Chapter 506.1: Ah Fuck...

“Holy shit! Slime Mold?!” Night Ten gripped his rifle tightly, nervously glancing around while unconsciously blurting out a sentence that mixed mandarin with Federation language.

At that moment, he finally understood what had triggered his intense sense of danger.

Jiang Xuezhou frowned. Though she didn’t want to engage with him, her curiosity got the better of her. “What is ‘holy shit’?”

Night Ten quickly revealed an awkward look. He had no idea how to explain it properly and he eventually coughed, “It’s... It’s just an interjection. Don’t mind me.”

An interjection?

Jiang Xuezhou frowned even more deeply.

From the very beginning, she had had a nagging feeling that the Enterprise and the New Alliance were conspiring about something, or at the very least, keeping something from her.

Especially seeing Night Ten chatting and laughing with Su Ming, her sense of unease only intensified.

“Mutant Slime Molds don’t exist without a Mother Body or a Hive.” Surveying the surroundings, Meng Liang spoke grimly. “There are spores and fungal patches here. That means there’s at least one Mother Body or a mature Hive nearby. We need to be cautious.”

Without a word, Yunyi strode over to the terminal beside the door. Her fingers danced over the touchscreen. Soon, lines of pale blue code flashed rapidly across the screen, so fast they were unreadable.

“What’s that?” Night Ten leaned in curiously.

“Connecting to the shelter’s security system,” Yunyi replied concisely. “The access card granted us visitor rights. We can use that to do a few things.”

Night Ten froze for a moment. “Visitors can access the security system?”

“Normally, no. The security system is part of the administrator’s core privileges. But clearly, there’s no administrator here.”

Glancing at the fungal patches on the wall, Yunyi continued, “According to the shelter’s default protocols, if no administrator is appointed, some permissions are passed down. We can’t change the system rules, but we can access the map and control the main doors.”

Hearing this, Night Ten became visibly excited. “Then the elevator outside...”

Yunyi sighed and cut him off impatiently, “I said the main doors, not the elevator. The elevator is under the administrator’s privileges.”

In other words, everyone else still needed to find a way to get an access card.

Or... They could have someone on the inside obtain administrator privileges.

Realizing he couldn’t call for backup, Night Ten deflated like a punctured balloon.

Honestly, after what he’d seen on Shelter 404’s level B6, he really didn’t recommend clearing this kind of high-difficulty dungeon with just a handful of people.

It wasn’t that he lacked confidence in his combat skills. There were just too many techies present and too few combatants!

Yunyi, Meng Liang, and the D-class Researcher from the Academy didn’t look like combat-capable types. As for that Wislander officer, it was hard to say whether he or Battlefield Cheerleader was stronger. Night Ten’s perception wasn’t weak, but he could only tell so much without the other side showing off their strength. All he knew was that the guy wasn’t weak.

Wally crossed his arms and glanced at her. “How do you know all this?”

Before Yunyi could answer, Su Ming chimed in for her. “She used to work for an organization related to the Shelter Project.”

“Oh?” Wally immediately shot her a meaningful look.

At that moment, the alloy door to the left of the hall suddenly creaked open, revealing a long, narrow corridor behind it. Maybe something had triggered it, or maybe it just malfunctioned after years of neglect.

Night Ten, Su Ming, Battlefield Cheerleader, and Wally all instinctively raised their guns toward the opening, but saw nothing move. The corridor was completely empty.

Although the wall lamps were on, the large swaths of stains, like dried blood, still sent chills down their spines.

It looked like a horror movie set.

Jiang Xuezhou flinched slightly at the smell of rot wafting from the corridor and involuntarily took half a step back.

Though technically a combat personnel, she had always worked as a drone operator. She was never so close to the frontlines, and certainly never diving solo into ruins like that.

“Hey... Are your guys really still alive?” she asked uneasily, looking at Yunyi. “Maybe we should head back and regroup?”

“Heh, didn’t you hear what that guy said? Our access cards already logged us as visitors. Even if we go back, we’ll still be the ones who have to come again next time,” Wally mocked, casting a teasing look at the clearly frightened researcher. “If folks like you from the Academy are scared, you can go home. Retreat isn’t in a Wislander’s vocabulary.”

Battlefield Cheerleader barely held back a laugh. Night Ten couldn’t help but chuckle, his shoulders trembling. But for the sake of teamwork, he quickly turned his head away.

“He’s right. Even if we want to bring more people, we’ll at least need to get administrator access first,” Yunyi said calmly, glancing at the open door.

