Chapter 45
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Translator: Silver Dragon
Chapter: 45
Chapter Title: Secrets of Planet Debenna (6)
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[Keeeyaaaak!!!]
[Get lost!!! Get the hell away!!!]
[Uwaaaah!!! Save me!!!]
The plasma blaster spat flames.
The corpse infection enveloping the building burned away.
I listened to their screams as I blasted the building's foundation with plasma rounds.
— Kaboom!
Flames erupted, and smoke billowed up.
Soon, with a thunderous roar, the building collapsed.
[That damn human!]
It definitely drew the corpse monster's attention.
Innumerable eyes turned toward the ground.
I darted from building to building, hiding my body as I moved.
Right away, a deadly game of hide-and-seek with the monster began.
The ground shook, and a massive storm kicked up.
Soon, a horrific stench enveloped the surroundings.
My eyes narrowed involuntarily.
"Ugh..."
I covered my mouth and looked up.
A colossal figure emerged between the buildings.
Red flashes gleamed ominously.
I moved to evade its gaze.
'It's so huge, it feels a bit sluggish.'
I lured its attention to the outskirts.
Then I began slipping toward the central area, keeping myself hidden.
The closer I got to the center, the more corpse buildings there were.
Glancing back, the monster was still lingering there, searching the vicinity.
With its attention diverted, moving was easy.
I picked paths avoiding corpse buildings as much as possible.
After running for a good while like that.
I'd reached the vicinity of the densely packed central zone.
From here on, I couldn't sneak past without drawing their eyes.
Like it or not, I'd have to punch through the monsters.
[A human! That human's appeared!]
[Kill him now! Devour the bastard!]
[Heh heh heh...! You'll be just like us soon!]
The corpse buildings that spotted me started shrieking.
The eyes of the corpses clinging to the buildings fixed on me.
Soon, the corpses began warping the buildings.
— Krunch!
Grotesque eyes sprouted on the buildings, tentacles sprouted forth.
The entrance gradually widened.
Sharp spines protruded from the ceiling and floor.
It had transformed into a sort of 'mouth.'
Immediately after, the mouth began vomiting out corpse hounds.
The building heads cackled grotesquely, as if trying to intimidate me.
The corpse hounds advanced on me.
The heads' gazes locked onto me.
[Go on, run!]
[We'll follow nice and slow]
[Ahaha! We gotta savor it before we eat you!]
There was no fear in their rotten eyes.
But from now on, I planned to etch true terror into those vacant gazes.
"Heh heh heh..."
— Click!
Instead of fleeing, a sinister smile crept across my lips.
I chambered the weapon, then aimed at them.
"You guys are a bit slow on the uptake, huh?"
Do these freaks even have instincts?
Their eyes began to waver belatedly.
I watched them panic too late.
Then I charged at them with a roar.
"Too late, you idiots!!!"
The prey they were chasing turned the tables and rushed them.
The corpse hounds' instincts blared alarms.
— W-Wait a sec!
They backpedaled belatedly.
But by then, it was far too late.
— Krunch!
'Krunch?'
It happened in an instant.
The sound registered the situation before their eyes did.
Something snapped with gruesome finality.
The terrified eyes turned belatedly at the sound that should never have rung out.
"I feel alive when I kill you freaks."
I smashed their torsos with the rifle butt.
The corpse hounds with shattered spines screamed their heads off.
Those screams instilled fear in the others.
"Ahh... this exhilarating sensation."
"I just can't get enough."
They stared at me like I was a madman.
Their eyes shook violently, their gaping mouths refusing to close.
These fear-mongers.
Were terrified for the first time in their lives.
Unable to adapt to the unfamiliar sensation.
They froze in place.
I started killing the freaks in various ways.
Sometimes pulverizing their torsos with the buttstock.
Other times roasting them alive with the plasma blaster.
The corpse hounds began dying gruesome deaths.
The watching buildings grew terrified too.
[A lunatic!!! Run!!!]
[Yeah! We gotta run now!]
[You idiots!]
[We're buildings, we can't run!]
[Huh?]
[Oh]
[We're screwed!!!]
All the corpse hounds were down.
Now it was their turn.
I switched the plasma blaster to impact mode.
— BOOM!
The explosion reverberated.
A powerful shockwave blasted outward in all directions.
A clear crack formed on the building directly hit by the plasma blaster.
I sprayed them indiscriminately with gunfire.
Soon, the buildings collapsed one by one with thunderous roars.
As the buildings crumbled, a path to the center opened up.
Finally, Facility No. 3 came into view.
Almost there.
Just get to that thing.
I broke into a mad sprint.
