Chapter 34: Anomaly Catching Anomaly

How to Kill What Doesn't Die (8)

Inside a dark room.

In a corner of a warehouse piled high with various boxes and objects.

A man was silently holding his breath, desperately pressing his hand over his mouth.

"―――――"

The man quietly swallowed.

It had already been several years since he joined the Anomaly Management Bureau.

He thought he had become somewhat accustomed to facing and dealing with all sorts of bizarre and terrifying things.

But the procession of countless monsters he had just witnessed was beyond anything he could handle.

No matter how many flashes of light burst from the gun barrels, they instantly closed in on him and his team.

Literally tearing the Agents to shreds.

―_―__―__Thump, thump, thump_

He could hear the sound of them walking down the hallway.

He was the only one who managed to escape from there.

The faces of his teammates, with whom he had been sharing silly jokes just this morning, were still vivid in his mind.

As they screamed and died, why did he abandon them like a coward and run all the way here?

…No, he had no choice. It was unavoidable.

This was reality, and he was not the protagonist in a novel.

Against unidentified monsters that bullets couldn't even penetrate, all he could do was pray to God for salvation.

―――Creak

"…Hiss!"

The warehouse door began to creak open.

Clearly, one of those monsters had reached this place while rummaging around in search of prey.

The man desperately hoped that it was a rescue team, not a monster, that had opened the door, but the heavy footsteps that followed only brought him despair.

'Please just go, please just go…!'

A desperate prayer.

He had already used up all his ammunition, and he had no means left to resist the monster.

If he was discovered by that thing, only certain death awaited him.

The monster began to rummage through the room.

Acting as if it knew someone was hiding inside.

His heart pounded violently at the sound of the warehouse items crashing and breaking.

Finally, the monster's heavy footsteps reached near the boxes where he was hiding.

His heart was beating so fiercely that it felt like it would burst at any moment.

The monster, whether it knew someone was hiding inside or not, stood still in front of it for a while――

―――Creak

As if something had changed its mind.

Without doing anything, it simply left, leaving only the sound of the door closing behind it.

"…Haaaaaa."

The man let out a sigh of relief.

Perhaps because he had been holding his breath for so long, the air felt incredibly sweet.

Of course, the outside was still teeming with monsters, and whether he could safely escape from this place was still uncertain.

But in any case, he was still alive, wasn't he?

The fact that he was alive.

He was grateful for that one fact, and as he looked back on his life so far.

―――Screeeeeech

At the sound coming from right in front of him.

He felt a shock that momentarily stopped his heart.

The monster's face, piercing through the boxes he was hiding behind and instantly thrusting itself right in front of his nose.

That artificial face, filled with unpleasantness and disgust, was plastered with the blood and flesh of someone he must have killed.

"―――Ah."

Lips that couldn't even form a scream let out a weak moan.

The man tried to run away from it, but soon realized that his body was frozen with fear and wouldn't move.

And with the thought that even if he did run, he wouldn't be able to escape from this thing.

He simply accepted his fate with dull eyes.

The monster's head shook violently.

Was it excited to find its prey, or was it mocking him for giving up on life?

That face, as if the original had been forcibly torn off, was shaking violently in front of the man.

And then, with a trembling appearance, it stretched its physical form upwards.

―――Snap!

With the sound of something being forcibly torn apart, it was instantly separated from its body.

As if the intense movements of just a moment ago were a lie, it listlessly stopped moving.

"――――?"

The man's mind was filled with countless questions at the incomprehensible sight.

The monster's face, which had rushed in as if to devour him at any moment, suddenly convulsing and tearing itself apart.

What was going on? Did it tear off its own neck? Or was it deceiving him like before?

The monster had already stopped moving, but the man's terrified body still wouldn't move.

After some time, when his wildly beating heart had calmed down a little.

The man was barely able to see someone riding on the monster's back.

"You…"

It was a small girl with chestnut-colored hair.

Young and frail, a child who couldn't survive without someone's protection.

But in this situation, such a girl's appearance was extremely out of place.

In this place filled with monsters that tear people apart in an instant, the girl's unblemished appearance.

It was a sight no different from seeing a rabbit standing unharmed in a pack of hungry lions.

"Get out. It's dangerous here."

With a flick, the girl threw something she was holding.

The man was wary of the unidentified girl who had just appeared, but the girl didn't seem to care about the man's appearance at all.

After saying a word to him indifferently, she began to walk out of the warehouse.

"Wait a minute, wai――"

As the girl went outside, the man hurriedly stood up and followed her.

He still hadn't properly grasped what had just happened, but he was still aware of the fact that there were many monsters roaming outside.

Whether it was out of meager sympathy, or because he didn't want to cause unnecessary commotion and attract the monsters.

Even though he instinctively felt that the girl was not an ordinary human, the man reflexively got up and ran to warn the girl that it was dangerous.

To catch the girl, he opened the door and went outside, and what unfolded before him was.

"…Oh my god."

The hallway was filled with the fragmented remains of monsters.

The man's eyes were mixed with fear and awe.

The sight of those monsters, who never stopped advancing even when showered with so many bullets, being so violently crushed and scattered.

He couldn't even imagine how much force would be needed to make this possible.

The man was lost in thought at the overwhelming sight, as if an armored unit had swept through.

―Tap tap

Feeling small fingers poking his thigh, he belatedly came to his senses.

He looked down to face the girl who had poked him.

"It's safe over there. Run straight ahead."

The girl pointed her finger in one direction of the hallway.

The walls there were torn apart to the point where it wouldn't be strange if they collapsed, and the floor was covered with so many monster remains that it was barely visible.

But the man could see that the gruesome scenery was actually proving that it was safe.

Anyway, there wouldn't be any more monsters left in that place.

"Hey, who are you――"

The man's gaze, which had been directed towards the girl's fingertip, turned back to the girl's face.

But the girl, who had certainly been there just a moment ago, had already disappeared.

As the man hurriedly looked around, he could only see the girl's back as she had already reached the end of the hallway.

"H, hey…!"

He called out to the girl in a hurried voice.

He still had many things he wanted to ask the girl.

What the girl's identity was, whether she had dealt with all these monsters alone, and why she was going in the opposite direction from where she had pointed out was safe.

But even though the girl turned around at his call, he hesitated, unable to find anything suitable to ask.

"…Th, thank you."

In the end, he could only utter an awkward thank you.

The girl also made a light snorting sound, as if to say, "What's that?"

Without looking back again, she passed the corner of the hallway and disappeared from sight.

Quite some time had passed since she had been running towards the place where people's screams could be heard, smashing the dolls that blocked her path.

'Found it.'

Number 19 was able to find a doll with distinctly different characteristics from the dolls she had encountered so far.

After concluding that the doll with the spiral window embedded in its chest was definitely the culprit behind this incident.

Without a moment's hesitation, I charged towards the peculiar doll.

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