Chapter 21
Early Challenge
Alexander North
We quickly make it through BF6, only having to deal with one monster in the entire area before we reach the stairs to BF5's command room.
"We'll be going up to BF2 from BF5 so as to avoid making contact with the monster within the hangar until the commander can deal with it himself," Major Vaugns says as we climb the stairs. "And once we reach the command room on BF5, make sure you watch out for any small spider monsters in case some of them managed to survive."
"Understood, sir!" the captains and I all state before falling silent until we reach the door to BF5. However, what we find surprises both me and the captains I originally came here with when we were going downstairs for the first time.
"Captain Ruthers? Captain Summers?" the major asks as we look at the frozen door laying beaten up on the ground. "Was it like this when either of you came down?"
Both captains – including the one who lead the latest squad to join us down to the base – just shakes their heads no and answer, "Negative, sir."
"In that case," the major continues before raising his hand and saying, "get ready for anything."
We all slowly walk towards the door with our swords in hand and stop just outside of it. While we're stopped, I take a second to examine the door sitting on the ground next to me.
It looks like those suicide bomber spiders from before just rammed themselves into the door and blew up to break it down. But why would a living being – monster or not – have an instinct to self-destruct itself?
Unless...
"Majo-" I begin, only for a loud screech to echo through the command room right after the major and three of the captains finish making their way into the room. I quickly follow after them with the rest of the captains, just
to find a meter-long spider standing on the other end of the long table spanning across the command room.
The major swears as dozens of the small spiders begin to flood the room from behind the large one before shouting, "It's their queen!"
"Didn't you say that you made it through unimpeded?" Captain Ruthers shouts back at Captain Summers.
Captain Elizabeth Summers answers with a shout of her own as she rushes forwards to meet the smaller spiders, "We didn't see a single one of these spiders when we came through!"
The rest of the captains that came through the floor later and I spread out to begin fighting off the smaller spiders, but after quickly slaughtering a lot of the critters, our blades begin to crack from the icy liquid flowing through their bodies. And after just a few more spider deaths, I hear a scream from my right, making me glance over to find one of the captains – the captain of BH12 – getting hit with a suicide attack after his sword shatters halfway through.
"Damn it, retreat!" the major shouts as he slowly fights off the smaller spiders as they come.
However, despite our slow retreat, I soon hear three more blades shattering, followed by one more scream as another captain gets hit by a suicide bomber.
This isn't looking go-
Before I can even finish that thought, my own sword shatters, leaving me frowning at it before a spider jumps at me and explodes. But to both the captains around me and the spiders' surprise, the resulting liquid splashing all over my front does nothing other than freeze my armor solid.
I grunt for a second before shattering the armor to allow me to move again, leaving the front of my torso and shoulders exposed as I chuck the remainder of my sword at one of the spiders, skewering it with the remaining half of the blade.
"It looks like we found another one of your new changes," I hear Major Vaugns say as he reaches me while fighting off a spider of his own. "Try to make use of it!"
He then continues falling back with the other captains, leaving me here in the middle of the spiders who, for the most part, begin to focus on me instead of the others.
Well, isn't this just peachy.
I soon find myself surrounded by the arachnids before remembering my claws and bringing them back out along with a few exclamations of surprise from the captains in the stairwell.
Without paying those any mind, I rush at the encirclement of spiders and begin tearing them apart without a care for my armor. Which ends up working out rather well, considering that the creatures can't seem to harm me very much, what with their greatest weapon not being effective against me.
Eventually though, the large spider finally starts moving from its place on the table. But instead of going towards me, it begins retreating back out of the room further into BF5 while letting out a loud screech that makes the other, smaller spiders quickly start following after it.
"The hell?" I mutter in between heavy breaths as I stand in the command room alone and surrounded by dead spiders while wearing a completely frozen and shattered in many places set of armor.
