Glacial Monopoly: My Gifts Return Hundredfold

Chapter 6: The Long Winter's Scout

"...broadcasting our coordinates to every thermal scanner within a five-mile radius," Alex finished his sentence, his eyes locking onto Miller. "Kael lost fifteen men tonight. He won't send infantry with shotguns next time. He’ll drop crude pipe bombs and ignited fuel down those ventilation shafts and bake us alive in this concrete oven. The warmth is a trap. We are leaving."

Miller swallowed the lump in his throat, his eyes darting to the mangled corpses on the stairs. The logic was brutal, but undeniable. "Yes, boss. Packing now."

"We can't survive the surface," Elena interjected softly. She was wrapping the seven-year-old boy, Leo, in three layers of filthy blankets. "It's minus sixty up there. A flash freeze could drop it to minus eighty. Without the generator, we'll freeze solid before we walk a single mile to this... hardware store."

Alex didn't argue. He drew his hunting knife and walked over to the pile of fifteen dead Iceborn hunters.

He didn't loot their rusted weapons. He grabbed the thickest, bloodiest animal-hide coats and torn kevlar vests off the corpses. He tossed them into a massive pile in the center of the platform. The stench of frozen blood and dirty fur filled the air.

He picked up the heaviest, most intact coat and walked over to Elena.

"Hold this," Alex ordered.

Elena didn't ask questions anymore. She reached out and grasped the blood-stained collar.

The electric blue text slashed across Alex's retinas instantly.

[ Gift Confirmed: Scavenged Animal-Hide Coat (Durability 22%) → Elena Vance ]

[ Class Resonance: Survival Base / Quartermaster ]

[ Multiplier Triggered: 120x (Epic) ]

[ Reward: U.S. Military Extended Cold Weather Clothing System (ECWCS) Level 7 Parkas x 120 ]

[ Reward: Thermal-Regulated Arctic Combat Boots x 120 Pairs ]

Status: Deposited in Maintenance Locker 04.

Alex blinked away the blue light and immediately headed for the locker. When he kicked the door open, the pile of bloody animal skins on the platform was instantly forgotten.

Stacked inside were vacuum-sealed tactical crates. Alex popped the latches.

Inside lay pristine, snow-camouflage arctic combat gear. The Level 7 parkas were lined with advanced aerogel insulation, designed specifically for static operations in extreme, sub-zero environments.

"Suit up," Alex commanded, throwing a parka and a pair of insulated boots to Miller. "Layer up. Leave no skin exposed. We push for the surface in five minutes."

Within moments, the ragtag group of starving survivors transformed. Zipped into the pristine white-and-gray arctic gear, holding high-carbon machetes and military compound crossbows, they no longer looked like prey. They looked like a Tier-1 elite strike team.

Even little Leo was bundled into a modified parka, his small face shielded behind thermal goggles.

Alex checked the holographic disc strapped to his forearm. The three-dimensional blue map rotated smoothly. No red dots in the immediate vicinity. Kael was still blind.

"Move out," Alex said, taking point. "Single file. Quiet."

They bypassed the slaughterhouse of the main stairs and moved toward the northern emergency exit tunnel—a long, steep concrete incline that led directly to the street level of Grid 09.

As they ascended, the heat from the generator quickly faded. The walls transitioned from damp, weeping concrete to solid sheets of black ice. The howling of the surface wind grew louder, vibrating through their boots.

Halfway up the tunnel, Alex suddenly raised a closed fist.

The three militiamen instantly froze, raising their crossbows.

Lying in the center of the tunnel, completely blocking their path, was a massive silhouette.

Alex activated his weapon's mounted flashlight. The beam cut through the darkness and illuminated a nightmare.

It was a Frost-Hound. A mutated canine the size of a grizzly bear, covered in thick, matted white fur and armored bone plates protruding from its spine. Its jaws were large enough to snap a man in half. These apex predators ruled the surface ruins, hunting entirely by smell and thermal signatures.

Miller cursed under his breath, taking a step back. "Holy shit..."

"Relax," Alex said quietly. "It's dead."

