Chapter 195

Agent Name Westcreek.
When it comes to strong combatants in the Cellbrox Labs, his name is one of the most important. His skills are among the best among elite agents, especially when it comes to melee combat.
Even on a continent-wide scale, they are clearly a powerhouse. Combatants who can slice through stone walls with a dull iron sword, run faster than a horse, and react to gunfire are not uncommon.
But now he was realizing.
How much of a frog in the well you were.
‘What movement is….’
The ghost’s movements were peculiar. Like a mollusk, he flounders and slithers his way out of situations that common sense would say are inevitable. No matter how much you swing your sword, it’s hard to cut through its flesh.
On the other hand, when it comes to switching to offense, it’s relentless.
Poof!
A straight, swift lunge that looks nothing like a dodge. Kim caught it at the perfect time. If he hadn’t been assisted, the initiative would have been taken.
Westcreek was impressed.
“It’s been about four years since then.
The messiness of my first encounter is nowhere to be seen.
Kim is already a fully fledged operative: he can be an excellent spy, a commander, a fighter, and a shooter at times.
There’s no one better to act with.
Drrrrr!
At some point, Kim grabbed a submachine gun and opened fire on the goons.
It strikes the sword face at an angle, sending bullets flying in all directions. He then accelerates sharply to the right, his muzzle spinning as he pursues his target. After emptying the magazine, Kim lets out a wry laugh.
“There’s all that crap.”
I was hoping to get a shot or two in, but I missed. If it had been darker, I might have lost sight of it altogether. It’s no exaggeration to say it was an extreme physicality.
However, there was a small harvest.
The hood of the killer’s hood is pulled down. Peach-colored hair cascades down his back in waves, and the cold walls of the room, a stark contrast to the warmth of his hair, stare back at the search team.
As expected, it was a familiar face.
Not just for Kim, but for Carmen.
“Oh, Irene?”
“Ms. Carmen. Are you an acquaintance?”
“I’m not so much an acquaintance as a guest who came before you….”
I didn’t even get a chance to talk to him.
Boom!
I made a few overzealous moves that would normally have caused me to pull a muscle, but it didn’t kill my momentum. In fact, it became even more ferocious. With each parry, the shield bends into a grotesque shape.
At the same time, Kim was adjusting.
“I’m not as overwhelmed as I thought I was.
Its evasion is bizarre, but its attack is simple. It simply lunges at you in a straight line. Given the difference in skill, this is more than enough to survive.
“Irene, stop, what are you doing!”
Carmen’s jibe went unanswered, and for good reason. I don’t know how she got here, but she’s the kind of person who shouldn’t have access to the rift.
6-Star Agent Irene.
Current Albatross leader.
A character who doesn’t appear until the final chapter, she has a troublesome quirk. Exposure to contamination does not cause her to mutate, but instead causes her to go into a state of Chapter.
In the game, you’re dishonorably dismissed from your position as captain because of your misbehavior in the Rift. You join the lab because you have nowhere else to go. The setting is a setting, and you’re treated like you’re not good enough.
Aside from the unfortunate handling, the performance is solid.
“If I leave it there, it’s going to wipe itself out.
Increases her already high stats by double. A solo operative similar to Ast. However, his destructive power in the game is unremarkable due to his lack of equipment.
It doesn’t seem necessary to kill it to subdue it.
“Ha, that’s a little selfish, but he’s not usually like that….”
“Forget it, he doesn’t want to talk, so what can I do?”
Kim crafted a new shield for Asterique and handed it to her.
“Asterike, you’re in, too. Just don’t spell it out.”
“I’ll cover you, too, Mr. Hyun.”
“Do me a favor. I can’t afford to be stuck for too long.”
And disarmed himself.
“Let’s beat them first.”
I waited to write it down with my bare hands.
At this point, Irene is almost an animal. Her attention is naturally drawn to Asterike and Westcreek, who charge in with shields and swords, respectively.
Leading the Albatross, Irene’s body is perfected as a warrior. Even Pecatum can’t match her. If this were a game, it would be decided purely on the strength of her stats.
That’s only true in games.
Asterique had also witnessed several previous battles, which gave him a good idea of his opponent’s skill. He realized that it was better to focus on defense than to attack clumsily.
“Ugh!”
Asterike is thrown back as if hit by a chariot. Next, Westcreek thrusts his sword. Irene kicks Westcreek’s ankle, deflecting the blade’s trajectory.
Fazik!
A bolt of lightning shot from the rear. Irene reacted in time this time. With a light leap, she dodged the blast and was just about to finish off Asterique when her stance collapsed.
Kim popped out from behind a tree.
From nothing, a gunlance was formed.
Pfft!
Swung like a baseball bat, the gunlance slammed into Irene. Kim felt a few bones snap in her hand. Irene rolled a few laps before falling to the ground.
“Ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh….”
His body shakes and he collapses in a heap. It was a hollow ending for the leader of the Albatross and a high-performance character. Kim snorted at the complete knockdown.
“That’s it. We’ll just have to tie it up tight and put it in the car.”
“…though from the looks of it, he’s been seriously injured.”
