Chapter 53: 4F Hidden (4) |
– Initiating fusion reaction.
The core, filled to one hundred percent with mana.
When Iska manipulated the device further, thin thread-like filaments of light began to burst from the core, weaving themselves around it.
“How on earth did you manage it?”
I answered Iska’s question.
“I have my ways.”
“…Either way, you have my thanks. It can be finished safely now.”
Iska’s expression looked somehow detached, and yet unburdened at the same time.
“You should hurry and get out. It will detonate in exactly eight minutes. The guards will be swarming this place any moment.”
[7:36]
So if I stayed hidden for seven minutes and then warped out, that meant success?
I asked Iska.
“Couldn’t people still show up and stop the explosion?”
“The reaction inside the core has already begun. Tampering with the device now won’t stop it. Don’t worry.”
“…And what about you?”
“I will stay here and watch.”
“Why? Is this the only Warp Device?”
Iska shook his head.
From the very start, it seemed, he’d had no intention of fleeing anywhere.
“There’s no reason for you to concern yourself with me. I, too, am a Workshop researcher who has run countless experiments and killed countless people. Be on your way. Thank you.”
Iska pressed a button and opened the laboratory door.
I started to step out, then turned back to look at him.
The clear was probably over either way, but I was still curious about his reason.
“So in the end, what’s the reason you’re doing all this? It’s the last chance. Indulge me.”
Iska glanced at me, then turned his eyes back to the core and spoke.
“Have you ever raised a dog?”
“…? No.”
“Neither have I.”
The hell is he talking about.
“I have devoted my entire life to Mana Core research. In the process, I conducted many experiments, and many people died.”
“…”
“The reactions of the test subjects brought here are generally the same. At first, fear or hostility. But as the experiments repeat, their emotions wear down and they become like dolls. And once they have outlived their usefulness, they are disposed of.”
Iska continued in a flat, dry voice.
“One day, another subject was brought in. A small child, a war orphan from what are now the ruined southern lands. When they were first brought in, they were trembling, but once I showed them a little kindness, they started smiling brightly. I only did it because the experiments we were about to run required the subject’s cooperation.
The experiments went on for quite some time. The research progressed smoothly, and during that time the child grew rather attached to me. When they behaved, I would pat them on the head, give them a reward… I imagine raising a dog must feel something like that. Yes. Just like keeping a pet dog.
But as the experiments neared their end, that child too was slated for disposal. That’s what happens to every subject once they’ve served their purpose. I petitioned my superiors for different treatment, citing various reasons. But my petition was not accepted.
In the end, the child was disposed of, and the research continued afterward to yield brilliant results. Those achievements made me senior researcher, and much time passed until, at last, I created this core.
I’ve been promised a count’s title personally sanctioned by the Emperor, and every manner of wealth and honor. If I wished, I could even found my own Workshop. But one day, I simply grew tired of all of it.”
Iska turned his gaze and looked at me.
“That is all. There is no other reason.”
After hearing out the rather absurd ending of his story, I asked,
“So basically… you’re taking revenge on the Workshop because a test subject you were close to died?”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. Even now, having come this far, I still don’t quite know.”
Iska trailed off, murmured, then spoke again.
“Does it sound absurd? Doing all this over a single dog.”
I shook my head.
Iska kept going on about dogs, and it suddenly brought a certain movie to mind.
“Someone I know of wiped out his entire organization over a single dog. A killer… an assassin.”
Iska let out a short, dry laugh.
“…An assassin? A bigger madman than me, then.”
“Yeah. Though it wasn’t just any dog. It was one his late wife had given him. To that assassin, the dog was basically family.”
“…”
“Maybe it was the same for you. And why do you keep using a dog as the comparison? You could just say the kid mattered to you.”
Iska’s eyes widened.
[2:37]
I checked the time left on the Warp Device and headed for the door.
“I’ll be on my way, then.”
Iska’s voice came from behind me.
“Make it out safely.”
When I looked back, his expression seemed a little more at peace than it had a moment ago.
I nodded and stepped out of the laboratory.
The moment I was out, Iska closed the laboratory door behind me.
Two of the Golems that had emerged earlier were standing at the laboratory entrance like sentries on guard.
I could feel footsteps closing in, so I activated Concealment.
Soon the guard squad appeared at the far end of the corridor.
I pressed myself to the corridor wall so I wouldn’t collide with them as they came sprinting past.
[1:16]
About a minute left.
Stay hidden until then, warp outside the Workshop, and I’m done.
Come to think of it, what was the 4F reward going to be?
Don’t tell me it’s this Warp Device?
The guards began clashing with the Golems at the laboratory door, and the corridor grew chaotic.
Paying it no mind, I pressed on down the long, long corridor. Scattered fragments of smashed Golems lay strewn here and there.
