The Hospital (5)

"Damn it! Peter! Charlie!"

Vickers, vice commander of the Silver Lion Knights, kept trying to raise them again and again. But all that came through the comm was ominous static.

According to Peter's last transmission, Milburn and Fifield had already gone down. After that, neither Peter nor Charlie answered a single call.

Which pointed to one fact, and one fact only. They had all been wiped out.

There's no help for it. I'll have to dispatch more knights and report to His Lordship.

Vickers hastily summoned the knights standing by. The number of troops he could deploy right now came to twenty in total — after subtracting the men guarding Denver and those already sent out on the security investigation.

Armed knights filed one by one into the spacious chamber reserved for the vice commander. Since it was their free time, every one of them had removed their helmets. A blonde Caucasian woman, a black-haired Asian man, a black man with a shaved head — every race and gender was mixed among them, yet they shared one thing in common.

All of them were strikingly handsome, strikingly beautiful, and each was built at least one and a half times the size of an ordinary man. Membership in the Silver Lion Knights came with mandatory gene-modification procedures, and thanks to that, every single member boasted exceptional looks and height.

The world called it Denver's obsession with image, but Vickers knew the truth. That they were nothing more than byproducts of the new Hulk Mutant project.

"Vice Commander. You called for us."

The black man with the shaved head, leading the group, bowed respectfully. Vickers snapped out of his musings and explained the situation.

"The situation is grave. The men we sent to guard the police detective have gone silent."

"Sir?"

"Peter's transmission was the last, five minutes ago. Charlie, Milburn, and Fifield, all dispatched with him, have been out of contact ever since."

"……"

Everyone knew exactly what the Silver Lion Knights' power was capable of. Four of their own cut down? This was no ordinary affair.

"I will report to His Lordship at once. The rest of you go to the hospital. Jacob will take command."

"We will do our utmost."

After sending the knights to the hospital, Vickers hurried toward the banquet hall as fast as his legs would carry him.

His Lordship wants Saddam Chamberlain to become CEO — and now a disaster like this has to erupt.

As Denver's closest confidant, Vickers knew precisely what his lord wanted. Before coming to this city, Denver had met with Saddam in advance to discuss how the Board of Directors meeting should proceed. At that time Saddam had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠made a point of advertising his great expectations for his daughter Laila, and Denver had read his intent clearly.

Laila's own feelings aside, Denver bore her no ill will. At Saddam's request, he had made extensive preparations to help her.

All that remained now was for the Board meeting to go off without a hitch — and then catastrophe had struck.

Who killed the knights at the hospital matters, but the real problem is…

The fact that personnel of Prime Capital had died on Noble Capital soil.

Saddam's rivals would never let such a juicy morsel slip past them. Try to smooth things over, and the whispers would start for certain.

That T&C and Edgerton had struck a secret deal ahead of the CEO election.

It was true that every manner of scheme and backroom bargain swarmed through the CEO voting process — but none of it had ever surfaced. Officially, MegaCorp elects its CEO through democratic procedure, and no corruption is tolerated along the way.

If foul play came to light, Saddam would be stripped from the CEO candidacy immediately. In the worst case, there ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠might even be calls to revoke the Chamberlain family's Noble Capital status outright.

But if His Lordship takes a hard line, that's a problem too.

Even if Denver deliberately denounced T&C, it would only invite trouble.

The majority of the Edgerton family elders knew nothing of the collusion between T&C and Edgerton. Those ignorant of the arrangement would abandon a family that couldn't even manage its own security and defect to another candidate — obvious as sunrise.

And if that happened, T&C's financial backing might as well be money down the drain.

What am I supposed to do about this…

Half running, half walking, he spotted the doors of the banquet hall in the distance. In front of them, a woman was being screened by the guards.

It was Laila's secretary — someone Vickers knew well. Up close, her face had drained to a ghostly white.

The Lady too, over this matter?

The Vice Commander as well, surely not?

They exchanged nothing but a glance, yet each understood the other's thoughts instantly. Tonight's banquet was going to run long.

The thing that had been plaguing me was dead.

I had judged him capable and spared him, and in the end the gains and losses had come out even.

So even here, in reality, people will gamble their lives. I'll need to be more careful from now on.

Perhaps I had simply underestimated human willpower too much. Until I secured the Infection Enhancement Type, I would have to handle my parasites with far more caution.

Let's destroy the central AI computer and get out of here.

Time was starting to get uncomfortably tight, but this was necessary. I carried William's bisected body down into the basement.

Taking the emergency stairs, I sampled the upper half first.

Should have eaten him sooner, maybe?

He'd been tormented by me for so long that the meat was awful. It was decent-quality flesh to begin with, but improper storage had let the flavor go slightly off.

Midway through the meal, the parasite hurriedly crawled out, as if begging me not to eat its home. It traveled up my arm and returned to its own house.

When nothing remained but one leg, I arrived in front of the server room housing the main computer. Setting the leg down, I rammed my head horn against the door.

Even a ten-centimeter-thick alloy door was helpless before an Amorph's monstrous strength. The central AI, having detected the intrusion, began wailing.

