Establishing a Base (1)
“Waaaaagh…!”
Left, then right. A brief scrape of its skull against the wall, then left again.
A pattern of charging straight ahead while smashing its head into everything in its path.
I yanked on Mr. James’s arm.
“Urgh!”
We cut hard left at the cross junction, and a moment later a crash rang out from a wall not far behind us.
If only that had been the end of it.
“Is—is it dead?”
The sound of a skull driving into concrete came once, then twice.
I backed away, raising the muzzle toward the corridor.
“AAAAAGH!!!”
— Clang.
With the clatter of falling metal plates, a staggering mass of fire lurched into view.
A face too hideous to call a gorilla’s — teeth sprouting in every wrong direction, snapping and clacking together while flames clung to its flesh.
— Boom. Boom.
I worked the pump however I could and pulled the trigger.
Even then, the bulk that filled the entire corridor showed no intention of going down.
“Die! Die!!!”
— Click.
The selector snapped over, and bright orange light flooded the hallway.
Hot brass sprayed from the rifle in a wild cascade, scattering across the floor.
“Urrrgh, grrk, GRAAAAAH!!!”
Its eyes had already burst. Its teeth were shattered and hanging loose from the bullets.
And still it kept swinging its arms, closing the distance.
One arm shielding its face.
The other slamming the ground for leverage.
But that meant the leg I’d already shot was now fully exposed from the front.
“The legs!”
An empty magazine hit the floor; a fresh one locked in.
I slammed the bolt release hard, steel ringing against steel.
“UAAAAAH!!!!”
Rounds left their casings and punched through bone and meat.
The last strips of flesh holding the limb together finally tore, and the giant that had been gathering speed crashed to the floor with a bellow.
— Boom, boom, boom, boom.
Buckshot pulverized what was left. The rifle’s barrel glowed red-hot as it kept spitting rounds.
A massive twitching hand finally went still against the floor.
Even as the tongue lolling from its open mouth got chewed between its own teeth—
— Tudadadadada…
—the brass just kept pouring out.
Until the stench of blood was thick enough to choke on.
Until the reek of burnt powder hung in the air like fog.
Until the ape’s face was nothing but a smear of meat.
“Hah—hah—hah.”
“…Huu. Huu.”
In the dark, the red-hot barrel glowed bright enough to see by.
Acrid smoke rose from the shotgun’s barrel and chamber.
“Cough—cough!”
In the game, all you did was click a mouse.
Now a giant so large I still couldn’t believe my eyes lay face-down on the floor, still burning.
“…How many more of these monsters are there…?”
“There are ones worse than this,” I answered, and Mr. James — slumped on the floor, gasping — only looked more hollowed out than before.
We couldn’t afford to stay locked in panic.
Noise and light always drew the wrong kind of company.
I stuck a cigarette between my teeth and held one out to him.
I lit mine, then brought the lighter close to the trembling hand that had taken the other.
“…Huuuuu.”
“Huuuu.”
The first time I’d smoked, it had been nothing but harsh.
I was getting used to it now.
A faint sweetness lingering on the tip of the tongue.
And that thick white haze that settled a racing heart and a spinning head.
“I figured you’d be with your daughter.”
“…Sarah. Right. That’s right. Sarah—”
“Something happen?”
He spat out the cigarette he’d barely started and was on his feet at once.
“The allergic reaction flared up again. She can still breathe, but she’s in a lot of pain…”
“Ah, for fuck’s sake.”
“Did you find new medicine? Was there a medical bay on the way…?”
“I didn’t find a medical bay. But…”
The dead soldiers of the Rebirth Church.
They almost certainly had a medical item or two on them.
“Follow me.”
With the high regeneration of a New Skin, Rebirth Church members never bothered with armor.
Instead they always carried rounds scavenged from military sites out on the surface, plus every kind of weapon attachment under the sun.
Medicine and precious metals useful for trade turned up in their pockets more often than not.
“Over here.”
The problem was that the bodies had been reduced to pulp.
Injectables were classified as fragile goods — if the container or the clothing took enough damage, they had a chance to break.
Realistic, if you wanted to call it that. Or rather — this was my reality now.
“Search the clothes.”
The ones the Hammerhead had ground under its skull weren’t even worth looking at.
I went for the ones that had been grabbed by the arm, flung, and left with broken necks…
“Urgh—shit…”
In the game, corpses were just bodies that had bled out. Only special executions got a different model.
Broken bones. Twisted heads.
My head was swimming.
“Huuuu…”
At least the cigarette meant I could look at the mess and get away with nothing worse than a grimace.
Without a buff, low sanity could easily mean vomiting on the spot.
I fished through a blood-soaked inner pocket.
Warm liquid smearing my fingers.
The feeling that those glassy eyes might move any second.
“Uuugh…”
I forced myself to ignore it and kept searching—
“Ah.”
Found it.
An injector with an orange tip.
But…
“Find something?”
“I found a stimulant.”
“…We should use—no. She’s already had another dose.”
“Another one?”
“Ten minutes, twenty — the reaction came back almost right away, so I used my own share too. And it still seized up again after that.”
Stacking stimulants slowed the effect.
A third dose triggered drug abuse damage instead.
Add overdose on top of addiction and she was almost certain to die.
“Damn it, then at least this—”
“Wait. Didn’t you find anything else?”
“Nothing but these weird piles of pills.”
It was the “medicine pile” item from the game.
