"Wake up, girl—come on, wake up!"
Roused by a low and urgent voice, Misha groggily blinked at the familiar mining site around her, instinctively reaching for her pickaxe by her side.
"Time's almost up. Drink some water, clear your head. We need to move to the next phase."
Her eyes sharpened instantly—clear and resolute.In that moment, Misha realized: this wasn't the life of constant suffering she had grown used to.This was a step at the edge of hell.
Succeed, and she would be free—endless skies await.Fail, and she would die—falling into the abyss.
(Trusting my fate to this man…? Well, it's not like I've had any control over my fate for a long time anyway…)
Without a word, Misha quietly drank the purified water Revy had somehow produced.
"The search squads should be coming back empty-handed around now," Revy said calmly, watching her sip."What we need to do next is change how the guards think."
They believed the outside was barren, and the prison utterly secure—an apparent truth.But what if it was the opposite?
And that—was exactly what Revy planned to make them realize.
———✦✦✦✦✦———
Half an hour later, a series of small explosions erupted across multiple camps in Gragul.Seeing hope for escape, several prisoners surged toward the breaches, desperate to flee this hell.
Naturally… they were all shot on sight.
Another nearly-successful escape attempt had pushed the military's nerves to the limit.Tired from a full day of searching, the soldiers were now forced to sweep the camps again, this time with extreme caution and ruthlessness.
Of course, they found nothing—because Revy and Misha had already slipped away from the Gragul mining facility long before the bombs went off.
"Alarms and searches should continue through tomorrow morning. But internal guard presence will increase even more," Revy murmured from behind a snowbank, peering out toward the distant camp."Still, I doubt anyone will connect this 'escape incident' to you. The prisoners played their part well."
"You murdered them!"
Misha's voice trembled, her eyes full of fear and anger."Most of them were defenseless Infected!"
"I blew a hole in the wall. I didn't tell them to run through it," Revy said coldly."The machine guns were right outside. No ordinary civilian would dare charge through."
"The ones who did—those desperate enough—were doomed anyway.Their deaths… just serve as a wake-up call for anyone foolish enough to think freedom comes easy."
Misha wisely fell silent.
This man—whether in words or plans—had never once miscalculated. Arguing with him was pointless.
It wasn't that she truly cared for the rebels who had been gunned down.She just couldn't help but think… maybe some of them had been like her and her mother once were.And that thought left a bitter taste.
"Now that the garrison is stretched thin—trying to defend both the fleeing inmates on the tundra and the unrest within the camps—what we'll do is neither."
Revy's eyes narrowed as he gazed at the corpses sprawled near Gragul's gates.
"We'll just… walk out the front door."
———✦✦✦✦✦———
A few hours later.
A military jeep sped across the icy wastelands of Siberia.
Just as Revy had predicted, after the fruitless searches in the camp, the garrison had refocused on the snowfield.At dawn—under good lighting conditions—three squads left the mining facility again to track Misha.
(Relentless. This feels like more than just a standard escape… Could it be that Misha's flight poses a major threat to Ursus?)
Recalling how seriously Crisis Contract had treated the mission to extract Misha, Revy's suspicions only deepened.
But now—whether it was three squads or thirty—it no longer mattered to him.
"…I didn't think your plan would actually work."
Lying in a soiled body bag, disguised as a middle-aged Ursus woman, Misha brushed aside some scattered "Originium" and looked with mixed feelings at the "Ursus soldier" driving.
Of course, that soldier was Revy in disguise.
She hadn't really understood what Revy meant by "walking out the front door."
But now… he had done it.
They had fooled the guards and escaped that hellish place.
"It's not surprising," Revy said, one hand on the wheel, taking a deep breath."After two straight days of psychological assaults, the soldiers are tense and hyper-focused."
"That means direct assaults or stealthy getaways would all be overwhelmed by their relentless searches."
"But—precisely because they're focused, they start to overlook things that feel 'obvious.'"
"For example: 'Prisoners can't escape Gragul'—so they assume we're either hiding in the icefields or still in the facility.We just played with timing—making them think we're nowhere."
"For example: 'Inmates will always try to run when they see a chance.'Those desperate fools already proved that point for us… They've become the bags surrounding you."
Misha grimaced and shifted further away from the pitch-black body bags.
"And another example—"
Revy squinted into the wind, eyes glinting coldly.
"—When there are bodies, they must be disposed of quickly, to avoid Originium infection spreading to the soldiers."
"So, when they believe no escapee would dare come back, we return to the mines as fugitives."
"When they believe no escapee would ever dare impersonate soldiers—we infiltrate the army."
"When they believe the fugitives are still alive—desperately trying to flee Gragul…we 'die.' And then walk out of Siberia like ghosts."