I Found a Hole in my Yard. It Might Be a Dungeon, but That’s Now my Garbage Dump Chapter 51: 87

The walls and ceilings of the huge treatnt plants corridors are lined with a network of piping for liquid waste that may or may not contain any kind of poison, and the dim red ergency lights make the tallic inorganic objects look like organic blood vessels.

The air conditioning was supposed to be working to prevent contamination, but for so reason, the air slled foul with the scent of blood and grease, giving Louise the illusion that she was inside a living creatures body.

[You lured here, didnt you?]

Not expecting an answer, Louise called out to the darkness behind her.

Just as she expected, her question received no answer from the old man lurking in the darkness, but sohow, she was certain that the old man would have the sa gentle smile he had when they t.

Is it possible to escape through these countless piles of drums?

Louises brain quickly simulated her next course of action.

If she could kick over so of the drums and climb over them, she might be able to get through the gaps between the drums and escape to the other side of this wall of drums.

No matter how good the old mans endurance is, she has an advantage because she has longer legs and has been trained to climb over collapsible cliffs and obstacles.

She would be able to escape.

Waiting for the right mont, Louise stepped back.

[Youre very fast for your age, arent you?]

[Thanks to it, Im much healthier now.]

Suddenly, she sensed the old man coming toward her from the darkness.

[Step back!]

Louise pointed her gun at the old man and with her other hand, she tried to knock down one of the drums that were piled up behind her and blocking the passage.

She did this both to gain an initial foothold and to have the drum tumbling towards the old man and see how he would react.

If soone had stacked the drums to block her passage, there was no way they could have stacked so many in such a short period of ti and with their contents in them.

Many of them would probably just empty drums, and the numbers were probably just a bluff.

Kuhh

It was surprisingly heavy, but Louise managed to do it with the arm that wasnt holding the gun.

At that mont, mixed with the sound of the drum making contact with the hard floor, she heard a man groan.

From inside the drum, which she had just knocked over and should have been empty

Eh?

Her gaze, which had been fixed on the old man at the end of her gun barrel, was involuntarily drawn to the drum.

Was she just hearing things?

Were this darkness and the unusual situation tornted her to the point that she started hearing things?

[You werent hearing things, Louise-san. Good grief, that was terrible of you, doing such a thing to your friend.]

As if he was accusing her of throwing garbage on the side of the road, the old man called out.

Her friend.

Which ans

A thought popped into her mind, but she couldnt believe it.

She refused to believe it.

[You What did you do?]

[What do you an?]

[Dont play dumb! Answer !]

Louises voice was almost a scream.

[I was just doing my usual job, the sa as when I stuffed a stray boar into a drum. Look, the one you tumbled is a white drum for harmful animals and it has a serial number, doesnt it?]

The white drum Louise knocked over had the number 87 written on it in black paint.

[A boar? You say this is a boar!?]

[Do young ladies these days think its rude to call them boars Should I call them a deer instead? Well, in any case, my job is to drum the beasts that have run into the fence and died.]

The old man spoke happily of his job.

[I think I have a knack for this job The longer I do it, the better I get at it. Thanks to that, the company has extended my employnt. I can even give my grandchildren an allowance now. Quite a grateful matter it is.]

[Are you saying that whats in this drum is a person?]

The gun she was holding and the end of her words trembled slightly.

Behind her stands a huge pile of drums.

At the foot of that pile was a drum filled with a human, labeled 87.

Faced with this question, the old man didnt deny it at all.

[Yes. Well, I suppose you could say that.]

[For this For all these drums?]

[Yes. Day after day, there are so many of them coming here after all.]

Saying this, the old man had a broad, friendly smile on his face, just as he had when he first t her in the maintenance corridor and offered her a cup of tea.

[What in the world are you No, what in the world are you people?]

[I dunno I never thought about it. It mustnt be that difficult of a matter of Foreigner-san though? Can we settle this already? It would be rough if Im late to pick up my grandson.]

Erging from the darkness, the old man casually closed the distance between them, one step at a ti.

Hyiiihh

Louise, realizing the futility of the situation, continued pulling the trigger until the magazine of her small pistol was empty.

The gunshots echoed off the hard, veiny red corridor, before it eventually died away.

The eting between the European joint inspection team, impatient because they werent getting the results they had expected, and the MCTBH managent, who was dodging and dodging requests, dragged on.

"

"

Even though they werent inford of the details, the bureaucrats of the inspection team were competent enough to sense that so kind of maneuvering by their ho country was going on behind the scenes, and they knew that continuing the eting would be a diversion in itself.

However, the tearful efforts of the European bureaucrats went unrewarded.

Excuse for interrupting the eting.

One of the officers ca to Hiroki and Ishida with a note in his hand and whispered into their ears, signaling the end of the series of events.

[The damage from the cyber attack was limited. There was no damage to the radioactive waste treatnt line. Also, I heard that all the operatives who infiltrated the plant have been dealt with.]

[I see.]

That was all Hiroki said. Soon after, the bureaucrats of the joint European inspection team received the sa report, and turning pale, they inford Hiroki that they would be leaving.

As a result, there were no concrete results from the joint European inspection team, but only a bureaucratically-written, characterless, and aningless joint statent.

The only damage to MCTBH was a slight delay in operations due to the cyber attack and the reprimanding to a certain young male employee who was found passed out and tied up in the wons restroom.