The new soldier, the one Nero hadn't seen, was quite tall, at the same height as himself, and had long, blonde hair that had been tied up into a bun. Like Leonard, she was wielding a sword and a shield, and wearing typical synthetic armour. All in all, she fit the image of a regular, female soldier.
Yet, as Nero scanned her from head to toe, he could not help but smirk. He had seen all he needed to see. Finally, someone interesting had arrived. But he did not let his thoughts dwell on her.
Nero stood up and stretched his limbs, feeling strength return to his limbs bit by bit. His team also recovered considerably, and since they had taken this time to munch on a high calorie, energy dense snack as well as an electrolyte solution, they were as recovered as they could be without getting proper sleep and rest.
Arter took a moment to study the corpses piled in the corner of the room. Whether he recognised them or not was unknown, but he was clearly disturbed when he finally looked away.
He studied the stairs heading downwards, then the other teams.
"I take it you have not been downstairs yet," Arter said.
"Not yet," Leonard answered. "We needed to recover after our last fight. Who knows what we'll face downstairs."
Arter looked from them towards the berserkers on the ground. It was clear that they had encountered another fight, and yet they had yet to suffer a single casualty or serious injury. Compared to them, his teams seemed pathetic.
"There's three of us. How do you want to proceed?" he asked. He was clearly wary of them, since they had proven themselves to be superior fighters. Clashing against them would not be a fun experience, and yet at the same time, the mission had to be completed.
"If you want to go first, be my guest," said Nero with a warm smile. He did not mind someone else facing all the dangers first for once.
"How about we all go down together? Before the situation becomes clear, we should support each other as much as we can."
Nero's brow creased. That subtle commanding tone Arter had in his voice was gone, and Nero could guess exactly what it was that subdued him. With only one new face among his team, it was likely that all other soldiers were either dead or severely wounded. Regardless of the difficulties they faced, this reflected poorly on him as a team leader.
Perhaps, if he had a conscience, the death or maiming of his team members also weighed down on him.
"That works. In that case, until all dangers are neutralised we agree not to go for any artefacts. Agreed?" asked Nero. Subdued though he may be, that hint of caution made him less likely to betray this agreement, which suited Nero just fine.
Arter and Leonard agreed, which made life much easier.
"By the way, have you dealt with the remaining berserkers? It might not be the best idea to leave them around to attack us from the back as we go down."
After a long moment of silence, Arter answered.
"They're all dead."
Nero nodded, and turned towards Pipo. With the berserkers taken care of, it was time for him to return to his team and leave. Or they could continue the mission if they so decided, but either way, it was best if he no longer followed them.
No words were spoken, but Pipo understood. He gave Nero a deep bow, as well as an army salute, before promptly turning around to head back. Nero caught the sight of tears welling up in his eyes again, but whether he wanted to stop them or let them flow down when no one was looking was completely up to him.
With that done, they began to descend the stairs with Nero, Leonard and Arter leading the way. Nero continuously used Aether Pulse, especially since the fog was becoming especially dense as they descended, and its effectiveness was drastically reduced. In fact, by the time the stairs ended, Nero could only see about a metre ahead of him.
"Everyone, be very careful," Nero said. "Assume danger can come from any side, and always make sure to stay close to at least one other person. We don't know if the thicker fog is still harmless."
"My senses are completely blocked," squeaked Remi. "I can't sense anything beyond the reach of my hand."
Sparks flashed on the surface of Arters bare sword as he waved it through the fog.
"Has anyone noticed there's no cursed energy?" he asked, confused.
"It's probably an effect of the fog," Gabriel said. "The good news is even after I extend my sand up ahead, I don't lose my connection with it."
"I'm totally useless here," muttered the archer following Leonard.
The dense fog made everyone nervous, but ultimately they continued forward, the sounds of their steps subdued in the fog. With extremely poor visibility, they first approached a wall, and traced it until they found a sealed door.
Nero touched it, fully prepared for the door to not budge, yet it vibrated under his touch.
"Research Assistant with 100% corruption elimination mutation detected. Access granted."
The doors swished open, revealing another fog filled room. They did not enter immediately, and instead waited to see if anything attacked. The announcement and the door opening had made enough noise to alert anything inside, yet even after they waited for a few minutes nothing happened. After exchanging glances with each other, they proceeded forward.
From the very first step, Nero knew that there was something different about this room. Even for someone who had long since stopped feeling cold, he felt a chill travel down his spine. Besides just that ominous sign, the very floor was made of a different material. Even though it looked the same, the fact that their footsteps sounded different told him that something was different.
More than that, more than anything, the amount of aether flowing through this room was astonishing. Nero had never felt anything carry this much aether through it. To be specific, it wasn't that there was a lot of aether in the air, but that it was travelling through the walls, the floors, and probably everything else in this room.
It reminded him of what the berserkers were like before they transformed. The density of aether within their bodies was extreme, but even that paled in comparison to the aether here.
"There's something here," called Harold's voice from the left. Nero followed it, stepping slowly and carefully through the fog, till he approached a railing where Harold stood. Right beyond the railing was a rectangular glass box, containing a strange, red liquid as far as he could tell.
Nero stepped closer, but he still could not see if the glass box contained anything else. After making sure nothing was amiss, he slid past the railing and approached the glass box to get a better view. But, as it turned out, besides the red liquid, the glass box was empty.
"It's just some strange liquid in a glass box," he called out as he stepped back.
"There's another box here," someone called out from the opposite side of the room.
"There's more up ahead," someone else said.
Nero walked around the box to make sure there was nothing behind, but ran into a wall so he returned and decided it was probably best to stay behind the railing.
Even though the room proved to be absent of any cursed energy, so far, it did not reduce Nero's wariness. If nothing else, just the fact that he could be allowed in here to begin with was based on the fact that his ability eradicated 'corruption'.
"Wait a minute, there's something in this box!" someone called out, and everyone approached the source of the voice.
It turned out that the blonde girl had been the one to call out, and the shocked expression on her face was easily noticed by everyone. When Nero looked in the box he also froze.
There, floating within the box, was a skinny human, wearing a gas mask, suspended in the red liquid. The gentle rising and falling of his chest suggested that he was still breathing, though everyone else in the room had stopped.
"Those are the things that turned into berserkers," Nero said out loud, making sure Arter and his team knew about it. "We fought them before. At the time they looked like this, and were full of aether. But after we killed them, and came back after a while, they had turned into berserkers.
Since we didn't see the transformation, I can't say for certain that it was them, but the numbers seem to match up."
"How long has this been down here?" Arter murmured, in shock. "How are they still alive?"
"I think the better question to ask would be, how many of these things there are down here, and how can we keep them from waking up," Nero said with a grim expression.
He could not help but recall how it had been called a 'research specimen'. Had the Eldrim been… making berserkers?