Chương 117: 46.Jäger 46-1

After we finished cleaning up the two teams that had tried to jump us, the scorched rainforest stayed quiet for exactly three minutes. Only three. Long enough to drag the ones still breathing into burnt root shadow, strip anything dangerous, leave minimum water and coagulant patches. Long enough for me to retighten my pack straps and, before the wound in my lower left abdomen could file its next formal complaint, pretend I could still march another eight hundred kilometers.

Then the Evaporation Forest, apparently remembering it wasn't a charity, started throwing new problems at our faces. I was crouched behind a half-split buttress root, hadn't even finished processing the last contact, when Harvey spoke first.

"Fresh tracks." His tone was flat—like saying this water tastes like shit. But I'd learned that whenever Harvey opened with that particular flatness, my spine tightened before my brain caught up. Usually meant things were bad in a way that couldn't be fixed by swearing harder. I moved over to look. The ash had been pressed into tracks that were deeply unpleasant.

Compared to the two student teams from earlier—erratic, hurried, carrying that particular texture of fear and greed—these prints were clean in a way that felt almost insulting. Fixed spacing, direct placement, no detours, no unnecessary pauses. Not someone surviving a rainforest. More like someone patrolling their own hallway. Jess crouched beside me, squinted for a moment, and the habitual edge she used to scrape people slowly faded.

"Those aren't students."

"Obviously," I said. Maki crouched too, using the edge of her clipboard to measure the spacing between prints.

"Two elements," she said.

"No—two lines at first. They split here. Stride length almost identical. Weight distribution very close." D came up from behind, looked down, and his shield shifted slightly on his shoulder.

"That was fast." I looked at him.

"You recognize them?"

"Not faces," D said.

"But the smell." Sounded stupid. Was completely accurate. Some things you see once and know they're not here to negotiate. Akari had been standing on a slightly higher section of fused rock, watching ahead. Now she turned slowly. Those dead-fish eyes tracked both sets of prints, then lifted toward the deeper forest.

"Jäger (Hunter)." Statement, not question. No maybe, no probably, no room for comfortable self-deception. She and D had mentioned them during the bunker meeting. I'd pieced together scattered rumors elsewhere. But seeing that name attached to actual tracks in actual scorched dirt—completely different feeling. Like someone had finally nailed the hunting ground's sign up and carved our names on it too. The short-haired girl asked quietly from behind: "Weren't we told one Jäger (Hunter) only tracks one squad?"

"Yes," Akari said.

"Then why are there two trails?" Jess frowned. I stared at the prints and suddenly understood, with a very specific urge to show Academic Affairs the middle finger.

"Because on the ground we look like eight people," I said.

"But in the system, we're still two squads." D tilted his head at me and nodded.

"Team 144 is one. We're one," he said.

"So if the Academy rule really is 'one Jäger (Hunter) per squad,' then from their perspective, joint operation isn't safer with eight. It's perfect for two." Jess let out a short laugh—nothing happy in it, more like hearing a joke with an ugly punchline.

"Oh, wonderful. They tacitly approved us running eight not because they finally grew a conscience, but because that way they can release two dogs at once."

"Correction," Akari said, flat.

"Dogs don't usually have this level of equipment." Before I could fire back, the forest moved. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. Not leaves-in-wind movement. Two shadows slipped between blackened tree frames, one behind the other, fast enough that my vision felt like it skipped a frame. A heartbeat later, the thermal sensor on the tall boy's chest let out a low alarm chirp.

"Two high-heat suppression signatures," he said, voice tightening.

"Not natural. Splitting to flank." I dropped immediately.

"Everyone down! No silhouettes!" D took point, yanking the shield down. The short-haired girl and Jess split left and right. Harvey had already pulled the sensor off the tall boy's harness and jammed it beside a burnt root. Then I saw a Jäger (Hunter) properly for the first time. Black. Not standard uniform black—the kind that eats light and throws it back in thin, hard lines.

All-terrain armor covering limbs and torso, joints bulky but not clumsy, outer layer treated with something that made you feel heat would slide right off. Full-face helmet, mirror visor giving nothing back, with narrow sensor arrays at the sides and brow. Thermal, IR, night vision—top-shelf kit that looked less like exam equipment and more like humans had built their own nightmare. Worst of all, they moved too well.

Scorched roots, ash pits, half-cooked thermal pockets, fractured lava ridges—everything out here reminded sane people to watch their step. The two black shapes moved like they didn't live under the same physics. Every footfall clean. Every stop exact. One slid half out from behind skeletal trees to our left-front. The other cut in from the lower ash band on the right, parallel. Left and right. Two knives with Academy approval stamps.

"Contact," Akari said quietly.

"Same order as yesterday. D on point. Right Jäger (Hunter) is mine. Don't let the left one curl into center."

"I'd rather you kindly escort them back to the dorms," Jess muttered.

"No," Akari said.

