Since team leader Yont wasn’t in a situation to be away, he’d conveyed proof that permission had been granted to meet a guide. If it were only orders, it would be sufficient to notify via terminal, but this was also the reason they had to meet face-to-face.
Because exchanging Guiding authorization through the communication network was forbidden in principle, if there was no superior to grant permission, you could only meet a guide when a physical token existed.
Northern Light was protecting guides through such complex and cumbersome procedures.
Some Espers argued that exceptions should be made at least in emergency situations, but Northern Light didn’t accept this. In the end, it was the Esper side that backed down from their claim. After all, Espers couldn’t live apart from Northern Light.
Thanks to Northern Light’s widely known promise of thorough protection, most people who awakened as guides sought this place. Since Guiding supply gradually became stable, this also benefited Espers belonging to the union.
The policy of not compromising with anyone regarding guide protection had brought about a virtuous cycle.
‘I don’t want to receive Guiding, but…’
Though he still wanted to avoid it, he would need Guiding before long.
‘Enduring the repulsion is better than dying.’
Chris firmly secured the clip.
Chris, who rented a snow mobile under an alias, attached a jammer to the GPS built into the device and pulled up a map on his terminal. The hologram marked the point where Gillian and Aparna had last made contact. The northern part of the November Continent, an area also called permafrost because the snow doesn’t melt.
Even in the flesh-cutting wind, Chris didn’t blink an eye. Strangely, he was familiar with this cold. Perhaps his pre-memory self was from a winter continent.
Arriving at his destination, Chris got off the snow mobile. It was a place where a half-collapsed abandoned house stood. The abandoned house, collapsed as it was with snow piled heavily on top, only told the fact that it had been like this for quite some time.
He’d thought there would be messy footprints around here, but the snow-covered ground was just quiet without any particular traces.
Had snow fallen again? Or—
“November Continent, permafrost weather.”
<No observation records exist.>
Chris clicked his tongue at the answer returned from his terminal.
Since both infrastructure and population were all concentrated in the city area, they apparently didn’t separately observe the weather of such abandoned land. Even if data existed, they probably wouldn’t have felt the need to analyze and record it.
As Chris walked, he felt the sound changing. Crouching down, he slid his finger over the snow he’d just stepped on.
Compared to the surrounding snow, the snow in this area was much thinner. As if the snow that had originally occupied this spot had been melted to erase traces, and snow had fallen again on top of it.
Chris dug up the thin snow. There was no particular harvest, as footprints and such might have been imprinted in the previously melted snow.
For now, it seemed certain that snow had fallen once in this area after Gillian and Aparna went missing. If he could see something like a weather forecast, it would be easy to gauge exactly when this happened, but since the situation didn’t help, it was just regrettable.
Artificial satellites from the old era might be automatically observing and storing weather. However, there was no way they’d mobilize high-level personnel like psychic-type Espers to attempt hacking just to rescue two mere B-rank Espers.
Thanks to maximally utilizing remnants of old civilization, current humanity didn’t have to start from the bottom, but they hadn’t yet acquired all the legacy.
‘Can’t be helped.’
Chris took off his outer clothing. Though cold wind rushed at his bare chest, Chris paid no heed and put on a harness over his body, then tied his terminal and clothes to his back. If he didn’t do this, not only would his clothes all tear the moment he transformed into a wolf, but he’d feel pain from that pressure.
After finishing preparations, Chris crouched and stepped forward with his front paws. His body, now covered in thick fur, and his sharpened snout searched for traces more keenly than when he had a human body.
Seven, no, eight scents were mixed here. Two of them were definitely Gillian and Aparna.
And unexpectedly, he could sense firearms. Though covered by a layer of snow, he was almost certain. Though it was difficult to prove without a GSR kit, sometimes a beast’s sense tells you many things.
Chris dug up the snow in the area where the smell came from with his front paws.
‘A shell casing.’
Rolling it slightly with his front paw, he couldn’t find anything like a serial number. Currently, those allowed to use firearms were strictly limited, and it was mainly Northern Light’s Espers who used them. The shell casings they used had serial numbers, so when a gun was fired, you could immediately confirm who shot it.
But since he couldn’t find such things on this shell casing, it was clearly either a homemade bullet or something secured from the old era being used.
Chris’s luck ended there. The enemy cleaned the place spotlessly without leaving any traces beyond one shell casing. Wasn’t it heaven’s help that snow even fell on top of it?
