2026-11-10 21:48:30Just as Bellfounder Memorial Hospital — something having gone wrong inside it — began devouring its patients bit by bit, Cassius, who had arrived nearby, felt a stab of pain in his eyes, and found the whole world before him going black.
"Wait! Don't go in yet!"
"What is it?"
The bandaged woman, arm caught, turned back in puzzlement — and was startled to find that, as if blinded by some searing light, both Cassius and the Soot Bishop in his arms had their eyes clamped shut, tears even streaming from the corners of Cassius's eyes.
"This hospital is alive!"
Gazing up at the black flames towering skyward in his soul sight, Cassius — whose "eyes" had been scorched by their glare — explained through a burning, stinging pain, still gripping the bandaged woman's arm:
"Just now — the instant you started to walk in — it was like it got some kind of signal. Suddenly it had a soul of its own, and... it's about as strong as several hundred ordinary souls!"
The entire hospital?
At Cassius's words, the bandaged woman nodded to show she understood, her eyes narrowing slightly behind the mask as she began rapidly analyzing the situation.
If the hospital had suddenly gained a soul, the likeliest candidates were three: an anomalous object attached directly to the building, a runaway Contaminated whose ability could manipulate buildings, or the entire hospital being temporarily peeled away from the world and no longer obeying reality's rules.
But in the first case, the control wouldn't be this precise, activating at the exact instant I was about to enter. The third would demand not just sufficient power but the tier to crack open the world itself — at a strength of merely a few hundred souls, that shouldn't be possible.
So... it was most likely a runaway Contaminated whose ability was tied to buildings — perhaps one that outright needed a structure as its medium.
"You don't need to go in. Stay outside and back me up!"
Standing at the hospital entrance, turning it over for a moment, the bandaged woman bent to open her traveling case, pulled several sets of matte-metal parts from the bottom, and began assembling them with quick, practiced hands.
As the thing she was building gradually took shape, Cassius discovered, to his open astonishment, that it looked oddly familiar.
A long brass barrel with rifling cut down its bore; an action group built of chamber, recoil spring, bolt, and trigger; a bracket cradled under the long barrel; a shoulder stock curved to fit the shoulder; and a single-tube scope mounted over the barrel...
Hold on... this art style is all wrong, isn't it?
I figured you'd charge in with a holy tome in your left hand and a war hammer in your right, chanting incantations, purifying the weirdness with some mystical tool — and instead you hand me a sniper rifle?!
Under Cassius's utterly dumbfounded stare, the bandaged woman finished assembling the gun, first took three small silver-white canisters from the very bottom of the case, clicked one onto the brass barrel's side with a clack, then opened the fitting underneath — presumably the "magazine" — and showed Cassius the bright-white metal nails inside.
"This is a portable nail gun the Director got for me from the War Office. It runs on one-shot air canisters to drive the nails — range and power are well down from the standard version, a good four hundred seventy-odd meters, but that's still enough to punch through the hospital's outer wall and kill the target outright."
As she spoke, the bandaged woman handed Cassius the other two canisters and instructed him, perfectly serious:
"In a moment I'll go in and find the runaway Contaminated, and try to finish it directly. If I can't, I'll at least do my best to tie it up in close quarters — and if that happens, you shoot without a second's hesitation!
"Also, while the gun still holds plenty of nails, there are only three canisters left, so you get three chances. Miss all three and you pull out immediately — run back to the Oddity Cleanup Bureau and wait for the Director to return. Got it?"
"..."
I got it, sure... but aren't you trusting me a little too much here?
Staring at the bizarre brass "sniper rifle" on the ground, Cassius started to panic a little.
Back in my old world I racked up plenty of winner-winner-chicken-dinner games, but that was all keyboard and mouse — never once touched the real thing. If I can even put a shot anywhere near straight it'll be a miracle, let alone firing while you two are tangled up at arm's length.
Honestly, I'm scared that if I do pull the trigger, instead of killing the runaway Contaminated, I'll take you out first...
"You don't need to worry about hurting me."
