Belated

"Holy crap! Slime mold?!" Ye Shi gripped his carbine tightly and looked around nervously, an expletive in Chinese slipping out in the middle of the Human Alliance language. At this moment, he finally understood what that intense premonition of danger had been. Jiang Xuezhou frowned. Although she did not want to acknowledge the guy, driven by curiosity, she could not help asking, "What does 'holy crap' mean?" Not knowing how to explain it without embarrassment, Ye Shi coughed and said, "A modal particle... don't worry about it." A modal particle? Jiang Xuezhou's brow furrowed even deeper. She had felt from the start that the people from Enterprise and the Alliance seemed to be plotting something, or at least keeping secrets from her. Seeing Ye Shi and Su Ming chatting and laughing especially made that uneasy feeling grow stronger. "Mutant slime mold doesn't exist on its own without a mother body..." Glancing around the area, Meng Liang continued with a grim expression, "There are spores and patches of mold here, which means there's at least one mother body or a fully mature broodmother. We have to be careful." Yun You said nothing. She walked briskly to the terminal beside the blast door and tapped rapidly on the touch screen. Soon, lines of faint blue code flashed across the display, moving too fast for anyone to read. "What's that?" Ye Shi stepped closer and asked curiously. "Connecting to the shelter's security system," Yun You replied concisely. "The keycard granted us 'visitor' permissions, which happens to let us do a few things." Ye Shi froze for a moment. "Visitors can connect to the security system?" "Normally, no. The security system is one of an Administrator's core privileges. But clearly, there is no Administrator here." Looking at the mold spreading on the walls, Yun You continued, "According to the shelter system's default protocol, when no Administrator is appointed, certain permissions cascade downward. We can't rewrite the shelter's protocols, but at least we can obtain a map and control over the blast doors." Hearing this, Ye Shi immediately grew excited. "Then does that mean the elevator outside—" Yun You sighed and impatiently cut him off. "I said the doors. The elevator requires Administrator privileges." In other words, if anyone else wanted to come down, they would still have to find another keycard. Or, the people inside would have to obtain Administrator privileges. Seeing that calling for reinforcements was off the table, Ye Shi instantly deflated like a punctured balloon. Frankly, after witnessing the situation on Floor B6 of Shelter 404, he really did not recommend clearing such a high-difficulty dungeon with just this handful of people. It was not that he lacked confidence in his own abilities, but that the proportion of technical personnel was simply too high! Yun You, Meng Liang on his side, and the Academy's Grade-D researcher did not look like capable fighters. As for that Wilante officer, it was hard to say whether he or Battlefield Guy was stronger; all Ye Shi's Perception attribute could tell him was that the man was not weak. Crossing his arms, Wali glanced at the woman. "How do you know all this?" Before Yun You could answer, Su Ming immediately spoke up for her. "The organization she previously worked for was involved in the Shelter Project." "Oh?" Wali gave her a meaningful look. Right then, the alloy door on the left side of the hall slid open with a sharp hiss, revealing a long, narrow corridor behind it. Perhaps something had triggered it, or perhaps it was just malfunctioning from decades of neglect. Ye Shi, Su Ming, Battlefield Guy, and Wali reflexively raised their muzzles toward it, but saw nothing moving. The corridor was completely empty. Even though the sconces along both walls were lit, the patches of dark red mold resembling smeared blood still sent chills down everyone's spine. It looked like a set from a horror movie. Her slender eyebrows twitching slightly at the foul stench wafting out, Jiang Xuezhou took half a step back. While technically classified as combat personnel, she had always worked technical roles as a drone operator. She had never been this close to the front lines, let alone ventured "alone" deep into a ruin like today. "Hey... are your people really still alive?" she asked Yun You uneasily. "Should we... pull back first and reconsider our plan?" "Heh, didn't you hear her? The keycard already registered our visitor credentials. Even if we pull back, we'll still have to be the ones coming back next time," Wali said, looking at the obviously terrified researcher with unvarnished mockery. "If you Academy folks are scared, you can go back on your own. The Wilante dictionary doesn't have the word 'retreat.'" Battlefield Guy suppressed a chuckle. Ye Shi could not help himself, his shoulders shaking with laughter, though he quickly turned his face