In the foggy valley of the northern ridge of the Nanyun Mountain, the hiking trail was busier than usual - not because of tourism, but because of an ongoing investigation of the missing female hiker. In a small plain in the middle of the fir forest, a makeshift command dark green tent buzzed with quiet radio static and low drone hums.
Huashin stood beneath the canvas, flanked by Haseku and the SAIR Central field tech team. Monitors lined the back wall, already synced to aerial survey feeds.
A state police officer, in tactical field gear, approached with a datapad in hand.
He bowed respectfully: "Captain Huashin and Commander Haseku. I'm Lt. Arimoto (立湫) , Chuubo State Police mountain search unit. I've been overseeing the coordination between the SAIR and the civilian sector."
Huashin returned the nod. "So Lt. Arimoto, what do we know for now?"
Arimoto glanced at the display: "Our own drones mapped the cave network yesterday. The cave was deeper than we expected. Geological erosion likely opened two new channels—one of which may have been mistaken for a safe retreat."
Haseku leaned in: "What about the missing civilian?"
"Name: Asuka Ayuna (新川 琴). Age 27. Solo hiker. Public social media showed trail logs, photos, and lightweight gear."
He swiped on the tablet, and the timestamped posts and GPS metadata appeared on the makeshift projector.
"We eventually found her base camp early this morning, which was beyond the Park Service's safety zone. It's completely ransacked," Lt. Arimoto pointed at the image, " Panther tracks nearby. Claw marks on the cooking gear. Yet we didn't find traces of blood, but signs of panic and disorganized exit."
Meanwhile, on the other side of the makeshift command centre, the interns were working along with the SAIR Central agents from three divisions: Division 2 from Bakju, Division 5 from Laeshi, and Division 7 from Zendon. At the staging zone, Jun, Sukeo, and Tenka worked methodically: calibrating terrain robots, syncing drone uplinks, and adjusting response beacons.
Tenka, while helping a young agent unpacking the equipment, frowned: "That region's way too humid. I wouldn't stay overnight there without full prep."
Araka, just set up some parameter markers, added casually: "That's typical Nanyun range. Thick air, sudden fog, and unstable soil - it's always like this when you hike here."
Jun chuckled while looking at the entrance of the cave: "I remembered there was one time when our family and suddenly a massive storm passed by, making all of us soaked in rainwater. While mom complained how that ruined her own Novak mountain gear, you just shook off the coat and just wore that sports bra, saying that would help."
"I didn't even know Araka had that experience," Sukeo replied plainly, yet beneath his plain look, he was trying to hide his chuckles.
"It was for 'contingency'!" Araka replied with her slightly pouted face, "you know you will get sick if you wore wet clothes for too long."
As the setup continued, inside the tent, the leadership team, composed of captains and instructive agents from all three divisions, along with Arimoto, were discussing details about the cause of the missing case.
"- We're assuming she fled downhill and entered the cave network by mistake. No sat beacon was activated. No thermal trace- and it was three days ago," Arimoto continued his briefing.
"Then that's why we were called here," Haseku said while looking at the briefing material."
Meanwhile, Captain Sakashi, the captain of the rescue and combat branch of Division 5 interrupted: "So have the State Police encountered anything abnormal, like some kind of resonance inside the cave?"
Arimoto nodded: "Indeed, because it seemed to be our drone had picked up some radio signal inside the cave, but we had troubles decrypting the signal, as it was not a typical radio signal."
Huashin, after checking the briefing material, finally stood up in her navy blue tactical gear: "Then we must proceed with caution, as that signal would likely be related to Matake fields or shard radiation."
As the leadership meeting came to an end, all the leaders were back to their own posts. Under the overcast sky and shifting tree shadows, SAIR's field team moved like a seasoned machine.
Haseku stepped forward to the edge of the command tent, addressing Lt. Arimoto with his usual formality despite being younger of the two: "Lieutenant Arimoto, your drones' done its job. Good work. Now I guess we can pull it out and give our units full channel priority. We'll handle it from here."
Arimoto nodded, tapping his comms and waving for his tech crew to begin withdrawal.
Nearby, Huashin was speaking to the SAIR Central combat and rescue task force—their uniforms marked by the small SAIR letters on the left of the outfit, along with the neon blue insignia crest at the center of the chest showing the ranks.
"Wait for drone and terrain rover clearance. You move when I say. Not before. Leave digital and physical markers at each junction. I want no one to get lost if we follow," Huashin finished her briefing in an urgent but precise tone, despite her slightly younger age in the leadership team.
Tenka, brushing dust off her sleeves after setting up two monitors, watched from a distance. She nodded with some admiration: "This is way more prepared than I imagined."
