The sunshine approaching noon was bright and enchanting.
A gentle breeze brushed across the lake surface, stirring up shimmering waves and causing the water to ripple with a crystal-like sheen.
Su Yuzu could perfectly imagine it.
If the sun were to set behind the western mountains, and the sky became filled with brilliant stars, how tranquil and beautiful the lake surface reflecting those myriad stars would be.
Just like the stars and the sea reflected in the little cat's eyes.
The complex of buildings, styled like villas in a light blue tone, sat right by such a beautiful lakeside.
But... it felt inexplicably gloomy.
It made one shudder, hair standing on end.
The jeep convoy stopped in front of the laboratory.
Su Yuzu and Kujou Katora exchanged a glance.
The ability of "Blood Manipulation" was not merely about manipulating blood.
It also granted Su Yuzu and Kujou Katora an ability akin to infrared thermal imaging.
They could sense the flow of blood within a certain range around them.
They could 'see' every living person, or those who had just died.
Su Yuzu possessed only one-quarter of Kujou Katora's power, so her perception range was only about ten meters or so.
But Kujou Katora could perceive living life forms within nearly a hundred meters.
However... nothing.
The laboratory in front of them was in dead silence.
"Lady Kujou?" Hayabusa noticed the grave expressions on Kujou Katora and Su Yuzu's faces.
"This is a dead city." Kujou Katora closed her eyes, expanding her perception as much as possible.
Usually, she wouldn't do this.
Because doing so consumed mental energy and was troublesome; Kujou Katora preferred to just rush in with her chainsaw.
"What?"
"I don't sense any aura of life." Kujou Katora got out of the car directly. She glanced at Su Yuzu with approval, marveling at her Miss Yuzu's keen intuition. "Unless the laboratory is lined with lead walls."
"Shielding my perception."
"Otherwise... there is no active 'life' inside this laboratory anymore."
Kujou Katora placed heavy emphasis on the word 'life'.
That was because the Third Sequence Kujou Katora also had limits to her Blood Manipulation.
The closer the blood was to her own, the easier it was to manipulate.
The easiest blood to manipulate was human blood.
Like Aberrants or Walking Husks, their blood was much more difficult to manipulate.
Perception was the same.
She could sense the blood of living things.
Sense the blood that was still flowing.
But... like the nearly dried up... slowly flowing viscous blood inside those Walking Husks. Although it was great for manipulating to form chainsaw blades, the difficulty of sensing it was too high.
Especially when separated by buildings.
Getting out of the car, Hayabusa made a hand gesture to the convoy behind her.
The burly men, who had previously been trying hard to show comical smiles in front of Su Yuzu, all turned into Rakshasas. Guns loaded, blades on their backs, they guarded the three girls in the center.
The entire team advanced slowly toward the deathly silent laboratory in front of them, like a bayonet.
Hayabusa understood Kujou Katora's meaning.
Although there might not be any survivors left, the dead—especially those who remain restless after death—are often more terrifying than the living.
The main gate of the central laboratory had been breached.
The specially made steel door, nearly half a meter thick, bore terrifying claw scratch marks. The entire door looked as if it had been bombarded by artillery shells head-on, and then torn apart by sharp claws.
This place had suffered an attack.
The interior of the laboratory was also a mess.
There were dried bloodstains on the ground and scattered documents.
But the only thing missing... the only thing missing was a single corpse.
Su Yuzu thought she probably knew where those corpses went.
—Walking Husks.
Those Walking Husks that attacked the adjacent experimental park and were hiding in the forest.
Only... Su Yuzu couldn't help but feel a bit puzzled.
This laboratory clearly already possessed the black technology to convert humans into Aberrants.
Why would there still be so many Walking Husks?
"Power system is operating normally."
"Do not disperse."
"Go to the storage area first and take all storage modules and black boxes."
"No need to copy, take them directly."
Hayabusa assessed the situation inside the laboratory and issued orders.
Beside Su Yuzu, Kujou Katora's muscles seemed to have tensed up all over, ready to fight at any moment to protect Miss Yuzu.
