Story Reader / Main Story / 24 Chaos Unsnarled / Story
Bang! Bang!
Turn right 60 meters ahead and there'll be an internal path! It'll take us through the buildings!
Roger!
Commandant, we're here!
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Through the destroyed side door barge a human and two Constructs—behind whom is a bubbling red marsh that threatens to lick them by the ankle.
In the lead is Liv, who's monitoring the environmental data as she clears their path of anything that stands in their way.
You find yourself in between Liv and Lee, a relatively safe position.
Ever since running into the first Hetero-Creature you saw here, Lee has been firing shots nonstop. While Lee is immune to the Punishing Virus in his specialized frame, his immunity doesn't prevent the frame itself from being worn down and the ensuing fatigue.
As you rush their way up, the clanks and clunks coming off the rusty stairs sound the furthest things from melodious.
A few seconds later, the metallic staircase lets out a heart-wrenching cry as the Hetero-Creatures flood up the stairs, painting the path crimson in the blink of an eye.
With no hesitation, Lee switches his Composite Armaments to Rifle Mode in a split second—before firing a barrage of shots that lands squarely on the staircase's point of application...
THUD—!
With it, the wavering staircase plummets to the bottom—with all the Hetero-Creatures still on it.
Coming to a halt, you take a few deep breaths to soothe your pounding heart.
This floor we're on now... I haven't picked up on any other Hetero-Creatures yet in the building, but the biggest bunch in this area is the bunch we just ran into, right under our feet.
We caught the attention of a bunch of enemies along the way, so it's highly likely that we're looking at a bunch about 20% to 30% bigger than what we detected at first.
Lee speaks from where the staircase has snapped, looking down at the bunch of Hetero-Creatures engaged in seemingly meaningless behaviors.
Every last one of the Hetero-Creatures wiggles its body toward the second floor, apparently still remembering that the targets they're after are up there. Fortunately, however, there is nothing for them to make their way up.
I might be able to get rid of them with the ammo I have left, but there is no telling if we're going to run into a bunch this big again before supplies arrive.
Copy that.
Sigh...
Lee lets out a long sigh. It's likely that something else weighs on his mind now, since he isn't one that complains about missions, no matter how difficult they might be.
How's Lucia doing?
Liv droops her head at Lee's question. This is probably the question they've been meaning to ask the entire way but never had a chance to.
Many people have never missed a chance to ask you about Lucia ever since she got back to Babylonia.
Lucia's M.I.N.D. has been put under round-the-clock surveillance, as she was deemed a potential risk for having "private contact with Ascendant."
With the Science Council in charge, the Control Court has been monitoring and investigating Lucia's M.I.N.D. and will eventually deliver to multiple parties their findings based on Lucia's memory data from "when she was in contact with Ascendant."
On the surface, it all seems like a harmless enough process of investigation and data collection—except no one can say for sure when the surveillance is going to stop.
Having experienced what they call "benign surveillance" firsthand, you, for one, know for sure that being watched round the clock poses no less stress than the battlefield does.
You, however, take comfort in the only saving grace of it all... one that currently works at the Science Council.
You hold your hand out to Asimov.
After a brief moment of hesitation, Asimov's hand grasps yours. It feels a little cold.
Before you can answer Lee's question, however, you see an email on your terminal that's arrived right on time from the Science Council.
You turn your terminal to face both Lee and Liv so they can see what's on the screen.
On your screen now is a partial record of M.I.N.D. overloads from experiments on the Hyperreal Frame, except the record comes with detailed notes and analysis.
Wait, what is this...
Uh, Lee, I think you'll probably want to...
Dumbfounded, Lee looks at you, apparently awaiting some sort of approval.
You project your terminal's virtual keyboard to Lee. With it, Lee works away immediately.
About half a minute later, having been extracted and reordered, the "notes and analysis" that came with the report have been turned into an email with just words.
[Code 006]
[Did a regular check-up today. She felt a little tired but she was doing fine.]
[Kuroro raised a few questions late last night about the open report. It's all under control, though, so worry not.]
[The Control Court has asked for a reanalysis of certain data. I demanded an explanation given our shortage of manpower. They haven't replied yet.]
[Their motive is yet to be determined. Best not to let our guard down.]
