RE - Chapter 343: Come Have a Sniper Duel! (Patreon)

“Damn it! What the hell were those people doing?!”

Excella had already retreated into the deepest laboratory on the ship. The researchers inside could only stare at her in confusion as she cursed furiously.

“W-What happened?”

“They’re like goddamn leeches. It has to be the BSAA!”

“The BSAA? How did they know we were here?”

“How should I know?!”

Right now, all Excella wanted was to contact the outside world and somehow get them rescued.

But when she rushed to the laboratory computer and tried to send out a message, she discovered that there was...

No! Signal!?

Oh, this made no sense.

No, no. Of course it made sense...

“Am I going to die here?”

“Ma’am?”

Before the researcher could even ask what she meant, Excella seemed to snap and immediately ordered him to release every test subject.

“Let those things loose and make them fight! Buy us time! Headquarters will notice something’s wrong and send help! They won’t abandon all the research data here!”

After saying that, she suddenly calmed down.

Then she stared at the researcher in front of her as if he were already dead.

“Right?”

“...Yes. Of course you’re right.”

The researcher decided there was no point arguing with a madwoman.

They were probably doomed anyway, so he might as well release the test subjects and see how well his research actually performed.

He even took the initiative to ask, “What about the soldiers injected with Plaga?”

“Release them. Release everything.”

“Fine. Everything it is.”

For a moment, the atmosphere inside the laboratory became strangely surreal.

The walls and floors were spotless white. Expensive equipment and all kinds of samples were arranged neatly throughout the room.

Yet beneath that order, there was an unmistakable sense of chaos.

“This is the Uroboros Virus. It’s still in the experimental stage.”

The researcher entered a password and passed through several biometric locks before retrieving two syringes from the most secure section of the equipment.

He handed one to Excella and kept the other for himself.

“If something goes wrong, inject it. Even Commander Wesker couldn’t withstand a full dose all at once. People like us would simply die. It’ll probably be painful, but at least we can take those people with us!”

Excella accepted the syringe and swallowed nervously.

She stole a disbelieving glance at the crazed expression on the researcher’s face before finally slipping it into her pocket.

“You... You’d actually do it too?”

“Of course.”

The researcher glanced toward the door before answering quickly.

With the two people in charge apparently ready to die, the ordinary researchers in the laboratory had little choice but to abandon any hope of survival and follow their superiors to the grave.

“...Open the door! Hurry up and open the damn door!!”

“That voice... Irving?”

Excella slapped her forehead.

She had almost forgotten about him.

Three days ago, Wesker had Irving brought aboard the freighter. The two of them had then spent some time alone in a room, though no one knew what happened inside.

When Irving came back out, he was practically a different man.

Not only had he completely lost his attitude toward Wesker, he had suddenly become extremely respectful toward Excella as well.

After that, everyone simply ignored him and left him in a corner to fend for himself.

When Excella asked Wesker about it, he only said that Irving was still alive because he might be useful later.

Even Excella wasn’t stupid enough to miss what that meant.

Irving was being kept around as bait.

She just hadn’t expected things to reach this point.

“He’s still alive?”

Suspicious, Excella first pulled up the security feed to check whether anyone was chasing him toward the laboratory.

When she saw several armed guards alongside Irving, she finally relaxed a little.

“They have guns. Maybe we can actually hold this place.”

She immediately opened the laboratory door and let Irving inside.

Irving rushed in and only breathed a sigh of relief when the heavy door slowly closed behind him.

“Fuck... Those lunatics!”

Just thinking about what he had gone through made Irving shudder.

A group of heavily armed maniacs had been throwing every kind of weapon imaginable without the slightest concern for their own safety.

You didn’t even have to see them before you were already half dead.

Then, just when Irving and his men thought the enemy was finally about to launch a direct assault, someone actually crawled through the ventilation ducts and ambushed them from behind.

Do these people have no sense of fair play?!

What was the point of coming fully armed if the other side was just going to sneak around and ambush you?!

