Lackey's Seducing Survival Odyssey

Chapter 1748: I am cursed…

“Good.” Iron Marshal gave a firm nod after hearing their response before continuing, “As for yesterday’s incident, leave it to the rescue team to handle. As for the rest…” His voice gradually turned ice cold, “Once again… do not mess this up. If, by any chance, another Hell’s Gate opens within our division, Commander 2 and Commander 3 will personally deal with it.”

His sharp gaze slowly shifted toward the two commanders standing in silence.

Although it would double their workload and place enormous pressure on their shoulders, neither of them voiced a single complaint.

They had failed.

This was their punishment.

‘We should be glad he didn’t throw us into the tournament instead,’ Jonathan thought, feeling a small wave of relief wash over him despite the grim situation.

“Understood, Iron Marshal.”

Commander 2 and Commander 3 saluted without hesitation, their metallic gauntlets striking their chests with a heavy clang as they accepted the order.

Iron Marshal gave a satisfied nod before turning around and walking out of the conference room. His footsteps echoed through the silent hall until the large doors slid shut behind him, leaving no room for further discussion.

To him, his duty here was finished.

Only after his presence completely disappeared did every commander inside the room finally release the breath they had been unconsciously holding.

A collective sigh of relief echoed throughout the conference room.

“Finally! It’s our chance to shine!”

“Yeah! Since Commander 2 and Commander 3 will be busy dealing with Hell’s Gates, we’ll be the ones preparing for the next phase… Haha… I’m actually getting excited about this!”

“Yup~! Yup~!”

“It looks like only we have real competition this time… Heh~ Let’s see who comes out on top now.”

Commanders 4 through 10 openly sneered without the slightest attempt to hide their excitement like they had done previously.

After all, both senior commanders were already standing on dangerously thin ice. It would only be a matter of time before the rankings among the commanders changed.

Almost instinctively, every one of them glanced toward Jonathan.

He was the true obstacle.

If they could surpass even his rank, then there would be nothing left to fear.

With hopeful expressions and ambitious dreams filling their minds, they gradually left the conference room one after another until the spacious chamber fell into silence.

Only Commander 2 and Commander 3 remained behind.

Neither of them spoke.

They simply leaned back in their chairs, blankly staring at the spotless white ceiling above as silence settled heavily between them.

After what felt like an eternity, Commander 2 quietly broke the silence.

“How many did you lose?”

Commander 3 lowered his head slightly before letting out a weary sigh.

“More than I could count.”

The exhaustion in his voice was impossible to hide.

Commander 2 hesitated for a brief moment before slowly placing a hand on Commander 3’s armoured shoulder, gently patting the cold metal.

Clang…

Clang…

Even though only metal struck against metal, inside the suit, Commander 3’s lips trembled uncontrollably.

“S-Someone… controlled the monster.”

Commander 2 froze.

His hand stopped midway through another reassuring pat.

“…What?”

He slowly turned his head toward Commander 3. “What do you mean… someone controlled the monster?”

Just as he finished asking, his helmet displays suddenly flickered to life.

Warning symbols flashed across the holographic screens before a live feed rapidly appeared.

Hordes of monsters marched together in perfect formation and… Walking ahead of the entire horde was a lone figure.

Its pace was calm.

Every monster silently followed behind it as though obeying an unquestionable ruler.

Like a king leading his army into battle.

“When I went to search for my teammates… I came across one…” Commander 3 swallowed hard before forcing the words out of his mouth.

“One of them… his body had been cleanly cut in half, leaving only the upper body behind. As for the lower half…” His voice trembled slightly as he lowered his head. “…I don’t know where it went.”

As he spoke, the horrifying memories resurfaced vividly in his mind. After placing the remaining soldiers under Commander 2’s authority, he immediately flew toward the team’s last reported location.

At first, Commander 3 believed his teammates had simply been killed by the monsters during the battle. Even so, his instincts refused to accept that explanation until he found their bodies himself. Holding onto that faint hope, he continued following the trail through the narrow mountain path, carefully scanning every inch of the surroundings with his mech-suit’s sensors.

However, despite searching for several minutes, he failed to discover a single survivor or… even the monsters.

Eventually, something caught his attention near the edge of the mountain wall.

Half of a mech-suit rested awkwardly against a crooked rock.

The armour had been sliced perfectly in two by something impossibly sharp.

Torn mechanical cables, shattered internal components, and blood-soaked flesh hung loosely from the severed torso.

He silently stared at the remains for several moments before slowly kneeling beside them. As the commanding officer, he possessed emergency authorisation to access the visual recording systems of every subordinate under his command. Although most of the suit’s systems had already failed, there was still a chance that the recording module had survived long enough to reveal what had happened.

