"Ma'am. We found an emergency path down to the mine. It supposedly connected to the mining outpost below through an elevator."
"Alright. Let's go." Winter sighed in relief that they didn't need to blast a hole down.
Everyone wears a respirator meant for miners but beggars can't choose. They do not have the luxury to get the correct filter for their needs.
They all gathered in the elevator with a nervous look as they were descending down back into the monster infested mine. They all get in and close the door as the lift descends down the shaft until they hit solid ground.
Warily, they step out form the elevator and checked around the corner to make sure there isn't any monster roaming around before they release the breath they all unconsciously hold from the moment they exit the elevator.
"Area is clear, Ma'am." Someone whispered to Winter. "If I am not mistaken, the supervisor office is to the right and we should find the layout of the mine in there." He added.
"Let's go." Winter ordered and everyone nodded before carefully sneaking into the supervisor office.
"This…" Winter is surprising because the office looks like it was ransacked and there are bullet holes on the wall. But she didn't find the layout of the mine which she quickly added to her Scroll. However, she is more curious about the scribblings on it.
"Ma'am, the security footage was destroyed. Someone destroyed the software and hijacked it." Someone sitting in front of the computer alerted Winter while rapidly tapping the keyboard.
"Is it possible to regain control of the surveillance system?" Winter asked with a frown as they hope to get a picture of the thing and scale they are dealing with.
"Not possible, Ma'am. All my attempts are being countered in real time. They have a hacker controlling the surveillance system constantly. A very good one too." The Specialist said defeatedly as she admits she lack the skill compared to the enemy.
"No, it didn't matter. As long as we have the layout and map, we should be able to manage this." Winter stated with confidence but on the inside she is doubting if they can even complete their mission.
———
"It seems like they have returned to the mine, Master." Agent tell Adam as he was drilling into the wall and set another explosive.
"Well… let them be. Just make sure to keep them away from us. Maybe they can even help us clear a path down." Adam replied with a shrug as he sealed the hole and hid the explosive. The last thing he wants is for the Specialists to dismantle his demolition charges.
"Done." Adam dust himself and stood up as he placed all the tools back to his Inventory before taking out his scroll and drawing another 'X' on the numerous dots on the layout map. "Well, that's all for the upper section. We can proceed to the middle section of the mine."
"Yay! More fighting! Alice is bored of keeping watch." Alice cheered which irked Agent enough to make her face twitch and darken but she said nothing about it… yet.
After all, why bother fighting when they can avoid it entirely?
Why risk a battle when one can kill with a borrowed knife?
"But, Master. The only way for us to descend is going through the tunnels. There is no shortcut or other path connecting the upper and middle section of the mine."
"Well, we just have to fight our way through then." Adam shrugs and summons his guns into his hands before he starts walking.
They walked almost ten minutes before they saw a railroad track on the ground meaning they returned to the main path that the miner uses to transport the ores back to the surface from the mine.
Looking at the railroad for a moment, Adam thought 'Why walk when they can ride a cart?'
"Help me dump this cart." Adam walks to a cart filled with rocks and coal ores and pushes but fails to topple the cart.
Agent and Alice help and the cart falls to the ground, spilling all its content. Then Adam get the now empty cart back to the rail track.
"Get on. We will ride this cart down." Adam said and the two got on the cart quickly before Adam pushed it to get some momentum before he quickly jumped into the cart too as the cart descended down the slope, deeper into the mine.
———
Winter and her team are already in the deeper level of the mine after they found no trace of their target on the upper section. They wagered the traitors are at the bottom of the mine as any typical villain does but they still have to at least check each layer just to make sure no stone is left untouched. However, their search isn't going exactly smoothly.
They unfortunately stumbled into another dug up cave filled with pods. In a mere moment they immediately were surrounded by Mutated Grimms.
"Jenny!" Someone shouted after seeing his teammates' Aura protection broke after being swiped by a Beringal Mutant of all things.
Jenny crashed to a wall before she fell flat to the ground. Winter frowned in a worry and commanded the white Beowolves she summoned to protect Jenny while someone went to help her.
"Retreat back to the tunnel!" Winter ordered while she grabbed a high grade fire and lightning dust grenade and threw it up to the ceiling before she fled quickly out from this cavern as the explosion collapsed the entrance, stopping the Mutated Grimms advance.
When they retreated to a safer location, they all sighed in relief and took a short break after the intense battle.
"How is Jenny?" Winter asks the medic. "Just a scratch on her face and a dislocated arm. It should heal in a few moments." The medic replied while he helped fix the shoulder by popping it back into its socket.
Winter said no more and let her subordinates rest but she noticed Jenny became paler as she kept observing her. She felt a sense of foreboding because this is the same symptom shown by Jake.
What if the transformation isn't caused by the fog but by the Mutated Grimms instead?
Winter kneels down and touches Jenny's forehead and she instantly feels her blood drained from her face. Jenny is having a burning fever!
"Ma'am…? Why is my little brother here with us?"