“Not enough to kill you.”
There was no apology, no apology at all.
“Don’t be soft. We’re the ones who should be angry.”
“It’s what the strings say. Ugh, my wrist is tingling.”
“Carmen, so who is this woman?”
I purposely asked about things I already knew.
“Her name is Irene Scharden. She’s the head of the Albatross.”
“Albatross’s…? But why us?”
Leila was perplexed. Her relationship with the albatross has been strained since her time in Howland, but it’s manageable. I don’t think he’d be so mean as to stab her on sight.
“We’ll ask why later.”
Kim had other intentions.
“You’re a bigger man than I thought.”
I’m going to get my money’s worth.
* * *
An unexpected battle, but there’s no going back.
With Irene captured and locked in the trunk, we resumed our exploration.
The reason for the forest’s silence was quickly realized.
“It’s like a field of corpses.”
Westcreek said in a half-hearted voice. He wasn’t exaggerating or anything. The corpses of monsters and parasites were strewn everywhere. Each one had been slashed and impaled somewhere.
The number of predictions was around fifty.
“How did you manage to do this many all by yourself?”
“He seemed to have the skills, if not the personality.”
Asterike grunted at Leila’s admiring reaction. The fact that she had been outclassed had struck a blow to her pride. It was a far cry from the days when her confidence was at an all-time low.
But it wasn’t time to dwell on the past.
“Irene, you’re Irene, but what the heck is this…….”
Carmen frowned, looking at the particles suspended in the air.
“I had no idea. I didn’t realize there was a place like this in Bastitera.”
“The contamination index has already exceeded 400p, and it’s not even going to be accurate from here on out. What would have happened if we hadn’t found it today and let another year, or even half a year, go by?”
“It’s horrifying to think about.”
It’s their home, so they have to be more sensitive to it. In fact, cracks are a huge threat to human society. They pose a danger far worse than any catastrophe.
The search team entered the center of the anomaly.
There was no need to worry about getting lost. The flow of microscopic particles was enough to tell us where we were. The further we went, the more bloody it got, and one by one we found not only bodies but other objects as well.
The egg. A Parasite egg stretched its spines around, absorbing nourishment. It was much smaller than the eggs on the verge of hatching that I had seen in Harenhal, but it had the same ominous quality.
Chapter.
“Be careful not to spread the fire.”
“Don’t worry, it’s totally fine.”
The egg was burned to a crisp by Asterike. The sound of the mucous membrane burning sounded like the scream of a parasite. I took it step by step, clearing the immediate area.
Soon after, I admitted to “it” for the first time.
“String. Do you see it?”
“Yes.”
A scratch is carved into the void like broken glass. In the center of the crack is a tiny hole. Particles leak out of a world of all-natural colors that is both fascinating and disturbing.
“What is that…?”
Asterike took an involuntary step backward. An instinctive revulsion arose in her, just as it did with the blue liquid that ubiquitous on the continent, elixir. Carmen and Westcreek’s muscles tensed as well.
Only two were different.
First, Kim is not a resident of Polaris, so he is not repulsed by otherworldly substances or phenomena, and he knows what they are.
“Erosion.
Contact with the otherworld itself has existed since time immemorial.
In 2000, the death of a paracite being studied at Cellbrox Labs accelerated the erosion. Thus began a series of catastrophic events.
And with the death of the parasitized Markus Dressner, the so-called “barrier” collapsed from within. The pollution that spread across the continent was a process, not a result, of the cataclysm.
In these particularly unstable places, cracks become visible.
In other words, something that didn’t exist in the first place didn’t just appear out of thin air. What was present but invisible has been revealed. Here, Polaris is being eroded and integrated into the otherworld.
Left unchecked, the rift will slowly widen and swallow the continent. The sky will turn to the colors of the otherworld peeking through the cracks, and parasites will cover the land, leaving it uninhabitable.
Of course, this is just a possibility.
It’s a future that’s not even in the game.
Because we have a ‘device’ ready to stop the apocalypse.
Jumbuck.
“Leila?”
As if mesmerized by something, Leila began to walk toward the rift, Kim blocking Westcreek’s attempts to stop her.
“Just leave it alone.”
“What? Leave it alone, what.”
I don’t have time to explain it all. This place is dangerous, even for spellcasters. Crystals are growing on the back of Westcreek’s hand. When he returns, he will suffer the effects for some time.
Leila reached into the crack.
-Passed!
The sparks emitted raged wildly. Blue electricity seeps through the cracks in the void. The escaping particles coalesce and are sucked into Leila’s body.
The more particles it absorbed, the stronger the current.
The sky howls. A bright blue light pushes back the shadows in the forest.
The others watched Leila in silence.
Some with concern, some with calm.
It’s been a long time coming.
Parses.
The light subsided with a final spark, like a residual fire. Leila’s shoulders heaved as she tried to catch her breath. Kim walked over to her and cradled her shaking body.
And I was able to witness
“Success.
The hole had been filled in. Not a scratch anywhere, not a particle floating about. It was a normal forest scene, except for the corpses of the Parasites.
I checked the instrumentation.
The contamination level was hovering around 200p.