"Yeah. If it were really that simple, why would he need us?"
The burly mutants who had been standing there with their necks stiff and fists raised exchanged looks. At last, it seemed to click for them. Their clenched fists slowly lowered.
The sharper ones were already edging back toward the crowd.
"Pull him out."
Lane tilted his head slightly and signaled to the soldiers behind him.
By the time he turned back to face the others, the smile had already returned to his face.
The soldiers moved quickly. Everywhere they passed, the mutants naturally stepped aside.
A tall, gaunt young man covered in scars appeared in Dr. Lane's sight.
"Fenris..."
Just before the soldiers dragged him away, Fenris suddenly felt someone grab his arm, but the hand was quickly knocked aside.
"Fenris!"
Another shout followed.
Fenris instinctively looked back. Through the shifting gaps between the soldiers, he caught a glimpse of a red-eyed boy.
It was Ryan, his cellmate, and the person closest to him in this prison.
Bodies shifted. In an instant, everything behind him was blocked from view, and even the voices disappeared.
"Has Fenris lost his mind? If those people want to go, then let them. Why'd he yell?"
"Look at the wounds all over him. Anybody would crack after being cut open every few days. Maybe he just wants to die..."
"Who cares? Doesn't matter who goes. Staying alive is what matters."
Amid the whispers of the crowd, Fenris got his first look at the base's Dr. Lane.
"Fenris Etherreal. Level-Two Mutant. Ability: transforms into a lizard-man. Low combat capability, but possesses fairly strong regenerative abilities."
Dr. Lane tipped his head back to look at the young man in front of him, then offered a casual compliment. "You have very pretty eyes."
"Thank you, Doctor."
Fenris truly was grateful that things had gone this smoothly. "I'm very glad you chose me."
Lane reached out and lightly brushed a hand over the wounds on Fenris's body. He clicked his tongue, his eyes full of surprise. "People say I'm ruthless, but compared to the bioresearch people, I'm practically kind."
"All right. You'll do."
Dr. Lane waved a hand and turned to leave with the others.
Listening to the crowd behind him let out long sighs of relief, Fenris's ears twitched, and the corners of his mouth curled upward before he could stop them.
"You're not afraid of radiation?" the doctor asked, glancing sideways at him.
"Radiation?"
An image flashed through Fenris's mind: Godzilla crossing vast distances just to reach a nuclear power plant and feed on radiation. He almost laughed.
The Alkali Gene Research Institute was located in a remote part of New York State and covered an enormous area.
After entering the main building, Fenris followed Dr. Lane down in an elevator. They passed through dozens of strict security checks before finally stopping outside a massive room.
"This is my laboratory."
Dr. Lane pointed toward a heavy alloy door on the far side of the lab. "That's an independent reactor chamber. Due to an improper operation by one of my assistants, Reactor Vessel No. 3 now has a very small crack in it."
"Because the RPS has already intervened automatically to prevent the leak from worsening, your task is very simple. You just need to find the valve connected to Reactor Vessel No. 3 and shut it off."
Dr. Lane spread his hands. "Very simple."
"Then where did your previous assistant go?" Fenris asked, glancing around.
In the huge laboratory, only the two of them were present.
Dr. Lane lifted his head slightly from the control console, as if he had not heard the question at all. "Once you come out, I'll submit a request to transfer you here. Life will be easier for you after that."
...
No answer was answer enough. The doctor's reaction had already made the last assistant's fate perfectly clear.
"So the radiation level in there is much higher than I thought..."
The thought made Fenris's eyes shine. Looking at the majestic Godzilla on the first page of the Index, he felt, for the first time in a long while, that the smile on his face was hard to suppress.
The doctor mistook that expression for excitement over his future life and cheerfully handed him a protective suit.
Fenris took the so-called protective suit, which was alarmingly thin, and his smile vanished on the spot.
Forget the complex manufacturing process and stitching. Even setting aside advanced materials like polypropylene or PVC fibers, a burlap sack with a few sheets of lead nailed onto it would have offered more protection than this thing.
