Gragg McMeyer had never thought of himself as a special human being. He served as the captain of the special forces of the Saherta United States called Quantum, and while he felt responsibility for that position, he considered it neither a boast nor a source of pride.
He enlisted in the military at age 25. Until then, he had worked at a railway-related workplace. He worked on-site for a facilities management subcontractor. He had skill and qualifications as a technician, and while it couldn't be called a high salary, he had enough income not to struggle in life.
He had a wife and child. He had a mundane but contented, warm home. He rejoiced in his child's growth more than anything and tried to be a good father.
His life was ordinary. If nothing had happened, he would likely still have a happy family now. He surely would never have come to the Dark Continent.
The beginning was a single incident. A fatal accident occurred at a site where the company he worked for had been contracted for maintenance. If one worked in railway-related jobs, frankly speaking, experiencing this kind of accident was common. It wasn't the first time for Gragg either.
An accident where a single boy mistakenly crossed the barrier at a railroad crossing, entered the tracks, and was run over by a train. The boy's corpse did not retain its original form. The police initially thought the likelihood of suicide or homicide was thin and judged it an unfortunate accident caused by the boy's carelessness.
However, as the investigation progressed, other factors surfaced. A malfunction was found in the crossing barrier. There was a possibility it hadn't been operating correctly at the time of the accident. The boy's bereaved family claimed the cause of the accident lay with the railway company and the facilities management company, demanding damages and compensation for mental anguish, and filed a lawsuit.
The person responsible for the maintenance of this crossing was Gragg. He doubted his ears when he heard the details. Because he had just recently performed a periodic inspection on that barrier, and at that time, no abnormalities were seen.
In the end, the lawsuit filed by the bereaved family was dismissed due to insufficient evidence, and Gragg's company was not charged with a crime. In other words, no problem had occurred. He was able to live his life as before.
However, some guilt remained in him. He didn't think there was a defect in his inspection, but an accident had actually occurred. He couldn't digest that indescribable discomfort within himself.
At least the people around him didn't blame him. They knew his conscientious work ethic, which was precisely why he was entrusted with the site as the person in charge.
But he, none other than himself, could not forgive it. As the days passed, he was tormented by a sense of sin. It wasn't his fault; he just had to be careful next time. An ordinary human would think of things conveniently for themselves. Even a murderer pleads their innocence in court and truly believes it.
He lacked the "shrewdness" that people naturally possess. He realized for the first time that he held a massive sense of justice. It didn't provoke emotions like righteous indignation toward criminals in heinous crimes that filled the news. It was directed solely and earnestly toward himself.
At that time, did I really not neglect the inspection of the barrier? Was there some mistake I didn't notice myself? If not for that, a young life wouldn't have been lost. Why wasn't I more careful? If the victim of this incident had been my own child. He could understand the sorrow the parents bore so painfully well.
He saw hallucinations of the boy he had never met. He began to dream of the moment the accident happened over and over. He continued to apologize to the boy who died without his help even reaching him in the dream.
At the end of that apology, his guilt did not fade. No matter how much he apologized to the boy, it wasn't an atonement. It was sophistry used by the living only to escape from the sense of sin. The dead possess no words of forgiveness.
The apology that would never reach became like a curse, continuing to eat away at him. That was his essence, and the terminus of his humanity.
"Everyone, run without looking baaaaaaaack!!"
That was why he couldn't pretend not to see. The figure of the girl taking an enemy attack beside him and collapsing shook the emotions at his very foundation.
Inside his head, there was a self making a cold judgment. The first thing to consider was delivering the Return to the ship securely. That was the mission given to him as the special forces captain. What should be prioritized above anything else was the Return.
If thinking rationally to fulfill that purpose, he should abandon Quinn. While she became food for the insect, they could buy precious time. Perhaps the enemy would be satisfied with that and leave.
Ignoring all such thoughts, his body moved. He changed direction with force enough to wear down his heels. He faced the "Calamity" that must never be looked at.
It was a foolish plan beyond measure. However, he had a vow he had imposed on himself. It was "Never retreat from an opponent one has decided to fight once." When he broke this vow, he would lose all Nen abilities. He would become unable to handle even basic aura, let alone his Hatsu.
The actions of "not looking back" and "not turning his back" were stained into his daily movements. At a glance, it looked like a brave and manly oath, but the thought he himself put into this vow was different. It was the embodiment of his own weakness, having no choice but to keep looking only forward, turning his eyes away from the past where he left behind the atonement he should have fulfilled.
In this investigation of the Dark Continent, he had always kept running. If he had confronted an enemy squarely even once, he wouldn't be alive. Because he could not run from a battle he initiated. Defeat the enemy or die himself; there were only two paths.
It would be one thing if it were an opponent he could defeat, but the enemies were all too mighty. Challenging them was tantamount to suicide. That was why he had devoted himself to running until now, continuing to preserve his ability. Fleeing before the enemy did not conflict with his vow. His oath was not based on chivalry. It was a smaller, more selfish rule.
That was what he was supposed to think. However, when he saw Quinn caught by the enemy's attack, his spirit decided to fight before his reason could work. With this, the option of escape vanished. Even if he were to abandon Quinn, there was no way for Gragg, having lost his Nen abilities, to live.
He himself had feared this, albeit vaguely. If he were to fulfill his mission as the survey team captain, he should have viewed Quinn as a single object in the operation thoroughly from start to finish. If he mixed in personal feelings, he might mistake the priority in a split second.
But he had recognized Quinn not as a thing, but as a person.
