The helmet was a high tech, with an identification locator, and located 16 contaminants in the dark sewer that could no longer be seen in their original shape.
The helmet had a filter, Zelda couldn't smell the stench, but it was obvious that it was supposed to be fishy here, and the broken and rotten flesh scattered on the ground, not very scary, Zelda had been used to seeing monster corpses for a long time after all.
The horror was what came from the corpses.
The blood droplets were precipitated from the corpses and floated in the air, some of them stayed in the shape of a droplet, some of them had mutated and they were trying to search and climb on anything as if they were alive.
The blood droplets were still floating slowly upwards, swimming like jellyfish and flashing red.
Zelda was in the middle of it and thought she had stepped into some ancient mystical cave. From a certain aesthetic point of view, it was surprisingly eerily beautiful.
Zelda recalled what the instructional video had told her, that the spores precipitated by the contaminants don't actually die after their vital signs have completely gone, and that they try to find new hosts.
The hosts can be humans, plants, animals, and even some of the contaminant spores can attach themselves to inorganic objects. Like walls, tiles, and robots.
Valerie said that the robots short-circuit because the contamination spores can affect and infiltrate machines and even hack into networks. It seems that these blood drops are contamination spores.
Contamination spores can't be eliminated, they can only be collected.
This is why the field needs to be cleared completely. The contamination spore that was used as a demonstration in the instructional video was only one, but now they're full of the space, which shocked Zelda.
Two rustles sounded behind her, and Clara and Adrian landed as well.
Clara: "I'm surprised you didn't throw up."
Zelda hasn't thrown up till now, Clara thinks that any person no matter how their first reaction to seeing this was physical nausea, and Zelda is the first newcomer she's brought up so far who hasn't thrown up.
Zelda: "......"
Well, it wasn't like she couldn't vomit a little to fit in, but there was little need to. Despite not throwing up, the things were specially pretty gross.
"Tch," Adrian frowned, "water-based contaminants are just a pain in the ass."
"What's wrong with the water-based?"Zelda asked.
Clara: "The water content is too high and the contamination spores are more active."
In that case, it did, and the blood droplets Zelda saw floated faster than the ones apparently in the instructional video.
With a rumble, the hole above was suddenly blocked by an iron plate, and all light sources were lost in a flash. Someone outside had blocked the entrance.
"Don't be afraid," Clara said, "It's just standard procedure, mainly to prevent contamination spores from overflowing, and the passage will open after we're done."
That's make sense. Still, being trapped in a closed sewer felt pretty suck, Zelda moved her neck a bit.
Clara said, "This is a Level E mission, not difficult, and the pollution concentration isn't very high, so we'll be done soon."
The floating speed of the contamination spores was limited, and the contaminants hadn't been dead long enough to start spreading faster.
According to the data Adrian had just stated, the contaminated area was 2,500 cubic meters, the size of a standard swimming pool. This volume of the contaminated area is not accurate, the actual contaminated area is far more than the data given.
Zelda found this job quite interesting, she had only been in charge of battles before, she had never been involved in such detailed logistical work.
"Be careful," Clara said, "don't get contaminated by the spores."
The spores were easily parasitized by contact with the skin, so their "overalls" were tightly wrapped. She was, after all, a brand newbie, and could easily plant herself if she messed up on her first day of sheltering contaminated spores.
Clara made a demonstration, she took out a straw-like device from her backpack, and carefully touched the "blood droplets" floating in the air with the tip of the straw.
There was a click and the blood drop was sucked into the transparent straw.
The back end of the straw is connected to a transparent box, after the blood droplets enter the box attached to the bottom, every ten blood droplets together, automatically be summarized into a cube of tiny size.
The whole process is extremely comfortable for an obsessive compulsive to watch. Clara moves slowly, it's a delicate job, much like ...... picking cotton.
Zelda's mind popped up an inappropriate analogy, they seem like a picking team.
The workflow was to collect the contaminated spores first, and then to clean up the bodies, also adds the soil, water, rocks, etc. that had been touched by the blood. In the end, they have to scrubbed the whole space to make sure that no contaminated spores are left behind.
Turns out it's really about cleaning up the trash.
Zelda joined the cotton picking squad and touched the contaminated spores with a straw. After the contaminated spores were housed, there is a sudden click in her head.