away to keep from sabotaging team cohesion. "He's right. Even if we want to bring more people down, we have to at least secure Administrator privileges first," Yun You said calmly, glancing at the open doorway. "Who said I was scared...? I'm just exercising caution." Jiang Xuezhou gritted her teeth, snorted coldly, and braced herself to stay. Going back alone was out of the question. If she abandoned such an important assignment, her mentor might kill her... That man felt no such thing as sentimental attachment to his students. Just then, Yun You's voice came from the terminal. "Done." Meng Liang turned to her at once. "What did you get?" "A map... and access logs for several key sectors." With access logs, they could indirectly deduce the number of fruiting bodies in each sector, as well as the movement history of the Pioneer's crew. For example, eight individuals had just ridden the elevator down, while the blast doors to each sector remained locked, which meant everyone was currently situated in the lobby... Wait. Eight? Staring at the figure on the access log, Yun You froze for a second and looked around at the six people with her. Only when her eyes landed on the robotic hound behind Jiang Xuezhou did her brow relax. It made sense for a robot to be registered as a visitor. After all, it was a fairly large machine... It probably wasn't a system glitch. Pulling her hands back from the terminal, Yun You swept her index finger lightly through the air. A pale blue screen expanded along the trail of her finger, displaying a floor plan. Immediately afterward, a 3D wireframe rose from the plane, rendering the shelter's entire physical structure before them. "The layout here is surprisingly compact. There is only one level, which saves us a lot of time. According to the access logs, eighty people entered this shelter six months ago. The last recorded access event took place in Sector X-13. There is an archive room there, along with living quarters... I deduce they went there to gather supplies and search for hibernation pods." "Our primary objective is to reach Sector X-13. Regardless of whether those eighty people are still alive, we need to verify their status and bring back any survivors." "However, we face a major problem. As you can see, this shelter has been completely overrun by slime mold. Based on the access logs, I suspect the broodmother is positioned atop the reactor in the power station... And the moment we stepped inside, it sensed our presence through its spores. Multiple indicators show its metabolic activity is spiking." "Therefore, before rescuing the trapped crew from the Pioneer, we need to deal with the awakening broodmother." Su Ming frowned slightly. "Do you have a plan?" "The reactor is equipped with a fire suppression system." Directing her gaze to the power station on the map, Yun You paused before speaking calmly, "Once we activate the fire suppression system, containment devices will flood the reactor chamber with coolant. This system is designed to cool down a reactor core running at hundreds of millions of degrees; freezing a broodmother will be trivial." "Won't that cut the shelter's power, too...?" Jiang Xuezhou asked softly. "It will switch to backup power," Yun You replied concisely. "Backup reserves typically last one to two months. Even if the reactor scrams, there's no need to worry about a blackout." Meng Liang frowned and asked, "How do we activate the fire suppression system?" "Two ways," Yun You said. "Initiate it remotely from the terminal in the Administrator's office, or activate it manually in person." "I vote for heading to the Administrator's office," Wali spoke up, drawing everyone's attention. Seeing them all look at him, he grinned broadly and said as though it were obvious, "We need to secure Administrator privileges anyway, don't we? We might as well take care of that first." His reasoning was solid. Even Battlefield Guy nodded in agreement; it seemed a Wilante's brain could function normally once in a while. Yun You, however, shook her head. "You're right that we ultimately need Administrator privileges. But there's an issue: our access level is merely that of visitors, and our profiles aren't registered in the shelter roster. Even if we access the Administrator's office terminal, we might not gain full Administrator privileges. And without full privileges... we likely won't be able to trigger the fire suppression system without an active, catastrophic radiation leak." Meng Liang asked seriously, "What are the odds of getting full access?" Yun You thought for a moment. "Hard to say. Fifty-fifty at best. Unfortunately, we don't have room for trial and error. If we wait until the broodmother fully awakens and deploys everything to purge invaders from its territory, dealing with it will be much harder." Ye Shi stared at the map for a while and rubbed his chin. "So to be