Retire 490

490 Aerial Aquarium (2)

Of course, Los Angeles was anything but calm.

“Move!!”

“E-everyone, please stay calm!”

“Are there any planes? Is anything flying right now?!”

The airport was in utter chaos. Thanks to emergency landings by nearby aircraft, the air was filled with a jumble of languages. The place was packed so tightly there was barely room to move, with shouts, curses, and screams all blending together.

Whether it was because of the crowds or the monster that had appeared over Las Vegas, even the phones barely worked. I managed to keep in touch with Daniel, checking the situation as best I could.

With the sluggish internet, I could only just manage to check the news. It hadn’t been long since the mage attack in Las Vegas, and already there were rumors that the white fish was the work of a mage.

Evacuation orders would likely be issued not just in Las Vegas, but also in neighboring cities. There was no guarantee Los Angeles was safe. For now, the fish was just drifting over Las Vegas, but there was no telling how long that would last. Even moving slowly, with its size, it could reach neighboring cities quickly, and there were plenty of major cities in the area.

“Thank you for coming.”

Daniel, whom we finally met outside the airport, looked half out of his mind.

“No… Getting here wasn’t the problem. I only found out about the monster after I arrived.”

“Any idea where it came from?”

Daniel shook his head.

“It just dropped out of the sky.”

“Since it’s flying, that’s a pretty accurate description.”

Kim Chaemin, climbing into the car behind me, commented.

Daniel glanced back at him from the driver’s seat, and I paused as I checked my seatbelt.

“…Sorry. That was an inappropriate joke.”

Kim Chaemin apologized quickly.

“…Anyway, we were supposed to move by helicopter, but with things like this, that’s impossible.”

“Wouldn’t a helicopter be better?”

I asked, looking at the jammed roads. I wasn’t suggesting we get close, but trying to drive out of the city with everyone else fleeing could take who knows how long.

Daniel shook his head again.

“It would draw too much attention.”

“……”

“Even if it was a helicopter headed for Las Vegas. And since we don’t know what that monster is capable of, we’ve been ordered to avoid unnecessary flights in the area.”

Still, Daniel wasn’t without options.

He showed something to the police controlling traffic nearby. Whatever it was, the officers promptly gave us an escort. Was this what power looked like? Was this the authority I once dreamed of?

But childhood dreams never involved wielding power just to rush into the jaws of a dangerous monster…

Even with police help, it took a long time to get out of Los Angeles. Once we were outside the city, it was easier. Everyone else was trying to get away from Las Vegas, not head toward it. The opposite lane was packed, but the road we took was almost empty.

I checked the latest articles and photos coming out of Las Vegas. I sent my father a message, but he hadn’t read it yet. He must be busy, too.

“You really don’t know where it came from?”

“No, we don’t.”

“No dungeons erupted in the desert?”

“None.”

Daniel answered firmly.

“We may be short on manpower, but that doesn’t mean we’re not keeping track of the dungeons. In the U.S., even small cities are spread out, and there are big cities right in the middle of the desert. Just because it’s a desert doesn’t mean we ignore it.”

“But you can’t be tracking every dungeon, can you?”

“We know most of them.”

Daniel paused, then explained.

“There really aren’t that many areas with no people at all. And if a monster slips through… where do you think it goes?”

He didn’t seem to expect an answer, but Kim Chaemin replied.

“A nearby city?”

“If it’s not a dungeon inside a city, and it’s a monster that came from the desert, guilds don’t always try to kill it. The goal is to drive it out of the city.”

“For the safety of the citizens?”

“They’re going to die anyway, and the reward for killing them isn’t great. So where do you think those monsters end up after being driven out?”

I looked out the window. The desert I’d grown tired of seeing during my time in America stretched out before me.

“They’d go back to the desert.”

“Yes. And where does that desert lead?”

“……?”

“Mexico.”

“……”

“There’s an official, humanitarian explanation that we can’t let monsters cross the border from our country.”

“…Is there a less humanitarian explanation?”

“If Mexico can’t deal with the monsters, refugees cross into the U.S.”

“Hmm.”

“So, basically, we try to keep track of dungeons to control the damage. There was the Yellowstone National Park incident, where all the western hunters were wiped out. After that, I heard the army and air force swept the deserts.”

It’s the same everywhere—America or Korea, people only act after something happens. Life doesn’t change just because you’re on a different continent.

“So, none of those dungeons produced a monster like this?”

“Even if they did, you think something that size could move through the desert without being noticed?”

“Ah… That’s true.”

“It just appeared out of thin air.”