"It looks like the queen has enough intelligence to set a trap and to know when its failed," I hear the major say from behind me, making me turn around to find him looking around at the spider corpses.
Which means the spiders really didn't have an instinct to self-destruct themselves. It was likely the queen ordering them to do so.
Either that, or they do have an instinct to do it, just to only do it when they're defending their queen.
The major continues looking at the spider corpses for a bit until I hear a cough coming from one of the captains behind him, making both me and him turn to look, just to find a couple of the female captains pointedly looking away from me. So I look down to remember that my armor and clothing is in complete disarray, with parts of my armor ripped off around my arms, legs, and most of my upper torso. Fortunately, though, nothing too important is exposed. So it's fine.
Although I do notice a couple of the captains staring at the very large scar at the center of my chest from the heart surgery I had a while back in order to have my failing heart replaced with the artificial one.
The major clears his throat when he notices what condition my armor is in before he says, "We should go get you some new armor."
I just look up at him to find him also looking at the scar, but only for a few seconds, after which he focuses on my face again and says, "I need to
inform the lieutenant colonel about this, but I want you to stand guard here for the time being."
After seeing me nod at that, he turns to look at the captains and orders, "Captains Ruthers and Andrew will stay with you while the rest of us go back down."
He then starts walking away, only to pause once he gets to the open doorway to the stairwell and add, "I'll send someone up with a set of replacement armor for you. There are extra sets in the bunker to use, and we have a set fitted for each soldier stationed here."
The man then continues into the stairwell and leads the other captains down again with some of them helping the wounded ones on the way, leaving me, Captain Andrew, and Captain Ruthers standing awkwardly in a room filled with frozen spider corpses.
Chapter 22
Hate
Alexander North
An awkward silence ensues for a few minutes after they leave before Captain Andrew points at my claws and says, "Bet those are helpful."
I move my hand in front of my face with the claws still extended.
"Yeah," I mutter while staring at the sharp, black claws sticking out of my pale hand. "Honestly, these might just be better than a sword."
"But?" Captain Ruthers asks while sitting down on the table and looking at me.
I glance at him before looking at my claws again and saying, "A sword still has its uses."
Particularly the longer range that they offer me as compared to my claws. And the weight behind the sword strikes that claws just don't have.
Silence once again fills the room with none of us really knowing what to talk about while we stare at the entrance to the room. Eventually though, I feel a gloveless hand grab my bare arm in one of the locations where my armor and clothes are wrecked.
I turn to see Captain Andrew frowning at my arm before removing his hand and looking at it.
"What was that about, captain?" I ask him, a little bewildered by his actions.
"Just sating my own curiosity," the captain mutters while still staring at the light frost that had started building up on his hand from the contact with my skin.
I raise an eyebrow at that, but before I can say anything, Captain Andrew looks up at me and says, "Your arm is cold. Very cold. Is that normal since the change, or are you freezing alive due to how exposed you are now?"
My mouth parts slightly at that, only to close again. At the same time, Captain Ruthers turns to look at me without saying anything, likely curious
to hear about my condition as well.
That's a strange question, considering that touching my skin made
frost begin to cover his hand. Albeit a lot less than it did on other things I touched. Which I guess means that symbionts make people more resistant to more than just the icy liquid inside of those spiders when it comes to the monsters.
"Honestly? I don't feel cold," I answer the two of them with a shrug after a few more seconds. "In fact, this room feels really nice to me whereas the bunker downstairs felt too hot."
They both look a little surprised at that, but I explain my theory about my body being built for this type of environment now, making them instead look down in contemplation.
None of us speak again until we hear the sound of someone climbing the stairs behind us.
When I turn around, I surprisingly find Phillip reaching the top of the stairs while lugging around a bag. And the moment he sees me, he stops to wave before dragging it across the frost-covered ground to me and dropping it, making it spill a few pieces of inactive cybernetic armor.
