"This is unbearable. That stubborn bastard thinks far too highly of himself!"
"I think he's just too proud to back down after talking such a big game. I'd like to see whether he can just wait there until a monster shows up."
"But why does the captain always take his side? Just because he's a little stronger than the rest of us?"
Nagi Saijo remained relatively composed. "Perhaps the captain considered that an untrained new member could very easily become a liability in battle. He only said that to spare his feelings."
Kishida said, "That makes sense, but the Defense Team isn't a charity home. We can't always indulge someone who acts so recklessly."
Nagi Saijo said, "After this incident is over, I'll formally submit a request to Captain Moroboshi and Chief of Staff Gondo to transfer Team Member Qi Ming to another department."
After advancing several hundred meters west, Qi Ming heard a series of muffled thuds.
"Three short, three long, three short... It's SOS. Someone is calling for help!" Qi Ming perked up.
He moved aside a massive boulder blocking the cave entrance and found a male university student inside, using a rock to strike the wall.
The student was filthy and dazed, looking as though he had suffered greatly.
When he saw Qi Ming standing in the faint light, life returned to the student's clouded eyes. "You... are you an angel sent by God to take me away?"
Qi Ming poked the "GUTS" emblem on his uniform. "The one who sent me here never had holes in his palms. He just had a broken leg."
He would not lecture this student about "causing trouble for others by getting himself into danger," because before coming to this world, he had been no saint himself and often "pushed the limits."
The university student realized this was not a hallucination he had seen before starving to death. "You're with the Defense Team!"
"Did you have a companion?" Qi Ming took emergency rations and water from his backpack and handed them to him.
"Yes, but we got separated after we lost our way." The student eagerly took them and began wolfing them down.
Qi Ming asked, "Can you find him?"
"I know which way he ran, but we can't wander around in here." Panic flashed across the student's face. "What I'm about to tell you... don't be scared."
Qi Ming said, "You ran into a monster?"
"That's right!" The student nodded desperately.
The monster that had emerged from the mist had chased him relentlessly. He had hidden in this cave, and a falling boulder had buried the entrance.
If Qi Ming had arrived any later, he would have been trapped to death inside.
Qi Ming asked, "What did the monster look like?"
"It... it looked like that!" Terror flooded the student's eyes as his trembling right index finger pointed behind Qi Ming.
Qi Ming immediately sensed the killing intent behind him. He spun around and saw a massive head emerging from the mist.
A sharp, protruding head, pincer-like hands, and a brown body covered in ringed patterns...
It was indeed the rock monster Sadola.
"R-run!" Seeing that the monster had noticed them, the university student hurriedly grabbed Qi Ming. But his legs had gone limp, and he could not move at all.
"You go. Once you find your companion, press the button three times. A rescue team will locate your position and come for you." Qi Ming handed the university student a locator with an emergency distress function.
He then drew his Victory Hyper Gun and moved toward Sadola.
"Huh?" Sadola let out a puzzled roar, unable to understand why this tiny human had not fled in terror at the sight of it, but instead dared to approach.
It flung a huge boulder beside it at Qi Ming.
With his lightning-fast reactions and powerful body, Qi Ming leaped three meters into the air and easily avoided the attack.
Good. He was within the Victory Hyper Gun's effective range now!
Qi Ming found the right angle and pulled the trigger. A red laser shot from the muzzle and struck Sadola's right eye.
He had perfectly inherited his father's talent for shooting and had even surpassed him. Before coming to this world, he could already hit a target from a hundred paces away.
"Roar!" Struck in a vital spot, Sadola flew into a rage and lunged at Qi Ming with a furious bellow.
"Getting desperate?" After saying that, Qi Ming looked back at the stunned university student. "Don't be afraid. I'm here. Do what you need to do!"
As he spoke, he fired while using movements that looked to the student like scaling walls and soaring through clouds, drawing the battlefield farther away.
He wanted to make an even bigger commotion and lure Taiton out as well.
That would not only ensure everyone else's safety, but also make it easier for him to transform after gathering the monsters together and wipe them all out in one wave, allowing him to collect ten Star Gifts sooner.
Although the village lay at the foot of Mt. Kirifuki, they still had to fly to the other side of the mountain range to reach it.
The thick mist gradually dispersed, replaced by snowflakes rushing toward them. The two Victory Swallows were swallowed by a silver-white world, with nothing but vast whiteness as far as the eye could see.
"A mountain range with thick fog on one side and heavy snow on the other. What a spectacle," Yamanaka remarked.
Kishida said, "It's probably due to the steep terrain or unusual air currents. I heard this area remains covered in snow even during summer, and even the experts at the Meteorological Agency can't explain it."
Fortunately, their Defense Team uniforms possessed exceptional heat resistance, cold resistance, and impact resistance. This temperature was nothing to worry about.
Since Qi Ming had withdrawn, Mamoru Shirogane had Emi fill in for him.
She had arrived ahead of them at this snowy village, where a monster had just appeared, and was waiting for her seniors.
"The monster has already disappeared. These are photos taken by witnesses." Emi was first-rate when it came to gathering intelligence.
Kishida and the others gathered around. They saw a gigantic creature with fluffy white hair standing in the snow, its face hideous and terrifying.
Nagi Saijo asked, "What is the extent of the damage?"
"That's the strangest part." Emi said, "No houses were destroyed, and no one was killed. The monster appeared out of nowhere, then suddenly vanished. The local villagers call it 'Witch.'"
Nagi Saijo said, "Witch?"
"Help! Help!" At that moment, a girl's frantic cries for help came from ahead, accompanied by the roar of motorcycle engines.
The four of them looked up and saw a girl who appeared to be around sixteen, dressed in a shabby red padded jacket, fleeing desperately.
Behind her, five thuggish-looking men on motorcycles laughed loudly. "Haha! Did you think a mere monster could scare us off?"
With that, they revved their engines and actually drove their motorcycles straight at her!
Before you continue