"I’ll send people," Jade answered immediately, like she had already made the decision before he even finished asking.

"The Eternal Snow usually arrives in the middle or near the end of winter, so the trip will be dangerous, but it’s manageable." She tilted her head slightly. "Unless you want to come and see it yourself?"

Gideon shook his head without hesitation. "I’ll pass for now. My priority is making sure my people survive winter first. Food, shelter, heat." He let out a dry breath. "This is my first winter here, after all."

"Fair enough."

Gideon narrowed his eyes slightly afterward, another thought bothering him. "Then let me ask something else."

His gaze stayed on Jade. "Why are you so concerned about Eagle Union in the first place? Your relationship with them isn’t exactly friendly."

Jade smiled faintly and tapped his shoulder like she already knew what he was trying to figure out.

"The enemy of my enemy is still useful, Gideon," she said calmly. "And right now, I need them alive."

That answer alone told him enough.

Gideon didn’t push further, but the realization settled quietly in the back of his mind. Suddenly, it made sense why Jade never asked what exactly was hidden inside the bunker. She probably already knew, at least partially.

And if she knew...

Then she was likely tied to the old government somehow, from before the world collapsed.

At least, that was his assumption.

"But a King, huh?" Elaine frowned slightly, clearly unconvinced. "Isn’t Edelweiss supposed to be far from the oasis?"

Gideon understood why she questioned it.

From what Piggy had explained earlier, the Eagle Union was made up of people who still clung to discipline, order, and some warped sense of justice left over from the old world.

Most of them used to be military personnel before everything collapsed, which probably explained why they acted the way they did.

But they weren’t idiots.

A King was an entirely different existence compared to an S-rank aberrant. Stronger, smarter, and infinitely more dangerous.

If one truly approached Edelweiss, abandoning the settlement and evacuating the civilians somewhere safer would have made far more sense than trying to confront it directly.

Then again...

’If a King suddenly appeared near my Safe Zone, would I really abandon it that easily?’

The thought lingered unpleasantly in his mind.

"Well, Edelweiss is around a hundred kilometers away from the oasis," Jade explained while leaning back slightly.

"At least according to the latest newspaper reports. The oasis itself has been stable for years and hasn’t moved." She glanced toward Piggy afterward. "So Elaine’s right to question how credible that rumor actually is."

She clearly didn’t fully believe it either.

Piggy quickly shook her head. "There was a report before about ’zombies’ appearing only ten kilometers away from Edelweiss. So it’s possible if the King starts moving."

"Zombies?" Gideon repeated, confused.

"The King in that region is called the Sigmure Glutton. It’s some kind of giant slug infected by parasites. Those parasites produce fluid that can infect humans."

She paused briefly before adding, "Nobody’s brave enough to get close to it. Most people have only seen the silhouette of something that looked like an enormous snail."

A disgusting image immediately formed in Gideon’s head.

Elaine crossed her arms. "Has there ever been a record of a King suddenly moving into another region?"

Jade shook her head slowly. "I don’t know. Maybe Delilah knows more about that."

She hesitated. "But it still feels too far, doesn’t it? Sure, Edelweiss is the closest major settlement to the oasis, but... why would a King suddenly move?"

The question simply hung in the room because none of them had a good explanation for it.

Then something clicked inside Gideon’s mind.

"But..." He narrowed his eyes slightly. "Maybe someone controlling it, like the zealots."

Everyone looked at him immediately. The thought had appeared suddenly, but now that it was there, it refused to leave.

What if the Scions of the Lord had shifted targets? They failed to destroy Climber Rift, so what if they moved on to Edelweiss instead?

But the more Gideon thought about it, the worse it became. The distress message Jade received had been sent nearly a month ago.

If the zealots were truly involved, then this wasn’t some impulsive attack. It meant they had been planning something for far longer than anyone realized.

’Do they even have enough members for that?’

Another possibility crawled into his mind, cold enough to make the hair on the back of his neck rise.

’Henry is dead... but what if there are more children from Eden? The ones who hold chaos power, there was once a task force created based on five children. But surely, there is more.’

"You’re the one who fought them," Elaine said suddenly, her expression turning serious as she stared directly at him. "You tell us."

Gideon stayed quiet for a moment before finally speaking. "They couldn’t even fully control the Verdant Devourer, so maybe not..."

