Chapter 275: I Did Warn You
So if they kept the dead here... That means there’s Anomalies inside this place right now, doesn’t it?
I looked back at my Guardians and they seemed to have come to the same conclusion as I have.
It’s honestly a miracle that these people are still alive at this point...
And if this was the general custom accepted around the world... I wonder how many other hideouts were also lost because they kept their dead somewhere believing this All Taker will take them away, only for them to transform into Anomalies and slaughter everyone inside?
I turned back to the survivors, "Could we... Check where you keep your dead?"
The guy with the scanner gun scowled at me, "What are you planning to do? There’s nothing there."
"No... Umm... This might sound crazy... But I think you have a few of those monsters in your facility right now... The dead you have stored in that room are most likely already transformed into monsters by now..."
"At least you already know you sound crazy because that is definitely crazy. They are with the All Taker now. I think you are just trying to take advantage of us."
"How does looking at your dead let me take advantage of you? Do you have anything else in there or something?"
"Wouldn’t you like to know?"
These people... I have half a mind right now to just force my way through at this point...
Thankfully, I didn’t need to as one of the women held the guy’s arm to whisper, "Let’s just take a look... Haven’t we been hearing weird sounds coming from that room for a while now?"
The guy hesitated for a moment before he took a step back and narrowed his eyes at me, "We’ll show you where it is... But if you try anything stupid... I’ll shoot you in the back of the head."
I nodded at him, stepping forward to follow them.
Unexpectedly, he raised up his hand when my Guardians tried to follow me to stop them.
"Not you guys. All of you will stay here and wait."
Olivia scowled at him, "And let you take him somewhere so that you can hurt him and claim that you attacked him out of self defence? Not a chance."
He looked like he was going to argue again but the same woman tugged at his arm to stop him while addressing us in his stead.
"Just one of you then. We’ll let one of you accompany him."
My Guardians looked at each other and it was quickly decided that Olivia would follow me while Dan, Liliac and Maylene waited for us here.
Olivia took position beside me and the woman led the way into their hideout with the other guy following behind us, no doubt ready to shoot us the moment we showed any hostile intent.
I quickly realised that she was following the same route as the blood splatters that we had seen the first time we got here.
I guess these blood splatters belonged to the dead people that they had taken inside to leave it for their ’All Taker’ to take away or something. And after dumping them in a room, they never went near that place to check what happened anymore.
The trail of blood led towards two sets of doors at the end of the corridor, seemingly splitting into two trails.
The woman turned to us with a glum look on her face, "When we were still accepting other survivors in our hideout... There was a mutant who broke in and wanted to enslave everyone here... We fought back and we managed to kill him but... He also killed quite a number of us."
"Did you dump all of the bodies in a single room?"
She shook her head and pointed at the door on the left, "We left the mutant’s corpse in there for the All Taker. Our own people were placed in the other room."
She continued to lead the way towards the two doors while we followed behind her.
But as soon as she got close to the doors, the door on the left suddenly exploded off its hinges as a large, muscled hand broke through the door and grabbed the woman by the head.
She let out a scream as she was smashed against the wall, her neck snapping from the impact with a loud crack.
I realised it was the larger sized monkey wolf Anomaly, the one that would ambush you when it detects your presence through smell.
Seems like these things were mutated from mutants...
I watched as the woman’s corpse fell lifelessly to the floor before the Anomaly turned its head towards us, growling menacingly.
Olivia responded immediately as she charged into the Anomaly, ramming her shoulder against the creature to slam it against the wall.
The Anomaly tried to swing at her but she grabbed its throat and slammed it into the wall, smashing it against the wall and causing the wall itself to crack.
"Noooo!!" The guy with the gun cried out, dropping his weapon to run over to the corpse of the woman.
He cradled her and shook her lifeless body, crying out at her to wake up.
I’m going to make a guess here that she was his lover or a close friend of his...
I’m so sorry...
Footsteps came from behind me as the rest of the survivors showed up alongside my Guardians, most likely drawn here by the commotion.
What greeted them was the sight of the guy cradling the girl in his arms while Olivia was holding back the big anomaly with a single hand.
The Anomaly thrashed around a bit more before Olivia twisted her wrist, snapping the Anomaly’s neck as well just like how the woman was killed.
She then let the Anomaly drop onto the ground, its corpse falling with a resounding thud.
"What’s going on here?!" The guy who tasked us in finding his friends cried out.
I gestured at the dead Anomaly, "It was like we told you... The corpses turn into these creatures... This one was mutated from the mutant you guys killed and left his corpse here... I’m betting that the other room is also filled with these creatures too if we were to open the door now..."
The guy who was still crying on the floor looked up at me with clear rage on his face, "You!! This is all because of you!! She’s dead because of you, you bastard!!!"
I sighed, "I warned you... You chose not to listen..."
"If you weren’t here... She would not have come here!! Then she would not have been attacked!! It’s all because you insisted on coming here!!"
"These things react to scent from other organisms... If any of you had come down here any other time... It would have also broken out and most likely killed all of you because I don’t think any of you guys can take this thing down, can you?"
He didn’t answer but continued to glare at me, clearly still blaming me for his girlfriend’s death.
Olivia turned to me, "My Lord... Should we clear out the other room as well? I believe there’s more of them in here."
I turned to look at the guy who was more reasonable compared to the grieving guy, "Can we check the other room as well?"
He hesitated as he looked at his dead friend before nodding at me, "Go ahead."
Even with his permission, Olivia waited for me to nod at her before she moved towards the door, prompting it to slide open.
I wasn’t sure how many of them there were inside since I couldn’t see inside the room from where I was standing but I turned to my other Guardians, "Go help her."
Dan, Liliac and Maylene did not hesitate and stepped past me and the grieving man to join her, right as several loud roars came from within the room.
One Anomaly jumped out to lunge at Olivia but she simply gave it an uppercut to smash her fist under its chin, knocking it to the ceiling and smashing its head into meat paste.
She then jumped into the room, prompting sounds of fist smashing against flesh to echo out into the corridor.
Dan, Liliac and Maylene also jumped in after her and the sounds of battle filled up the room.
Aside from the grieving guy who was still holding his friend’s corpse and was glaring at me, the other survivors were just staring at the open door with a look of stunned disbelief on their faces.
I turned back to them, "I feel like I’m a broken recorder at this point but... Let me reiterate this again... The dead transforms into those monsters... So..."
All of them were looking at me, not understanding what I was getting at.
I nodded at the dead woman the guy was cradling, "She’s going to transform into one of them too... You might want to step away from her... We have to burn the body."
He furrowed his brow, "How dare you?!! How dare you suggest to humiliate her after what you--"
He didn’t get to finish his words as the corpse of the woman started to mutate, her arms elongating and her head splitting open to transform into a wolf’s.
Hmm... For it to transform so quickly... Seems like the miasma in this World is already quite thick.
He scrambled away in horror as he watched the woman he had been cradling earlier morph into one of the Anomalies, the creature snarling at him before lunging towards him.
Fortunately, I was prepared so I caught it in the air before smashing it against the wall, cracking its neck and killing it.
Sigh... I warned you, didn’t I? Do you believe me now?