Origin (40)
"... Huh, what the...?"
Eric, who had been preparing to fend off a charge from the parasites, let out a hollow laugh at the unexpected situation. Apparently, I wasn't the only one who found it strange.
We couldn't make our next move hastily and instead stared only at the place where the monster had vanished. It was inevitable—we felt that turning our heads carelessly might provoke more of that mucous substance being shot at us.
A thick silence hung in the air. Even though it had only been a light attack, our vigilance had shot up to the extreme.
After what felt like an eternity, Eric finally decided it was okay to move and relaxed his body, speaking in a low voice.
"Observation is a rather tricky trait. It means you want to understand your opponent."
"......"
"This situation is just like that. Both the fact that it's a type we've never seen before and the unfamiliar environment—they alone have made us shrink back."
That's true. In reality, we were paralyzed by the appearance of an unfamiliar mutant.
But I thought it was only a temporary reaction. It had always been like that, no matter where I went—whether it was the residential area, Heaven, or anywhere else—it was always unfamiliar and dangerous. This time was the same.
Eric must have been thinking the same as I was, and he continued speaking.
"Still, our job doesn't change. We just have to keep moving the way we always have."
Our equipment was better than before, and we'd gotten more skilled at dealing with monsters. Pride was dangerous—but trust was necessary, if only to lessen our fatigue.
I nodded in agreement with Eric and took a step forward. I was afraid to push on, but if we just stood around here, nothing would get resolved.
"Since that thing's fluid seems to agitate the creep, let's be careful to avoid getting hit and keep moving."
"Okay."
We checked on Alpha's condition. Thankfully, aside from some singeing from the flames, there were no problems.
'Thank goodness it was Alpha who got hit.'
I had seen with my own eyes how the creep's density had abruptly increased. The creep had clung to Alpha's legs, trying to hold it back. Because it was the security robot Alpha that was bound, I could order the flamethrower to be used without hesitation.
If it had been anyone else, I might have responded a little too slowly. Of course, the suits provided basic protection, so touching fire wouldn't have caused major problems, but the fact that the victim was a teammate would have had a psychological effect.
"Carry, if we get caught by the creep, use the flamethrower right away."
【\(⊙⊙;)/】
"That'd be better. Before the creep hardens, it seems weak to fire, so even low output should work. Got it?"
【ദ്ദി(⩌ᴗ⩌)】
When I said it like I trusted it, Carry gave me a thumbs up. We carefully proceeded forward. The facility's entryway wasn't that big.
To be exact, it wasn't very large compared to the sheer size of the facility. Even so, it was wide enough to dock a decent-sized shuttle.
Celestia gave a warning.
"Be careful not to damage the walls. This is a protected space."
She didn't mean "protected" from monsters or creep. She meant the raw blue crystal's influence was lower here.
Soon, we'd be entering the main part of the refinery, where the first process would fill the place with raw crystals. In there, these walls were a kind of safety measure.
It was an area where the pipeline that moved raw stones was fully exposed. If we fought carelessly and broke the walls, we could end up crushed to death by raw stones—not monsters—driven mad by the energy waves.
'I didn't think I'd need to worry about this.'
The facility defied expectations. It was so polluted that it wouldn't be weird if it shut down at any minute... yet it was still running.
'Is it being kept running by force?'
It's not that I underestimated SSTC's technology. It's just that I'd heard from Licorice that the operation was supposed to halt if serious contamination was detected inside the facility.
Blue Crystal was so valuable it moved not just massive credits, but the entire market. Refined Blue Crystal wasn't just used on Titan, so its quality was extremely important.
Leaving any factor that could compromise quality unaddressed was essentially tantamount to terrorism.
Creep was spread everywhere, possibly feeding on energy from the raw stones. When I saw the pipelines from outside the facility, they'd been covered, so there was no reason to think the inside would be safe.
The raw stones must have been contaminated too—unless they'd been polluted to start with.
Ever since learning of the connection between Blue Crystal and the monsters, I'd harbored suspicions. This special mineral seemed to be the pureblood supremacists' handiwork itself.
Otherwise, inexplicable events kept occurring. Now it had spread so far, there was nothing to be done.
It was too late to look for equipment that didn't use Blue Crystal. In fact, things like that no longer existed at all.
Even Carry was an example—he couldn't move without refined Blue Crystal. The plasma cutter I used, the laser installer customized for Nadia, the custom suits we were wearing—they all ran on refined Blue Crystal batteries.
'Everything's refined, so it should be okay.'
I made myself believe that and kept my guard up. The lurking mutant never reappeared. We seldom saw only parasites fleeing as we trampled over the creep.
Even as we entered the security checkpoint, employee lounge, changing room, and then donned a white gas in the decontamination room, no monster showed itself. I'd thought if we were attacked, it would be when the white gas filled the area like fog.
It was a relief in a sense, but this situation only made me more anxious. The thought that something could jump out suddenly kept sharpening my nerves.
I wasn't the only one—everyone felt it. The pressure of the situation was slowly strangling us all.
Finally, we reached the entrance to the real start of the refining facility sector.