"Huh?" Winter feels even more tense when Jenny turns to her left and stares into thin air, proclaiming her brother was there talking with her.
Jenny is an orphan with a younger brother. He is the only family member she has and obviously loved him to death.
"No! Why! Why are they taking away Shaun!" Jenny suddenly trembles in anger almost like convulsing.
Winter quickly held Jenny down while others quickly came to help. But Winter saw the same transformation happen to Jake happening to Jenny. Her eyes turn milky white and her blood vein turns black before her angered scream turns into animalistic snarl, trying to bite and claw at her teammates and leader.
The realization sinks into Winter. Indeed this isn't caused by the fog. It was the Mutated Grimms all along.
"Ma'am, what should we do with Jenny?"
Winter looks at Jenny or the husk of Jenny. They cannot transport her back to the surface or they can leave her down here and risk leaving a trace for the Vale Council to find.
Her face hardened and her eyes turned cold to suppress her emotions. 'I am a soldier.' Winter told herself as she forced herself to make the decision. "I will dispose of her." Winter said and expecting disapproval from her subordinates but she gets none.
With a swift motion, Winter shot Jenny on the head to give her a swift end before she set the corpse a blaze. Others watched with varying emotions but most were sad that another one of them had departed.
"Everyone. I have a discovery to share." Winter said and demanded everyone's attention for a moment. She shared what she discovered about Jenny's condition and how it's related to the Mutated Grimms.
Let's just say, the revelation is more than just shocking. Imagine fighting enemies that can kill you with one scratch and turning you into a mindless monster like Jake and now Jenny. Their morale is at an all time low and Winter does not blame them because she is the same. However, Winter reminded them that they can stop this weird outbreak as long as they can destroy what the traitors had created.
With a renewed vigor and a greater purpose, Winter assembles her subordinates and departs deeper into the mine.
———
"Let's go. It's useless to rig more explosives." Adam sighed and gave up after he heard another explosion followed by tremor of another collapsed tunnel.
In his mind, Winter and her group of Specialists must be crazy to destroy the mine while they are still inside it. If they keep doing this, sooner or later, the entire mine will destabilize and collapse on their heads. But, they are at least doing a great job destroying those pods even though their method is dangerous.
"Master, this is the last tunnel of this section. But we will encounter the other group if we progress." Agent dutifully informs Adam.
"They should understand that we must work together by now. Either that or we eliminate them." Adam remembers the lowest section, the 'Boss room' is one large natural cavern. Adam doesn't need their help anymore.
After saying his piece, Adam summons operators with Reinforcement and leads the charge into the tunnel infested with alien-like green and red pods. The Mutated Grimms patrolling the tunnel immediately snarled and charged toward Adam while being showered with bullets that were all aimed at their head. Since their bodies are quite large, hitting the head isn't that difficult especially when all the shooters have some form of aim guidance aid. Although Adam was more curious if he could create and install Aimbot instead of just Aim Assist.
*Roar!*
The red pods release the monster they are incubating which caught them in a difficult position. Their weapons, although effective, couldn't kill the enemies fast enough.
"Block them!" Adam ordered the operators who did as told and block the charging Mutated Beowolves with their body as Artillery Strike pound the monsters into paste but at least a dozen of them survived.
Adam shoved his shotgun down a Beowolf throat when it slipped through and almost bit him on his leg. Then he pulled the trigger, blasting a hole out of its cranium and killing it.
"YAAAHHH!" Alice did what he assumed is a bayonet charge without a bayonet and got up close with the Mutated Beowolves before she did the same as Adam, emptying bullets through the softer spot of the enemies for better penetration.
Shooting from distance against Mutated Grimms isn't that effective because their heads are protected by the bone plating. To pierce the head they must first crack the mask. But shooting through the mouth is way more effective and efficient.
"How dare they try to bite my Master!" Alice finishes off the last enemy before frantically checking on Adam to make sure he is unharmed. "Are you alright, Master?" She searched and found no sign of injury on Adam which made her hug his thigh in relief.
Adam smiled under his mask. All this fighting is mentally tiring. He is just a normal human. To enter an empty mine even though not abandoned to fight off zombies or mutated dark creatures already takes quite the courage from him.
Each time he came close to being injured or feeling frustrated with the difficulty of his mission, he lost some of his motivation. But with the cute and cuddly Alice by his side like a mascot, he can feel his negative thoughts and tiredness flake away as his energy is being refilled and he is raring to continue and fight.
"I am alright, Alice. You don't need to worry for me. This is nothing." Adam rubs her head and plays a little with her hair and ears meanwhile in his mind, he couldn't help but worry if the normal enemies are already giving them this much trouble. What is in the boss in the giant pod then? How strong is it?
They resume clearing the tunnel after a short rest. Fortunately, most of the tunnel is thin which means lesser pods and enemies around.
"Strange…" Adam mutters after not encountering the people from Atlas.