Alex approached the massive beast. It wasn't just dead; it had been executed. There was no sign of a struggle. No blood trails from a frantic fight.

Alex knelt beside the beast’s massive head. There was a single, perfectly clean hole punched directly through the thickest part of the hound's skull, right between the eyes. The exit wound at the back of the neck had blown out a chunk of the concrete floor.

Alex dug his gloved fingers into the shattered concrete. He pulled out a crushed, still-warm piece of metal.

He held it up to the flashlight.

It was a bullet casing. But not a crude, hand-loaded lead slug used by the Iceborn hunters.

It was a pristine, brass .50 caliber depleted uranium sniper round. Armor-piercing.

Alex’s eyes narrowed. He looked past the dead beast, scanning the frost-covered steps leading to the surface.

He noticed it immediately. A single, faint footprint in the ice. It was small. Light. Carefully placed to avoid crunching the loose debris.

Someone else is out here, Alex thought, his tactical mind racing. Someone with high-end Old World military tech. Someone who can drop an apex predator with a single shot in the dark, and barely leave a footprint.

"Is it Kael's men?" Elena asked, noticing Alex staring at the bullet casing.

"No," Alex said, slipping the brass casing into his pocket. "Kael’s vanguard used rusted shotguns and scrap-metal pipe bombs. Whoever fired this round belongs to a different weight class entirely. A professional."

"Friend or foe?" Miller asked nervously.

"In the apocalypse, there are no friends. Only assets and threats," Alex replied coldly. He checked the holographic map again. "The footprint is heading North. Toward the hardware store. Grid 09."

Alex stood up, stepping over the massive corpse of the Frost-Hound. "Keep your eyes on the rooftops once we breach the surface. We aren't the only hunters in this sector."

They reached the top of the stairs. Heavy steel double doors, frozen shut by four months of winter, stood between them and the city.

Alex signaled Miller and Jonas. The three men slammed their shoulders against the frozen steel. With a deafening screech, the ice shattered, and the doors flew open.

The surface world hit them like a physical wall.

The wind shrieked at seventy miles an hour, driving microscopic ice crystals that felt like a sandstorm of razor blades. The sky was a bruised, atmospheric gray, blocking out the sun completely. The ruins of the city stretched out before them—shattered skyscrapers wrapped in glaciers, cars buried under ten feet of snow, and silence. A vast, terrifying silence.

But inside the advanced aerogel of the military parkas, Alex barely felt a chill. The system had provided a perfect shield against the wrath of the planet.

"Grid 09 is three miles north," Alex shouted over the howling wind, pointing toward a massive, square concrete structure barely visible through the blizzard. "Stay close. Do not lose sight of the man in front of you."

They stepped out into the white hell.

Two miles away, positioned on the shattered tenth floor of an abandoned bank, a lone figure lay perfectly still in the snow.

She wore a worn, white active-camouflage cloak that made her virtually invisible against the winter backdrop. A heavy, customized anti-materiel sniper rifle rested on a bipod in front of her.

Kaelen Thorne let out a slow, controlled breath. A tiny plume of white frost escaped her lips.

Her left hand clutched her side. Her tactical suit was torn, the fabric soaked in dark, freezing blood. A piece of shrapnel from a trip-mine was buried deep in her ribs. She was running out of time.

Through the high-powered optical scope, Kaelen watched the heavily fortified entrance of the Grid 09 hardware store. She counted forty men. Heavy machine gun emplacements. Spotlights cutting through the snow.

Too many, she thought, her vision blurring slightly from blood loss. I can't break their perimeter alone. I need a distraction. I need a miracle.

Suddenly, a flicker of movement caught the corner of her scope.

She adjusted the magnification, scanning the ruins to the south.

Five figures were walking through the blizzard. They weren't shuffling like starving scavengers. They moved in a perfect tactical column. They wore pristine white arctic gear that Kaelen hadn't seen since her days in the elite Eden Vanguard forces before the collapse.

And the man leading them was carrying a heavy compound crossbow, his eyes scanning the environment with the cold, calculating precision of an apex predator.

Kaelen’s pale, bloodless lips parted in shock.

"Who the hell are you?" she whispered to the wind.