Deep Sea Fish Hunting Specialty Broadcast

Chapter 125 : And Then There Were None (3)

EP.125 And Then There Were None (3)

"Huff... Huff..."

’Green Tea’ was panting heavily, slumped against the door, unable to move for a while.

It felt like his legs had given out.

What had just happened to him was straight out of a horror movie.

But no matter how terrifying it was, he was a professional and an elite infiltration agent. He quickly regained his composure and began to survey his surroundings.

First, he grabbed a metal bar within reach and blocked the door, then dragged a nearby metal cabinet to barricade it.

There was some noise in the process, but he seemed to have decided it was unavoidable.

"But won’t that block his escape route too?"

"I see..."

Despite this, Yu Parang chose not to mention that the survival rate for agents was less than 30%.

After blocking the door, Green Tea cautiously began to explore the inside of the warehouse.

Old metal shelves and cardboard boxes were scattered around, creating an endlessly eerie atmosphere, as if untouched by human hands for a long time.

The first-person perspective made the horror effect even more intense.

"There doesn’t seem to be anything unusual in the warehouse. I’ll head outside to gather more information."

He whispered so quietly into the recorder that it was barely audible.

Wooong-

Suddenly, Green Tea knelt quietly in the center of the warehouse, placing his hands on the floor and concentrating.

"What’s he doing?"

Alice whispered to Yu Parang, matching Green Tea’s hushed tone.

"He’s sensing vibrations to check if there’s anyone or anything outside the room. But why are you whispering too?"

"Oh, uh... I didn’t realize."

Alice chuckled awkwardly.

Meanwhile, Green Tea finished sensing vibrations and carefully stood up.

"I don’t sense anything outside the door. Judging by the wave transmission, there seems to be a corridor."

He took a deep breath and continued.

"I’ll proceed outside."

Then, in the silence where even the sound of an ant crawling could be heard, the door was gently pulled open.

And then...

"Ahhhhhh!!!"

"Ugh, ahhhh!!!!"

Thud!

Alice, who had been watching the screen with intense focus, screamed shrilly, and Green Tea also let out a scream, collapsing backward.

There was a person standing in the open doorway.

Or rather, something that was hard to call a person.

Three middle-aged men in suits were standing in a line, pressed tightly against the door, revealing themselves as it opened.

Yu Parang paused the screen and gently coaxed Alice, who had covered her eyes with her hands and turned her head away, to look at the scene.

"Take a good look, Alice. Isn’t there something strange about them?"

Alice, who had barely managed to calm down and look at the screen, soon realized what Yu Parang was hinting at.

"Are these... really people?"

The figures standing at the door had human shapes, but they couldn’t be called human.

The angle from below made it hard to see clearly, but the three people standing upright were all identical.

Three men with exactly the same face and build, without a single difference.

They stood in perfect attention, not even glancing at Green Tea, who had fallen backward screaming, staring straight ahead at the door.

Their appearance made it impossible to consider them human. At best, they looked like mannequins.

The more Alice looked, the more a strange sense of unease washed over her.

Alice involuntarily muttered the word that came to her mind.

"The uncanny valley..."

The instinctive discomfort felt when seeing something almost, but not quite, human.

The fear when something non-human pretends to be human before you.

For a while, Alice and Yu Parang watched the screen in silence.

After a brief pause, Yu Parang spoke.

"I’ll keep playing it."

"...Okay."

The paused screen resumed.

"Ugh, ahhhh!!"

Terrified, Green Tea frantically fumbled at his waist.

Then he pulled out a small white device and activated it.

It was a portable warp device.

The model took about 30 seconds to activate the warp.

"Thirty seconds? Isn’t that too long?"

"It’s actually incredibly short. If it weren’t for Silo Corporation, reducing the time to this extent would be impossible."

Yu Parang answered Alice’s question.

But that fact didn’t seem to comfort Agent Green Tea much.

He picked up anything around him and swung it wildly, staying on high alert.

And the sight of the three men standing in perfect attention, not reacting at all to Green Tea’s frantic actions, only added to the terrifying atmosphere.

About five seconds passed, and then something changed.

The man on the left among the three standing at the door suddenly began to speak fluently.

"Good evening, citizens of London. The sky over London may be gloomy today, but I hope your daily lives, which sustain the vitality of our city, shine brightly."

At the same time, from beyond the corridor visible through the open door, something could be heard running madly toward them.

