District 42-Chapter 113: Race

"What do you mean by it!?" Casper was exasperated. Everything seemed to be going wrong again. He was striving just to keep his mind away from the past events, and the many losses they had, but now something even more dangerous appeared.

"It means exactly what I say! Something or someone is stopping me! There is a kind of barrier that’s limiting me to make contact with them."

"... Are you sure that it’s not because you are tired, Ragnar?" Casper asked, just to release conscience.

"Yeah, I am sure. I would know if I am too tired to even speak to them through telepathy. Also, Berserker is still making effect on us, so I will not stop to use my quirk until I faint."

Ragnar presented an irrefutable point. In fact, the drug was affecting most of the prisoners. There was no way that someone under Berserker’s symptoms would run out of gas like a normal human.

"So... What can be stopping you? Do you have any idea?"

The tattoed man got silent, efforting to make his dizzy mind reason correctly.

"No. It never happened once. But I have a theory."

"Yeah, I do as well. It’s quite obvious, but that will be worthless now. What we need is to catch up with the west group before the Ridires can. If they clash with each other, the prisoners will see them as normal Ridires from Halden and try to retaliate. We can’t afford it to happen."

Ragnar got surprised.

"Are you saying that those Ridires aren’t normal? They aren’t from Halden? And you kept the fact that elite warriors were chasing after us just to yourself!?" Casper was about to explain to him, but Ragnar snapped. "What the heck, Casper!? What the heck? Are you implying that those people who died before got killed because of you, and you are still quiet about it until now!?"

Those words hit the soldier right on his opened wounds like salt. He grimaced, as if in pain, and let out a heavy sigh.

He had a lot of excuses to say to the tattoed man. He could even lie to him. But he didn’t. Casper said that he was no leader in his speech at the canteen after their battle. But he himself, and all the other prisoners, knew that it was not entirely true.

Because he was a figure of authority, he couldn’t act like a wimp. He needed to be courageous and bolder, show strength.

"Yeah, they died because I decided to keep omitted." He stated, straightforwardly.

"You...!"

"I could have had said something to all of our comrades and make them go in panic, surrender, or even betray us, or I could let everyone blindfolded and going forward until the end. What do you think it’s a better idea, Ragnar?" The man didn’t answer. Casper felt that his body was tense, and he had a grip on his shoulders stronger than before, however, he remained quiet.

"That’s what I thought." The soldier glanced at the upset face of Ragnar. "I needed to make a quick decision, man. I couldn’t stay quiet and stressed like you. If I didn’t act, everything would turn into a big mess."

The soldier kept moving like that. He knew that his harsh, but truthful words wouldn’t be enough to make Ragnar recover from that disappointment, but he wasn’t expecting the tattoed man to forgive him.

"Ok, now let’s cut the bullshit. I need you to tell me who is at a higher pace and closer to the west group, we or the Ridires."

"The Ridires, for now. They are taking a path in the corridors from our right, so they are between each group, and moving even more to the right to got the west in the middle of their advance."

Casper nodded, looking to the men that remained from the previous encounter. He asked Ragnar to report the situation of their group.

Of the 128 prisoners he had at the start of the action, the group remained with 89. It was a big loss after just 4 encounters, but facts were facts.

Ragnar also said the localization of each group, since he had spread them before.

"Also... Those Ridires are still chasing after us..."

Casper clicked his tongue.

"We need to worry about the west group and the Ridires going after them, the possibly encounters we will have in the way, and also with people following us from behind... This situation is just crazy hard to deal with!" Although he was complaining and cursing, he wouldn’t give up no matter what. Not until they had completely destroyed them and killed him as well.

"Say to our men that we will turn more to the diagonal, going right. We need to find those Ridires before they find our comrades!"

"And how will we fought them, Casper?"

The White warrior ignored that question, focusing on his breathing to not get exhausted. Ragnar got worried about that reaction, but he decided to obey the orders quietly and don’t press him even more.

"Follow me!" The soldier shouted, for everyone who was around, while Ragnar kept making contact with the rest. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

Soon, all Casper’s group was marching at the highest pace they could, aiming to reach the Ridires from their flanks.

The formation was still spread, but going towards them. The strategy was to get those Ridires by surprise from all sides.

"Keep probing both the Ridires on the right and the ones on the back, Ragnar!"

"Yes...!" His response was so sluggish that Casper wondered once again for how long that guy would last.

His major worry was lost his help before they could reunite with the west group, which was the priority there.

Without Ragnar’s abilities, he wasn’t sure how they could manage their pace, and keep safe from the Ridires chasing after them.

"T-they are spreading...! The Ridires chasing us know we are going to the right, Casper! I don’t have any idea how they can do it, but they somehow discovered what we are doing, and now they split into groups to get our men one by one!"

Casper cursed out loud. His mouth was already dried because of how long he needed to keep running with that guy on his back, the veins of his forehead were already appearing.

The stress was accumulating even more.

"Look, I don’t want to keep throwing randomly bad news one after another, but for some reason, our comrades there started to raise their pace, and they will clash at any time with those Ridires, who are also pressing even more aggressively towards them!"

Casper looked to the sides. The prisoners he could still see were doing good while running, but one could notice looking at their bodies that they were worn out as well. Berserker was a potent drug, but it was in gaseous form. It didn’t increase their stamina as it should do usually.

"We don’t have many options here! The only thing we can do is to keep up with our pace and reach them! If we stop to run we will be caught in a battle we can’t win!"

As soon as he said it, Ragnar got agitated, as if he himself was being shot.

"Someone I was spotting got killed. They are arriving here, Casper! Those guys giving chase on us are at a definitely higher pace than us!"

"And you say it to me now, you jerk?"

Ragnar punched him in the neck.

"Why do you don’t try to watch over the minds of more than a hundred people and guess how fast they are running, bastard!?"

When Casper was going to snap, gun fires could be heard.

"Damn it! How can they move so fast!? This way they will catch us one by one. And now that they split things get even worse..."

The White warrior couldn’t do anything but keep running. The man on his back was getting heavier. Casper knew that it was because his mind was fading bit by bit. Soon he would be walking through those corridors completely blind.

"Casper..." He muttered, though trying to keep clear. "The others stopped to go towards the west... They are retrieving, going in our direction... We got trapped..."

Casper nearly froze up in the same place, his heart stopped to beat, his head never seemed to be so heavy before.

"It will end...?" He thought, desolate. "It will end like this!? After everything I did?" His breath was getting unsteady and he was losing his balance. His legs weren’t gathering the strength he needed anymore.

"Don’t joke around with me! Because of luck, a traitor, or even my huge mistakes, I will lose here? Don’t damn kid with this!"

Ragnar couldn’t support his own body. All his dead weight befell on Casper, and the soldier nearly ceased his run to knee down.

"Stop thinking Casper... It’s worthless now." He spoke in his mind. Even his telepathy was getting lower, and unclear.

The screams of each prisoner dying behind them got louder. The march from the Ridires in front was near.

Casper asked a single thing for Ragnar, after shaking his head.

"Cut the nonsense! Can you still keep up for a while?"