ch52

““……!!””

The collection unit members lined up near the entrance simultaneously gasped.

With a chilling metallic sound of shrrk…, one of the unit members, who was about to start the interrogation to figure out what was going on, hurriedly readjusted his rifle.

They were still a Mega Corp army, even if they were rotten. Their reaction and response level weren’t bad… but the circumstances were too unfavorable.

Although there were a total of four collection units, two of them had been additionally deployed after the prison break and knew nothing about this area.

And the remaining two were scheduled for disciplinary action for their inadequate response earlier, which led to them witnessing the hostage situation right in front of their eyes.

…Of course, they were following the higher-ups’ judgment to prioritize the VIP’s safety and survival, but they couldn’t be free from the partially transferred responsibility and the anger of the individuals involved, so they had no choice but to maintain a passive stance….

Fwoosh—!!

From bottom to top.

The head of the frontmost unit member, clearly cut down mercilessly, snapped back, and the scattered blood drew a crescent moon as it flew and stuck to the ceiling.

“W-What is… this?!”

In front of them was still the doctor, the person they were supposed to protect. Right next to him was the corpse of their colleague, completely blocking their view.

This time, there was no time to contact anyone.

Even if the enemy was unusually using close-range weapons, it was a fatal threat in this distance and formation. Moreover, judging from the amount of blood splattering, one could guess how deeply the helmet and bulletproof vest had been split, and what their physical abilities were like.

“Contact—!”

“Engaging intruder on HA floor…!!”

“Ugh?!”

The unit member closest to the VIP quickly grabbed the doctor by the scruff of his neck and pulled him towards them. The doctor screamed, suddenly dropped into the middle of the battlefield and losing his balance, but that was the end of their concern for him.

Crack!

“Shit…?!”

Thud! Thud! Thud!

The unit member who was about to report the start of the battle saw the incoming slash and desperately used the rifle he was holding as cover to save his life… but it was instantly split, and his body, caught in the tremendous impact, fell backward.

In that brief moment, the remaining one, who had always considered ordinary rifle bullets used during patrols to be disadvantageous, quickly replaced the magazine with a high-penetration bullet magazine from his uniform and fired at the betraying police officer beyond the corpse that blocked the trajectory.

Ruthlessness and composure.

Each of them quickly judged and performed their roles, which could be considered a model of professionals… but if you asked if that could stop a sword demon who was already prepared to see blood, the answer would be, well, maybe not.

Bang!!

A shadow stretches across the smooth corridor floor.

It was as if a weightless phantom had sprung out, but the solid tiles shattered with a roar, and at least in the eyes of the collection unit members, it looked like a shadow of death.

Helena, seeing the bullet that had passed by her ear after piercing through three types of walls—bulletproof vest, flesh, and bone—without losing speed, lowered her body as much as possible and sprinted towards the fallen man.

Instantly reaching her target, a beam of light was fired at the unit member who was trying to grab his sidearm even as he fell.

“Guh…?!”

The pistol he barely managed to pull out rolled uselessly on the ground.

The outstretched hand groped for the beam of light that had flown in, checked its shape, and desperately grabbed it.

The katana, piercing through his neck in a straight line and digging into the ground as if a guillotine had fallen. It would be difficult to pull out easily, especially with the dying soldier’s strength added to it.

“Got you! You vicious bastard…!”

Thud! Thud! Thud!

Unable to fire recklessly because of the equipped high-penetration bullets, the muzzle of the man who was barely tracking Helena and his line of fire with his modified eyes shook madly, forming a barrage.

But she easily let go of her weapon and leaped up.

…It was a choice only possible because Helena was the one holding the hilt of the sword, and only the sterile facilities were needlessly torn apart.

Even the direction she jumped was forward, not backward. The audacity to target the remaining unit member who was just about to get the doctor to safety and join the battle clearly showed who had the upper hand in this situation.

“You fucking bastard, trying to fight with your bare hands?”

“…….”

Crack!!

He gritted his teeth at the fist swung as if she didn’t even consider him worth talking to.

They were completely close, unable to use any other tools, and had to fight hand-to-hand.

It seemed to be a decision made to be wary of his colleague who was being very careful with his shots… but he was a freak who had spent a considerable amount of his own money to increase his strength, in addition to the modification procedures provided by Paradise.

“You cocky bastard…!”

To clearly engrave on his mind that it was a foolish and stupid thought, he also did not avoid it and put all his strength into countering, swinging his arm.

Boom!!

“………Oh, shit.”

The last unit member, seeing the end of that ignorant clash through the scope, released his rifle and sighed.

The reason Helena doesn’t prefer guns is, in a way, similar to the marksman of the collection unit who just sighed.

…Well, she likes the elegance of blades as a personal preference, but unlike guns that scatter bullets, weapons that are swung directly have a much lower chance of making mistakes.

A tool to avoid killing the wrong person.

But… even the scabbard is a distinction to not hesitate if she has made up her mind.

The katana was merely a means of expressing her mindset, so even if the reach was slightly reduced due to being temporarily neglected, its momentum was not changed at all.

The man’s fingers, which collided first, could not withstand the difference in strength and spread out before being crushed, then his wrist, which should have supported the punching power, and then his adjacent arm were squashed like a sponge.

Or… it would be more accurate to say they burst.

