Before him stood a simple wooden house, its walls plastered with notices announcing the suspension of numerous S.T.A.R.S officers due to "special incidents."
"Rebecca Chambers, Chris Redfield, Albert Wesker..."
This string of familiar names made Kevin's gaze flicker as he sank into thought.
The uncleaned fast-food boxes, scattered clothes, and canned coffee piled on the table inside the room...
All of it clearly showed that the owner of this room seemed to be facing no small amount of trouble as well.
Still, he could finally catch his breath. After thinking for a moment, Kevin came back to himself, rubbed his throbbing temples, and dropped straight onto the owner's bed, preparing to rest with his eyes closed.
The pursuit during the first half of the night, the ordeal during the second half, and Umbrella Squad's relentless encirclement during the day had drained him physically and mentally. Right now, all he wanted was a good sleep to recover his strength.
Yet the soft bed only made Kevin, whose nerves had been wound tight, toss and turn, unable to fall asleep.
Still doesn't feel safe! The chain of sudden upheavals forced him to get up anxiously. After looking around, Kevin rolled straight under the bed.
Once he had hidden himself, the dark surroundings and enclosed space finally eased Kevin's frown.
That's more like it... Finally... I can get a proper night's sleep.
Once his mind relaxed, exhaustion swept over him, and Kevin quickly fell asleep.
That damned pig Brian! He was definitely in bed with Umbrella Corporation!
Jill inserted her key into the lock and twisted it open. Beneath the quiet moonlight, her face looked gloomy and cold.
A few days ago, several tourists had disappeared near an abandoned sanatorium on the outskirts of Raccoon City. Based on traces found at the scene, it appeared that large wild animals had been active in the area.
Thus, the higher-ups dispatched the Raccoon City Police Department's special unit—S.T.A.R.S—to investigate the region. The S.T.A.R.S unit had two squads, Beta and Alpha.
They were also known as Team A and Team B. Two months ago, they had been sent to the vicinity of the sanatorium one after the other to conduct a thorough search.
They had initially treated it as a simple hunting game, but the moment the "prey" appeared, their roles were instantly reversed.
Those violently mutated animals feared neither pain nor death, and they were immune to gunfire.
When they had been forced into the abandoned sanatorium on the outskirts of Raccoon City, Jill had risked her life to drag a berserk gray wolf that had been blasted to pieces indoors for examination.
The result was that these creatures seemed to have electronic components embedded inside them to control their neural centers.
As Jill and the others retreated into the sanatorium and waited for rescue at dawn, none of them had expected the entire Alpha Team to be the prey their enemy had long been waiting to hunt.
Mutated Giant Python, blue-gray Bio-Giants with exposed hearts, endless Walking Dead... That place had clearly become Umbrella Corporation's bio-testing ground.
Their two highly trained S.T.A.R.S teams had been excellent experimental material, used to test the power of those Living Bioweapons.
After that nightmare ended, the two elite teams suffered devastating losses, but all intelligence had been secretly erased by forces dispatched by Umbrella Corporation.
Even more absurdly, they, the victims, had been suspended and placed under investigation by the higher-ups.
To uncover the truth, her former teammates Chris, Rebecca, and the others had gone to Britain to gather intelligence.
After much consideration, Jill chose to remain in Raccoon City and secretly investigate Umbrella Corporation's shady dealings. But recently, obstacles, both overt and covert, had kept appearing one after another.
After entering, the exhausted policewoman did not even turn on the lights. She threw herself onto the bed and buried her face in it to vent her frustration.
However, when Jill turned onto her side and vaguely saw the long list of suspended and missing personnel on the wall by moonlight, the defeat in her eyes gradually gave way to resolve.
Forget it. After a whole day of work, she felt sticky and grimy. Better wash up and get some sleep early.
After adjusting her mood, the policewoman sat up, changed into slippers, and tossed aside the restraints on her body piece by piece as she walked, stepping into the bathroom with wild abandon.
The crisp sound of running water echoed through the room, while a cheerful tune drifted from the bathroom, inadvertently shattering someone's dream.
Someone's here! They entered without turning on the lights! Umbrella Corporation!
Kevin jolted awake. His instinctive judgment made him slide out from beneath the bed at once, grab the broom by the wall, and quickly approach the source of the sound.
At the same time, the noise in the bathroom abruptly ceased.
After an eerie silence, the two figures separated by the glass door burst through it from opposite sides almost simultaneously.