safe, we need two teams: one heading to the Administrator's office to secure access, and one heading to the power station to manually trigger the fire suppression system." Or they could hit the power station first, then the Administrator's office. However, the two locations were fairly far apart, which would force them to take a massive detour. "Three teams," Su Ming chimed in, speaking earnestly. "Our top priority is evacuating the Pioneer's crew. All of Ideal City is concerned about their safety... Whether we secure control of this shelter or not, we must bring them out." "Come on, you really think those people are still alive?" Wali scoffed, nodding his chin toward the corridor nearby. "This shelter has turned into a bloody hellhole. I'd bet good money eighty percent of those poor bastards are already fertilizer for the mold." Ignoring the mockery, Su Ming answered calmly, "Regardless of whether they're alive, we have to check... That is what we came here to do." "I agree with him. Furthermore, their chances of survival are high; the slime mold hasn't breached the sector they're in," Yun You said, looking around at everyone. "Besides, even if we fail to secure Administrator privileges this time, it won't matter as long as we rescue the survivors before the broodmother fully wakes. We can always come back once it goes dormant again." "Then let's stop wasting time," Ye Shi sighed, cutting off the debate and stepping in front of the holographic map. "We need one team to head to the power station to manually trigger the fire suppression system, one team to go to the Administrator's office and use the terminal to gain access privileges, and one team to head to Sector X-13 to rescue the stranded personnel." In confined spaces, splitting up was actually safer than clumping together. After all, the number of slime mold fruiting bodies was limited, and isolated fruiting bodies were far easier to handle than a massive swarm. This was hard-won experience. Back when they raided Floor B6, they had also split up before regrouping. Glancing at the representatives of each faction, Meng Liang spoke up anxiously, "The question now is who goes to the Administrator's office—" "Me, obviously," Wali interrupted before the Alliance representative could finish, grinning coldly. "I don't give a damn about dead people. Whether you lot go play rescue or not, that's where I'm headed." "Doesn't matter to me. Whoever goes can just plug this drive into the terminal." Yun You tossed a thumb-sized drive to Su Ming. Then she seemed to recall something and added, "By the way, the automatic door outside the Administrator's office opens and closes frequently. Normal fruiting bodies enter dormancy alongside the broodmother, but evolved organisms are an exception—" "Pangolin!" Cutting someone off once again, Wali turned to the man beside him and clapped his shoulder with a laugh. "I hear you're good at dealing with mutants—even a Mother Deathclaw fell to your hand. The Administrator's office is your job." Ye Shi snorted, barely stifling a laugh. Battlefield Guy was utterly speechless inside, but he dared not show any slip-up. Reluctant as he was, he had no choice but to bite the bullet and nod. "Yes, sir!" ... With the battle plan set, the teams were quickly finalized. Team A consisted of Wali and Jiang Xuezhou, tasked with heading to the power station to manually activate the fire suppression system and inject coolant to force the broodmother into dormancy. Team B consisted of Ye Shi and Yun You, tasked with heading to Sector X-13 to rescue the Pioneer's crew. Neither of these missions was excessively dangerous. According to the access logs, the broodmother had not fully awakened, and the fruiting bodies active in those two sectors were mostly gnawers. As for Team C, their target was the Administrator's office. Because an evolved organism was lurking there, they had an extra combatant, forming a three-man team: Battlefield Guy, Su Ming, and Meng Liang. Each squad had at least one technical specialist and one combatant, and the assignments took everyone's preferences into account. For example, Wali insisted that the squad heading to the Administrator's office include a Legion member, and that the other factions' personnel there could not outnumber the Legion. His reason was bluntly stated: he didn't trust Enterprise. Meanwhile, Jiang Xuezhou made it clear that she had no desire to work with anyone from the Alliance—especially that guy named Ye Shi. To avoid him, she didn't even mind pairing up with a Wilante. Ye Shi was utterly baffled, completely unable to fathom how he had offended her. Wasn't this the very first time they had ever met? While Ye Shi was still puzzling over it, Yun You's voice came from the side. "I'll be counting on you for my safety. That won't be a problem, will it?" "Don't worry! Absolutely—" Ye Shi turned around, preparing to flash this attractive older woman a confident, charming smile. Yet before the words left his mouth, he abruptly remembered that it was precisely that flamboyant grin that had earned him Jiang Xuezhou's death glare earlier. *Holy crap, mystery solved!