Chapter 53: Incident Over?

“Yeaaaaaah! Leeeet’s goooo baaabyyy!”

I showered the large packed swarm of monsters with split laser fire in glee. The lasers hit the targets instantly. Well, of course. I just fired off projectiles that moved at lightspeed after all.

Essentially, the main source of damage made by high-output laser fire is explosions set off when the lasers hit their targets. The surface of the target would rapidly evaporate due to being hit by ultra-high temperature, causing explosions in the process.

However, high-powered laser weapons in Stella Online don’t cause damage using that principle. Instead, they penetrate straight through the targets. It’s completely different from the effect of optical weapons that I’m familiar with.

“Well, it’s fine as long as it works anyway. But it sure is a mystery.”

Maybe they work differently from the lasers back on Earth? I mulled over these things as I continued to exterminate the pale monsters approaching me.

『What’s up?』

“Nah, it’s nothing. But really. Just what the heck happened here? Do these kinds of incidents happen often?”

『I haven’t heard of anything like this happening before though……』

『If these kinds of incidents were widespread, then the cultured meat producers would have long gone out of business.』

“Guess so.”

I’m sure people who would be totally against the cultured meat industry would pop out one after another if that were the case. There were definitely a lot of casualties from this incident after all. But I’m sure there should have been plenty of measures to prevent this kind of incident from happening though.

“Maybe this was caused by an illegal meat plant or something?”

『It’s pretty disconcerting…… Just what kind of feed are they using at that kind of illegal facility, I wonder?』

『There was something written on the packaging of Kobe Beef saying that the quality of feed is important in order to produce the tastiest meat.』

“I’m sure the thing Elma’s worried about isn’t about that, Mimi.”

I continued to kill the monsters while exchanging some silly banter with the girls. Eh? I should play rock music in the background, you say? Nah, it doesn’t suit the monotonous work of pest extermination guys.

『They contacted us from the hospital, Elma-san.』

『Patch them through.』

We heard a young male’s voice after Elma allowed the call through.

『This is Amray speaking. I’m part of the security detail working for Inagawa Technology. You people are–』

“I’m Captain Hiro. I’m here in response to the rescue request you guys filed with the Mercenary Guild. I’m currently in the middle of exterminating the creatures in front of the hospital.”

『I’m Elma, one of the crew. I’m currently in charge of information gathering.』

『I’m Mimi. I’m an Operator, just like Elma-san.』

『Ah, the Mercenary Guild…… You’ve really helped us out. In fact, the partition preventing them from entering the building was about to be breached.』

“With just this? Aren’t bulkheads like that pretty thick in order to ensure airtightness?”

『The body fluids released by those monsters are corrosive, so…… The bulkheads used inside the colony aren’t treated to resist that type of damage.』

“I see.”

I guess being able to resist corrosive substances isn’t really all that important if you just want to ensure airtightness huh? My power armor is a combat model, so it can resist corrosion just fine though. It won’t get damaged no matter how much body fluids they slather it with.

“Leave the rest to me. They still haven’t managed to breach the interior, right?”

『For now, at least. Please get a sample of the creatures after you’re done exterminating them. They’re planning on making specialized nanomachines in order to aid in exterminating them, so we need some samples.』

“Got it. Do you need me to capture one alive?”

『No, a corpse would be enough.』

“Understood…… The ones burned by laser fire won’t do, right?”

『No idea. I’m just a security guard after all…… Let’s just go with an unburnt sample, just to be sure.』

“Guess so. Okay then.”

I’ll just switch to CQC once I’ve reduced their numbers enough. Now then, let’s continue the pest clean up.

“Dosukoi!”

I rammed the last remaining large type monster and blew it away. With this, the extermination is complete. There were mountains of monster corpses all around me. The mop-up proceeded without a hitch. But maybe I did have a bit of trouble with the CQC battle at the end. It was way easier to barbecue them with the laser launcher after all.

『Good work out there, Hiro-sama. There are no more creatures in the area. Extermination complete.』

『You sure made quite a riot in the end.』

“It made for some good exercise, so I feel like I’d have a good sleep tonight.”

I picked up some of the monster corpses I finished off via CQC and piled them up at the entrance of the hospital.

“Would these be enough as samples?”

『Dunno. Let’s see…… Please wait a bit.』

Guess he’s gonna confirm with the researchers. Well, it won’t do to leave the surroundings messy like this, so I guess I’ll clean up a bit. The colony’s basically an enclosed space after all. It may cause another incident if these corpses rotted away unchecked and gave off potentially harmful gas substances.