"Thanks," I tell him with a nod before kneeling down and beginning to take the armor out of the bag. However, after I finish laying the set of armor out on the ground and look up, I find Phillip still standing there staring at me with his helmet held under his arm.
"What is it?" I ask him while taking my current damaged helmet off and placing it in the bag.
"Well..." he starts before twiddling with his thumbs and going silent.
I let out a sigh and wave my hand at him, "Just speak your mind." "Well, I was wondering what it's like to not be human anymore?" he
asks with a very eager expression on his face.
Just for that expression to go away when Captain Andrew slaps him in
the back of the head.
I chuckle at that before saying, "Don't worry, captain, it really doesn't
bother me. I was already raised with the understanding that I would become a symbiont host in the future, so I just think of this as a different path. Albeit one without any prior information about it."
Both captains look surprised by that, but I continue talking while looking down at my hands, "I'm stronger than a human being now, with new abilities that will help me survive in this apocalypse, even if I don't
fully understand everything yet." I then clench both of my fists and look up again with a faint smile on my face. "I even have a way to continue getting stronger. One that's on my own and not with the help of some artificial creature surgically joined with me."
And that's really all I've ever wanted.
A path for myself. One made by me for myself. Even if it was technically due to a combination of my heart and this strange apocalypse.
Not the path dad set for me, regardless of why, and not the one that got mom killed.
"Before now, the symbionts were my only path to getting stronger," I mutter with a frown before unclenching my fists and going back to putting on my armor. "Mutation or not, this still somehow seems more natural than the symbionts. So I would take this over getting one of those things planted inside of me."
I never really thought about this much before. But I really hate the symbionts.
After all, it was because of the first version of the symbionts that mom died.
All three of them stay silent as I continue switching my armor out for the new set until I eventually stand back up fully equipped again and focus on the small spider corpses in the room. Or more specifically, on the energy that's still in their corpses.
At least, the ones that didn't self-destruct, that is. Because apparently that uses up all of their energy to do?
Either way, it looks like the monsters' energy doesn't simply fade away after a period of time. So something was absorbing the energy of the monsters up above that wasn't just me.
I should mention that to the lieutenant colonel later.
But for now...
I start going from spider to spider, just absorbing the energy in their
bodies before checking my new stats after I finish getting every last one of them.
/ Current Analysis of user Alexander North \
Strength: 1.60 Agility: 1.70
Reflexes: 1.54
Constitution: 2.01 Immunity: ? Senses: 1.73
Body Malfunctions: ?
Error: Cannot determine Immunity or Body Malfunctions of user's
current species.
The average of a human being without a symbiont is a 1 across all stats.
\End of Analysis/
My eyes widen at the results.
That's quite a boost. Or at least, it's a big boost to my agility and reflexes.
The rest of my stats only rose by like 0.01 or so.
Which makes sense considering how physically weak the spiders were. My thoughts are interrupted as I feel a twitch in my head behind my
ear, where the terminal is implanted, followed shortly by the appearance of a notice in the place of the analysis.
/ Notice \
Terminal has finished updating the database to include current user's species' information.
Analysis page will now be updated.
\End of Notice/
I stare at the notice for a few seconds before another analysis appears at the edge of my vision. One that brings even more questions with it.
Chapter 23
Energy
Alexander North
/ Current Analysis of user Alexander North \
Strength: 1.60 Agility: 1.70
Reflexes: 1.54 Constitution: 2.01 Immunity: ? Senses: 1.73 Energy: 1.41
Body Malfunctions: N/A
Error: Cannot determine Immunity of user's current species without the
user getting sick to collect data.
The average of a human being without a symbiont is a 1 across all stats. The Energy statistic is determined with a 1 being set as the user's original starting statistic for Energy.
Notice: The Energy statistic represents the non-integrated Arctic Energy within the user's body.
\End of Analysis/
My eyes widen at the analysis before I ask out loud, "Terminal, clarify the definition of the term 'non-integrated Arctic Energy' to me," confusing the captains and Phillip in the process.
