Became an Evolving Space Monster - Chapter 266
Only Noblemtl
Episode 266 – The Nightmare Incarnate (4)
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The pirates in the security room looked at the monitors with puzzled faces.
The screen showing the camera footage was rapidly fading out. First the guard post, then the entrance, and then the underground passage. The order of malfunctioning cameras was getting closer and closer to the guardhouse where they were.
Everyone here knows that the camera didn’t break down for no reason. Even now, the walls of the security room are shaking slightly. The space vibrates intermittently, as if something huge is moving.
The problem is that the vibrations are getting louder. An unknown entity is coming through the cameras and shielding doors in the passage.
“What is the procedure for closing the passage?”
“It was already working when the surveillance camera was blown up.”
“…Damn it. Even if you use a plasma cutter, you can’t get there that fast.”
“This won’t work. Everyone, get your gear. You, Malakkaeng. Go to Area B.”
“While you’re at it, let’s talk to the mercenaries too.”
“…Fuck. Okay.”
The pirates hurriedly gathered the equipment placed in the guard room. While their companions prepared to fight, the skinny pirate ran out of the guard room with only a psychic rifle.
The light fixtures fixed to the ceiling of the passage shone brightly above his head. The passage, with its simple cylindrical design and no decoration, looked just as it usually did.
Unless it’s just the vibrations that shake the light of a lamp.
The skinny pirate ran to the shielded door across the short passage and manipulated the terminal next to the door. All the while, the vibration frequency was getting shorter and shorter.
“Open it quickly!”
The pirate stamped his feet in front of the slowly opening door, when the light above his head began to swing uneasily.
He turned around in surprise, and the light in the security room was flickering and then going out. The only light left was the light coming from inside the security room.
Even that went out with a whoosh, like a candle going out.
“… Gulp.”
As the pirate swallowed at the sight, the screen door opened just in time. He went in almost halfway through, then closed the door.
These shield doors installed between each passage are over 1m thick and have a double structure, making them difficult to break through even with a plasma cutter. Since the shield doors between passages are stronger than the entrance doors, even mysterious intruders will not be able to enter easily.
Nothing popped out of the darkness until the door was completely closed. There was only an unnatural silence in the black passage.
“Phew.”
He sighed in relief and stepped away from the door.
Before he gets here, we need to go to Area B and inform him of this.
The space he was standing in was so wide that he had to crane his neck to see the ceiling. It wasn’t empty, though; there were several layers of refrigerated containers stacked here and there.
This is the A-area storage area.
Those containers are all items that customers who visited this city brought to auction. You can’t see them here, but if you go inside, there will be mercenaries and androids guarding the containers.
The skinny pirate connected the battery to his psychic rifle and went inside. The temperature in the space was rather low, perhaps due to the cold air flowing out of the container. If it weren’t for the android standing in front of the container, he would have shivered and walked away from the cold and fear.
“It’ll be okay. There must have been a mistake. That’s what happened.”
After walking for a few minutes, talking to myself, I heard voices from beyond a large container. As I walked around the container, I saw five mercenaries chatting.
“Huh? Aren’t you the pirate who was in the security office?”
“What is the business here?”
The skinny pirate who encountered the mercenaries shouted urgently.
“This is not the time to be doing this! There’s total chaos outside right now!”
“outside?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I haven’t heard anything from my team members.”
“Of course I’ve been through everything, so there’s no contact! We need to let the outside world know right now….”
“What? What the hell are you talking about?”
“Who do you know we are to say such things?”
The skinny pirate felt frustrated when the mercenaries showed no sign of listening to him at all. As if they had heard his shouts, the mercenaries guarding the other containers also came towards them.
“What’s so noisy?”
“They say that our team members who were guarding outside got attacked?”
“Please! If you really don’t believe me, then someone check it out!”
The pirate shouted at the twenty or so mercenaries who had gathered in an instant.
“The world is a better place. That pirate brat is yelling at us.”
“You deserve it. You’re a piece of shit.”
“What the heck is this kid?”
There were many Spacedogs who worked as mercenaries, and there were quite a few mercenaries who committed pirate acts. The same goes for those in this position, so it would be difficult to say that they were of good quality.
The skinny pirates also know that fact well. But shouldn’t they at least know what’s going on? It was just pathetic that they had no idea what was going on outside or what had happened to their comrades.
“Hey, the security guard has a request. Can someone please call him?”
“If you’re wrong, know how to lose.”
While most of the mercenaries folded their arms and laughed, one of them picked up the radio.
“What do they say outside?”
“… … .”
“Why? Stop being so annoying.”
“I can’t get in touch with you?”
The other mercenaries stopped in their tracks at the words of the mercenary holding the walkie-talkie.
“Hey, stop talking nonsense.”
“No, seriously. You guys should contact me too.”
The expression on the mercenary’s face while holding the walkie-talkie was too serious to be considered a joke. The other mercenaries contacted their team members outside with smiles on their faces.
And within a few minutes, the smiles disappeared from their faces.
“Why can’t I contact you?”
“What happened?”
While they were panicking, all the lights on the ceiling suddenly went out. In an instant, the place became pitch black, and the only light was the cigarettes held by some of the mercenaries.
