"The scent of a living person?"
Victor's gaze hardened, and he signaled the team to stop.
He looked in the direction Mia had indicated.
It was a patch of waist-high bushes that appeared unremarkable. However, after activating 【True Sight Eye】, he could clearly see a faint green humanoid outline representing "vital signs" lurking beneath the foliage.
The fellow was hiding well, even suppressing his breathing and heartbeat to their lowest levels.
If not for Mia's beast-like keen sense of smell, Victor doubted he would have noticed the person himself.
"It seems there really are survivors in this camp."
Victor rubbed his chin, an expression of interest appearing on his face.
Anyone who could survive in this hellish place for so long was certainly no ordinary person.
Perhaps he could pry some secrets about the depths of this peninsula from his mouth.
"I'll go meet him."
Victor, bold and confident in his abilities, walked straight toward the bushes.
"Director, be careful of a trap!"
Elizabeth immediately followed, a wary glint flashing in her crimson eyes.
Just as Victor was less than five meters away from the bushes.
Rustle—
Suddenly, the sound of a mechanism tightening came from the grass.
Following that.
Whoosh—!
A dark shadow ejected from the grass with lightning speed, accompanied by a sharp whistling sound, heading straight for Victor's face!
It was a bear trap driven by vines and spring mechanisms, covered in barbs. If it clamped shut, it could easily split a person's head in two.
"Child's play."
Victor didn't even blink.
Before Elizabeth could even move.
Snap!
A silver flash streaked through the air.
Alice had appeared in front of Victor at some unknown moment.
The great silver scissors in her hand moved with an inconceivable speed and angle, accurately snipping the flying bear trap.
The hard steel was as fragile as rotten wood before those scissors.
With a crisp crack, the bear trap—powerful enough to snap a giant bear's leg bone—was instantly snipped in two, falling uselessly to the ground.
"What?!"
A shocked and incredulous cry came from behind the bushes.
Following that.
A ragged old man with a face full of gray stubble leapt out from the bushes, holding an old-fashioned musket that looked even older than he was.
"Monster! Die!"
The old man roared, his movements quite agile as he aimed the dark muzzle directly at Alice, who stood at the front.
However.
Before he could pull the trigger.
He froze.
Because he finally saw the scene before him clearly.
It wasn't a hunting party composed of monsters.
Instead, it was a human who looked like a... noble young master, surrounded by a group of bizarre "things."
The leading youth wore clean, neat hunting attire and possessed a transcendent temperament; he didn't look like an exile at all, but rather like someone taking a stroll in his own backyard.
And beside him...
A little girl dressed in a black Gothic dress, looking as delicate as a doll, yet holding a bloodstained great scissors taller than herself.
A hot, beautiful red-haired woman who radiated a thick aura of death, her eyes a predatory scarlet.
A... a beast girl with fluffy wolf ears and a tail?!
And standing at the back of the team, several low-level skeleton soldiers wearing strange black uniforms with ghostly fire burning in their eye sockets?!
Old hunter John's brain completely short-circuited in that instant.
He had eked out a living in this cursed land for thirty years.
He had seen man-eating ghouls, fire-breathing wyverns, and had even glimpsed that legendary Twin-Headed Demon Wolf from a distance.
He thought he had seen all the horrors of this world.
But this scene...
It completely subverted his reality.
A human.
Was actually standing peacefully alongside legendary dark creatures like a vampire, a stitched corpse maiden, a werewolf, and the undead?
And looking at the positioning...
That seemingly weakest and most harmless human youth was clearly the group's...
Leader?!
"Child!!"
John's first reaction wasn't fear, but a surge of sympathy and urgency born from human instinct.
He must be crazy.
This poor child must have been controlled by the evil magic of these monsters, turned into their puppet!
"Child! Run!"
John shouted hoarsely at Victor, the wrinkles on his face twisting with agitation.
"Don't be afraid! I'm here to save you!"
"They are monsters! Demons that eat people without spitting out the bones! You've been bewitched!"
Victor: "..."
Elizabeth: "..."
Alice: "..."
Mia: "(Tilts head, what is this grandpa saying?)"
"This old man... is there something wrong with his head?" Victor asked Elizabeth speechlessly.
"It looks like early symptoms of 'persecutory delusion'," Elizabeth replied.
"Physical sedation is required."
"Roar—! (Human! Let go of that child!)"
John clearly misunderstood Victor's look.
He thought Victor was pleading for help.
A surge of courage from some unknown source welled up in his heart.
He no longer hesitated and aimed the old musket at Elizabeth—who seemed like the greatest threat standing before Victor—and pulled the trigger hard!
He was going to save his poor fellow human!
Even if it cost his old life!
However.
Bang—!!!
A loud explosion rang out.
But it wasn't a gunshot.
Instead... it was a backfire.
The old musket, long since fallen into disrepair, could not withstand the impact of high-pressure gunpowder. The moment the trigger was pulled, the barrel burst from the middle like a snapped stalk of sugarcane.
Hot flames and jagged iron fragments flew in all directions.
"Aaaargh!!!"
John let out a shrill scream.
His left hand, which had been holding the barrel, was instantly a mangled mess of flesh and blood. Shards of iron embedded themselves deeply into his palm and arm, and blood gushed out as if it were free.
The powerful recoil and the shockwave of the explosion sent him tumbling to the ground.
The back of his head happened to strike a sharp stone.
"Ugh..."
The old hunter's eyes rolled back, and without even a groan, he passed out on the spot.
The entire world fell back into a deathly silence.
Victor looked at the old man bleeding on the ground, whose fate was unknown, then at the broken gun still emitting black smoke.
He fell silent.
After a long time, he sighed, a look of helplessness appearing on his face—the kind a doctor has when seeing a patient who brought injury upon themselves.
"I told you he was sick."
"Well, this is just great. Now I have to perform a 'foreign body removal' and 'cranial debridement'."
He turned around and waved at the Security Brigade skeletons who were still dazed.
"Don't just stand there, give me a hand."
"Carry this warm-hearted... um, 'new patient' back."
Alice looked at the unconscious old man and curiously poked his tattered leather armor with the tip of her scissors.
"Director, this grandpa... doesn't seem to have much meat."
"And his bones look very brittle."
"He's not tasty or fun."
Victor knocked her on the head.
"What nonsense are you talking?"
"This is the first living person we've encountered since arriving at this camp. He's a precious 'clinical observation sample'."
"And also... a key for us to understand this world."
Victor knelt down and checked the old hunter's injuries, his brow furrowing slightly.
"He's hurt pretty badly."
"Excessive blood loss, plus cranial trauma... a little later, and even the gods couldn't save him."
He pulled a first-aid kit from his robe and began simple debridement and bandaging.
Elizabeth stood aside, watching Victor's skillful and focused movements, a complex look flashing in her crimson eyes.
This man...
Sometimes he was like a perverted butcher.
Sometimes he was like a greedy capitalist.
But at this moment.
The aura of a doctor focused on healing the wounded and rescuing the dying that radiated from him was incredibly real.
"Director,"
she couldn't help but ask.
"Are you really... going to save him?"
"He's the person who just tried to kill us."
Victor didn't look up, answering naturally while using bandages to stop the old hunter's bleeding.
"Of course I'm saving him."
"What else?"
He looked up at Elizabeth, his calm eyes reflecting her beautiful face.
"I'm a doctor."
"Under my scalpel, there are no enemies, only patients."
"No matter who he is, as long as he still has a breath in him, I have a responsibility... to bring him back."
"And then..."
Victor gave a kind smile.
"I'll let him settle the medical bill."
Rate on N.U.
