The following day, the next batch of T-Dolls arrived, accompanied by forty sets of exoskeleton suits. Adam immediately handed them over to the two T-Dolls in charge of training the militia team.
With that task settled, he assigned the last T-Doll from the first batch to watch over Akira while he, Alice, and the newly arrived T-Dolls departed for the city to investigate the mysterious cult.
---
9:00 AM – Nagazora City
Adam and his team had been lurking around the former Nagazora General Hospital, the city's largest medical facility.
Based on rumors gathered from survivors and a thorough scan conducted by Angeline—analyzing light signatures, heat sources, and intercepted wireless signals—Adam pinpointed cult activity to this location. However, surface observations suggested the hospital was long abandoned.
Despite the desolate exterior, the scans told a different story. There were clear signs of activity within the building, further confirmed when Angeline intercepted multiple transmissions originating from inside.
"Master, I've analyzed the hospital's blueprints and identified underground structures beneath the building," one of the T-Dolls reported. "It's a government-commissioned shelter built in response to Fire Moth's directive after the First Impact."
Adam nodded in acknowledgment but found himself momentarily zoning out as he stared at the T-Doll who had spoken.
It was likely for ease of mass production, but all the T-Dolls Angeline manufactured shared the same physical appearance. The only distinguishing features between them were their assigned gear. If not for the unique ID codes hovering above their heads in his AR vision, Adam would struggle to tell them apart.
When he snapped back to reality, he realized that Alice and the T-Dolls had already settled on their approach—storm the place, guns blazing.
The plan was risky. There was no telling what kind of resistance they might face inside. However, Adam ultimately gave the green light, confident that his team had superior firepower.
Conventional firearms—assault rifles, for instance—could barely leave a scratch on a T-Doll's chassis, which was constructed from spaceship-grade steel. Their armored bodies were more than ample protection against small arms fire. The only real threat would be Honkai Beasts, but unless they encountered one, they had little to worry about. Besides, Adam was coming along as well.
"Let's go!" Alice declared excitedly, taking the lead. Adam followed closely behind, flanked by four T-Dolls.
Alice, despite her outwardly cute and innocent demeanor, was a natural predator in combat. The past few days had left her restless, with nothing to do except assist around the shelter. Now, with battle on the horizon, she was eager to unleash her full potential.
Adam found her enthusiasm endearing rather than eccentric. After all, her purpose was to fight for him.
---
Hospital Lobby
The hospital's main lobby was eerily deserted.
Papers and personal belongings lay scattered on the floor, as if people had fled in a hurry. Dried blood and ashes remained undisturbed, stark reminders of the disaster that had befallen the city.
Alice and the T-Dolls swiftly secured the area, scanning for any immediate threats while Adam mapped out the route to the underground shelter.
"Clear," the T-Dolls confirmed before regrouping around Adam.
"The normal access route is through the elevator," he noted. "Since it's non-functional, we'll take the stairs. Stay alert."
The team nodded in acknowledgment before proceeding. Given the likelihood of encountering Honkai Zombies, they exercised extreme caution. Hospitals were a natural refuge for survivors during the initial outbreak, meaning there was a high chance of infected still roaming the premises.
The empty hallway stretched before them, its exterior glass panes shattered. Fragments of glass lay scattered across the floor, covered in a thick layer of undisturbed dust. Metal chairs lined the walls, and atop some of them sat strange piles of dust—ones that didn't appear to be naturally accumulated.
Adam had seen similar piles throughout the city. Curious, he pinched a sample between his fingers, inspecting it closely but failing to determine its origin. Deciding it was worth further analysis, he stored a small amount before moving on.
At the end of the hallway, they reached an elevator lobby. Signs on the wall indicated that the corridor ahead led to the doctors' offices and general patient wards.
Everything appeared undisturbed. The dust on the floor was the clearest indication that no one had entered this area in quite some time.
And yet… Adam felt uneasy.
Something was wrong.
His instincts screamed at him, though he couldn't pinpoint the reason.
Alice seemed to pick up on his unease. Without hesitation, she stepped forward and pushed open a nearby door.
The moment she did, a faint sound caught her attention.
A string.
Almost invisible—clear fishing line, positioned near the upper part of the doorframe.
Adam followed her gaze and immediately felt the ominous sensation intensify.
Someone had been here.
Someone had set this up.
His team immediately went on high alert, guns raised and scanning their surroundings. In an instant, they formed a protective perimeter around Adam, their movements swift and precise.
"I'm fine. You don't have to be this overprotective," Adam sighed, though his words barely registered.
Logically speaking, he was the most well-protected member of the group. His armor and forcefield could withstand anything short of a nuclear strike for him to unable to react. And yet, Alice and the T-Dolls treated him as if he were made of glass.
He knew it wasn't out of disrespect. It was simply their programming—their primary directive was to ensure his safety above all else. Unlike him, their bodies were expendable. Even if one were completely destroyed, their Neural Cloud was backed up in real-time, allowing them to be restored into a new chassis without issue.
While Adam brooded over this, Alice carefully traced the fishing line to a simple contraption made from easily found materials—an early warning device.
