After seeing these strangers produce something as precious as medicine—and use it to save Aji as a clear sign of goodwill—the evacuees finally stopped tensing up. Low voices returned to the underground space, hesitant at first, then gradually more human.
A Perro child couldn't hold back a complaint.
"This water tastes awful… it's like tears. Bitter and sharp."
"Hold on a little longer," a Cautus girl soothed him, her exhaustion obvious even as she tried to sound gentle. "We worked so hard just to collect this much."
The conditions here were truly miserable. Even clean drinking water was a luxury. Something as ordinary as taking a sip had become a privilege that made children suffer.
Hao Fan took it all in.
On a crate nearby, a sheet of paper listed ration standards.
At the beginning, they'd had bread and dried meat—there had even been whey milk and sugar. But all of those lines were now crossed out. Only mixed hardcakes and a communal pot of thin soup remained.
There was no doubt about it:
This shelter's situation was deteriorating, and their supplies were close to running out. They wouldn't last much longer.
Beside the ration sheet was a set of temporary rules the shelter had written up—food distribution must be fair, violence was forbidden, hygiene had to be maintained, no one was to go out without permission, and more besides.
Kaja's decision to slip out had clearly violated those rules, but no one was in the mood to punish him now.
Because without outside intervention… there was no hope here at all.
"…We can't just leave them," Hao Fan let out a quiet, helpless sigh.
His gaze drifted back to Aji, who was resting.
Perlica had injected her with an Oripathy suppressant, and the symptoms had been controlled on the spot.
The effect was immediate—yet from Perlica's demeanor, it seemed like this was simply a routine medication.
It was nothing like the Terra Hao Fan remembered.
Even though he'd heard about it before—how on Talos-II, long-term prevention plans had dramatically improved Oripathy control, how preventive injections and suppressant therapy were no longer fantasy, and how people were more tolerant of the infected—
Seeing it with his own eyes still hit differently.
It left him strangely relieved.
Under the shadow of his hood, a faint smile surfaced in his eyes.
But the amnesiac Administrator was still stuck on the implications.
"Originium can infect the body… like this?"
She lowered her gaze to her hands, and for the first time since waking, a complicated emotion rose in her toward the power she wielded.
"Oripathy is one of the risks people face when extracting and using Originium," Perlica explained, her smile tinged with resignation. "If protective measures fail, activated Originium can enter the bloodstream and circulate—causing damage."
"We still haven't found a cure," she continued. "But at least now, effective suppressants are relatively reliable… and affordable."
Hearing that, Chen Qianyu—who was never good at leaving hard questions alone—fell into her own kind of troubled silence.
"I heard in history class… that in many places on Terra, the infected were discriminated against. A lot of social unrest came from Oripathy…"
"That's true," Perlica said without dodging it. "Even if relationships between people are no longer torn apart by infection the way they used to be… Oripathy is still a common illness on Talos-II."
As she spoke, she glanced instinctively at the hooded man.
On this topic, the Doctor had the most right to speak.
The weight of what Terra had been… wasn't something a successor could truly share.
"So if we cultivate Originium…" the Administrator started, then trailed off, her voice caught between doubt and responsibility.
"Administrator, don't overthink it," Perlica said firmly, meeting her eyes. "Believe me. Whether you remember the past or not—Originium… you and Originium have always been fighting for Talos-II's survival."
Her clear blue eyes held no hesitation.
That certainty pushed back the Administrator's unease.
After quietly observing the shelter's overall state, Hao Fan decided it was time to circle back to what mattered.
"About earlier… sorry. I got too worked up."
Soss, the shelter's de facto leader, stepped forward to speak, with Kaja—who'd just managed to coax his sister to sleep—standing beside him.
"Thank you for saving Aji. If you need anything, I'll do my best to help."
Even as he said it, everyone understood the reality: in a place like this, there was little "help" they could actually offer.
So Hao Fan began with the one thing he could extract here—information.
"What have the Riftbreakers done?"
"…After the Anchorpoint crashed down nearby, the Riftbreakers started showing up around Valley Fortress," Soss said, his expression dark. "The Guild didn't even have time to sound the alarm."
"They've taken the entire fortress now…" He swallowed hard. "I don't even dare imagine what happened to the people inside."
They're probably already dead, Hao Fan answered silently.
After the Hub Base communications node had been restored, the unread footage—the blood-soaked images—had already told him what Valley Fortress's Guild personnel had suffered.
"…How did you end up here?" Hao Fan asked, moving to the next point.
Soss's eyes grew even more complicated.
"There's an automated meat processing plant nearby. I worked there," he said hoarsely. "A while back, an Infringement disaster destroyed the plant. I ran for a long time before I found the nearest Guild territory."
He looked around the cramped underground space and let out a tired sigh.
"There are a few others here who came from elsewhere too… Doesn't matter now. We're all the same."
When disaster struck without warning, he'd had no choice. Staying alive at all had been luck.
Hao Fan understood that.
When he'd first been attacked by Riftbreakers, he'd felt that same helplessness. If Chen Qianyu hadn't stepped in, he wouldn't be standing here.
He'd probably remember that for the rest of his life.
"I get it," Hao Fan said. "But you can't stay in this cave."
He spoke with certainty.
"The hygiene alone isn't good for patients. And you can't reliably replenish food or water."
He'd looked carefully. If they wanted the children to drink clean water, this wasn't the place.
"I know," Soss said, voice strained. "But… we don't have a better option."
He hesitated, then asked in a low, almost pleading tone:
"Can you stay and protect us?"
"I know it's too much to ask, but…"
"We have a more important mission," Wolfguard stepped forward and cut in, rejecting the request directly. "Staying isn't realistic."
He understood their powerlessness—and their desperation—but no was no.
"Can we really just leave them like this?" Chen Qianyu couldn't help blurting out.
She wasn't someone who could watch people suffer and do nothing.
If anything, she was soft-hearted to the point of trouble. When she ran into situations like this, she almost always chose to help.
Hao Fan nodded inwardly.
He was living proof of what it meant to be saved.
Perlica fell silent, visibly weighing something.
The Administrator encouraged her quietly. "If you have an idea, say it."
"…Administrator, I have a plan," Perlica said, hesitation threading her voice. "But we still don't know the full scope of the attack. Deploying more Protocol equipment too early could increase operational risk—maybe even backfire…"
Her emotions wanted to help. Her reason kept calculating consequences.
Hao Fan answered with a question instead.
"Then tell me—what would the Administrator have done before she lost her memory? What has Endfield Industrial always done? What would the Crisis Management Team I joined do?"
Perlica answered without a pause.
"We would accept the risk."
"Exactly," Hao Fan said.
The Administrator echoed him at the same time, and the two of them exchanged a quick, wordless high-five—an oddly synchronized moment in the middle of misery.
Perlica couldn't help smiling.
"I understand." She turned to Soss. "Is there an open area nearby that can hold everyone?"
"If you go up from this cave, there's a Guild freight distribution yard," Soss said, worry deepening his tone. "We were going to set up camp there."
"But it's crawling with Riftbreakers now. Those animals… they have no humanity. You absolutely can't go!"
"Don't worry," Perlica said. "Lead us there."
Chen Qianyu patted her chest with absolute confidence. "Leave the Riftbreakers to us. We'll give the place a proper 'cleaning'."
....
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