Buuuuk-.
A sound like tough leather being torn.
Suddenly, the sky tore open.
A rim of searing fire burned around the crack, and giant snakes of fire lurched toward the ground.
Patter-patter-patter-patter-
Searing raindrops fell from the sky above.
The showers of fire left no place untouched.
The grass and trees of the mountains burned, and the forests became a desert of ashes.
The oceans and lakes boiled over and turned into wastelands, and all living and breathing things were burned or dried up.
Skeletons cried out even in death, and those who hadn't yet died were afraid to take a single breath.
A time had come when nothing could be promised and nothing could be assured.
Protecting and preserving has become a crude joke, and the concept of yesterday and tomorrow has been lost.
Showers of fire became floods of flame, flooding across the continent for 150 days.
After five months of non-stop torrential rain, the world was set ablaze.
Burned and dried corpses formed mountains, and flames leaped across the horizon, searing like a tongue licking the sky.
'Rainy Season of Evil Fire.'
Endless, endless rains of fire, winds of fire, thunderbolts of fire, floods of fire.
It was the long rainy season that marked the end of humanity.
It was the final weapon of the demons that inflicted the greatest and most devastating damage on the human alliance by wiping out 98% of all living humans.
* * *
It's 3:30 in the morning.
'Aaaah!'
'It's hot! Hot! Hot! Hot!'
'Help me!'
Screams come out of nowhere in the quiet stone chamber.
Burning people screaming at the top of their lungs.
"...! ...! ...! ...!"
Vikir opened his eyes in a cold sweat.
He'd had a nightmare. A dream about 'those days' for the first time in a long time.
"...A shower of fire. Is this a nightmare I haven't had in a long time?"
Who said that the trauma caused by fire cannot be washed away even after a lifetime?
The burn-in marks on the old hound's retina were still clearly visible.
It had been several minutes since he'd awakened from his dream, but his hair still stood on end.
The goosebumps on his forearms were still there.
cheolpeog- cheolpeog- chwaag!
Vikir washed his face in the salt water that dripped down from the ceiling.
The icy cold water dug into his hair and soaked it, shaking him out of his dream.
The Rainy Season of Fear. The terrible season that had cost humanity the most in the Age of Destruction came back like a nightmare.
A time when countless drops of fire fell from the sky, scorching the world.
The day when most of the faces Vikir had met, known, and remembered had burned to blackness.
"... I don't know if I did a good job of finishing what Cindy Wendy asked me to do."
Vikir muttered as he flopped down on the ground.
Anticipating this terrible rainy season, Vikir had warned Cindy Wendy once before.
'There will be a great flood soon, so have the 'Ark' ready.'
Vikir crouched in the corner of the stone chamber and contemplated what lay ahead.
It had been about two years since he had been imprisoned here in Nouvelle Vague.
'... It seems like just yesterday I was in solitary confinement for a hundred days.'
A lot has happened in the Nouvelle Vague since then.
First of all, the construction work on the Level Ten has progressed a lot.
The already deep crater had become even deeper and was now called the Great Crater.
Old prisoners were dying and new ones were coming in.
Two years ago, the prisoners who had been in charge had grown weak from the hard labor and poor nutrition and had either died or resigned from power, leaving their places to be filled by younger, less imprisoned prisoners.
A small number of new guards have also been appointed.
Most of them did not last long and died on the job due to the extreme conditions of the prisoners, the territorial nature of the original guards, harsh working conditions, and unknown endemic diseases.
In the meantime, Vikir has been able to get most of what he wants.
The construction of the Level ten sector has progressed, and he has earned the trust of the other prisoners and the guards by staying out of trouble and serving them faithfully.
... But only one. There was one thing that even Vikir didn't have, and that was a newspaper.
'Or, more accurately, news from the ground.'
What had happened on the ground during Vikir's nearly two years inside Nouvelle Vague?
Vikir tried hard to find out, but it ended up being fruitless.
