"Unbelievable."
Boulder City.
Standing atop the colossal wall, Ibs stared toward the city center, his face filled with incredulous shock.
The tree-shaped spore cloud was churning restlessly, like a lush canopy swaying beneath a raging storm.
Clearly.
Someone had enraged that thing.
His astonishment gradually turned into fascinated interest. Ibs, who had stopped to watch, couldn't help clicking his tongue.
"After all this time, that thing was finally throwing such a huge tantrum... When was the last time?"
Twenty years ago? Thirty?
As he recalled, a group of not-quite-right Vault dwellers had seemed to go in there once. After coming back out, they had become even less normal.
Vault 117, perhaps?
But it didn't matter.
"Now this is going to be fun!"
Ibs's eyes gleamed with the excitement of someone who loved watching disasters unfold, as though he were waiting for a long-awaited movie. Blood would flow like rivers! Hurry up!
Ibs of Boulder Military Industries wasn't the only one watching the city center. A research vessel was also lurking dozens of kilometers away from Clear Spring City, safely observing from afar.
At that moment, Yang Kai was using the research ship's equipment to collect data on the mutant slime mold nest while maintaining contact with the Research Division at the Academy headquarters, reporting Clear Spring City's situation to his superiors in real time.
"A small Alliance ground force has entered the city center... Yes, that unit made up of Awakened. They cleverly used a series of maneuvers to lure away the Evolvers around the North Second Ring Road and entered that forbidden zone without fighting."
"However, their progress doesn't seem to be going very smoothly. The decoy force ran into Titans left behind by the 111th Orbital Airborne Division, and the team that went deep into the city