* *All this time, that was when she started hating my guts!* And so, he choked down that confident, charming smile, and his originally dependable tone suddenly became far less convincing. "...I mean, maybe not 'absolutely,' but it shouldn't be much of a problem." Looking at his unsettled expression and confusing answer, Yun You lapsed into silence, her gaze lingering on Ye Shi with a hint of skepticism. *Is this guy... really up to the task?* *He doesn't seem that old...* Ye Shi felt intensely awkward under her scrutiny. *Damn it!* *Being confident doesn't work, and being modest doesn't work either.* *What the hell do these damn NPCs actually want?!* ... Once the teams were settled, they wasted no more of their limited time, immediately taking the shortest routes to their respective objectives based on Yun You's map. Staring intently down the corridor ahead, Jiang Xuezhou gripped her sidearm tightly while maintaining a constant neural link with the robotic hound behind her. She kept one eye on the path ahead and the other on the Wilante beside her. "Hey." Startled by the sudden voice, Jiang Xuezhou nearly misfired her pistol. She glared furiously at the Wilante who had spoken. "What?" "Relax," Wali smiled, oblivious to her distress, waving a hand to show he meant no harm before continuing, "I'm just curious. Does the Academy really send women to the front lines? What are your officers... or rather, your doctors, thinking?" Being a woman was one thing, but he could tell at a glance that this girl was green as grass. She had probably only just learned how to shoot. "Front lines?" Jiang Xuezhou's brow twitched. "Isn't this the front line? The very front line of humanity's war against the slime mold..." Squinting as he surveyed their surroundings, Wali sneered at the dark red mold crawling across the walls. "It doesn't take trenches to make a front line." Jiang Xuezhou took a deep breath and defended herself, "Our prior intelligence didn't mention encountering slime mold... I was only ordered to recover technology, experiment logs, and relevant data." It was a shame her former squad leader, Zheng Hao, was an idiot, and the quota granted to the Academy by the Alliance, Enterprise, and the Legion was only one person. Otherwise, he—or at least both of them—would have come down together. "Intelligence? Heh, that's just a reference point," Wali scoffed dismissively. "Slime mold, super mutants, aliens—if you run into them, you run into them. The entire planet is a battlefield, and anything can happen on a battlefield... Two hundred years, and it's never ended." Having no interest in his cynical remarks, Jiang Xuezhou answered coldly, "...Boring." Even though she dismissed him, the distraction helped take the edge off her nerves. *The front line of a civilizational war?* That framing did make some sense. She had heard that these mutant slime molds were "gifts" sent by the Alpha Centauri colony. In that sense, the war truly had never ended... "Oh, here they come." Hearing noises ahead, Wali calmly brought up his Eagle assault rifle, expertly clicking off the safety and chambering a round. Almost simultaneously, a wave of guttural snarls surged from the corridor in front of them. Looking closer, however, there were only a few dozen gnawers. Even a wasteland scavenger armed with a crude pipe rifle could easily dispatch such trash mobs, let alone a Wilante born and bred for war. With several sharp gunshots, the leading gnawers dropped instantly. Watching bursts of black blood splatter across the walls, Wali pressed the trigger with steady composure, dropping the oncoming gnawers with controlled bursts. In the blink of an eye, over twenty corpses littered the hallway. "Damn it... When there are this many, they're still a pain in the ass." His magazine emptied, and Wali swore as he swiftly slammed in a fresh one, glancing out of the corner of his eye at Jiang Xuezhou. "Hey, Academy girl, pull your weight!" "Heh." Seeing the Wilante starting to struggle, Jiang Xuezhou sneered and pressed her index finger against her temple. A faint blue ripple traveled from her fingertip into her hair. Almost instantly, hatches on the robotic hound's back popped open, and two basin-sized drones shot forward like lightning, whipping past Wali's head. "What the—" Wali thought in shock. Before he could ask what kind of contraptions they were, he saw the pair hover directly over the swarm. A rapid clatter of gunfire erupted right above the mob, raining a torrent of bullets straight down and engulfing every single gnawer. The grotesque mummies convulsed violently under the hail of lead before collapsing lifelessly to the floor. All fifty-one gnawers were wiped out! The entire process took less than ten seconds. Looking at the smoke-filled corridor and the drones cruising calmly back to their bays, Jiang Xuezhou tilted her chin, a smug expression written all over her face. Wali knew she was showing off, but he merely sneered. "Tch. Cheap parlor tricks." Bragging over a few dozen gnawers was pathetic. It was a shame he couldn't bring his clone troopers in here. Otherwise, there would be no room for a mere Grade-D researcher to act smug in front of him. "What did you say?" Jiang Xuezhou bristled, glaring at him like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. *This guy...