It wasn’t a pleasant sound. Was it eating its own kind? Or a lab employee who hadn’t managed to escape after the chimera were released?

A glint of tension rose in Yoon Tae-ha’s eyes.

— Scylla is a chimera with poor compatibility with psychokinesis. I’ll send an esper to assist you. Who do you want?

“An ice-type.”

— Understood.

She had to assess the situation before the assisting esper arrived. Yoon Tae-ha pressed her body to the floor and slipped through a 20-meter-long passage connecting the buildings.

As soon as she entered Building 3, she hid behind the security team’s desks on either side of the passage. She rolled her eyes to check the interior and frowned.

The hatchery was grotesque.

All the capsules, which were much taller than a person, were empty. Under the broken capsules, a viscous, light green liquid was thickly pooled, and bloodstains were visible among the glass shards. The thought that the numerous chimeras she had encountered were born and raised here made her stomach churn.

Where did the sound come from?

Carefully surveying her surroundings, Yoon Tae-ha easily found the source. It was because a creature resembling a slime was crawling out from between huge tanks, like the main tank of an aquarium.

It was Scylla, a chimera created by forcibly stuffing numerous monsters inside a giant slime. Scylla’s body was slimy like a slime, but it could harden its body when attacking enemies. It was also immune to flames.

Extending one long tentacle, Scylla was devouring a chimera that looked similar to a bull. It was only natural that she couldn’t expect any sense of camaraderie from Scylla.

‘A person.’

Behind a capsule a little distance away from where Scylla was eating. A researcher, who seemed to have been unable to escape, was crouching. They were barely hidden behind the capsule, but it was only a matter of time before Scylla noticed them. Scylla’s eyesight was very poor, but it was sensitive to sound.

Moving to a blind spot, Yoon Tae-ha stuck the access card tightly to the floor and sent it flying with psychokinesis. The access card arrived on the lap of the researcher, who was in a state of panic. The woman, who found it, hurriedly looked around.

Looking for someone to help her with desperate eyes, she soon found Yoon Tae-ha and widened her eyes. Yoon Tae-ha put her index finger to her lips to tell her to be quiet. The other person understood and nodded frantically.

‘The problem is how to deal with that thing.’

Psychokinesis was a very useful ability, but it had one fatal flaw. It was difficult to counter attacks without form.

She was weak against natural attacks represented by fire and water, and also weak against monsters like Scylla that didn’t have bones to break. Being at a disadvantage in terms of compatibility was something that couldn’t be overcome with training.

‘Freezing it and then breaking it is probably the best option for now.’

Reassuring the researcher with hand signals and waiting for a moment, she sensed another presence nearby.

— Unicorn, Eagle Team has sent an A-class ice-type.

She hid behind a large medicine shelf with the arrived ice-type esper. She had to be careful not to step on the medicine spilled from the containers. A calm-looking male esper stood close by her side. Yoon Tae-ha whispered softly.

“I’ll lure Scylla towards the intact capsules and then douse it with the liquid. I’ll signal when I think it’s wet enough, then freeze it. Is that possible?”

“It is possible.”

“I’ll bring the researcher first.”

Having heard the answer, Yoon Tae-ha arrived in front of the researcher in the blink of an eye with teleportation. It didn’t even take five seconds to cover the woman’s mouth with her palm and return behind the shelf. It was a surprisingly swift movement that even the veteran esper from Eagle Team was impressed by.

“Wait here.”

With that last instruction, Yoon Tae-ha teleported in front of Scylla.

Scylla’s mouth was less like the mouth of a living creature and more like a giant sinkhole that swallowed anything alive. Grrr. The chimera with cloudy, cobweb-like eyes recognized the person.

Blinking its single eye slowly once, Scylla extended two more tentacles from its body. They looked like they could rot flesh just by touching it. The tentacles slithered towards her waist. Yoon Tae-ha cleanly severed the tentacles with Moglei.

They fell to the ground with a thud. But soon, they wriggled like earthworms and seeped back into the main body. Scylla’s eye narrowed.

Your attacks are useless.

Just let me eat you.

A hint of something similar to human emotion could be glimpsed from the chimera. The tentacles regenerated and attacked faster than before. Yoon Tae-ha pushed them away with psychokinesis. With her eyes, she scanned the capsules with the remaining liquid, drawing a path. The flesh was tough, so it was difficult to tear off with psychokinesis.

‘Let’s break all of those.’

At that moment, Scylla extended several tentacles and approached like a ghost, gliding smoothly. Calmly. In order. She lured the tentacles, teleporting towards the capsules filled with liquid.

Scylla aimed for Yoon Tae-ha, but her movement was faster.

The capsules broke, and the light green liquid covered Scylla’s slick body. Confirming that it wasn’t being absorbed, she provoked Scylla even more skillfully. Twisting the slimy flesh with psychokinesis as if wringing it, the liquid chimera instantly spewed out hundreds of tentacles.

— Approaching from the rear, swing behind you!

The assisting esper relayed the situation, seeing the blind spot. Yoon Tae-ha reflexively swung her sword.