But even as he said it, hesitation lingered in his voice. Nothing about this situation felt right.

A powerful faction suddenly cuts communication and disappears. Rumors about infected humans appearing near Edelweiss, a possible King movement, and now the possibility that the Scions of the Lord might be involved somewhere behind the scenes.

"It’s also suspicious that Edelweiss’ governor apparently doesn’t know what happened to them," Gideon said, still trying to piece everything together. "Even if their relationship is tense, shouldn’t they still communicate normally? The way your factions do?"

"I agree," Piggy quickly added. "Eagle Union works closely with Edelweiss. They help protect the town a lot, so communication between them has always been active."

That only made the situation feel stranger.

If Eagle Union had truly disappeared or isolated themselves, there was no way the governor shouldn’t have noticed something was wrong much earlier.

"Hm."

Jade rubbed her temple before roughly brushing her hair back. She already looked tired of the endless theories.

Conversations like this clearly weren’t her strength. Jade preferred action over sitting in circles trying to connect invisible dots.

"I still don’t think guessing around like this will solve anything," she muttered with a sigh. "We’ll get answers once my people arrive there."

Everyone silently agreed with that. At this point, they were just stacking possibilities on top of each other without anything concrete to hold onto.

Then Piggy cleared her throat again, immediately pulling everyone’s attention back to her.

"I don’t know if this matters," she said carefully, "but all of Skull Fangs’ higher-ups were suddenly called back to headquarters recently."

Jade’s eyes narrowed slightly while Gideon straightened against the wall.

Piggy hesitated for a brief second before continuing. "I only heard parts of it, but... the meeting was apparently about Eagle Union." She swallowed lightly. "And Victoria’s plan to move to Edelweiss—"

Before she could finish, Elaine abruptly stood from her chair. Her expression hardened instantly.

"When?"

The single word came out cold enough to freeze the room.

Gideon didn’t need further explanation to understand what was going through her head. The moment Victoria’s name entered the conversation, Elaine’s calm shattered completely.

Piggy looked startled by the reaction but answered quickly anyway. "They only said ’as soon as possible.’"

"I’m going with your men to Edelweiss."

Elaine’s decision came so suddenly there wasn’t even hesitation in her voice. She had already made up her mind the moment she heard Victoria’s name.

Jade immediately sighed and crossed her arms. "No. You’re staying here."

Elaine’s eyes sharpened. "Jade—"

"No." Jade cut her off before she could continue. "Didn’t you promise me already? You said you wouldn’t let your obsession with revenge control you anymore."

Her tone became firmer. "You survived all these years without chasing after Victoria. You can survive a few more."

Elaine clenched her fists tightly at her sides.

For a moment, it looked like she wanted to argue, maybe even explode, but in the end she said nothing. Her jaw tightened, frustration and anger burning plainly across her face before she suddenly turned and stormed out of the room.

The door slammed shut behind her.

Silence followed immediately after. Piggy lowered her gaze awkwardly while Jade let out another exhausted sigh, rubbing her forehead this time.

Meanwhile, Gideon remained leaning against the wall, his thoughts drifting in a completely different direction.

Skull Fangs wanting to move to Edelweiss town the moment Eagle Union was gone, the King, the possibility they were all dead, the Scion of the Lord that probably did something behind the veil.

Gideon could feel it, something was terribly wrong.

"Well then, let’s end it here. I’m exhausted." After a long stretch of silence, Jade was the first to finally speak again. She rolled her shoulders lightly before standing up from the table, looking far less tense now that the discussion was over.

Then her eyes landed on Gideon.

"But," she continued, the corner of her lips curling upward, "I heard there’s a bar somewhere around here. Guess I’ll stay for a bit."

Gideon stared at her for a second before letting out a tired sigh. "Yeah. I seriously need to get rid of that thing too."

Jade only laughed under her breath before leaving the room, her footsteps gradually fading into the hallway above.

The moment she was gone, the atmosphere changed, more tense than before.

Gideon’s attention slowly shifted back toward Piggy, who immediately stiffened the moment she realized they were now alone. She looked visibly nervous sitting there on the edge of the bed, her hands tightly clasped together as if she didn’t even know where to place them.

It reminded him of something he really didn’t want to think about.

Elaine had probably told her things about him.

A lot of things.

Still, Gideon already knew what he planned to do with her for now.