Neither the other guards nor the prisoners knew what was going on outside, and in the first place, only a few guards at the top knew.
But once, Vikir managed to catch a glimpse of news from above, and it wasn't all that reliable.
'... Damn. Why was this magazine shut down? It was good.'
A third-rate pornographic magazine that Lieutenant Colonel Bastille grumbled and threw away.
The magazine, which was popular among the guards due to its extreme sexuality and other sexual controversies, had stopped coming in at some point.
A pornographic magazine that had always been a bestseller was suddenly discontinued. It could have been, but there was something suspicious about it.
'Maybe there's a problem with the supply of magazines. Maybe the trees to make the paper are gone, or maybe the building where the magazine is housed has collapsed, or maybe there's no one on the planet who can afford to subscribe anymore?'
Vikir set his chin in thought.
They may be making excessive assumptions based on the fact that a third-rate pornographic magazine unilaterally canceled its subscription.
But as with everything, it never hurts to be prepared.
Vikir thought.
With no way to get news from the ground, he couldn't be sure, but it was likely that the demons were preparing for the final war by now.
No, they would have started the day he was imprisoned in Nouvelle Vague.
'...It's time for me to start producing some tangible results.'
Vikir was feeling a rare feeling of impatience.
ttuuuuuu-
At 4 a.m., the wake-up call cut through the air like a sword.
Vikir, who is always up and ready half an hour before the wake-up call, was the first to hit the grate today.
The BDISSEM grate becomes as mushy as a blade of grass, and when he laid it on its side, an opening was created for him to exit the room.
What a mysterious material.
"The labor begins, scum!"
The prisoners crawl out of their cells to the workhouse today under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Bastille, who oversees the labor camp.
The miserable meals, the poor rest, the prisoners growing increasingly angry.
In the two years that Vikir has spent here, countless faces have come and gone.
Almost all of the overwhelming majority of the prisoners were assembled in the labor yard, waiting on the floor, looking as if they might collapse and die at any moment.
Every day was the same as yesterday. And tomorrow would be the same as today.
Hot air, bursting steam, foul sulfurous fumes, roaring flames, scorched earth, heavy loads, little sleep, sweat, and hungry bodies.
In this daily race to the death, the prisoners were living the same life as the dead, with no past, present, or future.
Their thoughts in the labor camp were always the same.
Before entering labor, they thought, 'I want to die like this,' after going into labor, 'Please just live my life,' and after the labor was over, 'I want to be safe today too.'
It was always the same pattern.
... But not Vikir.
'Not today!'
Every day was a new challenge, every moment a first exploration, every race a certain destination.
Unlike the other prisoners, Vikir had come down here of his own free will, and he knew what he wanted.
So for the past two years, without a single day off, he has been chipping away at stone, scraping dirt, and digging deep into the crater.
...And today. This very moment!
Vikir is faced with a day that is completely different from the 700 or so days he has spent in Nouvelle Vague so far.
BANG!
The sound of a mysterious explosion echoed through the center of the labor camp on Level 9.
Explosions were as common here in Nouvelle Vague as death and starvation, but something was different this time.
A heavy, loud boom, and an unusually long-lasting earthquake.
"Uaahhhh! Run! Here comes the tsunami of lava!"
"Huh! Something's not right with this explosion!"
"Everyone out of the area!"
Guards and prisoners alike scramble backward.
The falling rocks and churning waves of lava were signs that something was about to happen, and rightly so.
But there's one man who doesn't back down, and instead steps forward.
Vikir.
While everyone else was running around in panic, Vikir was staring at a glowing blue light between the waves of lava and the collapsing bedrock.
He sees the lava, extremely hot and glowing blue.
It was shaped like a rounded sphere.
A being that shakes the earth with a roar, Vikir muttered in a low voice towards this blue lava sphere.
"...I found it. Poseidon."
The hope of humanity, the Allied forces' counterattack.
It was a wonderful discovery after about two years of being trapped in Nouvelle Vague.