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Chapter 102
I wanted to pull out a flare from my bag, but the monster had coiled tightly around my waist, crushing the bag beneath its body and making it hard to get anything out.
I was struggling and grunting for quite a while, trying to yank the bag free, when—
“Ah, Meg. Want me to tell you one last way to survive on this island? There’s something on the eastern side of the northern island that serves as the source of these monsters. If you destroy that, the monsters will probably stop evolving.”
What I wanted to know wasn’t how to kill monsters, but how to escape. Still, I swallowed my words—there was no point saying it, since the conversation would just go in circles again—and asked something else instead.
“What is this ‘source’ of the monsters?”
“You’ll have to go see it yourself.”
As expected, he stayed unhelpful to the very end, pretending to be kind while actually explaining nothing.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because it looks like you’re going to die anyway.”
Jenas rested his chin on the window frame and gestured toward the monster restraining me as he spoke. Was that bastard making fun of me?
“But I kind of hope you survive for a long time, Meg. Think of it as a gamble? Or just entertainment. Try a little harder. This is Alea Island, after all.”
That son of a—!
“Ah!”
When I twisted my body, the monster lightly shook me, as if telling me not to move. I hadn’t eaten anything, but I felt so dizzy I thought I might throw up.
At that moment, I noticed something moving inside a window at the very end of the third floor of the cabin—not the left window where Jenas was, but the rightmost room.
That place… the position is strange. Is that the room they called the Room of Rest?
While my attention was briefly caught by the shadow in the window, a sudden, massive roar echoed from the forest.
Kuuung—!
Jenas’ eyes widened in surprise as he leaned far out the window. I heard him let out a low sigh.
“Looks like an uninvited guest has arrived.”
Following his gaze, I scanned the forest. I couldn’t tell where that sound had come from at all. For now, everything outside the cabin looked calm.
“Meg. I was just planning to watch, but I guess that won’t work.”
Jenas turned back toward me.
In that instant, he no longer looked like a twelve-year-old boy, but like a fully grown man well past his twenties.
“See you again.”
He waved at me, then snapped his fingers.
“…Huh?”
Suddenly, the cabin, Jenas, and the monster coiled around my waist all vanished from sight. I fell helplessly downward, but I felt no impact when I should have hit the ground.
When I came to my senses, I was lying face-down on the ground. Startled, I blinked rapidly, then slowly pushed myself up into a sitting position.
Everything around me was shrouded in thick fog. I couldn’t see even an inch ahead. What in the world just happened?
There was no concrete proof—only circumstances—but by now, I was almost certain.
Jenas might be an “experimenter”… or even the one who kidnapped us.