The confrontation, which was too embarrassing to even call a match, came to an end. As the head of the idiot she had grabbed drooped with a crack! sound… he professionally finished making a communication to the command.

“……This is the survivor of the security team at Harvest Zone Elevator 3. Requesting the suspension and wanted status of intruder DS3-1, combat police.”

An opponent who is swift and flawless, not even giving the collection unit a chance to use their combat gadgets and overwhelming firepower.

He had no expectations of a pretty ending from the time he started working on a job filled with confidentiality obligations, but he muttered that he never thought he would be beaten to death by a police officer he considered far below him, not a soldier from another corporation, and pulled the trigger for the last time.

*Click. Click, click…. *

“……Damn it.”

…He belatedly realized that the high-penetration bullets had a very small magazine capacity.

Still, the collection unit was considered the best armed force in the vicinity, but they were completely wiped out in less than a minute?

Snap!!

The designated marksman, who was exposed alone to an opponent who was nothing more than a superhuman and a personification of irrational violence, quickly fell.

Now, the only one left standing properly in his place was the dumbfounded doctor.

“What… what on earth are you?! Are you a spy from another Mega Corp…?”

Whether he asked in a trembling voice or not, Helena, after confirming that all the functions provided by the visor had disappeared and the identification device was turned off, calmly took off the visor, which she would never use again, and answered.

“…Just a recently fired office worker. …If you have nothing more to say, shall we move? I have a lot to do.”

A middle-aged man who had been groveling in a very humble posture carefully raised his body. She averted her gaze from him.

Collection unit members who were performing monotonous security duties and a doctor who was conducting a project.

If asked who was the more evil of them, she would naturally argue that the doctor should be judged.

However, according to the man who escaped from prison, there was a whistleblower somewhere here.

…A righteous person who even replaced the anesthetic administered to him, who would soon be disposed of, and told him who to use as a shield.

Judging from his attitude, the possibility that it was the doctor himself was very low… but Helena had no intention of tearing up the ticket she would use to return upstairs yet.

“……?”

A worker who didn’t follow the dress code and was sweating profusely, and next to him… a silver-haired woman he had never seen before.

The worker tilted his head once and indifferently passed them by, considering it not his business.

In reality, he didn’t have the leeway to do so, but thanks to the collection unit, who were in a hurry and failed to report the specific situation, Helena, with the doctor in front, was able to roughly examine this secret area.

A testing room for testing all kinds of drugs and Implant reactivity.

An operating room and storage room where a chilly atmosphere always lingered to maintain the freshness of the extracted organs.

In addition, there was an isolation room created to observe the progress of the test subjects, and an incinerator where one couldn’t even guess how many people’s final destination it had become, but the scale was too large to see everything. More than anything, there was no time to do so.

What was most urgent now was the prison where living people were trapped.

Before the command, which had realized the situation, dispatched follow-up troops, she had to somehow create a way for even one more person to escape.

“……Hmph. Even if I ordered them to release those losers, there’s no way those guys who left without the consent of the on-site manager would escape safely, right? It would be better to let Paradise use them effectively… Ugh?!”

“…I think I told you that you can only survive if you shut your mouth and cooperate?”

“…….”

The doctor quickly shut his mouth at the rough touch pressing down on his shoulder.

The creaking shoulder pain was annoying, but he rationalized that this was a very gentlemanly sanction, considering that the guard he had seen earlier had his arm disappear.

…His steps, who was terribly vulnerable to intimidation but whose pride soared to the sky, stopped in front of a room after a while. Written on the nameplate was… Inmate Block Control Room.

The doctor, who had driven out the employee inside under the pretext of patrolling and taken his place, began to operate the input device.

“This is the prison. Are you satisfied now? According to the latest data… there are over a hundred people left, excluding the one who escaped.”

“…Good. Please contact that on-site manager or whatever and coordinate your opinions.”

Even though she was only looking at it through the control room monitor, not with her own eyes, her heart became uneasy.

If you only looked at the cleanliness, the current state after washing and disinfection was better.

But no matter how clean she looked, she had been deprived of her few belongings, and her most important freedom and hope had disappeared, so it was difficult to say that her inner self was normal, even as a euphemism.

‘…I’m sorry. Just a little, please hold on just a little longer.’

Helena apologized inwardly, even though they couldn’t possibly see her even if she occasionally made eye contact.

How much did she contribute to creating this hell?

She wanted to believe that this had not been going on for a long time, but considering the size of the facility and the large-scale construction that had taken place in the past, it had been at least….

“…Miss Grisha! Send more troops immediately!! A crazy police officer is fearlessly rebelling here…!”

“?!”

How could he be playing tricks at this moment, in the brief moment she was lost in thought?

Thump!!

“Ugh?!”

The doctor’s body was thrown into the corner of the control room.

It was the result of her reflexively reaching out and grabbing the doctor by the scruff of his neck and moving him away from the thermal camera.

But strangely enough. Even after clearly hearing the name Miss Grisha, Helena was not shocked or embarrassed at all.

It wasn’t that she was prepared… or that she expected the worst….

I really couldn’t connect the unknown field supervisor, Miss Grisha, and Anne in any way.

That’s why… when she saw the doctor groaning after hitting his head against the wall, and then turned her head to look at the call screen displayed on the monitor, her mind went blank.

“Hello, Lena.”