“I didn’t say I’m scared... I’m just being cautious,” Jiang Xuezhou muttered through clenched teeth, forcing herself to not take more steps back.

There was no way she could return alone.

If she abandoned such an important mission, her mentor might kill her. That man didn’t believe in teacher-student relationships.

Just then, Yunyi spoke again. “It’s done.”

Meng Liang immediately looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “What’s done?”

“The map, and the access logs for several main areas.”

The access logs could help them infer how many sub-entities were in each area, and track where the Pioneer’s crew had gone.

For instance, eight people came down via elevator earlier, and all sector doors remained locked, so it was safe to assume they were all still in the main hall...

Wait a second.

Eight?

Yunyi paused as she stared at the access record numbers, then swept her eyes across the six people present. When her gaze landed on the robot dog behind Jiang Xuezhou, she finally relaxed.

It made sense that the robot would also be logged as a visitor. That hulking thing was probably considered a part of their group. It shouldn’t be a system bug.

Withdrawing her hands from the terminal, Yunyi traced a line in the air with her index finger. A pale blue screen unfurled along her fingertip, forming a flat blueprint.

Then, grid-like 3D walls rose from the surface, presenting the shelter’s entire structure in three dimensions.

“The layout is surprisingly compact. There is only one floor. That saves us a lot of time. Based on access records, 80 people entered this shelter half a year ago. The last recorded log was in Zone X-13. There’s an archive room and a living area there... I suspect they went to gather supplies and look for cryo-pods.”

“Our primary objective is to head to Zone X-13. Regardless of whether those 80 people are still alive, we need to verify their status and save any survivors.”

“However, there’s a big problem. As you can see, this shelter is completely overrun by Slime Mold. Based on the logs, I estimate the Mother Body is attached to the reactor. When we entered earlier, it sensed us through the spores. All signs indicate its metabolic rate is increasing.”

“So before we rescue the crew of the Pioneer, we need to deal with the awakening Mother Body,” Su Ming said with a frown on his face.

“Any good ideas?”

“The reactor has a fire suppression system.” Yunyi looked toward the reactor room on the map and continued calmly, “If we activate it, the safety system will release coolant into the reactor chamber. That system can cool a reactor core at temperatures of over 100,000,000 degrees. Freezing the Mother Body shouldn’t be a problem.”

“But wouldn’t that cut the shelter’s power?” Jiang Xuezhou asked softly.

“It would switch to a backup power source,” Yunyi replied concisely. “Backup systems usually hold one to two months of energy. Even if the reactor shuts down, there won’t be a blackout.”

Meng Liang asked with a frown, “So how do we activate the fire suppression system?”

“Two options,” Yunyi mumbled, “Use the terminal in the administrator’s office, or activate it manually.”

“I vote for the administrator’s office,” Wally spoke up suddenly, drawing everyone’s attention.

Seeing the eyes on him, he grinned and said naturally, “We’ll need administrator access eventually, right? Might as well start there.”

That made sense.

Even Battlefield Cheerleader nodded. It seemed the Wislanders had a few people with working brains too.

But Yunyi shook her head. “You’re right. We’ll need that access sooner or later. But there’s a problem. Our current access level is only a visitor. We’re not registered in the shelter’s personnel roster. Even if we reach the terminal, we might not gain full administrator privileges. And without those... We may not be able to trigger the fire system unless there’s a serious nuclear leak.”

Meng Liang asked seriously, “What’s the probability we can gain access?”

Yunyi thought for a moment and said, “Hard to say. 50/50, maybe. But we won’t get a second chance. If the Mother Body fully awakens and starts eliminating all intruders in its territory, we may not get another shot.”

Night Ten studied the map for a while, then frowned. “So to be safe, we need two teams. One for the administrator’s office to gain access, and another for the reactor room to manually activate the fire suppression system.”

Going to the reactor room, then to the administrator’s office would be another option, but the two locations were a bit far apart.

“We need three teams,” Su Ming added seriously. “Top priority is rescuing the crew of the Pioneer. Ideal City is watching. Whether or not we get control of the shelter, we must bring those people back.”

“You really think they’re still alive?” Wally chuckled and pointed to the hallway. “This place is a wreck. I bet most of them are fungus chow by now.”

Ignoring the sarcasm, Su Ming said calmly, “Alive or not, we have to check. That’s why we’re here.”

“I agree,” Yunyi added, “And the chances they survived are actually quite high. Slime Mold hasn’t spread to their Zone yet. Even if we don’t get administrator’s access this time, rescuing them before the Mother Body fully wakes up is still a win. We can come back when it goes back to sleep again.”