Alfred's body remained where it had fallen.
Lev Parkinson crouched briefly beside Alfred before stood again with a long sigh.
"Well, that was exhausting for somebody wearing pajamas."
No one laughed immediately. Shams stood nearby, rifle lowered now. Blood still marked his clothes.
Dally Hearts glanced toward the upper structure.
"The fighting inside hasn't stopped."
"Hm. It got worse." Tian Lang added quietly.
His eyes remained fixed upward, voice calm as ever.
"The Party of Adam and Zenon are fully engaging now. Lower floors already turned unstable."
Redmond adjusted his coat slightly.
"Let's split up."
Ophelia nodded almost immediately.
"I am going up."
Her tone carried no hesitation.
"If Adam and Zenon actually begin fighting, things will spiral beyond containment."
Redmond gave a small nod.
"I will go with you."
Lev pointed lazily.
"Cool. Make sure you finish your task. You know what I mean, right?"
Ophelia rolled her eyes.
"You don't have to make it feel difficult!"
"Phew, I will have a lot of outsource responsibility after I become Uncle."
Tian finally looked toward the others.
"Then rest of us will stabilize the lower sectors. Stop internal warfare from reaching abroad."
Shams remained quiet for a moment.
"I will handle whatever remains."
Ophelia turned first. Redmond followed.
They headed toward the upper floors. While the others moved toward war.
....
The underground corridors of the nuclear plant had stopped feeling abandoned.
Now they felt trapped.
Smoke drifted through fractured hallways in thin layers, mixing with condensation until the air itself felt damp and wrong.
Roland leaned against the wall for a moment. His wrist hung uselessly.
Every slight movement sent sharp pain through his arm but pain had already become background noise.
Caius stood beside him quietly.
Too huge for his age.
A fifteen-year-old trapped inside a body built of iron by someone else's decisions.
Even now, despite his frightening size, the confusion in his expression made him look painfully young.
Roland pushed open the facility's main gate controls again.
" What the heck. Looks like it's jammed from outside. "
The massive doors didn't even pretend to respond anymore.
"That's reassuring in the worst possible way."
He moved toward a cracked observation window nearby.
Outside looked buried alive. Roland clicked his tongue softly.
"Fantastic. We're trapped in the world's cruelest labyrinth."
Caius lowered his head slightly.
"…Are we gonna die?"
The question came quietly. Roland turned immediately.
"No."
He crouched slightly despite the pain.
"Listen, things are bad. I am not gonna lie to you and say this place suddenly becomes normal. But people are annoying."
Roland smiled faintly looking at Caius's confused face.
"They keep surviving things they absolutely shouldn't."
His eyes shifted briefly toward the dark hallways.
" Grrh, I need to move on examining the anomaly. Something is very wrong. Despite the destruction of the facility, the papers, documents seems very clean. Someone visits here very often for sure. Ouch... I can't... leave Caius alone here." He muttered to himself.
Roland exhaled slowly.
"Alright. We go and check the files! And before you ask—yes."
He gave Caius a crooked smile.
Roland became quieter the more further they went.
His broken wrist throbbed constantly now, pain climbed up his arm whenever he accidentally gave too much weight onto it.
Still, Roland kept walking like nothing was wrong, shoulders relaxed on purpose.
"…Your hand hurts," Caius spoke.
Roland glanced down briefly.
"Hm?"
He looked at his arm after recalling the words in mind.
"Oh, this? Nah. It's just aggressively disagreeing with my life choices. But as you can see, I don't care. It doesn't break my spirit."
Caius looked unconvinced. Roland smiled faintly.
"Do you miss your parents?"
Cagaro looked at Roland.
" I don't know... my parents... they left me very early..."
" Tch. I at least got my parents mocking at me. You got even worse but Hey! Nothing to fear! Do you remember anything? Any vague memory? "
" Uhh... I can only remember one thing. My mom use to grab me near her and call me in whispering same phrase. "
" If you permit, can I hear it? "
" She... used to call me her 'World'. "
Roland frowned slightly looking downward.
" That's pretty good! You were probably a very previous thing to her! So don't look back. You gotta protect the value she gave to you. "
" I think so... "
" From now, shall I call you, Little World? "
" I don't have any problem with that, I think. "
" Haha, let's go! Little World! "
Roland grabbed Caius and began to run like a maniac in an unknown joy. Caius was confused yet feeling light watching Roland do awkward things.
....
The laboratory corridors stretched darker the further they descended.
All of a sudden, Roland heard footsteps.
Roland felt the chill all over his body.
He grabbed Caius without hesitation and pulled him behind a fallen storage cabinet shoved partly into shadow.
Roland lowered himself carefully despite the pain. The footsteps continued approaching closer.
After several long moments, the sound moved away again. Roland waited for along time even after the footsteps were gone.
Only when the silence felt natural again did he exhale quietly.
"Shesh. Either monster… or this place just really hates visitors. I think it was programmed to beat neighbor, guest's asses."
He stood slowly. Then nodded toward the hallway.
"Come on."
Both walked forward carefully.
The laboratory sat at the end of a narrow corridor. The door had already been forced open at some point.
Hanging unevenly from damaged hinges, though strangely—too strangely—the inside remained organized.
Dust covered most of the underground facility, yet here the shelves looked cleaner. Not spotless but maintained. Somebody had been coming here.
Roland noticed it immediately.
"That is uncomforting. Secret underground mutation lab. I don't that Anomaly took these files here."
Caius stayed close behind him.
"You think people still come here?"
Roland didn't answer immediately. Because he already knew the answer.
