Colonel Robert followed the advice. All night, he paid no attention to the sticky sounds outside the safehouse—the sounds of some enormous mollusk scraping and crashing along the street, crushing every obstacle in its path into fragments.
He ignored everything and pretended he heard nothing. Even the monsters' roars, which he used to hear while hiding in the bathtub, seemed to have changed pitch. He heard their shock, their panic. The hysterical cries of desperate beasts at the end of their lives sounded especially pleasing now. And so, despite his usual trouble sleeping, he received the reward that came from following the advice.
He slept well.
Instead of curling up in the bathtub like he had on every night before, he lay on the living room sofa, where he could see the two visitors from beyond as soon as he opened his eyes, and slept more comfortably than he had in ages.
The overwhelming sense of unreality hadn't managed to affect him in any tangible way. When he finally woke the next morning to the scheduled alarm on his fitness watch, what he saw filled his heart with delighted excitement.
It hadn't been a dream.
He really had met a professor from Miskatonic University who had come from the future, along with his assistant. With their help, he really had captured a large number of Night Demon specimens for research. More importantly, he had drawn strength from their arrival. The future was no longer an untouchable fog. It was a visible, attainable dawn of victory.
I'll definitely develop a cure for the KV Virus.
The golden age that belongs to humanity will return.
His vision gradually cleared. The black-armored figure sitting on the sofa was silent and imposing, like a towering mountain. A twilight glow seemed to flow quietly over his futuristic armor, finally gathering in Professor Si's eyes.
"Good morning, Colonel." Professor Si's voice was as warm and refined as ever.
"Good morning, Professor." The colonel nodded in reply without thinking. For a brief moment, he thought he'd returned to some day three years ago, back when he and his colleagues had fought together on the front lines.
"Last night..." He trailed off, then fell silent. "...It was quite a night."
"It was a bit," Professor Si replied with a nod. "Those Night Demons seem to have sensed something. There must have been more than ten thousand of them in this area last night. They wrecked plenty of empty houses and broke inside, so when I got to work, I had to make a bit of a... spectacle."
The sound of a pan sizzling came from the kitchen, and the aroma of breakfast soon filled the air. The professor's assistant was busy at the stove in an apron. It probably wouldn't be long before she finished cooking.
The colonel went over to the window, which was blocked by a protective panel.
"May I?" He gestured as if to pull the panel aside.
Professor Si simply gestured for him to go ahead.
He pulled the panel aside.
He quickly slid it shut again.
What he'd glimpsed was an undeniable sea of blood and corpses. Shattered Night Demon remains stretched from right outside the window all the way to the far end of the street. Nearly every small house nearby lay in ruins, as if a typhoon had swept through. Some had their doors smashed in and windows torn apart by Night Demons. Others looked as if a tunnel-boring machine had gouged through their walls!
At least two thousand Night Demons had died on the street last night... at least two thousand. And these bloodthirsty, flesh-eating creatures hadn't even managed to reclaim the remains of their own kind!
He swallowed.
The colonel felt his face might have twisted out of shape, making his smile look decidedly strange.
"...A bit of a spectacle?"
"There'll be even more tomorrow," Professor Si said with a nod. "Their Collective Subconscious is warning them that something posing a lethal threat to the survival of their species is about to be born. This is their final rebellion, their last struggle. And it's also the greatest obstacle in the way of humanity's revival."
Robert had heard of the theory of a Collective Subconscious. He wanted to ask Professor Si what made him so sure. But given the man's expertise, he decided he'd be better off not wasting time on something so unimportant.
He was even beginning to get used to the Skeleton Soldiers with ghostly flames flickering in their eye sockets.
"I'll work on the cure as quickly as I can," he said solemnly.
"Don't rush," Professor Si said, waving a hand. "I'll buy you time."
The sound of plates touching the table rang out. The professor's shy, reserved assistant had set breakfast on the table. She watched the decision-makers discussing important matters, nervous but hopeful, fingers lightly pinching the hem of her skirt.
"Um... breakfast is ready."
The breakfast tasted wonderful.
Even with ordinary canned food and vegetables as the main ingredients, the young woman's cooking had a comforting, home-cooked quality. It was something the colonel hadn't felt in a long time, a quality that might be called "the warmth of everyday life" in the East. The sweet, delicious food lifted the spirits of everyone at the table.
