Chapter 72: Chapter 72: To Vanish Silently from This World

The momentum from her slide, combined with her 130-pound body and the weight of her clothes and helmet, made for an incredibly solid kick. The man was sent flying without so much as a grunt, slamming hard against the snow wall before thudding to the ground.

The fall left Ox dizzy and seeing stars. Although his helmet had shock absorption, his obstructed vision only intensified the vertigo. He collapsed to the ground, severely disoriented, with almost no idea what had just happened.

Sue scrambled to her feet, ready to strike again, but Victor Keller barked, "Enough!"

Only then, with a dark expression, did Sue pull Elliot to a safe spot. She deliberately switched to the public comms channel to ask, "Elliot, what happened?!"

Elliot’s face was grim. "I was just shoveling snow when this guy suddenly slammed into me. He even smashed his helmet into mine. I thought for a second my helmet was going to shatter..."

At sixty degrees below zero Celsius, a shattered helmet meant your nose and ears could freeze right off. Even if they didn’t, you’d get severe frostbite for sure.

’For Ox to ram helmets like that... he was clearly trying to cause injury.’

"Captain Victor Keller, I demand you handle this fairly!"

Sue looked over. She could still pick out Victor Keller; his clothes were a different style from theirs.

"I’ll handle this. The rest of you, keep digging!"

With that, he walked over to Ox, yanked the dazed man to his feet, and hauled him away with just one hand.

Sue watched, her face filled with envy. ’Nope, can’t have this. I’m definitely scheduling strength training when I get back. I want to be strong enough to haul a grown man with one hand, too.’

Nearby, someone came over and asked, "Are you two okay?"

Elliot shook his head, and everyone resumed their work.

Sue stepped back, but her eyes followed Victor Keller. She wanted to see how he planned to deal with Ox. Soon, she saw Victor Keller, out in the middle of the icy landscape, rip Ox’s helmet straight off his head.

"What are you doing—oof!"

The roaring Ox tried to charge forward but was kicked back into the snow by Victor Keller.

"How does it feel without a helmet?"

Ox’s face instantly turned bright red from the cold, and ice even began to form in his hair. After all, they had all been working up a sweat just moments before.

"Cold, isn’t it?"

Victor Keller stomped Ox hard into the snow. "Let me tell you something. If you break someone else’s helmet, you give them yours. If you ruin someone’s thermal suit, you take yours off and hand it over! I don’t give a damn who you were before. Now that you’re in this shelter, my word is law. If you don’t like it, you can get the hell out and never come back!"

After his tirade, he tossed the helmet into Ox’s arms. Victor Keller turned and walked away without a second glance, shouting to the group, "Back to work! Whether you sleep in a place warmer or colder than ten degrees Celsius tonight depends entirely on how deep you dig!"

"What? We’re sleeping outside tonight?"

"No way, we’re not going back to the shelter?"

"We’ll freeze to death."

Various voices filled the air, but Sue remained calm. She had already guessed they might have to stay outside. Otherwise, there was no way a group this size could dig through a ten-meter layer of snow—especially since it had frozen solid, making it even harder to excavate.

She turned to look at Ox. He had hastily put his helmet back on. As he passed her, he shot her a vicious glare, looking completely unrepentant.

Sue raised an eyebrow.

’This guy’s got a death wish. Nothing can stop him now.’

She lowered her gaze and silently resumed her work.

Soon, the sky grew dark. After digging all day, the group had only managed to clear a little over ten meters. The entrance was small, just big enough for one person to squeeze through. Because they were digging diagonally, with a switchback every three meters, their progress was actually quite decent.

The tunnel widened the deeper they went, opening into what looked like a small ice chamber at the bottom.

Victor Keller laid a layer of insulation at the entrance and hung insulating sheets at each switchback. These heavy curtains blocked the biting cold. With each layer trapping more heat, the very bottom was surprisingly warm—warm enough to take off their thermal suits and comfortably stretch their limbs.

Victor Keller brought out some fire-starting tools, and a few people built a fire down in the ice shelter, causing the temperature to rise a little more.

Many people found the experience novel, and some couldn’t resist looking up at the icy ceiling, joking, "This isn’t going to melt and bury us all alive, is it?"

"Of course not. Think about the Cryonians’ ice houses. People eat and sleep in those, and they don’t melt, right? As long as it’s freezing outside, we’ll be fine."

Everyone chatted away, finding the situation both novel and interesting.

Everyone tossed their food rations, still in their metal containers, into a large pot to heat them up. When it was time to eat, they would take one out, wrap it in a cloth, and open it up.

Water was also provided in rations; no one had brought their own. In this cold, even the contents of a vacuum flask would freeze solid.

After everyone finished their meal, Victor Keller switched on the radio as usual. In this world of disaster, there was no tool more useful.

He scanned for a long time without finding a signal. After waiting a little longer, a woman’s voice finally crackled through with a broadcast.

"...heavy snowfall across the entire country tomorrow. Expected precipitation is 106 millimeters. Please find the nearest shelter as soon as possible. I repeat..."

’More heavy snow tomorrow?’

’And it’s going to add another meter? It’s already ten meters deep. Does that mean it’ll be eleven meters tomorrow?’

"Will our entrance get buried?"

"Doesn’t that mean we’ll be trapped in here and suffocate?"

Everyone couldn’t help but become tense.

Victor Keller said, "Tonight, we’ll take turns standing watch in pairs to ensure the entrance doesn’t get buried."

"What about the snowmobiles outside?"

’The two snowmobiles... they’ll definitely get buried, right?’

"There are robots. The snowmobiles will be fine."

Everyone was baffled.

Sue: ...

’Did he design an automatic snow-shaking system? Or is it some other new invention?’

’Suddenly, I’m very curious.’

As Sue finished her hot soup, she turned her head and inadvertently met a hostile gaze. It was Ox.

Ox was staring at her with a sinister glare, but Sue simply offered a faint smile before lowering her head to continue eating.

’She was sure Ox would come after her tonight. That was fine. She’d give him the chance.’

After dinner, everyone took turns resting. Victor Keller set up the night watch schedule with two-person teams. Sue and Elliot were paired together for the one to two a.m. shift.

With full bellies, everyone settled down to rest. Sue was woken at one a.m. for her shift.

Elliot handed her a helmet. "Let’s go."

Sue took the helmet and stood up, catching Ox glancing her way out of the corner of her eye.

Expressionless, she put on her helmet, pretending she hadn’t noticed anything. As she followed Elliot outside, she switched her comms to channel 4—their private, encrypted channel.

"Elliot, Ox is definitely going to come looking for trouble. You stand guard at the entrance. I’ll handle him."

Elliot: "No, I’ll do it!"

"Leave it to me. As long as he disappears without a trace—no living person, no dead body—no one will ever know what happened."

She was going to make Ox disappear from this world, silently and without a trace.