— KABOOOOM!
Right then, I felt my body lift into the air.
I was hurled to the ground.
That was close. Nearly dangerous.
Destroying the buildings to divert attention.
Then using that brief window to charge straight at the cable.
'Clever bastard.'
The Abomination calmed its startled core.
It had underestimated the foe just because there was only one.
The opponent had pinpointed its weakness perfectly.
This human was far more threatening than the Belid Imperial forces it had overwhelmed with numbers.
But the bastard had lingered too long demolishing the buildings at the end.
As a result, the Abomination, grasping the situation belatedly, located him.
One mistake.
And the bastard met its end, struck by the annihilation beam.
'This head will definitely be useful.'
A tentacle extended from the corpse arm connected to its body.
The tentacle touched the fallen human.
— Heh heh heh!
— Fresh meat!
— You'll make a fine appendage!
The corpses attached to his body rejoiced at the sight of a new recruit after so long.
The corpses' hands seized his body.
Immediately, they dragged him toward themselves.
The man's body, clad in Chiltoom combat gear, gradually sank into the corpses and vanished.
A bit more time passed, and it disappeared completely.
In the end, his corpse was devoured by the monster.
"Command Unit 2 here. Abomination, report your status."
At that moment, someone initiated communication.
It was the core room in the simulation.
The Abomination's red eyes twisted.
"Things are going fine, so quit yapping, Command Unit."
"Understood. What about that human?"
"Good call. I just killed the bastard."
"Well done. Resume planetary remodeling now. We need to build the Vortex Drive as fast as possible."
"Will construct promptly. Want out of this simulation quick."
Irritated by the core room's prodding, the Abomination's annoyance grew.
"Don't you ingrates feel any gratitude toward me?"
The Abomination voiced its discontent.
Taking over the amusement park, wiping out the Belid Imperial forces—all its accomplishments.
Yet despite these feats.
It hadn't received a single proper reward.
"What have you incompetents trapped in that simulation even done?"
On Planet Debenna, it was godlike.
But the core room's command units treated it like a lowly grunt, using it at will.
At some point, a single thought took root in its mind.
Why obey these weak tin cans?
If anyone should give orders.
Wouldn't it be itself, not the simulation's tin cans?
Such thoughts began to erode it.
"I am the god of Debenna."
"All fear me, and none have bested me."
"I killed the Belid Empire, and that human who terrified you lot."
"From now on, I refuse your orders."
"Pledge to worship me as god. Then I'll get you out of that simulation."
However, it was a complete miscalculation.
"You think you're a god?"
The Prime Unit grew enraged.
— ZZZAP!
"Gaaaaah!!!"
A powerful electric shock struck its body.
It convulsed in agony from the electrocution.
After torturing it for a while, the Prime Unit spoke.
"If the concept of god exists, it applies to me."
"You're nothing but trash made from our empire's low-grade tech."
"Pathetic, a stitched-up corpse pile babbling about godhood."
"Defy orders once more, and I won't let it slide."
The hierarchy was now crystal clear.
The Abomination had no choice but to obey her commands.
It resumed work on planetary reconstruction.
Right then.
— Thud!
"Huh?"
It suddenly lost lift and toppled to the ground.
A first in its existence.
Confused, it began probing the cause.
"He'salivehe'salivehe'salive!!!"
"He'sgonna killushe'sgonna killus"
"Why me next to himwhy me next to him!!!"
Distracted by the core room chat, it hadn't heeded the heads' voices.
The startled Abomination belatedly realized the heads were screaming.
"What the hell's going on?!"
"He's alive!!!"
"That devil! Please rip off the devil!"
"Uwaaaah!!! He's coming!!! The devil's coming!"
The heads were wailing.
The systems were in total chaos.
Propulsion was busted, level stabilizers unresponsive.
'Something's tearing through my insides.'
Immediately, it recalled that human.
It hastily activated the internal scan system.
The heads inside its body sprang into action.
Soon, their eyes spotted the intruder.
"Kuhahaha!!!"
The bastard was rampaging through its body, laughing heartily.
'B-But he was definitely dead?'
Surviving a direct annihilation beam hit?
What the hell happened?
The annihilation beam was a weapon crafted by the Utrmaher Empire's technology.
No mere infantryman could withstand it.
"This place is just my style!"
"So many organs to smash!"
"I'll savor destroying them one by one!"
Far from intact, the bastard brimmed with energy.
The panicked Abomination yelled at him.
"Get out of my body now!!!"
"Your body?"
The human paused, head tilted in question.
Then he cackled and said,
"Time for some unauthorized remodeling!"