“Fran!”
As soon as I stepped outside, I saw Fran crouched on the ground, dry heaving, and vomiting a whole rainbow.
“What happened?!”
Climbing out from a pile of trash, Clara gave off an aura so repellant it was almost tangible, black, twisting lines of filth radiating outward from her as the center.
“Ugh, don’t come near me!! Ugh!”
When I tried to approach Fran, she waved me off immediately.
“Give me a mask! Hurry!”
So it turned out, after leaving Clara’s side, the gas mask Nix created disappeared.
Once she put on the re-materialized gas mask, Fran’s symptoms finally eased. She propped herself up against the console, leaving behind a mess of vomit that still had visible watermelon bits.
[She’ll be fine, just overwhelmed by the stench.]
Hearing Nix say that, Clara finally breathed a sigh of relief as well.
“As long as you’re okay.”
2
Next to Fran, several rabbit corpses were sprawled, and the one who had fired just now was…
“Sista?”
“Why did you follow us?”
“I heard you guys were coming to the dump to look for something, and Second Brother guessed there might be Moon Rabbits at the dump, so he sent me over as fast as he could… Looks like I got here just in time.”
A plan from Azure Cavalry, then?
“Stay sharp, those rabbits are still around here. To them, this place is like a dining hall. We should take this chance to reduce their numbers.”
“No, it’s already too late.”
Fran seemed much calmer now, sitting and rubbing her queasy stomach, steadying her breath as she spoke:
“They’re avoiding battle, running off in all directions. You won’t be able to kill many like this.”
Just as she said, there were no more traces of the Moon Rabbits.
“These rabbits are more disciplined than we thought. Or rather… someone is directing and coordinating them, so wiping them out is extremely difficult.”
Obviously, the one directing them was their Mother Unit.
Fran clutched her head, looking on the verge of madness, and glanced at the plastic bag in Clara’s hand, exclaiming, “That’s enough! Since we’ve found what we came for, let’s just get out! Leave this cursed place for the people from the resort to deal with. Seriously, why are we always cleaning up their messes? You guys are heroes, not a pest control squad!”
In Fran’s eyes, the Moon Rabbit infestation was no different from a cockroach outbreak.
If there was any difference between a Moon Rabbit and a cockroach, it was probably that the former at least looked cute.
But even a fluffy bunny, if it was covered in stinking trash, no one would want to approach—let alone a rabbit that bites…
Clearly, Fran was already planning on writing a scathing report once she got back.
Not to mention, just letting the “Fourth Calamity” freaks sneak into the resort was enough of a crime for the subsidiary company to face serious trouble.
“Fran, you go up first.”
Handing over the sticky, no-longer-white plastic bag, Clara said:
“Take this up with you. What’s inside is valuable; you’ll know as soon as you see it.”
“Huh? What are you planning to do?”
“I’m going to look for clues. If the rabbits treat this place as a cafeteria, they must have left some traces behind.”
Clara glanced at Sista.
“Stay with me while I look around. The place isn’t big, so it shouldn’t take long. But be careful of Moon Rabbits lying in ambush among the trash heaps… If one attacks, help me catch it alive.”
As long as the lights stayed off, they might be able to nab one or two more.
[Are you planning to interrogate those rabbits?]
No, I have a bold idea.
Clara didn’t need to speak aloud—being connected, Nix could naturally read her thoughts.
[It really is bold. For you, that’s rare courage…]
[But it just might work.]
Fran left.
Having a normal person stick around would just be a burden, and by now Clara and Sista had a good grasp of the Moon Rabbits’ habits, so they were unlikely to be killed in a place like this.
Besides, those rabbits didn’t seem to want to fight either.
With one hand clutching a corner of the plastic bag, her features all scrunched up, Fran left for the elevator.
The garbage station hall was now left with only Clara and Sista.
“Alright, let’s see what clues these troublesome critters have left for us…”
Over their time together, Sista had grown quite obedient to Clara’s instructions, and now followed her lead, searching for traces of the Moon Rabbits in the reeking trash station.
Though the Moon Rabbits had scattered, they were bound to leave behind passages, and if they searched carefully, they might find some signs.
The exoskeleton helmet came with an air filtration system, so Sista didn’t have to worry about the stench and was quite happy to help, but…
“Bai, where did you and that little girl run off to this time?”
It was a call from Okada Dharma.
Since she couldn’t get anything out of Azure Cavalry and the others, she called directly.
“Miss Clara and I are investigating leads on the Moon Rabbits.”
“The courage test starts at seven—come back before then.”
“Got it.”
Clara didn’t jump into the garbage pit again; instead, she used the console to control the mechanical arm, sweeping away mountains of trash. Sure enough, as the arm dug through the heap, a few more Moon Rabbits emerged—animals had no aversion to filth when it came to survival.
Naturally, when Clara used the mechanical arm to push aside the garbage heap and reveal a burrow underneath, the Moon Rabbits scrambled frantically for the tunnel entrance, trying to escape.
At that moment, a length of steel cable coiled around one of them, binding it up like a rabbit rice dumpling.
“Squeee—!!”
It couldn’t even bite through the steel cable.
The only rabbit caught let out a wail like it was meeting its end.
“Nicely done. These rabbits burrow under the garbage pit, eating up trash before it’s fed to the incinerator, and dig holes everywhere in the dump, spreading the stench all around…”
But this dump wasn’t really their base of operations.
Just like the undersea caves, this place was at best their food source, a spot they could abandon at any time.
“Squeak!”
The dog-sized rabbit, dirtied all over, was carried back by Sista, still shrieking, but Sista seemed unfazed by filth.
“Great, that helps a lot.”
As Clara said this, ten tentacles slipped out of her hair and stretched toward the Moon Rabbit, each ending in a syringe-like tip—the D·M Extractors.
Their official name was “Data Marauder,” a unique armament Nix’s Driver could generate without external data.
It was also her core function.
Right in front of Sista, Clara extracted the Moon Rabbit’s data.
[Data extraction… Lunar organism: Moon Rabbit… complete.]
[Generating… small combat unit.]
Perhaps because a Moon Rabbit didn’t take up much memory, Clara didn’t transform herself; instead, she created a new rabbit right in front of her.
“Eh?!”
In that instant, two perspectives appeared in Clara’s mind.
Clara was Clara.
The rabbit was also Clara.
Obviously, this was not part of Clara’s original plan.
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Rabbit squid.