Rescue Fantasy (16)
Kwarururu—
Water pooled beneath the constantly spraying sprinklers, draining away as they doused the fire until it was finally completely out.
The water didn't seem normal; the toxicity in the air quickly faded. The yellowish haze began to dissipate in an instant, losing its substance.
While I scrubbed at the sticky bodily fluid splattered over my suit gloves and Carry, Celestia told me something I'd been wondering about.
"The energy supply was unstable, so the facility had been shut down. They rerouted all the energy from the wards and lounges to the laboratory sector so we could activate several systems right now."
"So it wasn't someone intentionally shutting things down, just an energy shortage?"
"As far as I could find out, yes."
No wonder it had seemed odd: I'd set the fire from the emergency exit, but suddenly the fire extinguishing system activated.
I could hear the sound of fans whirring up near the ceiling, indicating the life support systems—including air purification—were finally working again. The yellow mist that had filled the space vanished before we knew it.
If the malfunction was merely due to a lack of energy for the facility, maybe it was something to be relieved about. At least it meant there hadn't been any deliberate tampering.
I glanced quickly outside and got to my feet.
"Let's get moving again. Before those things have another episode."
"Yes...!"
We left the facility control room where we'd finally managed to catch our breath, but I didn't lift the lockdown yet.
Most of the toxicity had been neutralized, and the warning level on the respirator display had turned from red to a pale yellow. But I couldn't let my guard down—the toxic mist might surge back at any moment.
Laboratory sector, upper floor of the medical area. The interior surrounding us was in chaos from a sudden explosion.
The lighting had been shattered, scattering glass shards everywhere, and what remained of the flickering lights now went completely dark. Sparks flashed intermittently in the darkness; electric cables hung exposed, and parts of the walls were cracked by the shock.
Celestia studied the marks on the wall and muttered softly.
"The blast didn't seem this powerful..."
"The facility's structure is already heavily degraded."
I looked at the creep pressed between wall cracks, seemingly squeezed out from inside. Just a single fuel canister explosion shouldn't be able to bring down a facility. Not these days.
The visible devastation owed more to the creep gnawing and burrowing through crevices than the initial explosion. As it burrowed farther and deeper, durability was lost in chunks.
"We'll be able to get to the technology development room directly, right?"
Celestia's worried murmur barely escaped when—
Kugugung—!
A powerful tremor hit. A vibration coming from below us. The energy felt different from anything before.
"...!"
I pulled Celestia and Carry towards me and dropped into a crouch. The trembling easily shattered what was left of the already-flickering lights—they burst, filling the floor with shards.
「Kiiiii—!」
The flesh sphere at the emergency exit wasn't spared from the tremor, either—there was a shriek from its direction. It must've fallen from the ceiling where it had been hanging. With that, the entire ceiling started to collapse.
Wreckage crashed down and blocked the emergency exit, piling high enough that the passage was now effectively sealed. I'd wondered if I should deal with those things ahead of time, but it looked like I wouldn't need to bother.
I didn't think escape would be hard, either. There was more than one stairway down, and worse came to worst, I could always call Roxy.
'The real problem is...'
The tremor from below. It felt as if something huge moved under our feet—something deeper than the mid-level we were on. There was definitely something down there.
Soon after, the monstrous cries from the emergency exit ceased. Thick streams of water gushed out periodically, keeping the dust clouds from ever forming.
Then the last of the light in the lab sector flickered out, plunging us into a darkness that only lasted a moment before red emergency lights came on in the corridors.
And then, I heard a giggling sound.
"... Did you hear that?"
"I guess it isn't just me. If you mean that laughter, yes, I heard it."
The laughter sounded disturbingly similar to what I'd heard in Utopia—it made my skin crawl. In the darkness, the sound was sharp and ominous, amplifying the anxiety pressing in from all sides.
The laughter echoed from the far end of the corridor, drawing closer in multiple directions. The creepy laughter seemed to mock our situation, making the destroyed facility seem all the more eerie.
It felt like something unseen was watching us in the darkness. Half expecting another stalker, I hurled an iron rod in the direction of the laughter, but it hit nothing—just the dull thud of metal against wall.
Celestia, glancing between Carry and me, moved next to Carry and gently took his hand. Her trembling fingers showed how anxious she was.
"Celestia, do you know what's below the lower floor of the medical sector?"
"The lower floor is the lounge area."
"And besides that?"
"Structurally, there's a hydroponics facility and sewage treatment plant even further down, but they aren't connected to the medical sector. The closest thing would be Nexus Utopia, but considering the route we took, it shouldn't be directly beneath us."
"Hm..."
The lounge. It overlaps in function with Utopia. I wasn't sure what the connection was, but the tremor had definitely started below. The data on my sensor confirmed that.
"Could something from Utopia have followed us here?"
"Let's hope not."
"I really don't want to feel that presence again..."
Celestia shuddered. She rubbed her forearms as if trying to ward off chills. I nodded in agreement.
That presence we'd glimpsed in Utopia was on par with the bud entity, the Blue Eye. Even though I never fought it directly, its psychic attack left no doubt how dangerous it was.
If that monstrosity were to target us now, our course of action was clear: either destroy it by any means necessary, or, if the difference in power was overwhelming, run like hell.
We didn't come here for extermination. All we needed was to rescue the biocell.