Gragg was asked by Quinn. She asked many questions about the continent where humans lived. It was like a young child wanting to hear about everything they didn't know at random, and that figure overlapped with something precious of his own that he had left behind in the past.
Quinn was just a child. And there was reason enough there for Gragg to take action, even if he didn't realize it.
The monster closed in. Its shadow, floating up from the depths of the forest, easily exceeded the size of the Worm in the reports. Legs like the ribs of a giant crawled on the earth, maintaining silence as they undulated rhythmically. Two osmeteria spewing poison smoke on the swollen crown of its head. Its strangeness was just like a steam locomotive.
What radiated presence more than anything were the "eyes." It wasn't just that they were huge.
Some larvae of butterflies and moths possess "eyespots." It is an evolution to escape from birds, the natural enemies of caterpillars, but the reason birds dislike these eyespots is that they remind them of snakes, the natural enemies of birds. Birds take instinctive evasive action against eyeball patterns resembling snakes. It is an avoidance defined as a biological organism. It is pre-incorporated into the blueprints called genes.
Of course, humans don't have the same instincts as birds. However, in front of this Calamity, classification frames like human or bird were merely trivial matters. It appealed to a more fundamental depth of consciousness.
Run.
All thoughts converged into one. The abandonment of every possibility. It wasn't fear. That was only an emotion resulting from the outcome; instinct was the premise.
However, Gragg barely held his ground. Even while being swallowed by the intimidation clinging to him like the heat of hellfire, he did not move from that spot.
This was not a result of his courage triumphing, but merely because he trained every day to observe his vow. If he retreated even one step from the state of confronting the enemy, he would break the vow.
Gragg couldn't move. He had the sensation of eggs parasitizing his eyes, but he didn't even care about that. Physical death was closing in right before his eyes. Collision in one second. That pressure, combined with the influence created by the giant eyes, made the Worm look like a monster greater than reality.
Nen abilities saw their performance change greatly depending on the person's mental state. Within the heavy pressure where it wouldn't be strange for an ordinary person to stop thinking, what drove him was the emotion welling up inside.
Either way, it was obvious that even if everyone kept running like this, they would be caught. Someone needed to hold it back. Hadn't he preserved his life for a situation like this?
No, rather, that judgment was too late. If he had decided to hold it back sooner, couldn't Quinn have escaped? That regret outweighed the fear.
"『No Thoroughfare (Absolute Non-Retreat)』"
Gragg was a Conjurer. The weapon that appeared in his hands was a strange pole. Striped in yellow and black, its length reached eight meters. Those seeing that ability for the first time would likely wonder suspiciously why he thought to conjure "that" or laugh.
The Hatsu of a Conjurer materializes the desired object with aura. Many conjure weapons, but just because it's a weapon made of aura doesn't mean it's particularly strong. Special abilities can be added, but that performance depends on the usage of the original weapon. On top of that, learning Conjuration is said to take the most time among all categories.
There was likely no one else but him who would choose a "crossing barrier pole" as a weapon to be a partner for life. In the first place, it wasn't even a weapon; it was grossly unsuitable for use in combat.
Of course, a human who could only conjure a mere pole couldn't possibly serve as the captain of the United States special forces. It possessed the special ability to "cancel the kinetic energy of an object coming toward it."
In other words, objects touching this pole would stop. There was no upper limit to that effect. Even if a space shuttle thrust itself at him with full propulsion, he could catch it lightly.
There were limits to the special abilities that could be added to conjured objects, and normally, one couldn't attach an ability this eccentric. For example, one couldn't attach an ability like "cuts through any material" to a conjured sword. At best, it would be something like enhancing the sharpness.
However, exceptions existed. One case was if a Specialist created an ability using Conjuration in conjunction. And the other was if a heavy Vow was created.
The vow that he must not retreat even a single step from the enemy, and if broken, he could never use Nen abilities again, was too heavy. In a sense, it could be said to carry more risk than betting one's life or lifespan. Depending on the opponent's Nen ability, he could be dealt with easily, and if that happened, he would instantly become powerless; if in combat, he would only await death.
His strength was distorted. Perhaps he could stop the giant Worm. However, that story was limited only to the part the pole touched. It didn't seal all of the enemy's attack methods. If it spat thread, there was no way to deal with it.
Still, there was meaning in holding it back, even for a short time.
Surely, he couldn't protect Quinn. This ability wasn't made to protect someone. Rather, the opposite. Because of this vow, he had let many people die whom he might have been able to save.
To bring back the Return, to contribute to the development of humanity; for such slogans, he had abandoned his comrades. Behind him were the ghosts of comrades who died in regret. They appealed that fleeing would not be forgiven.
He had survived this far upon those sacrifices. Then, he should fulfill it here. If he were a human to be crushed ungracefully, there was no meaning in having survived nonchalantly.
He would hold it back no matter what. He readied the long weapon. The enemy came toward him as if being sucked in. Before the intimidation of that monster, he never averted his eyes for even a moment.
But just before the collision, a great change appeared in the enemy. The Worm's skin, which was rich in elasticity and accepted no attacks, transformed before his eyes.
The thick hide that had sagged like an old man's skin became a material like red crystal with a metallic luster. That change extended to the Worm's whole body in the blink of an eye, turning it into a giant red structure.
The Worm, which had been approaching soundlessly, stopped moving while maintaining unchanged silence. Gragg didn't know what was happening. Even without him stopping it, the enemy fell silent.
As if it had been parasitized by some other monster, the Worm's whole body was covered in cactus-like crystals.