Глава 8

One thing is clear. All the Sarkaz mercenaries in the core have turned.

All operators, switch your self-cleansing devices on.

Protect yourselves before you try to protect anyone else.

Amiya... Are you really going to carry the burden of this unfortunate race's fate?

This herd is incredibly tough.

Not only do these mutated Sarkaz Infected have much better healing capabilities than normal possessed Infected, they are much more intelligent, too.

But that still doesn't give us a way to actually talk to them. They all seem so... strange. Like they're all in some place else.

Not only that, this type of mutation is an accident waiting to happen. The crystals form way too fast.

The concentration of crystal dust in the air is the highest right here.

That probably means that whoever is controlling the Herd here has most likely taken over the sarcophagus of the Chernobog core city already.

Things are always happening in places we don't have our eyes on.

I really can't even begin to imagine what we'll be facing from here on out.

...I don't mind getting an earful for this, Doctor, but I have to say this. This is way too difficult.

What we are doing might just be suicide. And, most importantly, I really don't think we have what it takes to save this city and Lungmen.

Let's not demoralize ourselves.;......;There are still things we need to do.

Chard, if memory serves, you have a family, don't you?

I'm surprised you remember, Doctor. You got one detail wrong, though. My wife and my daughter don't care about me anymore, so I don't really have one.

Chard, have you ever thought about seeing them, and start living with them once again?

I dreamed about it.

The first step to turning your dreams into reality is to give yourself the chance to dream.

Stopping Chernobog isn't going to make life any harder for the Infected.

Give your daughter a chance, Chard. Give her the chance to see her father again.

I'll do as you say, Doctor.

You're just taking him for a ride.

What I said may have been a lie. I don't think the world is going to become a better place overnight, and there's basically no way the Infected will get to go back to their previous lives.

But what I said could also be the truth.

Suppose we leave this place right now. He will never have the chance to see his daughter again, regardless of whether his family or he himself die of other causes in the events that will transpire.

And suppose we aren't able to solve the problem we are facing right now. Most broader academic research will forever remain theories and nothing more.

The successes of those who put in the work is what gives us the right to continue.

There are countless people trying to revolutionize the system for the Infected, but all it takes is one failure, and not only will they forever lose the right to try that, we will never again have that opportunity again.

If you need a more suitable metaphor, consider the concept, 'life'.

...Each time a major operation ends in success, we live to see another day. On the other hand, failure means death.

There is no such thing as coming back from the dead in science.

We only have one chance to save our lives. We will come to face many disasters, and it will be the end of us each time an accident happens. That's both ourselves individually or Rhodes Island as a whole.

Disasters like Chernobog are bound to happen again and again. If we fail to solve a problem like that even once, we will die.

On one hand, we have to stop the disease before it catches up and overwhelms all of us. On the other hand, we need to save ourselves from within this storm.

I'm not singing Rhodes Island's praises. Not too much, at least. It's just, right here, right now, this is a problem that only we can handle.

Most of us only get to live once. Once our lives are lost, it's gone forever.

You mean there are people who gets to live several lives?

Uh, that's not really what I'm trying to say. What I mean is that there are people who haven't ever treasured their own lives.

There are a lot of people who have never been around anything normal ever since they were born. Twisted places will only bear twisted fruits.

The reason there is so much malice in Chernobog is precisely because there has always been malice not kept in check there.

Malice, or more precisely, all those chains of malice aren't going to disappear on their own.

Each destruction, each killing might only have been caused by a modicum of desire. In a lawless land, barbarism is simply left to breed rampantly on its own, and that is how it becomes the law of the land.

And this kind of law is much stronger than the law you'd find in the cities. It's simply indestructible.

That's violence. The violence that flows in our blood veins comes from the parts of us left untamed by civilization.

Listen.

Did you hear that...?

...Singing...?

How peculiar. Originium Arts don't usually interfere with my senses at all.

All operators, put on your protective equipment!

Dr. {@nickname}, something terrible might be happening.

Based on the chaos we've seen along the way, we probably would've reached this conclusion all the same, but I'm afraid what we are about to face might be far worse than what we could ever have imagined.

Has it ever gone any other way?

I wouldn't say it's always a foregone conclusion.

Perhaps someone has placed a curse on either us or this city. That being said, curses can be broken.

If you plant the seeds of evil, the flowers of evil will blossom, bearing fruits of evil. If we water the earth with goodwill, then even if this parcel of land doesn't get any better... at least it wouldn't meet such a dreadful fate and be buried by a tragedy like this.

It's a shame...

You look in the same direction as Kal'tsit.

It's a shame that, as far as I know, evil is a vicious cycle that will only breed even worse malice, and fate is rarely kind to those who are kind at heart.

I can't allow you to bring about yet another nightmare, Infected.

Hui-chieh:

The snow hasn't melted. And spring hasn't come.

It feels like this next spring is never going to arrive.

Each time I lift my head up to see the candlelight, I just cannot help but to reach my hand out to put it out, only to light it up anew in the darkness.

Please go away soon, winter. If you don't go away soon, we'll be buried by all this snow.

Please, I beg of you.

February 21st

Talulah, is something wrong?

What?

You've been pretty gloomy the past couple months. Did something happen?

Nothing... nothing at all.

I haven't spent that much time with everyone here, but going by what I've heard from the others, I got the impression you used to be a bit more... energetic?

Hey, watch it, buddy. Talulah's not often down in the crowd like this. Why don't you try repeating what you just said to the captain and see if he appreciates it?

Yeah, can't say I have the balls.

Patriot isn't as scary as it sounds. The Shieldguards are all like this. Don't let it get to you.

He just hasn't been talking much because of his throat problems lately... and his silence can be intimidating.

As for how I'm doing... Don't worry.

Yeah... I just have a lot going on in my mind. Our team is getting closer and closer to the Ursus cities. and there's a lot we need to thrash out. I probably gave you that impression because I've been really trying to rack my brain.

Yeah, you're right. We're running low on provisions, and we don't have enough manpower. If this goes on, we aren't going to last much longer.

That's right, and that's why we need to pay extra attention to what all the outside forces are up to.

First of all, we need to make contact with the local Infected groups and diaspora as soon as we can.

And aside from that, there are bound to be people trying to track us down... If we take even one wrong step and fall into their trap, all of us will have end up in a snowy grave.

That doesn't sound good.

Of course it doesn't, but as long as we plan our route carefully, we won't find ourselves in that situation.

...So that's why, the most important task we have at hand is to minimize our losses.

Breaking up our teams might conceal our movement better, but then communications will become a problem.

Oh, right, we can't use those comms we took from the Ursus. We don't have their transmitters.

This will put our liaisons and recon units in unnecessary danger.

It's a drain on resources to train someone to use the guerrillas' code words. If we want distribute whole sets of comms to everyone, we'll need to get our hands on the prototype somehow...

Talulah... Talulah! Our recon units were ambushed!

That's nothing. Why do you need her to clean you...

Shut up! This is nothing like what we've faced! Poor bastard fell over before any of us even figured out who the enemy was!

They pinpointed our recon caster and ambushed him with exact precision! We've never seen anything like that from the patrol units...!

Whenever something concerns our teammates, we can't just brush it aside.

Yeti, take me there.

Shieldguard, we might've encountered an Ursus Army platoon. Come with me.

Yes, ma'am!

Remember, even if they are just an advance team, be extra careful. If something goes wrong, we might have a large-scale retaliation waiting for us. We need to avoid that at all costs!

Understood!