A crude yet effective electronic alert system.
It was transmitting a signal.
Alice swiftly tracked the source. The transmission was coming from the upper floors, specifically the staff resting area for nurses, located in the patient care wards.
Her immediate assumption was that a survivor was present.
She uploaded the information to the BattleNet and awaited Adam's decision.
Without hesitation, Adam gave the order.
"Let's locate the survivor."
---
Hospital Stairwell
The team moved swiftly through the hospital corridors, guided by Alice's tracking data.
Their destination: the staff rest area for nurses.
A survivor's presence was still only a possibility. Given the state of the world, the signal could easily belong to a trap, a rogue cultist, or something worse.
Nevertheless, Adam chose to investigate.
His team's enhanced mobility and firepower ensured they could handle any potential threats.
The stairwell reeked of mildew and stagnation, with dust particles swirling in the dim light filtering through broken windows. The faint creaks of shifting metal reverberated eerily through the silence.
Adam instinctively slowed his pace as they ascended. Despite their tactical advantage, he couldn't shake a deep-rooted sense of foreboding. Something about the air felt… wrong.
Alice seemed to sense it too. Her usual excitement dimmed as she adjusted her grip on her weapon, shifting into a more defensive stance.
By the time they reached the second floor, the tension had escalated.
A long hallway stretched before them, lined with doors leading to patient recovery rooms. Some doors hung ajar, their interiors shrouded in darkness. Others had been barricaded from the inside, remnants of desperate last stands against the Honkai outbreak.
Then, a sound.
Faint. Muffled. A soft groan.
Alice immediately halted, her rifle aimed ahead as she raised a fist to signal the others to stop. The T-Dolls and Adam followed suit, weapons raised, eyes scanning their surroundings.
Yet the hallway remained empty.
Alice silently gestured toward the door where the signal had originated.
The rest area.
Its wooden frame was scratched and dented, as if something had tried to claw its way in. The handle was intact, but the metal lock mechanism had been recently reinforced—someone had tried to strengthen it from within.
Alice pressed herself against the wall, signaling for Adam to stand clear as she prepared for a breach.
A deep breath.
Then, she kicked the door open with a powerful kick that tore the entire door off its frame.
*Crash!*
---
Nurses' Rest Area
The air inside was thick with the scent of old blood and antiseptic.
Papers and medicine were strewn across the floor, along with half-empty water bottles and ration packs—proof that someone had been living here, at least for a time.
And then there was the body. Or rather, a zombie.
Slumped against the farthest wall with a window, neck bound, head hanging on a rope, likely a suicide. But it regained vitality the moment a group of prey appeared in it's vision.
It's hard to perform postmortem analysis on a corpse that had become a zombie.
Adam stared at the corpse and made a silent prayer for this man who is willing to die as a human. But unfortunately, his peaceful rest was interrupted and his body desecrated by the Honkai's influence.
Adam exhaled sharply and reached for his lower caliber pistol to give this man a clean death without blasting a large hole into his cranium.
One of the T-Dolls stood by the corpse, scanning it with an embedded biometric sensor.
"Male, early thirties," she reported. "Deceased approximately a week ago. Cause of death: cervical vertebrae fracture."
A broken neck, self-inflicted.
"Any ID?" Adam asked.
The T-Doll searched the body and retrieved a bloodstained staff badge.
Dr. Saito Kawashima – Senior Neurosurgeon
Alice took the badge and examined it before tossing it aside. "Doesn't matter. He's dead."
Meanwhile, Adam looks around the room for any other clues. He saw an unnaturally large amount of footsteps. Some even look new when the owner of this room had at least been dead for a whole week.
Then his eyes shifted to the scattered medication on the floor. The shattered container and the way the pills were scattered looked like it fell in a straight line to the floor. But this spot is quite far away from the desk and shelves. It's a secluded spot and it couldn't have been thrown, otherwise the splash wouldn't match.
His gaze swept the room once more.
Then he saw it.
A ventilation grille.
Opening the ventilation grille, Adam found his answer as he saw the traces of dirt and dust from a shoe print inside which was preserved because the ventilation system hasn't been working since the electricity was cut off.
Immediately Adam ordered a T-Doll to identify the possible rooms connected with this ventilation system and everyone spread out to investigate each of the rooms.
After just a few minutes, a T-Doll actually found a room suspiciously barricaded from the inside and she sensed human presence from within using thermal imaging.
Everyone gathered in front of that room and began the breaching.
A T-Doll with a shotgun, shoots the door lock and knob before the second one punches a hole through the door with the stock of her gun and a third T-Doll tossed a flashbang inside.
A burst of panicked screams erupted just before the explosion of blinding light and deafening noise drowned them out.
Adam, Alice, and the T-Dolls remained unaffected as they breached the room. Their equipment filtered out the effects effortlessly.
"Wait! We're just civilians!" A desperate and terrified voice cried out.
Adam stepped inside last, taking in the scene.
A group of survivors cowered on the floor, shielding each other. Among them were children, no older than seven to ten years old.
For a moment, Adam hesitated. Had they just stormed into a harmless group of survivors? Or was this a trap?
