The Oddity in Hongwei-7
After spending a night outside, the search inside Hongwei-7 resumed once more.
I glanced back at Arva, who was following behind me.
Last night, something must have happened. She hadn't returned to the temporary lodging until quite some time after my threesome with Helena and Silva had wrapped up.
She'd said she was on outer perimeter watch, but that meant she'd pulled an all-nighter.
I'd asked if anything was wrong, just in case, but she insisted nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.
"Arva. You aren't tired?"
"I'm fine, Commander."
Arva shook her head side to side at my question, her eyes just as steady as ever.
Unlike humans, ECHOs could go a full week without rest.
They could actually handle even longer, but apparently efficiency dropped if they pushed it.
Even knowing that, I couldn't help but worry.
"Looks like zombies are starting to show up now."
Helena pointed at the figures crawling out from the pile of ruins in the distance.
They were the kind that straightened up upon spotting us living humans walking the surface.
Still they were just regular zombies for now, so nothing to worry about, but unlike near the Ark, the closer we got to Hongwei-7, the more live zombies we started seeing.
How many times had we explored Hongwei-7 now?
Anyway, we'd come through three or four times by now, and yet the zombies kept crawling out in droves without thinning out. It made me think their numbers must be insane.
No, this is practically empty.
The real residents of the Named variants were demonic lairs overflowing with zombies.
Tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands, were nothing to sneeze at. Compared to that, Ark 69's location didn't seem half bad.
At least no named monsters were lurking nearby.
"Those guys... they're heading straight for us. Should I take them out?"
"Any elite monsters?"
"None detected. Just five—no, seven regulars."
At Arva's report, I readjusted my grip on the White Tiger.
Unless elites showed up in droves, there was no way our squad couldn't handle them.
But sending Arva or the Cerberus Squad against regular zombies?
That'd be like using a cattle butcher's cleaver to kill a chicken. It'd make it harder for me to rack up cash, too. No point in tagging along on this external scavenging mission then.
"Nah, I've got it."
Click!
I stared down the approaching zombies, White Tiger loaded and ready.
Shadows staggered toward us from between half-collapsed buildings.
Seven in total.
And more were wriggling in the back, so their numbers might climb higher.
Is it a zombie nest or something?
That'd be ideal.
That was the only way I could drop them and score some much-needed cash.
"I'll hold the front line. You all engage at will once they get close. Arva and Helena take the flanks, Silva covers the rear and provides sniper support."
I shouldered the White Tiger and issued crisp orders.
A group this size, all regulars? I could handle them solo. Hell, they were perfect prey for farming cash.
Without waiting for the ECHOs' replies, I squeezed the trigger at the lead zombie's rag-clad head.
Bang!
In a game, it'd be a gravelly Headshot! voice line echoing in my ears right now—its skull exploded like a watermelon.
Roughly 250 meters out? Was Mito Drive supposed to boost focus or something…?
Might be my imagination, but their movements looked crisper than before.
I kept firing, popping heads on the zombies charging us one by one.
Bang! Thud!
"...???"
Helena just blinked at me as I cleared the frontal group in seconds.
Her shotgun dangled aimlessly skyward, stunned by the unfamiliar sight.
Commanders rarely joined fights unless their squads were on the brink of annihilation.
But Ark 69's Commander had been shattering their common sense and expectations from day one.
"......"
Helena stared blankly at the Commander's back as he took point and mowed down zombies.
For a split second, his leering gaze at Silva flashed in her mind, and she shook her head vigorously without thinking.
Then she turned to Arva. She'd been with the Commander longer than they had.
"...Is it okay to just stand here?"
"The Commander's marksmanship outshines mine or Pomen's."
Better than an ECHO's?
Helena blinked in shock, and even Silva, monitoring from a sniper position, followed suit.
"H-How? No way, that's impossible?"
"Beats me. He's been like that since we first met."
Arva's calm voice carried a subtle pride in the Commander she served.
Bang!
The Commander lowered his barrel after drilling a perfect shot between the last zombie's eyes, muttering low.
"Regulars, huh? Only 1600C? Stingy as hell. Or wait, 1600 for eight rounds—can that be considered a profit?"