Daniel sighed, looking exhausted.

“Ever since San Francisco, nothing but weird things have been happening. I never thought there was a ‘ring of fire’ for dungeons, but at this point…”

“……”

“…What?”

Daniel stopped and looked at us.

“…This isn’t related to Mr. Hong, is it?”

“Our Master is human. He doesn’t have the power to summon or dismiss monsters at will.”

“I don’t mean Mr. Hong himself, but the people you said were behind San Francisco…”

Daniel trailed off.

Kim Chaemin and I just smiled, saying nothing. Whatever he read in our smiles, his eyes flickered with unease, so I spoke kindly.

“It’s not related.”

It probably sounded suspicious, but it was true.

We couldn’t be sure yet that the white fish over Las Vegas was connected to Noah Michel.

Daniel opened his mouth, as if to say something, then gave up.

“…Anyway, right now we’re thinking it might be similar to the monster that appeared in Boston.”

“Boston?”

I tilted my head at the unexpected city.

“Ah!”

Kim Chaemin caught the significance before I did.

“Alex! The monster Alex caught back then appeared out of nowhere too, right?”

With that, I remembered.

Hope had crashed onto the school field with half a monster while picking up Sophia. The city Sophia was in at the time was Boston.

“That monster had white feathers too. It looked completely different, but the most striking similarity was the feathers, so we think it might be the same species.”

“The Boston monster was a snake, wasn’t it? That’s pretty different from a fish.”

“They only look similar because we compare them to Earth animals. The important thing is the common features.”

“White feathers…”

We’d seen monsters with white feathers before. The fish floating over Las Vegas now, Henry Lehmann had white feathers too.

Before that, there was the snake Daniel mentioned in Boston… and the monster Sam Bloom swapped his arm for had thick white feathers as well.

It was a striking appearance, different from the furry wings of fairies.

I watched a livestream from one of the Las Vegas evacuees. The monster was flying so low it nearly brushed the top of a fancy hotel. The streamer, apparently not yet evacuated, was filming from inside the hotel. I couldn’t tell if they were oblivious to the danger or just that obsessed with money.

The monster outside the window looked unreal. Even if it didn’t seem intent on destroying the city, who could say what would happen? With that size, even brushing against a building could cause massive damage.

That’s why my father and the other hunters weren’t making any sudden moves. There were still too many people in the city. If only they could lure it out to the desert…

“Any plans?”

“We’re evacuating the city as much as possible.”

So they were considering the possibility of city-wide damage.

“I don’t know how high it can go, but honestly, I’d be grateful if it kept flying low like this. If it went up to the stratosphere…”

“…There haven’t been any flying monsters that high yet.”

“But there’s no guarantee it’ll stay that way. If planes can’t fly, it causes all sorts of problems.”

Thanks to one reckless person, we could see the monster up close. The spotted, blunt feathers were visible. From a distance, they looked like puffs of cloud at the tips, but up close, the impression was completely different. They didn’t look light like a bird’s wings. They looked as hard as hammered metal, stiff as if needles were embedded inside.

If it was that big and that tough, how were we supposed to hunt it? Maybe we’d picked the wrong day to return to America. If we’d delayed by a day or two, we might have found a way to deal with it…

“What do you think, Mr. Kim?”

I asked Kim Chaemin as well. He frowned.

“Even if you ask….”

“You used to be the one to pin down big monsters like this with magic, right?”

“This one doesn’t have legs.”

Kim Chaemin shrugged.

“With just this footage, all I can do is guess. I’d have to see it in person to say anything. I’m not the only mage in America—there must be a lot gathering by now.”

“Ah, yes. We’ve called everyone who can come quickly.”

Kim Chaemin tapped his knee, thinking.

“Or maybe… it’s a gentler monster than it looks.”

“…Gentle? A monster?”

“Well, it could attack right away, but it’s just circling the city. And it doesn’t even have eyes. I don’t know if that’s where its eyes should be, but…”

“Yes… What does that have to do with being gentle?”

“If it didn’t mean any harm, why would it be circling a human city? Especially outside a dungeon?”

“…Then what do you think it’s doing?”

“No idea.”

Kim Chaemin shrugged, looking irresponsible.

“But who knows?”

“Yes?”

“Maybe it’s looking for a human with a mind strange enough to understand what it’s saying.”

“……”

Daniel seemed to take Kim Chaemin’s words as just another eccentric mage’s joke, or a wild guess. But I understood exactly what he meant.

By coincidence, our guild had not one, but two people who could understand the language of monsters.