Chapter 29
“Leave the head intact.”
“……What nonsense are you spouting now?”
Hearing Eight’s words, Mew thought he was joking. If not, he was just pretending to be cool, as usual.
Typically, such bravado disappears the moment reality strikes. Mew gestured to his subordinates. The beastmen, who had been waiting solely for orders, rushed immediately to Levitan and began to hack at her body.
Shnk shnk went the sharp blades piercing her flesh, while Levitan gritted her teeth and endured the pain. She didn’t let out a single groan. It wasn’t that she wasn’t suffering or that she hadn’t trained for such things; it was simply that she felt utterly embarrassed by the situation.
She felt ashamed for betraying her comrades who had trusted her and for dragging them into this perilous situation. Even considering that it might not have been her will, it didn’t change the facts.
Fwoooosh!
The beastmen, surprised by her silence despite their brutal treatment, looked back at Mew.
“This girl hasn’t screamed even once. What should we do?”
“……Why are you asking such things? Useless beasts.”
After scolding his subordinate, Mew snatched the dagger from him and pressed it against Levitan’s eyelid. Perhaps she couldn’t bear even this, Levitan let out a weak scream.
“Ugh, ughhh…”
“─Mr. Eight, you asked for her head to be left alone, right? What a dilemma we have here. If you don’t show up, her head might just vanish too.”
As he said that, Mew started twisting the handle of the dagger. Levitan’s feeble screams gradually grew louder. Indeed, even Eight couldn’t help but grimace at the sight. After all, it’s human nature to flinch at gore, even when we know it’s just a film.
How could one remain calm when a colleague was suffering right in front of them?
“……Eight, don’t come out.”
“I know. I won’t come out. But…”
“But what? Do you really think you can do something?”
Vira, as if she had read Eight’s thoughts, grabbed his shoulder to stop him. Of course, even without her intervention, Eight would not have moved away.
But how long could they endure this? There was no guarantee that these guys wouldn’t kill Levitan.
Just look at the agony she was in. It was clear her betrayal hadn’t been her own choice. She must have been threatened, hypnotized, or brainwashed…
If so, the price of her betrayal shouldn’t be paid immediately but rather later—in the headquarters after everything had been sorted out.
“Vira, how far is it to the headquarters from here?”
“At least several hundred kilometers… Why do you ask?”
“So we can’t even dream of immediate support, I take it? Right?”
Vira nodded at his words. So, they would have to rely on the hero in City Z to come save them, huh? But even that seemed impossible.
This City Z was a villain’s haven. Not only were there no heroes, but even the police didn’t do their job in this slum. It was a place where the underworld thrived, and illegal activities were commonplace—sure, there was money aplenty, but it wasn’t a place to live.
There’s a reason why there were so many beastmen here, while no human who discriminated against them was found in City E.
“We can’t get reinforcements, and there are no heroes… Aren’t we in deep trouble, Vira?”
“I told you not to provoke them earlier…!”
“You’re right. Maybe provoking them wasn’t a great idea…?”
As Eight regretted his previous words, Levitan, gasping from the knife wounds, shouted.
“─Vira! Never release your power—! Got that?”
“This girl! You need to make sure those guys come this way!”
“Kyahaaa—!”
With a light moan, Levitan smiled. She knew she was going to die. To put it precisely, her body would survive, but her heart and mind would perish.
Since escaping the laboratory in City Z, her biological factors that had been suppressed for so long were slowly awakening. The power that had been sealed by Regalia’s royal decree.
─You can only use this power ‘for the sake of your comrades.’
For herself, she could never unleash her power, no matter the situation. But for her comrades, she could use it even for the simplest tasks.
Of course, she never thought she’d have to use it…
“Yeah. It’d be better for you guys to live than to have a traitor like me.”
Thinking that way, Levitan unleashed her biological factors. The unshackled factors ravenously consumed her body and grew explosively, with symptoms quickly manifesting.
The chains binding her to the cross snapped with a crack. Levitan’s body, once merely ordinary, became enveloped in muscles, and her swollen flesh even swallowed the cross itself.
“What on earth…?”
Watching this transformation, Mew swallowed hard.
Levitan’s changed appearance bore an uncanny resemblance to something he knew all too well.
The L-Series.
The failures of the Leviathan project.
He had assumed that the lab was shut down and the research concluded due to the rampage of the failed specimens. How could this be happening?
“You mean a success?”
Such a thing was impossible. Yet, Mew wasn’t foolish enough to deny what had already occurred. An out-of-control Leviathan was not something that could be stopped—an uncontrollable bomb, a god of destruction annihilating everything.
Adjusting his glasses slightly, Mew commanded his subordinates.
“─We’re falling back. Let’s get out of here as quickly as we can.”
“Huh? Director. But…”
“Nobody can survive in front of that monster. Those two will be fleeing soon as well. We’ll maintain a perimeter at a distance and catch the ones trying to escape. Staying here is suicide.”
Mew and the beastman crew began to flee in an instant, demonstrating their overwhelming physical capabilities to disappear in the blink of an eye.
