With the PubSec
Qingyi glanced at the Hollow anxiously, gripping her 3 quarter staff tightly as the rest of the officers prepared themselves to enter the Hollow. Zhu Yuan sees her senior standing in silence, making her concerned as well.
"Senior officer," Zhu Yuan calls, but she didn't get any reaction from Qingyi. "...Qingyi."
"...." Qingyi didn't say a word, but she gripped her staff tighter. Zhu Yuan even notices frost starting to form on her staff.
"Qingyi!" Zhu Yuan calls again, much louder than before. This time, it works as Qingyi snaps out of her thought.
"...what is it, Zhu Yuan?" Qingyi asks in confusion.
"...are you okay?" Zhu Yuan asks in concern.
"I am fine, why?" Qingyi replies.
"You don't seem fine," Zhu Yuan says as she crosses her arms. "With all due respect, you have been lost in thought quite often these days. There are times when you almost let criminals escape. You also shut down a few times this week. For some reason, your body feels colder than before, as if you have been plunged into a fridge and left for a night. Senior, what is going on?"
"...I honestly had zero idea," Qingyi says with a sigh. "But it's not something you should be concerned with. Let's focus on today's mission."
"Oh, right, I knew I forgot to mention something..." Zhu Yuan mutters. "How did you even get this idea that Vision Corporation might not evacuate the citizens on Canvas Street and hope they got caught in the demolition explosion?"
"Vision Corporation is doing what?!?!" From a distance, Seth had overheard their conversation and was taken aback by his senior's words.
"Focus on preparing, junior officer Seth!" Zhu Yuan orders, which Seth hastily follows.
"It's...more of a gut feeling," Qingyi says. "It's better to be safe than sorry."
"...now, I know something is wrong, you never said gut feeling when it comes to mission," Zhu Yuan says with narrowed eyes.
"...it's a speculation I and Caelus did, based on the clues we gathered," Qingyi admits. "Caelus had brought up several important logics on the speculations. The lack of media regarding the evacuation, even after months, the lack of a drastic increase in house rents, and the decreased cost."
"...I understand that some corporations were...not good lawbiding citizens, but surely they wouldn't do something this drastic?" Zhu Yuan asks hesitantly, sounding unsure of herself.
"Hence the reason why I am leading an investigation here," Qingyi replies. "It's better to be safe than sorry."
"...I suppose that's true," Zhu Yuan nods before suddenly, they feel a small tremor. Everyone looks on the verge of panicking as they wonder why there's an earthquake all of a sudden.
"D-did they detonate the explosion!?!" Zhu Yuan asks in disbelief.
"No sign of residual from an Ether explosion," Qingyi says as she narrows her eyes. "It seems something is happening inside the Hollow."
"What kind of thing caused a small tremor that even people could feel from outside the Hollow?!" Zhu Yuan asks in disbelief.
"...I don't know."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
With Caelus
"Ow, ow, ow! Fuck, that was a bad idea!" Caelus groans as he digs himself out from the pile of rubble. He glances at his arms and is surprised at the sight of his blood, which seems to glow gold before it slowly stops. Upon wiping off his blood, he notices how the wounds on his arms had closed, albeit it leaves some scarring.
"...I guess that's how Caelus survives getting stabbed to death by Cocolia," Caelus mutters before shakily getting up. Despite his injuries slowly recovered, but the lingering pain remains. He bit the bottom of his lip to endure the pain while using his baseball bat as a support.
[Destruction (LVL 11 | Eidolon 1/6): 1/1200]
[Preservation (LVL 0): 990/1000]
[Abundance (LVL 0): 100/1000]
"...oh, fuck you, Qlipoth!" Caelus groans in annoyance before rubbing his forehead. He grimaces as he feels the blood on his hand, but he also feels the blood has stopped pouring out of his head.
"I really should get out of here," Caelus grumbles before he suddenly hears a rock shatter. Caelus stiffens before he turns around to see the giant Ethereal he had faced earlier still alive, albeit it had lost a huge chunk of its left arm, and the spear had been destroyed.
"Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me!" Caelus exclaims in disbelief. And to add insult to injury,
[Elation (LVL 0): 500/1000]
".....oh, hardy har har. Very funny, Aha!" Caelus says, before the back of the giant Ethereal starts to glow as the light forms a pair of arms on its back. Caelus stares at the scene in disbelief and decides to get the hell out of that place. He's not some dumb anime characters who watch someone pulling a power-up transformation like a gaping fish out of the water.
As he runs, he notices a green-haired girl with a maid uniform holding a staff with a deadly pizza cutter at the end of the staff on his path. Caelus almost stumbles as he does a double-take. What is Corin of the Victoria Housekeeping here in all places?!
He decides now is not the time to think about the situation and just picks her up like a sack of potatoes before he doubles down. The poor girl didn't get the chance to process as her brain short-circuited. It took a while before she rebooted.
"W-Wah!?!! W-what is going on!?!?!" The poor girl exclaims in shock before frantically shaking herself off, much to Caelus's annoyance. "S-sir, please let me go!"
