Gravity Fluctuation (7)
"It's pretty worn out, but fortunately, it doesn't seem to have any major problems with operation. This is what you'd call the triumph of technology, right?"
That was what Kanna said after inspecting the old tram set up in a corner of the passageway.
The corridor leading to the innermost part of the military base stretched for 10 kilometers. Since our goal was not to recapture the base but to steal the Albatross, we had to use any means at our disposal for rapid movement.
Even if that meant using an old tram that looked more than a little rickety.
Celestia glared at the tram, which was covered in rust.
"There aren't even any railings, and the cockpit's completely caved in... Hyun-woo, can we really trust this thing?"
"Well..."
I hesitated to answer. If I had to choose between trusting it or not, I'd have to pick the former. We had to get on it whether we trusted it or not.
That's when Nadia stepped forward, chuckling.
"Don't worry, Hyun-woo. I brought some materials from above, just in case."
"Can you fix it?"
"There's not enough time for a full replacement, but I can at least make it a bit more stable. Everybody, gather around!"
Since opening up to me about her past, Nadia had become much more proactive. She called over the soldiers and had them each grab a piece of the metal material she'd brought, then started repairs together with Carry.
She boldly cut away heavily corroded and dangling sections that looked like they'd fall off at any moment, and replaced them by welding on new metal plates. She also removed all the seats that were as good as useless.
While she was at it, she tore out the ceiling, and instead installed barricades just in case something happened.
After a flurry of clanging and welding, Nadia finished the work quickly and stood, looking quite proud of herself, asking if it wasn't much better now. It certainly was an improvement over what we first saw.
The tram itself was so old that even these small changes made a world of difference. As everyone applauded with satisfaction, Nadia, blushing, quickly hid herself behind me.
Celestia gave a small, soft laugh at the sight. Kanna began installing the energy relay on the floor and spoke up.
"I'll now request energy transmission from Griffin, so everyone please get on board."
Once everyone was inside the old tram, an announcement came over the speaker amidst some static.
「Notice. Energy supply to the tracks has been detected. Current track activation rate: 37%.」
The dormant tracks received energy transmitted from Griffin and began an electric reaction. At first there were sudden sparks, but soon it seemed to stabilize.
「Notice. Sudden movement of the tram may cause shaking. Passengers, please take your seats.」
Rattle, rattle. Starting with a small jolt, the previously stationary tram slowly began to move forward. At first the speed was so slow I wondered if we should even be riding it, but it picked up speed over time, the wind buffeting our bodies.
"Internal air quality: normal. No Creep detected.... For now, respiratory gear performance can be reduced."
At Kanna's words, after she scanned the surroundings, I returned the respiratory gear setting—previously set to max—back to normal. If you keep it at max for too long, you might not be able to use it properly when you really need it. Appropriate adjustment was important.
With breathing much easier, I looked around. For an old tram, it was gliding smoothly through the darkness. The monsters I had worried about were nowhere in sight, and the usual chemical smell associated with pureblood supremacists was absent.
But the anxiety persisted. It wasn't that I was overreacting out of fear that something might happen—rather, it was odd that nothing had happened yet, in a place like this.
"... There's no way nothing's here."
"We're still at the beginning of the corridor. That might be why,"
Kanna replied to my muttered comment, drawing my gaze.
"Not many people knew about this passageway?"
"Its existence was known, more as an urban legend."
"An urban legend?"
"Yes. People had heard that there was an intact escape passage near the terraforming device. I don't know the details. This place pre-dates me."
According to Kanna, the passage's existence was known, but because the location of the terraforming facility was under such tight security, no one thought of actually searching for it. She said that if she hadn't seen Captain Edward's notebook, she'd have never known either.
"It was probably made as a contingency for possible defects in the terraforming device. There are stories of the device exploding due to minor problems caused by blue crystal waves during the early stages of terraforming."
"That doesn't sound minor at all..."
Nadia, listening quietly, muttered in disbelief. Kanna simply shrugged.
Just then—
"Creep sighted!"
A soldier watching the front shouted. We immediately went on alert. We had passed the halfway point in the corridor.
"Ghouls?"
"None visible. Only Creep for now. If Ghouls appear, is it okay if we deal with them immediately?"
Before Kanna could respond, she looked at me. Although the soldiers were survivors from Heaven and knew how to handle themselves, it felt like she was seeking my approval, so I nodded.
"As long as it's not too noisy."
"The infiltration equipment isn't that loud."
"Then fire away."
After all, we weren't just sitting here doing nothing, and if we didn't respond immediately upon detection, it could be too late—especially if the new types of Ghouls, the Crampers and Spitters, that showed up when the town fell made an appearance.
"A dangerously fast speed and a highly viscous, corrosive liquid."
It was already dangerous enough for regular Ghouls to gather, but now they had special abilities like buds on a branch. These must be newly mutated ones from their cocoons.
Mutants were constantly evolving. In order to confront them, we had to keep adapting as well.
I maintained my vigilance. The old tram continued moving steadily, in stark contrast to the tense atmosphere. As we advanced, the corridor itself began to change.
