Kitty Killer Isn't So Cold

Stanfield hadn't been worried at first. Could an elite laboratory force really be defeated by a mob armed with clubs? In firepower, in the number of firearms, in combat experience... Stanfield had no reason to fear them.

But for some reason, as he looked at the priest before him, whose Halo and Light Wings were growing ever more radiant, Stan felt a bad feeling creeping over him.

"Destroying the church... harming the nuns... forcibly taking the children despite their cries... and finally trying to make those yearning for miracles abandon justice and righteousness with a mere document... You deserve to die!"

Seeing the priest's Halo blaze like the sun and his Light Wings spread wide like raging flames, the armed personnel who had already been on guard attacked him together as he raised his gun.

But compared to the six bullets that pierced across the battlefield like pillars of light, the mercenaries' offensive was instantly suppressed to its limit.

Blazing light wrapped in flames erupted from beneath the priest, and as the Laterano Law unleashed its full might, the believers' morale soared as they charged the armed personnel.

By the time Matilda dragged her brothers out from beneath the headless corpse, the children could only look helplessly around, not knowing how to leave the battlefield.

Matilda stared fixedly at the priest amid the flames. After declaring his Judgment upon the evildoers, his upright figure never emerged from that fire again. Little Cat only remembered the promise this stranger had once made.

Though the girl had no idea how he had done it, he had kept it...

He had defended the freedom of the three of them with his life.

But... after the flames lit by his life went out, what should she do?

The little cats watched helplessly as the scene became a complete massacre of the believers, clinging to one another.

They... couldn't find their way home at all.

PS:

PS2: Let me say a little more about Arknights lore...

Everyone usually thinks guns in Arknights are generally only called Firearms Arts, but when I was looking through the setting book yesterday... I stared blankly at the entry that said, "Firearms Arts, also known as guns," for ages... Doesn't that mean they can be called guns?

Rosemary's Embrace: 018 What the Fuck Are You Talking About?

The information center of Loken Watertank was located on the upper floors of the test area building. It relied on the rooftop water tank supply system for cooling and provided comfortable warm water to the entire compound around the clock.

Considering it stored the experimental data and research results of the entire test area, its security system was not particularly tight...

Although the security room was right next door, the mercenaries had taken over all security for the test area. The guards who should have been protecting the information center with all their strength were nowhere to be seen... The mercenaries had sent them all to the outer checkpoints.

While the frontline mercenaries were still struggling against the booby traps Nana had set, everyone in the rear had been summoned to establish a second defensive line in the test area. Along the way, Nana encountered several squads of mercenary guards running forward. They were rushing to reinforce the second line and had left only one "battlefield control" operator in the security room, someone who couldn't possibly keep watch over so many screens alone.

Miss Killer didn't make things too difficult for him. After using parachute cord to invite him to take a good nap in the monitoring room's storage cabinet, she casually pulled out the surveillance hard drive and reset the system, ensuring no one would notice the traces she had left along the way.

After that, it was time to properly head to the data center and find information on Kate and Cole...

Just as Nana thought she would once again have to deal with all sorts of strange security measures and bizarre traps, things began to go unexpectedly smoothly.

Other than the rather heavy security door, Nana encountered no further obstacles in the server room. The entire information center contained only two maintenance workers, their backs to the door as they watched a worthless rock music channel on TV.

The television was apparently turned up loudly enough to produce sound waves, so neither of them heard anything. Nana simply let them go and walked straight into the server room.

Amid the hum of water pumps, she stopped at the central terminal equipped with monitors and operating hardware... Nana began tapping lightly on the keyboard.

Although administrator access required another password, even visitor access was sufficient for the most basic searches.

Nana first searched for "Williams," but nearly every experiment had been interfered with or involved Williams. Even after sorting the more than four-digit—and rapidly growing—number of results by date... Nana stared at them for a long time without finding anything useful. The girl scratched her head and decided to reset the search terms.

"...Hmm, 'Bruce'... There it is... Sensitive data warning?"

I'm already standing in the information center. Who cares whether it's sensitive or not...? Irritated, the girl clicked confirm and continued.

