Chapter 1: Carnival

The table was bare.

Today’s rations were nothing more than a single nutritional capsule.

Even that was cut in half for the child.

Thanks to the pill designed to simulate a full stomach, there was no sensation of twisting, agonizing hunger in their guts.

However, that did not stop the emotional hunger—the fake craving for food.

“I’m hungry, Leo.”

“Me too, Leo. Erin is hungry too.”

“Guys.”

Leo looked back and forth at the children flickering beneath the dim light bulb.

As a matter of habit, he grabbed each of their wrists in turn.

“You aren’t dizzy, are you? Any nosebleeds?”

When he asked earnestly, Roy, sitting next to Erin, mumbled quietly.

“I’m okay… but Erin bled onto her pillow while sleeping yesterday.”

“A nosebleed? Erin, why didn’t you tell me?”

Rumble.

A bizarre vibration cut through the conversation between the three of them, causing Erin to roll her eyes upward anxiously.

“Answer me, Erin. Did you bleed yesterday? How much? Are you nauseous? What about your taste buds?”

“Leo, I’m scared…”

Under the continuous interrogation and persistent vibrations, green eyes filled up with tears.

Just a few months ago, Sean and he had joked that she would grow up to be a total beauty…

Leo gently wrapped his hands around Erin’s shoulders and asked once again.

“Erin. This is an important question regarding your health.”

When he spoke with tone implying she shouldn’t evade his query, Erin tilted her gaze up toward the low ceiling.

Leo pulled up the sleeve of his blood-stained plaid shirt to check the time.

“Look at this, Erin. The small hand has passed twelve four times now. It’s the second day, so we only need to hold on for half a day more. Then the Imperial Guard will leave us alone. There are no imperial concubine candidates in a wasteland like this.”

“Mm-hmm.”

Leo quietly listened as Erin finally nodded, explaining that it wasn’t a severe bleed.

“I didn’t want you to worry. Now that Sean is gone, I thought you’d worry about us too much.”

“Hey! Why would you say that out loud?!”

When Erin spoke honestly about Sean’s death, Roy yelled at her loudly.

“I’m sorry.”

“No… Sean will come back. So let’s not talk like that.”

“Okay.”

“…”

It had been a full month since Sean failed to return to the underground bunker.

Every morning during roll call, Leo looked for any new updates, but there were none.

If anything, people told him to give up on false hope.

—I’m sorry to say this, Leo, but if he went into the danger zone, consider him dead. Hope is a cruel torturer. No matter if Sean had ten lives, this time is different. They say Third appeared at the Carnival. You know, right? What a cruel hunter that bastard is.

Of course he knew.

Leo remembered every detail of the atrocities committed by Third, a member of the Emperor’s Imperial Guard, Staffel.

Third was the fourth warrior of Staffel, where rank was determined strictly by power.

He was under six feet tall and looked like an ordinary pure-blood human at first glance.

If anything, his appearance was tailor-made to catch enemies off guard.

It was said he had droopy, short blond hair and red eyes that instinctively provoked a protective instinct.

Leo recalled the compulsory training material for non-combat personnel.

—We are like humanity crash-landed on an uninvited planet. The Field has long since turned its back on pure-blood humans, and now it treats us as mere parasites. Under these conditions, those gathered in this underground bunker must endure as long as possible. This is the last surface bunker closest to the center of the Field where the Emperor resides. Until the day we migrate to the underwater bunker with reinforcements, we must never give up hope. Understood?

Right, one must never abandon hope.

At the long, rumbling vibration, Leo curled his body forward and held Erin and Roy tightly.

“Let’s endure for just one more day, kids. The tanks led by the Imperial Guard will leave this area soon.”

“Okay, I believe you, Leo.”

“Erin too.”

However, no sooner had the children finished speaking than urgent footsteps echoed from above.

“Leo! Leo, hurry up and get out here! We’re short-handed!”

The overhead sign marking the bunker sectors with letters and numbers flapped noisily after being struck by the head of the person who had just rushed in.

Leo instinctively clasped hands back with Roy and Erin, who were clinging to his collar.

He could feel every bone on the back of their hands.

“What’s going on, Doug?”

Doug scanned the anxious faces of the children, shook his head, and blurted out.

“It’s urgent. Just get out here for now.”

“Got it. Give me one minute.”

“Don’t be late!”

The sign flapped again, and a heavy silence descended back over Leo and the children’s shelter.

Leo took a brief breath, let it out, and took a long, deep breath.

