174. The Corrupted Coffee Machine

Floor by floor, Frost and her team familiarized themselves with the layout. Each floor was built like a spider’s web, with interconnecting tunnels between each major wing. The wings were located at the ends of the corridors. Each floor had 4 wings.

The residential wing, the infirmary wing, the welfare wing and finally, the information wing. The central wing, which Frost, and the others had first arrived in, belonged to the Unit Manager of the 1st floor. This person oversaw all personnel on the 1st floor and delegated orders on behalf of the Overseer.

The Corrupted of the 1st floor were nothing special. Neither great nor terrible. They were rather tame if anything else. One way to describe them was if Frost saw them outdoors as a normal person, she would have believed them to be naturally occurring creatures.

Well, aside from the Corrupted that appeared like living organs. No, not the organs within the body. An organ. The musical instrument.

Churn Churn
< K-A-076-07 >
< To hide the stomach sounds I must play my heart out >
ORIGIN : Trauma      AFFINITY : Desire

The Corrupted in question was not like the all-destroying monstrosities she had known and… loved. Instead, it was a relatively harmless Corrupted that simply compelled a person to play it. After 15 seconds of continuous play the person would be set free.

It was that simple. The K-Threat classification came from how if one refused midway, then they’d stay there for an additional 15 seconds. And another, and another.

A very stubborn fellow could starve themselves playing on that Corrupted Organ if they were not careful.

From the 1st floor to the 2nd floor, Frost made her rounds and greeted the Workers and swaths of Employees that scuttled around hauling paperwork. The Employees were much weaker than the Workers, but they were also much more willing to slow down and say ‘hi’.

Of course, not all Workers were so uptight. But it was not like Frost could blame them. She envisioned herself being in the same boat if all her patients used her as a verbal punching bag, which did tend to happen to nurses like herself.

It was how she gained thicker skin. But of course, there was only so much a person could take.

She sighed and stopped by a strange dispensing machine that sat along a pillar in the residential room of the 2nd floor.

“Wait a second.” Frost paused momentarily, passing by a few Workers that sat along metal, cushioned benches. “Is that what I think it is?”

“You’ve seen something like that before?” One of them asked, poking at their trayed meal, which carried a surprisingly decent quantity of food. “That Corrupted? Huh. The Drink Dispenser?”

“More like a vending machine… What the fuck.” Frost muttered to herself, right before she returned to her usual tone. “Never mind. I mistook it for a different machine. They all look the same to me.”

“If you ever said that to me I think I would cry.” Nav teased as Frost and her group approached the only vending machine in all of Elysia.

Eternal Servant
< M-M-054-06 >
< Press. Rattle. Drink. Recycle. Repeat >
ORIGIN : Trauma      AFFINITY : Purpose

Frost could only speculate how something like this even arrived in this world. As it turned out, the Archivist stepped in and suspected that the Corrupted were able to manifest from the knowledge of the Eternal Library. Between this and another Earth Otherworlder that created a Corrupted by a trauma against vending machines – Frost had to choose the former as the likely answer.

There was no proof, but who knows what’s real with all these sanctioned lies.

Around 30 people in total rested in the residential room, all of which were on mandated breaks.

Good to know that a murderous Atelier cares so much about the wellbeing of their Workers~

Frost sarcastically sighed as all eyes suddenly fell onto her. They were curious about her existence as a Color.

Even if they were here to oversee the Code Red Protocol, they were far too powerful of a response for what was only a Risk Level 3 Facility.

“What’s this supposed to be? It looks like a metal wall with a bunch of colorful teeth.” Jury described it in the least elegant way possible.

“A machine of some kind.”

“We called it a vending machine from where I’m from.” Frost refrained from mentioned Earth verbally as the Navigator could hear every word they spoke, and she’d swiftly remove the Cognition Receiver whenever Nav was about to speak.

“What are the flavors?”

Coffee. Black coffee. White coffee. Cappuccino, but they call it a Cappucci. Cute. Then there’s cinnamon coffee.

“Cuppucci is the plural of cappuccino.”