Sam's tail wagged especially happily.
"Shizuka, stay behind and help the colonel with his experiments," the professor told his assistant as he put down his utensils. Robert raised his chin slightly at the arrangement.
"I can manage on my own, Professor."
"But I won't be able to take her with me later. Not this time," the professor said, shaking his head slightly. Then he pointed out a crucial detail that couldn't be overlooked. "Besides, there are twenty-eight Night Demons in your lab right now. She can help make sure nothing goes wrong."
The colonel considered this, but the young woman looked flustered. She waved her hands emphatically, seeming quite panicked.
"M-me?" Her pretty face flushed red, and her voice trembled. "But I... I can't do anything."
"You don't need to do anything. Just stay by Colonel Robert's side in my place... My necromancy needs a medium to work over a distance. As long as you're there, if anything gets out of control unexpectedly, I'll be able to make the Skeleton Soldiers knock the Night Demons down at once."
"If that's all..." She breathed a sigh of relief.
"You should have a little more faith in the powerful sedatives I've prepared, Professor," Robert said, voicing a casual complaint. Then he made a serious promise to Si Ming. "Don't worry. I'll protect Miss Ishikawa. But when you said you'd buy me time..."
"...You don't mean the way I think you do, do you?"
Robert had good instincts. Or perhaps Si Ming was simply too easy to read, given how little he bothered to hide his intentions. When the sunlight had fully spilled across the streets, gilding everything in a way that made the Night Demons cower, he had already reached his destination.
The Night Demons' nest: a major New York City subway hub. As he rode the necromantic wind-aspected Magic Wolf to the surface entrance, a cold, gloomy draft from below brushed over the skin protected by his Nanosuit.
They knew he was coming. They were ready and waiting.
Scarlet eyes lurked and flickered in the darkness. Countless restless heartbeats hid behind one earthen trap and barricade after another.
A large number of them were designed to hunt giants.
They were clearly special gifts they'd prepared for the Burrowing Devil Worm, since they'd suffered so much at its hands.
But...
"Not bad, but not much."
"They were able to figure out I'd attack during the day. Looks like my assessment wasn't too far off."
He had only brought up the theory of a Collective Subconscious offhand. His claim that he needed Shizuka Ishikawa as a medium to control the Skeleton Soldiers from a distance had been made up too. The former was just to lend his Miskatonic professorship a little more authority and credibility. The latter was meant to make Shizuka feel more involved in the mission and build up the timid girl's confidence.
But it seemed the idea of a Collective Subconscious might not be baseless after all. These Night Demons, whom Colonel Robert had observed for three years and ultimately judged to have "no social behavior," might possess an intelligence that came from a collective network—like an ant colony or a beehive, where numbers determined strength.
And if that was the case...
"No wonder mental contamination works on beasts like you."
One mystery had been solved, and his mood improved considerably.
Si Ming rode the giant wolf fearlessly into the darkness—though it was the undead wolf beneath him that felt no fear, not him. In his eyes, these Night Demons, whose upper limits had already been established, were no different from dust.
The summoning space opened without a sound.
Another twenty Bone Soldiers, swords and shields in hand, charged ahead of him and pressed deeper underground. He watched as they soon came within striking distance. After advancing for no more than twenty seconds, about fifty meters below the surface, the lurking Night Demons could no longer hold back. They leaped from dark corners at their ambush targets!
"Roar—" The Night Demons' howls shook the tunnels.
The strongest vanguard immediately tackled one Skeleton Soldier to the ground. Its partner instantly attacked another Skeleton Soldier in formation. In an instant, the twenty Bone Soldiers faced a coordinated assault by more than fifty Night Demons. The number was limited only by how many of them could get into attack position at once!
Piercing, shrill howls filled every corner of the underground tunnels. Si Ming didn't even need to look around to know there were at least several thousand Night Demons in the welcoming party at the subway station.
They were endless. They were confident.
But when the first wave of attackers had tackled every Bone Soldier guarding Si Ming, the blood-red gleam in their eyes found only his clenched fist.
"Explode."
That was his reply to those who'd given him such a warm welcome.
Before you continue