Okuri, crouching with a coil of arrow shafts across his back, said: "In the worst case, I'll take two panthers myself."
Araka, walking past with a sensor case, glanced at him: "Wait, Okuri, where did you even get all these arrows and bow? You don't even have the SAIR crossbow yet."
Okuri raised his brow, grinning: "I brought my own."
After the State Police retrieved all their own drones, the SAIR Central team quickly moved in and launched their drones and rovers. Inside the field command module, multiple drone and rover feeds flickered across wide monitors - infrared overlays, 3D topography lines, and live camera angles.
Jun, among the Team 1 of the operation, locked his eyes on the monitor: the rover and the drone, controlled by agents from Division 5, along with two drones and one other rover from the other team, formed a squad exploring the cave.
Ahead of the squad, it didn't take long for the cave to branch into two paths: on the left side, the passage was narrow and claustrophobic; on the right side, the passage was much wider, and a visible spread of moss and vines on the stone wall.
"Shaoyun, can you check the status of the left path with your rover first?" Lin (麟) , the rover operator said.
The rover from the other team moved ahead and the sensor was activated.
"The passage on the left showed the oxygen levels dropped by 14%, and it seemed to be that it might be too narrow for someone to enter if that person were in a rush," Shaoyun replied.
Anawa, now joining the group from behind, gave out an order to the operator: "Lin, can you tell Shaoyun's team to send Drone Number 5 and Rover Number 2 to the left path? Also, could you inform them that Team 1's Drone Number 1, Drone Number 3, and Rover Number 1 will take the right corridor?"
Lin nodded, adjusting the rover's spotlight and raising the resolution feed: "Roger that."
The rover, under Lin's control, turned its head to the right with the thermal camera turned on: "Thermal image is clear, no approaching
Haseku, now finished his communication with Lt. Arimoto, joining the main SAIR drone and rover team. He narrowed his eyes as he darted on the enlarged screen showing both cave mouths.
"Do we have any trace of the missing civilian?" He asked, while examining the feed.
Anawa squinted at the magnified view from the lower right of the wide screen, adjusting her glasses. "There's… something. Like there are two trails of footprints: one was somewhat consistent with trail shoes, like the one I usually wear; the other one seemed to be barefoot, and the distance between each was closer."
"Maybe she looped back," Haseku, rubbing his chin, said.
Anawa, meanwhile, gestured Lin to zoom in on the footprints and leaned forward. "Wait, what is that?" She said while leaned forward, "Is that additional footprints? Wait, the barefoot one seemed to join the right side as well."
Haseku, now focused, commented: "Maybe the other one could be a panther - it's too small for humans."
"If that's the case, what should we do with the left corridor?" Lin asked.
"Maybe we should check the right side first," Jun, previously sitting aside, joined the conversation. "I think maybe the hiker might take the right one, since the path on the left seemed too narrow for someone to get around, and plus we now have three footprints, each varied in size, so maybe someone came to take Ayuna away."
Haseku and Anawa, upon hearing, nodded. "Lin, tell Shaoyun to delegate the rover to the right corridor," Haseku gave his order to Lin, "Also, be careful when we proceed further into the right corridor: we don't know if Ayuna had been taken hostage by a hostile individual or not."
As the rover proceeded to the right corridor, a slim man, around the same age as Huashin, entered the tent from outside: "Sorry to interrupt, I just came here to check if the rovers and drones of Team 1 are okay." He then looked around the tent and landed his eyes on Jun: "Hah, a new face. I guess that's the intern you're talking about, the one who could operate drones and rovers. Right, Anawa?"
Jun, upon hearing, stood up from his post and walked toward Anawa and the slim man and gave him a salute: "Jan Jun (鄭 鐘), first year intern of SAIR Central Division 2."
"I mean, you don't have to bring up formality in front of me, since I'm not much older than you." The slim man smiled and gave a soft wave with his right hand. "I'm Zen Weimin (陳 偉民), instructive agent and leader of the technical branch of Division 2."
"Instructive agent?" Jun frowned, "So basically, you're holding the same position as Huashin?"
"That's right," Anawa nodded, "but me and Huashin are more general in terms of the training, while Weimin is more specialized."
"Anyway, nice to meet you, Jun," Weimin extended his hand to Jun, "Actually, Team 2, the one from the other tent, seemed to need your help."
Jun turned toward Weimin with his eyebrow raised.
"Huashin called me for an in person meeting since the signal is worse than expected due to the heavy fog. As such, I would like you to hold my post. My drone is marked as Drone Number 7, and our team will teach you how to operate the drone, which basically has the same interface as any commercial one other than a few sensors," Weimin said.
"Well, you could just say you want a washroom break," Anawa signed.