Seeing the Commander look disappointed as if something were lacking, Arva recalled the events of last night.
Serving a Commander like this was their squad's greatest fortune.
Which meant they had to protect him in this hellish world, no matter what.
Even staking their lives on ensuring his survival.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
The first skirmish ended anticlimactically, thanks to my overwhelming performance.
I'd wanted to test the Mito Drive's effects, but nah. A few shots wouldn't drain my stamina.
Still, my body felt way lighter than before.
Even after camping overnight, no fatigue lingered. Just a few days ago, something would've ached for sure.
But that was just the opener.
Every block we passed after entering Hongwei-7, the stench of rot thickened, and zombies poured from ruined building debris.
Started at five or six, now packs of a dozen charged together.
"Zombies from the right building!"
"Elites?!"
"None!!!"
Before Silva's cool shout faded, the battlefield erupted again.
Bang! Boom! KABOOM!
Fights came nonstop now.
My White Tiger spat fire, Arva's blade traced blue flashes.
Helena's shotgun delivered bone-crushing blasts per shot, shredding two or three zombies like paper.
Click, Bang!
Click. Bang—!
Silva, set at sniper perch, unerringly blasted the heads off the most threatening rushers.
For different squads, their veteran original ECHO coordination was flawless.
Problem was, the gunfire kept drawing more zombies.
Faced with endless waves, I scowled unwittingly. At this rate, we'd run out of ammo before zombies.
"Arva! Toss me a mag!"
I swapped in her thrown magazine and urgently asked.
"How many left?"
"About a hundred!"
Three thousand rounds, give or take?
Decent stock, but sustained fire would burn through it fast.
After clearing another pack, I scratched my head.
If memory served, this was a distric I'd already cleared before with Arclight Squad.
I caught my breath and turned to Arva.
"Arva. When you, Pomen, and Karen passed through, did you take a detour?"
She shook her head.
"No, Commander. Same route as now, and we returned with Cerberus Squad the same way."
"......She’s correct, sir."
Helena nodded after a moment's thought, backing Arva up. Arva added curiously.
"But even after multiple recon runs with you, Commander, we never saw numbers like this. No elites this time, though..."
Her answer turned my suspicion to certainty.
This was a blatant oddity.
Zombie density here was abnormally high—and rising steadily. Like...
Something's drawing them in...
Or flushing them out toward this sector.
Either way, with Hongwei-7 so close to Ark 69, we couldn't ignore it.
"That guy's behind it."
Helena replied gravely to my mutter.
Silva's face hardened from her sniper spot.
The entity that had traumatized both the Cerberus ECHOs.
"Carapace Lord?"
"Yeah. Seems like that monster's targeting us."
"Probably tracked us here..."
"Payback for last time?"
"Very likely. It harbors grudges against us."
As the two ECHOs turned to me mid-convo…
Hadn't they mentioned it before? Must've slipped my mind.
I dipped the rifle in my hands their way.
"Fought that thing in Hongwei-7 before. Blasted its dick clean off."
"R-Really? But when we saw it..."
Helena cut off Silva's it looked fine that she was about to say.
"It absorbed a core's power to regenerate the organ."
"Ah!"
"That's why those first ECHOs we found were mummified. Elites following Crawler Queen mostly absorb ECHO cores... No reason it couldn't."
"And it drains from males and females alike—"
Humanity's worst nightmare.
A Gender Bender (TS) monster? Horrifying just thinking about it.
Anyway, the bottom line was…
It was gunning for Ark 69 or staking claim to this district.
And we couldn't let that slide.
No leaving a time bomb next door to the Ark.
"Can't leave it be, or it'll be trouble. Gotta locate the bastard first."
"High chance of combat."
Arva calmly anticipated my plan.
"Mission change. Prioritize ammo or parts ready for immediate combat use from now on. Other ECHO crafting materials? Buy 'em with cash."
"Understood, Commander."
Listening to Arva, I eyed the temporary Hongwei-7 HQ building in the distance.
The monster that once nested there was trying to return.
And this time, I'd end it—that thing, that bitch with my own hands if I had to.
For my chastity, and the chastity of all the ECHOs I didn't even know about.