A Veteran Player is Needed in the Apocalypse

Chapter 62. The Promise (5)

Did Plato just ask me if his dad had kidnapped my friend?

“Lord Haydam?”

Plato called my name with a worried look when I stood there dumbfounded.

“I only asked because I thought you already knew, Lord Haydam… Could it be you’re unaware?”

After a slight delay, I gathered myself and responded.

“No… I knew, of course. I just didn’t expect you to bring it up.”

I furrowed my brow and asked.

“But how do you know about it? Anton wouldn’t have told you…”

“My father said he heard about the graduation speech from you, Lord Haydam. I found it strange that someone who didn’t even attend my graduation had met you separately, so I looked into it myself.”

Did this kid really dig up dirt on his own father?

“I sure chose my lieutenant well.”

Plato gave a slightly shy smile and continued.

“So… If my father has indeed caused any offense, I would like to formally apologize.”

So, after all that questioning, it was just to apologize?

Anton kidnapping BangguseokYeoBo wasn’t even Plato’s fault in the first place, and Plato, being a second lieutenant, was about to apologize for something involving a private.

Meanwhile, BangguseokYeoBo, upon hearing that Plato might become my adjutant, had immediately come to me to complain. The comparison between them was stark.

“As admirable as it is, the offense was committed by that man, so there’s no need for you to apologize.”

“… Is that so?”

“But weren’t you kicked out for doing all that?”

“I’m currently staying at the officers’ dormitory.”

So, he did get kicked out.

“They didn’t say much when I mentioned taking the entrance exam instead of using a recommendation. But as soon as it was announced that Lord Haydam would be the examiner, I was thrown out.”

“Well.”

At that moment, I noticed that the team ahead of us had stopped and were murmuring amongst themselves.

“It looks like they’ve found something up ahead.”

I hurried forward and saw that Commander and Meursault had already arrived and were discussing something with serious expressions.

“What’s going on?”

I asked as I approached, and Meursault replied.

“It’s because of the crevasse.”

A crevasse, simply put, is a crack in the ground.

In this world, after the onset of the Ice Age, most of the terrain was covered in glaciers, and the crevasses that formed between them resulted in deep, seemingly bottomless holes, as explained in the game.

“According to the map, this area is a crevasse zone… but the snow hasn’t melted yet, so the crevasses are covered and invisible.”

Crevasses vary in size. Some are large enough to be easily seen, but others are narrow enough that they blend in with the snow. These smaller ones, however, are still wide enough for an adult to fall through.

If there hadn’t been any snowfall, we could have seen the faint blue tint of the cracks beneath the snow and passed through safely. But with snow constantly falling, it was difficult to distinguish the color of the ground.

This is why major hunting operations are typically carried out in spring, once the snow melts. However, since we were chasing the monsters deep into enemy territory, we had ventured into an area where the snow hadn’t yet melted.

“It seems like it’ll be difficult to continue the search.”

Our team had been tracking the footprints the monsters left behind as they fled.

However, the monsters had been erasing their tracks with their tails halfway through their retreat, and now the snowfall had covered whatever prints were left.

While we were following the last set of footprints, we encountered the crevasse zone.

The cracks in front of us, hidden by the snow, were wide enough for an adult to fall into, but a large monster could easily pass through.

If they had fled beyond this area, we had no way of pursuing them.

Even if we circled around the crevasse zone to the other side, the monsters could return through this area and evade our search.

Our team’s main objective wasn’t to kill the four escaped monsters but rather to monitor them and prevent them from ambushing our wounded soldiers on their way back. It seemed the Commander was now leaning toward ending the search.

Honestly, if I hadn’t sensed anything off about these monsters, I would have chosen to return long ago.

For now, we still had decent visibility, but if the snowfall worsened, we’d struggle to even find our way back to the Zone, let alone send up signal flares.

We were already too far from the Zone.

“Let’s head back.”

The Commander finally decided to retreat, and a signal flare was fired to announce our withdrawal.

We returned to the designated rendezvous point, but then, an unexpected issue arose.

“What do you mean 2nd team hasn’t returned?”

Out of the five teams that had split up, teams 1, 3, 4, and 5 had all made it back to the rendezvous point, but the 2nd team was nowhere to be found.

The leader of the 2nd team was a colonel from the pro-Hayden faction, the same guy who had personally selected Lucas and Bones from my 10th team.

Meursault continued his report, his face stiff with worry.

“Team 3 said they saw the 2nd team heading in the opposite direction.”

“They saw the 2nd team? Wasn’t the 2nd team’s search zone far from the 3rd team’s?”

“They thought the 2nd team had made a wrong turn and that’s why the zones overlapped, but since they haven’t returned yet…”

Even before hearing the rest, I knew what had happened.

‘Blinded by ambition, huh?’

The colonel of the 2nd team had likely made this reckless move because his promotion depended on this hunt.

With Anton from the pro-Daphne faction announcing his retirement, and rumors circulating within the military that Josef from the pro-Hayden faction would soon follow, it was clear that there would be two vacant general positions soon. Naturally, those in lower ranks were eager for promotions.

The colonel of the 2nd team was likely desperate to distinguish himself in this operation and secure a promotion to general.

