Story Reader / Affection / Lucia: Crimson Weave / Story
Redolent of goose feathers, the snow blankets the land with a thick layer of white.
The snow is really picking up...
How are you doing, Commandant?
Except you do feel a tinge of chill.
With the snow on the ground thickening by the second, it's getting increasingly harder to trudge through it even in an exoskeleton.
It's been quite some time since you and Crowe left the rest of the migrants from the last conservation area to pursue the data you came seeking, and it makes you wonder how they're holding up...
Squatting on top of your bag, the longhair that's been following you out of the conservation area sways its tail a few times—before it suddenly jumps off.
Breaking into a dash, you follow the cat over the hill...
There is a frozen lake up ahead!
Through the gyrating snow that reaches as far out as one can see, an azure lake frozen through and through is aglow with a menacing chill.
We'll be able to bring the armed rioters to justice, Commandant, if we follow the path you've planned out and cross this frozen lake.
In the blink of an eye, Crowe sweeps the ground around you clean.
Please have a rest here while I survey the area, Commandant.
Crowe is the only Praying Mantis by your side now, his partner having been assigned to yet another team in charge of protecting the conservation area.
Feeling stiff all over, you sit down, your brain finally up and running again from the freezing chill. That's when it hits you that your Mind Beacon is still overloaded.
...Hmph.
A huff. There is no mistaking it—Alpha is still on the line.
Which makes you wonder if you've let anything slip on the way that you shouldn't have...
Before you know it, however, Alpha starts speaking.
Naivety happens to rhyme with calamity, in case you need a reminder.
Which is why I'm offering you my help for the last time.
With the chill robbing you of heat, it takes a good few moments for Alpha's words to finally sink in.
How exactly do you think you're going to last until the next conservation area...
When you've given away all your medicines and food?
Oh.
A plan B, huh?
When was the last time you ate, then?
You sprawl on the snow, your brain trying to work up an answer to the question.
It must have been... a day already? The only thing you have left now is an emergency bandage, having given away the last bag of compressed biscuits to an ailing elder yesterday.
Which is fine—because you know you won't be far from the next conservation area, so long as you follow your original plan and catch the rioters. Yes, you just need to trust yourself and the plan.
Commandant, check this out!
Looking Crowe's way, you see the longhair—with a red fruit in its mouth, holding its head high. The longhair hops up to your chest.
Where did the cat find that when there is nothing around, though?
Psst.
Alpha, however, seems amused by this episode.
I am anything but.
Alpha denies outright, her motorcycle's engine vrooming louder than it was just moments ago.
Let's head down there for a rest, Commandant. I came across a campfire that was still burning, with a lot of clean fruit around it...
I'm guessing some hunter left all that there. Back at Babylonia, I read a book that says that some hunters do that to help people who come after them...
Following the cat over the hill, you see a burning campfire right around the lake.
Beside the campfire sits a pile of the same red fruit in the snow, aglow tantalizingly.
...Yeah, one that hunts Corrupted or Hetero-Creatures for a living, for all you know.
Alpha comments coldly.
Not fancying another argument with Alpha, you wash the fruit with the snow. When you put one into your mouth, you feel awash in its sour-sweet juice that seems to course through your body and mind.
Whoever that was sure saved a dying soul.
In the howling winds, Alpha observes the scene from behind a tree.
If she goes down the path she's planned out before, she should be able to see the armed rioters in no time.
What caught Alpha by surprise, however...
Is how [player name] managed to catch up when Alpha had erased every last trace of her and the armed rioters' presence along the way.
Looking back, Alpha is sure that she herself must have set out for this place a few days ahead of [player name]—not to mention that [player name] came with all the citizens from the previous conservation area.
To better determine how far [player name] has come, Alpha marked the path she's taken with some flamboyantly red cranberries...
So that she'd know where they are whenever they start talking about the fruit.
What she never saw coming, however, was how little time it took for [player name] to "stumble across" the pile of fruit—
Which, of course, goes to show just how close [player name] is to Alpha herself now.
A sense of danger gushes out of Alpha's M.I.N.D. and rushes through every vein in her. Tightening her hand around the grip of her katana, she can feel the rough lines on it.
Oddly, Alpha finds herself feeling excited, too...
About this hunt that's just begun—one that's so full of uncertainty.
Taking cover behind yet another tree, Alpha squints in search of the armed rioters among the woods.
She has no trouble taking their lives—except she can't be sure which one of them carries what she came looking for, and the last thing she wants is for those little rats to slip away. In fact, Alpha doesn't even know if they're carrying the data with them at all...
She's set on getting what she wants.
...Something seems off.
I see no one coming after us from that conservation area. Think we're safe, Boss!
We'll be off to enjoy life after handing them the hard drive and getting our money!
...No. Something just doesn't seem right.
Forget about our original plan. We're splitting into two teams, and Team B is going the other way.
C'mon, Boss, that other way is one hell of a...
...Tsk.
Alpha knows she has to make a move now—before the rioters split up or, worse even, [player name] catches up, which no doubt would only complicate the matter.
Drawn out of its sheath, Alpha's katana shines with a chill.
It's now or never.
Bam!
The gunshot sends snow raining down and crows swooshing out of the woods.
At the same time, you hear the same gunshot through the channel you've established with Alpha...
Could that be the rioters?!
There are two squads currently on duty that can come down here, and they're heading our way now. By their current speed, we should be able to rendezvous them in an hour.
You circle two locations on your terminal and ask the support squads to head over there—and neutralize the armed rioters immediately on sight.
As soon as you receive an affirmative, you give your exoskeleton a boost and zoom off at top speed toward where you just saw all the crows take off.
It's got to be Alpha.
The gunshot shed light on every doubt you've had coming here—those rioters have got to be the "rats" that Alpha said she was looking for, and that she's after the same data you are.
Alpha has got to be there.
You give your exoskeleton another boost.
Where she is, that's where the showdown is going to take place.