So they were not even bothering to pretend anymore?
"This is a specially made safety suit. Don't worry."
Dr. Lane gave Fenris a heavy pat on the shoulder and said earnestly, "I can guarantee with my personal integrity that you'll come back out."
"Yeah. Carried out on a stretcher, maybe..."
Fenris's eyelid twitched. Cloth blocking radiation. That kind of nonsense would only fool the uneducated.
He took a quick look at Godzilla's unlock progress. It was still stuck at a quarter, only a tiny, almost unnoticeable bit higher than yesterday.
With a quiet sigh, Fenris changed into the protective suit at an unhurried pace.
Dr. Lane simply watched. Once Fenris was ready, he pressed the button to open the door without hesitation.
After a soft mechanical rumble, the heavy alloy door slowly opened. Without needing any urging at all, Fenris slipped through the gap on his own.
Buzz.
The moment he entered, the door sealed shut behind him.
"So they really calculated that I wasn't coming back out?"
Hearing the sound behind him, Fenris curled his lip, then started surveying his surroundings.
The reactor chamber was quite large. Besides the broad control platform, there were several enormous reactor vessels and a network of large and small feed pipes.
"Just as I thought. The higher the radiation, the faster the progress lights up."
He opened the Index again. After pausing for a moment, the progress bar for unlocking Godzilla began advancing at a speed visible to the naked eye. Delight flashed across Fenris's face.
"Fenris, have you found Reactor Vessel No. 3 yet?"
Just as he was taking it in, a camera on the control platform suddenly turned toward him, and Dr. Lane's voice rang out.
"Looking, looking."
Fenris gave the camera a cold glance, then slowly began strolling around the lab.
As time passed, an inexplicable dizziness gradually spread through his mind.
His steps grew heavier. Every breath started to carry a faint metallic taste.
"It's hitting me this fast?"
Fenris braced himself weakly against his knees. Even though his thoughts were starting to dull, he could clearly feel that his already ravaged body was deteriorating further under the enormous radiation dose.
"Reactor Vessel No. 3 is ten meters to your right. Go check over there, quickly."
Seeing Fenris slowing down more and more, Dr. Lane began to panic and hurriedly urged him on.
He knew better than anyone how intense the radiation inside was. Fenris, already physically frail, absolutely would not last long.
And while the base had plenty of mutants, he could not keep pulling people in to die for him forever.
Fenris took shallow breaths and forced himself forward despite the burning sensation spreading across his skin.
"As long as it lights up before my body completely collapses..."
In just that short span of time, Godzilla's progress had already shot up to nearly fifty percent.
Almost there.
Almost there!
"Yes, yes, that's it!"
As Fenris slowly approached Reactor Vessel No. 3, Dr. Lane's voice from the other side of the surveillance feed grew noticeably excited.
"There's a tiny crack in the outer shell from the pressure surge. Listen carefully..."
Seeing Fenris nod, Dr. Lane continued directing him. "Follow the blue pipe straight ahead. That's right, that's right. About a meter high on your right, there's a black valve. Turn it clockwise more than three hundred times, and you'll shut it off."
"More than three hundred turns?"
Fenris had never planned to shut the valve in the first place, but even so, hearing that number left him stunned. "Didn't you say it would only take a minute?"
"I only just learned about that safety lock myself... Don't worry about the effort. Once you come out, I'll arrange treatment for you personally."
Dr. Lane's calm voice sounded over the speaker. After a brief pause, he added with special emphasis, "There's a small red valve next to the black one. Be very careful when you're turning it. Do not touch it."
"That's the pressure valve. It's connected to every reactor vessel. If it gets opened, the pressure will blow the remaining vessels apart. At that point, the reactor chamber's atomic radiation will erupt completely!"
"Under that level of radiation, this entire base will turn into a wasteland!"
"Hm?"
Fenris's eyes lit up.