Chapter 72: Sector Zero

Degenbrecher handled the damp, twisting sewer routes mapped out by the Doctor. She paused at intersections, checked her bearings against the darkness, and moved again until the narrow tunnels finally opened up into a cavernous expanse. Before her roared an excessively vast underground waterfall, its dark waters plunging into the unseen abyss below.

Suddenly, the Doctor’s familiar, maddeningly casual voice crackled to life in her earpiece.

“Hello? Testing, testing. Can you hear me? Actually, even if you can, you don’t need to answer. This is a pre-recorded audio file.”

Degenbrecher narrowed her eyes at the dark water.

“If my calculations haven’t completely gone off the rails, you should currently be standing at the very end of the route I marked, right in front of the underground river.”

Degenbrecher instinctively began to nod, but the recording cut her off with eerie precision.

“No need to nod. I can’t see you anyway. Right now, I’m busy watching Patriot absolutely steamroll the qualifiers.”

A brief beat of static followed.

“Now then, please look up. Welcome to the beating heart of Kazimierz’s darkest secrets… Sector Zero.”

Following the phantom instructions echoing in her ear, Degenbrecher tilted her head back. Looming at the very top of the subterranean waterfall sat a row of massive, rust-eaten industrial exhaust fans. The heavy pipe openings were sealed shut by high-speed rotating iron blades, churning the stagnant air and venting a faint, recurring stench of decay from whatever lay beyond.

The earpiece abruptly clicked off, plunging the cavern back into the ambient roar of rushing water. A second later, the health monitoring bracelet strapped to her wrist vibrated and lit up with a soft blue glow.

[Ta-da! For the sake of operational stealth, you can take off that earpiece and toss it into the water now.]

Even knowing the man couldn’t hear her, Degenbrecher’s first instinct was a spike of intense wariness. If he could secretly install this many pre-loaded trigger programs behind her back today, what was stopping him from bugging every single operator on the landship tomorrow? The smarter a person was, the more terrifying their desire for absolute control tended to be. Even the slightest deviation from their grand design would make them paranoid.

The bracelet buzzed again.

[What else did you expect? It’s just a little bit of gamer ingenuity (^.^). No need to be nervous. So far, very few things have managed to exceed my grand strategy.]

Degenbrecher stared at the glowing text. She grew even more unsettled. She couldn’t even begin to fathom the sheer, ungodly workload required to anticipate her exact psychological reactions and prepare casual banter for them. Clearly, the legendary mastermind of Rhodes Island was not entirely right in the head.

Dismissing her unease, Degenbrecher coiled her muscles and leaped. She scaled the nearly vertical rock face of the waterfall in a few explosive bounds, her boots finding impossible footholds on the slick stone. Launching herself into the air, she hung suspended for a fraction of a second. With one hand, she drew her heavy-handled longsword. A flash of cold steel illuminated the gloom, and she effortlessly sheared through more than half of the thick iron fan blades, shattering them into useless scrap.

She landed lightly inside the pipe. Her bracelet buzzed.

[Impressive! S-tier swordsmanship, followed by an S-tier post-war construction compensation fee!]

Degenbrecher remained silent. ‘What are you worried about? It is not your property.’

[It will be mine sooner or later, so what is the difference?]

She exhaled a slow breath. You truly never knew where a genius would apply their brainpower. It was just like how she could never have imagined her own boss, SilverAsh, quietly spiraling into a state of brooding self-isolation simply because he noticed she wasn’t wearing the medal of honor he had gifted her.

Beyond the ruined exhaust fans lay a damp, moss-choked canal. Flickering wall lamps cast long, sickly shadows across the stone, indicating that guards still patrolled this sector from time to time.

[Turn left.]

[Climb up.]

[Don’t move. It is about time for the patrol to pass by.]

Degenbrecher pressed her back against the damp ceiling alcove just as heavy footsteps echoed below. The timing was so flawlessly precise that she genuinely doubted these were pre-programmed instructions. What was the difference between this miraculous, omniscient level of control and the legendary prophecies of a Cyclops?

[Hey, hey, hey. There is a world of difference between the low-tech prophecies of a Cyclops and a massive cheater like me! I can do anything…]

[Forget it, I am not setting off a death flag like that. It gives me a terrible feeling.]

[Now, look down and stay absolutely quiet.]

Degenbrecher obeyed, looking through the rusted grate beneath her. Her grip instinctively tightened around the hilt of her cold weapon.

Through the filthy, blurred glass of a containment cell, she saw them. Rotting knights.

Countless Infected knights, tortured by terminal Oripathy until they possessed only the strength to whimper, were imprisoned and piled atop one another like discarded meat. The only way to identify them as former knights was the fact that their festering flesh had begun to literally fuse with the rusted armor plating still clinging to their bodies. The suffocating stench of rotting, diseased limbs attached to living, breathing people made the small, sealed cell resemble a can of fermented herring.

