06 Conifer Village / At the Gates

Previously, on Usagi Days: The girls reunite with Violet, who had been abandoned by Sandra. Together, they retake the Usagi by ambushing Sandra, who was left stranded after crashing the car. The Usagi is in bad shape, but the girls drive on to Conifer Village …

- 6.1 - At the Gates of Conifer Village -

Johnny hated the night shift.

It was the fifth night in a row that he'd been assigned the post, and he was ready to snap. The cold, the dark, the sheer monotony of standing in place for hours …

It's not like he could even see anything anyway, beyond a few feet in any direction. The world fell into immediate and complete darkness outside the range of his torch. By the time he could see any intruders, he'd be dead anyway.

The brutal truth was that, in practicality, the guard post was nothing more than a glorified human alarm system—which was to say that, nobody expected Johnny to fend off a wild bear or any blood-thirsty bandits; they merely needed his dying screams to be loud enough that others would hear.

Johnny sighed.

Well, at least he wasn't alone. The other guard on duty, his twin brother, Ronny, was currently—

"Zzzzz."

—asleep. Again. Standing up, as usual. (Johnny genuinely had no idea how he managed to do that. It was honestly quite impressive.)

Johnny picked up a small pebble and threw it at the dark, upright figure on the other side of the gate. The pebble bounced off his brother's helmet with a Plink!

The snoring stopped immediately, interrupted by a confused snort. "Zuh-what? I'm awake. I'm awake."

Johnny: "Dude, come on. Stuff like this is why we get assigned these bogus details. I don't want to get kicked out of the Village. We have it pretty good here. The least we can do is … not fall asleep on the job."

Ronny: "Relax, Johnny! We're not getting kicked out. You're way too tense. And plus, this job is great! We don't have to do a single thing. I'd rather be out here than on food duty. Or cleaning. Farming, building, hunting. No thanks! Or would you rather be working for Professor Kay? Tanner got assigned in her warehouse last month, you should've seen how stressed out he was all the time. Said he'd rather go back to the mines, back up North."

Johnny: "Well, I'd rather be overworked than bored out of my mind. I don't even—"

Ronny: "Zzzz …"

Great. Well, so much for that.

Johnny went back to staring out at the road leading to Conifer Village. Seeing nothing but a black emptiness.

Maybe Ronny was right. He should be taking it easy. Conifer Village was one of the safest places to be these days. Bandit gangs just didn't bother with the climb. And the only group that ever gave the village trouble …

Well, that was between "them" and the Professor. Those cultists had no interest in the rest of the village. And besides, those weirdos wouldn't come at night, anyway. It just wasn't their style.

So really, the only thing Johnny had to look out for was …

He gulped. The mere thought of it sent chills down his spine.

Don't be silly, Johnny. That's not real. Things like that don't exist in real life.

"Yeah," Johnny scoffed, to himself. "Sure. And people 75 years ago probably didn't believe that giant green humanoid monsters existed either, and look what happened there."

Ronny, annoyed: "Bro, keep it down over there. I'm trying to get some—"

And that's when they heard it. Something was approaching.

The two twins immediately sprang to attention. They readied their spears, gripping them tightly.

The noise—or noises, rather—grew closer. Slow, plodding footsteps. Multiple sets of them. Strains of effort. Heavy panting. The crunch of gravel. Something large rolling across the grit and dirt on the road. Metal creaking, mechanical noises.

Johnny's voice was trembling as he shouted: "Wh-who's there! Show yourself!"

He held the torch high to illuminate the immediate area better.

A shadow, coming into the light. A … car? Moving by itself.

No. No, hold on. That wasn't right. Such a thing wasn't possible. Of course not.

As the torch illuminated more of the approaching shape, he saw now that the car was being actively pushed. All four of its doors were open, and behind each door a person was pushing with all her might, the four of them working together to push the vehicle toward the village gate. In the torchlight he could finally make out their faces. Four girls, pushed past the point of exhaustion, grim and haggard.

Johnny couldn't believe what he was seeing. He stood there, open-mouthed, too stunned to react. His brother doing the same.

When the strangers reached the gate, all of them collapsed in exhaustion at the same time.

If they were at all happy about reaching their destination, they were too tired to show it. No words of celebration among them. Not even the slighest hint of a smile.

Up close he could see the car more clearly now. It was in terrible condition. The front of it was crumpled, smashed in, as if it had driven into something.

The girl behind the driver seat door, the one with red hair, gathered enough strength to stand back up, and wobble over to where Johnny was. She was holding a small package in her hands.

"Usagi … Gang … delivery … for … the Professor."

And then she collapsed to the ground again.

This time she didn't get back up.

- 6.A - Appendix -

Lore entry #002: Stochastic Disruption Field

The Stochastic Disruption Field (SDF) is a global, invisible phenomenon left behind by the Orcs just before their departure from Earth. The field interferes with the proper functioning of most, if not all, of Earth's electrical and electronic equipment, as well as most machines and mechanisms past a certain, arbitrary yet unknown level of complexity.

Generally speaking, firearms also cease to operate reliably under the SDF. From the simplest flintlock rifle to the most advanced assault rifle, firearms of all classifications exhibit the same fundamental issue: most rounds of ammunition simply fail to discharge. Independent experiments have consistently demonstrated that nearly all firings will result in a misfire, with an estimated 1 in 100,000,000 rounds resulting in a successful discharge. Needless to say, firearms can no longer be relied upon in active warfare or in life-or-death situations.

The mechanics behind the SDF are not well understood, but it is theorized by some in the scientific community that the field somehow manipulates probabilistic distributions on a subatomic level.

Of course, this theory does not account for the fact that biological functions—such as the myriad of complex, intertwined cellular processes at work in living organisms—seem to remain undisturbed. Simply put, animal life, including that of humans, appears to be largely unaffected by the SDF. Humans continue to survive, and reproduce, with no known adverse effects; or at least not in any significant way compared to pre-SDF conditions. Some have speculated that this observation suggests the SDF is capable of selectively targeting different systems, while leaving others intact.