Even the toughest monsters should’ve collapsed after taking a direct hit from Lightning Strike.
But this one...
Not only survived—it looked annoyed.
"GRRRRAAAAAAH!!"
Oh, great.
Now it’s angry.
The bear let out a roar so loud the stone walls vibrated, but what ca next made my mind go completely blank.
"That hurt! Human! You hurt Lota!"
...It talked.
It actually talked.
Human words ca spilling out of that giant maw full of steel-looking teeth, and for a mont I honestly wondered if the electricity had fried my brain instead.
Before I could process anything, the tal bear charged at with a furious expression—much faster than before.
"Human! I won’t let you get away with this!"
"W–wait—!"
I tried to dodge like earlier, but its speed had nearly doubled. Maybe tripled.
There was no avoiding it.
"Ah, crap—!"
The next mont, its massive front paws slamd into , lifting clean off the ground like I weighed nothing.
Cold tal claws dug into my sides, sharp enough to slice stone.
If it squeezed even a little harder, my body would be ripped apart.
This was bad.
Very, very bad.
In a panic, I forced my left hand up toward its paw, preparing to blast it with electricity to break free.
But before I could release the spell—
FLASH!
A bright red light burst from the back of my hand, flooding my vision.
"Eve?"
"...Aaaaaah—huh?"
The bear’s murderous eyes suddenly softened... almost lting into affection.
Then—
It hugged .
It hugged .
"Eve...!"
"Ugh— w-wait—! Too tight—!"
What was this?
What on earth was happening?
A mont ago, it was about to tear limb from limb.
Now I was being squeezed in the arms of a giant robot-bear calling the na Eve with the tone of soone who just found a lost childhood friend.
Held tightly in its iron grip, my brain filled with question marks.
Was it broken?
Was I broken?
...Or was this another insane twist this dungeon was throwing at ?
Either way—
I had absolutely no idea what was going on.
----
After finally prying myself free from the bear’s... enthusiastic embrace, I now sat cross-legged on the cold floor, face-to-face with the creature. The tension from before had evaporated entirely, replaced by sothing bizarrely dostic.
"So you’re saying there are others like you down here?" I asked.
Iota nodded so hard I thought his giant head might pop off.
"That’s right! Lots of friends!"
Friends.
Plural.
My morale dropped like a stone.
More creatures like him? In this creepy underground facility?
Wonderful. Just wonderful.
Still... at least this one was friendly.
Even if it was only because he thought I was soone nad Eve.
A na I vaguely rembered from the dream-lab records. Soone heavily involved in chira creation. Soone tied directly to all the horrors lurking in this place.
Not the kind of person I wanted to be mistaken for—but right now, it kept alive, so I wasn’t going to complain.
I lowered my gaze to the faint red mark on the back of my hand. The wound had faded almost completely, but the mory of the red light was still vivid.
The mont I touched the angel statue.
And again when I touched Iota’s fur.
Both tis, the sa crimson glow had leaked out as if reacting to sothing.
I knew now this was no ordinary scar.
I just didn’t know why.
Or what it ant.
Or why Iota had looked at it and instantly assud I was Eve.
Questions piled up in my head like an overdue stack of assignnts.
But I didn’t have the luxury of sitting here philosophizing.
I needed to find Lisa.
And if anyone here might know sothing—even by accident—it was the giant tal-skinned teddy bear in front of .
"Iota," I said carefully. "Have you ever heard the na Lisa around here?"
"Lisa...?"
He tilted his head, thinking so hard his ears twitched.
"I’ve never heard that na!"
So much for that.
"Alright then... what about a girl with pink hair?"
Iota blinked.
"Pink? What’s that?"
I stared at him.
Right.
This was a chira who thought colors were probably types of food.
I rubbed my forehead.
This was going to be a long day.
To Iota—who didn’t even know what pink was—I pointed at the faded pink streak on the wall and said gently:
"This. This color is called pink."
"Krung...?"
He only tilted his head, ears drooping slightly, completely lost.
Right... of course he wouldn’t understand.
Now that I think about it, didn’t we learn in high school that many animals can’t perceive certain colors?
So can only see in limited spectrums.
Maybe chiras are the sa.
If pink was one of the colors outside his range of perception, then this clue ant nothing to him.
"...Great. And here I thought I was getting sowhere."
I sighed and looked out over the endless hallway full of doors—each one identical, each one holding who-knows-what behind it.
It felt like trying to finish a puzzle without knowing if any pieces even belonged to the sa set.
Just as frustration started creeping up my spine—
"Beta might know!" Iota suddenly shouted.
"Beta knows the na Eve is looking for!"
"...Beta?"
I blinked, thrown off by the sudden ntion.
I turned toward Iota, who was wagging his tail excitedly as if he had just shared the most brilliant idea in the world.
"Who’s Beta?" I asked.
"Beta is like... like a senior! Born second!" he puffed up proudly. "Beta knows everything! Really!"
My eyes drifted down to the letters engraved at the base of his neck—AE-09.
The ninth chira.
If the ninth exists, then... the journal ntioning the 13th test subject didn’t just talk about a hypothetical number. There were at least thirteen of them.
And if Beta was second...
Then Beta would know much more than Iota. Maybe even the things the journal hinted at. Maybe even Eve.
"Can you take to Beta?" I asked.
"Of course!" Iota said imdiately, tail sweeping the floor like a broom.
He looked so proud—like he’d finally found sothing useful he could do.
Good.
Finally, a real lead.
"Alright," I said, patting his shoulder.
"Take to him."
With a happy chirp, Iota turned and began trotting ahead—
and I followed him deeper into the unknown corridors of the laboratory.
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