"Suspicious. Someone definitely does."
He moved toward a row of locked filing cabinets near the back wall. The electronic lock was dead but reinforced.
Roland sighed.
"Normally this is where I would do something smart."
Instead, he grabbed a heavy steel emergency tool lying nearby and slammed it hard against the weakened side hinge using his left hand.
After three hits the lock was broken.
"If you make that much sound I think... it will hear and come here." Caius muttered.
Roland pointed at him.
"Exactly. Stay with me one hundred and eighty seconds more and you will learn to play with death too."
Roland looked inside the files.
"Clinical names, coded names and human names crossed out..."
Roland flipped through quickly until something made him stop.
A photograph. The thing they had seen earlier..
" It looks familiar. "
His expression changed.
PROJECT C-123-01
He frowned immediately. "…Wait.
Caius looked over his shoulder.
"Is something wrong?"
Roland's eyes narrowed.
"I saw C-123-02 earlier."
His voice lowered slightly.
"If this is one… then what the hell was two?"
Roland opened the file and began reading after exhaling deeply.
"Project C-123-01 : Adaptive Bio-Combat Organism.
The objective: Create a living bioweapon capable of surviving catastrophic injury while adapting to confined combat environments.
Tissue regeneration had been accelerated through forced muscular hypertrophy, abnormal bone reinforcement, and nervous system overstimulation.
Intelligence retention was inconsistent, though 'predatory pattern recognition' improved rapidly after exposure to repeated targets."
Roland's eyes paused at one section.
"Containment Weaknesses:
Water saturation exceeding tolerance threshold causes progressive liquefaction of biological tissue."
"Huh. It melts?"
Caius frowned slightly.
"What?"
Roland tapped the page.
"Nothing. Just found something interesting. Water... apparently the nightmare monster has beef with basic hydration."
He kept reading carefully recalling all important details. His eyes slowly lifted toward the dark facility around them.
Then muttered softly to himself,
"Maybe I can kill that thing."
Roland had barely lowered the file when the sound of heavy footsteps somewhere far down the corridor came again.
Above them, a damaged fluorescent bulb flickered twice and died.
Caius stiffened immediately.
Roland didn't answer to his expression. He was listening and counting.
Which somehow felt worse. He quietly shut the file. Folded it under his arm.
Then grabbed Caius by the shoulder.
"Okay. Time for a new plan."
"…Run?"
"Congratulations. You have learnt to take your own fine decisions."
They rushed quickly through narrow maintenance corridors.
Every few steps, he subtly sabotaged things. Ripping exposed maintenance valves loose, damaging pipe controls with loose metal parts.
Cracking flood-system panels, smashing surveillance wiring as casually as if he was tidying up.
The wall to their left exploded inward. Concrete erupted across the hallway.
Roland ducked instantly, dragging Caius down with him as something massive tore through the opening.
Still moving with terrifying posture. Roland stood again immediately.
"Oh, come on. That is unbelievably disrespectful."
Roland glanced back once and immediately regretted it.
The anomaly was already there in the shadows.
It had taken another route. Its arm slammed downward. Roland rolled away instantly covering Caius.
He twisted under the strike. Grazing his shoulder while dragging Caius with one arm.
The impact shattered pipes overhead.
"Nice. You are making it easier."
The anomaly turned too fast.
It adapted mid-motion, grabbing broken steel and throwing it ahead to block escape paths.
Roland clicked his tongue.
"Oh, fantastic."
He kicked off the wall literally.
Using debris as footholds, he launched himself sideways through collapsing scaffolding.
He caught a dangling maintenance cable one-handed despite the broken wrist screaming in protest.
He swung it across the corridor, grabbed Caius by the jacket pulling him clear just before claws tore through where they stood.
"Keep moving!" Roland snapped.
The anomaly lunged again. Roland baited it.
Purposely kicking exposed coolant pipes.
Steam scattered into the corridor.
Then Roland used the confusion. Quickly sliding beneath shattered railings while constantly positioning himself between Caius and danger.
The anomaly adapted again.
"…Oh. You're thinking again."
His expression changed slightly.
The anomaly approached closer and closer.
Water from damaged pipes had begun pouring harder now, dripping from ceilings, collecting around steel flooring in uneven streams.
Roland grabbed the nearest thing available.
A thick steel pipe ripped loose from damaged infrastructure.
He carried it only by his left hand.
"If this is my final mission anyway, at least for that boy..."
The anomaly lunged.
Roland barely blocked slipping backwards.
The steel pipe slammed against its arm with a violent metallic crack that rattled through his shoulder.
Pain exploded through his body instantly, the impact nearly dislocated his functioning arm.
He got pushed back hard. Boots skidding through rising water.
The anomaly struck downward.
Roland turned sideways using momentum to slam the pipe across its ribs.
Water kept pouring.
The damaged flood system groaned louder than before. The sound of water stretched strangely.
The anomaly attacked yet Roland saw it before the attack fully completed.
Time bent oddly around his instinct.
My heart, why it feels... it feels like it is stopped! Am I dead?
And for one strange moment he felt another presence standing beside him.
Runic Flow shifted unconsciously through his damaged nervous system.
Neurological Trigger Detected. Hyper-awareness under extreme stress.
Something in-between awakened.
Altered States of Consciousness (ASC).
Roland suddenly understood.
…Oh. As much possible, it is the Reverse Breathing which demands alteration of the original perception of mind. He recognized.
He looked toward the anomaly then the falling water.
A faint smile formed despite blood on his mouth.
"You are in trouble."