"Doing fine..." That refers to Lucia, right?
Glad to know that we have him there to help us from the inside, but exactly when did this...
Lee has apparently guessed the identity of the email's sender, since that person has helped him out on countless occasions when it comes to the Hyperreal Frame and the Hetero Tower incident.
No, that's fine, Commandant... We know you're always looking out for us.
There was no need for you to bring this up anyways if nothing happened.
I'm glad that Lucia is doing just fine... But, well...
Liv seems to have recalled the whole "surveillance" incident from before, her face growing heavier by the second.
Right when you're about to say a few words to cheer up both Lee and Liv, you pick up a barely audible noise.
You keep your eyes closed for two seconds—and, through the silence, you hear something you'd describe as a metallic object being pulled lengthwise or twisted.
Before you can tell them about the weird noise, however, Liv is already busy surveying your surroundings again, while Lee trains his weapon straight at where the staircase has just snapped.
...No new target found. The enemies downstairs are still our main targets of interest.
The staircase is gone, but they're still trying to make their way up here.
The staircase has completely snapped away from the floor you are on—and you can't even begin to imagine just how these Hetero-Creatures would ever be able to make their way up here when they literally lack the cognitive ability to do something as complicated as this.
From the severely destroyed staircase, a few razor-sharp parts stand coldly in the air, reminiscent of the sharp fangs of a menacing beast and making it close to impossible for anyone to set their foot on the staircase.
The staircase now lies lopsided against sand and gravel, making its tilted surface an almost unscalable hill.
Anyone in their right mind who might want to try their luck at getting up here would definitely seek a different path—or work with some sort of tools, at the very least. The Hetero-Creatures down there, however, have for this entire time been trying to make their way up with the destroyed staircase.
...And then, you hear a weird noise coming from the staircase.
It's the same noise you heard just moments ago—a metallic object being pulled lengthwise or twisted. Then, it hits you that it's the Hetero-Creatures that are making the noise as they crawl over what's left of the destroyed staircase.
Wait, do you see what that one is doing over there...?
Looking at where Liv is pointing, you see a Hetero-Creature slowly inching its body toward the staircase's razor-sharp skeleton that's poking out of one of the stairs.
With its "belly"—the softest part of a Hetero-Creature—against the needle-sharp skeleton of the staircase, the Hetero-Creature does not come to a halt.
Right when the skeleton pokes through the Hetero-Creature's "belly," you can almost hear a crispy snap inside your head.
Despite the cut in its "belly," however, the Hetero-Creature keeps moving, the liquid coming out of the wound slowly dripping down among the fragments—turning, before you know it, into a river underneath the other Hetero-Creatures.
When that first Hetero-Creature finally grinds to a halt, a second one is already stepping on its dead body, commencing a ritual of "path paving" one stair up.
Where the Hetero-Creatures were unable to set their foot on the destroyed staircase, they can now safely do so with the corpses of their kind underfoot.
And the weird noise you heard earlier is the sound of the staircase being squeezed under the weight of all the Hetero-Creatures trying to make their way up.
Flashing past your mind at a moment like this, however, is the story of the Tower of Babel.
At the same time, you see yourself as the very God who can't wait to topple the tower.
Copy that.
Calculating evacuation route. Will take another 30 seconds!
Half an hour later.
Done scanning. We're safe for the time being, except we don't have a geographical advantage here. I'll keep scanning our surroundings, though, in case of anything.
Don't mention it.
Taking out those little fries was nothing but a cakewalk.
And I was able to try out the silencer on my Composite Armaments, too. Will send you a request for certain optimizations once we're back.
So, what's our plan now?
Sure! Just one sec...
Liv works away on her terminal and arranges the projections in a layout in which they're all simultaneously viewable.
We had three sets of mission coordinates in total. We have been investigating them in descending order and are so far done with the first two, and we're at the third location now.
The first set of coordinates is located 16 km outside the area of coverage of the CPFs. Characteristics of the location are the speed at which the plants wither and the excessive density of the Punishing found in the soil.
Normally and theoretically speaking, an area of coverage should be slightly bigger than what's publicly announced—forming what they call a "partly-shrouded area" that falls short of being as effective as the actual area of coverage.
