Story Reader / Main Story / 33 Wither to Shine / Story
Camp Perimeter Defense Line
The Next Morning
There's an abandoned town 12 kilometers north along the river—the same location listed in the patrol team's routine report last week.
We're short on people, and the water collection team gets the vehicles first, so we haven't gotten the supplies yet.
If I remember right, the report didn't mention any Mutated Red Tide activity?
Yeah, it's an abandoned town. We scanned it and found a lot of protective gear, purification devices, and weapons and ammunition inside.
They probably didn't have time to evacuate...
He shrugs and goes quiet.
Across this destroyed land, the same sad stories repeat.
Should I take a chance?
Since you're on patrol, you now have time to venture deeper into the ruined city to search for the materials Rosa mentioned that are in short supply at Aerospace City.
With a light reconnaissance vehicle, you can cover ten kilometers across the flat land easily.
About twenty minutes from camp, you see buildings in the distance.
Not bad... The Punishing Virus is still low here. We should be able to find something useful.
The vehicle's treads crunch over gravel and ice, sending a crackling sound and vibrations from beneath the driver's seat straight into your ears.
The town's image in your eyes turns into more details.
No, that's not... a building.
The buildings in the distance suddenly look like hazy gray clouds, and the horizon below them wavers.
The ground under the town curves upward, like someone's playing with a sandcastle.
A dark red flood pours from the sky, swallowing the gray mass before joining the chaotic horizon.
Commandant!
You try to speak, but the desperate urge to speak drowns in the airless depths of your throat.
Like a nightmare, you can't even make a sound.
Your mouth opens wide, and your cheeks hurt from trying to speak, but it's all in vain.
The brown and white land is gone. Under the sky, nothing can stop the red wave.
But under your feet are rocky reefs, with strangely shaped algae and coral growing through the cracks, like they're hungry for nourishment.
Then, something grabs your legs.
Wait... this feeling...
A chill runs down your back as old fears start to surface.
You're dreaming... it seems...
You've seen this "scene" before.