Sssnn~

A faint electronic sound echoed from the damaged armour as Commander 3 connected his mech-suit to the fallen unit. The emergency power briefly restored the visual recording system, and within moments, the final footage captured before the suit completely shut down appeared across his display.

Commander 3 stood completely motionless while watching the recording.

The screen displayed hundreds of monsters gathered together in a massive horde, all advancing in the same direction instead of behaving like the mindless creatures they normally were.

Standing several meters ahead of them was a single figure.

Commander 3 immediately magnified the recording several times, desperately trying to identify the person’s face, but the distance and damaged recording quality reduced the figure to nothing more than a blurry black silhouette.

Even though he failed to identify the mysterious individual, he understood one terrifying fact with absolute certainty.

Those monsters had not been acting on instinct.

Someone…

Or something…

Had been leading them.

Whatever controlled that army was far more dangerous than the monsters themselves.

“After confirming everything, I burned what remained of the body and continued following the trail it left behind. Along the way, I found the soldier who was supposed to be guarding the portal…” Commander 3 paused for a brief moment before continuing in a much heavier voice.

“He had been nailed to the mountain wall through his head.”

Commander 2 quietly listened without interrupting. However, as more details emerged, the calm expression on his face slowly disappeared, replaced by growing disbelief.

“Were you able to recover any information from that soldier?” he finally asked in a serious tone.

Commander 3 remained silent for several seconds before answering. To him, those dead soldiers had been comrades who fought beside him. To Commander 2, however, they had become sources of information that might reveal the enemy’s identity.

“No,” Commander 3 replied quietly. “Unfortunately, the helmet had been completely punctured. As for the rest of the body…” He clenched his jaw before continuing. “There wasn’t anything left. It looked as though something had already devoured everything below the head.”

Commander 2 lowered his eyes in thought before asking another question.

“Have you informed the Governor about any of this?”

Commander 3 slowly shook his head, “No… not yet.”

His armoured fists tightened until the metal joints groaned beneath the pressure. “I want to kill that motherfucker myself. The bastard slaughtered my teammates, and I’m not letting someone else take his head before I do.”

Commander 2 remained silent for a moment because he understood exactly how Commander 3 felt. If their positions had been reversed, he doubted he would have reacted any differently.

Nevertheless, personal vengeance could never outweigh the importance of reporting an enemy capable of commanding monsters.

“Hiding this information from the Governor will only come back to bite yo—”

“Even if I did, what exactly is he going to do?” Commander 3 scoffed, his voice dripping with frustration.

“Huh? All he cares about is his reputation. Even today, he was furious because the President criticised him, not because he genuinely cared about the people under his command. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if that bastard was busy sleeping with those teenagers right now…”

“Shh!”

Commander 2 immediately smacked the side of Commander 3’s helmet with his knuckles before hissing through gritted teeth, “What the fuck is wrong with you? Do you really want someone to overhear you badmouthing the Governor?”

Commander 3 blinked in surprise before letting out a quiet laugh.

“How are you still defending that asshole?” he asked with a helpless smile before sighing and shaking his head. “Whatever… arguing about him isn’t going to change anything.”

The humour quickly disappeared from his face as his expression became serious.

“Hey.”

“Yes?”

Commander 3 looked once more at the blurry figure frozen on the holographic display.

“Do you think… this monster could be related to the one that wiped out your teammates?”

Commander 2 remained silent for several moments while carefully studying the image again. His visor zoomed in and out several times, analysing the mysterious silhouette before he finally shook his head.

“No,” he answered calmly. “That thing had no face. This one clearly possesses a humanoid appearance, even if the recording is too damaged to reveal any details. My guess is that they’re different creatures.”

“Oh?”

Commander 3 folded his arms while thinking.

“Then… could this one belong to the same species as that monster? If that’s true, does it mean we’ll start seeing these things inside every Hell’s Gate from now on?”

Commander 2 slowly rose from his chair and began walking toward the conference room exit. Commander 3 followed close behind, waiting for an answer.

“I sincerely hope not,” Commander 2 replied without looking back.

Commander 3 frowned beneath his helmet.

“Why? Are they really that dangerous? I’ve only read the official report, but honestly… if I prepared properly and fought tactically instead of rushing in, I think I’d have a decent chance.”

Commander 2 stopped walking.

He slowly turned around until he was facing Commander 3 directly.

“Dangerous?” he repeated before letting out a dry laugh. “You’re still thinking about fighting it like it’s some ordinary monster.”

His tone became noticeably heavier.

“Listen carefully. Against overwhelming power, no amount of skill, tactics, experience, or clever planning will save you. When the gap becomes that enormous, everything you’ve learned becomes meaningless.”