The team advanced through the laboratory with extreme caution.
The entire laboratory was abnormally deathly silent.
All security facilities had been destroyed.
Su Yuzu captured those residual traces, gazing at the bloodstains that had dried under the bright white lights.
"The battle happened about three days ago."
"And..."
"It doesn't look like a breakthrough from the outside in, but rather a... slaughter breaking out from the inside."
Hayabusa glanced at Su Yuzu with approval.
Miss Yuzu's conjecture was completely consistent with hers.
"Was it a test subject losing control?" Kujou Katora sniffed the faint scent of blood in the air.
Although there were still many dried bloodstains on the ground.
However, the laboratory's air exchange system was still operating.
The blood had long since evaporated, and the smell of blood had long become faint and nearly inaudible.
"They got what they deserved."
"Not quite like that." Su Yuzu's fingertips gently touched a skewed table.
The table was smashed in half from the middle.
Mottled bloodstains could still be seen on the broken area.
Su Yuzu's eyes seemed to reflect... a person, or perhaps a monster, grabbing a researcher's head and slamming it onto the tabletop, smashing the table in half.
Not lethal.
But sufficient deterrent.
Just like... wanting to ask something.
Su Yuzu stood in front of the broken and skewed table, tilting her head slightly, and looked in another direction.
"Even if out-of-control Walking Husks ate those people, they would leave some shredded meat and bone scraps."
"But here, apart from bloodstains, there is nothing."
"Did Senpai Kujou think of something?"
"The [Eye of Insight]."
The [Eye of Insight] sect possessed the power to extract life force, and then use the Walking Husks, drained of everything, as soldiers.
"What is this?" Kujou Katora sneered.
"Did talks break down?"
The destruction of the laboratory possessing that kind of Black Gears was not necessarily a bad thing for them.
"It is also possible... that the [Eye of Insight] already got what they wanted."
Su Yuzu still felt uneasy and nervous.
Because of that side quest called "The Girl with the Broken Song".
Because of... that damaged music box.
Kujou Katora is a Third Sequence ability user.
Although in this world, killing a high-level ability user by overcoming rank is not impossible.
But... ambushing a physical enhancement type ability user is much harder than it is for a weak idiot like Soga Yura.
Moreover, Kujou Katora also has Hayabusa's protection.
Exactly what kind of enemy could cause Kujou Katora to suffer a defeat here?
Su Yuzu felt uneasy from the bottom of her heart.
She followed the gaze of that researcher who might have been smashed onto the table... slowly walking towards an office on the other side.
Then... she seemed to kick something.
Su Yuzu lowered her head; it was a shriveled apple with a bite taken out of it.
And apple pulp spat out to the side.
She had heard Zero mention it.
Although the researchers in that laboratory attached great importance to their own safety, they loved deep-fried foods like pizza, burgers, and fries.
Only that sister of Zero... would occasionally bring Zero an apple.
Su Yuzu bent down and picked up that apple.
Looking at the bloodstains nearby, it was as if she saw the image of a woman with messy hair being held down on the ground with a foot on her head.
No—
Wrong.
Su Yuzu picked up the bitten apple, sniffing the withered cross-section carefully.
"Yuzu?"
Su Yuzu smelled an abnormal scent.
The scent of life force stolen by Catastrophe.
She saw... an Aberrant woman standing where she was standing now.
Stepping on... a man wearing the black-purple robes of the [Eye of Insight] sect.
The woman painfully bit into the apple, but what she tasted was not the sweetness of the apple, but a feeling devoid of any flavor... like chewing foam.
Finally, she could only painfully spit the apple out.
Normal Aberrants do not have the ability to taste.
Zero, who was injected with a large amount of human factors, is a complete anomaly.
Only... just how did she know Aberrants have no sense of taste?
It seemed to be small text on the loading bar in the game.
But the time was a bit too distant for Su Yuzu; she only recalled it when encountering the corresponding situation.
There was no more time for Su Yuzu to think.
Creak—
Creak—
They suddenly heard the ear-piercing sound of... sharp claws piercing into steel and tearing open cracks.
They were surrounded.
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