A crescent moon hung high overhead. Beneath its pale light, a figure clad in a black bodysuit, with a pair of animal ears atop her head, moved through the silent forest, leaping from tree to tree through the dense woods.
"Why here?"
Following the traces left through the forest, Zeta finally reached a certain location and stopped. She landed on the branch of a large tree, pulled out a map of Midgar, and searched it until she confirmed her current position. Then she frowned.
"How is the case Shadow-sama is dealing with connected to those two?"
Though she muttered to herself, Zeta's hands did not slow. Powerful Magical Power erupted from her palm and slammed into the ground, revealing the entrance to an underground facility. Faint streaks of blood could be seen along the walls near the entrance, and a thick stench of blood and rotting flesh immediately poured out.
"Ugh…"
Zeta grimaced. The weather was already hot, and the horrific smell that had been fermenting all day inside the sealed underground space was especially brutal for a Therianthrope with her keen sense of smell. Just standing at the entrance made her feel as though she had been punched in the head. Her vision swam, and she nearly fainted on the spot.
Yesterday, Shadow-sama had appeared during her confrontation with Beta and told them that he would personally deal with the disappearances occurring throughout the Kingdom of Midgar and the Cult of Diablos' recent movements. After that, she had managed to reach a tentative truce with Beta and turned her attention to investigating No. 712, who had escaped from Shadow Garden headquarters, as well as Subject 711, whom No. 712 had taken away from Itogami Island.
After following the trail for some time, however, Zeta discovered that the clues surrounding those two seemed to be connected to the Cult of Diablos experimental base Shadow-sama had said he wiped out last night.
But... how had she managed that?
Questions filled Zeta's mind. No. 712 was a special individual from another world whom Beta had brought in, someone fundamentally separate from Shadow Garden. Even now, Shadow Garden maintained a strict information blackout around her, doing its best to keep her from making contact with the outside world.
Under those circumstances, making contact with an organization like the Cult of Diablos within roughly three days of leaving Shadow Garden was already hard to imagine. Especially when she had spent two of those three days trying to take Subject 711. Shadow Garden and the Cult of Diablos were both so deeply hidden that their conflict had practically become a game of Werewolf.
Unless... No. 712 had already been in contact with the Cult of Diablos before leaving Alexandria. That was the only way she could have become involved with them so quickly. But if that was true...
"Forget it. There's no point thinking about it now. I'll know once I go down and take a look."
Putting those thoughts aside, Zeta sighed as she stared into the dark corridor ahead. Given the choice, she truly did not want to enter. The smell of decay inside was far too much for a Therianthrope like her.
But she had no choice.
She stepped into the base, carefully making her way around the corpses on the floor while watching her surroundings for any traps.
As for the possibility of someone still alive coming out to attack her, Zeta had not even considered it. It would be far more surprising if anyone had survived inside a Cult of Diablos stronghold that Shadow-sama had already swept clean. Besides, anyone who tried living in a place like this would probably die from the smell alone.
"Creak..."
Zeta came across a sealed room. Partly out of curiosity and partly because she could no longer stand the stench outside, she opened the door and stepped inside to catch her breath.
The room's lights came on. Zeta drew in the hot but at least normal-smelling air and let out a relieved breath before beginning to inspect the room and its contents.
"..."
A huge amount of dirty clothing had been thrown into disorderly piles across the floor. Combined with the discarded materials nearby that smelled of construction equipment and machine oil, Zeta guessed that this room had been used by the Cult of Diablos experimental base to store waste from its experiments.
But...
Zeta examined the filthy clothes scattered across the floor more closely. Most were ordinary clothes worn by ordinary people. Some, judging from their styles and sizes, clearly belonged to children. None resembled the distinctive black coats normally worn by members of the Cult of Diablos or the white clothing given to experimental subjects.
In other words, the owners of these clothes were most likely the people who had been mysteriously disappearing throughout the Kingdom of Midgar.
Had they been killed?
No. There was no blood on the clothes.
Zeta had always followed the principle of slandering the Cult of Diablos whenever possible, but even she could not believe that the owners of this mountain of clothing, enough for tens of thousands of people at minimum, had all obediently stripped naked and stood around waiting to die. Nor would the Cult of Diablos have gone to so much trouble simply to collect their clothes.