Commander 3 quietly listened, although doubt still lingered in the back of his mind.

Could that creature really be so powerful that even Commander 2?

After several seconds, another thought suddenly surfaced.

“Say…” Commander 3 called out.

Commander 2 glanced back.

“What is it?”

“How did your subordinate survive while all of mine died?”

Commander 2’s footsteps abruptly came to a halt.

The visor covering his helmet slowly illuminated as he stared directly at Commander 3.

Realising how suspicious his question sounded, Commander 3 immediately raised both hands in surrender.

“I’m not saying he should’ve died,” he clarified. “I’m just trying to make sense of it. Every one of my teammates was wearing a mech-suit, and they were still butchered without leaving much behind. Meanwhile, your subordinate wasn’t even wearing powered armour, yet somehow he escaped alive. Doesn’t that sound strange?”

Commander 2 remained silent because, from an outsider’s perspective, it was a perfectly reasonable question.

Every soldier equipped with a mech-suit had died on that rooftop.

The entire building had collapsed into ruins.

Yet somehow…

A normal human without powered armour had walked away alive… even though his legs were injured!

Anyone investigating the incident would naturally become suspicious.

Commander 2, however, knew Jonathan far better than anyone else.

‘He probably ran the moment he sensed something was wrong… Tsk.’

A tired sigh escaped from inside his helmet.

He already understood how Aether had managed to survive, but there was no way he could say that aloud. If Commander 3 started asking questions or launched his own investigation, it would inevitably reach the Governor’s ears.

That was the last thing Commander 2 wanted right now.

“Because I personally trained him inside Hell’s Gates without a mech-suit,” Commander 2 replied in a calm yet serious tone.

Commander 3 raised an eyebrow in surprise.

“Huh? You trained him inside a Hell’s Gate without a suit? Why would you put him through something like that?”

Commander 2 continued without the slightest hesitation, as though he had prepared the explanation long ago.

“I wanted him to become more resilient and adaptable than any of my previous teammates. My goal wasn’t simply to make him stronger. I wanted to create the ideal soldier, someone capable of sensing danger before it arrived and reacting appropriately without relying on equipment.”

“Oh?”

Commander 3 slowly nodded, appearing increasingly convinced by the explanation. However, another question immediately surfaced in his mind.

“Then why didn’t you take him inside the portal with you this time?”

Commander 2’s lips twitched beneath his helmet.

For the first time since the conversation began, he found himself struggling to come up with a convincing answer. Just as he was about to force out another excuse, hurried footsteps echoed through the corridor.

“COMMANDER! URGENT REPORT!”

One of the Tower’s operators sprinted toward Commander 2.

Commander 2 nearly wanted to hug the operator for interrupting at the perfect moment.

“What happened?” he asked, immediately shifting back into his commanding tone.

“I-It’s the civilians who suffered burns from the molten lava,” the operator stammered while projecting a holographic display from his wrist device.

“They’re… they’re starting to behave strangely.”

The holographic footage expanded before the two commanders.

Inside one of the emergency treatment rooms, several doctors were treating a patient whose shoulder remained encased in cooled black lava.

At first, everything appeared normal.

Then…

A faint cracking sound spread across the hardened lava.

Thin fractures rapidly expanded over its surface before droplets of molten rock began dripping from the patient’s shoulder as though the stone itself had suddenly come alive.

Drip…

Drip…

The temperature inside the room visibly rose.

Without any warning, the patient’s body convulsed violently.

“KYRRRRR!!”

The horrifying screech that erupted from his throat sounded nothing like a human voice.

Molten lava poured from his mouth with every roar, splattering across the hospital floor and instantly setting nearby equipment ablaze. Before the terrified doctors could react, he lunged forward with inhuman speed, grabbed the nearest physician by the neck, and ripped it apart with monstrous strength.

Blood splashed across the white hospital walls.

The remaining medical staff froze in horror before panic erupted throughout the room.

The footage continued only long enough to capture patients screaming and nurses fleeing for their lives before the transmission abruptly cut off.

“…”

Commander 2 stood motionless as he stared at the now-dark holographic display, his expression hidden behind his visor.

Commander 3, however, couldn’t hide his shock.

“What the fuck was that?!”

While all of that chaos unfolded elsewhere, back in Jonathan’s house, Young Aether lay frozen on the bed with wide, horrified eyes fixed on Sasha, who was wearing little more than a few scraps of clothing that barely concealed her curvy figure.

“Don’t worry,” Sasha said with a playful smile as she slowly licked her lips, her gaze deliberately drifting toward his crotch.

“I’ll take care of everything~”

“…”

Young Aether silently stared back at her, his expression caught somewhere between disbelief and absolute despair.

‘I am cursed…’