The wolf, sniffing and moving its nose, passed right by the abandoned building and headed to the back. The enemy must have come on something too, but he couldn’t find wheel tracks. Still, the faint smell of a nasty engine using old-fashioned oil remained.
Chris, who’d carried the shell casing in his mouth to the snow mobile and secured it, ran off toward the direction where the engine smell came from. Since traces might become more faded at any time due to climate phenomena like wind blowing or snow falling again, he needed to move quickly.
The white wolf crossed the permafrost like a flash of light. Though it was land without a single living creature, he also wasn’t easily visible because of that white fur. Power could be felt in the legs that kicked off and moved forward as soon as paws touched snow.
Though the wind was cold, since his entire body was covered in thick fur, the situation was actually better than when traveling by snow mobile.
Chris stopped abruptly at the edge of the frozen land.
It was the sea.
He’d thought “no way” at the salty breeze that had mixed in with the faint engine smell at some point, but as soon as he crossed the white hill, what spread beyond it was a very old port.
‘There was a place like this?’
Concrete buildings with marks of rain falling and drying clearly carved on the paint, iron pillars rusted by sea breeze, new rope patched over completely rotted rope… traces of dragging something.
Judging by the scale and location, he thought it might be a place where the mafia transported smuggled goods outside while avoiding Northern Light’s eyes. The slightly unconvincing point was that though the facilities clearly existed from quite long ago, Northern Light hadn’t discovered them.
He’d heard they’d identified the locations of all large-scale facilities in the winter continents that could be problematic by hacking artificial satellites through psychic-type Espers… What was this port that existed so openly?
He could only vaguely guess that it escaped headquarters’ surveillance because it looked abandoned.
The scents of Gillian and Aparna also ended at this port. They’d definitely been moved to another place from here. No matter how sensitive a wolf’s sense of smell, he couldn’t chase those who’d moved through waterways.
The only gain was discovering the vehicle those guys had used to drag Gillian and Aparna away. It was thanks to chasing the old engine smell.
He couldn’t sense any human presence around. Chris, who’d returned to human form and put on pants, came back after securing a fire hammer for firefighting that had been placed on the exterior wall of the port parking building.
When he struck the window once, it cracked, and on the second strike, the glass window shattered cleanly. Chris reached into the vehicle interior and opened the truck door.
Starting his search from the driver’s seat, Chris paused when he reached the glove box. He could sense a deep rose scent but didn’t know the reason. After carefully checking the interior, Chris noticed that the inside of the glove box was rather narrow. When he shook it slightly, something rattled against the glove box wall.
When he loosened a screw that had been slightly tightened on top, a hidden space was revealed.
The source of the rose scent Chris had sensed was an empty cigarette pack. Though the contents were completely empty, the lingering scent was intense enough to give a sharp sensation. There was also a silver lighter engraved with thorn vines, and at the bottom of the almost-empty oil tank, something bluish sparkled.
Since it didn’t seem like an ordinary lighter, it seemed best to take it as is and have the components analyzed.
Chris operated his terminal to report the port’s location and the existence of the newly secured items. Yont sent a reply saying he’d make a testing request to Northern Light’s November Continent branch, so return to Aurum for now.
Originally, he’d planned to force-start the truck and return to where the abandoned house was, but the fuel tank was completely empty. He suspected someone had deliberately drained all the oil so the vehicle couldn’t be arbitrarily seized. Judging by the modified glove box, though crude, this was probably a frequently used truck.
Chris attached a location tracker inside the truck. He hadn’t expected to use what he’d brought in preparation for emergencies here.
Chris, who arrived at Northern Light’s November Continent branch after completing his mission, was quite exhausted. It was largely because he’d run in wolf form all the way to where the snow mobile was.
Though he’d sufficiently moistened his throat with water, he felt a burning thirst. With each step he took, he even thought this place might not be a cold winter continent but a scorching desert. The state of an Esper lacking Guiding was not much different from a fish dragged onto land.
An Esper, precious manpower, was positioned at the branch entrance. Though not a high rank, the level was sufficient for the role of a kind of gatekeeper to apply cognitive disruption to civilians who entered by mistake and send them outside, and to confirm the ‘qualifications’ of those who could enter and leave here.
He quickly noticed Chris’s energy rising and falling unstably.
“…Team Crow, Chris. I’ve come to apply for a meeting with a counselor.”
It meant he’d come to receive Guiding. Though he’d already confirmed Chris’s identity, the psychic-type Esper stood firmly in place and said,
“I’ll confirm your token.”