It’s NOT a made up word?

This for some reason surprised Frost as she punched in the button and gave it a small slap. The model seemed old, and despite it having Earthly origins, she could somehow see this fitting into this world’s setting, as the buttons floated rather being flushed with the shell of the machine.

After a small hiss, hum, and the scent of cinnamon, Frost took her drink which appeared in a small, porcelain cup. She sipped at it much to Cer’s amusement, who found it funny that someone who devoured the Corrupted drank so elegantly from a cup.

Did she want Frost to eat it or something?

That being said, it wasn’t until afterwards when Frost began handing out the drinks that the Workers began to whisper amongst themselves.

“How the… How long did we spend punching that again?”

“Colors are scary man. She knew how to operate that thing the moment she looked at it.”

“Remember the girl that went crazy trying to figure it out? Should we tell her?”

“No way. She’ll break down, and you’ll be the first person she’ll kill.”

“Damn. I wanted to head up there and help them. Imagine me, a backstreet grub getting to help a Color.”

“Help a girl you mean? You’ve been creepily sitting here waiting for that same opportunity. Go get eaten by a Corrupted.”

It seemed like people wanted to offer their help, but Frost’s ‘proficiency’ only caused them to sink into their seats with shattered dreams. Additionally, it didn’t help that Frost’s group were not only ridiculously powerful, but also… well, pretty. Beautiful, actually.

But they knew better. The sharp Cer noticed this and said as they walked out with their drinks finished:

“It’s usually the pretty ones you want to stay away from. Case and point, the Eclipses. They seduce men and women alike, then BAM. Dead. High ranking Atelier members take pride in their appearance as well. You know how it is. The Blessed are all shabby looking, and they’re all trying to max out their stats. But we don’t have that problem. We already have one of theses.” She dusted her shoulders and fixed her immaculate tie.

“Only one is right.” Jury jabbed.

“We have more than 5 ready to change in. 1 is just foul.” Res sighed.

“They call it… uh, ‘minim clothing, maxing stats’, right? Or was it min-maxing for short? Still, an extra change of clothes isn’t going to help me fight the Corrupted.” Cer argued.

“But it’ll help you keep your dignity.” Frost mumbled, heading to the nearest elevator. “By the way, Cer.”

“What’s up?”

“Is there a reason you’re like this?” Frost didn’t mean this in a judging manner. Rather, she wanted to know if something happened to Cer in the past.

After their heart to heart, she realized that there was much more to Cer than what met the eye. She believed the woman was doing this all on purpose. As a ruse of some kind. Cer carefully pondered away in silence, dragging a finger along the walls before she bumped into to Frost’s arm.

“We all have roles to play. Don’t take things too seriously. Like me. Maybe a part of me really wants people to laugh. We walk roads of blood, shedding tears at every step of the way. We never saw many smiles along the way.” Cer hinted at her act, but she never allowed herself to outright admit this.

Her wall was strong, and she refused to let it. In the end, she stretched her arms and stared up into the eyes of Frost and Jury.

“… what? Am I not allowed to be sentimental?”

“Good Cer…” Ignis whispered, waddling over to her side. “You’re not a bad person. You’re funny.”

“At least you know.” Res sighed, bumping right into Cer, then, Ber joined them.

“Sis is always a step ahead. No one’s smarter than her.” She proclaimed.

“It’s good to have some humor in our lives. Just to break up all this insanity.” Jury said as they entered the elevator and proceeded to the 3rd and final floor of F-H5. She wrapped Cer’s waist with her tail and drew her close, hugging the little wolf with her giant frame.

“Heh. See how good I am at manipulating people. You could learn a thing or two.” Cer grinned.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m just happy you’re honest. Cer.” Frost tapped the woman’s head.

“What?”

“Come to me if you ever need someone to lend an ear again. I’ll always be waiting.”

“Heh… if you insist. Ok.” Cer cozied up to Jury, smiling fondly at Frost. “Can’t remember the last time someone said that to me. Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t. Maybe I’ll tell you about it one day.” Her tail happily wagged.