"Are you really sure… it'll be alright?"
Even with Alain's encouragement, Lost Mita gazed at the seemingly bottomless black corridor ahead, her worry evident in her voice.
The player seemed to be observing every inch of darkness. He held his sword, his fingers lightly tapping in front of him, as if contemplating something.
"Leave it to Alain, you can relax."
The long-haired Mita—a girl who seemed to be called Misha—approached and offered words of comfort, her tone as gentle as ever.
Just then, Lost Mita noticed Alain make a new move.
The tapping of his fingers stopped, and he then gripped his greatsword firmly and stepped forward. As he did, he left a word of caution behind.
"You two stay in the light and be careful."
"Okay." Misha nodded without hesitation, muttering under her breath, "As expected of my darling, so cool!"
Lost Mita remained noncommittal.
During the siege, he had been their absolute main source of damage. Those bugs died by the dozens as they flew in.
"Please be careful! We'll support you at any time!"
At this moment, Alain had already stepped into the heart of the shadows.
The ceiling of the corridor did not sense his presence and light up; it remained shrouded in darkness.
Misha frowned. "The corridor lights… are they not working?"
As soon as the girl spoke, something strange happened on Alain's side.
Lost Mita watched his steps with concern. In a fleeting moment, she noticed a crimson shadow dart out from a dark corner.
"Player—be careful!"
But Alain's greatsword moved faster than Lost Mita's warning.
He seemed to have anticipated something being there. He raised his greatsword, turning its broad striking surface into a shield to protect his entire body.
With a resounding "thump!", Alain took a slight step back from the powerful impact of the crimson devourer.
"Found it."
His indifferent tone suggested he wasn't particularly bothered by this.
Through the corner of his sword's edge, he aimed at the crimson bug, which was momentarily stiff after its attack.
The greatsword, which had been a shield just seconds before, now transformed into a heavy hammer, smashing firmly into the ground.
With a deafening "boom!", the wind from the greatsword's swing caused the skirts of the two observing girls to flutter. The smooth skin at the top of their thighs was briefly revealed.
"Is this… really a dating simulation game?" Lost Mita covered her skirt, her eyes fixed on the greatsword in Alain's hand.
She couldn't help but wonder if this player had installed a mod for a fighting game.
Come to think of it, did he have eyes in the back of his head? Or was he using a full map hack? How else would he know there was an enemy there…?
Misha, similarly smoothing down her skirt, calmly pondered what she had just witnessed.
In her gaze, Alain's greatsword slowly rose after its initial strike.
The crimson bug, which had taken the full force of the greatsword, had its limbs shriveled up like dried leaves, yet it still hadn't died.
Alain frowned, and after piercing the crimson devourer's body with the tip of his sword, the enemy gradually turned into red error messages and disappeared.
Misha said, "Crimson devourers can withstand more attacks. Furthermore, their other stats are also significantly higher."
Alain picked up the thread.
"That's right. The feeling of hitting them is completely different from the white devourers. An elite monster?"
He opened the Security Guard panel.
Alain hadn't asked the two girls to come up together, not out of some gentlemanly consideration, but to allow Misha to properly observe the enemy.
Additionally, he wanted to test whether the Security Guard system itself, and even the system skill [Virus Scan], would be effective against the devourers.
The results were a mixed bag.
Virus Scan could indeed detect the traces of the devourers, in other words, the system defaulted to considering these bugs as viruses.
It just didn't verbally acknowledge it.
However, defeating these guys didn't increase the progress bar. In the future, he would still have to focus on being bullied by Misha and the bad woman.
It felt a bit twisted.
Finally, there was the issue of the Virus Scan's range.
The skill description stated that it scanned the current room for the location of viruses.
However, Alain and the others were in a corridor that was almost infinitely long.
He had originally wanted to see if he could exploit a bug: to include the entire corridor within the scan range.
Who knew that after activating the skill, only the area within a 5-meter radius of himself showed the directional arrows of [Virus Scan].
A complete 720-degree sweep.
And…
Alain's gaze shifted to the walls of the corridor, where holes had been gnawed out. He then looked up at the unlit ceiling.
It was as if the first thing the red bugs did after hiding in the darkness was to devour the code related to the lighting, thereby plunging the corridor into darkness.
And then, using this… to attempt a sneak attack on the three of them.
"Heh." Alain chuckled coldly. These bugs had already developed a certain level of thinking ability.
Getting back to the main point: he had the Virus Scan skill. No matter how they hid, he had a "mini-map" open.
Alain took a few steps forward, his feet landing in the deeper darkness. In his peripheral vision, a blue arrow pointed towards a corner.
There, a faint red light flickered almost imperceptibly.
Thump
The red bug, sensing its prey approaching, leaped out with swift speed, its bright red mouthparts aimed directly at Alain's head.
Alain, however, thought that while these guys had some thinking capacity, it wasn't much.
They completely failed to realize that the roles of hunter and prey had already been reversed.
Alain, who had already noticed the bug's approach, positioned himself, and guided by some kind of intuition, he aimed his sword at the red bug.
Still in its bug form, the crimson devourer naturally had little chance to dodge in mid-air and could only crash straight into the sharp blade.
With a "snap," it was split in half.
Then, from a slightly further corner, two more red lights burst forth, like arrows, heading towards Alain.
He really hadn't anticipated this; it was beyond the scan range. Alain mentally grumbled, not particularly surprised.
Because these bugs had absolutely no idea that he had teammates.
Swish
A baseball bat cut through the air in the darkness, its sound echoing, and with a single strike, it sent the enemy attempting a sneak attack flying into the corner behind Alain and to his side.
"Darling, I'm here to support you!"
Just as Misha's sweet voice arrived, the sound of a whip-like kick followed.
Thump
The second bug was similarly knocked back into the corner.
"Player!" Just as Lost Mita spoke, Alain quickly stepped forward, his sword sweeping horizontally, then pressing down to crush the two bugs into pixelated fragments.
"That makes three of them."
Alain exchanged a look with the two girls present. Misha instantly understood his meaning.
Lost Mita: ???
"Ah, sorry, that's just our unspoken understanding," Misha explained.
"Right, we need to speed things up and take down those red bugs."
"Oh… I'm so envious…" Lost Mita clutched her chest, her eyes filled with intense longing.
Alain interjected, "Let's not talk about that for now. We've got a general idea of these guys' strength, so we won't be caught off guard later."
He stepped forward, heading into the deeper darkness. The two girls followed closely on either side of him.
Alain's gaze, however, was fixed on a corner not far ahead.
"…That's a bit strange."
Looking back, the two understood the young man's meaning and entered combat stance.
As their vision gradually zoomed in, the silhouette in the darkness became clearer and clearer.
"Tsk… troublesome."
Alain complained. The Virus Scan arrows appeared. A total of nine arrows, all pointing to the same corner.
There, a devourer was absorbing the code of other red bugs.
Eight red bugs lay fallen beside it.
The red light on the surface of the bug's body grew increasingly intense.
____________
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