Alan would have argued that they were the ones standing still and blocking the way.

After running down two entire floors, nearly getting shot by his own people along the way, Irving immediately collapsed onto the floor and started gasping for breath.

“Excella... Those... those people are insane! We can’t go back out. We can’t open the laboratory door again!”

“I know. We’re staying inside.”

Irving nodded, then asked, “Did you call for backup?”

“I tried. There’s no signal.”

“...We’re screwed.”

Excella’s legs nearly gave out.

She immediately spun around and shouted, “Did you release the test subjects?!”

“Yes. All of them.”

...

“Alan, we’ve secured the bridge. We’re steering the freighter toward the designated port.”

“Copy. Stay alert. We still haven’t reached the laboratory.”

After ending the transmission, Alan finally tossed a tear gas grenade down the corridor ahead.

“Those bastards buried this lab way too deep.”

Leon dropped his empty magazine and slammed in a fresh one.

“If there wasn’t at least some resistance, I’d start worrying there was nothing interesting inside the lab.”

“We’re close. Just one more stretch ahead.”

The moment Chris finished speaking, the entire corridor suddenly went dark.

A second later, red emergency lights began flashing.

The sounds of glass shattering and heavy objects crashing to the floor echoed through the passage.

From a corner ahead that had been completely silent until now came screams.

The wet sound of flesh being torn apart was unmistakable.

“...Chris, you just said something, didn’t you?”

Alan sighed helplessly.

At least now he had finally experienced Chris’s special talent firsthand.

The Chris effect.

Jinxing his teammates.

Leon quickly leaned out and took a look.

“...I see them. Plaga.”

Alan nodded and tossed Leon a grenade.

“Blow them up first. Ask questions later.”

“Got it.”

The pins came free.

Alan and Leon threw their grenades down the corridor at the same time.

They hit the floor and rolled aside.

A deafening explosion shook the entire passage.

Chris moved first, immediately opening fire into the darkness ahead.

“Right side!”

His muzzle swung over.

Gunfire flashed.

Wherever the rounds struck, crimson sprayed across the corridor.

A burst of bullets tore through one infected.

The next instant, its entire head burst apart, exposing the parasite inside.

“Oh, I know this one very well.”

Leon immediately fired several shots.

As expected, they barely did anything.

Alan quickly grabbed the grenade launcher hanging from Chris’s pack, aimed down the corridor, and pulled the trigger.

The blast briefly illuminated all three of their faces.

Then black smoke rolled through the passage.

A fine mist of blood hung in the air, accompanied by a thick metallic stench.

“Jesus, that reeks. What the hell did this thing eat for breakfast?”

The three finished clearing the area and continued forward.

They had barely rounded the next corner when all three sensed something was wrong.

“Did either of you just see something?”

“...A shadow. Something black flashed past.”

Leon raised his gun and scanned the area with his peripheral vision.

“Don’t tell me Wesker’s started making ghosts now.”

“Good news, it’s not a ghost.”

Alan kept his weapon trained ahead.

“Bad news, it looks harder to kill than one.”

He fired a probing shot at the dark figure.

The thing turned around.

A Gatling gun swung toward them.

“...Oh, shit.”

“Take cover!”

Chris fired several rounds at the infected creature as he spoke.

When the bullets had no visible effect, he immediately dove behind cover.

A second later, the corridor erupted.

Debris flew everywhere under the barrage.

Bodies on the floor were torn apart, limbs sent spinning as blood, flesh, and organs splattered across the glass and walls.

The muzzle flashes lit the entire corridor.

The three were pinned down so badly they couldn’t even raise their heads.

Alan shifted position against the wall, pulled off his backpack, and took out the rocket launcher.

“I’ve got a feeling this isn’t the hardest thing we’re going to fight in here. What do you think?”

Leon nodded and shouted back over the gunfire, “This is probably just the appetizer!”

“Appetizer or not...”

The moment the creature shifted its fire toward another angle, Alan rose from cover and leveled the launcher directly at it.

“Eat this first!”