"Is that how it works? Insert them one by one, and when the progress bar hits 100%, move to the next." Joyce watched as she simply placed the floppy disks Richard had given her into the server room's drive. A progress bar appeared on the computer monitor, and she followed the prompts to insert the disks one after another. She felt that this kind of hacking required no technical skill at all—it was even simpler than scanning barcodes at the convenience store.
Soon, before she had even gone through the entire stack of floppy disks, a prompt popped up on the monitor: "All classified data has been copied." Joyce was momentarily stunned. "Is that it? It's finished?"
She quickly removed the floppy disks, packed them into a bag, and hung it around her neck to ensure they wouldn't be lost.
Afterward, following Richard's instructions, she gathered all the flammable materials she could find in The Lab and scattered them in the Confidential Archives and the server room. Then, she set them ablaze. In an instant, both rooms were engulfed in flames.
After setting the rooms on fire, Joyce didn't choose to run out of The Lab. Instead, she took a Flamethrower she had found in a warehouse while searching for flammables and resolutely headed toward the Underground Lockdown Zone. She was going to The Upside Down as well!
...Richard and Jonathan stood together, back-to-back, looking at the Dimogogen Spiders from The Upside Down surrounding them. Their hearts were heavy.
"I've never seen these things before." Richard bared his teeth. These giant spiders didn't seem any weaker than a Demogorgon. Seeing how much they resembled them, he decided to call them Dimogogen Spiders.
Jonathan swallowed hard. "Should we be glad these things never made it to the real world?"
Richard let out a soft breath, took his revolver from his waist, and flicked off the safety. "Don't expect them to just stand there and watch us," he said calmly. "Prepare for battle at any moment."
"...Right." Jonathan nodded vigorously, gripping his one-handed axe and pistol tightly.
Gi—
Suddenly, one of the Dimogogen Spiders let out a roar and lunged at Richard, leading the charge. The other spiders followed close behind.
Richard was quick. Almost the instant the spider roared and lunged, his revolver fired. Bang! Bang! Two shots hit the Dimogogen Spider square in the head. Two bullet holes appeared instantly, and green fluid splattered from the wounds. The spider, its head blown apart, quickly lost its ability to move and collapsed.
"At least they're squishy! And they don't have high-speed regeneration." Richard felt a slight sense of relief, but his eyelids twitched as he saw the Dimogogen Spiders' blade-like legs slicing through vines and floor tiles with every move.
Jonathan also started firing, but his marksmanship was terrible; all his shots missed.
Richard snatched the gun from Jonathan's hand and handed him his machete. "Go save him! Leave the monsters to me," he shouted.
Jonathan didn't hesitate or object. He dropped the one-handed axe, which felt light compared to the machete, and charged toward the vine-entangled Troy with the machete in both hands.
Wielding a gun in each hand, Richard became a dual-wielding god of war. His pupils constricted slightly, emitting a faint, melancholic blue light. Richard activated his Derivative Skill, Weak Point Exploitation. In his eyes, the movements of all surrounding creatures slowed down, and various points on their bodies glowed with a blue light only he could see. Richard aimed and fired at those blue spots.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Shell casings ejected with every shot. The bullets whistled through the air, piercing the head weak points of several Dimogogen Spiders. They had almost no chance to dodge and fell one by one as they were hit.
"Three, four... twelve." Richard silently counted the number of Dimogogen Spiders he had killed, while also keeping track of the remaining bullets in his two pistols.
Before long, both magazines were empty. With no time to reload, Richard had to throw the pistols as projectiles. He then pulled several black pellets from his backpack and hurled them at the fearless Dimogogen Spiders.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Joyce, carrying the Flamethrower through the gate to The Upside Down, stared blankly at the familiar yet strange town. Unsure of where to go, she heard several explosions coming from the direction of the town's school. She immediately found her direction, gritted her teeth, and hurried toward the sound of the explosions with the heavy Flamethrower on her back.
"Please, Jonathan, Chade, please be okay." Joyce's eyes reddened as she pleaded with God... "Eleven, come with me." Dr. Brennan, dressed in a suit like an aristocratic gentleman, walked affectionately toward Eleven. He seemed to ignore the wariness in her eyes as he said, "I promise you, after this, I Will be an even better Papa, okay?"
After a night of searching and pursuit, Dr. Brennan had finally found the "daughter" with superpowers he had been longing for. His heart was filled with mixed emotions as he reached out his hand and walked toward her.