Bang! Kevin's upward-angled broom swing was blocked by a pair of raised arms.
Boom! The other person's poised high kick came flying in a flash, knocking Kevin several steps back.
After losing the opening exchange, the opponent twisted forward. Their fierce Delta Force military combat techniques forced Kevin to retreat and evade repeatedly, until he was cornered after only a few steps.
Bang! A heavy punch grazed Kevin's cheek and smashed into the wall.
That was close! If he had not instinctively dodged just then, he might have suffered a severe concussion on the spot.
Although the first baptism of Apocalypse had allowed Kevin to replicate superb firearm skills, professional hand-to-hand combat was still his weakness.
What was more, every aspect of his physical stats was worrying. Facing an expert now, he could not help but retreat step by step.
However, when the back of his tilted head touched something hard on the left side of the wall, a flash of inspiration gleamed in his narrowed eyes.
An opportunity! After ducking beneath a vicious elbow strike, Kevin raised his left arm and slammed it heavily against the protrusion, lowering his head and closing his eyes at the same time.
In an instant, the fluorescent light in the master bedroom flashed on. Just as expected, his opponent was briefly blinded by the sudden change.
Kevin, who had been prepared, immediately wrapped his arms around the opponent, knocked her down, and pinned her beneath him.
However, the soft body beneath his hips, covered in slick water and sticky foam, made the intruder instinctively realize that something was wrong.
When he opened his eyes and adjusted to the light in the room, his pupils reflected a handsome face turned livid with anger.
This face seemed a little familiar...
In his confusion, Kevin's gaze continued downward. The woman's heaving breasts and flat, perfectly toned abdomen below were fully exposed to his eyes.
Under the bizarre atmosphere, the two remained silent for a long time.
"If I told you this was an accident..."
"...would you believe me?" Kevin gave an awkward yet polite smile, then slowly released the hands pinning her arms.
Smack! A loud slap echoed through the room.
Here's the second update. Please toss in a recommendation, bookmark, or comment if you can.
The World's Death Knell
Who enters without turning on the lights? My reasoning was perfectly logical!
Kevin, a bright red handprint on his face, held his head and did squats in the corner while grumbling pitifully to himself.
As for why he was being so obedient, one only had to ask the policewoman wrapped in a white bath towel sitting at the end of the bed.
Or rather, ask the M1911 in her hand, pointed right at him.
"That's all?" As the policewoman considered the testimony the "criminal" had given earlier, a trace of caution and seriousness appeared in her expression regarding his experience of being hunted by Umbrella Corporation.
"Of course! I even have an informant trying to guide an Umbrella insider into making contact. We should have results by this afternoon."
Kevin had grown quite adept at fabricating lies. Half-truths and falsehoods rolled right off his tongue.
In just two days, he had gone from a gentle, sincere tutor to a BSAA Senior Agent full of lies and deception.
Thinking of all the danger and hardship involved was enough to make him miserable. Kevin felt that this damned life had thoroughly sullied him inside and out.
"Hm? Who told you to stop? Keep going!" Jill raised the dark muzzle of her gun, one brow lifting as she looked at him unkindly.
"248... 249... 250..." Under this threat, Kevin helplessly continued doing squats with his hands over his head.
However, he did not stop trying to clear his name and continued defending himself.
"Umbrella Corporation's private forces are everywhere now. For safety's sake, I didn't dare go back to Professor Charles or Raccoon City University. Then I remembered that you still owed me a favor."
"So you illegally broke into my house and hid under my bed?"
Remembering the instant the lights had come on and she had been exposed in full view, Jill gritted her teeth.
"I already told you, it was an accident. Who comes home without turning on the lights? I thought you'd seen Umbrella Corporation's bounty and decided to sell me out!"
To clear himself, Kevin knowingly ignored his own misjudgment and shamelessly threw the blame onto Jill.
"I will never cooperate with those scum from Umbrella Corporation!" Apparently struck where it hurt, Jill glanced back at the old notices on the wall, her expression disgusted and her words fierce.
"Could... their current situation be related to Umbrella Corporation?" Kevin asked at precisely the right moment, his surprised and confused expression utterly convincing.
If not for the vague memories in his mind concerning everything Jill had gone through, even he might have believed that brilliant performance.
Half a step forward made one a genius. One full step made one a madman.
Kevin had come to understand that deeply through Ada Wong's "education" last night.