Purification System: [Primary contamination, Purification Value +1]
Purification value? What's that?
Zelda tried again, and the voice in her head clicked once for every spore she took in. It was as fun as a game upgrade.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Zelda's movements were getting faster and faster, beside her Adrian was looking at her in wonder, because normally newcomers were here to mingle, it was the first time he saw such an active newcomer.
Zelda felt her arms getting a little stiff after a while of doing this, she now has 45 points of purification, Zelda asked, "How long left?"
Adrian: "An hour, I think."
Cleaning up the trash is a physical job, not exciting or thrilling, it was purely endurance, Zelda found the process quite healing.
Clara: "If you can't handle it mentally, you can ask for a break Scott."
Zelda: "How I can't handle it?"
Clara: "There's no way our coveralls can completely insulate you from contamination, they can only ensure that you won't be parasitized by contamination spores, but it's hard to defend against the mental contamination brought on by the spores."
Zelda's hand shakes it off, instantly feeling a little nasty about them. The spores emitted contamination all the time, and even if they were physically blocked, there was no way to completely block it mentally.
Zelda: "What are the symptoms of the mentally contaminated?"
Clara: "Mild symptoms are vomiting, nightmares, fatigue. Moderate symptoms are psychosis and hallucinations. A guy before had it pretty bad, he had thought he was a two-headed pink lotus."
Zelda: ".......?"
Is that much sacrifice on the job?
Clara: "More severe symptoms would be aggression, or belief in cults and monsters, suicides, homicides, countless cases."
To put it simply, the drawbacks of mental pollution won't reach the same level as parasitism, but it can scramble your brain and make you act erratically.
Clara asks, "How are you feeling now?"
The most crucial thing to be concerned about newcomers is the effect of contaminants.
Zelda feels it carefully and cautiously says, "I don't feeling much."
She really didn't feel anything. Clara quirked a look at her, quite unusual for Zelda.
"I can't stand." After a while, Adrian was sweating profusely and said, "I need to catch my breath."
Zelda heard some pain in his voice and asked, "How?"
Adrian: "Just stay away, the closer you get the more contaminated you are, normal contaminants can't be felt far away from 1 kilometre."
Sounds right.
There is a distance limit to contamination, otherwise wouldn't it be horrible to have so many contaminated spores around the world continually radiating contamination with no distance limit?
Clara: "Scott you go too."
Zelda tries to say she's fine, but Clara gestures at her. Does that mean she should take care of Adrian?
There weren't many spores left, there was about a fifth left, and it seems like Clara would be fine on her own.
Zelda put down her tools and followed Adrian, the place they were in was some kind of sewer in the Federal, District 103 was supposed to be the dumping ground, the entire garbage of Federal had to be transported to District 103.
The sewers were all over the place, Adrian led Zelda deeper and deeper into the sewers, there was no additional lighting, they could see purely by the night vision of their helmets.
Adrian went far, and if you didn't know better, you'd think the guy was trying to lead on her away so he could kill her. Probably out of caution, Adrian walked more than 2 kilometers before stopping.
Adrian took off his helmet and took a deep breath, "I'm suffocating."
Adrian's face was pale and his forehead was covered in sweat, he looked as sick as he was. Zelda hadn't been affected by the contaminated spores and kept her helmet, she asked, "Are you okay Adrian?"
Adrian cursed, "Fking headache."
Zelda knew Adrian had a bad temperament when she first met him, but he's obviously a little more cranky now... is this mental contamination?
Zelda looked at Adrian cautiously and asked, "Should I put your helmet on?"
The code of practice tells that to expose skin is fatal, and better not to remove the helmet, and Adrian is acting more like a novice than he is.
Adrian: "I can't breathe with it on."
He feels like he's suffocating, and it seems to get worse.
Adrian's eyes are starting to redden, and his intraocular pressure seems to compressed the capillaries in his eyeballs, and blood is slowly surfacing in his eyes.
But he feels only a slight itch in his eyes, rubbing them desperately. Zelda took half a step back, not moving to touch the gun on her belt.
There was no way she could tell if Adrian was infected.