Thudthudthudthudthud

"Ugh, ahhhhh!!!"

In a state of panic and fear, Green Tea began throwing or swinging anything he could get his hands on.

Then.

Thud!

A hard object he threw hit the head of the man on the left, who had been repeating the same lines in the same tone.

Thudthudthudthudthud

Suddenly, the man stopped speaking, and for the first time, he turned his head to look directly at Green Tea.

With eyes wide open, as if about to pop out, sending chills down one’s spine.

Silence filled the warehouse.

Then, the man who had been staring at Green Tea began to act strangely.

"Ugh!! Ughhh!!! Uweeeek!!!!"

Still facing Green Tea, he opened his mouth impossibly wide and began to retch.

Thudthudthudthudthud

Then, something huge was vomited out of his gaping mouth.

A mass of rotten flesh, glowing with a red and purple hue.

It writhed on the floor, gradually taking shape until it assumed the same form as the man who had vomited it.

And then, speaking fluently, it began to walk across the warehouse toward the door leading to the emergency stairs.

"Good evening, citizens of London..."

Thudthudthudthudthud

"...may your daily lives shine brightly..."

But before long, as if tripping over something, it fell forward.

When a person falls, their arms usually stretch out or their legs bend, but it fell straight like a log.

And unfortunately, where its head landed was the sharp edge of a metal shelf...

Thud!! Splat!!!

Its head was impaled on the edge, crushing it completely.

Thudthudthudthudthud

"Good evening, citizens of London..."

Even as brain matter and flesh oozed from its crushed head, it continued to repeat the same words in the same voice, causing Alice to grimace and turn her head slightly.

Thudthudthudthudthudthud-

Meanwhile, the shape of whatever was running madly from the other end of the corridor was becoming faintly visible...

[ Skill, ’Waterproof Sanity’ has been activated. ]

[ Strong resistance to mental attacks. ]

[ Status effect, ’Anthrophobia’ has been mitigated to ’Dizziness.’ ]

[ Artifact, ’Oak Bracelet’ effect has been activated. ]

[ Moderate resistance to mental attacks. ]

[ Status effect, ’Dizziness’ has been nullified. ]

With the status windows appearing simultaneously before Alice and Yu Parang, the screen was enveloped in white light.

As the light faded, the scene revealed was a bright, cozy space resembling a hospital.

Seeing Green Tea, who had warped there, the waiting Silo Corporation nurses approached.

A person who appeared to be a doctor standing behind them gave instructions to the nurses skillfully.

"Administer a sedative and take him to the mental neutralization treatment room. Retrieve the camera."

"Don’t come near me!! I’ll, I’ll kill you all!! Don’t come near!!!!!"

With Green Tea’s desperate screams echoing, the video ended.

For a while, Alice couldn’t say anything.

"So this is..."

"Yes. This is what’s really happening inside the World Government."

Yu Parang nodded with a grim expression and took out her phone to show another video.

It was a video uploaded by the official account of the City of London.

[ World Government London Mayor Mark Carlson’s Oxford University Restoration Commemorative Speech ]

"This is a speech given by the Mayor of London on September 2nd, to commemorate the restoration of the Oxford University building, which was damaged during the recent gate incident."

"September 2nd..."

"Yes. Two days after the events in the video."

As the video played, the Mayor of London was seen speaking fluently from a podium set up at the entrance of Oxford University.

Seeing this, Alice was taken aback.

"This, this person...!!"

"Yes. It’s the same as the cloned humans standing at the door earlier. To be precise, they are the Mayor of London."

Yu Parang explained further.

"The Mayor of London hasn’t been suddenly replaced by someone else. According to past records, this person has been serving as the Mayor of London for several years."

Yu Parang shook her head as she continued.

"But the one standing on the podium now is no longer human. The real one was devoured long ago."

Alice watched the approximately 15-minute speech video with a blank expression.

"Good evening, citizens of London. The sky over London may be gloomy today, but I hope your daily lives, which sustain the vitality of our city, shine brightly."

The Mayor, in an utterly ordinary manner, delivered a message of dreams and hope to the people.

"...and so, I hope that the newly rebuilt Oxford University can continue to be a beacon of the brilliant knowledge our humanity has accumulated. Thank you."

After bowing his head and receiving applause, the Mayor got into a vehicle and left, marking the end of the video.

Yu Parang spoke to Alice, who still wore a blank expression.

"This is the truth of the World Government."