There was still a fishy stench, but its source changed—from rust, to blood, to Creep. As the function of the tracks deteriorated due to the Creep, the tram slowed more and more, even without us manually reducing speed.
The corridor was coming alive in a bad way, and the atmosphere around us solidified. More and more people swallowed dryly.
At the height of the tension—
"...!"
Sensing imminent danger, I instinctively yanked the soldier next to me. The military suit strained against the sudden force, but I overpowered him with brute strength.
With a thud, the soldier tumbled to the floor, startled, but that only lasted a moment before his face turned pale.
Chiiii!
A metal plate used as a barricade was melting in real time under a powerful corrosive fluid. High viscosity, terrifying corrosion rate. It was clearly a Spitter at work.
"Don't stick your head out. Not until I say so."
The soldiers hadn't pinned down the Spitter's location. I pulled out one of the metal spears I'd driven into the floor and hurled it toward where I sensed something off.
With the tram shaking, it wasn't easy to aim, but by throwing with all my strength, the spear flew true. Piercing through the air, it soon elicited a creature's anguished death cry.
I had pinned the Ghoul Spitter, which had been hiding behind a column with its head poking out. As its position was revealed, the soldiers' rifles lit up. As expected from soldiers—their shots formed a tight cluster.
Thud-thud-thud. The heavy gunfire struck the walls of the corridor. Fragments sprayed all over as caustic fluid gushed out below—the Spitter's acid sack had burst.
I couldn't confirm if it was truly dead, but as the tram passed the impact site and nothing else attacked us, I figured it had either been neutralized or killed in the hail of focused gunfire.
The soldier who nearly melted to death with acid got up with a look of having barely survived.
"Th-thank you."
"Don't thank me yet. This is just the beginning."
The presence of a Spitter, a type split off from the Lamprey Mother, might mean the Mother itself was near, in which case we'd just entered a Lamprey Nest.
When I'd previously encountered a Lamprey Nest, there'd been an uncountable number of Lampreys. If they recognized us and began attacking, we had to speed up the tram to minimize casualties.
"Nadia, any way to make the tram go faster? I'm fine with a rough solution."
"Uh... The Creep interfering with energy supply is the cause, so burning away the Creep would solve it... But the problem is the direction of our movement. If I fire a flamethrower forward, we'd burn ourselves up before the Creep does."
"Yeah? Then I guess there's nothing we can do."
"No, actually, I prepared—"
Nadia sounded like she had a solution, but was cut off by a warning from up ahead.
"Lampreys—!"
As the lead soldier shouted, everyone readied their rifles. Me included. I told Nadia to handle it for now and prepared for the oncoming assault.
Thump— Clang— From the ceiling and both walls, parasitic Lampreys began emerging.
「Screee!」
Their long, writhing bodies rained down from the air, snapping their hellish jaws, a sight that was nightmarish to behold.
They had a burrowing habit. If allowed to get close, they'd leap up and relentlessly target weak points.
As expected, the Lampreys that swarmed the tram quickly crawled up legs and arms, aiming for mouths, eyes, and ears. Sometimes they'd wrap around us, restricting our movements.
Even with helmets on, their targeting was pinpoint-precise—Lampreys must have had unique sensory organs.
Catching a Lamprey that had leapt at my eyes, I crushed it with my hand mid-air. Then, together with Alpha Series, I used a suppression wave emitter to blast the rest of the Lampreys off the tram.
With a booom, the suppression wave sent the Lampreys flying again. It was a shame I couldn't kill them all, but killing each one individually just wasn't realistic.
"If only we could go faster, we could shake them off."
At that moment, the slowing tram suddenly jolted and regained its speed. Glancing up, I saw Nadia giving me a thumbs-up.
I wondered how she'd done it, but now I saw—a laser cutter was affixed to the front of the tram, scraping off the Creep. Not all of it was cleared, but even that amount was enough.
With energy supply flowing again, the speed picked up. Thanks to that, the Lampreys couldn't catch up. The skirmish had been brief, but so intense that everyone let out a sigh of relief.
"If you see a Lamprey Mother, shoot its head off immediately. As you know from the data, it secretes substances that activate the Creep. If we get bogged down with it, the delay will only increase."
"Understood. By the way, how did you spot the Spitter's location?"
"That? Just... instinct?"
"... Instinct?"
"Yeah. Instinct."
"....."
Kanna looked at me, speechless. I wished I could explain in detail, too, if I had the ability. Sharing even a single piece of information could improve survival chances.
But there was no other way to describe it. Ironically, the more I fought these monsters, the more my senses did more than sharpen—the more they strengthened, perhaps even evolved.
Comparing myself now to when I ignorantly lived in the residential area, I felt at least two or three times stronger.
'Is this another side effect of the experiment?'
I clenched and unclenched my fist. Strength and heightened senses that surpassed others—I now understood that these powers were the result of the pureblood supremacist organization's research lab.
Even so, it changed nothing. It's not like I could refuse to use them now, out of unease. To stay alive, I had no choice but to further refine these abilities.
