Chapter 319: Wrapping Things Up: Everly, the Helpful Citizen
The journey back to the villa was anything but smooth.
After leaving the sea, Everly had to cross a beach and hillside crawling with man-eating fish monsters, then climb the rope ladder hanging from the second floor to get back inside.
Fortunately, there was still one Bluetooth speaker left at the house, and their meat supplies were more than sufficient.
Standing in seawater up to her waist, Everly waved toward her grandfather and the others on the villa’s second floor from a distance, making a series of hand signals.
She didn’t need to say a word. The people inside immediately understood what she meant.
Before long, the second Bluetooth speaker—wrapped in a plastic bag for protection—was hanging from the beach pine. Deafening music blared from it as slices of meat and a rain of bullets poured down in tandem. With the people upstairs providing cover, Everly sprinted across the beach, reached the rope ladder without incident, and climbed safely back into the villa.
The moment both feet touched the floor, she could no longer hold herself up. She collapsed backward into an armchair.
The trip had utterly exhausted her. If she could, she’d have happily fallen asleep right then and there.
Unfortunately, now was the worst possible time to rest.
Thanks to one mishap after another, Everly had returned more than half an hour later than planned.
Even before she left, Old John had pieced together from her scattered remarks just how dangerous this trip would be, and had been worried sick. If she had made it back on time, that would have been one thing. Instead, she was late without sending so much as a warning.
Everly didn’t even want to imagine how anxious her grandfather must have been while she was gone.
So, despite her exhaustion, she forced herself to stand, put on an energetic smile, rushed over to hug everyone one by one, and chattered away nonstop, exaggerating the adventures she’d gone through on the journey back.
The three people present were all people Everly trusted completely, and they knew how to keep a secret. So she didn’t hide the existence of the great whale from them. She only stressed at the end of her story that the whale’s origins were rather extraordinary, and that it would be best if they all pretended they knew nothing about it.
After finishing the heavily embellished version of her tale, she couldn’t suppress a huge yawn.
“All right, that’s enough… The important thing is that you made it back safely. Go get some rest.”
Old John had been watching Everly’s complexion the whole time.
Though she acted as lively and spirited as ever, looking as if she could still carry ten more sacks of sand up and down the stairs without breaking a sweat, how could he, her own grandfather, fail to see through the act? He could plainly tell how exhausted and drained she really was.
He patiently listened to her abridged account, his heart filled with both pride and concern. Seeing her yawn over and over again, he immediately urged her to go to bed.
Everly truly was exhausted.
She had originally intended to use the villa’s other satellite phone to report everything to the SAI, but she simply didn’t have the strength. She had been running on adrenaline the entire time, and the moment she returned to familiar surroundings, all the fatigue she’d been suppressing came crashing down on her like an avalanche.
She hadn’t even finished pressing the numbers before her head slumped to one side, and she fell fast asleep.
…
She slept for more than ten hours.
When she woke up, it was already ten o’clock the next morning.
The deep sleep had eased much of the headache caused by mental overexertion. Her psychic power, however, recovered far more slowly. Even now, it had only replenished to about half its usual level.
It wasn’t just her head. Her arms and legs were sore as well. While brushing her teeth, her wrist was so weak that she nearly dropped her cup.
After washing up, she opened the bedroom door.
As expected, the other three had long since gotten up. With nothing better to do, they were leaning over the balcony railing, amusing themselves by throwing darts at the man-eating fish outside.
Misha and Old John were responsible for hitting the fish, while the utterly useless Orff’s sole contribution was enthusiastically clapping and cheering them on.
When Everly wandered over with breakfast clamped between her teeth, the three of them wordlessly made room for her. Then they told her a piece of news that almost made her spit out her food.
While she had been asleep, the SAI had obtained the number of Old John’s satellite phone from Mac at the Dwight State Police Department and called to deliver some devastating news:
Everly was dead.
“They said I was dead?!”
With considerable effort, Everly swallowed the dry bread in her mouth, pointed at herself with a curled finger, and stared at them in disbelief.
“Yep… They said that because of the storm, they hadn’t been able to reach the rendezvous point at the agreed time. By the time they arrived at the last known coordinates of your satellite phone, all they found was an empty stretch of ocean.”
Satellite phones relied on satellites to function. Even if no calls were made, as long as the phone remained powered on, the police could determine its location through technical means.
The investigators had already used up most of their tracking artifacts during the pursuit of Gary. With those gone, they had no choice but to resort to the old-fashioned method of searching outward from the satellite phone’s last known coordinates.
Among the search team was a druid whose animal companion was an ocean sunfish. It could dive to depths of around 1,500 meters. With the fish’s help, about half an hour later the investigators discovered a speedboat resting on the seabed not far from the recorded coordinates.
The boat appeared to have suffered some horrific attack. It had been battered beyond recognition, reduced to little more than a twisted shell of metal. The ocean sunfish swam into the wreck and recovered a backpack containing the satellite phone. Other than signs of a struggle, however, there was no trace of anyone aboard.
At the druid’s request, the ocean sunfish then searched the surrounding waters around the wreck, but found nothing.
By this morning, reinforcements dispatched from SAI headquarters had finally arrived at the scene.
It was the Blind Girl.
The newcomer was a supernatural.
Blind from birth, she possessed a unique ability that allowed her to “see” past events within a certain area for a limited period of time, perceiving them as masses of color.
Upon arriving near the sunken speedboat, the Blind Girl quickly entered her trance.