Reading Cassius's hesitation, the bandaged woman said warmly:
"If I'm bold enough to hand you the trigger, I naturally have my reasons not to fear your friendly fire. I've just adjusted the sights and scales on this gun for you. As for the exact handling, I'll walk you through it in detail right now..."
"Handling-wise, I might know a tiny bit..."
After a moment digging through the movies and shows he'd watched last life, Cassius said, not too sure of himself:
"Find a high spot with good sightlines, spread your legs and lie prone, body flat against the ground, shoulder pressed into the stock — then sight, muzzle, target, three points in a line?"
"Hm?"
At Cassius's words, the bandaged woman said, surprise in her eyes:
"The prone-firing manual? You have a War Office background?"
"Barely... let's say yes?"
Cassius's eyes flickered, and he brushed past it:
"Before they died in the line of duty, my parents were machinists under the War Office — they walked me through a little of this sort of thing... um... only a little."
I see...
At that, the bandaged woman nodded in understanding, not questioning where the knowledge came from — but then she quickly shook her head:
"Your answer isn't wrong exactly, but that's the aiming method for a different kind of mid-range rapid-fire gun. Those fire at shorter distances and their sights sit level with the barrel, so a three-points-one-line check works for confirming the target.
"But this one of mine is different. Look closely and you'll see the scope sits higher than the barrel — if you shoot by the three-points-one-line rule, the nail will land below the target."
Pointing at the scope mounted above the barrel, then drawing an invisible diagonal between scope and muzzle, the bandaged woman lectured the freshly enlightened Cassius:
"Once a nail's been fired, its path isn't actually a straight line — it droops slightly. To use a mid-to-long-range precision gun like this, you have to know the nail's flight path, then calculate the point of impact, and calibrate your sights and muzzle against the mil table..."
*bzzt!*
[Through the lucid, easy-to-grasp teaching of Agnes Harrow, you have successfully activated the Black-Iron-grade badge [Apprentice Gunner, Ammo on His Own Dime]]
[Apprentice Gunner, Ammo on His Own Dime]: a novice of frankly low skill who has received only simple training — [Can Hit the Broad Side of a Barn] — whose shooting accuracy is a genuine concern
[Worn Effect: trained only briefly though you may be, you're still far better than a total stranger to guns; when consciously correcting your muzzle's aim, your shooting accuracy gains a small boost]
[Advancement Path: after completing 200 live-fire shots, or 1000 simulated firing cycles, this badge will automatically advance to the Bronze badge [Can Hit the Broad Side of a Barn]. Current progress: 0/200, 0/1000]
[Hidden Trait: none]
*bzzt*
[Through your own study and reflection, you have acquired low-level firearm marksmanship. The variant badge "[Level-1 Certified Materialist]" (Crimson) has activated.
Your grasp of firearm shooting is "Low," but because you're good at thinking, summarizing, and self-correcting, when you aim at the same target and fire, each miss slightly raises your odds of hitting next time]
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0017 He Really Does Deserve the Stew
You're fucking overdue for the stew, is what you are! Using every last ounce of strength he had, Cassius clamped the Soot Bishop's mouth shut, stuffing its torrent of filth right back down its throat. Then he looked up at the red-haired woman — still smiling sweetly — scratched the back of his head, and said, more than a little awkward: "So, um... Director, my sister got badly shaken up yesterday, and she's still laid up in the hospital. If there's nothing else, could I take the afternoon off?" "Mm-hm, go on! You just finished a cleanup job that dangerous — you've earned some rest." She approved the leave with a smile, and waited until he'd hurried out with the squirming goat head tucked under his arm. Then the faint smile slid off the red-haired woman's face. She laced her fingers together, leaned back to stare up at the aging ceiling, and sank into thought. Something was off... She'd veiled Cassius's memory — made him temporarily forget everything about t
