Oh boy, how thoughtful of them.
Even at a glance, it was obvious.
It meant we were being given two options.
"...It seems we can go straight to the 4th floor."
It meant we could skip the 3rd floor without bothering to check it.
Considering the mimic beasts we'd have to clear out there, it wasn't a bad offer.
We'd already used so many grenades on the 3rd floor that our supplies were running dangerously low, after all.
"...There's no need to dwell on it."
This was nothing but a gain for us.
Because I'd rather not keep fighting those immortal monsters.
"Then, we'll proceed straight to the 4th floor. If anyone has objections, please speak now."
Of course, no answer came.
We silently filed into the elevator.
I approached the panel and pressed the [4] button, illuminated in blood-red.
Srrrrk-.
The heavy iron doors closed, and we were trapped once more in the narrow, musty sealed space.
With a lurch and a vibration, the elevator began to climb.
It was excruciatingly slow this time, too. So slow I could barely tell if we were moving upward.
A suffocating silence hung inside the cabin.
I stole a sidelong glance at Captain Kim.
He was fiddling with his firearm, his mouth shut tight.
The devastation of having to shoot a monster wearing his wife's face with his own hands, and of having to turn away from it himself, must not have faded yet.
Then, a massive shadow gently blocked his view.
It was Sir Owlbear.
Without a hint of smugness or a single word of comfort, he simply stood before Captain Kim with his broad back and silently gripped his shield toward the elevator doors.
As if erecting an invisible barrier so that Captain Kim could gather his shattered emotions and hide his expression, if only for a moment.
The orc gentleman hesitated briefly, then forced out some words.
"...Everything will turn out fine."
"...You think so?"
"Yes. Among everyone gathered here, how many haven't braced themselves for something similar?"
He was right.
How many deaths had we already witnessed in this place?
Believing that family could still be alive in a terrible hellhole like this—ha. It really couldn't be easy.
But there was one reason we hadn't gone mad with vengeance and despair.
Hope.
"...Don't worry."
I spoke.
"...Whoever's here, we'll find everyone's families."
Because hope still remained for us.
In this hellish place, a strange camaraderie was forming among us.
Screech-.
It was around the time the elevator passed the 3rd floor.
"Hup......"
Min Aji hastily covered her nose and mouth with both hands.
What rushed in through the elevator's narrow gaps was the smell of blood, pouring down like a waterfall she had warned us about in the 2nd-floor corridor earlier.
The stench was so foul that it assailed even those of us without a particularly keen sense of smell.
If only it had been just the smell, how fortunate that would have been.
Beyond the iron doors came the sounds of heavy chunks of flesh dragging and crawling across the floor, and wet, grotesque popping noises reverberated through the elevator shaft.
'...Maybe it's a good thing we aren't going to the 3rd floor.'
I couldn't even begin to imagine what was happening down there.
At least the 2nd floor, while grotesque thanks to the human-imitating mimics, hadn't been such a complete bloodbath....
While everyone was appalled, Captain Kim spoke.
"...The 3rd floor is mainly a cluster of delivery rooms and operating rooms."
...A place where new life was born.
Now, that place had become a cradle of monsters existing in pitch-black darkness.
We all felt inward relief that we wouldn't have to go there.
We held our breath, waiting for the panel's number to change to [4].
And finally.
Ding-.
With a cheerful yet spine-chilling mechanical chime, the elevator came to a halt.
"...Be careful. Something's crawling around up ahead."
At Sir Owlbear's words, we each tightened our grips on our weapons.
It seemed they had no intention of letting us pass as easily as they had on the 2nd floor.
"...All hands, combat ready."
We each tightened our grips on our weapons.
This time, monsters might come pouring out the moment we started.
Srrrrk-.
Before the door had even opened halfway.
"Kieeeeeek-!"
"Kyaaaaaaah-!!"
A bizarre cacophony that seemed to tear through our eardrums—a mixture of a newborn's wail and a beast's shriek—poured in.
At the same time, blood-red chunks of flesh surged through the narrow door gap like a bursting dam.
They were small mimic beasts.
One was half-draped in the flayed skin of an underdeveloped newborn; another moved on all fours with nothing but grotesquely twisted bone and muscle, lacking even skin.
