At last, after somehow fending off the K Corp extraction squads that kept flooding in, I thought we were done with them... Unfortunately, they just kept coming. Which, honestly, made sense. Every time they climbed up, Samjo's face darkened, and every time we pushed them back and smashed the drone that was the root of the problem, he turned a little paler.
He was probably already thinking about the report he'd have to write. Of course! That's none of our business. We're the ones putting in overtime here. If they didn't like it, they should've treated us better.
"I take back what I said about you lot not having the guts. While we were having fun with those things, you sure didn't run away."
Mr. Heathcliff swung his bat with a whoosh, whoosh and pressed the Technology Liberation Alliance... no, just the Liberation Alliance... no, let's shorten it and call them Alliance members. Anyway, he kept the Alliance member pinned down.
"You're dead now. A bunch of half-baked know-it-alls who only know how to steal and use other people's things..."
"That's fair. So this time, we brought something a little different from inside the Lobotomy Corporation branch."
The Alliance member calmly agreed with Heathcliff's words, then threw off that stifling robe and mask. What came out from underneath was... what the hell was that? I'd never seen clothing like it before.
Talismans were scattered all over the body, and in one hand he held a long staff. The overall style of the outfit reminded me of a monk. It felt like... E.G.O.? Something like the stuff we use? But if so, it didn't look like it had much of a duration limit...
"If you won't come first, then we'll come to you."
And the other Liberation members around him all stripped off those suffocating outfits at once and transformed into bizarre attire in an instant. This was going to become a real pain...
*
Crash, crackle!
V0FUQzZPUGsyemZWc01TMTVxYjdEcGxQZ0dNYlFTKzNSdVVBYmx3dWVZR2t6YWFrK1BTbXpTdnVuMzFySUVTSw
...These guys are a lot stronger than I expected for researchers. It's strange that they can keep E.G.O active for this long, too. ...If this keeps up, we're going to have problems.
"Hey, isn't that weird? E.G.O, that thing, could you really just keep it active like that and spam it? I didn't know that. You all know it too, right? E.G.O isn't some all-purpose tool. Keeping your mind from... slipping away while holding on to it is insanely hard."
That was true. Whenever anyone used E.G.O other than their own personal one, they tended to show that kind of strain. I'd never used any of it myself, though. In the last Mirror Dungeon, wasn't it Sinclair who smacked the back of my head with some weird blunt weapon with an apocalypse calendar attached to the end?
"And didn't someone say it already? These guys... they're all former researchers...! It doesn't make sense for them to handle E.G.O better than us!"
"This is a matter on a different level from whether they're skilled in combat or not. It means they must have used some... trick."
Ms. Otis neatly pointed out the flaw in Rodion's words. Sure enough, maintaining E.G.O's power for that long made no sense at all, no matter how much willpower you had. ...Unless they had a Golden Bough over there.
"I can think of one possibility. If they restored an Abnormality into an egg, then figured out how to manifest E.G.O like Lobotomy Corporation did... in other words, if they used the Qliphoth deterrence of the Golden Bough and repeatedly trained suppression against corrosion, or researched the conditions for it... then they could use E.G.O skillfully without being affected by corrosion, even if only for a short time.
What they're using is E.G.O, but also a tool processed to be compressed and restrained for general use."
Faust's stiff tone proved the hypothesis that had formed in my head. The process was annoyingly long and relatively hard to follow, but well... come to think of it, that information probably came from Yuri's identity. ...She had been a Lobotomy Corporation employee, after all.
...Gregor must have been thinking the same thing I was, because he opened his mouth with a dark expression.
"Then... in Lobotomy Corporation as well..."
"Yes. There, most of the employees used E.G.O, not Fixers. Of course, the E.G.O we use isn't as refined as the E.G.O used at Lobotomy Corporation."
Hmm... I see. If they were up against monsters like that, they'd need something like this. Which meant...
Then Ishmael spoke up with an urgent expression.
"Wait, wait. If they're using the Golden Bough's Qliphoth deterrence, then that means there's someone nearby right now..."
"...So that's what it means. The one holding the Golden Bough, Dongbaek..."
Gregor was probably right. They were throwing researchers into the fire to carry out this terror attack, so there was no way the apparent ringleader would just sit still.
"At this point, I can't help but question their security level. The fact that the leader of the terrorists is openly roaming somewhere in this facility and not a single person has found them..."
"I'd like to object... but I have nothing to say. I never expected it to be breached this easily..."
For the first time, Samjo couldn't logically refute it, and Dongrang stepped in to help.
"The Technology Liberation Alliance is a group made up of researchers who quit fairly well-known companies."
"If anything, a group that can hack K Corp drones and copy Lobotomy Corporation's technology wouldn't be unable to hide one person. The City has all kinds of concealment technology."