〈Raw Stone Crushing Sector〉
【Warning. Primary processing in progress. Crusher in operation. All personnel must observe safety protocols. SSTC disclaims responsibility for any accidents caused by failure to follow safety rules.】
"... The crushing sector."
I silently stared at the hologram panel's message. The word "crush" carried a chilling nuance as it lingered in my mouth. It made me feel oddly scratchy inside.
"The raw stones might be pouring out from the pipes, but it shouldn't affect us much. As long as we don't leave the designated area."
At Celestia's warning, we nodded. The facility was divided into sectors for various steps of refining the raw stones.
Crushing—the first process, grinding raw stones of various sizes into powder.
Melting—the second, where the evenly ground Blue Crystal powder is melted at extremely high temperatures into liquid.
Extraction—the third, where special catalysts increase purity and filter out impurities from the liquefied Blue Crystal.
Cooling—the final stage, where the purified liquid is cast into ingots.
Crushing, melting, extracting, cooling. All these combined are called refining or recrystallization. Depending on purity, the results are graded from low to top.
The low-purity refined Blue Crystal I usually fed to Carry was basically scrap shards left from the ingot-making process, so even though refined, the price wasn't sky-high.
Of course, even so, it was relatively cheap only compared to ingot prices—tens of thousands of credits for a low-purity shard was common.
"We might be attacked as soon as we open the door, so everyone be careful."
Saying that, I began forcing open the tightly closed bulkhead. There was so much creep stuck on that the automatic mechanism must have broken, because the door wouldn't open by itself.
The hardened, stuck creep snapped apart as the sliding door opened left and right. Every time a section like a thick blood vessel was severed, bright red fluid dripped down.
The door slowly creaked open. Through the gap, blue light shone in—the cold glow unique to Blue Crystal ore.
Narrowing my eyes against the dazzling light, I didn't even blink as I surveyed the interior of the raw stone crushing sector.
The first thing I heard was the sound of hard minerals being ground down. The sound of stones from the pipes being fed into the crusher reached me a beat later.
Kwarurururu—
Grrrk—grrrk...
Amid the background of the squirming creep, the crusher still did its job. Gears of various shapes meshed together, breaking apart the Blue Crystal ore and grinding the fragments even finer until the crushing stage was done.
'Looks really crude.'
This was my first time in a refining facility, and first time seeing the crushing process in person. Maybe for durability against the stone's energy waves, the crusher had a design that looked outdated for the era, extremely primitive. The internals must have been just as simple.
A machine created for the sole purpose of crushing. Around it, piles of gears used as consumables were stacked like a tower. The ores were so hard that the gears must often break.
On rails behind the crusher, the powdered Blue Crystal got boxed up and sent along to the next sector for further processing. Some creep, mixed in, was crushed too, making bloody clumps.
In some places, broken rails dumped powder endlessly on the ground, becoming concentrated nutrients for the creep. Where it was scattered in an easily absorbable powder, the creep flourished.
"No ghouls here... at least for now, Hyun-woo."
Nadia swept her flashlight around as she spoke. Even though the beam was strong, it couldn't light up the area well—the bluish light filled the whole sector.
There was light, but that didn't mean it was bright. It was ambiguous and shadowy, smudging all the outlines.
Neither Alpha's sensors nor the tuned-down detector picked up anything special. All the noise and vibration came from the crusher, being transmitted through shaking anti-gravity rails.
Celestia, flinching every time she saw something odd while looking around, whispered to me quietly.
"We don't actually have anything to do here, right?"
"The original plan was to check out the supply room once."
"Was? So...?"
"We're not going. I mean, we don't need to."
I gestured with my chin at a certain direction. There was a sector where even the hologram panel wouldn't work, completely choked with creep to the point the inside was packed solid.
According to the facility map, that spot was the supply room—where they kept materials for emergency repairs of the rails and crusher. If there were any survivors, hiding there would have made sense.
Now it was so overrun that any survivors would have become ghouls long ago. There was no point in going in. We weren't here for adventure.
'... Wait. Is there something inside?'
I couldn't see well, but it seemed like there was something inside the supply room. Not just creep, but something cocoon-shaped.
Nadia had said there were weird cocoon-like things all over the facility walls. Maybe these glimpses were the same things she saw.
Just as I was about to ask Nadia for more details—
"...!"
Nadia suddenly let out a strangled sound and jumped in surprise. Her tail fur stood on end, bristling like it had been struck by lightning.
Alarmed by her obvious reaction, I immediately scanned the area—and saw it. This time, it was a monster perched between the pipes on the sector ceiling, watching us.
Maybe because of our earlier threat, it had chosen a spot our current gear couldn't reach.
It watched us in complete silence, an unsettling display. Just as before, it didn't do anything, but faded away like a mirage. As if it had never been there.
It didn't attack—it just watched—and yet an intense sense of discomfort filled me. It was a feeling I couldn't put into words.
"... This is getting stressful."
Nadia fervently agreed with my muttered comment. She looked so frightened she seemed ready to swing her laser installer at anything, her grip painfully tight.
It was draining, like my energy was being sucked away. I almost wished it would just attack us outright.
-------------= Clacky's Corner -------------=
【(⌐■_■)-︻╦╤─】