Combined with other injectors, you could produce health regen, painkillers, anti-bleed… all kinds of effects.
…Combined with a stimulant, you could make an antidote.
If you could craft it.
“We don’t have time — just hand it over—”
“No. Wait.”
I dumped the rest of the bag. The improvised crafting kit hit the floor with a dull thud.
But.
The first time I’d looked at it, this button had definitely been locked.
— Ssslip.
“Yes. It actually opened.”
Had rough handling just happened to free the clasp?
Or had this place truly been a game world, and the unlock condition had finally been met?
“Damn it, my daughter is dying!”
“You already know we can’t give her another stimulant.”
“What the hell do you think you’re going to do with a bunch of mystery pills—”
Honestly, his reaction was the only reasonable one.
Swallow unknown medicine without knowing the ingredients and the side effects alone could end you.
“Wait — what are you doing to that stimulant…!”
“Stay still. I want Sarah alive just as much as you do.”
But this was Concrete Under.
Which meant it was a game, after all.
And now I had a crafting kit in my hands.
“…Antidote.”
Ingredients: two handfuls of pill piles and one stimulant.
The moment I thought it, faint diagrams shimmered into being on the kit’s black cloth.
I set the materials on the recipe diagram the way I always had in-game—
— Crk-crk, crk.
My hands moved on their own, cracking open capsules and spilling the contents onto the cloth.
A small bowl and a pestle that hadn’t been there a second ago appeared from under the fabric, and before I knew it I was grinding the pills to powder.
“….”
I took out forceps and carefully detached the tip of the injector.
Careful — careful not to let the spring fire the syringe by accident…
I separated the drug chamber and tipped the powder inside.
Then reassembled it in reverse order.
“Use this on your daughter.”
“….”
“It’s an antidote.”
“But—”
“Hurry. If it goes wrong, you can shoot me.”
I folded the improvised kit and pressed the button shut.
I packed the bag and stood.
Mr. James’s face was still set like stone.
“Or give it here. I’ll inject her myself in front of Mr. Curtis.”
“…You mix pills into a stimulant and call it an antidote…”
Honestly, if we were grading on realism, it was the worst possible answer.
But then again — did it make any more sense that a few scrap-metal bits and one gun part could slap together a makeshift shotgun?
“You came to me because she couldn’t breathe, and that monster’s been dead for at least five minutes.”
I picked up the shotgun and stood.
“Giving another stimulant to a girl who’s already had two is the same as giving her nothing. Even if you inject her again, without detoxification Sarah dies. An allergic reaction that bad doesn’t leave room for anything else.”
“….”
“So at the very least, we can try the antidote I made.”
In the end, Mr. James bit down hard on his lip.
He checked the rounds in his rifle, then worked the selector once.
…It didn’t sound like it had gone to safe.
“Let’s move.”
We ran without stopping down the long corridor, past unmoving corpses and a head-plate that had been torn free.
When a room with light spilling from it came into view, a faint muttering drifted out.
“Oh, my poor granddaughter… Sarah…”
I crossed the threshold and went straight for Sarah, whose face had gone blue.
“…?!”
Before Mr. Curtis could react, I drove the antidote into her thigh.
If this world followed the game’s rules as thoroughly as it seemed to, even a suspicious powder mixed into a stimulant would work.
“Urgh—uh…”
The injected leg began to thrash wildly.
The wound swelled even redder.
“What did you do to my granddaughter?!”
“Khk!”
A rifle muzzle pressed dead-center against my temple.
“I swear — if anything happens to Sarah…”
The double-barrel’s muzzle found my jaw, cold steel leaching the heat from my skin.
— Click.
The shotgun’s hammers went back.
One twitch and the buckshot was ready to take my jaw off.
As expected, Mr. James hadn’t bothered with the selector either.
One pull of a trigger and my brains would paint the wall.
But.
— Pssht. Pssht.
Yellow fluid sprayed from the wound, and the swelling visibly subsided.
Sarah, who had been thrashing, drew a deep breath — then her body settled, at ease.
“Sarah?”
A moment ago there had been wet, choking gasps.
Now only clean, quiet breathing remained.
“Finish squeezing the venom out of the wound.”
I carefully lowered my head out from under the muzzles pressed against it.
No triggers were pulled.
The hammers eased down; beside me, a selector clicked over.
“…We need to move. The venom’s out, but if the wound gets infected, that’s its own kind of worst-case.”
I forced my shaking breath under control and took the hanging lantern in hand.
Mr. Curtis set his gun down and sat trembling, holding Sarah’s hand.
Mr. James couldn’t even look me in the eye; he only hung his head.
“There should be a clean room nearby where we can lay a patient down. We’ll take the closest one as a temporary shelter.”
When I moved to carefully lift Sarah, Mr. Curtis wordlessly settled her arm and leg across my shoulder and into my hand.
Mr. James stepped outside and waited until I came out with her.
“I—about earlier—”
“We can talk later.”
Starting with one casualty meant we needed a clean room.
We’d have to keep the hygiene high, and find plenty of clean gauze to keep infection at bay.
A Crafter didn’t draw survivors with personal charisma so much as with the things they could do.
“Come on. Lead the way. We need to get her to a medical bay and lay her down.”
With this, I could say it for certain.
This was Concrete Under.
The game I’d sunk over two thousand hours into — no question.
And now that the tutorial was over, the very first thing I had to do was build a base.