The Eternal Winter - Book 2 - Chapter 5 - Scouting and Recap (Patreon)

                                                     Alexander North

I’m woken up by Alexia as the girl gets up, only for her to immediately apologize to me and then continue walking towards the bathroom. So I stretch and get up myself, briefly glancing down at myself in the process to remember that I’m still wearing some pretty garbage condition armor.

Here’s hoping this bunker had a spare set in my size.

I walk over to the medical area of the bunker again before looking at the lockers there and finding several sets of armor in them. And I immediately recognize the armor as quite similar to the one she’s wearing. Which makes sense, considering that she said that her armor was once one of these before Cynthia came by and did a rather poor job at downsizing it for the girl.

Her armor aside though, there is fortunately a couple sets here that fit me. The armor isn’t anywhere near the quality of the armor at the base, but it’ll definitely do. Much better than the armor I’m wearing right now that is extremely uncomfortable and very badly damaged.

I quickly change out of my armor into the new one before closing the locker and heading back into the living area to find Alexia already seemingly preparing to go somewhere.

“Where are you headed?” I ask out of curiosity, and she answers while tightening the strings on her combat boots, “To scout out the area. I do it every morning.”

She’s rather well disciplined for a child. Not that I’m complaining.

She also is acting a lot differently than earlier, when she was crying. But maybe she just needed to get it out of her system?

Once again though, I’m not complaining.

Then again, from what she said, she only saw people once every week for the last six months. And that was just Cynthia, who visited every Saturday.

I blink at that thought.

What’s today?

|Saturday.|

Guess she’ll be coming over today.

Anyways, I ask Alexia, “Mind if I tag along?”

She looks up at me at that before looking slightly relieved and nodding with a smile, “Please!”

I chuckle as the two of us begin walking towards the entrance of the bunker, soon finding it grinding open after the girl enters a code into the keypad next to it. And what I find on the other side is the heavily damaged interior of the building the bunker is stationed in. There are holes all over the walls, with the floor above this one collapsed inwards in some places, and the floor of this floor also wrecked with holes in it.

After we walk out of the bunker, Alexia closes the bunker door and seals it with the code before we begin heading through the building. And along the way I can’t help but focus on my senses, trying to improve upon them like I was yesterday.

The trip ends up mostly being the two of us walking around the building and dealing with any frozen ones we see, with Alexia being rather shocked by just how easily I can deal with the creatures now. Which is reasonable, considering that the first one that appeared, the creature having jumped straight out of a ruined pipe at us, I grabbed by its reptilian neck and crushed without even looking its way.

What’s surprised me the most about this little scouting trip though was seeing Alexia fight. Since she couldn’t exactly do that before I took my six month long nap.

Although I’m also a little surprised by just how barren and empty the city seems. Even when we go outside of the building and do a lap around it, including the alleyways, it is completely barren of people. And even the frozen ones are rather lacking in numbers, not to mention actual energy.

“Why’s everything so weak?” I can’t help but mutter out loud as we reenter the building, heading back to the bunker again.

Alexia looks up at me before focusing on where she’s walking again and answering, “No humans wanted to live in the capital since it’s the epicenter of the eternal winter on the planet. And most of the stronger frozen ones either set up their own bases or followed the humans.”

That has my eyebrows raising for a moment, only to remember what she said earlier when she was catching me up with everything.

Right. The frozen ones have quite a few intelligent ones left alive, each with their own small bases, mostly underground and near human settlements.

And if I had to guess, the ones that strictly followed the humans without making a base are the stronger but not intelligent frozen ones. The ones that are probably just seeing them as prey.

Guess not all of the changes are good.

I was actually rather pleasantly surprised with a lot of the changes, what with there being human settlements again, and that the most powerful frozen one was missing. Not to mention that the eternal winter seems to abate in certain areas of the world, moving around and no longer covering the entire planet.

But the idea of organized frozen ones isn’t exactly something I’m happy about.

We continue walking in silence for several minutes, not rushing to get to the bunker and instead taking our time. Because at this point there doesn’t seem to be much in the capital that can really harm me. And Alexia’s energy is surprisingly at about ten points, so she can defend herself quite well now.

Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if the girl was as strong as a Tier 2 Symbiont Host now. Although without the training to go along with it, because while she has clearly been training in combat thanks to Cynthia, she is still new to it.

On that note, I glance at the girl and ask, “Would you like me to help you with your training?”

She immediately turns her head to look at me and stops walking, a gleam in her eyes before she moves to hug me, startling me in the process as she mutters, “Yes!”

Okay then.

“We’ll decide on a schedule for it later,” I tell her with a light pat on her back. “For now it seems like we have a visitor.”

She tenses at that before seemingly understanding what I mean and letting go of me to turn around and face the hallway we’re walking through as if she could see through the walls at the humanoid figure I’m watching stand in the middle of the bunker with a red glow.

Guess my thermal vision improved with my energy and everything else. That’s certainly a plus.

“Let’s go say hi to Cynthia,” I tell Alexia with a smile. Or at least, I’m pretty sure it’s Cynthia.

Wonder how she’ll react to seeing me awake?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For those of you who are reading this on a website that is not Patreon, please stop. You're reading a pirated version. Instead, if you would be so kind, please click on the table of contents link below and go to my Patreon instead. Or even read it off of Royal Road, which is free.

Discord Invite

Top Web Fiction

Table of Contents