"Should we report it to the Ross?"Zelda thought about what the workbook said about reporting to one's superiors at the first sign of suspected contamination, and promptly withdrawing from the mission if necessary.
Adrian: "No, I'll just take a break, we've work to do later."
It didn't sound as if his sanity was out of whack, but Zelda didn't remove her grip on the gun; she'd realized that the only danger on this job was her teammate!
Workbook number two: always be aware of your teammates.
True to the experience of her predecessors, Zelda kept a close eye on Adrian as she pondered whether or not to report it.
Suddenly, a rustling comes out
Zelda frowns, what's that noise?
Rustle, rustle, rustle.
Is that from Adrian? No, Adrian is rubbing his eyes, the sound appears to be further closer.
Rustle Rustle Rustle Rustle Rustle Rustle Rustle Rustle Rustle Rustle
Something seemed to be moving in the distance.
"Did you heard it?"Zelda asked.
"What?"Adrian rubbed his eyes for half a second, his whole body revealing a blank stupidity.
Zelda reacted extremely fast and quickly drew her gun, pointing it into the darkness.
Adrian was not in a good mental state, suddenly seeing Zelda with a gun, he instantly awake."What are you doing?" Adrian was startled by her, "Put the gun down Zelda, I’m not contaminated!"
Adrian immediately reacted, Zelda may think he was contaminated and wanna kills him?
Cleaners have to be careful to watch out for teammates going crazy, Zelda was watching out for Adrian and Adrian was watching out for Zelda, they both thinking each other get contaminated.
"Hey hey, take it easy," Adrian says, "We don't have a permission to shoot."
In order to prevent the cleaners from killing each other, all the sidearms were set with permissions so that they couldn't fire at all unless instructed to do so by their superiors.
Wait, Adrian suddenly frowned, Zelda was holding the gun in a very standard, very steady position, her hand didn't even shake.
Zelda could use a gun?Why would a 19 years old girl know how to use a gun?Where did she get the experience?
"There's something behind you."Zelda said.
Adrian was confused for a moment before he reacted to the fact that it wasn't himself that Zelda was pointing at, it was something behind him.
Adrian turned around, behind him was a dark sewer, no lights on, and his helmet's night vision was limited to darked.
"What's that?" Adrian was more afraid of Zelda than he was of his behind, he just glanced back quickly and turned back, not daring to leave his back to Zelda in the slightest.
"Could you please put the gun down first?"
Zelda stared into the depths of the darkness and speak to the public channel, "Are you there Ross? I'm requesting permission to open the gun."
Clara didn't answer back on the public channel, Zelda didn't know if she heard it or was weighing the pros and cons. Adrian can hear it too of course, and thought why is this girl so reckless, there isn't a third person in this sewer besides the two of them.
Adrian didn't want Zelda to get into trouble on her first day of work, "Calm down Zelda, there is nothing behind me I promise."
Zelda didn't look at Adrian and repeated, "Requesting open weapons access Ross."
Zelda looked into the depths of the darkness with certainty and turned on the flashlight on her wrist. With a brush, the flashlight instantly shone a hundred meters away.
Rustle, rustle, rustle.
A rustling sound came from far away, the flashlight light caught something and Adrian's body froze, now even Adrian sees it.
It was a man, suited and booted, wearing a red tie and carrying a briefcase, his white shirt was a little dirty and his pants were in wet.
Just by the way he was dressed, the man looked a lot like just gotten off work. Zelda's flashlight moved upward, and a spot of light hit the suit man's face.
There was no head above his neck. No, to be precise, there was no human's head on his neck. Where the original place had been was replaced by a huge fish head, and upon closer to see there were even the scales on his neck that flashed with cold.
A ...... fish head man wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase?
The fish-head man's lips were facing the sky, his mouth pouted, and a fist-sized eye stared at Zelda, he clearly had no human expression, but it makes people think that this fish is badly tired.
"Excuse me ......" the fish-headed man spoke up, with a very eerie bubbly voice, "Is the last train here?"
"Contaminant!"Adrian blanched and instantly put on his helmet.
Adrian pressed the mayday button, "Reporting a live contaminant, requesting unlock the… fk!!!"
Adrian didn't finish his sentence, only to see the fish-headed man in the distance suddenly waving his arms and barreling towards them at breakneck speed.