The storm in the dark night roared like a never-ending beast, howling with fury.
The large sheet of metal above Tokarine and Steiner's heads began to rattle, making them worry it might be torn away by the fierce wind.
They waited for a while. Although the metal sheet kept shaking, it stayed firmly embedded in the ground. Both of them let out a sigh of relief.
Tokarine raised her voice slightly. Otherwise, the clanging metal would have drowned her out.
"Sounds like you know quite a bit about Germain."
"Yeah." Steiner nodded. After seeing Tokarine shake her head and point at her ear, he caught on and shouted louder, "I know him!"
"The Chimera Ant threat level was set by our agency—the International Permit Agency. It's our experts' classification!"
"I saw the list of people who fought in the extermination of the Ant King last year. Germain played the biggest part!"
"But the experts say Chairman Netero gave most of the credit to Germain on purpose, just to boost the reputation of a promising younger hunter."
"It's like how our Special Operations chief let me represent the Bureau here—just older people helping out the younger generation!"
Tokarine grinned wide.
"Is that so? So that's how you guys see the Chimera Ant mission, huh? Oh, right—those so-called 'experts'... where are they now?"
"Two of them snapped their necks on BW-1." Steiner frowned and shouted. He realized, to his own surprise, that he didn't feel all that sad about their deaths.
"A few are missing... Most of the others are either at the refueling station or back on the Six Continents," he added.
"Real professionals, huh?" Tokarine said sarcastically, raising her short, chubby thumb.
But when she turned back to Steiner, her tone softened into sincerity.
"You're braver than them. At least you had the guts to come out here with us pro Hunters."
Steiner didn't feel sad—nor did he feel happy. He just pulled a polite, half-hearted smile as best he could.
He wanted to ask more about "Rat" Germain and "Boar" Ging, but suddenly, Tokarine reached out and covered his mouth with her hand.
"Quiet."
She perked up like a hound catching the scent of danger, ears sharp and alert. Her small, squinting eyes scanned the surroundings with caution.
Steiner could only hear the roar of the storm—wind howling, rain pounding. Everything was a chaotic mess. He had no idea what Tokarine had picked up on.
But Tokarine was a pro Hunter. She knew what she was doing. Steiner decided to trust her—and kept quiet.
Tokarine removed the hand she'd used to cover Steiner's mouth.
"Damn it," she muttered under her breath, then turned to look at him. "Listen—there are probably a few monsters nearby. They must've sensed the aura leaking from me."
Steiner's face went pale instantly. Behind his glasses, his eyes were filled with fear.
"Then what should we do?" he asked.
"Nothing," Tokarine said firmly. "The more we do, the more mistakes we make… Stay still and stay quiet. Maybe they haven't pinpointed our exact location yet."
She added, "I just need four, maybe five more minutes to gather enough aura for a teleport. If we can hold out, we'll move somewhere else."
Still, she wasn't sure if that "somewhere else" would be any safer.
Steiner nodded rapidly like a bobblehead, not daring to speak. His thin-framed glasses were about to slide off his nose.
By now, even he could faintly hear it—strange sounds mixing into the rhythm of the storm, disrupting the steady beat of raindrops.
Tokarine held up one thick finger to her lips to signal silence, then pointed at the ground.
The two of them lay flat immediately.
Steiner swallowed hard—again and again. He didn't even know the human mouth could produce that much saliva.
They lay still on the wet, muddy ground.
Tokarine kept her breathing steady. Steiner, on the other hand, was practically gasping.
They waited.
That strange sound didn't fade away.
Instead, it came closer and closer, mixed with loud clanking noises—like something was overturning the debris along the shoreline.
Tokarine furrowed her brows and turned to look at Steiner.
She saw the man with glasses trembling, lips tightly pressed together, staring blankly at a small stone as if he'd mentally checked out of reality.
She knew she couldn't count on Steiner.
But she also had to make sure he stayed alive.
Tokarine was fully aware of her mission—
It was to deliver Steiner, as intact as possible, to Chairman Netero or one of the Zodiacs.
If she could get him to Knov, even better—then his safety would basically be guaranteed.
Just hold on for another three or four minutes…
She kept her aura hidden with Zetsu, concealing her presence while slowly restoring her Nen. That was the plan.
But things rarely go as planned.
The sounds grew even louder—like a cane stabbing into wet earth, again and again.
Steiner couldn't keep pretending he didn't hear it anymore.
He clenched his teeth and endured in silence.
Maybe two or three more minutes… Tokarine wasn't exactly sure how much aura she'd recovered.
No matter what, she reached out and grabbed Steiner's wrist, ready to activate teleportation the moment her Nen was back to the necessary level.
The moment she touched him, she felt a violent shiver run through his body.
Still, he didn't scream—just trembled uncontrollably.
At least he's got a shred of courage, Tokarine thought.
But his mental state wasn't good.
Actually, the entire BW1 crew was falling apart mentally—
Even she was starting to feel the effects.
They needed to find the expedition's psychiatrist—
Hopefully, they hadn't all gone insane before their patients did.
Just one or two minutes left… Tokarine counted silently.
Then, suddenly—something felt off.
There was silence.
Had the monsters left?
No… impossible.
Even if they did, they wouldn't leave without a sound. That could only mean one thing—
They'd stopped moving.
Stopped…?
Tokarine suddenly heard a scream right beside her—
And then, with her own eyes, she saw Steiner—his face frozen in terror— being dragged backward into the darkness.
Raindrops slid down Steiner's wrist—too slick to hold.
Tokarine grasped at him desperately, her fingers slipping as he was wrenched from her grasp. She could only watch, powerless, as his body was dragged away into the shadows.
Her breath caught as she spun around.
From the narrow gap in the back of the giant metal shell, a long, hooked claw had reached in—inhuman and grotesque. In a blink, it had snatched Steiner away.
Scrambling to the edge of the shell, Tokarine squeezed herself through the crack, whispering frantic prayers under her breath.
Please… don't let him be eaten. Please, don't let him be eaten.
Only one minute remained.
Just one.
If she managed to escape while her mission target was killed, she didn't know how she would face the other members of the expedition—those who had placed their trust in her.
The rain pounded down heavily, almost blinding her. Still, she squinted through it and saw them—three figures, dark and twisted, their bodies hunched like warped shadows.
One of them held Steiner.
He was still alive, trapped in the creature's claw, his body struggling against the iron grip. Blood ran down his arm from where he had fought, but he hadn't stopped moving.
He wasn't dead.
Not yet.
The creature that held him was the largest of the three. Its towering legs, thick and shaggy with fur, lifted its bloated body high off the ground like a spider-god of old.
Its mouth opened slowly—wide, impossibly wide—revealing rows of jagged teeth that spiraled inward in circular rings, enough to grind human flesh into pulp.
Tokarine's breath caught. She couldn't even tell if this was once a human—a transformed passenger from Unit BW1—or some native beast of the unknown continent.
She didn't have time to wonder.
She had to act.
*******
Support me on my patreon and read upto 20 early chapters.
https://www.patreon.com/c/Unique_Writer