Immediately after the firefight, we had several smaller skirmishes. As we approached the end of the corridor, we truly entered the heart of the Lamprey Nest, and more variants began to appear.
Finally, the battered old tram stopped at the end of the corridor—a place barely worthy of being called a tram station. The metal plates, having served as barricades, finally gave out with a creak and a crash.
With Spitters showing up instead of a Lamprey Mother, the acid bombardment had been relentless. We had to constantly guard against even a stray droplet, which was mentally exhausting.
Nadia, whose tail fur nearly got singed off by acid, staggered as soon as she got off the tram. Carry helped steady her.
"Ugh... We haven't even entered the base yet, and it's already like this..."
"But nobody got hurt. Have a drink."
【【_】a(⩌ᴗ⩌ )】
Carry, standing in for the exhausted Nadia, took a drink. After surviving so many brushes with death, the bot could now be said to have a heart of steel—or at least, a steel circuit.
「( ≧ᗜ≦)」
Seeing Carry wear a 'Kya~!' expression, everyone let out a hollow laugh, the tension easing a little.
Still, it was not time to relax. In fact, we had to brace ourselves even harder from this point forward. After all, from here, we'd be entering Military Base Keter.
Who knew what might appear? Since it was a military base, it was highly likely we'd encounter things like Mimic-infected military power loaders or Ghoul Crampers merged with military suits, like those we saw at the refinery.
I composed myself, discarding any trace of playfulness.
"Kanna, I'll handle any particularly tricky mutants, so I'll leave navigation to you."
"Understood. Don't worry. This is our home ground. I remember every little ventilation shaft."
Kanna, full of confidence, unlocked the sealed door according to security procedures. But she froze in place. Sensing why, I glanced past her into the next room.
As expected, creep covered the ceiling, walls, and floor—thick enough to block out every ventilation shaft she'd boasted of knowing.
The Creep's configuration was very different from what we'd seen so far. It looked like it had spread more thickly, and was sticking even more viscously, as if it didn't want to fall off.
"Still your home ground?"
"... Not anymore."
Kanna let out a small sigh, saying that if even this isolated place looked like this, there was no hope for the base's interior.
It was an unfamiliar environment, but we did not hesitate to step beyond the door. Just because the situation had changed didn't mean the mission was off.
Our goal was not to recapture the base, but to seize the Albatross. Or rather, recovery sounded more accurate than seizure, since it had originally belonged to Kanna's team from Keter, not the ones who had forcibly occupied this place.
Inside, we took some time to scout for information. If we found a security robot or a bracelet left behind by a corpse, we could learn more about the situation.
However, even though everyone examined their surroundings carefully, not a single body remained—either the Creep or the Lampreys had fully devoured them, and there were no security robots present either.
Kanna's expression darkened further. She muttered in disbelief.
"There's no way the security robots could all be gone. Unless someone collected them, this doesn't make sense."
The area with the terraforming device should have been the last stand, defended by countless security robots. Kanna scraped away some of the thick Creep and uncovered evidence hidden below.
Examining marks carved into the floor, it was clear a fierce battle had taken place. There were metal components that appeared to be robot remains, but none of the cores containing valuable information were found. Exactly as Kanna suspected—all had been collected, as if on purpose.
A group of soldiers, who had temporarily left to help Celestia and Eric extract data from a console, called for Kanna in a rather urgent tone.
"Kanna! You need to see this!"
"What is it?"
"Uh... Wasn't the terraforming device around here?"
"Yeah, you remember seeing it back when we first came. Look closely, maybe it's hidden under the Creep?"
Kanna shouted back, asking how they could miss something that big, but the soldier answered in disbelief.
"You think I wouldn't notice? The device itself is gone! Completely vanished!"
Kanna and I exchanged glances, then moved toward the soldiers together without another word. Soon, we saw for ourselves what the soldier meant: the entire terraforming device had vanished.
"See? That huge thing is gone. If you look at the edges, it was ripped out in one go. By a tremendously powerful force."
"Either something large enough to swallow the entire device, or it was destroyed in battle? In any case, that means gravity in this area won't remain stable."
Kanna, examining the wall where the device had been attached, issued new instructions.
"Charlie, call Griffin and check for abnormal terrain changes in the vicinity. If gravity's been disrupted, there should be lots of new hills in the Sea of Tranquility. We might have missed something in our rush, so tell them to confirm thoroughly."
No sooner had she finished speaking than the base's broadcast echoed throughout the facility.
「Warning. Temporary gravity fluctuation detected. Maximize the mitigation devices until gravity control is restored. All personnel, please find and attach to the nearest safety ring.」
"Huh?"
Just like anti-grav had suddenly been applied to the whole area, I felt my body float up. At nearly the same time, the Creep where the terraforming device had stood was pulled upward, finally revealing a massive hole that had been hidden below.
-------------= Clacky's Corner -------------=
Carry is the heart of the novel. Change my mind.
Also, boss battle!
【(⌐■_■)-︻╦╤─】