Kumojiro treads forward, blood dripping from the blade sheathed at his belt, while he gripped a bag in his free hand. Inside the bag lay two trophies, a cybernetic arm, and a severed head.
'I didn't really have a choice. The way he acted was strange, almost unnatural. Whatever was wrong with him had to be connected to his brain. And I wasn't going to risk taking that out, right?'
Still, he knew carrying the bag was reckless. Blood dripped steadily from it, leaving a faint trail behind him. This is definitely a stupid idea. He couldn't help but admit that, but curiosity pulled him back to the hole the brute had smashed through. There was no harm, he supposed, in seeing where that emotionless hulking man had come from.
Approaching the gaping hole, he peered inside and extended his hand into the darkness. No lights flickered on to greet him, but undeterred, he decided to enter.
He took a single step forward before his foot nudged something on the ground.
'...Hm?'
In the faint light from the alleyway, Kumojiro saw a figure slumped against the wall, eyes glowing with a green light. He tensed, ready for another fight, but the figure didn't move. It simply stared, its eyes dull and lifeless, and Kumojiro quickly realized it wasn't going to attack as it collapsed onto the ground.
'Strange.'
Venturing further inside, he finally understood the nature of this place. Vipers, clad in green jackets and inked with matching tattoos, were scattered across the chamber, slumped against walls, or sprawled on the floor. Each of them bore cybernetics. Arms, legs, and even heads. Yet none of them moved. None of them had the faintest spark of life.
'Empty eyes. No thoughts behind them. Absolutely nothing.'
His gaze fell on one Viper hanging from the wall, a thick chain wrapped around his neck, suspending him like a morbid decoration. The Viper's eyes, empty as the rest, reflected Kumojiro's own expressionless face.
As he surveyed the room, Kumojiro noted how oddly clean it was compared to the filthy alley outside. The floors, laid out in a checkered pattern of white and black tiles, really constracting with the grime beyond the hole. A cold, grey ceiling loomed above, and metal tables cluttered with tools and weapons filled the space. Guns, knives, wrenches, and other implements lay strewn haphazardly.
After a few moments of observation, a thought clicked into place.
'This is...a test chamber?'
The room was empty, save for the dead-eyed Vipers leaning against the walls or hung by the ceiling like decorations. Kumojiro's eyes settled on the door at the far end and the switch beside it. Pulling out his phone to take a few pictures, he frowned, as the screen remained dark. Confused, he tried turning it on again. Nothing.
'It was fully charged though. Wait...Damn, that cybernetics arm electric discharge must've short-circuited my phone or something. Fuck.'
He let out a sigh of frustration.
'Hopefully, the data in my phone isn't corrupted. I'll need a new phone, but at least I can report this back to D.'
Kumojiro took one last look around the chamber. It struck him that there were no cameras, no signs of surveillance. He glanced at the door perhaps leading to the control room, listening to the faint clanging sounds beyond.
'If this room is being controlled, then how do they monitor? And how did that brute know to attack me the moment I came nearby? Was he following orders, or was that purely by its own intentions?'
The questions stacked up, but the silent lifeless bodies offered no answers. He decided to leave the test chamber for now. He would come back later if needed, but for now, he had to keep moving. He passed back through the hole and reentered the alleyway, resuming his path.
At the end of the alley, a metal staircase stretched upward?
'The way up, huh? At least this part doesn't look as filthy as this alley.'
Kumojiro walked up the stairs, mentally cataloging everything he'd just witnessed. He knew the strange setup in the chamber was significant and planned to report it later.
As he climbed, he noticed a distinct shift in his surroundings. The higher he went, the more opulent the decor became. Gone was the gritty ambiance of the lower levels. Instead, the walls were now lined with expensive dossers depicting snakes coiled around thrones, dripping with gold.
'The bastards really are profiting from Oswin's death. This kind of money has to be coming from somewhere higher up. Were they hired to kill him?'
The cracked concrete floors gave way to polished marble, gleaming under the muted glow of chandeliers. The transformation was quite shocking to him. It was clear that the higher walked up these stairs, the closer he was getting to the Viper's inner sanctum.
'All this wealth, all these luxuries...just for the boss. Typical.'
The lobby he entered was lavish, furnished with plush black chairs and low glass tables. To his right, a door labeled "Staff only" caught his attention.
'Staff only in a gang hideout?'
He ignored it for now, his eyes drawn to a set of massive doors ahead. They were ornate, intricately carved with designs of serpents intertwined with roses, their surfaces gleaming with gilded edges.
'This isn't what I expected from a small-time gang...Doors covered in gold? No way they could afford this on their own.'
But before he could dwell further on the decor, he noticed two figures standing guard in front of the doors.
'Of course, the last obstruction between me and the boss.'