0016 Don't Tell Me There's Another Twist?
"Heh. YOU can forget about forgiveness — but the new hire's off the hook, absolutely!" Giving Cassius a once-over that was almost admiring, the red-haired woman's sharp edge softened a touch, and she said, warmth in her voice: "Cassius, don't sweat the intel. You reported the Contaminated the moment you spotted him, you won over that troublesome demon, and you got it to lead you to Agnes. "Then, when Agnes got pinned down, you took out the mission target with one shot and got her out — and along the way you saved a few hundred people from losing too much of their life force. "For a rookie who joined the Oddity Cleanup Bureau only hours ago? More than good enough. As for the intel — that was just an accident nobody could have prevented." "No, hold on! Yours truly pulled off a feat here too! Do you HAVE to play favorites this hard?" Before Cassius could answer, the Soot Bishop — inflamed by the brutally lopsided treatment — burst out: "HE was the one who
0015 The Reward
"Send it to the kitchen to be stewed." Under the Soot Bishop's stare of maximum possible shock, the red-haired woman closed the case file marked [Bellfounder Memorial Hospital Incident], then picked up the goat head, tossed it to Cassius at the desk, and instructed, perfectly breezy: "We share a kitchen with the Police Department. After you drop this thing off, tell their head chef it's goat-head soup this time — same requirements as the last few rounds. "No ginger, no onion — extra rosemary and juniper. Double the dark ale to cut the gaminess, plus a pinch of white pepper and a splash of that Worcestershire sauce shipped in from the East. We're adding a special dish for the branch at lunch today. Off you go." "Wa... wait a minute! You bastard!" It had pulled off a genuine feat of merit, and this was its reward. The Soot Bishop's rage shot straight up past its brows as it lay in Cassius's arms, arguing its case on the merits: "Hes... you stinking woman! Thi
0014 Turning It Back Around (2-in-1)
MIRA!!! The moment the frail girl dropped, Cassius — watching through his scope from the building diagonally opposite — went cold from the inside out, like he'd fallen through ice. His brain hadn't even gotten as far as the concept of death. His consciousness just blanked. His heart felt clamped in a huge invisible fist, the blood supply to his whole body seemingly cut on the spot, and his hands and feet went stiff and numb, frozen solid. The whole world went dead quiet in that instant. Everything in it froze on one small, pale face — thin lips pressed tight, falling, helpless — and the only thing left that Cassius could do was watch, powerless, as his sister tumbled from on high, despair brimming in her eyes! "BOOM!!!" An ear-splitting roar rolled down most of the street. Hard on its heels came the wide crackle of shattering glass, and the low, grating shriek of metal warping under monstrous force. More than half the hospital's windows blew out from the sh
0013 A Sharp Turn for the Worse
Fresh off earning his new badge, Cassius split from the bandaged woman and, without a moment's rest, hauled the "sniper rifle" at a run into the department store diagonally opposite the hospital, making a beeline for the shooting spot he'd picked out — while across the road, Bellfounder Memorial Hospital had already turned into a picture straight out of hell. In the ground-floor lobby, which should have been buzzing with foot traffic, most of the crowd had been swallowed down into the cold tile. The patients, too weak to move, didn't have a prayer of pulling themselves free — all they could do was thrust their arms helplessly up toward the ceiling. Look anywhere you liked, and the whole lobby seemed like concrete mixed through with countless people writhing and struggling in agony — arms shot up desperately on every side, jutting out at every height, groping and clenching without stop. It was a living fresco of hell. Perhaps because of the carpeting — no direct contact
0012 Your Art Style's All Wrong, Isn't It?
Just as Bellfounder Memorial Hospital — something having gone wrong inside it — began devouring its patients bit by bit, Cassius, who had arrived nearby, felt a stab of pain in his eyes, and found the whole world before him going black. "Wait! Don't go in yet!" "What is it?" The bandaged woman, arm caught, turned back in puzzlement — and was startled to find that, as if blinded by some searing light, both Cassius and the Soot Bishop in his arms had their eyes clamped shut, tears even streaming from the corners of Cassius's eyes. "This hospital is alive!" Gazing up at the black flames towering skyward in his soul sight, Cassius — whose "eyes" had been scorched by their glare — explained through a burning, stinging pain, still gripping the bandaged woman's arm: "Just now — the instant you started to walk in — it was like it got some kind of signal. Suddenly it had a soul of its own, and... it's about as strong as several hundred ordinary souls!" The entir
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