/ Notice \
Answer to User's Query – Non-integrated Arctic Energy refers to the radioactive energy within the user's body that has not integrated and
merged itself with user's cells. When the Arctic Energy is not integrated,
the user themself is able to manipulate the energy in a way known so far only by the user's newly discovered species.
\End of Notice/
"Holy shit..." I mutter, ignoring the curious looks being sent my way by the others. "Terminal, explain to me how to use non-integrated Arctic Energy."
/ Notice \
Answer to User's Query – Unknown.
\End of Notice/
Oh. Yeah, probably should've guessed that.
We are still in uncharted territory after all.
Makes me wonder how the terminal knows that I can manipulate it if it
doesn't know how though.
Wait a second. The analysis mentioned that I started out with 1 energy,
but now I have 1.41? Why has it increased so much?
My thoughts are interrupted as I feel someone grab my shoulder and
lightly shake me. When I look up, I find Phillip doing it with a worried look on his face as he asks, "Hey, is something wrong with your terminal? You've just been staring and muttering to yourself for a while."
I blink at that before shaking my head and answering, "No, everything's fine. My terminal just updated to show a new statistic."
His jaw drops open at that, and the two captains don't look any less surprised either. But I just ignore them to focus on my body.
I close my eyes and try to feel something. Like the characters always seem to do in video games and books.
But as expected, I don't feel anything and end up frowning instead. Hmm, if that didn't work...
I open my eyes again and look around the room, only to not find any
more corpses with their energy still intact and not already absorbed. But before I can get disappointed by that, a shard suddenly pierces into the room.
"Shard," I warn the others before jumping up much higher than I ever could before getting infected and pulling it out of the wall not even a full two seconds after it started digging out of it. I then close my eyes and focus on the energy that I can feel entering my body.
It feels cool and comfortable. Like a nice glass of cold water after a long workout in the summer heat on planet Atlanta.
I focus on it, trying to make sure not to lose this feeling as I feel it spread throughout the entirety of my body before slowly lowering in volume until I can only barely feel it anymore. But at that point, I start to feel a change in it. As if it were merging with another body of energy that I hadn't noticed prior to now.
But unfortunately, that body of energy fades from my senses too quickly for me to get a grasp on it, leaving me back to where I was before trying to sense the energy.
I open my eyes again with a sigh and turn to the others, who still look just as confused as they did when the terminal first mentioned the energy statistic and I spoke out loud.
"So?" Phillip suddenly asks.
"So what?" I ask back, not really understanding what he means.
"The new statistic, man!" he continues, clearly frustrated for some
reason, "I'm asking you what it is and what it does!"
"Oh," I mutter before standing up and answering, "well, the statistic is
called Energy. It's basically the amount of radiation that's within my body but not infused into it."
Judging by the look on his face, my answer only seems to confuse him further. At least until he blurts out, "Magic!" and apparently decides to push off anything I just said and consider it magic instead.
"Sure," I tell him with a faint smile of amusement, "think of it as you will if it helps."
A smile blooms on Phillip's face as if I had just made his day and he begins walking back towards the stairs before leaving the room. Only to come back and grab the discarded armor and continue making his way down again.
I raise an eyebrow at the man's antics before looking at the captains, who are both staring at me. Which looks a tad bit creepy with their helmets on, seeing as their visors are down and I can't see their faces.
"I don't know how to use the energy yet, but I did manage to find it for a brief moment when I absorbed the energy from that shard," I explain to them before glancing at the now-energy-less shard in my hand, "it looked like most of the energy in it went to nurture and strengthen my body while the rest of it joined with some sort of hidden pool of energy inside of me."
I raise my head again and say, "If that makes any sense to you."
"I... think it does?" Captain Andrew mutters, only to glance at Captain Ruthers, who nods his head and says with absolute certainty, "It made sense, but I still don't understand it."