Jun, meanwhile, showed his enthusiasm: "I will try my best, but don't blame me if I crash it."
"Don't worry. I've turned the autopilot on, which will prevent it from crashing," Weimin smirked.
Meanwhile, inside the Team 2 tent, Sukeo temporarily took over Weimin's post, checking the readings of the drone.
"Well, it seemed to be that Weimin had abandoned his post again," Shaoyun (邵雲), the man in the light green parkas, shrugged, "Last time when I went with him for the survey of the other Nanyun cave, he left half way, leaving the remaining team to do the survey. He said he had a bad stomachache, but he could just say it."
Sukeo, however, didn't answer.
"Shaoyun," it was from the voice of Haseku, "Weimin had sent a first year intern, named Jan Jun, to take over his post. Don't worry, he has robotics and drone experience on his profile, and he even managed to operate a rover in the simulation during his first training."
"Affrimed, Captain," Shaoyun answered, and then turned his comm off.
However, while this seemed to be a typical shuffle, it caught Sukeo's attention. Maybe it's not that Weimin was irresponsible, but he wanted Jun to prove his experience, he thought.
It didn't take long for Jun to arrive. As soon as he entered the tent, Jun asked: "Hello, I'm Jan Jun, the first year intern from Division 2, and I was sent here by Instructor Zen Weimin. May I ask where Li Shaoyun (李 邵雲) is?"
Shaoyun approached Jun and took a look at him: "Huh, interesting. So you're the one who Weimin sent us? Anyway, I'm Li Shaoyun of Division 2, and since you said you had handled drones and robots before, I guess it should be straightforward for you." Shaoyun then gestured to Sukeo to give the seat to Jun.
After a brief session with Shaoyun, Jun, now eyes inside the control console, made his first moves by sending his new Drone Number 7 following the other drones and rovers. It curved along the moss-covered corridor, past roots and ridges warped by centuries of water and pressure. Shaoyun, watching from a distance, seemed quite impressed by Jun's performance.
"That's your classmate, right?" Shaoyun asked Sukeo, "He seemed to handle it better than many first year agents, even with the AI piloting."
"That's why you should never underestimate the students from Vensan," Sukeo replied calmly, while adjusting his glasses.
"Stop."
It was the voice of Anawa from the comm. Within seconds the whole terrain and aerial team paused their movement.
Sukeo, now fixed his eyes on the camera feed of the rover, found a backpack lying half-submerged in a shallow mineral pool torn at the shoulder strap. Beside it, barely visible under the edge of a slanted rock, was a dark stain - likely blood.
"Shaoyun, could you ask the operator of Rover Number 2 to zoom in on the dark stain?" Anawa said.
Shaoyun nodded and gestured to the operator, a young woman, to zoom in. The woman adjusted the focus, panning slowly.
Shaoyun tapped his chin, while keeping his eyes fixed on the monitor. "No, it's just one spot. That's too little for a panther attack," he said.
"Then maybe she was likely injured there, but moved, or -" Anawa talked through the comm, "She was moved or carried by someone - that explains why there were no drag marks. If that were the case, then she might've been… saved."
Further away from the forward operation tents, Araka, Tenka, and Okuri were with Huashin and the State Police team, with their eyes fixed on the live feed pass to the command tent via the monitor.
"Jun seemed quite good at operating drones," Okuri commented, "of course, that was not my specialty, since mine would be more about hunting boars in the mountains. Maybe in two or three years, I doubt if we, the hunters, would go obsolete if the drones fully took over our jobs."
"Well, Okuri, I think you could still remain competitive," Tenka said, "but to be honest, Sara-cha, how come Jun didn't bring up anything about his drone skill? And why did he choose that stupid railgun during the entrance exam?"
"I don't know," Araka said while keeping her eyes on the feed, "maybe he saw it as something natural."
Meanwhile, Haseku, along with Weimin, came in.
"Lieutenant Arimoto," Haseku saluted to the group and then turned to Arimoto, "we just had some new discoveries, as there had been evidence of a new individual that was likely inside the cave. We may proceed further to track down the individual, and I would like your team to be on standby for some potential arrest."
Lt. Arimoto nodded.
Huashin, meanwhile, joined in from aside: "Before we move, maybe we need to make sure that we're not dealing with someone with Matake."
As the units navigated deeper, suddenly, a shadow emerged.
"Stop," Anawa signaled both teams to stop.
Everyone paused.
"Jun and Lin, could you move the camera of your units forward and change to thermal imaging? We would like to zoom in on the shadow around the corner."
Jun nodded. He adjusted the drone and moved the camera toward the direction of shadow near the moss curtain: It was human shaped, adult-sized, but -
"I saw a human," Jun said, "but the shoulder was too broad, and the thermal imaging showed an intense cluster of heat."