But then…
‘…!’
The instant I spotted someone else rushing toward me from the opposite direction, I stopped time.
A woman in a platinum-colored suit. The Workshop Master’s bodyguard.
…Ma’am, what are you doing here? Where did you pawn off the Workshop Master?
Did she come because of the emergency?
‘Ah, shit, of all the…’
She was dangerous.
If I entered her range, she’d pick up on my Concealment for sure.
The problem was that this was a narrow, straight corridor.
Thinking back to when I was near the Workshop Master earlier… the range at which the bodyguard would detect my Concealment was about twenty meters?
Not a distance I could avoid just by stepping to the side.
Sideways or up, there was no way to open a twenty-meter gap.
Turning back wasn’t an option either. The laboratory was a dead end, and the guards were right behind me fighting the Golems.
A little over a minute until the Warp Device activated.
‘I just have to hold out for a minute, but the timing…’
I shouldn’t have wasted time talking to Iska. I should have gotten out of here earlier.
I deeply regretted it, but there was no undoing what was already done.
…Should I try to jump past her as fast as I possibly can?
If it’s only for a split second, maybe she won’t notice.
Or she might just be uncertain and let it pass.
‘Alright.’
There was no other option anyway.
I released time.
The bodyguard closed in and I ran toward her to meet her.
Timing it carefully, I sprang up.
Tracing an arc so high my head almost brushed the ceiling, I leaped over the bodyguard’s head.
…Did she catch me? Did she not?
The bodyguard is still running forward.
Thinking I’d gotten away with it, I was just about to land, when,
Sixth Sense’s alarm.
I whipped around. And stopped time.
Somehow the bodyguard had already drawn her sword, and a blue Sword Aura was hurtling toward me at terrifying speed.
Ah, fuck… she caught me.
My body was still in the air.
If I waited for my feet to hit the floor before dodging, I’d be far too late. There was only one option.
I finished Mental Concentration and Teleported to the maximum diagonal distance backward.
Kwaaaaa!
An enormous Sword Aura sliced right through the middle of the corridor.
I’d dodged the Sword Aura, but using the skill had broken my Concealment. Not that it mattered, she’d already seen through it.
I immediately stopped time again.
Finished Mental Concentration, cast Flame Strike.
The instant a fireball bloomed in midair, I stopped time again, concentrated, and cast Fairy Light Bullet.
And like that I unloaded everything I had, Flame Strike, Fairy Light Bullet, Frost Shot, every spell in my arsenal, all at once, straight at the bodyguard.
Kwaaaaang!
A cramped corridor.
With no space on either side, her escape options were limited.
The bodyguard’s body shot high into the air out of the smoke. And that was exactly what I was aiming for.
So you attack people while they’re in the air? Rude.
Now it’s your turn.
At the airborne bodyguard, I unleashed a fully charged 729x Destruction Ray.
No matter how strong she was, there was no way she could eat this and live.
A pitch-black beam engulfed her and tore right through the ceiling.
“…”
Well, I guess if it misses, it misses.
The bodyguard landed on the floor.
One of her arms was gone. Blood poured from the severed stump in thick rivulets.
Here’s what had happened. The instant the Destruction Ray shot toward her, she planted her foot on empty air and twisted her body.
She couldn’t dodge it completely, so she’d lost an arm, but she’d avoided a direct hit.
Seriously… pulling out Air Walk is just cheating.
The fact that she reacted in time to dodge an instant-fire beam was proof enough that she was a monster.
Even reduced to one arm, her expression didn’t change one bit. The blood dripping from her stump soon stopped as well.
“…You are human, right?”
She was so calm I asked, just in case.
The joke didn’t land.
I instantly activated Skin Hardening, unfurled a Scorching Zone across the corridor, turned my back, and ran.
I was hoping she’d give up on me and head for Iska’s laboratory instead.
Kwaaaaa!
Maybe that was too much to hope for, after I’d already chopped her arm off.
I threw myself aside just barely in time to dodge another incoming Sword Aura.
Wrapped in some magnetic-field-like barrier, the bodyguard tore straight through the Scorching Zone and came after me like a woman possessed.
She was unnervingly fast.
In desperation, I pulled out an Ice Dagger and used it.
A wave of frost blanketed the straight passage.
It apparently held her up for a moment; her pursuit stopped.
I used Leap to clear the long staircase in a single bound and hurled myself at the door.
Once I’d burst out onto the ground floor, I did a roll across the floor and looked behind me.
The instant I turned, I stopped time.
Because somehow the bodyguard was already right in front of me. Her sword mid-swing, trailing a vivid blue Sword Aura.
The gap in physical ability was overwhelming.
Fighting her up close would be insane.
I’d activated Skin Hardening, but it didn’t feel like it would stop a single attack from this monster.