Zeta silently rose to her feet. After confirming that nothing was hidden among the garments, she casually struck the pile and set the entire heap of rubbish ablaze.
Then she left the room and continued down the corridor toward the Core of the base. Every door she encountered along the way had already been violently broken open, but beyond corpses that had been dead for some time, she found nothing.
Just as Zeta began wondering whether she would leave empty-handed tonight, she arrived at the Core of the underground base.
It was an enormous subterranean chamber hundreds of meters high despite being buried deep beneath the earth.
The most eye-catching thing in the underground plaza was the massive structure rising from its center. Its colossal form easily spanned the entire underground space, stretching all the way to the surface as though it were holding up the entire base.
The structure consisted of an upright white-gold pyramid and an inverted black-gold pyramid. Brilliant, intricate patterns covered the surface of this enormous marvel, while tier after tier of steps had been carved into the exterior of the upright white-gold pyramid below.
"A load-bearing pillar...? Probably not."
Zeta's first thought was that this magnificent structure served as a support for the underground base, but she immediately rejected the idea.
The scraps of architectural knowledge she had casually picked up from Eta were enough to tell her otherwise. More importantly, the Cult of Diablos had recently been busy dealing with Shadow Garden and various other factions. They simply did not have the resources to build some gigantic marvel that existed purely for show.
Zeta looked it over from every angle, but when she still could not find anything obviously wrong with it, she gave up.
Pushing off with her feet, she began ascending the steps carved into the upright white-gold pyramid, heading toward its summit, the point where it met the inverted black-gold pyramid.
When she reached the level directly beneath the top, Zeta stopped.
It was not because she did not want to go any farther. The highest level of the upright white-gold pyramid and the highest level of the inverted black-gold pyramid were joined together as the same layer. There was simply nowhere to stand above her.
"Sniff, sniff, sniff..."
Zeta's nose twitched gently.
Most of the underground base was littered with corpses, but more than a hundred meters above the ground, the smell of rotting flesh was not yet strong enough to overwhelm her completely. Her sensitive nose was still barely usable.
She sorted through the scents in her mind, filtering out the smells of earth, construction materials, and decaying flesh.
Then Zeta opened her eyes.
She walked around the highest level where the two pyramids connected. Before long, she stopped, summoned the golden wheel into her hand, and swung.
The structure, made from some unknown material, exploded beneath her attack, leaving behind a deep crater.
At that moment, Zeta caught a fleeting glimpse of a drop of blood.
She reached toward the spot where it had disappeared. Feeling the faint dampness against her fingertip and seeing a trace of red mixed into the dust and debris, Zeta fell silent.
"A drop of No. 712's blood? Is this what I've been tracking?"
Now that she understood what she had just seen, her confusion only deepened.
What was this strange structure for?
Why was No. 712's blood here?
What exactly had happened in this place?
"Hm?"
Zeta looked up at the black surface above the square platform and noticed a small indentation directly overhead. Against the otherwise perfectly smooth surface, it stood out immediately.
"Tap!"
She coated her feet in Magical Power and jumped upward, planting herself upside down against the black surface. Running her fingers over the small indentation, Zeta fell into thought.
"There should have been something here."
She dropped back down and stared at the square platform in front of her, hesitation entering her eyes.
She was considering whether to destroy the entire marvel.
With her strength, it was nothing more than a particularly large structure. Even if it had been made from special materials, one strike from her would be enough to destroy most of it.
Whatever its purpose might be, the Cult of Diablos had built it. That alone was enough reason to destroy it without asking questions.
The real problem was what would happen afterward.
The collapse, and the possibility that news of this place would leak out.
This structure certainly was not a support pillar for the underground base, but its sheer size was still a problem. If she destroyed the single point where the two pyramids intersected, the resulting chain reaction could easily bury her alive.
Zeta had never actually tested whether she could dig her way to the surface from several hundred meters underground.
And if she could not...
There was another problem with triggering the destruction of the entire underground base.
If the enormous number of deaths inside this place became public knowledge, the reaction outside would undoubtedly be huge. It might even alert the enemy and create unnecessary trouble for Shadow-sama.
After considering it again and again, Zeta finally gave up on the idea of destroying it.