"It's barefoot," Lin said, "and the whole 'being' was covered by thick hair."
Haseku, seeing the footage from the command tent, asked Arimoto, "Lieutenant. Arimoto, do you have any record of locals known to inhabit this cave system?"
Lt. Arimoto didn't answer immediately, still processing what he was seeing.
"…No," after a while, Lt. Arimoto finally responded, "As I said before, no one knew this entrance existed before the landslide. This place was only just a few days ago."
Inside the live feed, the figure, indifferent to the arrivals of the drones and rovers, stood tall and still beyond the moss curtain. Then, it moved toward the moss curtain and lifted the moss.
A human silhouette emerged afar: barefoot, muscled but lean, with hair tangled and falling over its face like a shroud. The figure stood in front of all the cameras, didn't speak or run.
As the commanders inside the tent froze in front of what they saw, Huashin's voice cut in immediately through the microphone: "This is Huashin. All teams, halt further approach!"
Suddenly, the then standing figure lurch forward. A stone, slicing through the darkness, bounced off the chassis of Rover Number 2 with a hollow clang. Then another on Drone Number 7, Jun's drone.
Weimin, now taking the mic from Huashin, shouted through the mic: "All teams treat! I repeat, all teams retreat!"
The units backed up until the stone attacks stopped.
Shaoyun, watching the feed from the monitor, muttered with his headset: "That's not an animal - that's intentional. It has consciousness."
Huashin, upon hearing the update, grabbed the mic once again. Her tone was stressed: "Any chance of shard radiation? Any Matake field spikes?"
Jun, still frozen over the attacks, spoke over his mic: "Huashin, do you know where I can turn on the Matake sensor?"
"You use the purple bottom on the lower right," Anawa instructed while checking Lin's footage.
As Jun and Lin turned on the Matake field sensor, the live feed changed again: at the direction where the figure was standing, a concentrated cluster of particles appeared, labeled with a purple frame.
"That's an active Matake field," Haseku gasped.
"Which means this just became some kind of weird hostage situation," Huashin followed.
Anawa, inside the Team 1 tent, however was focused on something else.
"Lin and Aki (誠), could you scan the upper side of the cave wall on the left and change the lens to detailed scanning?"
Lin nodded and turned the camera toward the wall, while Aki entered the code into the console for detailed imaging. Drone Number 1, with the new task, panned slowly across the cave wall, its light catching grooved markings etched into the rock like a script long buried by silence.
Anawa's voice sharpened: "Aki, can you zoom in on that?"
The image enlarged: rows of angular lines indicating the shapes of scripts - some swirling, others strict and geometric - but all of them indicated it was not some random drawing or weathering by nature.
She stared, breath caught briefly in her throat: "Those- those are not primitive cravings. That pattern - that's aligned with the speculated glyph system from the Aester Underground Civilization Hypothesis."
Sukeo, overhearing the discovery, blinked twice.
Haseku, now taking over the mic in the command tent, said: "You mean… the supposed underground civilization? The one nobody ever found proof of?"
Anawa didn't look away: "Yes. It was widely disregarded as just a theory - until now."
Haseku, upon hearing this, said: "I'm contacting SAIR Central headquarters in Zenju - we need a decode team to see if we can get a partial decode in real time."
As the discovery unfolded among the investigation team, Tenka, previously uninterested, furrowed her brows: "A civilization? Beneath the Nanyun mountains? That's not even… I mean, that's not even conspiracy theories. That's just wild."
No one answered, not only because everyone was still processing the situation, but no one could deny it anymore.
Then, Rover Number 1's detection cracked - a voice, not a scream, but also not gibberish, words - spoken in low, rhythmic syllables that echoed unnaturally in the depressing space.
In the distance, the humanoid figure, partially lit in the drone's camera frame, raised one hand - not feeling threatened, but like conducting some kind of spell itself. Each syllable of his word resonated and flowed like a gentle tide against rock.
Inside the Team 1 tent, Anawa's console flashed.
"Matake is climbing. However, it's not hostile, just … directed - the waveform was consistent, like a message." Anawa said.
Huashin, now eyes focused on the Matake sensors' imaging, said flatly: "…It's channeling"
Channeling. That's a very humanized word, Araka thought, as if this humanoid could do the same thing Ami could do to her last week. How come this humanoid, seemingly isolated in a cave, could also acquire Matake, the mysterious field that even Araka didn't have a full idea.
"This is not the shard type, it's not random - this humanoid is controlling Matake," Huashin continued. "…That means it's intelligent. Maybe even sentient."
"So what should we do then?" Haseku said, "Abort the mission?"
"No, because this time, we have a chance," Huashin said, then landed her sights on Araka.