It had been two years since they moved into this underground bunker, starting right after the ascension of Ethan Julius Frey, the 18th Emperor of the Field.

Thinking back, it was a miracle they had survived two whole years in this burrow where air barely even circulated.

“We really lived a long time.”

Erin and Roy didn’t ask what Leo meant by his muttered reflection.

Just like when Sean first built this shelter, there were no secrets among the three of them.

The kids already knew very well how Leo had ended up here.

Leo recalled his hometown, destroyed by the 18th Emperor who was barely a few days old at the time.

The city of Honor.

It was a place inhabited by a population of 50,000, functioning as the headquarters of Nahash—a research institution established by the pure-blood human leadership.

When the world fell to ruin, the survivors sought refuge in the few remaining fortresses on the surface.

Leo was one of those many migrants who, after countless twists and turns, finally entered the city of Honor.

It was all thanks to his parents, who emptied their entire fortune to contribute to Nahash’s research funds.

Until the death of the 17th Emperor, the city of Honor was the wealthiest remaining surface stronghold.

The 17th Emperor had temporarily suspended activities after a conflict with the Eshimed, the clan of prophecy.

Because of this, Honor was able to terraform the Field aggressively without walking on eggshells around the Emperor.

Looking back, people might ask if it was a crazy endeavor, but back then, pure-blood humans could reach right up to the front gates of the Imperial Palace at the center of the Field.

If only a blonde Imperial Guard had not been standing at the gate…

Different from Third, that guard slaughtered any human attempting to cross the gate.

He was said to be well over six feet tall with a slender build and long, gorgeous blond hair.

His face could not be identified because he wore a gas mask used by the Imperial Guard, but one thing was certain: his skills rivaled those of leader Guinevere.

After the crushing defeat, Nahash announced it would leave the city of Honor.

Naturally, the decision met severe opposition.

The reason people could gather and live in a crowd without fear was because of their leader, who inherited the rich bloodline of the first pure-blood human.

People called her the Queen.

Queen Guinevere.

“I should have followed her back then.”

Leo lacked the confidence to take his aging parents all the way to the underwater bunker.

There were too many risks—being attacked by Shifters along the way or having to turn back upon arrival.

So he couldn’t bring himself to choose it.

As a result, in just a few months, the city of Honor with its 50,000 residents was utterly annihilated.

By Frey, the 18th Emperor, who looked like nothing more than an eight-year-old child.

Rrrrrumble.

The vibration sounded extremely close this time.

Shouting erupted from all directions alongside the sharp, acrid smell of gunpowder that stung the nostrils.

Leo forced Erin and Roy to hide under the table in the deepest corner of their space.

Just as he turned to leave, Erin burst out from hiding, grabbed Leo’s leg, and started sobbing.

“Leo, don’t go! Erin will be good from now on! I’ll listen to you together with Roy!”

Erin sensed that this was the end.

Leo held Erin’s thin hand and spoke gently.

“I’m going to bring Sean back.”

“Waaaah! Don’t go!”

“We’ll come back together. Once I’m back with Sean, we’ll go to the underwater bunker together. Was it Sector Z? Anyway, we’ll go there.”

BOOM!

A massive explosion shook the tunnel violently.

The entrance had undoubtedly been discovered.

There was no time left.

“Roy, take care of Erin!”

Leo left behind the sound of Erin’s wailing and sprinted forward blindly.

Black smoke already filled every corner of the underground bunker.

Leo covered his mouth and nose with his sleeve to block out the sickening stench of tear gas that threatened to make him throw up.

Through the ear-splitting blasts and mind-numbing screams, he surged forward, charging straight ahead.

“Don’t fall back! They’re coming!”

Leo picked up a machine gun near the entrance.

Rat-tat-tat-tat!

There was no need to check if the magazine was loaded.

A quadrupedal Shifter with its jaws wide open lunged at him at that exact moment.

As soon as the magazine ran empty, Leo immediately relocated and ran toward the supply pile.

It wasn’t far when judged by eye, but crossing a battlefield where humans and monsters were tangled together was far from simple.

Just then, another massive tremor shook the ground, followed by a deafening roar.

BOOM!

“Ugh…”

A long, sharp ringing pierced his ears painfully.

Prone on the dirt floor, Leo raised his head to look up at the figures entering with the light behind their backs.

“So the vermin were parasitizing in a place like this.”

A hunter with blood on his face looked down at the humans with a merciless expression, delivering their death sentence.

“It’s a Carnival.”

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