Beyond the door, a lone silhouette huddled on the floor of the darkened room.
A single light, little more than a bare bulb, dangled from the ceiling, casting a sickly glow over the woman seated beneath it.
She looked to be in her thirties. Though she was gaunt, her face possessed a naturally stubborn bone structure. Her disheveled hair clung to her cheeks, and her faded eyes wandered aimlessly, unable to focus.
She wore nothing but a thin patient gown. Her neck and forearms were peppered with marks, looking as if they had been pricked by needles countless times. Her skin was strangely pale and slick with sweat; despite her poor complexion, she seemed flushed with fever.
《...Must... apologize...》 《...To the repairman...》 《I can... still go back...》
Only the Speech Bubbles hovering above her head remained vividly clear. Though not a single sound escaped her lips, the mere dregs of her consciousness were desperately reaching out.
"...Ugh, ah."
The woman finally seemed to notice our presence and raised her head. However, her gaze remained hollow—directed at me, yet looking at something far away.
As I studied her face, my suspicions were confirmed.
I know her.
It was back when I had first opened my workshop in the Lower District. I’d seen a woman who had replaced more than half of her body with inferior prosthetics, a woman on the verge of total despair. I had fixed her frame, reorganized the internal plumbing for the pumps that served as her organs, and got her back on her feet. She had been a customer.
But the person before me now...
She’d been reverted completely to flesh and blood.
My gaze instinctively dropped from her shoulders. Her right leg, which had been a metal frame, and her left arm, which had been a prosthetic—now, they were undeniably "natural." There were no seams where the cybernetics should have met skin, no bolt marks, not even a scar.
She was just like the people in the flower garden. She had been returned to being a "human," clean and whole.
"...Rei."
Behind me, Kaya whispered my name. The mechanical whirring at the end of the hallway had grown louder. It echoed through the entire floor like a persistent case of tinnitus.
"What’s the plan? Things are starting to look seriously bad."
When I glanced back, Kaya had already lowered her center of gravity, coiled like a spring. Her gaze darted between me, the woman, and the hallway.
I glanced at the Speech Bubbles again.
《Still... in time...》 《To that person...》 《Must apologize...》 《I'm sorry...》
Her wandering eyes were empty, but the "insides" were still there. Even if more than half of her mind was already succumbing to contamination.
"...We’re taking her."
"Seriously?" Kaya’s eyebrows shot up.
"I fixed her once. Prosthetics and all. Miraculously, she’s sitting here made of flesh and blood. She’s a living example of the Order's 'miracle.' We might be able to learn something from her."
"Hmm. Taking a sample home, then. Though lugging her along looks like it’ll be a real pain." Kaya spared the woman a glance and gave an exaggerated shrug.
Well, we’ll manage.
I knelt on the floor and slowly reached toward the woman. "...Can you hear me?"
There was no answer. Only a faint Speech Bubble flickered into existence.
《Scared》 《Not scared》 《Scared》 《...Want to go home》
Want to go home, huh?
I let out a short breath. "Alright, I’m carrying you."
I slid my hands behind her back and under her knees, hoisting her up. She was light—so thin she was little more than skin and bone. I draped her over my shoulder, securing her weight.
"Yes, yes, how gallant of you," Kaya said, stepping forward to scout the hallway.
At that moment, a siren one level louder than before wailed through the floor.
BEEEEEEEEEP—!
Red lamps embedded in the ceiling began to flash in unison. The floor vibrated beneath our feet, and I heard the heavy, rhythmic thud of metal shutters slamming shut in the distance.
"...Time's up."
"We need to find an exit, fast."
"We can't go back the way we came. We'll have to take another route."
I leaned out into the hallway and expanded the range of my Speech Bubbles. The sparks of thought that had been scattered earlier had suddenly multiplied. Everywhere I looked, the distorted lights of security guards and "Believers" were swarming.
《Invaders!》 《Where are they! Search!》 《Exclude》 《Enemy of God》 《Blessing》 《Regeneration》 《Regeneration》 《Regeneration》
For a second, my vision was nearly blinded by a torrent of white text.
"...That's quite the welcome party."
"Being popular is rough," I quipped, breaking into a run while balancing the woman on my shoulder.
The first obstacles we hit were "ordinary" security guards.
Three of them rounded the corner. They had live-ammo handguns and stun batons at their waists. Judging by their expressions and movements, they were the same level of amateur as the ones outside.
"Who the hell are y—"
I drew my gun before he could finish. I dropped my center of gravity slightly to keep the woman’s weight from throwing off my aim. Focusing entirely on the Speech Bubbles floating above their heads, I squeezed the trigger three times.
Pop, pop, pop.
The dry reports of the handgun echoed. My bullets didn't hit their foreheads or their hearts; they punched straight through the Speech Bubbles above them.
The strings of text shattered like glass and vanished. Simultaneously, the three guards collapsed like puppets with their strings cut.
"...That skill is as creepy as ever," Kaya muttered behind me.
Hey, don’t knock it. It’s a masterpiece that lets me neutralize a target with a small-caliber round.
I checked to make sure they were out as I stepped over them. If they were normal humans, they wouldn't be waking up for a long time.
The problem was the ones who weren't normal.
The sound of shuffling feet approached from the end of the hall. White robes. Gaunt bodies. Their eyes were unfocused, exactly like the woman’s, and their mouths were fixed in wide, vacant smiles.
《It doesn't hurt》 《I'm not scared》 《God's Child》 《God's Vessel》 《Into God's Domain—》
"...Here they come."