"If you want me to leave you alone with a giant, dangerous Ethereal who's going on its 2nd phase Boss battle, then you're crazier than you expect!" Caelus exclaims as Corin blinks in confusion before she hears a roar from a distance. She looks towards the source and understands Caelus's words.
"D-don't drop me!" Corin begs.
"Then please, for the love of all Aeons, stop shaking!" Caelus begs, and Corin complies as Caelus runs as fast as possible. But the universe had other plans as the giant Ethereal jumped towards their direction, causing Corin to shriek in panic. Caelus turns and widens his eyes before increasing his pace.
As the Ethereal lands, it causes a huge shockwave that knocks Caelus off the ground and sends him, along with Corin, flying. Caelus instinctively uses his body to shield Corin and absorb all the impact.
"M-mister!" Corin panics. She didn't understand why a random stranger she met in a Hollow chose to protect her, but she was still grateful for it, and she is concerned that the stranger injured himself for her sake.
"I-I'm okay," Caelus groans in pain. Corin finally gets the chance to get a proper look at him and covers her mouth in horror. She didn't even notice how much blood covered his body, and that fall didn't even help, which increases her guilt even more.
"Y-you're not!" Corin exclaims in horror.
"L-let's focus on-!" Caelus didn't get the chance to finish his words as he saw the giant Ethereal jump towards them. Summoning his lance, he raises it to shield himself along with Corin. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough as they both got knocked back once again.
Both were lucky enough to fall right at the rift where the Cunning Hare had previously fallen in. As they entered the rift, Caelus could only curse every deity, specifically the one who brought his ass into this world, while also using all of his willpower to stay conscious.
'D-damn it...' Caelus thought as he and Corin were enveloped by the void. Caelus saw Corin fall first, and he instinctively went to cushion her fall once again.
'Why...why am I...trying to shield a total stranger....' Caelus thought as his body moved on its own. 'She wasn't someone close to me...she was just a character from the game....who becomes real...'
Before he falls unconscious, he shields the little girl once again as they fall out of the void. Unknown to them, a flicker of ember emits from the sealed lance.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Earlier
Canvas Street
Nicole can be seen having a discussion with Billy and Anby, glancing at the civilians anxiously. She noticed that the little girl they had saved earlier was talking with an elderly woman with tears in her eyes, but she was too far away to hear their conversation properly.
"Boss? You there?" Billy asks, getting Nicole's attention.
"Yeah," Nicole says with a frown. "...how many people are in here?"
"At a single glance, there are hundreds of them," Anby says. "But, after looking around and counting them....it's more than we could expect."
"I can count at least 500 of them, but I could miss a few, or even more," Billy says as Nicole's frown becomes deeper.
"So...we can all agree Caelus's worry comes true," Nicole says as they both nod.
"I had asked some of them, and they admit they had no idea what's going on," Billy says as he crosses his arms. "Neither of them had managed to contact anyone from the outside. It seems Vision had jammed their communication."
"Some of them even said a Public Security Officer had prevented them from leaving, saying explosives were being handled nearby and once things are ready, a train will arrive to get them," Anby says with a frown.
"...but, we all knew that was a lie," Nicole says as their expression darkens.
"W-we can't let this happen!" Nekomiya, who included herself in the meeting, exclaims in anger.
"Na! (Yeah!)" Slyboo, who copies Nekomiya, agreed.
"When did I say you guys could join our team discussions?" Nicole mutters with a sweatdrop.
"Excuse me," They all turn and see an elderly woman, next to her is the little girl they had saved earlier. "I would like to thank you for saving my granddaughter. She's being mischievous, thinking that because she had an Ether apitude, she could enter the Hollow, even if she had a good intention."
"Don't worry about it, lady," Billy says with a cheerful tone.
"...my daughter said that there's someone else with you, do you think he's going to be okay?" The grandmother asks in concern, which made them all glance at each other with the same amount of concern.
"...don't worry too much," Nicole says as she looks at the little girl. "Out of all of us, he's the strongest. He will definitely survive,"
Of course, Nicole was lying to the little girl. She had no idea how powerful Caelus is compared to Anby, her strongest member. She could only speculate based on her first encounter with Caelus and the trails of Ethereal's disintegrating corpses from earlier.
And for whatever reason, the universe decides to play some cosmic joke as a rift starts to form from the ceiling, catching everyone's attention. They all saw two people fall from it, one shielding the other. Anby and Billy widen their eyes, noticing who's the person falling and their feet move.
Using her acrobatic skills, she climbs up and safely grabs them while Billy catches them before they touch the ground. As Anby safely got caught, she looked at Caelus, and her eyes widened even more.
"No..." Anby whispers in horror as she sees Caelus's situation before gently placing him on the floor. To make it even worse, Caelus is shielding a little girl wearing a maid outfit, planning to cushion her fall despite his condition.
"P-please..." The girl whispers before looking at Anby with teary eyes. "Please, save him..."
Nicole rushes towards them to see what's going on before she widens her eyes in horror and covers her mouth. The civilians see the scene, grow even more concerned as they all wonder what is going on.
"W-what happened!?" Nicole asks with an unusual amount of concern. She looks at the little girl, demanding an explanation.
"I-it's...." The maid girl mutters shakily. "It's...the Dead-End Butcher..."
To be Continued