“I see it… I can see it…”
“Two masses of color. One is unimaginably huge, a dark crimson, overflowing with an evil so horrifying it chills the soul—like a filthy, putrid mass of rotting blood and pus. The other is small, but tenacious, a clear, pure blue-gray.”
“They’re enemies… They’re colliding… The blue-gray is being overwhelmed by that terrifying crimson, almost swallowed whole, and then…”
“Ah… Aaah! No! This… this chaos… this madness… What… what is that thing?!”
Her clouded white eyes suddenly rolled upward.
To the horror of everyone present, two streams of bloody tears burst from her eyes without warning, staining her cheeks crimson.
Having witnessed something far beyond human comprehension, the Blind Girl collapsed into unconsciousness.
The team’s physician treated her immediately.
When she finally awoke, her body had recovered, but her mind had suffered a severe shock.
Still trembling uncontrollably, she haltingly recounted what she had seen.
Just as the crimson mass representing Gary was about to completely devour the blue-gray mass representing Everly, an even more terrifying black mass of energy suddenly surged upward from the depths of the sea and plunged into the battle.
The Blind Girl’s observation range was limited, so she couldn’t tell whether it had been lurking beneath the ocean all along or had swum in from somewhere else.
From her perspective, one moment the black mass appeared at the edge of her field of vision; the next, it crashed into the two entangled masses with utterly overwhelming force.
Then it opened an enormous, abyssal-black maw…
…and swallowed the crimson mass representing Gary whole.
As for what happened afterward, the Blind Girl didn’t know.
The instant the two masses collided, the resulting psychic shock knocked her unconscious. By the time she came to, too much time had already passed, and she could no longer observe the events that followed.
After careful analysis, the SAI concluded that the waters were home to an entity even more powerful and terrifying than Gary.
Later, they managed to contact headquarters and requested permission to use a special investigative artifact to determine Gary’s condition. (The field investigators didn’t say exactly what the artifact was.) The result showed that Gary was already dead.
With that confirmation, the SAI investigators operating at sea immediately called off the investigation and withdrew from the dangerous waters.
As for Everly…
Although her body had never been found, no one believed she could possibly have survived being caught between Gary and that mysterious “black mass.”
So, after returning to land, the branch investigator who had worked with Everly called Old John’s satellite phone with a heavy heart, informing her family of what he believed to be the tragic fate of that “poor yet admirable” young woman.
After hearing the whole story, Everly fell silent.
…
Although she had often complained about the branch investigators’ inefficiency, she suddenly found herself thinking that maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing for them to be slow.
Otherwise, if the investigators’ call announcing her death had reached the villa before she got back…
She didn’t even want to imagine what would have happened.
Her grandfather was nearly eighty years old. If an elderly man like him had suddenly received such horrifying news, what if the shock had been too much for him to bear?
To make matters worse, that phone call had also exposed the lie Everly had told before leaving. She’d been forced to sheepishly admit the truth to everyone and spend even more time reassuring her frightened family and friends.
Because of the whole incident, Everly’s opinion of the branch investigators hit rock bottom. If she hadn’t wanted to maintain a good relationship with Remia and the others at SAI headquarters, she would never have voluntarily called the branch to explain what had actually happened.
“What? You said you’re Everly? You’re not dead?!”
Everly rolled her eyes so hard they nearly disappeared into the back of her head.
“I came close. But I got lucky. Just before Gary killed me, a pitch-black monster suddenly emerged from the seabed and swallowed him in one bite.”
“A monster? What kind of monster? Can you describe what it looked like?” The investigator skipped right over the fact that Everly was alive and immediately shifted his attention to the creature.
Not only was he incompetent, his people skills were terrible too.
Everly liked him even less.
She was the type to play favorites. The great whale had saved her life, while her relationship with the SAI was nothing more than one of mutual benefit. It was obvious whose side she would take.
So, when faced with the investigator’s questions, she deliberately kept her answer vague.
“I don’t know. All I saw was a gigantic black silhouette bursting out of the sea. Before I could make out what it actually was, the waves it stirred up swept me away, and I lost consciousness. When I woke up, I’d already drifted far from there. I have no idea what happened afterward.”
“So… you didn’t get a good look either…” The investigator sighed in disappointment. “Still, surviving a clash between beings on that level already makes you incredibly lucky. I suppose we can’t ask for more than that.”
After saying a few perfunctory words, he made to hang up.
Everly stopped him.
Yeah, right. As if you get to use me and then toss me aside that easily.
To escape Gary’s pursuit, she had “borrowed” a speedboat in broad daylight without paying for it.
The marina had surveillance cameras, and in the urgency of the situation, Everly hadn’t had time to conceal her movements. There was a good chance someone had already discovered that she’d quietly made off with the boat.
Although taking the speedboat hadn’t been the SAI’s idea, Everly felt they still bore responsibility.
For one thing, they had entered into a partnership. She had carried their satellite phone, continuously shared her real-time location, and willingly lured Gary out to the open sea, far from populated areas. Yet at the critical moment, the SAI had dropped the ball—they failed to arrive on time and were the ones who broke the rendezvous first.
For another, the investigators deserved a large share of the credit for Gary’s rapid growth and for him obtaining Everly’s hiding place in the first place.
So, in Everly’s opinion, now that everything was over, it was only right for the SAI to take care of the speedboat issue.
Just because she had money didn’t mean she was willing to get saddled with the bill for no reason.
And if they didn’t want to reimburse her…
Well, she wouldn’t mind if they compensated her with a couple of useful artifacts instead.
Otherwise, Everly, the helpful citizen, was going to have something to say about it.