Chapter 55: New Target
On the mining site, the heavy fog was still spreading, and the rustling sound never stopped.
But had fallen into a dilemma—should he look, or shouldn't he?
The was right now at the edge of the mine pit, its camera aimed toward the direction where the fog was thickest.
All he had to do was connect his consciousness to it, and he could see in real time what was hidden inside that layer of white fog.
To be honest, felt that even if he did look, he'd most likely be fine.
Last time at the factory, and the others had looked straight at that white-winged creature with the tentative codename " ," and afterward they'd developed zombification reactions that could only be saved with injections.
But back then, had also followed along through the the whole time without any abnormal reaction.
Intuitively, he felt he probably wasn't as fragile as flesh and blood.
But as the saying goes, better safe than sorry.
The final words of the man in the diary—"I was wrong. You mustn't look at it"—were, in the end, a bit too chilling.
In the end, after much deliberation, chose to split the difference between reckless and cowardly—he'd be half a coward.
That is, he'd keep the 's recording function on, but not connect to the live feed.
Once the fog dispersed, he'd review the recorded data later.
It sounded a bit like burying his head in the sand, but there was actually a basis for it.
After the " " incident, had run a verification.
He'd played the footage of that monster recorded by the for other people inside the power station, and no one had shown any abnormal reaction.
This showed that, at least for that " ," "visual contact alone" was not a sufficient condition for triggering mutation—it might only be one of the necessary conditions.
What actually caused the harm might also involve some kind of special radiation, sound waves, or other unknown information carriers that only existed on-site.
If the thing in the mine pit was similar in nature to that monster, then recording was a viable means of intelligence gathering.
After all, intelligence still had to be collected—they couldn't fight it blindfolded forever, right?
After making his decision, withdrew his consciousness from the mining area for the time being and turned to handling other affairs.
The stood there quietly, its lens faithfully recording everything in the fog.
Time passed minute by minute. That hair-raising "rustling" lasted about half an hour before gradually fading away along with the dispersing fog.
"...Did it leave?" lowered his voice, his throat dry and hoarse.
"I don't know," shook his head. He then contacted the other team members through his , and only after confirming that everyone was safe did he carefully crack the door open.
The sunlight outside was just right, and the mining area was still the same empty, deathly silent mining area, as if that sinister fog and that sound had never existed at all.
The team members filed out one after another from the buildings where they'd been hiding, faces pale, every pair of eyes carrying the shock of having narrowly escaped death.
" , this place is seriously cursed. Should we keep going?" A young team member's voice trembled slightly.
looked up at the enormous open-pit mine, as if something unspeakably terrifying were sleeping beneath it.
He took a deep breath and said toward his , "Mr. , what should we do next?"
[Suspend the mission.]
's voice held not a trace of hesitation.
[Immediately seal the tunnel entrance. All personnel return to base.]
[This area will be designated a maximum-level restricted zone. Await further instructions.]
"Understood!"
Upon receiving the order, immediately began organizing the retreat.
This godforsaken place—he didn't want to stay in it a single second longer.
Twenty minutes later, the reversed back into the tunnel, leaving only a single on the entire mining site, silently watching over the area.
***
Five days later, , conference room.
Around the huge circular conference table sat more than a dozen of the 's core members.
, , , , , , , ... all the department heads and key personnel were present.
The atmosphere in the conference room was somewhat heavy; everyone already knew in advance that this meeting's topic would be troublesome.
[Five days ago, the route to the iron mine was preliminarily opened,] the cold electronic voice representing " " echoed through the room, [but as you all know, we ran into a bit of trouble there.]
As he spoke, he switched the main screen's display.
What appeared on the screen was exactly the footage the had recorded at the mining site—
Over the previous few days, had verified the safety of this recording through a series of methods.
At first, there was only white fog, so thick it wouldn't clear.
The footage was perfectly normal at first, until the eerie dense fog rose from the mine pit.