Huh?
"To be more clear," Captain Andrew adds, "I think it would make sense if we could sense this energy you're talking about. But we can't, so all we can do is try to understand from your words alone."
Oh. Wait, they can't sense the energy? Why no-
I blink as I remember that I wasn't able to sense it either until I was infected. Before then, all I knew was that the shards and monster's chests were glowing with a pale blue light. In fact, the only reason I realized it was a type of energy was when I absorbed it and was told that it was by the terminal.
"Huh," I mutter out loud at the realization.
Does that mean no one will be able to understand my explanations? Because that would kind of suck.
Chapter 24
Solo Operation
Alexander North
It doesn't take long before the major comes back, surprisingly with only two captains with him. Neither of which being the ones I'm expecting trouble from.
"Second Lieutenant North, we've decided that – due to your extenuating circumstances – we will be sending you alone to clear the floor of the spiders," Major Vaugns declares, not wasting any time after sending a brief nod towards the two captains standing next to me.
Almost immediately after he finishes speaking, Captain Andrew opens his mouth to protest, just to be shot down as the major turns his gaze to him and says, "That order is absolute. These spiders don't seem to be able to harm the second lieutenant, so both Major Carter and I came to the decision that he would be the best option to go with at this time." He then turns to look at me and adds, "Plus, from what you've told us, you should be able to get stronger by killing these spiders. Am I correct?"
After he sees me nod, he turns back to Captain Andrew again and says, "There you go. He'll be benefiting from this operation as well. And we'll be more than happy to provide him with a couple more sets of armor to replace his own as it gets damaged."
My captain continues to glare at the major but doesn't say anything else.
"Unfortunately, we weren't able to provide you with any swords," the major continues while looking at me again, only to turn his gaze towards my gloved hands, "but I doubt you'll be needing one."
Uh huh. You just don't want to give me a sword because you know it'll shatter during this, when I can avoid that problem by using my claws.
I don't point this out though and instead begin taking my gloves off while extending my claws again. The major seems to approve of this and nods his head before turning around and beginning to make his way
towards the stairs while calling out, "Captains Andrew and Ruthers, make sure to guard the top of the staircase and wait for Second Lieutenant North's return."
He then leaves down the stairs with the two captains who came with him as the other two captains and I watch them all go.
After several seconds pass in silence, I turn around and begin making my way through the spider corpses towards the entrance. But right when I'm about to cross into the hallway, I hear Captain Andrew calling out, "Be careful, second lieutenant."
I raise my hand to wave back at him while walking through the open doorway.
The hallway outside of the command room is a branched one with three different paths I can take. One of which – the center one – leads towards the stairs and is the way that I came down to this floor in the first place, with Captain Ruthers. The other two lead to different sections of the floor.
If I remember correctly, the left section is meant for the storage of laser class weapons, along with more personnel dorms. Meanwhile the right section is for the storage of metal class weapons and armor and even more personnel dorms.
Ignoring the left section for the moment, I begin walking down the right hallway – seeing as it's the way that I saw the larger spider running off in.
And considering that the spider didn't head towards the stairs, I think it's safe to assume that's the direction of its nest. Which means...
My thoughts come to a halt as I turn the corner in the hallways to find small amounts of glittering webbing spread about the frost-coated hallway. The webbing seems to have a similar texture to ice, while still retaining its stickiness. But surprisingly, I don't find any spiders yet.
So I continue walking through the eerily silent hallway, with the silence broken only by my footsteps softly echoing throughout it until I begin to hear faint sounds of movement, some scuttling here and there, and a couple of hisses coming from the direction of one of the rooms. A room whose door is in complete disarray as it lies on the floor on the other side of the hallway from the doorway while covered in ice and seemingly bashed inwards.