The Commander’s face remained composed, but his neck was tense, veins bulging with suppressed anger.

“…We might need to organize a search party for the search party.”

“My apologies.”

“There’s no need for you to apologize.”

Meursault lowered his head, looking ashamed.

I didn’t think the colonel of the 2nd team would make it out alive, even if he did return.

And of course, I had no intention of letting him off the hook either, especially since he had dragged two of my promising new officers into this mess.

The snowfall continued to worsen.

The Commander stood silent for a while, staring in the direction where the 2nd team had gone, before speaking heavily.

“We can’t risk the rest of us for one fool. We’re going back.”

It was the most rational decision the Commander could have made.

But if we left now, that team was as good as dead.

If the 2nd team had indeed been chasing the monsters, they’d likely gone in the same direction where we had given up the search due to the crevasse zone.

At the time, the snowfall hadn’t been as heavy, so we had been able to spot the crevasses.

But with the snow now blowing fiercely, there was no way a group of a mere colonel and a few junior officers would notice the crevasses in time.

# “That can’t happen.”

I was standing still, but some crazy guy had the guts to directly oppose the commander’s orders. When I turned to look, sure enough, it was Plato.

The commander and Meursault were momentarily speechless, stunned by the brazen defiance of the new lieutenant. But Plato seemed to take their silence as permission to continue and spoke again with a serious expression.

“There are new officers in the 2nd team. They wouldn’t have had much choice but to follow their superior’s orders to leave the designated route in search of the monsters. As you said, because of one foolish individual, newly commissioned officers could die a senseless death. Someone has to go after them and inform them about the crevasse. If you permit it, I will go.”

‘This kid is really something.’

In a normal situation, I would’ve dropped Plato right then and there. But I had my own reasons for not wanting to retreat just yet.

‘If we go back now, we might never find out what exactly spooked those monsters into fleeing.’

This was a hunting operation, something that only happened once a year, in spring.

The large monsters that had escaped wouldn’t come near the Zone again until next spring, and they might even die off in this snowy wasteland before then.

‘It would be a waste of all the training I’ve invested in…’

No matter how tough I’d been on them in the training simulations, preparing for a real-life threat like this was no easy task. Especially when it came to Lucas and Bones—losing them now would be a huge waste.

‘Fine. We’ll go after them.’

Having made up my mind, I extended my arm to push Plato back a step before stepping forward myself.

Or at least, I was about to.

“Stay back, Haydam.”

The moment I moved, as if he’d predicted my actions, the commander stepped in to stop me.

“I’ve let your reckless actions slide more than a few times up until now, but this isn’t the time for you to charge ahead. Your recklessness doesn’t always bring good results.”

As both a father and a superior officer, his words were something I had to hear.

But I couldn’t back down this time.

When he mentioned “recklessness,” the faces of those officers who’d clapped for me during the graduation speech flashed in my mind.

“Father.”

I met the commander’s gaze and spoke.

“You wouldn’t call the courage those new officers showed during the graduation speech ‘recklessness,’ would you?”

“……”

Plato might not care much about defying a superior, but Lucas and Bones had probably just followed their orders as instructed.

They were barely just starting their careers, having only recently emerged from the academy, and letting them die pointlessly here would undermine the whole idea of sending the Zone’s children to the Academy to nurture talent. Who would take that initiative seriously after this?

“And I’m not suggesting we go after the 2nd team.”

“Then?”

“I’m proposing we just go back to the crevasse we saw earlier. We’ll mark it as a dangerous area and return.”

The commander stared at me for a moment, speechless, before finally speaking.

“You plan to go yourself.”

“Nobody else wants to risk their lives because of one idiot.”

“Why should a kid like you go just to mark the danger zone?”

“I wasn’t a kid when I was hunting down those monsters, but now I’m a child when it’s about doing something risky?”

The commander stared at me with an inscrutable expression.

“How can you be so reckless and arrogant…? Sometimes, I really wonder if you’re my child.”

Sharp as always.

“Meursault.”

Without taking his eyes off me, the commander called out.

“Lead the rest of the team back.”

“What?”

This time, it was Meursault who looked startled.

“What are you saying? Surely you’re not planning to stay behind as well?”

“You don’t really think these two are just going to mark the danger zone and obediently come back, do you?”

Meursault’s face twitched for a second, but he quickly composed himself. I glanced at Plato and caught his eyes. Judging by the look on his face, he hadn’t planned on just marking the danger zone either.

Then I felt a gaze on me and looked up to see BangguseokYeoBo staring at me anxiously.

I could tell he was just about to raise his hand and volunteer to come with me, so I shook my head.

If BangguseokYeoBo left the returning group, the team heading back could end up in even more danger than us.

With the commander and I leaving the group, one of our strongest assets against large monsters—BangguseokYeoBo—had to stay behind with the returning team.

The commander briefly glanced at BangguseokYeoBo before quickly looking away and speaking again.

“If you’ve made your decision, then go. If we delay any longer, both you and we risk getting lost in this blizzard.”

And so.

Before we even reached the crevasse, we stumbled upon something unexpected: bloodstains staining the white snow red.

Plato, assuming it was the work of a monster, immediately began scanning the surroundings for threats.

But the moment I saw it, I knew.

This.

Wasn’t the work of a monster.