Endzone: Simulated Apocalypse

As the loud gunshot on the outside went off, the four mutants inside immediately reacted.

"What was that…?" One said—the first Stage Two Mutant so far who was capable of intelligent speech.

The tallest and bulkiest one of the four who looked to be their leader pointed at one of the other three mutants. "You, stay here and keep an eye on the cameras. The rest of you, come with me."

"Yes, sir!" The three other mutants saluted, and the leader along with two of them headed out the doors…

… Brushing directly past Cyanide and Kirika, who hid in their invisibility right around the corner.

Once they were safely out of earshot and investigating the floor, the two slipped into the room without any delay before the doors slid shut automatically, where the mutant who had been ordered to stay behind sat, carefully looking at all the different cameras on-screen with those non-existent eyes of its.

Too bad he was about to die.

Swift and deadly, Cyanide drew his knife and stabbed the mutant directly in the neck while grabbing it by the hair, then forcefully tore its head off its deranged neck as he sawed through it with his knife.

As one would expect, mutant blood exploded from the wound like water gushing out of a fountain, but after experiencing what happened with the two canine mutants during the first Scarlet Hour, Cyanide was prepared. He instantly kicked the body forward and leaped back so that he was well out of the range of the pouring black liquid, and Kirika, who had simply been watching, averted her gaze, not wanting to witness such a gruesome scene.

As the body of the mutant disappeared and Cyanide leveled up to Level 27 without gaining any items particularly noteworthy, he took his gun back from Kirika, then holstered it on his hip. Earlier, the reason he had her shoot it instead of himself was because he had the [Silent Shooter] passive skill, which—quite regrettably—could not be manually turned off. Because the bullet would've been silenced completely, the 'distraction' would've been utterly useless. As such, he needed someone else to shoot his gun, and Kirika was the perfect choice.

"Luna, can you do anything from here?" Cyanide asked quietly, glancing at all the security camera feeds being displayed on the walls.

"Yes," Luna replied, to Kirika's surprise. "I should be able to access and configure all the other cameras in this entire laboratory from here, but it will take some time."

Cyanide nodded. "I see. Then-"

But suddenly, Kirika's aura sensing abilities picked up on several presences approaching them, and she quickly turned to Cyanide.

"Cyanide, the guards from before are coming back! We need to get out of here!"

But as usual, Cyanide didn't panic, remaining as calm as ever, and shook his head slowly.

"It's too late to run… but not to hide."

After glancing around the room, he suddenly reached forward, grabbed Kirika by the forearm, and slipped underneath a table in the room while pulling her with him. Before Kirika even knew it, she was underneath Cyanide, and opened her mouth to protest, but Cyanide covered it with his hand. Their faces were mere inches apart, but strangely, only Kirika was flustered. Cyanide didn't care one bit, and instead kept his focus on the guards who were about to enter the room.

As if on cue, they heard the sound of the automatic doors sliding open, and the three guards who went to investigate outside came back into the room. Naturally, however, they found their fourth comrade nowhere to be found, and were confused.

"… Where did he go?"

"Was he… killed while we were away?"

"… Tch. They must still be on this floor somewhere. You two, find them! I will alert the others!"

"Yes sir!" The two mutants saluted as the third began walking away, turning his attention away from that room.

Big mistake.

Cyanide, waiting for a moment like this, suddenly kicked up the table they had been hiding underneath, taking the two guard mutants by surprise, but it was too late. Kirika drew her katana as fast as wind, and cut through both the table and the mutants in a flurry of swift strikes—the [Star Splash] sword skill.

"Hm-?!" The third and final mutant, who had been walking away, heard this commotion and turned around…

… Just in time to see a bullet fly towards it.

"Nrgn—!" It was struck directly in the forehead, but Cyanide wasn't done just yet. For good measure, he let out another two bullets, striking the mutant in the heart and neck respectively—both vital organs.

The mutant gurgled a bit in pain once more, staggering backwards, before finally collapsing to the floor and turning into shards of light shortly after. Cyanide lowered his gun, holstered it, and observed the notification that popped up in front of him amongst others:

[Obtained Security Pass Level Two x1.]

"… And that's that."

Because the last mutant was a strong one with more HP than the others, Cyanide had to use more than one bullet to take it down. Otherwise, he would've conserved. That mutant needed to die, though, as he could not allow the other guards in this place to be alerted of anything. You would think in a world as advanced as Endzone, underground radio communication would be a thing, but then again, much of the planet was destroyed as a result of the apocalypse. Hell, even electricity was just recently restored to the city thanks to Cyanide's efforts.

"No more mutants on this floor, correct?" Cyanide asked, and Kirika nodded.

"None I can sense. Though… there appears to be some… below us?"

"Right," Luna added, hard at work hacking through the security cameras of this underground lab. "This is just the first floor—there is another right below us, according to the cameras I can access. If you just give me a few moments, I can make them all set to loop infinitely, which will make getting around a bit easier for you two once you head down."

Cyanide nodded, and together, they decided to take a short break here in this room. Cyanide took this time to distribute his newly obtained 20 CP into STR and INT respectively (10 each) since now that he had unlocked Weapon Arts, it would be wise to further enhance his base attack power—both physical and Soul Arts. INT affected Weapon Arts as well, but the exact influence depends on the skill.

For example, upon reading the skill's description in further detail, Cyanide discovered that the [Vampiric Blade] Weapon Art's duration after initial activation varied depending on how much INT he had, with a base duration of 5 seconds plus 1 second for every 5 INT stat point he had. In other words, with his current INT stat of 45, the [Vampiric Blade] Weapon Art would now remain active for a total of 14 seconds after initial activation.

Some Weapon Arts like [Shock Ray] had their Soulforce cost reduced as there was nothing else that could scale based on one's INT stat, but others had more than one factor that could scale with it. For example, Cyanide's [Toxin Air] Soul Art's damage per second and duration both scaled with INT, whereas only the duration of [Petrify] did and only the damage of [Skulls of Hell] upon the skulls' explosions did.

In conclusion, now that he had access to Weapon Arts, the INT stat was more important than ever. He still wouldn't prioritize it over STR, AGI, or VIT, but if those three stats were looking fine, then leveling up INT was never a bad idea. DEX and LUC, on the other hand… well, they were only useful if he was planning to use complex weapons or craft advanced items using rare drops. Cyanide preferred simplicity above all else, since being a professional assassin meant he wanted the least hassle possible in his missions.

Meanwhile, Kirika was busy with Luna talking about Weapon Arts and all that. She had just reached Level 25 and unlocked them along with Cooking, so she needed a good explanation of them (and Cyanide sure as hell wasn't doing it). Sure, this was supposed to be her A.R.S.A.'s job, but she and Luna had formed a bond that Cyanide couldn't quite comprehend how or why.

Either way, even though they were taking a break here, they couldn't afford to wait that long. As such, Cyanide decided to conserve the 2 SP he had and carefully choose what to spend them on later, once they got back from this place.

… Or, perhaps, if he ever needed a movement skill to escape certain death like Kirika did, there was always that too.