guards tried to recall someone with a similar voice.
“Who… Oren?”
“Yeah! It’s me, Oren. Took you long enough.”
Aslan casually pretended to be Oren.
The guards were completely fooled.
“Oren, what are you doing here at this hour? Your shift’s tomorrow afternoon.”
“I had something to say…”
“Something to say?”
“Well…”
Trailing off, Aslan stepped closer.
The torchlight revealed his face.
The guards shouted in shock,
“What? You’re not Oren!”
“Who are you—”
Thud! Thud!
Instead of answering, Aslan drew his dagger and stabbed their throats.
Mistaking him for an ally, they had let him approach—so they collapsed without even being able to scream.
Aslan sheathed his dagger and said,
“Sorry… for killing you like this.”
But his expression showed no remorse.
He grabbed a torch and waved it widely.
From below the fortress, someone waved a torch in response.
It was the Red Storm Brigade.
“Nice.”
Smiling, Aslan activated the mechanism that lowered the basket.
Clatter!
The pulley turned, and the basket descended.
Soon, someone below pulled the rope.
Aslan reversed the pulley and hauled the basket back up.
Moments later, the large basket rose again, and the people inside stepped out.
At the front was Urtian.
Urtian spoke to Aslan,
“Good work. What’s the situation inside?”
“Duduyan has already begun preparations.”
“Good.”
Urtian smiled, revealing white teeth.
In the torchlight, his grin looked chilling.
Meanwhile, the basket was lowered again—then raised, carrying more awakened from the Red Storm Brigade.
The process repeated dozens of times, transporting the entire brigade into the Steel Fortress.
Before even an hour had passed, every member of the Red Storm Brigade had entered.
And yet, no one inside the fortress had noticed their infiltration.
Urtian gave the order:
“Kill all the awakened.”