I've just double-checked and confirmed that the CPFs closest to the first set of coordinates are still functional—which is why it makes no sense for the Punishing Virus to be found in such high density in the "partly-shrouded area."
Right... Not to mention that the Hetero-Creatures there are tougher than the ones we usually have to fight.
Bet they got a power boost from the Punishing Virus. Question is—where did these "nutrients" come from?
Nothing has occurred in that area recently that might have caused the density of the Punishing Virus to rise.
The second set of coordinates is located five km southwestward of where Conservation Area 46 used to be. It's within an area of coverage, but the CPF there has stopped working.
The Punishing was no longer the densest there by the time we got there. It was seven km southwestward of the conservation area, instead.
And at the new location seven km southwestward of the conservation area, we came across a pile of dead bodies of Hetero-Creatures... that occupied about 96 square meters.
Based on our observation, we believe some of the corpses have degraded and made their way into the soil.
Fortunately, though, given the conservation area's proximity to the Inver-Hetero Tower, the citizens from the conservation area have migrated to the Clean Zone, and they were the first people to have done so.
Which is why there were no casualties when all the Hetero-Creatures showed up.
You mean how a bunch of Hetero-Creatures died and their bodies degraded into the soil?
That sounds logical enough.
On the assumption that things happened faster at the first location than they did at the second location, which is why we didn't see any half-degraded corpses of Hetero-Creatures at the first location.
I bet those corpses had completely made their way into the soil at the first location, which is why we're seeing the Punishing in such high density there.
Which is?
Dumbfounded, Lee and Liv say nothing. The three of you fall silent together.
Could have been a new Ascendant... no?
Well, let me go ahead and bring us up to speed about the location we're currently at, then.
The third set of coordinates is what remains of City 027, located inside an effective area of coverage because it was slated to be turned into a conservation area.
No one came to fix the roads here after an earthquake destroyed them six months ago. Construction effort of City 027 has been indefinitely suspended ever since.
Most of the refugees here live in a small conservation area in the other half of the area of coverage.
Despite an overload, the CPFs here are operating normally.
In the mission summary we received, they made no note of there being Hetero-Creatures in great numbers here in the data they'd sent back from Earth.
So it's possible that what happened at the first two locations is going to happen here as well, but progress more slowly?
Which means something is probably going to show up here soon and kill all the Hetero-Creatures here and come up with a pile of dead bodies?
Right. There is no way anyone can tell there are CPFs here just looking at the data.
And I'm guessing that means the Hetero-Creatures here might have a higher resistance against CPFs?
The theory from the discussion among the three of you just now won't stand if you can't work out the inconsistency observed among the CPFs at the three locations.
Could it be that the three places operate by slightly different mechanisms?
All we can say about the three locations is that they all have Hetero-Creatures in great numbers that, for some reason, have developed a higher resistance against CPFs.
And the only way to take this discussion further is if we figure out what brought them about.
With the discussion once again reaching a stalemate, you run a mental search in your head, hoping to find any missing pieces that might explain what's happening. Right then, all the projections go poof without a trace.
We got company, Commandant. The Hetero-Creatures are coming this way and we need to get out of here.
Wait, are we heading straight back? Aren't we going to stick around and wait for whatever can kill all the Hetero-Creatures to show up?
Right. One sec now.
Pulling out what seems like a magazine and switching into his Composite Armaments, Lee fires a shot toward the highest point of the building.
What comes out of his weapon, however, isn't a bullet—but a claw-looking object, one that travels through the air following a trajectory.
A monitoring bot that I can control remotely. It'll stay here and keep an eye out on things for us.
But it's just a toy that I came up with on a whim and isn't meant to be durable against powerful enemies. Better than nothing, I suppose.
Just heard back from the transport craft, Commandant. They can't meet us at the rendezvous point given what's at stake. We need to keep a distance away from the rendezvous point!
Let's see... There is a mid-sized conservation area southward of where we are with a mission squad from Babylonia. We can take cover there for the time being!
We should probably give them a heads-up before we go, in case we can't get rid of all these creatures on our own. We don't want these things following us into the conservation area!
Right. And the one in charge of the mission squad... is Vera from Cerberus. Message sent!
Roger that!