[0:31]
The Warp Device in my hand had about thirty seconds left.
Teleportation was still on cooldown, and I couldn’t summon Plli either.
Could I really dodge her attacks and hold out that long?
I wasn’t exactly confident.
If my life was truly in danger, I could always trigger Emergency Exit, but…
‘Ah!’
It suddenly hit me, the Shop.
Points held: 500P
Five hundred points, left over after the 5-pull.
That was enough to use Force Field ten times.
But could Force Field even be used here?
Only one way to find out.
[‘Force Field (50P)’ has been purchased.]
The moment I released time, I deployed a Force Field between me and the charging bodyguard.
“…!”
The bodyguard slammed into the Force Field that had appeared out of nowhere.
I didn’t waste the split second it bought me, and bolted.
‘It works!’
Maybe I could actually hold out thirty seconds with this.
The description said slow and stop effects only applied to Golems, so those wouldn’t work on her.
But the Force Field alone was enough.
I fired Fairy Light Bullets backward again and sprinted, planning to open up more than twenty meters so I could go back into Concealment.
I smashed through a corridor window and escaped outside.
The bodyguard caught up in no time, and I used Force Field again.
This time the bodyguard swung her sword.
A Sword Aura cleaved the Force Field in two and came flying at me.
I used Leap to hurl my body out of the way.
Stalling the bodyguard’s movements in brief flashes with Force Field, I ran for my life.
The bodyguard was damnably persistent.
All I needed was to open the gap and get back into Concealment, but she kept forcing her way after me, refusing to give up.
The instant Flame Strike came off cooldown, I scattered them in every direction.
I hit the bodyguard with another Force Field as she burst out of the smoke, then sprinted toward the outer edge of the Workshop.
[0:05]
The sky-floating Workshop ended in a sheer cliff.
I leaped out into the empty air.
Then I cast Force Field, used it as a foothold, and leaped one more time with the Leap skill.
An enormous Sword Aura came chasing after me.
But Teleportation had already come off cooldown, and I flicked out of the way.
[0:05]
Only five seconds left.
With Concealment active again, I plummeted downward.
Whew. That was close, but it’s my win.
All I had to do was keep falling until the warp activated.
When I twisted around to look at the bodyguard standing at the cliff’s edge…
“…Oh.”
She was preparing yet another attack.
The bodyguard was stabbing her sword out in rapid succession, her arm moving so fast it blurred into nothing.
Sharp Sword Auras rained down on me as I fell, like machine-gun fire.
I stopped time.
With Concealment up, even the bodyguard couldn’t pinpoint my exact location, so the attacks were coming down indiscriminately.
But with rotten luck, one of those Sword Auras was flying on a direct course for me.
…What do I do?
I couldn’t dodge it completely.
If I twisted my body, maybe I could get away with just losing an arm.
Fine. I’ll give up an arm.
Any injuries would be fully healed once the clear was complete anyway. And I even had Rapid Regeneration.
Might as well take this chance and test whether Rapid Regeneration could regrow a severed limb.
I’d used the 27x-amplified version before, but I didn’t actually know what the baseline effect was like.
After fully restoring my spent Willpower, I released time and twisted my body.
Chwaaak!
“…!”
Skin Hardening was, predictably, useless against that monster’s attack.
My left arm flew off right before my eyes.
Blood sprayed everywhere and a wave of agony crashed into me.
It hurts! It fucking hurts, but…
I can still take it!
Compared to the pain of my whole body being seared in flames, this was a walk in the park. Guess experience really does count for something.
Clenching my teeth, I immediately used Rapid Regeneration.
And I checked the Warp Device’s remaining time.
[0:01]
When time ran out, the space in front of me warped and twisted.
When the distortion snapped back to normal, I was suddenly on the ground.
“Ngh.”
I pushed myself up from where I’d fallen and looked down at my arm.
My severed left arm was surging back rapidly, bubbling up as if boiling.
Soon I was flexing a fully regrown left hand, opening and closing it a few times.
“Regenerates just fine.”
Rapid Regeneration can regrow severed limbs. New knowledge acquired.
Kuuuuuuuuu…!
Just then, a distant explosion rumbled through the air.
When I looked toward the far horizon, a massive blast was unfolding in the sky.
I realized that had been the Workshop I’d been in only moments ago.
Whew… that was rough.
As I stood there gazing blankly at the explosion, a message appeared.
[Nightmare difficulty Floor 4 hidden clear successful.]
[Absorbing the Power of the Floor completely.]
[Your level has risen.]
[Your level has risen.]
[Your level has risen.]
[Your level has risen.]
[Your level has risen.]
[Moving to the Reward Room.]
Read more chapters on my Patreon: https://patreon.com/DDTL