The figures inside could hardly be called human anymore. They were rotting, undead, deformed Originium monsters who lacked even the physical capability to seek the sweet release of death. They could only lie there in agony, forced to witness the final remnants of their dignity being stripped away step by step.

Degenbrecher’s throat bobbed. She forced herself to look away, unable to stomach the hellish tableau.

“What on earth is going on here?” she asked aloud, her voice tight with suppressed disgust.

The Doctor’s automated message thoughtfully paused for exactly half a minute, granting her the time to steady her breathing.

[Usually, the ‘neutralization’ process would be… more efficient. However, my presence in the city has made them temporarily terrified to process new Infected. The cost of completely destroying the evidence is too high right now, so they have resorted to piling them up here for the time being.]

[Keeping them barely alive delays the decomposition process. Looking at it from that angle, I suppose I am partly responsible (^.^).]

For the first time, Degenbrecher sensed a terrifying, glacial coldness lurking behind the Doctor’s soft, playful emoticons. It was as if the horrific tragedy of these Infected could not shake his calculating mind in the slightest. He was a machine wearing human skin.

Yet, the system seemed completely oblivious to her rising dread, offering a chillingly pragmatic comfort.

[If you cannot stand to watch, you can give them a quick end. I promise you, this is the last batch.]

Fine. Even if he was a cold-blooded monster, he was a monster standing on her side of the board.

Degenbrecher took a deep, steadying breath and dropped down, kicking the dirty glass inward with a shattering crash. Under the weak, grateful gazes of the agonizing mass inside, she slowly drew her blade and fell into a flawless combat stance.

“…Return to peace.”

A flurry of merciless, precise strikes painted the cell. In a brief, merciful instant, their endless torture vanished into the dark.

The knight whose head was best preserved at the very top of the pile managed a weak, trembling smile at the very end of his life. He forced his mangled jaw open, silently mouthing a single syllable.

‘Hei.’Was it’Hate’? Was it ‘Hey’? Or was it the ‘Black’ from her title, the Black Knight? Degenbrecher would never know the answer. She sheathed her sword.

The bracelet buzzed again, the Doctor’s message remaining as detached and rational as ever, devoid of any shared sorrow.

[Because I will absolutely, positively never allow myself to reach this point.]

Degenbrecher did not reply. She silently turned her back on the tomb and began to jog toward the upper levels of the facility.

Guided by the bracelet’s flawless routing, she bypassed layer after layer of heavily armed guards. Emerging from the abyssal lower levels, she was momentarily blinded by the sterile, glaring white lights of the upper corridors. This was a pristine, illuminated world that the wretched souls rotting in the bottommost cells could not even dare to dream of.

Men and women dressed in crisp white coats strolled casually down the halls. Most looked entirely composed, chatting idly, while some even sipped from cups of steaming coffee.

“We don’t even have to manually euthanize anyone these days,” one doctor chuckled, adjusting his glasses. “If there’s a troublesome Infected, we just shove them down the chute and call it a day. The workload has decreased quite a bit!”

“Heh, you’re the happiest one here,” his colleague replied. “Now you actually have time to watch your son compete in the arenas, right?”

“Of course. He won again yesterday! Remember that arrogant Infected who dared to humiliate him on stage last month? As soon as he fell into my hands, I stuffed him straight into the fermentation tank down there!”

The two men walked further down the corridor, their laughter echoing off the sterile tiles. The sheer, unadulterated fury in Degenbrecher’s heart flared, burning so hot it was almost impossible to suppress. Her hand drifted toward her hilt.

Right on cue, the bracelet vibrated.

[Calm down, calm down. I sincerely hope I did not actually need to program this sentence. There are still actors who have not taken their places on the stage. Someone wants to stay out of the crossfire and leave the center of the storm… but it is not going to be that easy!]

[Remember to catch up slowly later.]

Forcing down her murderous intent, Degenbrecher slipped into the shadows and hoisted herself into the ventilation duct of an empty corridor, strictly following the Doctor’s designated route.

A few minutes later, a red-haired Zalak darted through the corridor below. Her movements were brisk, her posture coiled with high-alert tension.

Degenbrecher instinctively shifted her weight, preparing to drop down and give chase, but the Doctor’s final warning echoed in her mind. She gritted her teeth and forced herself to hold her position in the dark.

Sure enough, mere seconds later, two blue-cloaked figures blurred past in silent pursuit. One of them carried a distinctive cyan-gold quiver strapped to their waist.

Lazurites. The elite assassins of the Armorless Union.

Degenbrecher narrowed her eyes, suddenly deeply grateful for her forced patience. If she had dropped down, she would have been caught in a deadly crossfire.

The bracelet on her wrist lit up one final time, glowing with a bright, metallic silver hue.

[Next, it is entirely up to you. See you in a bit.]

[Rhodes’s Note:

Enjoying the operation so far, Doctor?

(This daily grind literally pays the landship’s rent! 🙇‍♂️):

Massive thanks for reading and supporting the operation!]