Despite his moment of doubt, he didn't regret using the flashbang. It had been a necessary precaution.
Seven people in total.
Two adults in nurse uniforms.
One student, wearing a lab coat over his school uniform.
Four children, trembling in fear.
But Adam's attention quickly snapped to the student.
The moment he laid eyes on him, his System sprang to life with urgent notifications.
---
[ALERT! ALERT! ALERT!]
[Scenario-critical character detected.]
[Further hostile action will incur penalties.]
[Friendly cooperation will yield additional rewards.]
---
While Adam processed the sudden notifications, the young man with light gray hair carefully studied Adam and his team with fear evident in his eyes.
From their high-grade tactical gear to their heavily armed presence, it was obvious—they weren't ordinary people.
Realizing the tension, the young man stepped forward, cautiously extending his hand as a friendly gesture.
"Ahem. It seems there's been a misunderstanding," he said with forced calmness. "My name is Su. I'm a student from Chiba Academy… and a trainee doctor at Nagazora Hospital."
Though he maintained a brave front, Adam could see the fear in his eyes.
He was doing his best to appear composed.
But one wrong move, and he knew—it could cost him his life.
Adam remained silent for a moment before extending his hand and accepting the handshake.
"My apologies, Mr. Su. I was here to investigate rumors of a Honkai-worshipping cult active in this area. I didn't mean to be hostile," he admitted, his tone sincere.
Su and the two nurses—one male, one female—visibly relaxed at his words, turning their attention back to comforting the children. However, at the mention of the cult, Su's expression darkened into a deep frown.
Adam immediately picked up on the shift in his demeanor. His voice turned firm, almost interrogative, as he pressed further.
"Do you know something about this cult?"
Su clenched his fists unconsciously, the tension in his body betraying his emotions.
"Actually… yes," he admitted, exhaling heavily. "But I don't know much. I only encountered them once."
Noting Su's reaction, Adam could tell he harbored strong hostility toward the cult. That was a good sign—it meant he might have valuable information.
"Can you tell me what you know?"
Su glanced at Adam's team, his sharp eyes assessing them before he sighed in relief. It wasn't hard for him to deduce their intentions. These people were here to take down the cult. Why they hadn't done so earlier was of little concern to him. What mattered was that they were acting now.
And so, Su began recounting his knowledge and experience with the cult.
It had been during the early days after the disaster, back when Nagazora City still had thousands of survivors desperately seeking shelter and protection from the Honkai Beasts and zombies. The cult had presented itself as a humanitarian organization, offering food, medical care, and refuge to those in need.
But it had all been a lie.
The truth only emerged after the collapse of government authority. With no external oversight, the cult dropped its facade and revealed its true nature.
Instead of providing medical care as promised, they had been conducting human experiments.
Their goal? To transcend human frailty and usher in a so-called "new age."
The cult sought out survivors with high resistance to Honkai Energy, selecting them as test subjects for experiments designed to implant Honkai Beast genes into human bodies. Those who failed the screening were abandoned without a second thought.
Yet the most disturbing part was that many people willingly subjected themselves to these experiments. The allure of power—the ability to fight back against the Honkai Beasts—was too great to resist.
One test subject did survive the procedure, gaining incredible strength. But the success was short-lived. Rejection soon set in, and within hours, he was dead.
Even so, the sight of his power had left a lasting impression on the others. Awe turned to fanaticism, and with the cult's relentless brainwashing, more and more people came to believe in their doctrine.
They worshipped the Honkai disaster as the dawn of a new era.
And the Honkai Beasts?
In the eyes of the brainwashed survivors.
They were no longer monsters.
They were angels.
For every test subject that showed even a shred of success, hundreds had perished on the dissection table—twisted into grotesque abominations. More than half of the victims had been children.
The four children currently under Su's care were the ones he had managed to save from the cult's clutches.
Then, with a heavy sigh, Su revealed one final detail.
The cult had once attempted to recruit him. Not for his beliefs, but for his knowledge.
Long before the First Impact, Honkai Sickness had already existed—an affliction caused by prolonged exposure to Honkai Energy in individuals without sufficient resistance. Su, an aspiring doctor with a deep desire to save lives, had devoted himself to finding a cure. And, to some extent, he had succeeded.
He had developed a prototype serum capable of temporarily enhancing a person's Honkai Resistance while purging Honkai Energy from their body. However, the formula was far from perfect. Its effects were short-lived, inconsistent and too costly to produce, making it unreliable as a true treatment.
Yet, despite its limitations, the serum had a unique property—the temporary boost in Honkai Resistance.
This was precisely what the cult had wanted.
For their Honkai Beast gene implantation to succeed, the recipient's body needed to endure and suppress the invasive genetic material long enough for a stable fusion. Without sufficient Honkai Resistance, the body would either mutate uncontrollably into a monstrous hybrid or collapse entirely from genetic breakdown.
Su's serum offered a brief window of increased resistance—enough to improve the chances of survival during the implantation process.
And for that reason, the cult had sought him out and he had to go into hiding to evade the cultists pursuit.
—————
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