Chapter 84: Searching

But unlike ordinary zombies infected with the T-virus, these members of the Sacred Serpent Organization began to undergo violent mutations after getting back up.

Countless plant-like things pierced through their skin from all parts of their bodies and drilled out, then at a speed visible to the naked eye, transformed into terrifying half-human, half-plant monsters.

'This guy, where did he get this technology?' Aiden looked at those monsters, deeply shocked in his heart.

In his memory, although Javier had a large number of B.O.W.s and viruses bought from the Umbrella Corporation, he himself did not have the technology to conduct his own research.

And the monsters in front of him were clearly not any model he had seen in the game or reality.

'Could it be that guy fused early with a plant infected with the Veronica virus?' Aiden thought of another possibility. He remembered that Javier raised a plant infected with the Veronica virus.

However, now was not the time for him to think carefully, because those monsters had launched an attack on them.

Unlike the B.O.W.s Javier bought, these monsters moved extremely swiftly, and their vitality was as tough as plants, very hard to kill with gunfire. Moreover, the blood in their bodies could also burn. Some monsters' blood was even corrosive, and the sprayed blood could instantly corrode a large hole in the ground.

Aiden and the others could only shoot at them more cautiously to avoid being splashed by the sprayed blood. This forced them to keep retreating into other rooms.

After finally taking down those monsters, all the rooms they passed through were engulfed in a sea of fire.

———

Time quickly passed to the early hours of the morning.

After wandering around inside the dam for most of the day, Aiden and his group arrived at the dam's reservoir control room.

Here, they didn't encounter any enemies, so after discussing, they decided to rest for a while.

Perhaps stimulated by the B.O.W.s and mutated humans, Krauser behaved unusually silent. He took out his personal hip flask, sat in a corner, and sipped quietly.

Leon noticed that he had something on his mind, so he simply sat opposite him and started a conversation. However, both of them kept their voices low, so it was hard to hear what they were saying.

"Aiden, want some water?" On the other side of the control room, Aiden was sitting with three girls. Roberta took out a military canteen and asked.

"Thanks."

Aiden took the canteen and was about to drink when he noticed Fabiola sitting nearby, dazing while holding her gun. So he handed the canteen to her.

"Take a sip to calm your nerves," Aiden said.

Hearing Aiden's words, Fabiola's pupils slowly regained focus. She glanced at Aiden, then at Roberta, and finally nodded, took the canteen, and took a sip.

Although she was a powerful maid, she was still too young. Unlike Roberta, she couldn't adapt in a short amount of time.

The monsters they encountered after entering the dam also made her lose the ease she had in Cloud Serpent Village earlier.

"I told you not to come, but you insisted on not listening." Roberta lightly knocked on the young maid's head, and for once, showed a rare scolding expression.

Fabiola really resembled her. Just like her little sister.

"I just want to become a maid like Miss Roberta." Fabiola hugged her head and said a bit stubbornly.

"You don't need to become me, Fabiola. You are you," Roberta said. "The unique you."

"But Roberta, you're too excellent." Fabiola said.

"Excellent?" Roberta was stunned for a moment. "But I'm a maid who can't even do housework well. Unlike you, who can at least clean a room completely without breaking anything, and what you make is actually edible."

Hearing this, both Aiden and Manuela, who was hugging her knees and resting her eyes while actually eavesdropping, couldn't help but laugh.

Their laughter annoyed Roberta a bit. She coldly said, "I've been working really hard to learn. Next time, I'll definitely make you look at me with new eyes."

"I look forward to that day," Aiden said, spreading his hands.

(A/N: I buffed Javier a little. Since the earlier plot was already changed like that, one more tweak doesn't matter.)

Hearing the occasional laughter of girls from Aiden's side, Krauser, who felt a bit better after chatting with Leon, said a little enviously, "That guy is really lucky. Those three ladies are all very beautiful. I'm a little jealous of him."

"There's nothing to be jealous of, Krauser. People are different," Leon patted his shoulder and continued, "A man having too many women around him isn't necessarily a good thing. Believe me, what seems like happiness now might turn into pain someday."

"Then I'd rather endure that kind of pain," Krauser smacked his lips. As a man, who hasn't fantasized about being surrounded by beautiful women? Unfortunately, his burly build didn't seem to be popular. Until now, no woman had taken a liking to him.

"Speaking of which, why does that guy have so much charm with women? I really don't see anything special about him."