I whipped my tail around and smashed the speakers mounted along the ceiling corners. The blaring alarm died, leaving only the hum of the air conditioning.

Cooling computers first.

The server room was packed with computers, but I hadn't raided a hospital only once or twice. Getting here was the hard part — once inside, it was easy.

Using the arms on my back, I smashed the computers one by one, starting from the right end. Sparks flew, and the machines' lights guttered out.

The cooling facilities that had been keeping the temperature down all ground to a halt. As the server room's heat climbed rapidly, the delicate electronics began shrieking.

That's not the end of it, though.

I brought every arm I had to bear on the data server units. Combat arms shredded computers to ribbons, or my tail lashed out and reduced storage devices to unrecoverable wreckage.

Perhaps it was thanks to my larger body? I razed the sprawling server room in the blink of an eye.

The critical equipment was more or less destroyed, so I decided to finish off the rest quickly. I bit into one of my own arms to open a wound and splashed acid blood liberally across the room.

Thanks to the Perfect Organism, the effect of my Acid Blood had surged dramatically. Electronic devices touched by the droplets melted without a trace. Then a spark shorted through a wire doused in acid blood, and flames leapt up all at once.

This much ought to do it.

I walked serenely through the fire, deeper into the server room.

There, in the innermost chamber, stood a cylindrical computer shielded behind reinforced glass. The main computer housing the central AI. Green numbers flickered ceaselessly across its matte black surface, appearing and vanishing.

Ignoring the AI's protests, I fired spine-bones at the reinforced glass. The glass wall shattered instantly.

The main computer, too, was damaged by the spine-bones, but it was too early to relax. It had to be completely destroyed, or the enemy could recover the data.

I've paid for that mistake once before.

Back in the game, I had infiltrated a hospital in a space city once because I needed to eat someone there.

At the time I was a Young Adult with six Types under my belt, so slipping in and assassinating my target without being caught by anyone had been trivially easy.

But perhaps precisely because it was so easy —

I let my guard down, and the central AI recorded me using my traits, clear as day.

The enemy clan members I had killed easily retrieved my information through the central AI. They took their revenge by spreading every strategy I'd used in that hospital across the community.

It took me forever to build a completely new strategy after that.

Not that I didn't pay them back a hundredfold later.

Anyway, I had no desire to reenact that episode. I doused the main computer in Acid Blood and melted it down to nothing.

Good.

With that cleanly wrapped up, I left the burning server room behind. The moment I stepped out, I devoured the rest of William's leg.

Another text box bearing the Predation Effect popped up. I moved to dismiss it for later review — then froze.

Wait. This one?

I hurriedly opened the text box.

Huh?

Insight.

Even I knew this trait.

With the Insight trait active, looking at any creature or object with the naked eye revealed the target's defining characteristics, held traits, skills, and more.

It couldn't reveal everything, though. There was a daily limit of five uses, and the information gleaned from each use was determined at random.

For example, using Insight on someone wearing reinforced armor might return data on the armor itself — or it might return the wearer's traits or skills instead.

And once you used Insight more than five times in a day, every attempt afterward came back unusable.

I did wonder what William's deal was.

Something about him had always felt off. Now it made sense. His instincts had been sharper than anyone else's thanks to the trait sleeping within him.

That's also how he zeroed in on my weakness so fast, isn't it.

Looking back, William was the first person in this city to corner me.

He was no combat powerhouse like Sihyeon Yujin or the Hulk Mutants, yet armed with nothing but his own instincts, he had stabbed straight at my weak point. Even after falling to my parasite, he never gave up, plaguing me right up to the very end.

And then he goes and leaves me a parting gift.

An enemy, yes — but I could find it in myself to forgive him. He was already dead, after all.

As its effect suggested, Insight was a trait suited to player-versus-player combat — PK. It wasn't something I needed right this moment.

And yet there was exactly one reason I was thrilled anyway.

Insight is a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠psychic-type trait.

Counting Insight, the psychic-type traits in my possession now numbered six. Which meant I had fulfilled ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠every condition for the Psionic Enhancement Type.

The traits acquired from eating the knights and the patients were still on hold — there was a little time left before they could be cancelled — but Insight, the one I'd just eaten, was different.

A chance to gain a Type is not something I can afford to pass up.

I accepted the acquisition of Insight immediately.

As the trait took hold, I felt the structure of my eyes shifting. The insides of my eyeballs grew dry and gritty, as if I were exhausted, and spasms flickered across my brow. My eyes itched, but since it was a natural transformation, I held still.

The affected area wasn't large, so the change finished quickly. I activated Insight and swept my gaze around.

Huh?

I'd acquired it, yet nothing had changed. Information about objects was supposed to pop up at random, but I couldn't see a thing.

Right. My eyes don't work right now, do they.

Insight only functions when confirmed with the naked eye. Unconditional.

At present, thanks to the effect of the Hunter's Avatar, my eyes were veiled. Of course nothing would show.

Doesn't matter — the important thing is something else entirely.

Leaving Insight's effects to verify later, I called up the text box I'd been waiting for all this time.

Since gaining my first Type, a second had been waiting for me.