* He had looked down on her from the very beginning. No matter how patient she was, she was reaching her limit. She admitted the Academy had its flaws, but it was not the place of a shameless raider or a deceitful Wilante to run his mouth about it. "Nothing," Wali grumbled, brushing off her glare. "Move your ass. Time to go." Watching Wali stride ahead, Jiang Xuezhou gritted her teeth and followed. While there was more than one route to the power station, she honestly lacked the courage to walk through this eerie, cursed place alone... ... Meanwhile, not far from the Administrator's office, Battlefield Guy and Su Ming made quick work of the gnawers they encountered along the way. Meng Liang stayed close behind them, not firing a single shot. In fact, he had even kept the safety on his sidearm engaged—the Wilante retainer named Pangolin had told him it was safer that way. For some reason, Meng Liang felt the man was taking extraordinarily good care of him. Even though he was one of the Legion's men... Hearing faint gunfire in the distance, Battlefield Guy checked their position on his tablet, took a deep breath, and said, "Team A is already close to the power station... We need to pick up the pace, too." Away from Wali, he no longer had to play the silent, brooding expert. He had grown noticeably more talkative and relaxed. Su Ming whistled and said with a smile, "Don't worry, there aren't many gnawers over there. Your officer will be fine." He didn't dislike this guy. While he couldn't understand what drove someone to serve the Wilante as a retainer, the man's combat prowess earned the genuine respect of a fellow soldier. Battlefield Guy sighed. "I'm not particularly worried about him." In any case, it had been Wali's own demand that he accompany the Enterprise and Alliance representatives; he had already recorded the conversation on his tablet. If anything went sideways, he could just pin the blame on that Academy girl. Curious, Su Ming asked, "By the way, what does a Mother Deathclaw look like?" Battlefield Guy thought about it, gesturing with his hands. "Two or three stories tall." "Incredible..." Su Ming's face was filled with shock, gazing at him with open astonishment and admiration. "You took down something that massive on your own?!" Battlefield Guy looked thoroughly embarrassed, unsure how to answer, when a scraping noise came from ahead, accompanied by the reek of decay. The two chatting men snapped to attention almost simultaneously. "Movement ahead." "You feel it too?" "Yeah..." Su Ming's gaze sharpened. Touching his index finger to his exoskeleton helmet, he carefully deployed a hummingbird-sized recon drone ahead. The drone buzzed into the pitch-black corridor. Yet just as it reached the far corner, a massive hand reached out from the shadows and crushed the drone to pieces. "Damn it!" Su Ming cursed under his breath. Tapping his helmet again, he cleared the static flickering on the left side of his tactical visor. Heavy footsteps echoed from the corridor ahead, thudding against the deck like a sledgehammer striking a wall. The three looked forward and saw a figure standing at the end of the hall. It looked as though it had been waiting for them for a long time. A raspy hiss seeped from the seams of its armor. In its left hand, it held a blast-door panel torn from somewhere, while its right gripped a length of rebar as tall as a man. A nearly palpable aura of slaughter radiated from its form. The dark red slime mold crusting its armor completely obscured its original appearance, and its jagged helmet looked like the mask of an oni. Suddenly, Su Ming's pupils contracted. "No..." He took half a step back, his voice trembling with disbelief. "How is that possible...?" Standing beside him, Battlefield Guy's nerves were wound tight, sweat instantly slicking the palms gripping his rifle. A Decayed Knight! A fusion of power armor and slime mold! A monstrosity of steel driven entirely by flesh and blood! During the last Tide, he had faced one of these head-on. No one knew better than him just how terrifying this thing was... Turning back to the bewildered Meng Liang, he ordered in a low, stern voice, "Get back and hide!" "A-Alright..." Meng Liang swallowed