Shadow Slave

Now that most residents of the outskirts left for the Dream Realm, the vast human hives that had teemed with life and desperation stood mostly empty. There were still people living there, though — even if some dormitory towers only had a few dozen inhabitants instead of tens of thousands.

A family that had once sheltered in a single residential cell now occupied an entire block. Even then, the rest of the floor was empty.

In the dim twilight of the early dawn, a gaunt man emerged into a corridor and leaned on the wall, contorted in a violent coughing fit. His wife was already busy boiling water to hydrate packs of synthpaste for the kids — however, he had to put on his work uniform and depart for an early shift. Wiping his lips, he stumbled toward the laundry room.

A few seconds later, however, he froze and looked ahead in horror.

Out there in front of him, the claustrophobic expanse of the dormitory tower was drowning in cold mist, and for a brief moment, he saw a ghostly silhouette moving through it.

Flesh as pale as that of a corpse, harrowing burns that seeped with scarlet blood... Screaming, the man staggered away.

”G—ghost! Ghost!”

Turning around, he ran as if his life depended on it.

A few moments after the man fled, a pale arm extended from the mist toward the clothesline.

‘It’s like I came full circle.’

Jet had grown up in a dormitory hive very much like this one, surrounded by gaunt people with waxy skin who were prone to coughing fits. She had been sickly and neglected, as well, wearing clothes that were threadbare and did not fit her frail figure.

Some clothes were better than no clothes, though.

Putting on a pair of worn pants, a shabby shirt, and a ragged coat, she grimaced when the coarse fabric scraped against her burns and turned into mist. Soon, she was on the ground floor of the dormitory tower, hiding in the shadows of the back entrance awning and looking up.

Out there in the pale sky above NQSC, a storm of crows was painting mesmerizing patterns among clouds as it flowed in a vast murmuration.

Her expression darkened.

‘Old man...’

Jet could tell a lot about what was going on in the city just from how it sounded. On this hazy morning, there were sounds of armored PTVs rolling on the asphalt, sirens howling in the distance, and the hum of sharp voices calling out to each other, muffled by the distance.

These particular noises were different from the usual clamor of the city, as well as from the panicked urgency of an opening Gate. As someone who had been the government’s enforcer for many years, Jet knew the nature of this rough melody too well.

This was the sound of a large-scale manhunt.

Things like that happened rarely, since the government preferred to solve most issues quietly. However, she had led a few of such manhunts herself.

Today, Jet was quite sure that the person being hunted... was her.

Finding herself on the other side of law enforcement felt strange.

She traced the murmurations of the crows for a few moments, then looked away so that Wake of Ruin did not sense her gaze.

‘Is he enthralled, too?’

Even if Jet did not want to believe it, she had an ominous feeling that the person in charge of hunting her down was none other than Old Cor. There were too many signs that pointed at him... and even if there weren’t, preparing for the worst had never failed her in the past. The world had nothing but the worst in store for the people born in the era of the Nightmare Spell, after all.

Getting to her destination unnoticed while Wake of Ruin was watching the city from high above would be difficult.

Muttering a quiet curse, Jet hid deeper in the shadows and collapsed into a torrent of mist.

She traveled into the depths of the city while hiding her presence as best she could. When it was possible, she moved underground. When the patrolling Awakened got too close, she avoided them. When a barrier stood in her way, she passed through it like a wraith.

Catching a ghost in the cauldron of human souls as vast as NQSC was not easy, even for the powerful machinery of the government and its oldest champion, Wake of Ruin. Especially if that ghost knew every gear of that complicated machine by heart.

That said... the city was different from how it had been the last time she visited.

It was in the throes of internal conflict. The streets were oddly desolate. Here and there, burning vehicles were scattered on the roads. Groups of soldiers were moving between them, wearing grim expressions. Many buildings were gaping with broken windows, pieces of furniture and debris spilling on the pavements.

In some places, the ground was smeared with blood.

The noise of the city was wrong and unhealthy, as if NQSC was being consumed by fever.

‘It’s all going south.’

The sun had already risen by the time Jet made it to where Cassie had sent her.

In front of her was the heavily fortified government compound in the heart of the city — the very place where Jet had been anchored before secretly moving her tether to the desolate ruin in the outskirts.

She had gone to all the trouble to escape it, so naturally, the Dreamspawn and his servants would not expect that she would immediately return here. In that sense, her destination alone had helped her remain unnoticed.

The government compound was in disarray. The gates were open, and there were no guards posted outside. Smoke was billowing from the windows of several levels... which meant that the automatic defense systems had either malfunctioned or were disabled, failing to execute a lockdown protocol. Most tellingly of all, there were muffled sounds of gunshots and heavy impacts resounding from inside.

Jet assumed her human shape and walked across the broken asphalt barefoot, her ragged coat fluttering in the wind.

Her expression was unamused.

“I leave for a bit, and the whole place is a mess...”

Stepping over the unconscious body of an Awakened soldier, she entered the compound.