For a terror organization of that caliber, it would actually be strange if they didn't have something. Considering their level and the money they could throw around... a veil? No, maybe that's too far. Either way, they were already using some method.
"I see... so they were clever villains. No, can someone be clever and still be a villain? Hmm... this is confusing... very confusing..."
"Don't praise them too much. If they were really that smart, they wouldn't have quit a perfectly good conglomerate and joined a terror group like this."
That, uh... wasn't aimed at me, but... somehow I felt a little stabbed by that, considering I'd also quit a perfectly good conglomerate. It hurt a bit.
"Their life may simply have been different from what they wanted."
"....."
At Ishmael's words, my mood improved again. Right, that could happen, couldn't it? Yes, yes. ...Though my emotions seemed to be swinging around a bit too much. Should I ask Dante to turn the clock back?
*
We kept moving forward while dealing with the K Corp extraction squads and the Alliance members using E.G.O as they kept appearing. We didn't know where we were headed. Still, from Dongrang's worried voice that occasionally drifted over, we could roughly guess what kind of place it was.
"This is troublesome. I don't care about the other areas, but if that place is attacked, it'll cause a lot of problems..."
Buzzz—!
V0FUQzZPUGsyemZWc01TMTVxYjdEcGxQZ0dNYlFTKzNSdVVBYmx3dWVZR2t6YWFrK1BTbXpTdnVuMzFySUVTSw
Then Samjo's phone, which had been ringing at regular intervals for a while now, vibrated again.
"Dongrang, this is an urgent call from Director Alfonso."
"Ah... I'm going to get scolded. Could you take it for me, Samjo?"
"I already was, but the Director's patience has now reached its limit."
"Oh dear... that won't do. Excuse me for a moment."
A Wing director... so Dongrang was on that line. Sure enough, if you were a top employee, it'd be weird not to have that kind of backing. ...But was that person still in good health? The founder of K Corp. My records say he's alive, though the last update was two years ago, so who knows...
I'd seen him in person a few times, too. He wouldn't know my face, though. For the founder of a Wing, he was a remarkably decent person, so I'd like him to have lived a long life, but somehow I didn't think he was still alive. The way K Corp was running now was far removed from what that man had pursued.
...Why am I remembering this much? I'm sure...
"Look carefully, Manager. If you see some underling skulking around in a crisis like this... there's a high chance they're someone who can provide useful information. It's wise to make use of them."
My thoughts, which had been sinking deep, were cut off by Otis's words. What she was looking at was one of K Corp's researchers. Judging from the earlier conversation, she seemed to be trying to make contact.
"Hey, we're employees from an outside partner company here to deal with the disturbance. What's the matter?"
"Th-the thing is, Team Leader Shurenne has been missing since earlier. I need to tell everyone to evacuate quickly, but... we also left the computer on... where did she go..."
So he was one of their researchers, huh... what a shame. They must have been people who sincerely trusted and followed their superior, Ms. Shurenne.
Perhaps feeling sympathy for the researcher's position, Sinclair spoke up with a dark expression.
"Ah... actually, Ms. Shurenne is..."
"Yes, we'll look for her. You keep evacuating."
"Thank you."
...Sometimes, no, actually quite often, ignorance is better than knowing. This was one of those times too; there was no need to pick at a wound. Otis seemed to think the same. ...Maybe it was experience from the battlefield.
"Now then, the terrorist's lackey known as Shurenne has been eliminated, but the internal atmosphere is in disarray and the computer is still on. We have complete tactical superiority. And we didn't even expend any force."
Aside from all the human concerns, Otis had successfully extracted information, and she seemed proud of it, speaking more excitedly than usual. Nobody paid it much mind, though.
"Ms. Shurenne's computer... the password was 'I miss you, senior'..."
"You understand quite well. Unexpectedly... no, as expected... you are my Manager."
"Ms. Otis, could you at least make some effort to hide your true feelings?"
"Shut up, you underling!"
Tch, she's the one who's blatantly wearing her dark heart on her sleeve. Still, Otis's reactions are surprisingly fun. Maybe I should tease her more often... no. She's scary after all. Better keep my distance.
"Anyway! The problem is how to sneak in and out... who among us can do it most naturally without arousing suspicion..."
"If you'll only entrust it to me, this time I shall surely...!"
Don Quixote was enthusiastically selling herself, but the prisoner Dante's clock hand pointed to was...
Of course it was M... wait, what?
"Huh?! Me? Not Mr. Meursault?"
"I mean, if you tell me to, I can..."
No, I mean... why me and not Mr. Meursault?
========================
The website for reading paid chapters is available on my Patreon. The number of chapters on Patreon: 195
Link: patreon.com/UltraMagnus_T