The moment I spoke, they lunged. Their limbs moved in ways that defied the natural limits of human joints. Ignoring the audible creaking of their own bones, they kicked off the walls and ceiling with terrifying speed.
"Rei!"
"I know!"
Working with only one free arm, I aimed by instinct. I fired three shots at the Speech Bubbles. The bullets hit the text, but while one shattered with a satisfying pop, the other two seemed to pass right through the strings as if they were transparent.
《God's En-emy》 《God's—》
One Believer crumpled. The other two merely jerked their heads to the side before resuming their charge at full speed.
"Tougher than they look."
"Leave them to me!"
Kaya darted forward. A heartbeat after her feet kicked off the floor, she was inside their guard. Her palms lashed out, striking upward into the base of their necks.
With a sickening crack, the Believers' upper bodies were forced back at impossible angles.
But then...
"...Ugh, gross."
The cervical vertebrae I’d heard snap squelched as they twisted back into place. Muscles writhed beneath their skin, and bones were forcibly "Regenerated" back into their original shapes.
It was just like before. Even if their bodies were broken, they mended themselves instantly.
"It'll buy us enough time. Move!"
I kicked open a side door before the Believers could finish recovering. We ducked into a narrow corridor. Overhead, the alarms reached a fever pitch. Ceiling panels slid back, and a swarm of small drones glided down. I heard the high-pitched whirring of their rotors and saw the downward-facing lenses.
A pungent, chemical odor hit my nostrils—gas dispersal.
"Whoops."
As one drone locked on and opened its nozzle, I reached my hand toward it.
《Repair》
A structural schematic of the drone flashed through my mind. I saw the warped rotors and the grit in the bearings.
Return to normal values.
The moment I issued the command, the drone shuddered. Its rotors died, and it plummeted to the floor as if its power had been cut. It helped that the thing was already in poor condition; in the process of "repairing" it to its peak state, I’d simply overloaded the system to 120%.
"We can't do this one by one!"
"I know!"
I let Kaya take the lead and sprinted down the passage. Behind me, the sound of gas hissing filled the air. A sharp, stinging scent caught in my throat for a fraction of a second, but I immediately applied my Repair skill to my own lungs. I prioritized decomposing the toxins.
The woman on my shoulder began to breathe heavily, but while I apologized to her in my head, I refrained from using Repair on her. If I wanted to investigate how the Order operated, I couldn't risk introducing my own skill’s factors into her system.
Thick shutters had already sealed off most of the facility.
I brought up the blueprints the Doctor had given me in my mind. Our destination was the "back side" of the facility—a massive vertical shaft used for drainage and ventilation.
After kicking through two more doors and navigating a maintenance path, the view suddenly opened up. We had made it outside.
We were in the lowest level of Neo Babel. It was a distorted, pastoral scene; massive structural pillars towered like trees, their bases swallowed by sprawling meadows and flower fields. The bluish-white glow from the energy-ball "moons" gave the petals of the Poisonous Flowers an eerie, luminescent sheen.
"Alright, we're out!" Kaya cheered, pumping her fist before breaking into a run.
She wove through the shadows of the pillars, careful to avoid the flora. Each petal hid microscopic needles; a single touch would send paralytic toxins racing through the blood.
The woman on my shoulder muttered something delirious.
《Warm...》 《Light...》 《...Can go home》
"Hang in there. Just a little further."
Behind us, the facility groaned as it shifted into "Defense Mode." I heard the distant shouts of security teams and saw the silhouettes of drones skimming the tops of the pillars. And then there were the footsteps—the Believers were closing in.
"Rei, behind you!"
Just as Kaya shouted, a Believer lunged from the shadow of a pillar. As expected, they moved with a total disregard for their own anatomy.
In a single motion, I shifted the woman’s weight to one side. Without stopping, I plunged my free hand into the flower field.
《Repair》
I snatched up a handful of Poisonous Flowers and instantly Repaired them. The needles on the back of the petals activated, growing longer than usual as a thin, toxic film coated the surface.
"Sorry, but you need a nap."
I slammed the bouquet into the Believer's face. The man writhed frantically for a moment before his muscles went into full-blown convulsions and he collapsed. It seemed that even with regeneration, the nervous system being fried by poison was another matter entirely. Continuous damage worked.
"Nice one."
"A bouquet for the gentleman. Romantic, right?"
"Your taste is terrible."
Ignoring the jab, I pushed deeper into the forest of pillars. Eventually, a massive, dark silhouette appeared ahead of us. It was the drainage channel on the outer edge of the Subplate. A floodgate from an older era stood open in the thick concrete wall. Fortunately, the drainage was low; only about a foot of lukewarm sewage flowed sluggishly through the tunnel.
"Can we actually get out through here?" Kaya asked, grimacing.
"If the Doctor’s map is right, yeah."
"It’s literally a sewer, Rei."
"Hey, it's a classic escape route."
I adjusted the woman on my shoulder and dropped into the channel feet-first. A slimy sensation seeped through my boots, and a foul stench assaulted my nose. I turned back and looked up at Kaya. "Come on, hurry up. I’ll treat you to a purification shower or two after this."
"Ugh... fine."
Kaya took a short running start, leaped over me, and landed on the ledge further in. High above us, the steel shutters began to grind shut with a heavy, final thud.
"Move! Before they lock the lid!"
"On it, partner!"
We broke into a run, splashing through the sewage toward the end of the dark tunnel. Behind us, the sound of the shutters died away, lost in the gloom.