To Nana's great surprise, the documentation for the Originium Crystal Organ Project was simply stored in the information center.

Skipping past the assessments of Originium Arts and technical terminology she had no interest in reading, the girl quickly flipped to "Sample Status":

"Sample Zero, 'Andy Bruce,' Originium Organ processing complete... deceased... Sample One, 'Cole Bruce'... Originium Organ adaptation failure, reprocessing complete?"

Though she didn't know what the file meant, the words "vital signs stable after processing" still made Nana breathe a sigh of relief.

With that relatively acceptable beginning, the entry for Sample Two, "Kate Bruce," stating that Originium Organ adaptation had failed, that she had been critically ill, and that resuscitation had succeeded, didn't cause Nana much emotional fluctuation either. As long as they were safe, that was all that mattered.

But just as Miss Killer searched for information on the laboratory's location, the sound of the television behind her interrupted her.

[...Columbia Broadcasting Radio is interrupting its programming with urgent news. At approximately three o'clock this afternoon, a vicious attack occurred at the DL-13 platform of Raisington City, a mobile city...]

[The incident occurred on Ring Road National Highway 332. More than four hundred armed individuals surrounded a corporate escort convoy near the local Laterano Church. Reportedly, more than three quarters of the dead were Oripathy patients...]

Without realizing it, Nana put down the workstation and moved behind the sofa... The girl stared blankly at the church engulfed in roaring flames, filmed by the news aerial drone.

Scattered medical personnel around the footage dodged the hoses of fire trucks, while every person visible wore biohazard Originium protective gear... Clean water from the fire hoses first washed charcoal into black ash, then carried bright red blood down the road.

The two rock music enthusiasts, however, seemed uninterested in the news. One of them said, "It's just Oripathy patients again, right?" as he picked up the remote to change channels... But a bullet fired almost against his ear shot through both the remote and the table.

"Don't move..."

"Ah... ah?! We surrender! Please don't hurt us!"

After freezing for two seconds, the technicians swiftly raised their hands. But because their hands blocked her view, Nana irritably slapped them aside and continued staring at the television.

"I said... don't move... Just don't move..."

[...Another urgent update. The ones fighting local believers and Infected workers were the Security Department forces of the local company, Loken Watertank... Just moments ago, Contingency Contract publicly condemned Loken Watertank for conducting inhumane and illegal human experiments. According to testimony from survivors of the church battlefield, they had fought the inhuman laboratory under the leadership of a priest from the Laterano Church in order to protect illegally experimented-on minors... But unfortunately, the three children were ultimately still taken away by Loken Watertank.]

[According to warnings just issued by the Meland Humanitarian Organization, the Meland Children's Rights Protection Foundation, and the Meland Scientific Organization, the evidence released by Contingency Contract is highly credible. The state government has ordered Loken Watertank's owner, Loken Williams, to halt his illegal research, and has ordered local troops to ensure the personal safety of those three poor children... Next, we will air our station's exclusive interview with the governor regarding this civilian armed conflict...]

"Um... you..."

Ignoring the network maintenance worker sitting there too terrified to move, clearly wanting to ask something but speaking in a mosquito-like buzz... Nana stumbled over to the dark sealed glass window facing the church. After shooting apart the window latch, she leaned out to look outside.

The embers of the fire rising as though into the sky left the girl silent for several seconds. Then Nana spotted several vehicles that had appeared at the checkpoint parking lot at some unknown time, and her face went pale.

Did that mean the people who had captured the children had already returned to the test area?

Wanting to confirm the situation, Nana quickly headed for the server room. But halfway there, she remembered the two people who had discovered her identity... so she dragged both of them along and threw them into the server room as well.

The expressions of the two grown men, thrown inside and slammed against the server racks until they nearly cried, were indeed worthy of sympathy. But Nana's next words gave them no time to cry:

"...Enter the administrator password."

"Huh? What are you going to do? No, no, no, you can't... If you want research progress data, you can download it directly. Everything's in there. The server room administrator password can't do much... If we enter it for you, our jobs are over!"

