RE - Chapter 315: They Wouldn't Have Died, but Then You Came to the Rescue (Patreon)

“Where did you find this?”

Rebecca stared at the virus sample in her hand, utterly confused.

Alan replied with a perfectly straight face,

“It dropped from a dungeon run.”

“A dungeon?”

Before Rebecca could ask anything else, Leon cut in.

“Please help us analyze its composition. There’s a good chance this is the virus they’re planning to use in their next bioterror attack.”

Faced with both of them looking at her expectantly, Rebecca waved them off and turned toward the computer.

“Fine, fine. You two really know how to pile more work on me.”

She had barely finished speaking when a fully armed figure walked through the laboratory entrance.

“Where’s Rebecca?”

“Oh, she’s over there.”

Chris nodded his thanks to the person who answered, then headed toward Rebecca.

“Rebecca?!”

“Over here!”

Rebecca raised her left hand high as she called back, then turned toward Chris with a puzzled expression.

Her eyes moved over the three men standing in front of her.

“Ah. Looks like I’m working overtime... Did you guys plan this?”

Chris noticed the two familiar faces beside him and looked mildly surprised before handing Rebecca the security case he was carrying.

“Virus sample. I need you to analyze it as quickly as possible.”

Rebecca turned to look at Alan and Leon.

Alan immediately said,

“His sounds urgent. Let him go first.”

Leon crossed his arms and glanced over Chris’s equipment.

“Looks serious.”

Chris finally relaxed a little when Rebecca removed the contents of the case and began working with them on the laminar flow hood. At Leon’s question, he fell silent for a moment before nodding.

“One of my squads found what looked like a lead on Wesker. But when they reached the location, they walked straight into a trap.”

Chris stopped there, but the pain in his eyes made the rest obvious.

“By the time I got there, all I saw was them trying to escape, holding onto this case for dear life.”

“A sample they paid for with their lives... Chris, they were brave.”

At Alan’s words, Chris picked up his rifle and gave a bitter smile.

“I could’ve saved them.”

Leon’s brow twitched at that.

He slowly looked over at Chris but said nothing.

“Oh, come on, you’re in the way! If you want to talk, go to the break room. This is a work area.”

Rebecca quickly studied the expressions on all three of their faces, then started shooing them away.

“You don’t want to slow down my research, do you?”

Alan and Leon exchanged a glance, then ushered Chris toward the break room.

Once the three of them were inside and the door had closed, Chris dropped heavily into a chair and tossed his rifle onto the table.

He clenched his fists and shook his head in frustration.

“We finally got another lead on Wesker, and he slipped away again!”

“He really is one slippery bastard.”

Leon sat across from Chris and tipped his chin toward him.

“Tell us what happened. Keeping it bottled up won’t do you any good.”

Chris wasted no time and set his terminal on the table.

“A few days ago, we caught a guy at a port in Europe who was trafficking viruses on the black market. He was stubborn. After we arrested him, he refused to tell us where the viruses were being stored.”

“You gave him some encouragement?”

“We made him wish he were dead.”

Chris opened something on the terminal and continued,

“He eventually gave up the location. We recovered the virus shipment right on schedule. It was the T-Virus. After destroying it, we tried to get him to tell us who his supplier was.”

Alan nodded as he listened.

“Wesker?”

“Not at first. Just an ordinary middleman operating in the European black market. But something strange happened. Before we even moved to apprehend him, he suddenly rushed onto a flight to Africa.”

Leon tapped the tabletop rhythmically with his index finger.

“Something happened on the way?”

“He never made it. Someone killed him en route.”

Chris switched the terminal to another screen.

“After he died, the black market really did go quiet for a while. But experience told us they’d simply switched to doing business offline.”

Leon agreed with Chris’s assessment. Black market merchants would keep doing business as long as there was money to be made, even if it cost their own families their lives. There was no way they would stop trading just because one middleman died.

Chris continued,

“Sure enough, we put surveillance on several of the most suspicious merchants. Every so often, they would suddenly disappear, then turn up again just as suddenly.”

Alan raised an eyebrow.

“That strange? Then something’s definitely going on.”

“Exactly... One of my teams discovered that the merchants were first injected with something, then left through the city’s underground pipeline system. The clues afterward also came from traces found inside those pipelines...”

Chris sighed.

“The team was probably discovered while they were investigating underground... After that, they found a factory outside the city and went in on their own. No one survived. Before he died, one of the team members handed me the case and told me to keep it with me personally... He also said Wesker’s name.”

“Any signs of BOWs there?”

“Nothing alive. Just pools of pus and blood all over the ground.”

By this point, Chris had calmed down somewhat.

“The virus sample I just gave Rebecca should tell us exactly what kind of virus it is.”

“I thought they’d stay quiet a little longer. Guess I was wrong. They’ve been busy, working overtime to develop new viruses and already putting them on the market this quickly?”

Leon gave an incredulous laugh.

“...What about you two? You came here to have a sample tested too?”

“I found the guy responsible for knocking me unconscious and keeping me locked up. While I was fighting him, he tried to inject this into me when he saw an opening, but I stopped him.”

“I heard you’d already been infected with a virus once. Didn’t think you’d nearly get a second round.”

Chris kept it brief, but he might as well have said, Man, your luck is unbelievable.

“If I hadn’t been trying to get information out of him, and if another group hadn’t suddenly shown up, he’d already be dead.”

That reminded Alan of something.

“Have you guys come across any powerful organizations with deep connections in your recent investigations?”

“You’re trying to figure out who that group you ran into was?”

“Yeah. Full black special ops gear, gas masks on the whole time.”

Chris thought for a moment but didn’t give him an immediate answer.

“I’ll have to go back and sort through our files before I can tell you.”

“Okay. If we can figure out who they are, I might be able to trace them back to whoever’s behind all this.”

Leon chimed in,

“And once we do, we’re definitely going to beat the hell out of them.”

Chris put his terminal away.

“Then I hope it goes well for you... Things are getting messy again lately. Watch yourselves.”

“The only ones in danger will be them.”

“...I believe you.”

Chris stood and headed for the door.

“I’m going to see how Rebecca’s analysis is coming along.”

After the break room door closed, Alan finally sat down across from Leon.

He thought for a moment, then decided it would be better to intervene sooner rather than later.

“Leon, speaking of the black market, I’ve got a lead too.”

“Looks like I’m the one with the most free time out of all of us. I should reflect on that.”

Leon rested both hands on the table and stared intently at Alan.

“All right. Where are we taking our next vacation?”

“You won’t be surprised. Africa.”