Chapter 65

'Haaahhh…I haven't thought about Oppai in ages.' Issei abruptly realized sadly. It wasn't that he was no longer interested in Oppai, far from it, but every time he did think about Oppai, he got excited. And once his excitement grew to a certain point, [Gamer's Mind] would kick in and forcibly calm him down. It took all of the enjoyment out of thinking about the wondrous things called Oppai in the first place!

[Gamer's Mind] activated!

See? Bloody thing was leeching all the fun out of his life to keep him focused on his 'mission.'

Returning to the subject at hand, the Sekiryūtei guessed that this place had some kind of emergency entrance/exit for the Project Rat Poison base. That being the case, it was likely somewhere out of the way and/or hard to get to on the ground floor, which ruled out the main factory floor, as well as the ruined cafeteria and all of the corridors and public places.

That left…the Floor Manager's office. It was perched slightly above the floor to allow the theoretical manager to overlook the place, but it was also out of the way and was small enough and unobtrusive enough to be overlooked by most people.

For using a startling amount of logic and reasoning, you gain +1 WIS and INT!

A vein pulsed in Issei's head as his right arm's Sacred Gear snarked at him once again. He never once imagined he'd have a near-irresistible urge to punch an article of clothing, but then again his life had just been getting weirder and weirder since this started.

Making his way to the Floor Manager's Office, the boy peered around the dimly lit room. Old desk, broken hat stand (Why? The locker room was where employees kept their stuff), decrepit-looking chair…suspiciously clean and intact floorplan with several pins stuck in it mounted on the wall. Hello, clue.

Examining the pins made Issei smile beneath his helmet. All of them were blank, except for one, which had a dead rat with a spike through it engraved on it. Rat Poison. Hah.

Pressing it, Issei stepped back as the wall juddered and about a meter of floor and wall creaked open, revealing steps leading down into darkness, as always. Issei had to wonder why these places were never brightly lit. Were the Purifiers miserly with their electricity bills or something?

Putting that inane question aside, Issei carefully went down the stairs, wishing he had bought a torch. Then he had an idea.

"[Magic Weapon Reinforcement]!" he muttered. In a flash, both his gladius and his Swordbreaker were wrapped in ruby light. While dim, the added light was more than enough to see by, even if the opening slammed shut behind him as he activated it.

Moving down the stairs, Issei was not surprised to see an antechamber at the bottom of the stairs. That had been the commonality with all of the dungeons he had visited so far. What Issei hadn't expected was the still corpse of a man sprawled out in the middle of the small room, clutching something in his hand. His throat had been slit on both sides, one neater than the other.

'So someone slits this guy's throat once, hastily and messily, and then slits the other side in a neat and tidy way…because why?' the Gamer thought in confusion.

The clothes the guy was wearing were decidedly odd as well, bloodstains aside. They looked kind of like the robes you'd see on a monk, except this one was white and burnt orange, made of nylon rather than cotton or whatever material monk's robes were normally made from. Emblazoned over his heart was a symbol; a flame set on a shield. The words 'Corpore et anima. Semper pura semper vera, nunquam iniuriam' were written in Rōmaji above and below it.

"…is that English or what?" Issei muttered in confusion. His skill at reading English was so-so, but he wasn't recognising any of this stuff. Unless the 'anima' on the top line was talking about the Final Fantasy X Summon, but he kinda doubted it.

The hand that was clenched was rigid, but Issei didn't have over 100 STR for nothing, so the contents were quickly exhumed. It was…

"…a key?" Issei blinked before using [Observe] on it.

[Project Supervisor's Office Key]

This is the key that allows entry into the supervisor's office of Project Rat Poison.

Useful. Wait, so then this guy was…who then? If he had the supervisor's office key then Issei supposed that he was, in fact, the Head of Project Rat Poison, but, if so, why had he been killed? The wounds didn't have the greenish tinge of the Warpstone blades that the Ratmen assassins liked to smear their blades in, so that just left one person.

Agent Flamberge. He had to have done this.

Quelling his fury, the Sekiryūtei stored the key in his inventory and then looted the man's body, leaving him his clothes out of respect for the dignity of the dead. Fortunately, the man had a map of the facility on him. The Project Rat Poison Base wasn't actually large enough to need a map; it was about the size of four school gymnasiums sitting in a square, with three levels to it. The supervisor's office was just a few meters away on this floor, in fact, which actually explained why he still had his key in hand.

He'd likely just left his office when he was killed.

'Flamberge discovered this guy was running and managed to catch up and kill him from wherever it was that he had been previously, supposing that this guy was in his office, in the short time it took him to leave and lock his office and run over here.' Issei thought with a frown. Unless the Purifier Agent was just a few feet away from this guy's office when he started to run, that would be very difficult…or…

The boy examined the way that the body was sprawled, just feet from the door leading to the rest of the facility. The look of pain and realisation told him that the man had been taken completely off guard.

"He was waiting in here for the Project Head to run in, and slit his throat as he entered." He concluded grimly.

But why? It made no sense. Killing the members of Project Rat King made sense, if a grisly, evil kind of sense. But the members of Project Rat Poison? The ones Flamberge had been ordered to rendezvous with?

Deciding that the answer to all these questions lay within the base itself; Issei started forward again. Moving slowly, he left the antechamber behind and entered the main corridor, which, for some stupid reason, were a blindingly bright shade of white. What moron decided that eye-searing white was a good colour for the walls, floors and ceilings of a base? His eyes were actually watering behind his menpō!

Cursing the Purifiers for their stupid tastes in interior decorating, Issei made his way to the nearby office, trying to keep his eyes from focusing on the eye-searing colour. It wasn't that far; just barely four meters or so. Obviously, the rear entrance was the Project Head's escape route.

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