"I want detailed data on classified experiments, including the laboratory's exact location... Or are your lives less important than this job that could collapse at any moment?"

Though the church incident had filled Nana's mind with How did they find that place?, her body's instincts still made her quickly find the right words to make them obedient:

"Besides, Loken Watertank is about to meet its end. You saw the news... The government will hold them accountable, and the outside world is condemning them unanimously... What use do you think your secrecy will be? All I know is that if I don't get what I want right now, I'll have no choice but to ask you to die."

Irritably shoving the pistol's suppressor into one man's mouth, Nana watched as he desperately tugged at the other man's clothes with tears in his eyes. When the other server room worker saw that saliva-covered muzzle about to be pressed against his face, he swiftly gave up and agreed to Miss Killer's request.

"Fine! Fine, fine, fine, I'll log you in! Keep that muzzle away from me!"

"Hey, what the hell do you mean by that?" the other man muttered.

With no mood to care about the server room staff's infighting, Nana didn't have time to keep reviewing the experiment files bit by bit. The girl had even wanted to attack the laboratory directly as soon as she found its location...

Yet the killer's instincts stopped her from such reckless behavior. The server room's administrator access unexpectedly allowed her to see the highest-level permissions... namely, Williams's personal arrangements for the laboratory's automated security system.

No wonder the server room personnel had only agreed to enter the password when death was staring them in the face. Though the system couldn't be interfered with from here, administrator access showed clearly where the automated turrets were and where insufficient keycard clearance would turn a passage into a trap that imprisoned intruders.

Nana committed all those settings to memory, then looked at the two men, who didn't seem to know whether they were crying or laughing... and knocked them unconscious with a few punches each.

They weren't mission targets. There was no need to kill them.

Holding a bouquet and carrying a briefcase, Nana walked down the corridor in a white lab coat, trying hard to force her somewhat frozen brain to think.

How was she supposed to stop the experiment and save the Bruce family?

Cut the power?

Nana shook her head as soon as she thought of that method she had often used in the past, remembering the distributed Originium Engine power supply system in the Loken Watertank test area...

Cutting power to a single supply unit was meaningless. That lunatic Williams had not only installed four main power systems, but also three underground backup Originium generators.

Unless all four main systems lost power at once, the test area wouldn't be affected in the slightest. And even if she used explosives to simultaneously destroy the four power facilities located at the corners of the test area, she still couldn't deal with the backup generators beneath the main building... because those backup units were installed in the equipment room leading underground from the second defensive line.

Nana didn't have enough explosives, nor did she have enough time.

The words in Kate's file stating that she had once been critically ill because of the experiment were still vivid in her mind. Rather than slowly forcing the experiment to stop like she had in the past, Nana could now only directly intervene against the person driving the experiment forward.

"...Loken Williams..."

But when she thought of that crucial point, Nana remembered what her agent had told her before:

[...Our organization cannot interfere with them...]

[Because the military is still expecting Williams's results.]

In other words, unlike the Bruce family, whose deaths would earn nothing more than faint condolences, Williams couldn't be allowed to come to harm... Otherwise, it wouldn't just affect ICA's attitude toward her... Even her agent's organization probably wouldn't tolerate her.

Because his research was something that could change the world... while the Bruce family... were merely ordinary people whose deaths would have no impact on the world at all.

Before she knew it, Nana's walk turned into a jog... As the girl gritted her teeth, Miss Killer gradually went from jogging to running with her weapons and equipment.

There was no doubt this would greatly increase the chance of exposing herself... Not only would running make her equipment produce noise and attract attention, but entering the test area carrying flowers that might increase dust contamination would itself invite questioning.

But Nana couldn't care about any of that now. As though driven by instinct, she ran straight toward the test area where Cole and Kate were held, constantly scanning the people she encountered... searching for someone named Loken Williams.

"It's not that nobody cares about them... Those children... If Cole and Kate die... I'll be devastated... At the end of the day, Loken and the others are the ones in the wrong... They're conducting illegal experiments and harming children... I can't wait for the law to punish and sentence him. By then, it'll be too late for everything."

