Had our experience at the First Guard Post helped?
Although this opponent had turned the skin of a pregnant woman inside out and worn it, we were able to subdue it without much difficulty.
“…Damn it.”
“Lord……”
But we were given no leisure to rejoice in our victory.
Each of us stared at the half-peeled skin of the pregnant woman, and at the mimic beasts writhing after being rendered helpless.
“……”
The mimic beast was a kind of colony. In other words, inside the pregnant woman’s skin, countless tiny mimic beasts had been moving while tangled together.
How ironic.
That mere newborn babies had worn their own mother’s skin and pretended to be her.
It was not exactly a pleasant sight, so we looked away.
‘If I could handle holy power better……’
Could I have saved these children, even if only after death?
A bottomless, pointless regret surged over me.
As I looked at the children who had been born human only moments ago, only to metamorphose into monsters.
“…Yes. You surely will be able to. So, do so.”
Suddenly, someone spoke to me.
It was Kim Jihu. He had turned his eyes away, as though he could not bear to look upon this tragedy, but even so, he spoke with strength.
“If you pity them and love them, then do so. Hone the power the Lord has bestowed upon you, and save those children.”
“…If I can.”
“If you hold that resolve in your heart, it will come to pass as you will it.”
At those words, I looked at the writhing mimic beasts.
…Ha. I don’t think many things in my life have ever gone the way I wanted.
I woke up to find my body in this state, and that boar-like little sister of mine got dropped into this living hell……
Well, I did get exempted from military service. At least right now, I’m technically a civilian.
Though that barely makes me any different from a soldier.
For some reason my mouth felt bitter and dry, so I smacked my lips for no reason.
*
“…For now, according to the testimonies of the soldiers who came before us, there isn’t much we can do on the first floor.”
Captain Kim said quietly.
As he said, the first floor was nothing but deserted.
Of course, there were likely still several mimic beasts remaining, but none of them were on any great level.
So there was only one thing we had to do.
“Therefore, we must find a way to enter the second floor.”
Of course, the process would not be smooth.
The inside of the building had been jumbled together, twisted in defiance of even the laws of physics.
In a situation like this, there was no way the stairs would be intact, so we had to find a route that would let us go up.
“When the soldiers previously came here, they discovered two methods. One was to go up using the emergency staircase on the building’s outer wall. The second was to find an open ceiling and climb through it.”
Of course, whether those methods would still work was unknown.
Because this damned building supposedly changed its structure every time, as though it were alive. There was no way the old methods would have remained intact.
“First, let’s compile the information about the first floor that each of you can perceive with your own senses. Even the slightest sense of incongruity is fine.”
As Captain Kim said, we decided to first organize the current situation and information on the first floor.
It wasn’t as though we could just take a sledgehammer to the ceiling and try to break through at random.
We began searching the area around the lobby in our own ways.
The first to speak was the old Owlbear.
“The space beyond the walls is not consistent. In some places, I hear the echo of an empty open area, but from the wall right beside it, the sound is muffled as though submerged underwater. It seems the space itself has been mixed together in a jumble.”
“The smells are strange too.”
Min Aji sniffed and added to the old man’s words.
“The smell of blood and disinfectant are mixed together and stinging my nose…… The source of the smell feels like it’s coming from every direction. But the place where it’s thickest is definitely above us.”
Seo Doyun, who had gone out to physically search, returned from the emergency stairs in the corner of the lobby, bending his massive frame.
“The stairs have completely collapsed. No, rather than collapsed, it would be more accurate to say the space itself has been crushed and blocked off. The walls and stairs are stuck together like clay. We can’t go up this way.”
“The emergency door leading to the outer wall was likewise fused shut.”
Kim Jihu reported, pointing to the opposite side.
The more information was gathered, the clearer the conclusion became.
In this obstetrics building within the blackout zone, where the normal laws of physics did not apply, every ordinary passage that could take us to the second floor had been blocked.
“Then there is only one method left. Like the previous unit members, we either find an open ceiling, or we directly……”
Just as Captain Kim looked up at the ceiling and was about to give the next order—
Ding.