Although Krauser had calmed down a lot from Leon's comforting words, he had a strong jealousy by nature. Combined with the domestic propaganda, he inherently looked down on Asians and asked curiously.

"Who knows?" Leon shook his head. But he also found it strange because since he met Aiden, there never seemed to be a shortage of women around him.

From their first meeting at the Raccoon City gas station, every time they reunited, the women beside him were different, and all of them were outstanding, whether it was Claire, Jill, or even Ada, the agent marked as part of a mysterious organization by the CIA.

Now in South America, it was the same. Not only were there two ridiculously skilled maids around him, but also the stunning Manuela, who started sticking close to him just after drinking his water and eating his biscuit.

'Maybe he has some kind of magic power,' Leon thought and could only draw this conclusion.

———

While Aiden and his group were resting, inside the dam's surveillance room, Javier sat in front of the screen, hands clasped under his chin, expressionless as he looked at the footage on the screen.

But in fact, he wasn't truly expressionless. If one looked closely, they could see that he seemed to be suppressing his facial expressions, trying not to let his subordinates notice anything.

Right now, his body was undergoing astonishing changes. Every cell inside him was continuously being transformed by the virus.

Yes, he had injected himself with the Veronica virus too.

But not the prototype virus bought from Wesker, rather one extracted from a cultivated Veronica virus plant strain.

Although it was unknown why he hadn't shown any physical mutation until now, it was certain that he could already use some of the Veronica virus's abilities.

Like a "king", he could control creatures infected by the virus.

For example, some members of the Sacred Serpent Organization under his command had been injected with the virus extracted from his body. Even if killed in human form, under the superior orders of Javier's super-sensory command, the virus inside these subordinates would respond to the "king's" call, revive like zombies, and then mutate into special bio-weapons.

Because the virus came from the Veronica plant strain, the bodies of these mutated Sacred Serpent members also showed plant-like changes.

However, Javier could still maintain his rationality and human appearance. Not because his body was special, but because of his strong willpower.

Just like his wife, Manuela's mother, Hilda, who, even after being infected by the T-virus, still remembered her love for her husband and daughter due to her obsession with them, even as she turned into a terrifying monster.

'We will always be together, Hilda, Manuela. No one will separate us. I will build a world that belongs only to us.' Javier shifted his gaze from the screen and thought silently, then looked at his confidant standing nearby.

"Is everything ready?" Javier asked.

"Boss, everything is ready," the confidant nodded.

"Then begin. Start with Sena Town," Javier said coldly, glancing at the map hanging on the wall of the surveillance room.

The confidant nodded again and then left the surveillance room.

A few minutes later, a propeller transport plane took off from the top of the dam and flew toward Sena Town.

———

Those still in the reservoir control room had no idea what had happened.

After resting for nearly an hour, they set out again.

Manuela had been to the dam more than once. Although each visit was brief, she was still fairly familiar with most of the dam's interior.

However, after searching several places where Javier might be, they still found no trace of him and instead kept encountering various types of bio-weapons.

"I think we might have been going in the wrong direction from the start." Aiden looked at Leon, who came out of an empty room with a disappointed face, and said to everyone.

"Javier knows our every move. Where do you think he would most likely stay?" Aiden made an exaggerated gesture and pointed at a surveillance camera in the corner.

"The monitoring room," Roberta said.

"But I've never been there," Manuela said awkwardly.

"My father values the dam very much and doesn't want me involved in these things, so I don't really know where the surveillance room is."

"Alright then." Aiden scratched his head, at a loss for words.

Since they didn't know the exact location of the surveillance room, they could only resort to the dumbest method, searching room by room.

And that was exactly what Javier wanted. He could take advantage of this time to continuously command bio-weapons and infected subordinates to attack them, thus depleting their ammunition.

After several more hours of hard fighting, they had already explored most of the dam. Now, only one small area remained unexplored.

"This place is..." Looking at the huge passage in front of her, Manuela opened her mouth in confusion.

Because it turned out to be the dam's drainage outlet. At the very top of the outlet, there was a staircase and corridor made of reinforced concrete. At the end of the corridor, there was a blast door often seen in civil defense projects.

"No wonder we couldn't find it. So it was hidden so well." Aiden suddenly understood. No one would've thought the surveillance room would be built inside the dam's drainage outlet.

"The most dangerous place is indeed the safest," Aiden sighed.

Then, just as they were about to go up the stairs, that explosion-proof door opened from the inside.

A sturdy South American man with a face full of beard walked out.

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