A colossal mass bursts open, various chunks flying out from within.
Whoosh
Red fragments scatter in the air.
At first glance, the mass had an immense weight, but it easily popped like a balloon under some mysterious force.
At the same time, Cooper, who had been caught by it, was liberated and rolled on the floor as if thrown away.
Thud
With soft footsteps, a silhouette steps out onto the grotesquely blooming chunks of flesh.
A small child.
The entity crossing over the flesh was undoubtedly a little girl, completely out of place in this scene.
“Sorry, I’m a bit late.”
She extends her short arm to the man sprawled on the ground.
After waiting for him to gaze at her blankly for a moment, she speaks.
“…A bit?”
“…”
Hearing his unexpected response,
after a moment of silence as if she sensed something, she turns her head slightly to avoid his gaze.
“…Well, it’s just a joke. Honestly, I’m really glad to see you. Thanks to you, I’m alive.”
With a hint of playful laughter, Cooper grasped the girl’s hand and struggled to get back up.
No matter how optimistic a person might be, after experiencing something like just now, they usually wouldn’t have the mental capacity to joke around.
Yet, the moment he faced the girl before him, for some reason, he felt a sense of relief deep inside.
“Are they dead or what?”
“Hmm, honestly, I can’t be sure… but for now, they seem to be alive since they’re still breathing.”
“Then let’s hurry before it’s too late. I spotted the way out on the way here.”
As he answered her question, the girl let out a small sigh, as if relieved.
It was a bit late, but fortunately, no one had died yet.
That meant the only thing left to do was get out of this facility.
“No, sorry, but we can’t leave right now.”
However, Cooper unusually refused the girl’s pulling hand.
Sensing something odd about his reaction, the girl tilted her head and started to ask why.
“Why? There’s not much time left, right?”
“Exactly because there’s not much time left. If we can’t stop that, we’re all basically dead anyway.”
“That?”
As his finger pointed towards the window on the opposite side of the door, her gaze naturally followed it.
Beyond the reinforced glass of the control room sprawled an expansive area.
Originally, that space should have only contained an old nuclear missile and launch pad, yet it was filled with body parts, blood vessels, and countless screaming heads.
Graaagh!
Only then did the girl realize its presence and, for once, her expression changed as she inadvertently frowned.
“…No way, is that the bomb?”
“Yeah. Amazingly, it looks that way.”
Upon hearing his answer, the girl frowned again and gazed out the window.
It was countless lives, intertwined with another.
From her experience, she could easily tell that those things had long since lost any sense of self.
“There’s not much time left before the Abnormal Phenomena Management Office vaporizes this place. Even if we go out now, it’s almost a sure thing that we’d get caught in the blast zone.”
As Cooper explained why they couldn’t leave before stopping the bomb, he looked at the girl, who was gazing at the living bomb.
Those entities were crying out for their hometowns.
Yet for those who had become living bombs, going home meant the destruction of cities around the world.
It was only natural that the Management Office would not just sit by and watch.
Soon enough, they would undoubtedly prepare to vaporize this place, thinking the mission had failed.
“Of course, if we blow that up ourselves, the Management Office might think the situation is resolved, but that would completely defeat the purpose. Don’t you agree?”
Even if they managed to get out of there, they wouldn’t escape the final containment measures.
And even if they begged the Management Office to stop it, it was clear they wouldn’t choose their four lives over millions.
The only method left to them was to prevent those things from going home, inform them that the current situation was resolved, and stop this place from being vaporized.
“Is there a way to stop it?”
“Of course. There’s no way we randomly ended up in a cage like this without a reason.”
One fortunate thing was that they were in the control room, where they could somehow stop the launch of those creatures.
Of course, there was the significant problem of needing to escape this place afterward, but thankfully, that issue had already been resolved the moment the girl arrived.
“Hmm… then we might not need that method after all.”
However, was there something other than the method he mentioned?
The girl, lost in thought with her chin resting on her hand, mumbled something puzzling.
“…? What is it? Is there some other good method—”
Lost in her curious behavior, Cooper was about to ask what the method was—
Pat pat pat
“…!”
Then, hearing a chilling sound from the hallway outside, he quickly brushed aside his earlier curiosity and started to move urgently toward the control console.
“Anyway! For now, help me fend off whatever’s coming from outside! We’re almost done, so once this is over, we can leave together!”
He focused on the worn-out control panel.
Fortunately, the controls hadn’t changed much from what he had been manipulating earlier.
He’d cleared off the flesh and blood vessels that had stuck to the panel, so it seemed those things wouldn’t be operating it for a while.
At this rate, they could prevent the countdown from starting soon.
“Okay, got it. Just let me know when it’s over.”
Despite his urgency, the girl maintained a calm expression, looking outside the hallway.
Yet, he didn’t feel particularly uneasy about her demeanor.
Throughout the day, he had encountered truly bizarre phenomena and entities in this facility,
but in terms of sheer weirdness, he didn’t think anything could surpass the presence of that girl.
“Just don’t wander too far—”
As the strange sounds grew closer, Cooper gazed at the girl, anxious that she wouldn’t stray too far from him, trying to say something—
“…Wait a second.”
What he saw instead was a massive iron door being dragged across the floor, which must have been ripped off entirely earlier.
“Why?”
He responded to her calling him.
Even while hearing the sound of flesh slamming against the ground as if it was right in front of him, she still looked at him with an unbothered face.
“…Nah, it’s nothing much. But why are you dragging that door suddenly?”
It wasn’t the best question to ask in a dire situation, but sensing something off about it, he couldn’t help but ask the girl about the not-so-fitting iron door she dragged along.
Looking at his face as if questioning why he was asking such trivial things, the girl suddenly swung the iron door she held in her hand toward the air.
WHAM!
A tremendous sound erupted.
It was like the booming sound of two massive claps of hands meeting.
It certainly sounded similar to flesh exploding, and indeed, from outside the hallway, fragments of flesh and blood vessels scattered everywhere.
She swung the iron door at the mass coming toward her, and it became a heavy flyswatter, destroying the advancing mass entirely and scattering the remnants across the floor.
“…”
A moment of silence.
Lost in the deafening blast, Cooper stood there in a daze.
Even after the girl dragged the iron door away, disappearing from sight, he continued to stare blankly at the spot.
“Is it just about not getting your own hands dirty…?”
After brushing himself off, which had become a mess from the fragments flying from the hallway,
he mumbled a small complaint, saying something like, “I guess I won’t be able to eat properly for a few days…”
To forget the warm sensation he had felt on his face moments ago, he diligently started to tap on the control console.
