Star Rank Hunter

Original and most up to date translations are posted at volaretranslations.

Translator's Note: First things first, thank you very much to R.V. for sponsoring this chapter! As a reminder, VolareTL will be celebrating its one year anniversary next week on the 15th of December. Hint: You won't need to spend and sponsor next week! Dakara yorokobe, shounen!

Translator: Craxuan

Editor: darklord5555

Chapter 38: They Want Vengeance

Shute did not say anything towards Cillin’s silence. In fact, Cillin had not said much at all since the start of the operation. He simply felt that the kid was too silent; a young man should be act more cheerful and lively.

“Cillin, you can put those things aside for now. Once we took care of all the black mice and the repairs began, there would be specialised personnel who would take care of these things. We should head to the other side of the waste treatment plant now; that is where their lair is.” Shute looked at the time and said.

“Give me a moment… alright, done!” Cillin opened the instrument and entered a series of commands.

“What’s that?” One of the squad members asked. The written labels on the instrument had been worn away by the black mice. They couldn’t read what it said.

“This should be the instrument that analyzes the genes or something, I think.” Another squad member answered.

“Yes, this is a more high-end analyzer in GAL right now.” Cillin took out a small needle from his waist pocket and dripped its contents onto a recess on the instrument. Then he pushed the recess into a socket and resumed typing a series of formulas on the instrument.

“See, I told you you should read more books. If you run into some instruments in the future then at least you’ll know something about it. Otherwise, you’ll be called an illiterate, you know.”

“Ceh, I’m a soldier; all a soldier needs to know is to fight. Why would I need education for?”

A few squad members laughed while chatting.

However, Shute did not follow suit. Cillin’s reaction had given him a bad premonition. He had heard from Huo Neil a long time ago that Cillin was a very talented person and did research at Seven Lights research division. Now it would appear that this kid really was skilled and knowledgeable. It didn’t even take him five minutes to repair this instrument, and his technique was well-practised. However, the thing Cillin just dripped on the instrument should be the black mice’s blood, wasn’t it? When did he get that?

“How is it?” Shute crept closer and asked. He didn’t understand any of the advanced stuff displayed on the screen.

Certainly, being uneducated was a terrifying thing. Still, as his subordinate had said, all a soldier needed to know was how to fight . The stuff they could store in their brains were limited, and if there were too many, than their CPU wouldn’t be able catch up.

Cillin did not answer Shute’s question directly. Instead he said, “Captain, lend me a hand and help me gather some black mice blood samples from the lab. As fresh as possible.” Some of the places had blood residues left behind by the black mice fooling around with themselves (E/n: ;)) or injured by the lab’s defense mechanisms. As long as the blood residue hadn’t come into contact with the drugs, then it wouldn’t change too much.

“Sure.” Shute received a small bag of empty vials from Cillin. Every one of these vials had a piece of sterilised cotton swab in them. He didn’t think that the kid would bring even this along while they were tidying their equipment on the warship.

Before long, nine men had brought twenty eight blood samples to Cillin.

After scouring the lab for a few solutions and putting them through a series of treatment, Cillin put all twenty eight samples inside and analysed them all at once. After looking at the series of data displayed on the screen, he sighed, “Give me a moment; I’ll go for another round of sampling. Let’s hope that I can find it.”

“Hey, what is that kid doing exactly?” A squad member complained.

“I have a bad feeling about this.” Another person muttered.

Cillin looked at a hole and took a couple of photos. Then he jumped right into it.

“Hey, you!” The squad member who came after him could feel his hair standing on its end. This was a mouse hole; they couldn’t even stretch their limbs inside, much less raise a gun (T/N: Don’t forget that these mouse holes are far bigger than norm). If a black mouse suddenly scurried out from the bottom, then the only thing that awaited them was death. Although the bio scanner had not detected anything, there were just too many interferences in this kind of research station. It was very common for the device to malfunction.

It was pitch black inside the hole, so the people above could not see what Cillin was doing either. Cillin pulled off his gloves and pressed his hands directly on the wall. The black mice’s virus had no effect on him. While touching the walls, Cillin’s brain was already beginning to analyse in high speed the information he acquired from his fingers. The data he acquired through DNA analysis from the miniscule hair, dander, saliva and other residues on the wall was almost the same as the one he acquired on the instrument.

His fingers traveled along the walls before coming to a sudden stop when they had reached a certain spot. Cillin put on his gloves again and took out the cotton swab from a vial. He swiped that area with the cotton swab and scraped a layer with his cutter at the same time.

Shute and the others finally let loose a sigh of relief when they saw Cillin climbing out of the hole. Seriously, this kid…

After scanning and analysing the sample he had acquired from the hole, then comparing it with the twenty plus samples earlier, a new set of data was displayed on the screen.

“As I thought.” Cillin pointed at the data displayed on the screen and said to the group, “This is the comparison of the sample that I’ve acquired in the hole just now, and the twenty plus samples that you’ve collected. According to the data deduced from the analysis of their genetic materials - well, I’ll skip straight to the point - in short, we’ve been played.”

Shute frowned, “Can you explain?”

“"I'll use this one as an example." Cillin pointed at a particular dataset, "The black mice we've hunted have red and white muscle strength that are at least five times weaker than the black mouse that drilled that hole. That is to say, this black mouse is far stronger than any of the black mice we've encountered so far, be it in speed or endurance. This is not even the full analysis yet.”

“You mean that the black mouse that drilled those holes is a stronger variant?” Shute asked.

“That’s right. The black mice that we killed couldn’t even claw through the reinforced coating underneath this station! I’ve checked those holes before, and the claw marks inside were pretty smooth and clean. These stronger variants could even claw through steel plates. However, the black mice we encountered might not be able to claw through the reinforced coating even if we gave them a month’s time. Do you remember how long has it been since these holes were drilled into the station?”

The squad members turned silent.

That’s right, how long did it take for the station to succumb? A few hours at best!

“Where are those stronger black mice then? Inside the waste treatment plants?”

“No. If my guess is correct, then their true ‘elites’ are right underneath the station’s central area!”

Shute was shocked, “That’s not possible! Aren’t they…”

Shute was about to say that, weren’t the black mice incapable of drilling through the central area’s underground reinforced barrier? But he then immediately realized that they might have been wrong from the very beginning. It wasn’t that they couldn’t drill through the barrier. If the black mice were truly this strong, then no matter how tough the barrier beneath the central area was, it could not have possibly endured this long.

“What exactly are they trying to do then?” A squad member couldn’t help but ask.

“Revenge. They want revenge.” Cillin looked at the direction of the central area. The station’s most core researchers were all there.

The black mice they killed were just the vanguard. The true elites had not showed their faces yet this whole time. Cillin even suspected that the research station’s successful capture of the black mouse was the black mice’s leader intention in the first place. This was because that mouse wasn’t an elite; it was completely incomparable to the mouse that drilled that hole.

They once made their lair at the bottom of the waste treatment plants because both food and water could be found in that place. But now, that place was nothing more than a cover; a cover to waste the operation team’s bullets and time.

A diversion. They had played the tactic very well. In this world, the intelligent species were far beyond the humankind’s imaginations.

“If you predicted this a long time ago, then why didn’t you say anything?” A squad member said angrily.

“Would you have believed me without evidence?” With Cillin’s status as a mere student, no one would have believed him, be it the military or the station’s researchers. In that case, he might as well acquire for some evidence first and talk later. Cillin did not think of himself as a kind person. He would not do things that would obviously not be reciprocated. Whether those people lived or died was none of his damn business.

If Mo Heng could hear Cillin’s inner thoughts right now, he would probably be mad enough to give him a good beating.