Then, a rustling sound came through the recording's audio track. Even as just a recording, the sound still made several people in the room subconsciously tense up.
Then, something even more inconceivable happened.
In the fog, a huge gray-black column rose silently from the bottom of the mine pit.
Its surface wasn't smooth, but made up of countless tiny, tightly packed particles that never stopped flowing and tumbling...
When the footage zoomed in, everyone saw what those "particles" really were.
Worms.
Each particle was a tubular worm the size of a fingernail, gray-black all over, with no obvious distinction between head and tail, its shell bearing a dull metallic luster.
Hundreds of millions of worm bodies writhed madly, tangled tightly together, forming that "black column" whose diameter was estimated to possibly exceed ten meters.
"Holy shit!" couldn't help cursing.
And it was still growing upward.
When the column rose to about thirty meters, its top began to fork, like a tree putting out branches.
Each "branch" was the same kind of worm-cluster aggregate, slowly extending and bending in the air, as if "sensing" the surrounding environment.
Then a second column rose, followed by a third, a fourth...
All together, six such giant columns were growing in the mine pit at once, with branches connecting to one another and worm clusters constantly exchanging and flowing, making the entire structure look like a "prosperous jungle" akin to a "giant coral thicket."
The rustling in the recording was the sound of countless worm bodies tumbling, rubbing, climbing, and tangling together.
The entire conference room fell silent. Everyone was stunned speechless by the bizarre yet "magnificent" sight on the screen.
"Those people..." was silent for a few seconds. "The missing workers and zombies at the mining site... were they eaten by these things?"
[There's no clear evidence yet, but even if not, they're most likely connected to it.]
's answer was cautious. [I left a there. It will continue collecting relevant intelligence in low-power mode until its battery runs out.]
The footage continued playing. Those columnar worm clusters lingered in the air for about three minutes, during which the stood at the pit's edge less than fifty meters away.
A few "branches" even swept right past the , but not a single worm showed any interest in this extra uninvited guest.
A few minutes later, as if some unknown accident had suddenly occurred, the entire worm jungle collapsed and shattered almost in an instant.
Then, those tiny worms vanished into the bottom of the mine pit in the blink of an eye, like water.
After that, the fog gradually dispersed, and the recording ended.
[Suspected swarm-type . Tentative codename: " ." Estimated danger level exceeds Stage Two. Specific attack methods unknown.]
Finally, gave a summary of the currently available information.
wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. "So you're saying the mine we went to all that trouble to dig through is useless now?"
That one sentence silenced everyone.
The relationship between minerals and industry went without saying. Although the was still limited in scale and had no urgent need to establish a full industrial chain starting from mining, still, as long as the wanted to expand and develop, losing the mine that was, relatively speaking, closest to them remained rather bad news.
And for , if they couldn't mine, that was like being stuck on the main quest line—hard to stomach too.
"It's not just that. If it tunnels through the passage in reverse and invades our power station, then the problem would be truly serious," said.
Hearing this, everyone's expressions grew even grimmer. They all knew this possibility was real.
"I feel it's unlikely to leave the mining area," once again broke the silence, recovering a scientist's calm.
"From the diary, it already existed before the disaster broke out."
"But it's been this long, and its range of activity has never extended beyond the mining area."
"My guess is, either its existence depends on some special condition in the mining area, or its main food source might be the iron ore itself—with people and zombies just being 'foreign objects' it cleans up along the way."
"Its diet is iron?" immediately raised a question. "Then why are the excavators and trucks in the mining area all perfectly intact?"
"The wandered around right in front of it, and it didn't react at all. Those are all refined steel."
"Maybe it has a particular palate—likes 'coarse grains,' doesn't care for the fine stuff?" stroked his chin, spouting nonsense with a perfectly straight face.
"Or maybe it needs certain unrefined mineral components in the ore? Once processed, it's too pure for it to bother with?" grabbed at her hair, looking troubled.
