Chapter 203

Chapter 203. Bright and Healthy Tentacle Dungeon Exploration. (2)

And so, they found a new place.

If Icarus had been here, they might have confidently checked a message like this:

—————————————-

<Event>

<Research Facility Building Confirmed!>

<Content>

<Finally, the personnel sent to the dungeon have located the research facility on the asteroid base!>

<If we search a little more, we might get the event rewards!>

—————————————-

Of course, even if Icarus were here, it’s not like Jessica or the others could see the message.

“Huh, this scenery feels familiar.”

“A place you miss, huh?”

What they saw was a ‘very familiar’ background.

In other words, ‘a chaotic mix of machinery and flesh, wires and blood vessels, with all sorts of oversized test tubes sticking out everywhere.’

‘Something with a lot of tentacles popping out, and chunks of flesh connected by sticky, web-like nerve cells or mucus.’

‘Something that looks like a pipe but feels like a pulsating blood vessel when touched.’

‘Mechanical devices that twitch when poked.’

And so on.

No matter how you look at it, it’s similar to Gryanarr’s lab, just on a much larger scale.

Even though it was a sight that would’ve made others, especially Belial, go berserk and demand it all be burned down, the three of them were so used to it that they didn’t react much. They just casually looked around and decided to continue their search.

Of course, before that…

-*Crash! Thud!*

-*Gurgle, sploosh!*

-*Clang!*

“Oh my.”

“Looks like they’re welcoming us.”

“Heh, these ones seem stronger than the last bunch.”

Not even a few minutes after they entered, a muscular, naked monster burst through the opaque test tube glass.

A tentacle monster, accompanied by a *sploosh* sound, emerged from the chunks of flesh on the floor and ceiling, along with a flood of liquid.

And finally, a massive monster, seemingly having absorbed part of the research facility’s equipment, stepped forward. It was about the size of a large bus, armed with sharp spiked tentacles, a hard exoskeleton, and grotesque teeth, smashing a few intact test tubes as it advanced.

If Icarus were here, they’d probably exclaim, “Wow! A boss battle!” But for now, they had to deal with this situation.

==========

Of course, Smeragi’s ‘High Evaluation’ was only in terms of being a ‘sandbag.’

Excited by the appearance of enemies that wouldn’t go down in one hit, Smeragi naturally…

“Hmm, it seems we’ve finally got some worthy opponents.”

“You think so?”

Similarly, Oxianor, who had been feeling bored, transformed their bio-suit into bio-‘armor’ and joined the fight.

In less than 10 minutes, the so-called <Combat Bio-Weapon, Type-Orc>—muscular monsters—were lying on the floor with their muscles torn apart.

Likewise, the <Combat Bio-Weapon, Type-Ten>—tentacle monsters dripping with mysterious mucus—had their tentacles ripped out and were now just corpses on the ground.

As for the much-anticipated giant monster…

“Hmm, Gryanarr?”

“What?”

“You’re not planning to take this one, are you? Unlike the trap monster earlier, you don’t seem interested in this one…”

Oxianor, dressed like a knight in armor, had pierced the monster with two giant tentacles formed from their arms.

The monster, now resembling a hedgehog with spikes bursting from inside, was oozing blood and blackened, rotting flesh.

“At first, I was interested, but upon closer inspection, it’s just like the other monsters lying around.”

“Hmm, is that so?”

“It just grew in size by consuming part of the facility. It’s just a nuisance we should get rid of.”

“Then let’s make sure to eliminate it properly so it doesn’t interfere.”

Once Gryanarr deemed it useless, Oxianor injected self-destructing viruses through the spikes piercing its body, causing it to slowly die from the inside out.

Because it was.

==========

And while Oxianor and Gryanarr were seriously pondering, “Let’s take this as a sample later and bring it as a gift to Icarus,” our meow-meow Smeragi was sliding around in the smelly slime, showing off their cat-like skills by finishing off the monsters that were still barely alive…

“Hmm?”

Even though all the visible monsters had been disassembled into ㄱ/ㅗ/ㅣ/ㄴ/ㄱ/ㅜ/ㄱ/ㅡ/ㄴ/, the feeling that something was still alive somewhere persisted.

In this incomprehensible situation, Smeragi tilted their head for a moment.

“Uuuh? Ah, found it!”

With the help of their cat-like, ultra-high-performance bio-sonar detector, Smeragi finally pinpointed the source of the life they sensed.

But the problem was, it wasn’t among the scattered corpses around…

“What are you talking about, Smeragi?”

“That big monster! I sense a living reaction inside it!”

“Huh?”

The issue was that the giant monster, injected with Oxianor’s self-destruct virus, was rotting away, including the equipment it had swallowed.

Oxianor urgently stopped the virus injection, absorbed the remaining parts into their body, and began dismantling the monster with Smeragi.

Inside, they discovered a life-preservation device that had withstood the onslaught of the modified bio-tissue cells that had swallowed the entire facility, thanks to the Ancient Empire’s technology.

“Hoh?”

“This is truly remarkable.”

“Fascinating, huh? I wonder how it managed to hold up.”

Naturally, our curiosity captain Grigri couldn’t just let such an interesting thing slide.

“Let’s take it out right away.”

“Mm.”

Skipping the details, after a spectacular hacking operation, the hibernation was released with a *poof*, and a woman in a lab coat woke up…

“Eek! How did the monster open this?!!”

“Oh dear.”

“Hmm, I guess we forgot to revert it back.”

Upon seeing Oxianor, covered in tentacles and spiky armor, staring right at her, she fainted on the spot, ruining their fateful first meeting.

Of course, that was only temporary.

After waking up, overwhelmed by Oxianor’s overly kind demeanor, Gryanarr’s super-intelligence, and Smeragi’s eerie gaze, she started babbling on her own.

“Well, I’m Rain, a researcher who worked at this lab… I heard the warning about a top-level biohazard outbreak and came here…”

“Got it, got it.”

“So, you’re saying you were the sole survivor when the incident happened here?”

“Y-yes, that’s right.”

Of course, our superhumans weren’t giving Rain free mental health counseling out of pity.

“Anyway, that Empire is gone now… The world is divided among four alien factions.”

“Is that so… So the Empire finally fell.”

They quickly made her grasp the reality, hoping to get her on their side.

“Then, do you know where this ‘Research Laboratory’ is located?”

“The Research Lab?”

Amidst all the transformations, they wanted to avoid wasting time wandering around looking for the lab.

And, fortunately—or perhaps inevitably—Rain knew exactly where it was.

“Of course, it’s nearby. You can get there in no time.”

“Oh.”

For Rain, the lab was where she had been working just minutes ago, so they set off with the excitement of a field trip rather than an exploration.