Chapter 460: Out Of The Basement

If that happened, Lilianna would be forced out of her virtual pod and forcibly end the match right there. Then, that action could’ve potentially created some kind of error or two.

And if Lilianna had been really forced to be ejected mid-match, it meant that something had gone wrong with Lilianna.

Which meant that something had probably also gone wrong with everyone else at the Seaside Estate.

Which meant that, right now, while Neville was sitting on the floor of the waiting room asking for someone to help him, his real body was lying limp in a pod in a place full of real people who probably had real problems on their hands.

Neville thought about that anime again. About the protagonist who couldn’t get out. About what had happened to the sleeping body of the protagonist while the protagonist was sleeping.

If his body was left unattended.

Anyone could just take it.

"F*ck, I really got the worst luck ever," he said, and curled his hands into fists on his knees.

Grayson. He thought, Grayson must be having a hard time right now.

Because there was no way Grayson could be that cautious without a reason, and he was probably at the lowest priority right now.

Because theoretically, as long as no one touched the virtual pod he was in, that was the safest place he could be.

But even though he knew it was reasonable, his chest still tightened uncontrollably.

Neville sat with that thought for a good while before he stood up. He dusted off the back of his fake pants and started thinking.

Okay. Now then, what did he have?

He had himself, his avatar, in a locked waiting room. He had his standby mecha. He had no access to Shelly since she was muted and currently doing her time-out in the system’s space because she had shared too much information.

He couldn’t access his own system inside the virtual world without Shelly. Without Shelly, there was no place to spend points to somehow get out of here.

But Neville had one thing he could still do. He tested it and tried to move to the mecha customization room.

Suddenly, the floor beneath him pulsed once, and then the lobby walls did a soft dissolve and reassembled themselves into the hangar.

Neville could still teleport between his own private rooms.

He still couldn’t change accounts, but he could now move. It wasn’t much, but it was still better than staying in one empty space and being trapped in endless worries.

Damn, it seemed that I really had to sit this one out.

Neville’s blood boiled just thinking about the people outside. With this, he could somehow distract himself from losing his sanity.

Let’s just think about this like a mini-vacation.

○●○●

AAAHHHHHHHH!!!

Ciel lifted his head sharply and looked at the mecha simulation room.

Thiago caught on to his expression and confirmed that it wasn’t just him who noticed.

"Listen," Thiago said.

A scream.

Sarah had just screamed.

Iris was already gripping her plasma gun tightly.

So was Bryan, who had his eyes narrowed and said to Iris, "Stay here."

Julius and Colonel Vane didn’t say anything but ran towards the mecha simulation room.

Since there were already two armed, experienced people, Iris felt that it was unnecessary for more people to follow them.

"Bryan," she called.

Before Bryan could even ask what it was, Thiago and Ciel were already at the doorway of the mecha simulation room.

Pete was about to come over, too, when the floor under their feet jumped.

The foundation of the building was flexing upward by maybe three centimeters and slamming back down. The holographic displays stuttered, and the bottles on the bar clattered against each other.

They barely managed to keep their balance on the ground when a second jump happened. This time it was accompanied by a wet noise.

TAK TAK TAK

Something huge was walking fast on the basement stairs. There was a crack on the walls, and then the panel splintered outward in a long, ugly diagonal.

Through the splinters appeared a head. It wasn’t a head, but rather the front end of some creature.

Glossy chitin ridged in long parallel ribs. Four mandibles folded along the sides of a horizontal slit of a mouth and two clusters of eyes.

The thing pushed forward, and the rest of it came into view: a segmented body the length of three sofas and six legs each tipped in a hooked claw.

A zerg.

A huge zerg.

By its size, it must have been some kind of zerg that would have taken an entire mecha squadron to bring down, and usually with at least one casualty.

With that in a tiny living room, in a barely large house, and coming out of the tiny entrance of the basement.

This is bad, that was all Iris could think of with her wide, terrified eyes.

"Down!" Bryan shouted.

The zerg’s eyes found them.

The four mandibles flared open. The wet noise from its throat resolved into a terrifying, disgusting sound.

HRRRRAAAAAGHK.

The veterans in this room who had seen a zerg this big before did not stay stunned. They did not have the luxury of time to express their emotions in words.

"Iris—No, Pete—keep her behind you." Bryan, with his plasma gun loaded, ready, and aimed at the zerg, "Thiago, Ciel— flank. Don’t let it get out and run through the barrier."

"I’ll go ahead," Thiago said.

"On it," Ciel said, already moving.

Bryan and Pete dropped back, putting their bodies between the zerg and Iris.

Bryan began to fire while Thiago and Ciel got into position.

Thiago and Ciel split up.

Thiago went left, hugging the curve of the sofa. His plasma gun was coming up clean and level.

Ciel went right, faster, much faster. His rabbit beastman ears showed up, semi-transforming, as he bounced his way around. His shota-cute features sharpened murderously.

Both of them opened fire at the same time.

PSHEW. PSHEW. PSHEW.

The plasma bolts were ugly close-quarter rounds, the kind designed to crack chitin at point-blank.

Thiago’s first shot took the zerg in the side of the head.

PSSHRT

A chip of carapace the size of a dinner plate spun off and embedded itself in the ceiling.

Ciel’s first shot punched a clean black scorch into the segmented joint of its third right leg.

The zerg’s body lurched sideways with a grunt that shook the chandeliers again.

It didn’t go down easily.

As expected of a high-ranking zerg that escaped alive from Grayson’s hands, Bryan thought as he watched Thiago and Ciel fight.