Dozens of the small creatures swarmed into the elevator like insects, crawling across the ceiling, floor, and walls.
"We have to keep them from getting in!"
Along with Captain Kim's near-scream, Sir Owlbear let out a beastly roar and slammed his massive shield into the front line with a BANG!
Thwack-! Squelch!
A few small mimic beasts struck by the shield were instantly pulverized and burst apart, but the ones surging behind trampled over their own kin's corpses and thrust tiny bio-blades toward us.
"...Son of a bitch!"
Ratatatatat-!
The orc gentleman Seo Doyun's K3 machine gun spat fire.
His burly arm muscles trembled as he suppressed the machine gun's recoil, and in an instant, the narrow elevator entrance was filled with the smell of gunpowder and a haze of blood.
Shredded meat fragments flew in all directions from the bullets.
Being small specimens, their toughness was weak, but the problem was their overwhelming numbers.
"Below! They're digging under our legs!"
Min Aji used her leg strength to kick away the heads of two crawling in from below.
Yu Inha, surprisingly, used his tail to push the small mimic beasts back.
"I can't see an end to them!"
Shredded meat fragments flew in all directions from the bullets.
Being small specimens, their toughness was weak, but the problem was their overwhelming numbers.
No matter how tremendous the orc gentleman's firepower or how sturdy Sir Owlbear's shield was, the creatures trampled over their kin's corpses and finally began burrowing into blind spots.
"Kuh, watch above!"
Three or four small mimic beasts that had circled around via the ceiling and walls leaped into the elevator.
Their targets were Kim Jihoo and me, who had been spacing out behind the front line.
"Look out!"
Yu Inha shouted urgently, but he had no room to retract his tail while holding back the swarm ahead.
In the instant their grotesque maws and small but sharp bio-blades surged right before my nose.
I calmly drew the Glock from my waist.
My mind was eerily calm. The Halo above my head glowed faintly, and I felt as if the trajectories of the charging creatures were drawn before me like slow-moving dotted lines.
Bam-! Bam! Bam-!
Three consecutive, sharp gunshots tore through the cramped elevator.
"Kiek......!"
9mm rounds embedded precisely between the eyebrows and into the gaping maws of the creatures mid-flight.
They lost all momentum in mid-air and crashed to the floor before reaching me. A perfect, clean shot without a single round wasted.
"...Nice shot!"
The orc gentleman exclaimed briefly, ejecting a stream of casings.
I kicked aside their remains and silently re-gripped my Glock.
'...How did I do that?'
I surprised even myself.
Honestly, could anyone achieve this even with proper firearms training?
Hitting a single shot in such a dire situation would normally be a struggle.
Confidence in my ability suddenly welled up.
But this was no time to relax. The wave of creatures pressing through the door was still relentless.
Now it was my turn to bolster the front line.
Bam-! Bam! Bam!
I pulled the trigger calmly, driving rounds into the blind spots of Sir Owlbear and the orc gentleman fighting up front.
"Ha, nice! Feels like you're shooting better than me!"
Thanks to the Halo glowing faintly above my head, which swept away the darkness of the cramped space, their disgusting movements were laid bare before my eyes.
"Push forward!"
With a torrent of firepower, we broke through the elevator entrance slick with their corpses and finally stepped onto the 4th-floor corridor.
"Huff... hahk......"
As we caught our breath and kept watch, the orc gentleman spoke to me.
"...How do you shoot so well with a Glock?"
"...No, it's just..."
Honestly, admitting that even I didn't know I could shoot this well felt rather uncool.
I figured the Halo had helped to some degree, too.
I roughly brushed it off and basked in the praise.
But even that didn't last long.
We looked around at the scene left by the battle.
The small mimic beasts were spurting viscous liquid from where they had burst open here and there.
It was far from a pleasant sight.
Those mimic beasts... clearly....
We slowly surveyed the scene of the 4th floor, which had become a living hell.
"...Fucking hell."
The crude curse that burst from someone's lips perfectly encapsulated the situation on the 4th floor.
Because the crushed guidance sign lying on the floor told us the floor's original purpose.
[4th Floor: General Nursery / NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) / Mother-Child Room Prep Room / Lactation Room / Pediatric Examination Room]
We had finally arrived at the floor where the incubators were.