"What a pity." The first shot had zero drama. No big report. No muzzle flash. Just a short compressed pff, and a small black-grey round smacked D's shield, leaving a wet gleam. I didn't get a good look before the second shot flicked past above the short-haired girl and buried itself in burnt timber behind her. The log shuddered once. Then went completely, neatly silent. Even the ash falling from it seemed to lose momentum. My throat tightened. Not training rounds. Jäger (Hunter) gas-gun tranquilizers. No blood.

No mangling. No heroic wounds. Just a civilized note: congratulations, you'll be luggage for the next hour.

"Don't let it touch you!" I snapped.

"Obviously!" Jess shot back, already flatter to the ground. The left Jäger (Hunter) started cutting toward the high root network. The right one didn't rush—just seemed to measure our spacing and reaction time. This wasn't a straight chase. It was watching how we took ourselves apart. I got it immediately. They weren't here for kills. They were here for the formation.

"D, half-step left-front. No chasing," Akari called first.

"Harvey, I need the thermal lines," I added.

"Maki, pull the water and med packs tighter behind me. Right-rear, keep your head down!"

"Jess, two-step fake left. Let him see you, don't give him the leg!" Orders hit, and the squad responded instantly. D angled his shield left-front, cutting any clean lane for the left Jäger (Hunter) to punch center. Akari dropped into half-crouch at his right rear, rifle up but not firing yet—looking not for a body, but for anything worth shooting at. Because we all knew: tranquilizers worked great on students. On that black shell, they'd just be polish. The right Jäger (Hunter) moved first. No rush.

Just a slight barrel adjustment, then a shot at a half-dead tree above our center line. Pff. Round buried itself. No explosion. A few seconds later, that limb sheared clean and crashed down, blocking our best right-rear retreat channel.

"Shit," I said. It wasn't trying to hit us. It was cutting routes.

"Exploits environment," Harvey said coldly.

"Filthier than students."

"Students are at least noisier," I replied. The left Jäger (Hunter) fired then—not at D, not at Akari, but into the ground a step and a half from Jess. Muted thump. Jess rolled clear instantly, cursing three generations.

"It predicts movement!"

"Because you're loud," Akari said.

"Not helping!" I checked the HUD. Under the fused ridge ahead, a half-collapsed steam band still vented post-Gale heat. Sensor noise, ugly visibility. The issue was crossing it with two Jäger (Hunter) watching. I was still calculating when Akari spoke first.

"Hoshino. That steam band right-front—you see it too." Not a question. I shot her a look.

"Are we doing telepathy now?"

"No," she said.

"I'm just cutting off the part where you take too long to say it." Wanted to hit her. Annoyingly, she was right.

"All units, listen," I said quietly.

"We don't out-shoot—we cut through steam. D first, wedge left-front. Akari, take right optics. Harvey, open the band wider. Jess, two decoy hits left. Maki, stick on me. Don't fall."

"If I fall, you can't carry me anyway," Jess muttered.

"You can shut up and run." This wasn't about repelling them. This was forcing them out of comfortable hunting angles. Harvey pried open cooled ash rock, heat pouring up. The tall boy confirmed the band wouldn't collapse. Jess tossed two metal strips left, staggered to mimic movement. The left Jäger (Hunter) tracked that way. In that instant, Akari fired. Not at center mass—at the sensor array on the right Jäger (Hunter)'s helmet side. Crack. Training penetrator. Didn't punch through. But it turned his head.

"Move," Akari snapped. D drove shield-first, carving a narrow corridor. All eight of us poured into the steam band. Heat slapped up, whiting out vision. My wound screamed under the low, fast movement, but stopping was suicidal. The right Jäger (Hunter) fired twice into fog. One skidded off D's shield; the second passed close enough to my ear that the back of my neck went numb.

"Cut left!" I shouted. Maki was half a step behind me, hand hovering near my back without touching. Close enough to watch for stupidity; far enough not to turn me into a patient. We punched through the far side. The Jäger (Hunter) didn't rush after. Not because of heat—because the steam, ridge, and roots had chopped their sightlines temporarily. D glanced back.

"They backed off half a step."

"Not back," Akari said.

"Re-angling." Right. That was the worst part. They weren't gone. Just decided this round wasn't profitable. I leaned against blackened root and finally exhaled. My left side throbbed hard enough to scold me. Jess dropped beside me, sweating, grinning in that slightly unhinged way.

"Congratulations, Frost 01. We've successfully upgraded from 'about to become luggage' to 'not luggage yet.'""Thank you for the precise morale report."

"You're welcome." Akari approached, eyes checking my side before scanning ahead.

"First pass, complete," she said. I looked up.

"We calling that repelling a wave?"

"For a Jäger (Hunter)," she said, "that counts as you winning. A little." Perfect bedside manner. I was starting to understand why she and Maki could coexist—same species that treated reassurance as wasted oxygen.