Did they give up clearing the tunnel? Perhaps they knew he and his companions were going in their direction so they set up an ambush? Clearly it's hard not to notice Adam and his companions' presence when he uses Artillery Strike as much as possible when clearing the Mutated Grimms.
"Can you still see them, Agent?"
"No, they aren't in the view of any security cameras." Agent replied with a stoic face that shows some helplessness.
Adam thought of circling around but the tunnel leading to the bottom section is literally ahead of them. He planned the route so the last tunnel will lead to the final area. But this somehow backfired.
"Well, we do not have much choice. Let's just meet them. Who knows if they changed their mind after we cleared up the misunderstanding." Adam sighed exhaustively and felt too tired to take the more roundabout route down. He wanted to get this done and go back home to rest and have fried chicken with beer in a hot tub.
Adam took the lead and summoned three operators again with Reinforcement to accompany him more as a deterrent so the other side didn't see them as just a small group easy to be swayed.
When Adam reached close to the end of the tunnel. Instead of an ambush waiting for them, he spied the Atlas Specialists looking ragged and exhausted, lacking more than half their original numbers and most importantly, they were all grieving and at the verge of giving up.
He didn't know what to make out of this. He saw the only person that hadn't given up is Winter. Her icy and stoic countenance remains even though a little faltered.
Adam could make a smart guess that their clash with the Mutated Grimms didn't go exactly as smoothly as Adam and his group because he remembers half of them actually fight with melee weapons. Getting infected isn't exactly difficult when their armor provides very little protection if they even wear any. Most of them didn't.
"I know you are there!" Winter suddenly lined her sight at Adam in the tunnel hiding behind a crate thinking about his next move.
Adam stood up and walked out the tunnel with his operators and companions following behind him.
"So, finally showing up to finish us off? However we are proud Atlesian Specialists. Even with odds stacked against us, we will fight to the bitter end." Winter glared at Adam who stopped at the mouth of the tunnel looking back at Winter and her subordinates that were already brandishing their individual weapon ready to fight just as Winter said despite how they looked a moment ago.
"Haah… I think there is a big misunderstanding here." Adam sighed before he lowered his gun, showing he isn't here to fight. But Agent, Alice and Eric didn't as they warily looked at the Atlesian Specialists.
Adam unstrapped his gas mask and finally let fresh air brush against his sweaty face as he looked at Winter's and also her subordinates' bewildered faces.
"You!"
"You what? I am here not to fight you people but to deal with these Mutated Grimms and the Zombie outbreak that are about to happen if we didn't destroy what's at the bottom of the mine." Adam said, not realizing that showing his face had made Winter and her subordinates speechless.
The people with the trait of white hair are already rare and pair that with blue eyes, there will be only one family with such traits. The Schnee family.
Agent walks forward and produces a handkerchief before she helps wipe the sweaty face of Adam and then clean the inside of his gas mask.
Winter looks at how intimate the two. No, three interact with a frown but she put it aside.
"Whitley, where have you been all this time? It's been two years since you went missing! You never thought of contacting your sisters at all? You even changed your face with a surgery! What happened to you." She nearly shouted at the end while her eyes looked at his gears and weapons which now when she looks closer, although they have resemblance to Atlas developed gears. What Adam owns is totally different.
Winter is worried if Whitley associates himself with a dangerous group. But that didn't explain how he went from being kidnapped by White Fang terrorist group and suddenly becoming a soldier of an unknown military group. Unfortunately for her, Adam isn't Whitley and Whitley is a dead man.
"I apologize, Miss Winter." Adam addresses her as such because he remembers her father disowned her on her bio. "I think you've mistaken me for someone else. I am not Whitley. I am Adam. Adam White." He tried to correct her misunderstanding but she only thought of it as a joke.
"This is not funny, Whitley." Winter said sternly with a hint of desperation she tried to hide. It was as if she knew it but she couldn't accept the answer.
Adam's mannerisms and attitude is vastly different from Whitley. Whitley is what you expect a typical third generation rich heir would act. Arrogant, entitled and snobbish on the inside but calm and polite on the outside, always hiding his true thoughts behind his smile. Yet, this man in front of her is the complete opposite. There are no hidden thoughts, he acts and talks very bluntly without the grace of a nobleman drilled into her brother by her father from a very young age.
She concluded with her brief observation. This man is indeed not Whitley. But if that's the case, how does she explain his appearance? The hair and eyes color? Not to mention he has the same biometric reading as Whitley!
Winter is confused and overwhelmed.
Perhaps the exhaustion from the battle is catching up to her. But she felt dizzy and almost faint but was caught by Wh- Adam who gently laid her against the wall while the medic ran some checks on her.
—————
(Took longer than I thought. I was trying to increase my update speed. Also, this chapter actually completed this morning but I forgot to upload it.🤦 So, I decided to write a little more before uploading it.
Anyway, I promise this Ansel Town arc will end soon. Next chapter will cover the boss battle… hopefully.)
If you readers feel generous or want to appreciate my work and effort, feel free to tip me here.
https://ko-fi.com/lazy_kat_aoi