As all the beastmen left, Levitan completed her transformation and looked at Eight and Vira, both remaining behind, drooling. The sand beneath her began to melt and boil under her saliva.
“……Vira, do you think we can hold out against that?”
“Um… I guess we’ll find out when we try, but I doubt it’ll last…”
KRAAAN—!
Levitan’s fist came crashing down on the barrier, causing Vira’s barrier to shake violently. She felt a slight cold sweat as she gazed at Levitan, now a feral beast drooling and glaring at them. It might be best to give up hope that Levitan would regain her senses and protect them.
“You can’t hold it, can you?”
“I can hold on… for a bit…!”
“Be honest.”
“……I don’t think I can last more than 30 minutes.”
“Understood.”
Hearing that, Eight pulled away from Vira and stepped out of the barrier. Vira, startled by his actions, tried to grab him again, but Eight gestured for her to stop.
Outside of the barrier, Eight began fiddling with his smartphone.
‘Ah, finally a signal.’
It appeared that the barrier had been blocking all forms of interference, including broadcasts, rendering the smartphone unusable inside. Now that it was functioning properly, Eight quickly sent a request for help to the headquarters and activated a program he had set up in advance.
To be honest, he had only learned to program as part of a general studies course, so he had no real confidence in it working… but in a pinch, he had to try something.
【Hacking military satellites… Complete】
Above them hung hundreds, even thousands of satellites. Among those, a few military satellites happened to be passing overhead. He hacked into one of them and took control.
“Of course, I can’t hide the fact that I used it…”
But what else could he do? He couldn’t just throw his life away, could he?
As Eight pressed the button—Levitan, who had been observing him from afar and unguarded, reached out to grab him.
Just before the monster’s hand could grasp Eight, a brilliant ray of white light fell from the sky and melted Levitan’s hand.
─Kuu, oooooooh—!
“Oh, that must hurt.”
─Kraaaang—!
“It’s okay. I’ll fix you right up.”
Ziiing—!
A second beam of light shot down, incinerating Levitan’s other hand. In an instant, she lost both arms and began stomping the ground frantically, screaming in agony.
Even as the ground shook violently, Eight remained steady, glaring at Levitan.
“Just hang in there for a little longer.”
Moments later, dozens of beams rained down relentlessly on the ground.
—
“─Scientist!”
Ayle, who had rushed to the scene aboard Witchcraft after receiving Eight’s distress signal, found the desert in disarray and Eight sitting calmly with what appeared to be a mangled rag in his hands. She dashed toward him.
Seeing Ayle approach, Eight waved casually to greet her. With the Witchcraft she had brought, they could escape from this place easily.
“Hey, Ayle. You came quickly.”
“Of course, I rushed over… but what’s that?”
“This? It’s Levitan.”
“…What? What did you say?”
“It’s Levitan.”
Ayle stared at Eight incredulously, unable to accept what he was saying. How could that ragged mess possibly be Levitan? It would have been more believable if he claimed it was a butchered pig, bludgeoned and trampled.
But arguing would gain her nothing. So, Ayle decided to ignore it. Honestly, staring at that chunk of meat was getting a bit overwhelming.
“……Alright, fine. Let’s just hurry back to the headquarters. The Boss is worried about you.”
“Yeah. Let’s go. I have a lot to talk about.”
With that, Eight headed straight back to headquarters. As they soared away on the Witchcraft, the beastmen from Omega Industries waiting for Eight to come out could only stare blankly, like dogs chasing after chickens.
Upon arriving safely at headquarters, Eight immediately took Levitan to his lab before heading to the Chairman’s office. When he arrived, Regalia was waiting, enveloped in a storm of fury.
Even though she looked like a young girl, her anger was far from childish; quite the opposite. For the first time, Eight realized that the Boss had this intimidating aspect to her.
“─Omega’s people attacked you.”
“Yes. Though Levitan did betray us in the process… it did not seem to be of her own will. I will deal with that after I treat her.”
“And after kidnapping you, they even tortured Levitan?”
“I wasn’t hurt, though.”
“Hmph, is that so?”
Seeing Regalia burst into a laugh, Eight thought perhaps her fury had cooled, but that wasn’t the case. It’s said that when a person gets too angry, they tend to become eerily composed afterwards.
Regalia was exactly in that state.
She immediately picked up the phone and began making a call. After giving her orders to whoever was on the line, she hung up and muttered rather ominously.
“─I will make it clear what it means to meddle with an Evil Organization. Scientist? Prioritize Levitan’s treatment.”
“Yes, understood. Boss.”
“Then, you may leave. Hmph, how dare those filthy beasts touch me…?”
After leaving the chuckling Boss behind, Eight returned to his lab. The body of Levitan, which had been immersed in medicinal bath, was gradually showing signs of regeneration.
However, he didn’t intend to let her simply heal as is. Based on her actions and Mew’s words, it was evident that she was an experimental subject from some lab, and until she broke free from that, she’d forever remain a slave.
‘Gene-level treatment… This will be quite challenging.’
But.
This was all for the sake of a comrade.
With that thought in mind, Eight picked up his scalpel.
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