"You’re... Walfred...?"

Sienna asked again, her face blank.

Walfred nodded wordlessly, and a hollow silence settled over the area.

But only for a moment.

The first to break the silence was Mitchell.

"Hah..."

He let out a short, dry laugh, making no effort to hide his incredulous expression as he looked at Walfred.

"Listen, this is no time for jokes..."

"I’m not joking. I came here after seeing the post on the community yesterday."

Walfred cleverly blended truth and lies as he explained why he’d come.

He’d been browsing the community recently when he happened across Sienna’s plea for help, and since he was in the area anyway, he’d come here.

"I stayed the night to scope out the situation, planning to join you today and carry out the extermination. Then this happened."

An excuse with just enough meat on the bones.

He figured he needed at least this much of a cover story for them to buy it.

But the moment Walfred finished speaking, Sienna’s expression abruptly turned cold.

"...That kind of lie won’t work on me."

"It’s not a lie."

"No! It’s a lie!"

Sienna snapped sharply.

"If you were really Hunter Walfred, you’d have no reason to ask me to break the curse!"

"And what is that supposed to mean?"

"Are you seriously asking? Hunter Walfred is famous for being a light attribute S-rank Hunter!"

Her voice rang with conviction.

Apparently she’d genuinely believed all the chatter from the community. Walfred let out a deep sigh, then corrected her.

"First of all, that part is wrong."

"What part is wrong?"

"I’m not light attribute. I’m frost attribute."

"...Excuse me?"

Sienna’s eyes narrowed.

"Then that makes even less sense!"

"What doesn’t make sense?"

"An A-rank Elite undead would have over 80% frost resistance! How would a frost attribute Hunter exterminate a Bone Drake? Talk sense...!"

Was she simply dumbfounded?

Mid-rebuttal, Sienna’s lips flapped soundlessly, as if she’d lost her words. Watching her, Walfred concluded that persuading her with words wasn’t going to work.

’No helping it, then.’

In that case, there was only one way to prove the truth.

Walfred answered in a level tone.

"Then I’ll show you."

"Show me? Show me what..."

"Tell me where the Corpse Lord is."

One decisive action would prove it far faster than a hundred rounds of talk.

"I’ll exterminate it."

Walfred declared, brimming with confidence.

An unbending voice and a weighty gaze.

The aura radiating off him was far too substantial to dismiss as simple bravado.

Was that why? The eyes of Sienna, who’d been so certain Walfred was a liar, wavered for an instant.

Then Walfred lifted Elsa into his arms.

"Oh, but before that, I’d like to get this child somewhere safe first."

Only with Elsa’s safety guaranteed could Walfred fight freely, without glancing over his shoulder.

Spotting the soundly sleeping Elsa, Sienna seemed to come back to her senses and nodded.

"...Follow me."

Then she turned around.

Walfred followed behind her, and Mitchell fell into step alongside them.

Toward the deepest part of the underground arcade.

----

How long had they walked?

The place she led them to was a spacious area at the far end of the underground arcade.

Judging by the clothes and piles of boxes scattered around, it had probably once served as a stockroom for the large clothing stores.

’I had no idea a place like this existed.’

The interior was quite large, and with thick concrete walls on every side, it looked well suited for keeping out the cold.

But the most striking thing was that the room was full of young children.

"Teacher!"

"Yay, Teacher’s here!"

Dozens of children.

Most had the baby-faced look of kindergartners or early elementary schoolers.

"Have you all been behaving?"

"Yes!"

The children answered in unison.

They all clearly adored Sienna. And Sienna treated them with equal tenderness.

After a short exchange with the children.

"You can lay your daughter down over there."

She said, pointing to a corner.

The plush mattresses and thick blankets spread out there marked it as the children’s sleeping area.

Just then.

On another bed nearby, a woman in her mid-fifties lay completely motionless.

’Who is that?’

At a glance, her condition looked just like Elsa’s.

Did Sienna notice where Walfred’s gaze had landed? She quietly spoke.

"...That’s our chief."

She said, looking at the middle-aged woman with sorrowful eyes. At that, part of Sienna’s post resurfaced in Walfred’s memory.

The part about the shelter’s core fighters being cursed into a state where they couldn’t battle.

"It’s been three days already. She hasn’t had a sip of water, let alone food. If much more time passes like this, she could die..."

Sienna’s voice trailed off.

Through his conversation with her afterward, Walfred got a rough picture of how this shelter was organized.

The people in the Trenton underground arcade shelter were primarily the staff and students of a large kindergarten, plus the students’ families.

Maybe that was why, even after the world froze over, they refused to give up on the children and fought to protect them to the very end.

"In any case, as long as she’s here, you don’t need to worry about your daughter’s safety. This is the most heavily defended spot in our entire shelter."

Walfred nodded quietly.

He laid Elsa down on a mattress, then gently stroked her silver hair.

"Hang in there a little longer. I’ll be right back."

No answer came.

His whisper finished, Walfred rose to his feet. With Elsa’s safety secured, it was time to go do what needed to be done.

"Then please, lead the way."

To where the Corpse Lord was.

At Walfred’s request, Sienna looked up at him in silence. A moment later, she bit her lip slightly and whispered in a small voice.

"It’s not too late, you know."

"What do you mean?"

"If you come clean now, I’ll pretend none of this ever happened. There’s no need to recklessly throw your life away, is there?"

So that’s what this was about.

Walfred chuckled.

"I really am Walfred."

"You, seriously..."

"See for yourself, then judge."

Did she realize his mind wouldn’t change?

Sienna’s shoulders slumped.

"...Fine. Let’s go."

With that answer as the last word.