Just as in the original, nothing unexpected happened. J quickly found the correct switch, and as if a curtain had been drawn aside, a row of high-rise buildings appeared across the screens before them.
Since they were in an underground base, anyone seeing this would likely think they were standing before actual skyscrapers somewhere on the surface. The mercenaries moved cautiously through the room with weapons ready, then relaxed once they confirmed there was no immediate danger.
"Sir, there's an elevator here!" one mercenary called out to Matthew Addison, pointing to it.
"Check if it works."
They pried open the elevator doors and shone a light down. Only a few broken steel cables dangled in midair above the crushed remains of the elevator car at the bottom. It was obvious the lift was beyond repair.
"The elevator's out. We'll take the stairs. We need to reach the bottom floor within ten minutes. Everyone, keep up," Matthew Addison ordered. This applied just as much to the reincarnators as to his own men—after all, anyone straying more than a hundred meters from him would be obliterated by the Lord God.
The ten-minute dash began. The distance wasn't far—only two or three kilometers. For a loli-type tyrannosaurus like Su Yu, that was nothing. But for some of the reincarnators, it was a serious challenge.
A middle-aged woman and a plump, shifty-looking man quickly began to lag, their stamina nowhere near that of the main group. A young woman was also struggling, though she was hard to ignore for another reason—halfway into the run, she ran up to Su Yu, grabbed her hand, and let herself be pulled along. A pretty girl wanted to hold her hand—well, it was hardly any effort, so Su Yu saw no reason to refuse.
Eighty meters. Eighty-one. Eighty-two. Ninety. Ninety-one. Ninety-nine. One hundred—
Two deafening "Peng" explosions rang out behind them.
"Two are gone," Zhang Jie said flatly as they ran.
"What do you mean, 'gone'?" asked the Madonna-like woman beside him.
He gave Zheng Zha a withering look. "You still think this is just a game? This is the real world. Following the Lord God's rules is the bare minimum for survival. Exceed the hundred-meter limit and you're erased—completely. Not knocked out, not sent home—erased from existence, gone without a trace."
A shiver passed through the reincarnators at his words.
"At last," Matthew Addison's voice called, and everyone stopped.
Zheng Zha and the others were panting heavily. The young woman with the weakest stamina had collapsed to the floor, clinging to Su Yu's leg, utterly drained. Zhang Jie, a veteran, recovered quickly after a few breaths. Su Yu, on the other hand, stood there as if she'd been out for a stroll—her face was calm, her breathing steady, as though the run had never happened.
She felt nothing for the two who had been erased. Though Su Yu carried the memories of a human and was born from human imagination, she had little true sympathy for humanity. Her thinking was shifting toward viewing all life equally—human lives no heavier than those of ants or blades of grass. That didn't mean she didn't value life, only that she valued them all on the same scale. She would not harm without cause, but neither would she extend help or sympathy to those eliminated by the law of the jungle. Such was survival.
But enough philosophy—back to the story.
"Sir, the Red Queen has locked onto us. She knows we're here!" a mercenary reported.
"Who's the Red Queen?" Alice asked.
"The Red Queen is the nation's most advanced AI—she controls the entire Hive. She's the central computer system here," Matthew Addison explained.
He glanced at the exhausted newcomers slumped on the floor. Clearly, not every "security guard" was as capable as Su Yu.
"This is the Hive," he warned them. "Stay alert at all times."
Once they'd caught their breath, the group moved on down a corridor lined with sealed labs. Each one was now flooded. Walking between the glass walls, it felt like passing through an aquarium—if only there were beautiful fish instead of pale, bloated corpses drifting in the water.
Su Yu had braced herself for this, but the sight still made her stomach turn. Her face went pale. Ugh, Sister Alaya, I hate you. This is all your fault. I'll never let you off when I get back.
At that exact moment, far away, Alaya paused mid-sip of tea with Gaia. "Ah, did you hear that?"
"What's wrong?" Gaia asked.
"No idea. Maybe Fantasy Sister's just thanking me for picking her such a great world."
The reincarnators exchanged uneasy looks. They all knew—once the Red Queen's systems restarted—these floating corpses would no longer be floating.
"Sir, we've got a problem," a mercenary studying the Hive's schematics reported. "There's no other way to reach the Red Queen. These labs are the only route, but they're flooded. Impassable."
Matthew Addison nodded grimly. "Ren, J—see if there's a way to drain the water. Kaplan, look for an alternate route."
The mercenaries set to work.
"Need our help?" Zhang Jie offered.
"That would be ideal. I'd like one of you to go with Kaplan. It's too dangerous for anyone to be moving alone," Addison replied, glancing at the timid newcomers and at the mysterious girl off to one side, lost in her own thoughts.
Zhang Jie shook his head at their uselessness, raised his pistol, and followed Kaplan out.
"What's going on here?" Alice asked Addison.
He hesitated, then answered. "Five hours ago, the Red Queen started killing people—everyone. The company sent us to shut her down."
"Why?" Alice asked, frowning.
"I don't know. Could be a virus. Could be sabotage. Could even be—"
Matt suddenly screamed and jumped back.
All eyes turned to where he'd been looking—a female staff member's corpse, floating against the glass.
Su Yu's stomach churned again, her face pale. Her determination to make Alaya pay grew even stronger. At the same time, she couldn't help thinking, What a waste.