『Yo, yo, yo. It’s been a while huh, Hiro-kun. Guess you saved my life again this time.』

“……Dr. Shouko?”

『Yep, it’s Shouko. I’m glad you remember me.』

“Well, yeah.”

Dr. Shouko had a pretty hard-to-forget personality after all.

『Can you share the visual feed of your suit to me?』

“No prob. Mimi.”

『Yes. Feed’s connected.』

The moment the feed was linked, I heard some commotion in the background when the screen displaying Dr. Shouko popped up on my HUD.

『That’s amazing. You did this all by yourself, Hiro-kun?”

“Yeah. Well, I used my power armor, so this much is nothing.”

I picked up the laser launcher I left on the ground when I went full-on melee earlier and walked in front of the piled-up creature corpse samples.

『So these are the samples you got for us?』

“Yep. I got two of each size for you guys.”

『Can you share some of their characteristics you managed to observe while fighting?』

“Let’s see. The large and small types had the intelligence of wild beasts. They were pretty feral and displayed a strong appetite. They didn’t flinch even if they were put in a severe disadvantage and just kept on attacking me.”

『I see. Are the mid-sized ones different somehow?』

“These guys seemed a bit smarter than the other two types. They did things like making use of the small and large types to launch sneak attacks. And once they see the situation getting worse, they immediately attempt to escape.”

『Hee……. That’s quite interesting. Perhaps the brains of these ones may have developed more than the other two types?』

“These are enough samples, right?”

『Yep, they’re good, I think. We’ll get ourselves ready to go out, so please keep watch for us.』

“Got it. I’ll guard them for you.”

The video call was cut. I left the monitoring the immediate area to Mimi and Elma and resumed tidying up the surrounding monster corpses scattered about.

“Maybe it would be better to just burn them all up with my laser launcher?”

『Well, there’s still a valid source of protein. How about you leave them as they are for now? The folks at the colony may have use for them or something.』

“That so? Okay then.”

After a while, the bulkhead that sealed the entrance to the hospital opened up, and people wearing yellow protective clothing walked out. They carried a large stretcher for collecting samples with them. One of the people raised her hand in greeting and approached me.

“Hey there. You really saved our behinds this time. That sure is a strong-looking power armor you got there.”

“That you, Dr. Shouko? We’re both all covered up so I can’t see your face.”

“Yeah. Thanks for saving us ‘kay. I heard they sent a rescue request, but to think the one who’d responded would be you, Hiro-kun.”

“Looks like we’re connected by some strange sort of fate huh. Well, it was Mimi who picked up the request though.”

“Is that so? I’d have to thank those two girls as well then.”

“Uh, so what’s the plan?”

“We’ll start on making a specialized nanomachine swarm to counter these guys and exterminate them quickly. We should be done in two hours or so. Can you keep protecting us until then? We’ll pay you for your troubles.”

“Gotcha.”

“Do your best then.”

After saying that, Dr. Shouko, who was all decked out in full-body protective wear, joined the other researchers with the sample recovery. She approached me again after a while though.

“We need more small type creature samples its seems.”

“They’re all piled up over there, so feel free to take some. But the state of the corpses are different, so you’ll have to make some effort to select good ones.”

“I understand.”

It would be bad if the researchers got attacked in the middle of their work, so I kept watch and patrolled the surrounding area. Well, it seems there was also some laser gun-toting security personnel mixed in with the people wearing protective gear though. Guess they’re the hospital guards.

The sample collection finally finished after a while more and the researchers all went back inside the hospital. I was left all alone again so I decided to continue the corpse clean up.

“They said they were going to create a specialized nanomachine swarm for extermination purposes, but is something like that easily done?”

『I wonder?』

『This hospital has a high-performance positron AI to aid in research work, and they also have lots of medical nanomachines available, so I guess it’s possible.』

“Doesn’t nanomachines that break down flesh sound kinda dangerous?”

『No idea. But I remember hearing about a breakout prevention mechanism utilizing nanomachines at that meat plant we visited last time, so I guess they could make them so that they’ll be effective only on those kinds of creatures, right?』

“Hm, so they can do something like that huh.”

I continued with my guard duty and cleaning work while exchanging thoughts with the girls. I started hearing the sounds of battle in the distance. So maybe the imperial military garrison or Major Serena and her independent anti-pirate mobile fleet finally arrived.

There were no more monster attacks that occurred while I was standing guard. I mostly just stood on standby for the rest of the time……