Therefore, even with his farsighted knowledge of the future, he had to reveal it cleverly in ways that fit the course of history. Otherwise, all those unreasonable actions would bring disaster upon himself.
Sure enough, Jill did not suspect in the slightest that Kevin had already known what had happened to the two S.T.A.R.S elite teams.
The policewoman began recounting the nightmare she had experienced in the underground laboratory beneath Raccoon City's abandoned sanatorium, as well as Umbrella Corporation's atrocities in the shadows.
"I see. The underground chambers beneath that abandoned sanatorium have become Umbrella Corporation's secret testing site, and your two S.T.A.R.S teams were prime material."
"After all, once the value of these biological weapons is fully explored, it will be easy to summarize their traits: easy to control, convenient to produce, and powerful in combat..."
"If they can easily take down even elite tactical teams like yours, built with piles of American dollars, they're practically a terrorist's dream..."
"Add in their absurd cost-effectiveness, and these new biological weapons will quickly spread across the black market!"
The logical analysis plunged Jill into deep thought.
After delivering that highly suggestive speech, Kevin felt his throat go dry. He casually took some juice from the refrigerator, poured it into a glass, and drank it in one gulp.
"Besides, for these biological weapons to maintain a market, there must be a stable supply. Simply put..." The man leaned against the refrigerator meaningfully.
"Umbrella Corporation can mass-produce these biological weapons, or they've developed viral agents capable of creating these monsters!" Jill suddenly understood.
"Then who would be the biggest buyer? Don't forget, there's a world police force running around for peace on Earth. The lives of its soldiers are quite valuable, after all. Human rights come first..."
Kevin continued leading her along as he slowly voiced his conjecture.
No wonder their investigation had been so difficult. Both she and Chris had underestimated the interest groups involved behind Umbrella Corporation.
Their great White Eagle was busy sending more troops to the Middle East. The shortage of manpower and high cost of maintaining troops had always been headaches for the Department of Defense.
If there were a cheap product requiring no maintenance that could perfectly replace soldiers' losses and compensate for troop shortages...
It would allow the sparsely populated Eagle to push its international status to an unshakable peak!
"Even if Umbrella has infiltrated most of Raccoon City's political, military, and police circles, the FBI can't all be useless idiots, can they? Unless..."
Kevin lifted the glass and gently swirled it. A trace of mockery appeared at the corner of his lips.
"Unless... the development of this weapon has been secretly authorized by members of Congress, perhaps even the Department of Defense!" Jill's pupils contracted, and the shock in her heart became indescribable.
"And that isn't even the worst outcome..." Kevin propped up his chin with one hand, set the glass down with the other, and tapped rhythmically on the refrigerator.
Impossible! Jill instinctively shook her head again and again.
The revelation that Umbrella Corporation had the backing of the American military had already filled her with frustration and made her head ache. She instinctively refused to face an even worse possibility.
"All right, a friendly reminder: compared to the enormous profits of biological weapons, what could possibly be more valuable than that?"
Like a devil tempting a lamb to contemplate the dark nature of the world, Kevin's words were deeply meaningful.
What could be worth more than Umbrella Corporation developing genetic weapons? Jill could not make sense of it.
Kevin smiled faintly and revealed the answer in a low voice. "Vaccines!"
"After the nightmare at that abandoned sanatorium on the outskirts of Raccoon City, you should understand how infectious this Gene Virus is. No known antibiotic or specialized medicine can suppress its onset."
"So if this Gene Virus broke out across all of Raccoon City, how much would you be willing to pay for an antidote when faced with the threat of death?"
Without question, everything!
Almost no one could resist the fear of death! Jill reached a definite answer in her heart.
"If they went even more insane and spread the Gene Virus across the entire world, every government would be willing to pay any price for a vaccine."
"At that point, the profits would multiply by hundreds of times!" As Kevin laid it out, his own train of thought became increasingly clear.
The conclusion he reached was simply shocking to Jill! Yet somewhere in her subconscious, it also felt impossible not to believe it!
"Then apart from that, what exactly is the worst outcome?" After thinking briefly, Kevin's eyes gleamed with penetrating insight.
"Judging humanity from the stance of God with the Gene Virus, cleansing the entire world, and redistributing all resources and power!"
"At that time, Umbrella Corporation will no longer merely be a giant in biopharmaceuticals. It will become the ruler of a new era!"
His self-asked, self-answered lament unfolded the blueprint of the mastermind's plans for the world's future, piece by piece!
Before you continue