She used those words to convince herself to do this... something that had already gone beyond the identity of a killer, and might truly turn her into ICA's enemy...

Clearly, by all reasonable standards, she shouldn't have continued acting. This job not only brought no reward, it would put her in danger and might cause her agent a great deal of trouble...

But... was she really supposed to do nothing?

Even Nana herself couldn't convince herself of that.

After all, the contract had already been signed.

Killer Seventy-Seven had never intended to abandon a contract.

She would never betray any employer... much less a contract she had made with herself.

Suddenly... the test area gate at the end of her vision opened, and a middle-aged man engraved in her memory appeared before her, surrounded by a strange Security Department squad.

All of Nana's unease, hesitation, worry, and confusion vanished in that instant.

She became Number Seventy-Seven once more.

And Number Seventy-Seven was a killer... No matter how many things she learned to do, her final actions always seemed to be for the sake of killing the ultimate target.

It was as though even time had slowed down. To Number Seventy-Seven, it no longer mattered what the target was chattering to his "assistant" beside him about, things like, "...When the time comes, we can just surrender to the military..."

The briefcase in the girl's hand was casually thrown aside. The killer violently tore open the rose box in her arms. As crimson petals slowly drifted down, she mercilessly stepped on the flowers that landed on the floor—then shifted into a standing firing stance.

The shotgun she had hidden all along saw the light of day once more. As its muzzle pointed at the target, Number Seventy-Seven pulled the trigger amid the terrified screams of several nearby researchers.

[First Shot]

Black muzzle flames surged forth, and dense pellets struck directly into the monster that had thrown itself forward to shield the target, clad head to toe in iron armor, crossing its hands before itself in defense.

Even shotgun Etch Rounds enhanced by Sarkaz Witchcraft only tore open the iron-armored monster's arms, exposing its modified metal skull. Bright red flesh splattered everywhere, and together with the smoke of the Etch Rounds, triggered the corridor's automatic fire suppression system.

[Second Shot]

The fragments that erupted again passed through the curtain of water like an iron rain. The sprayed mist painted a deep crimson scene amid the chaos... Red and black liquid flowed along the walls and corridor, and the girl let her white cloth shoes be dyed in color... She had seen this sight on television only a short while ago.

Number Seventy-Seven's expression remained calm. Flames burned in her eyes, while a river of blood flowed through her heart.

[Third Shot]

Empowered by both the Law and Witchcraft, the gun seemed to flow with magma. Its thunderous blast, as enormous as a city-defense cannon, swept back and forth... The laboratory windows, covered in cracks, were finally shattered to pieces... Meanwhile, the upper half of the iron-armored monster serving as a shield was torn apart, leaving only its relatively intact lower body to slowly collapse.

But another identical monster stood behind it in the same posture! Behind it was the source of all this misfortune... her target.

In Number Seventy-Seven's cold eyes, the man whose expression was almost identical to hers seemed unsurprised that things had developed this way.

His expression was equally indifferent... And after their eyes met, he merely turned around silently, then disappeared behind the airtight gate from which he had emerged.

Don't run!

At the girl's silent rebuke, the bright red blood on the floor began to flow backward. But that surging tide of blood was still one step too slow and was shut outside the door.

Nana could only turn the sea of blood into arms and angrily smash aside the monster blocking her path.

With its legs "gripped," it had become like a club. Filled with rage, the girl used it to hammer the gate again and again... But the airlock seemed as immovable as if space itself had frozen around it.

Seeing this, Miss Killer used the [Fourth Shot] to kill the monster controlled by the sea of blood, then manipulated the blood to spread from her body toward the shotgun... Amid the sharp hiss of instant cooling, the blazing heat like cracks in molten lava transformed into red mist.

This gun wasn't Nana's Guardian Gun. Being able to fire four shots with it had already brought her near its limit.

The white lab coat girl was drenched from head to toe, covered in bright red stains. As a Halo and wings made of black mist finally spread through the corridor, the girl's [Fifth Shot] aimed at the end of the corridor, which had triggered the alarm and been completely sealed shut.

Although Miss Killer had never intended to judge anyone, she could still wield the Law's power of "Judgment."