"There's too little data—we're completely guessing blindly. If only we could... get some of its tissue samples to study."
"But since even looking straight at it causes problems," cut off her fantasy in a low voice, "even if we could get a few little worms down, how do we make sure those worms can even be looked at? How do we make sure they can be studied safely?"
"Besides, looking at its size, our current weapons probably won't be enough to deal with it."
"Then there's no way around it—can't research it, can't fight it..." slumped into her chair in defeat. "Damn! Isn't it just invincible!"
The conference room fell into deadlock once more.
[So, when it comes down to it, the problem still lies in insufficient firepower.] summarized simply.
Hearing this, immediately looked up. " , do you have a plan?"
[That's right. But I'll let answer that.]
Everyone's gaze shifted to . He stood up from his seat, walked to the screen, and pointed at a spot on the map.
"Since the problem lies in firepower," he continued, "why don't we go take back the weapons and equipment that were originally ours?"
He pulled up a map of and its surroundings, and pointed to a military marker about forty kilometers northwest of .
"The ," said. "That's where we escaped from. Now it's our turn to go take back what's ours."
's eyes lit up instantly. "Exactly! As long as we have ' ,' infiltrating won't be too hard."
"And once the equipment is in hand, we'll clear out the garrison!"
Everyone present immediately realized that this plan was highly feasible.
After all, for ordinary people, zombification did make them stronger and harder to deal with.
But for these hard-trained, battle-tested soldiers, becoming zombies was instead a massive weakening.
Their skilled weapons-operation abilities and efficient combined-operations capabilities had almost all been reduced to nothing. What was there now was just a loose gathering of zombies.
For prepared people like , as long as there weren't any 'can't-look-at' monsters in there like that worm thing or that angel, it really was no different from going home to pick up their things.
Once they thought this through, the meeting's atmosphere instantly shifted from oppressive to high-spirited.
[In that case,] 's electronic voice rang out.
[Then the primary objective for the next phase is to retake the weapons and comprehensively upgrade the 's armed forces.]
[We can advance on both the surface and underground fronts in coordination, striving to retrieve the vast majority of usable weapons and equipment efficiently and safely.]
[ will serve as the overall person in charge of the operation. is responsible for the underground tunnel portion. All other departments will cooperate fully.]
"Understood!" everyone answered in unison.
Then they moved on to discussing details like the production output of ' ' and the speed of underground excavation.
An hour later, the meeting ended, and everyone left the conference room carrying excitement and anticipation.
***
Late at night after the meeting, the lights in 's room in the were still blazing.
stood alone before the electronic sand table in the room. Displayed on the sand table were the various areas the had already surveyed... every detail rendered with perfect clarity.
Looking at this map, couldn't help feeling a bit emotional. The was finally starting to take on some scale.
Even the he was responsible for now had a total of over five hundred people. Although quite a few weren't yet up to standard in training, at least it was much better than the previous situation of having no one to use.
[Worried?]
's signature electronic voice sounded from the , breaking the stillness of the room.
didn't turn around, his gaze still locked on the sand table. "Just trying to make the plan more thorough."
"But didn't you say you don't monitor people's rooms?"
[Of course I don't. When it comes to politeness, you're not even close to my level—believe it or not.]
"Then how did you—" didn't catch on for a moment.
[What do you think? Your room may not have surveillance, but the light you've turned on runs on my electricity!]
[Or have you suddenly developed a habit of sleeping with the lights on? If so, I'll have to raise your electricity bill separately.]
"Uh, that won't be necessary." 's voice carried a hint of embarrassment.
"I'll turn off the light right away."
But the suddenly fell silent.
keenly sensed something was off. This mysterious super AI didn't have a habit of cutting off mid-conversation.
"What's wrong? ?" called out tentatively.
A few seconds later, 's voice sounded again.
[It's nothing. It's just that the that's been keeping watch finally found its target. I got too absorbed for a moment.]
"What target?"
[That ' ' in the industrial park.]
[I found it.]