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It's dangerous to be alone here.;(Look at Amiya)

I'll go with you, Eloysius.

Sure, sure. I don't mind having someone else helping out.

Mon3tr and I will check upstairs then.;Mantra, you and your team search the ground floor.

Maintain comms at all times.;Prioritize your own safety, everyone.

(Nods)

This is a pretty spooky place, and it's an Ursine research institute. Who knows what strange things are hidden here, like maybe they were experimenting with fusing humans and burdenbeasts...

Mon3tr, if anything goes wrong, get the Doctor out of here pronto, no fighting!

I know, I know!

Mantra.;Report.

I am here.

We have found nothing unusual at our current position.

I have eyes on Amiya. She is safe.

About that biosignal.;We can trace it more precisely than we let on, correct?

Fourth floor, mineshaft side. Target is not moving.

Wha?

You never told me you could do that, Captain!

We need to be on guard.;Deception is not your strong suit.

I hope she's the Ksenia Mon3tr mentioned.

We are short on time, Doctor. The target's vital signs are unstable.

You seemed really sure we would find something down here, Eloysius—

Thanks to a little 'laziness', many Ursine government buildings follow the same standardized layout.

If this institute is like the others I've visited, especially when it comes to how they divide up the space for specific uses, then there should be something left in the basement.

The dead cannot get up and leave, after all.

Do you mean this basement is a morgue?

A temporary one, with incinerators equipped to handle the remains of the severely infected.

Aha.

I knew it.

Although power to the freezing mechanism had been cut, the basement was still colder than the snow-dusted outdoors.

The young Guardswoman runs her hand across the coffins, which leaves behind a layer of frosty condensation on her fingers.

These coffins have been used. They must have lost power just before the evacuation. Could you take the right side of the room, Gospozha Amiya? We'll open them up one by one to check—

Eloysius!

What is it?

Oh, how careless of me. You might never have seen a corpse before... Then call someone over. No need to trouble yourself.

No, that's not important right now!

The Infected remains are very dangerous. If they have disintegrated and we open the coffin lids, this entire room might become a high-Originium-dust environme—

Before Amiya has even finished speaking, the Guardswoman pushes open a coffin.

There is no release of Originium dust, yet Eloysius's expression turns grave.

What is going on here...?

Eloysius does not answer, instead turning to open another coffin, then yet another.

The corpses interred here...

None of them are Infected.

Wait. Stay back, Amiya.

They must have been performing some kind of experiments on the uninfected. That's all I can glean here, and that's all you need to know.

There is no need for you to... personally examine them.

Thank you for your concern, but I... I think I should.

Amiya anticipated something like this. The moment she stepped into the institute, sorrow shrouded her mind.

It chills and clings to her. Suffering is smeared onto every wall in this place. Humanity's frail fingers are too weak to leave any trace on the stone and steel. Not even blood can find purchase here. All that can remain is hate.

Only hate.

Amiya does her utmost to ignore the spectral arms stretched out towards her. In the silence, she listens to the beating of her heart echoing through her chest.

A dozen or so corpses, all in abject misery.

Each of them has been twisted into incomprehensible forms. Their skin has ruptured, exposing their viscera and bones. They barely even look human.

It is as if their frames had been subject to some enigmatic force, intent on warping them both inside and out until they neared complete destruction.

Who knows how long they were subject to this agony? Who knows how they suffered during this torment?

A-Are you alright?

Amiya does not feel fear.

Rage.

She feels only rage.

...Mantra...

The very next instant, a familiar voice answers.

I am here.

What is it, Amiya?

Eloysius and I are in the morgue in the basement. We can confirm that the institute was conducting large-scale human experimentation. Experimental methods, unknown...

The victims we have discovered are all uninfected. No clues on the abnormal Infected at the moment...

Understood. I will inform the Doctor.

Stay safe, and stay in touch.

We can say that our earlier worries are more clearly defined now.

The situation here, or rather, in the Far North, is much worse than our intelligence suggested.

The strong emotion attacking me in the institute, alongside everything we experienced on our way here, like the Patrol Units harassing the Infected, and the contamination created by the Royal Guard...

All this goes to show that the issues here extend far beyond the Infected mutations.

Amiya and Eloysius found something.

The institute really was conducting illegal human experiments.;However, we're still unsure of the cause of the abnormal infections.

No matter who our target is, there must be some information waiting.

Hmm... Where is she, anyway?

I've searched all the rooms on the mineshaft side, and nobody was there.

What about the locked rooms?

Same thing. The locks are old-fashioned, easy enough to pry open.

But regardless of the status of their locks, most of the rooms had nothing except for things like empty shelves and cabinets or loose graph paper.

Could she have left?

Or maybe we're looking in the wrong place.

What do you mean?

Eloysius says every floor has an enclosed observation deck.

I never found anything like—

Wait, that can't be. It's regular rooms the entire way around the loop, and we've checked every single one. There's not enough space in this weird building for an observation deck!

Maybe, on the mineshaft side...;There's a hidden door we haven't discovered yet.

A room within a room.

The voice comes out of nowhere, hoarse and fragmented. It creeps upwards from the ankles of the listeners up to their napes, coming to an icy standstill in the back of their minds.

It sounds human, but it is hard to verify.

Did you hear that, Mon3tr?;A voice.

(Whispers) I did. Up ahead. I remember the room.

The lights here are broken, so stay behind me, Doctor.

Behind the door is hidden another, this one unlocked. Though the hands of humanity once left their heat upon its handle, now, it is as cold as ice.

Mon3tr pushes open the small, light door. Within the darkness, the visitors are greeted by feeble candlelight.

The first sound they hear is not the voice of a human, but the wet, squelching sound of viscous liquid.

Molten wax drips, melting into the disorderly, blackening dark-red stains on the floor and splattering onto scattered sheets of paper.

And on those sheets... Next to some handprints, a list of formulae is scrawled out, tremblingly penned like screeches of fear and anger.

Meaningless, it's all... meaningless.

Great Ursus sits atop all creation, but its vast domain lies barren...

Aside from never-ending disaster.

Hah... Professor Ilia...