Besides, we had Ricoemon with us. With her support, I believed we could overcome any hardship.
With that in mind, I switched my communicator to check on the shuttle's status and ask Licorice to hover nearby, just in case.
"Licorice, the facility's unstable. It looks like Roxy's above— ... Licorice?"
Odd. There was no reply. Usually, before the second beep had even finished, she'd answer right away.
"...?"
"What's wrong?"
I stood frozen with my hand on the communicator, and Celestia's voice grew tense. She meant business—if this was a joke, she wouldn't let it slide.
"Communication's unstable. I can't get through to the town."
"..."
Her body grew rigid along with her voice. She double-checked with her own communicator, but nothing changed—still no connection.
"Huh."
This wasn't good. Celestia and I met each other's gaze. She must've been thinking the same thing: the situation was beginning to spiral out of control.
Celestia tried to stay hopeful.
"... It could just be a temporary error."
"I guess so?"
"Yes. Besides, we weren't planning to stick around here long anyway. As long as we grab what we need and get out, it'll be fine."
Grabbing that "need" was the hard part, but I didn't bother to point it out—no point in ruining the mood further.
We resumed walking. Communications with Licorice down didn't mean we'd just turn back now.
We walked down the corridor stained red as if inside an abattoir, heightening our alertness. Our flashlight beams guided us forward through the gloom.
Unexpectedly, Celestia and I reached the technology development room without further danger.
〈Technology Development Room〉
「Warning. Authorized personnel only.」
I didn't need to open the room's door. Apparently, others had gotten here first and blasted it open with explosives—the whole bulkhead had been blown away.
"Hyun-woo, it's for sure that the pureblood supremacists came here. There are shell casings on the floor."
Why would the pureblood supremacists come to this place? I shone my flashlight inside. The room was jammed with tangled equipment and displayed samples, the monitors showing live data feeds.
Broken lab equipment lay smashed on the floor, and the computers blinked on cracked screens until they finally shut off. Warning lights glowed red.
Despite the chaos, nothing seemed especially out of place.
'Could there be another bud in here?'
We didn't know exactly the conditions for those special entities to appear. I'd realized the Blue Eye had been made by the pureblood supremacists, and given all the mutants spawned in this medical sector, a new "bud" showing up here would hardly be surprising.
If anything, such places were exactly where you'd expect it—ingredients were everywhere, creating perfect conditions.
Sudden tremors, traces of the pureblood supremacists, creep covering the labs, the existence of clones evidenced by flesh spheres, the little variants born from the spheres, and the broken line of communication.
'If the communication issue isn't us, but the town's problem...?'
Could the pureblood supremacists have attacked the town, cutting off all contact? But even if that were true, complete radio silence didn't add up.
If it was the Licorice I knew, she'd have managed to reach us somehow. The shielding wasn't just for show—as long as it was functioning, the town wouldn't just vanish overnight.
Trying to convince myself, I signaled to the others to enter carefully, and I led the way. I began searching for the biocell among the ruined equipment.
"If you find anything, let me know immediately."
"I'll check the database side."
According to the store, there was supposed to be biocell stock left here. The search was made after the pureblood supremacists came through, so it should still be here. I grew more anxious thinking that only with the biocell could we save Nadia.
'It has to be here...'
I found nothing but useless junk. Kyle would have loved what I found, but it was all worthless to me. I didn't have the luxury to look over it all anyway.
Then suddenly, I noticed an odd flow in the air—ventilation fans created a stream that seemed to be sucked into a crack in the wall. Maybe due to the earlier tremor, the structure had shifted, creating a diagonal split, and light stretched further in.
'A clone incubation room? Or maybe another hidden space?'
Whatever it was, there was definitely a hidden chamber. I called out to Celestia, who was fiddling with a console.
"Celestia, I think I found the clone incubation room."
"Huh? You did?"
"Come take a look. I definitely found some empty space."
Celestia dropped what she was doing and hurried over. Comparing the hologram blueprint to the physical structure, she reached the same conclusion I had.
"What should we do? We still haven't found the biocell."
"If we still haven't found it, it's not out here. Carry, let's open this up."
「(｀∇´)ゞ」
Carry and I widened the crack in the wall. There was probably a proper hidden mechanism to open this, but I was too impatient to search for it. We just used a plasma cutter and laser to slice it open bit by bit.
Once the gap was wide enough, my flashlight illuminated a single, chalk-white hand. Its fingers were too long for a human, but its nails were too dull for a mutant. I couldn't shake the sense of distortion.
The hand clutched a container filled with some kind of gel. The marking on the canister was the lab sector emblem—I recognized the gel as raw biocell material.
"... Hyun-woo."
Celestia froze, tense with an unexplainable sense of wrongness. The white hand waved, beckoning us, then quickly retreated into the darkness.
"...!"
I tried to give chase but stopped dead. I couldn't help it; there was a phrase scrawled in an unfamiliar, clumsy script on the wall.
「Better keep quiet. A big friend might wake up.」
A phrase urging silence, casually revealing the existence of some other monster.
As if it knew exactly what we wanted, it lured us closer by beckoning with the biocell sample.
"It seems like... they actually want us to come deeper."
I felt my head start to heat up, clenching my fist tightly.
-------------= Clacky's Corner -------------=
The mutant is luring them deeper into what I am guessing is a bud.
Probably the first bud?
【(๏_๏)】