In Dr. Brennan's eyes, this was a heartwarming scene of a father and daughter reuniting, but to anyone else, it was a scene of madness. Lights flickered rapidly throughout the Gymnasium, accompanied by the constant roars of monsters and the screams of humans. Everyone was in a state of panic.
"Stop!" Eleven shouted, telling the old creep to stay back. Thanks to the knowledge Richard had instilled in her over the past few days, she realized how loathsome the man she had once been so attached to truly was. She knew that her past attachment was a false emotion called "Stockholm Syndrome"—a bloody kind of warmth.
The smile froze on Dr. Brennan's face, and his gaze gradually calmed, though his tone remained gentle. "What's wrong, Eleven? If you're angry about what I did before, I can apologize, but please come back to me now."
Eleven retorted in an accusatory tone, "No! I'm not going with you!"
"Eleven?" Jonathan, who was hacking at the vines binding Troy, thought he heard a familiar voice echoing in the Gymnasium. He couldn't help but pause and look back.
In that split second, a vine suddenly wrapped around his neck, choking him and hoisting him into the air.
During the struggle, the machete fell from Jonathan's hand.
Richard knew that Jonathan hadn't been hallucinating. It was the result of the real world and The Upside Down overlapping and being closely linked. Sounds from the real world could reach The Upside Down, and people in The Upside Down could communicate by touching light sources that corresponded to the real world, occasionally even transmitting electrical signals.
Unfortunately, Jonathan wasn't him; he didn't know this, so he had been momentarily distracted.
Richard threw a few more of his Homemade Large Firecrackers to hold back five or six Dimogogen Spiders. Then, he pulled the one-handed axe Jonathan had dropped earlier from a severed vine and lunged at a Dimogogen Spider that was climbing a vine to feast on Jonathan. With a flash of the blade like a "mountain-splitting strike," Richard hacked the spider's body in half, spraying green fluid all over Jonathan's face.
"Ugh!" Jonathan gagged as he accidentally swallowed some of the fluid. He felt like he was going to die of disgust before the vine could even strangle him.
Richard hacked at a vine several times, finally cutting Jonathan down. He then handed the one-handed axe to Jonathan; he would use the machete that had fallen to the ground.
With Richard's cover, Jonathan engaged in a difficult struggle with the vines and finally managed to pull Troy from their grasp, yanking out the vine that had been thrust deep into Troy's throat.
"He's not breathing!" Seeing that the rescued Troy remained motionless, with no sign of his chest rising, Jonathan checked his breath and cried out in alarm.
Richard held his machete with both hands to parry two massive spider legs coming down on him. "Then give him first aid! Trust yourself, you can do it!" he shouted.
With a powerful shove, Richard swung his blade and cleanly sliced off the head of another Dimogogen Spider.
"But..." Jonathan looked at Richard, who was struggling to hold off the spider swarm. With the one-handed axe in one hand and the unconscious Troy in his other arm, he was caught in a dilemma.
"Just focus on saving him. Leave these monsters to me," Richard said firmly, sensing Jonathan's hesitation. He pulled several Small Blue Bottles from his backpack—bottles that looked somewhat familiar to Jonathan.
Richard's nimble thumb easily flicked open the cap of a small blue bottle held between his fingers. He then boldly downed all the thick liquid inside. Richard licked his lips and cursed under his breath, "Damn, this stuff is too freaking sweet."
As soon as he finished speaking, Jonathan saw Richard abandon his conservative fighting style. He went from one extreme to another, charging recklessly into the circle of the remaining seven Dimogogen Spiders to face them head-on.
Jonathan grew even more anxious as he saw Richard being wounded under the spiders' onslaught. His pupils shrank, and before his grief and horror could even manifest, he watched in bewilderment as Richard continued to trade blows with the spiders as if he felt nothing. Looking closer, the wounds on Richard's body from the sharp spider legs were actually healing rapidly!
Jonathan suddenly understood. It turned out his good friend was also an Esper!
Oh, never mind then.
Jonathan breathed a sigh of relief and immediately began performing mouth-to-mouth and CPR on young Troy. From time to time, he encouraged the stranger—a bad kid he'd heard often bullied his brother—muttering fiercely, "Wake up! Wake up! Use that same energy you had when you bullied Will! Once you're awake, you'll see how I'll deal with you!"