Better to wait until he’d found Erica herself, or at least some solid lead, before reaching out.

Just as he reached that conclusion,

Elsa tugged at his sleeve again.

"Daddy, read me a storybook."

During their stay at the Trenton Station underground mall,

Elsa had mingled with the children at the shelter and experienced storybooks for the very first time. She must have enjoyed them immensely, because ever since they left Trenton Station, she’d started begging Walfred to read her a storybook every night.

Of course, there were no storybooks in a place like this, so what she was really asking for were old stories, the kind you’d find in fairy tales.

"Sure. What should I tell you tonight?"

"Something fun!"

Elsa’s eyes sparkled.

Walfred rummaged through his memory, picking out the fairy tale he thought was most entertaining from the ones he knew, and began to tell it aloud.

He kept going until Elsa fell asleep.

And so the night deepened.

==

Near West Philadelphia Station, Philadelphia.

The sound of hurried footsteps echoed through the interior of a large shopping mall connected to the station.

A six-member scouting party of hunters.

Having spread out to search for escape routes, they converged in one spot, gasping for air.

"Huff! Hah...!"

"How’s the parking garage side looking?"

"...No good."

"The basement, the emergency exits by the loading dock... every way out is blocked."

At the news that every exit was sealed off,

the face of the scouting party’s leader, Stanley, a C-rank hunter with the illusion attribute, hardened in an instant.

"Goddamn frost spirits...!"

"Where the hell are they all coming from?"

The hunters each vented their frustration.

They had entered the West Philadelphia Station shopping mall for a simple supply run.

But in just a few hours, the situation had taken a drastic turn. Hundreds of frost spirits had appeared out of nowhere and surrounded the entire mall.

Then, just at that moment.

"S-sir!"

A young man came sprinting from the distance, completely out of breath.

His baby face still hadn’t shed its boyish look. It was Dominic, the youngest member of the scouting party and an E-rank hunter.

He’d gone up to the rooftop with a pair of binoculars, and now shouted with a face drained of all color.

"I’ve confirmed that an unranked gate has been liberated at the West Philadelphia Station plaza!"

"...!?"

"It wasn’t a normal gate! There were massive ice pillars jutting up around it, and a ton of frost spirits gathered there too!"

Dominic relayed every detail of what he’d seen. At his words, the color drained from Stanley’s and the other team members’ faces.

"A liberated gate?"

"...No wonder they were pouring in like crazy."

"Wh-what do we do now...?"

The hunters here were nowhere near high enough level to fight against a liberated gate.

As dread crept across every face,

the team’s leader, Stanley, spoke up.

"First, we share every piece of intel we gathered here on the Community. All of it, down to the last detail."

"What? The Community?"

"I mean, what’s the point of that right now..."

Looking at his bewildered teammates,

Stanley said with grim resolve:

"It beats dying like dogs for nothing. Dying for a purpose is a hell of a lot better."

"..."

The face of a man who had already made peace with death.

The truth was, they’d all sensed it, even if only vaguely.

They were surrounded by hundreds of frost spirits. Escaping alive from a situation like this was simply impossible.

"...Dominic."

"Y-yes! Sir."

"Get on the Community right now and write up everything you saw. Post it."

"Understood! I’ll get it done fast."

At Stanley’s order, Dominic immediately crouched in a corner and connected to the Community.

Stanley and the other team members formed a tight circle around Dominic to protect him while he was defenseless, closing ranks into a protective ring.

Then, at that very moment.

Crack! Crash!

The large window on the mall’s second floor shattered.

Through the broken glass, dozens of bird-shaped frost spirits came pouring in.

The hunters’ faces twisted.

"Perfect damn timing."

"Hold them off! Guard him no matter what!"

"We hold this spot, no matter what!"

A desperate battle broke out immediately after.

Stanley’s illusion skills threw the battlefield into chaos, and the other hunters seized the openings to unleash their attacks.

The hunters fought the frost spirits with everything they had, firing off skills with the last of their strength.

But there were simply too many spirits.

On top of that, getting hit even once inflicted [Slow], bogging their movements down.

There was no path to victory.

But then.

The frost spirits, which had been attacking in a frenzy, suddenly stopped in unison, as if on cue.

Then they broke formation around the hunters, withdrawing to either side. As if clearing a path for someone.

"Wh-what the?"

"Why are they suddenly pulling back...?"

In the midst of the hunters’ confusion,

Whoooosh!

Centered on the interior of the mall,

a blast of ultra-cold wind whipped through.

The hunter closest to the blast began freezing solid in an instant.

"What... is... hap..."

Those were his last words.

With that single, broken sentence, the hunter turned white as snow and froze solid, becoming an ice sculpture.

And then.

Swish!

Beyond the path the frost spirits had created,

a single bird, well over six feet tall and composed entirely of enormous ice crystals, came walking forward.

The moment he beheld that overwhelming presence,

Stanley’s face hardened with despair.

"A greater spirit...!"

That single exclamation was the signal.

The greater spirit spread its massive ice wings wide. The same horrifying blast of freezing wind that had just frozen the hunter swept out in every direction.

Every team member except Stanley froze where they stood without so much as a scream.

Just then.

"Done writing!"

Dominic, who had been crouched in the corner connected to the Community, shouted in a bright voice.

But.

"Posted it... on the Local... News... Bo..."

Dominic couldn’t finish his sentence.

A blast of freezing wind dropped down on his head.

As a result, Dominic, too, became an ice sculpture, just like the other hunters.

"..."

Now only Stanley remained.

Perhaps because his elemental resistances across the board were slightly higher than his teammates’? He froze more slowly than the hunters who had already turned to ice.

"Kree-ek! Kree!"

Watching this, the greater spirit clattered its long beak. Then it let out a bizarre laugh that sounded like scraping metal.

As if mocking him.

Stanley’s face twisted.

Grind!

"...Don’t you laugh at me, you bird-brained bastard."

Stanley growled under his breath.

Even as his entire body slowly froze over in agony, Stanley refused to let go of consciousness. He glared up at the greater spirit looming over him and spoke.

"Sooner or later, a hunter will come... and exterminate every... last one of you. Count on it!"

There was no real basis for the claim.

He just felt that if he didn’t say something like that, he’d be too bitter to close his eyes.

With that final, curse-like declaration,

Kra-koom!

A blast of freezing wind engulfed Stanley.

He, too, was turned to ice.

Once every last human had frozen solid,

the hundreds of waiting frost spirits descended on the sculptures all at once, shattering them to pieces.

Crunch! Crack!

The spirits picked up the broken ice fragments of the hunters one by one. They took flight through the windows and moved in formation toward the West Philadelphia Station plaza.

Toward the unidentified ice pillars rising around the gate that swirled with red light.