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Lab Code: 0003
Difficulty rating: 1
Rewards: 1 Team credit and 4 Personal credits
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Lab Code: 0004
Difficulty rating: 1.2
Rewards: 2 Team credit, 5 Personal credits, New Purchasable Spell, Extension!
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Damien narrowed his eyes slightly.
"...The difficulty difference is only two tenths higher, but there's a substantially different reward."
Zenos furrowed his brows.
"That is true, but what if the scale of the difficulty is also on a logarithmic scale? That would mean it's actually harder than it looks."
Killian shrugged his shoulders.
"But that spell thing sounds pretty cool. Don't you want to figure out what that is?"
Adonis frowned.
"And what if it's too hard for us? There's no point if we can't complete the lab and end up dying."
Damien furrowed his brows intensely.
"...I think we should go to the fourth lab."
Zenos looked at him strangely.
"Why do you say that?"
Damien's eyes were slightly widened as his mind was lost in thought. He gently rubbed his chin as he talked.
"The problem here is while we can take the easier one, the question is whether or not we will even be better off taking it."
Adonis furrowed his brows.
"What do you mean?"
Damien let out a soft sigh.
"So far, the personal credits we've been getting out of completing these missions haven't been paying off. While on the surface, choosing the third lab looks like the safer choice, but the problem is how unlikely it is to give us a profit."
He casually held out his hand.
"We've already eaten most of the food we have, meaning we are pretty much forced to buy the food after completing the lab, meaning the net profit will be at most two personal credits. Chances are, we are going to get injured and use a considerably large amount of bullets as we've always had, then find ourselves in an even worse situation."
Killian raised an eyebrow.
"That sounds pretty sensible."
Zenos gave a small nod.
"I thought you were speaking nonsense earlier, but I get what you mean. I suppose going to that lab might mean when we do have to clear the fourth lab it will be even harder."
Damien blinked a few times.
"So... is that a consensus?"
Nobody said anything, but he got the message from how they looked back at him. The next moment, Emmett's voice rang out.
"Four votes for lab code 4! You will now be transported. Good luck!"
The mechanical bindings wrapped around them once more as the shuttle suddenly jolted. The ride took a little over a minute. Although that was hardly enough for them to complain about given how long they've waited before, it was still slightly longer than what it usually took.
Upon making it there, the door opened and the four of them walked out one after another.
Zenos sucked in a cold breath.
"Now that I think about it further, while I understand your logic, will we be able to make it out of this one alive?"
Damien unsheathed his katana and took out the flashlight.
"I suppose we'll find out pretty soon."
There was a familiar gate in front of them that required a handprint scan in front of them. Damien walked up to it and gave a glance backward.
"Is everyone ready?"
Adonis clicked his tongue.
"Just open it up."
Damien chuckled as he slammed his hand down.
"You sound like Killian now."
After a faint green light scanned his hand up and down, the doors gradually opened. Damien turned on the flashlight while it was on the lowest setting and pointed it forwards. He wasn't all that concerned at first, as this had become something they were more or less used to.
Yet, before he could even take a step forward, he immediately froze in place along with everyone else.
A creature in front of them began spasming as the light shone on it. And it looked just like any old regular pale-skin. That is, except for one tiny little feature.
It was over five meters tall, towering over the rest of them like a giant. They couldn't even see the entire thing from the light of his flashlight.
Damien quickly aimed the light away which let the spasming gradually calm down. Though, his hair was definitely standing on end. After putting the flashlight away, he very slowly moved his hand towards the panel and placed it on top.
After a quick scan, the doors slowly closed, taking them away from the ominous presence they were facing just a moment ago.
Once they fully closed, Zenos turned up his own flashlight so that they could all see each other, and a big frown was plastered across his face.
"What the hell is this? Since when did beings on land even get this large?"
Killian nodded to himself.
"It's like a dinosaur in the modern day."
Adonis' breathing was a little heavy.
"...Can we even kill that thing?"
Damien furrowed his brow.
"Well, we definitely aren't going to be able to kill it like we usually do. After all, we can't even reach the thing's neck from where we were."
Zenos clicked his tongue.
"So you mean we're forced to use bullets here already? Depending on how many there are, we may not even be able to kill all of them!"
Damien took a deep breath.
"It seems that after killing what we can, we will have to try and sneak past them to get the research results."
Killian shot him a sidelong glance.
"What if there's a freaky one standing on the damn thing like last time?"
Damien spoke softly.
"We'll worry about it when we get to it. For now, we need a plan to take on this giant thing."
Zenos took out his sniper rifle.
"If I hit it with this thing straight in the head, then even if it doesn't die, it should be damn close to doing so."
Adonis frowned slightly.
"But those things are damn expensive, aren't they?"
Zenos snapped back.
"It's not like we have much of a choice, now do we?"
Damien blinked a few times.
"Do you think we'd be able to kill it with our katanas if all four of us attacked it?"
Killian scoffed.
"That sounds like a crazy idea, and I like it."
Zenos looked at Damien strangely.
"What are you thinking of?"
Damien smiled bitterly.
"In all honesty, I don't have much faith that it will work out, but after getting the strength increase injection, I figured we may as well try. Though I must say, we should definitely get ready to pull out our guns."
Adonis frowned.
"That sounds like a good way to get ourselves killed."
Zenos sighed.
"...It's not like we're going to have so many points that we can use a sniper bullet for any one of these we come across. That is, assuming this isn't the only one."
Killian cracked his neck.
"Come on, let's just try and see how it goes. Can't turn out that bad, right?"
Damien rolled his eyes.
"It definitely can, but we have to take a risk at some point."
Adonis had a complicated expression, but didn't voice out any other complaints.
"Then what are we doing?"
Damien shrugged his shoulders.
"Since it was turning away from us, I figured that we could have two people slash its heels, and two others to go for its knees. We should probably just go the moment it starts to spasm. After that, its mobility should be crippled and I suppose we should just improvise."
Zenos blinked a few times.
"We should also have a word to quickly communicate to back off and bring out our guns. I suppose a simple one would be the word split."
Damien gave a small nod.
"Alright then. Let's try it. The ones at the sides will go for the knees and the ones at the center will go for the heel."
Adonis got on the left, while Killian and Zenos got in the middle. As for Damien, he went to the keypad to open the door once more.
A soft green light went up and down before the door slowly opened. He held up the light once more to check on the monster, and it was in the same place as before, spasming wildly once the light fell on it.
Damien hurriedly aimed it away and swung his katana in the darkness towards where he remembered where the knee was. The others also swung at their respective locations, and a rending fleshy sound rang out clear in the air, before a loud roar reverberated throughout the room.
Damien turned up the flashlight all the way and dropped it to the ground, showing another seven pale-skins as well as five reachers in the room that were now alerted.
Zenos' eyebrow twitched.
"In execution, it seems like it was a stupid idea after all."
Damien laughed.
"No time to complain about it now!"