A Wolf's Howl, A Fairy's Wing

Erik, Astrid, and Victor were once again running across the cold Scandinavian landscape.

Victor had been given a stay of execution despite having already shared everything he knew because why rob yourself of a piece of perfectly capable cannon fodder? Since they were likely headed into a combat situation, Erik decided to keep him alive until they rescued Alice.

This time, they carried Emily and Emma on their backs since Emily wasn't unconscious, and Emma didn't need to spend energy healing Erik.

Forests, mountains, and partially frozen rivers flew by as they made their way towards their next destination, the once capital city of Sweden: Stockholm.

From Victor, they had learned two things: one, the Council's main base in Sweden was, perhaps surprisingly, not Stockholm but Kiruna, and two, Alice was locked up and currently suffering through experimentation in the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, one of the premier genetic research facilities on Earth.

Kiruna was actually the main reason the Council even expanded into Scandinavia's frozen wastes.

After all, with the Earth's temperatures becoming more extreme around the poles and equator due to its awakening, Scandinavia should have been more trouble than it was worth. It was also because of this that the Council's expansion into Finnmark was so lackluster. Its primary goal was to attain manpower rather than territory or resources.

But Kiruna stopped Scandinavia from being a complete write-off for the Council. The reasons for that were the Esrange Space Center and the Kiruna iron mine.

One of the primary goals for the Council was reestablishing contact with Earth's satellites, and while Europe had two more locations that might be suited for research in this direction, neither of them could compete with Esrange in practical application and suitable facilities.

Meanwhile, the Kiruna iron mine was a rich source of high-quality metals for which the Council had countless uses, not the least of which was the burgeoning melee weapon industry. Naturally, this mine had mainly first-rank Runebound working in it, who could do the physical labor of several humans.

With both of these important locations situated in Kiruna, it was no surprise that it had become the Council's main base of operations in Scandinavia.

Meanwhile, this exact situation had made Erik's task a lot easier.

While Stockholm was a lot further away from them than Kiruna, it was also severally understaffed and underpopulated, while Kiruna was likely also the destination of the Council's second-rankers who fled from Frostvik.

Plus, Alice was unlikely to be moved from the Karolinska Institute since there wasn't a better facility in Europe for testing and experimenting on the biology and genetics of a human-shapeshifter hybrid.

With all this in mind, their group made its way towards Stockholm less urgently than before.

They reduced their travel speed to 50 km/h (31 mph) and planned to make the trip in two days while ensuring they avoided any populated areas, which they did actually encounter this time.

After all, they needed to travel back this way, and it wouldn't aid their journey if someone warned the second-rankers in Kiruna about Erik and his group traveling through Sweden.

After the first day of travel, they found an abandoned village, broke into one of the houses, and spent the night there before moving on the next day.

Finally, after two days of travel, they arrived in front of the post-apocalyptic ruins of Stockholm.

Five people were currently standing on a small hill overlooking the second ruined metropolis since London. Erik, Emma, Elora, and Erik were reasonably unimpressed since it really didn't look that different from ruined London.

Victor, too, remained stoic. But then again, to expect anything else from a mindless slave would have been folly.

Astrid, on the other hand, wore a slack-jawed expression of awe.

As with Erik before, this was the first time Astrid had actually traveled outside of Finnmark and, therefore, the first time she encountered a massive city like this one.

Of course, it was a ruin now, with various dilapidated buildings and skeletal skyscrapers, but that only gave it a sort of haunting yet strangely beautiful quality.

"It's so strange to think that nearly a million people once lived in this place," Astrid softly mumbled as they looked out over the city. "Fuck, it's so strange to think a city like this once existed in the first place, only to now turn into this!" she then exclaimed while extending her arms in a gesture of wonder.

Erik looked at her in amazement with a small smile. His reaction to the first metropolis he encountered in Söl had not been much different. Neither had his reaction to seeing the ruined city of London, although he hadn't actually had much time to take in the sights back then.

Suddenly, Astrid turned to Erik with a curious gaze. "Do you think this city will bustle with people once again someday? That Earth will recover from the awakening?"

"Sure," Erik nodded. "It will take some time, but in the end, every world was once unawakened—even Elora's home world of Söl. Admittedly, Earth is… different from most other worlds. Still, I wouldn't be surprised if it eventually turns into something not much different from every other awakened world out there."

"And what are they like?" Emma asked with wonder in her eyes.

"Well, I can't really speak for other places," Erik said thoughtfully. "But Söl was basically your standard fantasy world. Medieval, yet clean, countless people, magic, and various different races everywhere."

As Erik continued to wow Astrid and Emma with descriptions of Söl, Emily's eyes were wide open in shock. This was the first time she had heard anything about other worlds.

Seeing her expression, Erik couldn't help but chuckle.

He decided there wasn't much reason to keep Emily in the dark anymore, so he used the link established through the Bond of Service to quickly explain the particulars of his last seven years.

With that, all his companions now knew the basics of his past.

When they were done gawking at Stockholm's post-apocalyptic ruins, they quietly and stealthily entered the city.

While there likely wasn't anything that could stop them here, it would still be prudent not to raise any alarms until they actually assaulted the Karolinska institute that was holding Alice.

After traveling through several abandoned and beast-infested areas of the city, they finally arrived in front of the institute.

It was a large, glass building that had survived the apocalypse relatively well, although a number of obvious places along its outside walls had some patchwork repairs done.

This was also the first place they finally encountered some other people.