She simply leaped down to the ground and recorded all the information she had gathered.
She could show it to Eta once Eta woke up. With Eta's Wisdom, she should be able to determine what these things and the special materials were meant for.
With that thought, Zeta carefully avoided the corpses on the floor and headed outside.
Yet just as she was about to leave, she suddenly stopped and looked at the decomposing bodies on the ground with a puzzled expression.
Something was strange.
Considering how thoroughly the Cult of Diablos and Shadow Garden had been playing Werewolf with each other lately, once an underground base like this was discovered, neither side would try to occupy it or defend it.
They would simply dispose of it by blowing it up.
Yet this underground base had been left completely untouched. The corpses were simply being allowed to rot and stink.
Did that mean... this base had already been abandoned?
With that question lingering in her mind, Zeta closed the entrance to the underground base and silently took a deep breath of fresh forest air.
For the Cult of Diablos to ignore even the risk of exposure and not bother cleaning this place up could only mean that this base no longer mattered to them.
They did not care whether it was discovered.
But why?
A trap?
Was something dangerous buried underneath?
Zeta immediately rejected the possibility. She had detected nothing of the sort, and when it came to her own specialty, she had complete confidence in herself.
For the time being, it would be best to keep the others away from these underground bases Shadow-sama had already cleared out and observe the situation for a while.
Zeta silently made her decision.
Whatever the truth might be, one thing was certain.
This place was dangerous.
She looked up at the moon, then left the forest.
...
In a luxurious villa in the royal capital of Midgar, Cid and Kanade sat on a sofa. One calmly sipped coffee while the other looked around with sparkling eyes.
"Hey, Kanade, could you settle down a little? You're kind of embarrassing me."
Cid gave Kanade a disdainful look as she stared eagerly in every direction, then subtly shifted farther away from her. Sitting next to someone who had never seen anything like this before was seriously lowering his refined and elegant image.
"This is my first time visiting the home of a marquis's daughter. A genuine big shot! Everyone at school acts all friendly on the surface, but when they throw parties, nobody ever invites a lower-ranking noble like me."
Cid had to admit she had a point.
Just looking at the room's furnishings was enough to tell that only someone extremely wealthy could afford this level of luxury. Of course, he could arrange something even more extravagant if he wanted to, but it simply would not be worth the money.
"Still, don't act like that. This is Christina-san's house. Just sit down and have some coffee. It's your favorite, Mitsugoshi brand."
Cid had meant to comfort her, but to his surprise, Kanade instead looked at him resentfully, as though he had just shot an arrow straight through her heart.
"This is all your fault, Cid-kun."
"Huh?"
"You made me eat so much at your house that now I can't even eat the desserts Christina-sama prepared! And now that I think about it, the watches and fountain pens your friend sold you were all counterfeits. Maybe the coffee and chocolate were fake too... I got completely ripped off! I hate you, Cid-kun!"
The more Kanade thought about it, the more regretful she became. In a fit of frustration, she grabbed Cid by the throat and shook him back and forth.
Then she quickly stopped and stared speechlessly at Cid, whose eyes had rolled back.
"You're overreacting, Cid-kun."
"Oh, sorry. I'm used to my sister choking me."
"Uh... you've got it rough. I forgive you."
Kanade gave Cid a sympathetic look and even patted him encouragingly on the shoulder.
Just then, Christina approached with a smile, carrying a tray.
"The cake is here... Huh? Kanade, why aren't you eating? Is it not to your taste?"
"...I still hate you, Cid-kun!"
Kanade stared longingly at the cake, but her already stuffed stomach had no room for another bite. Furious, she grabbed Cid by the throat again.
Once the commotion was over and Christina had satisfied her own appetite, she checked the time and looked at the other two.
"It's almost midnight. Time for bed, you two."
"Almost midnight...? Ah, sorry, Christina-san. My stomach suddenly really hurts. I need to use the bathroom."
"Huh? But your luggage..."
"Could you two help make up my bed? Or I can do it myself when I get back."
"But..."
Christina opened her mouth as she watched Cid hurry off before she could finish.
"The bathroom is that way."
"Ah. Right..."
Kanade and Christina exchanged puzzled looks as they watched him hurriedly change direction.
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