Chapter 30: Seeds of Hate

Rachel, now cleaned off, approached the kid.

As she helped him up, she asked softly, "Little boy, are you okay?"

Rachel then noticed bloodstains on the side of his clothes. She checked under his shirt and saw a wound, as though he had been pierced by something.

The boy looked at her again and spoke weakly. "Is the zombie gone?"

Rachel replied in a gentle tone, "Yes." She picked him up, carrying him as she walked toward the forest to the north to get him out of the hot sun.

ZeroOne chimed in, "It doesn’t look good. This child will not live much longer."

As she walked with him in her arms, she asked, "Where did you come from?"

The boy spoke weakly. "Far Sky City. The hero evacuated us and brought us to some secret base hidden in this forest near the river. When we arrived, we all entered the base, and then the hero threatened us, forcing us deeper into the facility. It looked like he was searching for something, but there were mecha on the loose in the facility, and he forced us to be bait. As we went deeper into the facility, a mecha minotaur pierced my side. I played dead. Once the hero and the others ran past the mecha minotaur, the mecha minotaur had started to chase after them that's when I got up and ran as fast as I could, hoping to find help."

Rachel spoke to him gently, knowing he was about to take his last breaths. "Don’t worry. I’m a good hero—I will save them, I promise."

The boy weakly spoke, "Please take care of my sister Jill. She is still down there with the hero. Please… save my sister."

Rachel answered softly, one last time. "Rest now. I will take care of everything."

The boy closed his eyes, and with his final words—"Thank you…"—he passed away in her arms.

The moment his arm fell limply to his side, Rachel was fueled by hate. She became dead set on killing the hero Jax, who had sacrificed all the women and children he evacuated, turning their relief into a nightmare.

ZeroOne then spoke to Rachel, "This doesn’t look good. What could be so valuable inside that base that the hero Jax would sacrifice all of them? We better move cautiously when we enter that base."

Rachel then had to forcefully pull out her sword, which took a little more strength than usual since the blade was slightly bent. She used it as a shovel to dig a hole big enough to bury the nameless child.

Rachel moved through the forest and eventually found the base the boy had mentioned. Massive bulkheads were torn open, and a large truck was parked in front of it.

She entered and found many rooms filled with corpses of long-dead scientists and military personnel, as if they had been torn apart and died right there.

ZeroOne echoed in her helmet, "By the looks of it, this was a military facility that was studying the mechas. If we can find a terminal, I can hack in and get all the information about this place."

They looked around the laboratories, where all sorts of mecha parts lay scattered on tables.

They approached a sealed room where a mecha siren was hanging on the wall like a dissected bug, opened up with parts removed.

ZeroOne spoke again, "It must have been from the river—like the one that attacked us. There’s a console over there, and it looks like it was used recently. The dust has been cleaned away, signs that someone was here not long ago bring me to it and i will hack it and pull all the information from the facility."

Rachel approached while keeping her guard up, and ZeroOne moved the ankle-long braids like they were its arms.

The tri-claw opened up, revealing a sharp needle that pierced the computer. But before it could destroy anything, the needle split apart into many small metal tentacles that slithered along the circuits, hacking into the system and pulling out all the information it could.

ZeroOne then spoke to Rachel one last time before he initiated the search, "Now don’t move. I’m going to focus on retrieving the information, so I will be silent until the process is over. Don’t disrupt me—there is a lot of stored information in here I must retrieve."

After around five minutes, ZeroOne replied, "Extraction complete." The tri-claw removed itself from the hole it made in the computer and returned to the hanging braid behind Rachel.

Rachel spoke, "So, how does it look?"

ZeroOne answered, "I now know what the hero is after. It must be somewhere in this facility, likely lost when this place was attacked by the mechas. They were probably trying to extract the device during the assault. There is a secret lift at the bottom of this facility that leads to the surface—it could be around there. But we may have to fight off the mechas the boy spoke about on our way down. This place is really big, and with the main elevator out, we will have to take the stairs. Go ahead and start moving while I give you all the information you will require."

Rachel turned and walked as ZeroOne pointed to the staircase. She began her long descent as ZeroOne started his explanation.

ZeroOne then started his long explanation of this place. When the humans began to fight back, they needed to find a weapon that could help them. The military, a group of scientists, and a team of high‑tier knowledgeable players from Eternal Dream Online all gathered here to find a way to resist.

They eventually encountered the mecha sirens, who could hack submarines, warships, and nearly any electronics. That’s when they formed a plan. The military built this base near a river with access to the ocean, where they lured the sirens upriver and killed them, causing as little damage as possible.

Afterward, they studied the sirens’ hacking ability and created a device from one of them that allowed humans to hack and control mechas. But it was temporary as the AI would eventually break free of its control, so they had to rework the device. Eventually, they modified the sirens hack into a virus that deleted the target mecha’s AI and wiped it clean, leaving behind an empty shell that could be controlled indefinitely—because there was no AI left to fight back.

And with this device created, the knowledgeable players from Eternal Dream Online came into play, focusing on what would be best to use it on to help fight back. At first, they considered a goblin king and queen, since they could produce goblins indefinitely, but they were simply too weak.

Then they thought up massive creatures like a hydra or a dragon, but one of the players suggested something better: the Curse of the Reaper. In the game, there was a special boss that looked similar to the Grim Reaper, but it was actually a cursed armor that could move on its own, containing the soul of a necromancer. They called it a raid boss, located in the heart of the Necropolis. and if they defeated it, they could obtain the armor as a legendary equipment.

This boss’s special ability was to create undead of many types from the ground. But since this is the real world, however, it would likely create them similar to the goblin king and queen—by using nearby metal and parts of destroyed mechas.

Their idea was that if they could reach the heart of the Necropolis and hack that cursed armor, then someone could wear the armor, becoming extremely strong and able to create hordes of undead. It could produce many powerful types and relentlessly attack the roaming mechas, steadily growing their army larger and larger.

And after learning all about the hero Jax, it’s no wonder why they said he was acting strange when he returned from the east and then lured Argus to the city. He knew no one would help him, so in the chaos of the Argus attack he planned he kidnapped the very people he had evacuated and is now using them to reach this device—allowing him to complete his plan of getting to the Necropolis and obtaining that Mecha Reaper as his new strength and power by sacrificing everyone to get it.

Rachel, still continuing down the long stairwell, asked ZeroOne, "But the only thing I don’t understand, even with the device, is how he plans to break through the Necropolis to reach the Mecha Reaper."

ZeroOne replied, "If he creates an army of mechas with their AI wiped, then it is possible. But we will just have to find him and find out ourselves."

Rachel finally reached the bottom, and when she exited the stairwell she was in shock to see bodies of women and children scattered around the area. Rachel contained her rage, holding it back as she saved it for that hero Jax.

Each step forward, each innocent she walked past, fueled her burning fury as she continued deeper into the facility.