Shadow Slave

The old abandoned bunker was not exactly the best place for a few hundreds of exhausted refugees to rest, and that had been before Sunny and his cohort had smeared monster blood all over the place. It was dark, cold, and in no way suited for people to live in.

And yet, there was no other choice. They needed a temporary shelter to prepare for the journey ahead, and there was nothing better than this derelict facility for dozens of kilometers around.

In the end, the civilian transports and the military vehicles entered the large hangar behind the blast doors, and the refugees disembarked, throwing frightened gazes at the dark interior of the bunker.

The rest was both simple and demanded a lot of work.

Six comparatively clean rooms were designated as living areas, each welcoming around seventy residents. Lighting fixtures were installed, and heater elements were taken off the vehicles and placed in the corners to chase away the cold. Awakened were assigned to the living quarters to keep people safe.

There was so much to do that Sunny was momentarily at a loss. People needed blankets, food, medical care, and a hundred other things that he had not stopped to think about. Luckily, he did not have to solve all these problems alone. Sergeant Gere already had sufficient experience taking care of the refugees, and Beth seemed to have taken on her responsibility as the civilian representative with zeal.

After about an hour of working things out, Sunny was left mostly alone. In the morning, there would be a lot to do, but for now, people just wanted to rest. No one knew when they were going to get a chance to leave the transports again.

Sunny himself chose to watch over the infirmary, sending Belle away to a less stressful post.

Currently, there were three people inside - two refugees and a young soldier. All three slept as their souls wandered in the First Nightmare. Their shallow and rare breaths were almost inaudible.

Glancing at them, he summoned his chair, sat on it, and prepared for a long night. Unlike the rest of the convoy, Sunny would not be resting any time soon. There was too much for him to do.

He closed his eyes.

Above ground, the blizzard finally subsided, and the dark canvas of the mountains could be seen once again. The eerie lights of the aurora danced in the black sky, making it seem as though it was aflame with ghostly fire. Distant stars burned coldly up above.

'What a sight...'

Sunny relaxed as his shadows climbed four different peaks. Now that the blizzard was gone, he could finally observe the surroundings. He could control his shadows from as far as thirteen kilometers or so. Of course, that number seemed small compared to the thousand kilometers the convoy had to travel to reach the Erebus Field siege capital... but here in the mountains, where the terrain was rough and uneven, that was enough.

One could see a lot, if they just climbed high enough.

Naturally, trying to study the landscape from the summit of a tall mountain would have been hard for most people, considering that the whole continent was obscured by the veil of impenetrable darkness. The long night of Antarctica was still lingering, and would be for several more months.

But Sunny could pierce through that veil with ease. To him, that darkness was an ally.

As the first shadow reached sufficiently high, he sighed and opened his eyes. Then, he activated his communicator and projected the map of the area from its memory storage.

'So outdated...'

If Sunny wanted to guide the convoy through the mountains, he had a lot of tedious work to do.

First, he recalled the journey to LO49, and started to mark all the old roads that he had scouted back then on the map, as well as their condition and degree of disrepair. Some were too damaged for the civilian transports to drive on, some were comparatively fine, and some could be used, but only if there was no other option.

In the process, Sunny also marked all points of interest - potential campsites, possible ambush spots, entrances to the old tunnels that could be hiding untold threats, and so on.

The process was long and boring, but the result was going to allow him to plan a good route.

After a while, feeling tired, Sunny glanced at the map and sighed. Its current state was satisfactory, as the starting point.

Then came the harder part.

Relying on the four shadows looking at the world from high above, he started to add changes to the map. Some roads had been destroyed in the past month, some were blocked. Whole areas were buried under ice after several glaciers rolled down from the mountain peaks, and everywhere, Nightmare Creatures prowled.

Due to his credentials as an academic explorer, Sunny was not a novice to drawing maps, although they had all been that of the Dream Realm in the past. The more he filled in the current one, the more bleak his expression became.

Things were not looking good, at all.

There were too few paths the convoy could take, and none of them was particularly easy or safe. The sheer number of abominations flooding the mountain range was appalling. Even though Sunny could not judge their exact numbers and power from afar, there were too many.

They were like maggots swarming in dead flesh.

Nevertheless, he diligently marked the larger swarms on the map, as well as the direction they seemed to be heading in and their approximate speed.

After hours of arduous work, the projection in front of him looked like a piece of psychedelic art, with a chaotic net of lines and symbols of different colors covering its surface.

The most prominent color, however, was red.

With a sigh, Sunny leaned back and remained motionless for a while.

'What a disaster.'

It would have been much easier to slip through the hordes of Nightmare Creatures if he only had to worry about the Rhino. The APC could conquer all types of terrain and was as durable as they came. The vehicles of the convoy, however... Sunny felt as though he had gone into battle with his hands tied behind his back.

'Curse it all...'

As Sunny was pondering the optimal course of action, there was a sound of footsteps in the corridor outside, and the door of the infirmary slowly opened. Behind it, Professor Obel stood, holding a plate of food in his hands.

Sunny raised an eyebrow, surprised by the unexpected visit.

"...Professor? What brings you here?"

The old man smiled.

"Ah, don't mind me, Master Sunless. I just noticed that you have not gotten your portion of the food the soldiers had cooked for us, so I thought to bring you some."

Sunny hesitated for a few moments.

'What a thoughtful old man.'

Something told him that the Professor had not just come here to give him food. Considering how much time had passed, the old man should have been asleep. It was also strange to see him without Beth, who always followed him like a shadow.

The question was, what did Professor Obel want?