I instinctively reach for my gun, only to remember that I don't have one, and the fact that even if I did it wouldn't work, before I spread my claws out and slowly inch forwards toward the door. But the instant I get within a meter's length of the door, the noises stop, leaving the hallway in complete silence as I come to a halt as well in response.
My breathing now the only noise in the hall for a few seconds, I quietly inch my way towards the door, just to grab an extra glove from the pocket at my waist and throw it into the room before walking out a second later at the sounds of movement towards the glove.
The first thing I see are several dozen tiny spiders swarming my glove. But immediately after that, I find two of those larger spiders standing at the back of the storage room, amongst several crates of guns. Spiders who aren't paying any attention towards the gloves and are staring directly at me with all eight of their eyes.
Which is creepy looking.
I rush into the room almost at the same time that the two spiders begin sprinting towards me, only to barely avoid getting impaled on its limb by sliding beneath it and dragging my claws through its underbelly along the way, causing the creature to let out a loud shriek of pain. But I ignore it as I climb back to my feet before jumping out of the way of the other larger spider's attack that ends up piercing into the metal floor of the base.
Why the hell are there two of them? Were we wrong, and it wasn't the queen?
If there is a queen, and none of these are it, then I really don't want to meet it.
I grit my teeth as the other, smaller spiders begin to head over here as well. So I hurry up and grab the large spider's limb which is currently stuck in the floor before putting pressure on it with both my arms and my weight, causing it to begin making creaking, and then snapping sounds that are followed by the spider's hateful hissing.
But before I can finish the job, the other large spider – who is currently bleeding a blue liquid that is literally freezing the floor as it touches it – ignores its injury and sends a limb straight towards where I'm standing, piercing into my side in the process. Fortunately though, my armor blocks a large portion of the blow prior to giving in and letting it pierce a couple of inches into my side.
I let out a grunt but continue to twist the spider's limb with my full weight until it snaps off of its body with the sound of breaking ice. And before it can even hit the ground, I let go and reach for the first spider's limb that pierced into my side but didn't seem to be doing anything other than that before yanking it out with another grunt of pain.
When I turn to the spider though, I find it lying on the ground, already dead. So I turn my attention back to the one that's now letting out loud screeches and hisses at the same time due to the massive amount of blood leaking from its limb – some of which managed to get onto my arm before I let go of the leg, freezing the armor in the process.
Deciding that the creature will die without me finishing it off, I jump with as much force as I can muster away from the spiders and onto a crate of weapons that would've been too high for me to jump prior to my changes to avoid the swarm of tiny ones rushing over from the glove. But the moment I land on the crate, I can't help but fall to my knees while coughing out pale bluish-red blood from my injury.
I turn my head to look at the injury, just to raise my brows slightly as I see tiny strings of blue energy literally knitting the injury back together. At the same time, a notice appears in my vision from my terminal, mentioning that I am apparently making use of my new statistic for the first time.
Holy shit. The energy can heal me?
Chapter 25
Losses
Alexander North
I pull up my current analysis just to check.
/ Current Analysis of user Alexander North \
Strength: 1.60 Agility: 1.70
Reflexes: 1.54 Constitution: 2.01 Immunity: ? Senses: 1.73 Energy: 1.20/1.41
Body Malfunctions: N/A
Error: Cannot determine Immunity of user's current species without the
user getting sick to collect data.
The average of a human being without a symbiont is a 1 across all stats except for Energy.
The Energy statistic is determined with a 1 being set as the user's original starting statistic for Energy.
\End of Analysis/
My eyes quickly lock onto the new number and format for the Energy stat before I take note of how fast it's dropping. Then I close my terminal again and focus on the wound for a few seconds as it continues closing up.
At this point, the wound has already closed up about halfway – enough for me to fight without much issue again outside of the pain. But it also seems to drain my Energy at an incredibly fast pace, so I shouldn't abuse this.
I focus on the small spiders again as they scurry over to the crate before beginning to climb it. Meanwhile the large spider that's still alive is
currently lying on the ground, dying.