While we were combing through the first-floor lobby and gathering information.
A sound far too clear and ordinary split through the thick darkness and silence.
“……!”
In that instant, our movements, gathered as though in a briefing, came to a stop as if it were a lie.
The old Owlbear immediately raised his shield, and the muzzle of Seo Doyun’s K3 machine gun turned toward the direction of the sound.
I also reflexively drew the Glock at my waist.
The source of the sound was the elevator located deeper inside the center of the lobby.
‘…An elevator?’
A chill ran sharply down my spine.
This was a blackout zone.
A bizarre, otherworldly space where the external power supply had been completely cut off, and even the generators inside had no reason to be functioning normally.
And yet, on the upper display of the elevator in this building where all power should have been cut, a pale-blue LED light had come on.
[1]
The mechanical chime announced that the elevator, descending from an upper floor, had arrived on the first floor.
And then, in the heavy silence, came the sound of machinery engaging.
Srrrrk.
Like a beast opening its maw, the heavy steel doors slid open to either side, revealing the darkness within.
“…An elevator?”
Someone muttered that.
Contained in that voice was the absurdity and shock we were all feeling.
Srrrrk.
The inside of the fully opened elevator was empty.
It was a bed elevator of the kind commonly used in hospitals, wide enough for a patient bed to fit inside.
“It’s a trap.”
Captain Kim said in a low, firm voice, pistol in hand.
“A mechanical device functioning normally in a blackout zone where all power has been cut off. It’s obvious they intend to lure us in.”
“I agree. We’re not stupid enough to walk into a place that’s so blatantly saying, Please get on.”
The orc man, Seo Doyun, snorted as he adjusted his grip on the K3 machine gun.
By tacit agreement, we turned our backs on the elevator and scattered once more through the first-floor lobby.
If it was so obviously a trap, then we had no choice but to forcibly create a way around it.
“Step aside. I’ll try breaking through the ceiling.”
The old Owlbear gripped the heavy sledgehammer tightly with both hands.
Toward the ceiling in the center of the lobby, which seemed like it might connect to the second floor, he swung the sledgehammer upward with monstrous strength approaching one ton of muscle power.
Kwaang!
A tremendous roar shook the lobby. If it had been ordinary concrete, that blow should have smashed it apart at once and opened a large hole, but……
“…Damn.”
A frustrated sigh escaped the old man’s mouth.
The ceiling struck directly by the sledgehammer did not break. Instead, like living rubber, it caved in deeply, then violently bounced the sledgehammer back.
On top of that, the wall around the impacted area writhed grotesquely, and red lines like blood vessels sprouted across it, repairing the wound in an instant.
“…It seems we can’t break through with physical blows.”
The old man shook his head as he shook out his numbed wrist.
“The stairs are the same.”
The orc man spat a curse after mercilessly smashing the wall of the crushed emergency stairwell with the butt of his machine gun.
We were blocked on every side.
Every normal—or even abnormal—physical passage leading upward was being rejected by the bizarre spatial laws of this place.
“Ms. Min Aji, are there no other gaps or air currents?”
At Captain Kim’s desperate question, Min Aji sniffed and pointed toward the elevator.
“The air coming down from upstairs, the smell of blood, and that alien energy…… It’s all flowing out only from inside that elevator. Everywhere else is sealed so tight it’s suffocating.”
At those words, a heavy silence settled over the lobby once again.
Everyone’s gaze turned toward the pale-blue interior of the elevator, blinking as if mocking us with its maw wide open.
‘…Fuck, are you kidding me?’
I swallowed the profanity inwardly.
It felt like I had become the protagonist of some third-rate horror game.
“…Do you think there is another way?”
No one could easily answer those words.
Everyone here had half realized it. This damned space was guiding us to take the elevator up.
The building built by human hands was no longer something that belonged solely to humans.
After a short moment of deliberation, we ultimately decided.
“…Let’s get on.”
In this linear building, the only thing we could do was go straight ahead.