Dozens of tentacles fell to the floor like overripe fruit. A splattering sound. A pungent stench. A slippery floor due to the liquid. One could easily lose their balance and fall. The muscles in her body began to ache stiffly.

Yoon Tae-ha cut and cut the tentacles that had become sharp like needles, luring Scylla. She could defend the areas her sword couldn’t reach with psychokinesis.

After breaking all the remaining capsules, she finally stood in front of the massive tank that supplied the liquid.

Scylla writhed violently and approached the tank. Its body was already soaked in the light green liquid.

“Get ready.”

— Standing by!

As Yoon Tae-ha clung to the pipe supplying liquid to the tank, Scylla seized the opportunity and charged. The chimera lashed out with hardened tentacles with fierce momentum. At the last possible moment, Yoon Tae-ha threw herself into the air, dodging the tentacles.

Spinning once in the air, she landed safely on the floor far from the tank. At the same time, Scylla’s tentacles pierced the thick tank. It was the spot where she had been hanging.

Whoosh!

Soon, a tremendous amount of liquid burst out, unable to withstand Scylla’s power. Scylla tried to quickly contract its expanded body only after being doused with the liquid, but Yoon Tae-ha had already given the signal.

“Freeze it!”

The esper behind the shelf immediately began to freeze the liquid pooled on the floor. The cold that started from him froze the liquid on the floor and reached Scylla’s body in an instant.

The tentacles that had stood sharply like porcupine quills froze instantly. Being A-class, the speed of cooling was fast. Panic stained Scylla’s eye.

Now the chimera realized that it couldn’t control its body as it wished. The heavy, slime-like body froze solid. But Yoon Tae-ha didn’t let her guard down and immediately teleported onto Scylla’s hardened body.

— It’s not completely dead yet. It’s moving inside.

“I’ll count to three, then we’ll separate this into the smallest pieces possible.”

— I’ll count.

— One, two, three!

Grasping the sword with both hands and raising it high, she brought it down like hammering a nail. The esper also put his power into the ice he had created. Cracks appeared on Scylla’s body, which received the force of both of them simultaneously, and then it shattered into pieces.

At the same time, the floor beneath Yoon Tae-ha also collapsed. While staggering, she sent several pieces of Scylla’s flesh flying in all directions.

As the unfrozen inner flesh wriggled and tried to regenerate, the esper froze the protruding pieces. And then he shattered them with his gun. The pieces of flesh, much smaller than the main body, could be easily destroyed with a gun for giant monsters.

Yoon Tae-ha straightened up among the roundly piled ice fragments. She shattered the surrounding chunks into small pieces with her sword, looking for green feathers. She didn’t even brush off the ice fragments remaining on her shoulder.

“Let’s collect this. I think Mago will like it if I bring it to her.”

Having found a green stone, she called the esper behind the shelf. He quickly approached, put it into his equipment, and closed the lid securely.

It was then that the trembling researcher walked out. She awkwardly approached, avoiding Scylla’s remains, and pointed to the passage leading to Building 2. And she rattled off like a machine gun that Dr. Palmer had been taken by ‘her.’

“Operations team. This foreign researcher seems to be saying that James Palmer was kidnapped by Echidna. She says she didn’t get stuck here because of Scylla, but that she hid here because of ‘her.’”

— Unicorn, we heard you. Please wait 30 seconds.

While waiting briefly, the male esper put his arm around the researcher, who was about to slump down due to weakness in her legs, and supported her. Exactly 30 seconds later, the operations team returned.

— Unicorn and Eagle 3-5, the current situation of Eagle Team is positive. They have defeated two of the six superior chimeras on the 1st underground floor. There are no fatalities. There are injuries, but they are minor. The leader of Eagle Team is currently engaged in combat with a superior chimera with self-awareness.

Yoon Tae-ha felt relieved inside after hearing the situation report. It seemed that the team led by Mago was also safely finishing their work.

— However, the whereabouts of most of the researchers and staff are unknown. It is presumed that Echidna has moved.

— Unicorn. Can you first enter Building 1 and confirm the safety of James Palmer?

“I will.”

The ice-type esper and the researcher headed to the aircraft together, and Yoon Tae-ha decided to move to the next building. The esper, supporting the researcher, briefly showed concern.

“Be careful.”

“See you upstairs.”

After watching him safely exit the passage, Yoon Tae-ha walked, patting her aching lower back.

Perhaps because she had been practically soaking in guiding for several days, she hadn’t yet felt the pain from a lack of guiding. Only the physical fatigue that any living creature would naturally feel was accumulating.

\*

The Green Hive thoroughly separated the facilities where chimeras were housed from the facilities where staff resided to protect ordinary employees. In addition, researchers were not allowed to freely move between buildings to prevent them from conducting experiments on chimeras without higher-ups’ permission and from stealing important data.

Building 7, presumed to be where Echidna was, was where the completed specimens were kept.

It was the building in the center of the seven hexagonal buildings. The only way to get there was through Building 1, the central administration building.