For a moment, the memory of the small spiders trying to break through
my armor back in the command room earlier flashes to the surface of my mind and a smile breaks out on my face.
These things aren't strong enough to pierce my armor, unlike the larger ones.
With that thought in mind, I stand in place, waiting for the spiders to finish climbing up the crate as my wound continues sealing itself up. And by the time they reach me, it's already almost fully closed. So I rush forward and begin ripping the spiders apart with my claws while trying – keyword trying – to leave my armor safe from their frostbitten blood.
During the process, some of the spiders die before my claws even finish passing through them, leaving the energy in their bodies to absorb into my body mid fight – which seems to speed up the healing of my wound. But I don't stop to gawk and instead continue finishing them all off until the room is filled with nothing but crates of weapons, myself, and ripped apart spider corpses.
I take a few seconds to catch my breath before going around to absorb the energy from all of the creatures. And surprisingly, despite the same feeling as usual running through my body as always when I absorb energy, my terminal doesn't give me any notices during the process. Not until about a minute after I finish absorbing the last one – that being the first large spider – where it finally gives me one.
/ Notice \
The following user statistics have updated: Strength: 1.60 - 1.67
Agility: 1.70 - 1.88 Reflexes: 1.54 - 1.72 Constitution: 2.01 - 2.09 Senses: 1.73 - 1.87 Energy: 1.41 - 1.62
\End of Notice/
Oh? Well, that's convenient. Looks like the terminal is only going to show one major update when there are a lot of changes at once.
Much better than showing every tiny change. Especially when I'm in a battle.
And when I pull up my analysis again, I find that my Energy had stopped falling now that my wound is healed, and has actually raised a bit again thanks to the new Energy I got from the monsters. I take a moment to calculate the amount of Energy I have right now compared to the amount I gained from the monsters before arriving at the amount it should've taken to heal that wound.
Looks like it takes me about 0.41 energy to recover from a major wound.
If I remember correctly, symbiont hosts also heal much faster than regular humans do. But their healing is attached to their metabolism. So they have to eat a lot more to heal, and if they don't have the nutrients needed, then it'll begin draining the rest of their body until they look like a mummy.
I hope nothing like that happens to me if I run out of energy...
A shiver runs down my spine at the thought, but I push past it to look around the weapons storage room. This should just be one of many storage rooms, but there are still several dozen crates of weapons stashed throughout. Along with a lot of frost-coated spiderwebs on them.
It's just too bad that none of these weapons will work anymore, since this particular room is for guns by the looks of the weapons lying about.
I continue searching through the room for a little bit before finding nothing of note, grabbing a rifle that I place on my back to replace the weapon I lost before, and leaving to move further down the hall in my search for more spiders. But not even five minutes later, I end up finding a rather gruesome scene.
In the middle of the hallway are several soldiers – all dead due to frostbite, with even more spider gore around them from the small spiders who likely suicide bombed them. And that's not even the worst of it. Because in a room right next to them – which is a mess hall – there are over a dozen dead non-combat class workers. Those being consistent of assistants, cooks, and some tech specialists. I think there's even one random person that I've never met and can't find an ID for.
A guest of a higher ranking officer perhaps?
I continue searching through the mess hall for any signs of survivors, but don't manage to find any before I walk into the hallway again.
If the civilians at this base who had soldiers guarding them were slaughtered, not to mention the soldiers themselves, how are the cities
faring? Not even just on this planet, but throughout the entire universe?
Just how many people are going to be killed during this 'Eternal
Winter'?
I clench my fist in anger at the Arctic Empire – who is the most likely
culprit behind all of this – making my claws, which I forgot were out, pierce into my palm. But I just ignore it as a tiny amount of my Energy quickly seals up the cuts after I remove my claws from my palm.
Damn it.
I can't worry about the civilians right now though. Not when my own life is in jeopardy.
That'll have to wait till I make it out myself.