“Everyone, prepare for battle!”
The light disappeared, but the mercenaries did not panic. They prepared for battle in the dark by wearing goggles with a see-through function, or in the case of cyborgs, by activating the lenses in their eyes.
“Hey security guard. Don’t you know that this is happening inside?”
“Well, I guess you could say that, but it’s not exact.”
“Wear this and go. Go and call for some reinforcements.”
“Oh, yeah.”
The mercenaries, realizing that the pirate’s words were not wrong, sent him to Sector B. They told him to go inside and ask for his comrades and ask for their support.
The pirate, wearing the goggles given to him by the mercenary, ran towards the passage leading to Area B. While he was running, many androids passed him by. They were aware of the situation and were trying to join up with the mercenaries on the other side.
Just as the android disappeared into the darkness, there was a loud gunshot. The crackling noises, like the automated machinery in a factory, bounced off the container and grew louder.
A fully armed mercenary and an expensive android. Objectively speaking, it was a situation that should have made him feel safe, but his heart still did not calm down.
It was ominous. The entire underground storage room felt like it was sinking into a bottomless swamp. After entering the A-Sector storage room, the vibrations stopped, but where did this feeling of unease come from? He pondered hard, but he could not come up with an answer.
“Gasp, gasp, gasp… .”
The silence that filled the room was broken by the sound of his breathing.
There was no other sound. No gunshots, no human screams, no mechanical noises as androids were destroyed, nothing.
Did the mercenaries win? If so, then good. But if not… .
“… … .”
The skinny pirate barely managed to operate the terminal with trembling hands. The large shield door slowly opened. He crawled in as soon as the door began to open and closed the shield door before it could even open completely.
The door was closing so slowly that it seemed to be so leisurely. He was biting his lip nervously when he saw something on the other side.
“!”
“wait!”
One of the mercenaries I had encountered earlier was running towards the shielded door.
“…Fuck!”
The pirate thought about just closing it, but changed his mind. It would take two men rather than one to escape the mysterious intruder. He controlled the terminal and stopped the door from closing.
Just as the mercenary was about to cross the barrier, the door shook violently with a loud noise.
“Wh, what is it?!”
“Hey! The monster is chasing me!”
“What the heck!”
The pirate, hearing the mercenary’s cries, quickly closed the door. The door slowly closed. Beyond it, just as the mercenary had said, something was seen moving.
‘!’
It was only a brief glimpse, but the pirates would never forget it. It was a pink snake with many eyes. The snake wriggled toward them as if greeting them, and then disappeared.
“Excuse me, what is that? I’ve never seen such a monstrosity in my life.”
“… I don’t know either.”
“Damn it! We need to talk to Sector B quickly… What about the weapons?”
“I abandoned it because I was running away from that guy.”
The skinny pirate frowned at the mercenary’s words. Without weapons, there would be no way to stop the monsters that were chasing them.
‘No, maybe I can use it as bait.’
The only one holding a gun here is a skinny pirate. If by any chance a monster breaks through the shielded door before they get to Area B, they can just throw that mercenary as food.
“Let’s start with the B zone security office.”
“Okay.”
The mercenary had no idea what the skinny pirate was thinking. The two walked along the passageway connected to the B-Sector security room.
‘For now, the camera is still intact.’
The skinny pirate walked and checked the cameras installed in the passage. Fortunately, the cameras installed on the ceiling did not lose power. The security office in Area B must have known that they were here, so they must have taken some kind of action.
‘No. Let’s contact them here.’
There is only one way to contact someone if their radio is not working.
This underground storage facility has a closed-circuit wired communication device between each section. This was installed by the Marcio Cartel in case the communication device fails or there is an EMP attack from another species, as is the case now.
I would have liked to have contacted them before coming here, but the wired communication device in Area A was located at the entrance to the underground storage room, so there was nothing I could do. The skinny pirate sent a signal to the camera in the passage that he would use the wired communication device.
“What are you doing?”
“I don’t know.”
There was no need to be polite to a mercenary who was going to be used as bait anyway. He answered briefly and approached the wall of the passage. There was a small switch on a part of the wall that had no decorations. When he pressed the switch, an ivory bar with a cord connected to the inside of the wall popped out.
“What is that?”
“It’s a cult-style wired communication device.”
“Hmm? Was there something like that here?”
The mercenary spoke as if he was interested, but the skinny pirate did not respond.
He unplugged the charger from the psychic rifle and connected it to the port on the stick. It was a communicator made by the cult, so it needed psychic power.
After a while, the communicator light came on.
“Okay! This is the security office in Area A. Can you hear me?”
“Look at that sizzling sizzling sizzling”
The skinny pirate gave a short cheer and shouted into the communicator. Then, a static sound and someone’s voice came from the communicator.
“I can’t hear you very well. This is the security office in Area A. Can you hear me?”
“Chissy, back, chishishi, back, chishishijishi”
“what?”
“Back! Back! Look behind me!”
As soon as the connection stabilized, an urgent cry was heard.
“Back? Why back…?”
The skinny pirate, who didn’t understand, looked back. And then he could understand what was being said in the B-section security room.
“There’s a monster behind you!”
There was not a single human being in this passageway who could answer the communicator hanging on the wall and swinging.