“Grrr…!”
Painful groans echoed through the air.
Trapped in a tight spot was Cooper, with two others pulling at his body.
By now, he thought he would easily slip out, but contrary to his expectations, more than half of his body was still stuck inside the elevator.
As his body produced sounds reminiscent of screams, it seemed they decided it was too dangerous to continue.
The two finally loosened their grip on his arms and shoulders and decided to step back and assess the situation.
“…Completely stuck now.”
“Looks like it…”
With a troubled expression, the two looked down at the man lying face down on the floor.
He had survived a falling elevator, only to get trapped in an unexpected gap.
Truly, this situation was a perfect example of how life is a comedy viewed from afar but a tragedy up close.
“Damn it, nothing’s going right lately…”
However, Cooper himself was not without a sense of unfairness.
Sure, Eleanor, who was smaller than him, could be excused; but that giant man had managed to escape this place alone.
Yet here he was, clearly smaller, stuck in this gap.
Struggling to force his way out had only fueled a complex mix of emotions, leading him to nearly want to cry.
“Could it work if 19th Entity pushes from behind?”
Eleanor proposed a potential solution.
It was about borrowing the strength of the girl inside the elevator.
If that mysterious power had stopped a falling elevator, breaking through the surrounding walls should be possible.
If only they could widen the narrow gap, he would no longer be stuck here.
“Well, I could do that as a last resort, but I wouldn’t recommend it.”
However, the girl’s voice from beyond the elevator gap denied that method.
To be precise, she meant it would only be left as a last step.
“Is there a reason?”
“I’m not very confident in power control, especially with delicate adjustments.”
When asked about her reasoning, the girl answered in a very simple manner.
In other words, if she miscalculated while trying to break the gap, it could end up crushing Cooper instead of the wall.
And of course, no one here wanted to witness such a horrific scene.
“Moreover… I’m not even confident in adjusting the height right now.”
The girl added her final reasoning.
Right now, the elevator was stopped thanks to her power.
If she were to remove her arm from the wall or even slightly shake it, the elevator’s height could drastically change.
Since she barely held that wall together to stop the elevator, the wall she was standing on was quite unstable.
If, while trying to help him, that unstable wall gave way and the elevator dropped even slightly, Cooper’s upper body sticking out would surely—
“No, just stay there! I’ll manage to get out on my own!”
As thoughts reached this point, chills ran down Cooper’s spine.
He promptly turned to yell back at the girl, asserting that it wasn’t necessary.
He absolutely wanted to avoid having a slash marking through his name in any way.
After all, anyone would prefer a peaceful end rather than a terrible one.
Being split in two, whether vertically or horizontally, was fundamentally far from peace.
“…What do we do now?”
“What do you mean, how? We have to get out, somehow.”
His blunt reply came to Eleanor’s worried question.
While a bit rough, it wasn’t entirely wrong.
At least, his body was gradually coming out bit by bit.
If there was any flaw, it was that the progress was absurdly slow compared to the time spent.
Once they could pass the worst part, getting out should be smooth sailing.
“Not that… We’ve fallen way too deep. If we keep this up, it’ll take ages to get back up…”
But her next words shifted the topic entirely.
She was worried about something more fundamental.
In other words, she was becoming aware of the ultimate time that was soon approaching the Base.
“Now, don’t we have little time left?”
Her anxious gaze darted between them.
1 km.
On the surface, that might not be a long distance, but stretched upwards or downwards, it changed the game.
It was a height that far surpassed typical skyscrapers, far in the distance.
And it was clear that to walk back up that daunting height would take a significant amount of time.
With little time remaining before nuclear weapons were launched, she was beginning to realize the countdown until the Management Office activated its final protocol.
“Are you stupid? I told you earlier. We’re at least 1 km underground here. Even if a nuke falls above, it won’t have significant effects down here.”
But Cooper, seeing her frantic concerns, maintained a sense of calm.
In a calm and soothing tone, he began to explain their current situation rationally.
“But the danger of this facility isn’t simply because a nuke is about to be launched.”
“Well, that’s true. This place itself could very well be one of those abnormal phenomena… No, it’s quite likely.”
Of course, her concerns weren’t wholly unwarranted.
After all, this facility was classified as a Level V risk phenomenon, and Eleanor was dispatched here to investigate the sudden disappearance of everyone inside.
Considering the falling elevator they had just experienced and the unidentified space they had landed in, it was hard to think they ended up here without any ulterior motive.
“But even if we now look for a way back above ground, it won’t change the fact that we won’t escape the explosion zone in time. We’d be better off waiting here for stabilization or for rescue; it would increase our survival odds.”
However, looking at it another way, this was also an opportunity.
The best-case scenario would be to operate the control console and stop the launch, and the next best option was to get out of this facility quickly, but right now they couldn’t choose either.
With only a lesser evil and the worst option left, the choice they had to make was—
Naturally, they could only choose the better option out of those.
“Well, that comes with the premise that we need to survive here until then…”
As Cooper trailed off, he sneaked a glance back.
There stood the small girl who remained in the elevator, her expression unreadable.
Though he could somewhat guess her identity, he wasn’t foolish enough to speak it aloud.
So he simply looked away quietly, as if nothing had happened.
“For now, let’s just push through this cursed place and think later.”
“Agreed. It might be a failed mission, but this seems to be the best option right now.”
With a huff, he began to pull again.
Elijah nodded, preparing to help pull Cooper out.
“…Alright then, let’s try again.”
Eleanor said.
Unlike her earlier worried tone, she seemed a bit more stable now.
Perhaps Cooper’s calm demeanor and persuasion had helped her feel somewhat at ease.
“I’ll grab your left arm, Cooper. On three, we’ll pull towards this side—”
Her hand grasped firmly onto his arm.
After taking a moment to breathe deeply, she counted down to synchronize with the others.
At the precise moment they reached three—
With a powerful tug, she pulled on the hand she held—
—Clunk!
“—!!”
As the ground she stood on shook completely, she found herself falling in the opposite direction of where she was trying to pull.
“What the hell, again?!”
Cooper exclaimed in a panicked voice as he felt a violent vibration just above his waist.
A premonition of something beginning to collapse once more.
But this time, he felt a fear of a completely different level.
The reason being was his inability to escape from this spot and being in a horrific situation where his body could soon fracture.
More than anything, the ominous sound of stones grinding and splitting echoed from all directions, foreboding that this space itself was about to collapse entirely.
“Get me out! I’m really gonna die here!”
“I-I’m trying! I really am!”
Both of them recognized that the situation was not good and started pulling Cooper out with all their strength.
Little by little, his body began to inch outwards.
But amidst that, the shaking intensified to the point they struggled to keep their feet planted.
The sounds of cracks in the walls and floor grew louder still.
“Exhale! Flatten your body as much as possible!”
“That’s… easier said than done?!”
The ground was shaking all around them, and cracks began to form where it had split.
The widening fissure was nearing their feet, ripping apart like dry earth.
Even if they managed to get out now, it was already too late to escape.
However, they refused to let go of him.
Just before the ground was about to give way completely—
“Move!”
The girl’s voice rang from inside the elevator, and at that moment, an intense shockwave hit them.
“Grrr?!”
Feeling as if they were being thrown harshly, they tumbled backward and landed in the hallway beyond.
—Kugugugugug!
The last sight that filled their vision was a flurry of debris,
And alongside that, the endless figure of the girl falling into the abyss.
The fissure that began at the center of the origin expanded further and finally reached where they were.
Just like the girl who fell below, they too began to plummet amidst the shattered fragments.