hard and quickly retreated, ducking into an overturned cabinet in a wrecked room off the hallway. "Damn it... and it's carrying a shield!" Looking back at the Decayed Knight, whose knees were slightly bent, Battlefield Guy took a deep breath and raised his Eagle assault rifle. Whether it worked or not, they had to fight! ... On the other side, after eliminating nearly a hundred gnawers and several crawlers, Ye Shi escorted Yun You all the way to Sector X-13. Seeing how reliable the young man was, Yun You had revised her opinion of him. "You're quite capable. You could afford to be a bit more confident, you know." Ye Shi gave her a helpless smile. "You're right... How much further do we have?" "We're here." Yun You looked at the tightly sealed blast door ahead. Dark red patches of mold obscured its designation, but the number '13' was still faintly visible. Stepping forward, she entered the visitor authorization code into the terminal beside the door. Soon, with a sharp hiss of venting air, the door slid open. A blast of dry air swept out, dispersing the spore cloud gathered at the threshold. The people inside had regulated the sector's atmospheric pressure, maintaining positive pressure against the rest of the shelter to prevent the mold and spores from seeping in. Seeing this, Yun You felt a glimmer of relief. The crew of the Pioneer might truly still be alive. "Let's go... They likely entered the hibernation pods. They might be waiting for us just ahead." "Right." Ye Shi nodded, raising his LD-50 carbine and stepping ahead of Yun You. That was his usual role in dungeon runs: serving as point scout before combat began, and letting main tanks like Lao Bai or Jieyan take over once enemies engaged. He could sense when hostile intent was locked onto him. Only by walking in front could he maximize the advantage of his Perception attribute and talent. Yun You, however, seemed to misread the gesture, thinking that while the young man was shy, he was unexpectedly considerate. She smiled softly. The conditions here matched what she had uncovered at the terminal. There were no signs of infestation by mutant slime mold—hardly any mold patches could be seen. Yet when the two stepped into the Sector X-13 archives, what met their eyes sent their hearts sinking to rock bottom. A fierce battle had taken place here. Looking at the devastation around him, Ye Shi recalled a thought he had harbored before entering the shelter and suddenly spoke up. "By the way... there's something I've never quite understood." Staring at the scorched black marks on the wall, Yun You swallowed, her voice trembling slightly. "What is it?" "We didn't see any signs of battle on our way down, even in the areas overgrown with creep... not until this room," Ye Shi said in a low voice, looking at the bullet holes scarring the walls. "So did that Enlightenment Society... only turn on the Pioneer's crew after they arrived here?" Yun You froze, unsure why he was bringing this up now. "Perhaps... Why do you ask?" "Nothing... I just thought it would have happened earlier. After all, didn't Yi Hai enter a hibernation pod before the crew entered the shelter?" Muttering under his breath, Ye Shi kept his carbine raised as he pressed forward, searching every row of archive shelves and scanning every corner that could conceal danger. It was unlikely there was any slime mold here. Yet the unease lingering in his chest only grew heavier. As he passed through the rows of shelves and approached the door leading to the next chamber, he suddenly spotted a corpse slumped behind an overturned desk. The body was severely decomposed. However, because it was lying right beside a ventilation duct, the stench of decay hadn't drifted far, which was why Ye Shi only smelled the pungent odor when he leaned in close. The corpse was clutching a pistol. Judging by the bullet holes riddling the desk and the nearby walls, the person had used the overturned desk as cover in an intense firefight against someone. The outcome was obvious. The attackers had shot him dead, advancing past his makeshift barricade and through the door he had died trying to protect. "He was murdered..." Yun You walked over to Ye Shi's side, her face turning pale as she stated the obvious. *But who did this?!* Enduring the foul stench, she crouched down and searched the corpse's chest. Soon, she found an ID badge caked in dried blood. The moment her eyes fell on the badge, her expression froze, her gaze wavering between shock and bewilderment. "What did you find?" Ye Shi immediately crouched beside her and looked at the badge in her hands. Although dried blood obscured most of the text, he could still make out the words inscribed upon it. And the instant he recognized those words, shock and utter confusion took over his face as well. [Silverwing Group - Overseas Division First Pioneer Corps Deputy Commander—] [Yi Hai]