Mechanical Alchemist

"Beautiful woman... Could it be that thing that was rumored to be around Green Street before?"

As a local big shot who mixed in Green Street, Su Lun was naturally aware that many unexplained disappearances had occurred there recently. More than once, witnesses claimed to have seen a very beautiful woman at the places where people vanished.

Clearly, that "beautiful woman" was most likely not human.

But some kind of mutated monster.

.....

Su Lun looked around, his brows furrowing tightly, as this was no longer the area he was familiar with.

The bad news was that they were down one student, and with no warning at all.

The good news was it was only one.

He suggested to the female assistant, "I think... we'd better leave this place first."

Cutting losses in time wasn't too late.

Assistant Rosa obviously knew the situation was urgent. Had there been other teachers around, she would certainly have chosen to search the caves.

But now, she had no choice but to ensure no more issues arose with the students in front of her.

She nodded in agreement with Su Lun's statement, then said, "Students, the trial has encountered some unexpected events. I declare the trial terminated, and we must return to the surface immediately."

Someone said, "But teacher, are we... are we just going to abandon Kome?"

"I'll come back for him in a moment."

Rosa said, thinking, then turned to Su Lun to ask, "Mr. Guide, do we have another way to get back to the surface?"

Su Lun thought for a moment. There indeed was another way, but he didn't dare be too confident, "I'll try."

He too wanted to leave this place as quickly as possible, to distance himself from these students.

Because he felt that if things dragged on, they would get even worse!

And his premonitions of bad events were always frighteningly accurate.

....

The students were already panicked and had no intention of staying any longer, but just as they were packing up their equipment to leave.

Suddenly, the corridor they had come through echoed with "slap, slap" sounds of water, like something wet and slimy was running quickly.

The students, seemingly familiar with this sound, cried out in terror, "Assistant Rosa, it's bad, the black dog is back!"

Su Lun, listening, paused in alarm, and concentrated on looking over.

At the end of his field of vision, seven or eight facially blurred "dog"-like slime monsters had run out of the corridor.

The identified creature was still the [Mutated Amoeba Shapeshifter].

At that moment, Assistant Rosa also drew her firegun from her thigh, raising her hand and firing several shots at the monsters.

Her marksmanship was good, hitting the heads of two monsters directly.

Then Su Lun watched as the monsters' heads burst open, spilling black liquid everywhere, but the creatures kept running, and in an instant, their heads reformed.

Seeing this, Su Lun's brows furrowed slightly.

The anxious students also said, "Teacher, physical attacks are useless, only fire can pose a threat to it!"

....

"Tough to kill, skilled at morphing and merging..."

Su Lun watched everything coolly, having swapped his regular pistol for two rune fireguns loaded with alchemic bullets.

His eyes flickered frequently, tracking the monsters' movements, analyzing in his mind, "Unless its body is burned dry, it's hard to kill. Its only attack is close-range corrosion, which isn't too deadly... The real problem is the quantity."

Looking again towards the end of the corridor, there seemed to be more than just seven or eight of those black dogs—there were even more!

Assistant Rosa quickly tried alternative attack methods, but they were all minimally effective. She immediately shouted, "Retreat!"

Their retreat was already cut off; they had no choice but to make their way deeper into the cave while evacuating.

Those in the physical profession had no way to deal with these monsters at all. Once close, even the battle suits would quickly corrode, emitting white smoke. Only "Elemental Alchemy Bullets" and some fire-type spells were somewhat effective, but they only slowed down the pursuit of the monsters.

Those things simply couldn't be killed!

Even after using another Foam Bullet to seal the tunnel, those "black dogs" would emerge from who knows where, doggedly chasing them down.

Su Lun ran away downhill with the students.

He rapidly pieced together the fragments of memory in his mind, trying to find another route back to the surface.

But strangely enough, no matter how the group changed passages, those black dogs could always appear in any corner, like ghosts, accurately finding them.

Before long, it wasn't just pursuit—monsters had even begun to intercept them.

The situation became increasingly dire.

...

However, the turning point also came very suddenly.

By chance, in an open area where the personnel had spread out, Su Lun noticed an attack pattern of those "black dogs": these black dog creatures did not attack everyone, but targeted a specific squad.

That squad was led by the one known as "the number one shooter of the academy", Jack!

Previously, a female student had fallen, and those black dogs could have killed this closest target. But instead, they completely ignored her, and rushed toward the squad at the front of the crowd.

Soon, all the students noticed that as long as they stayed away from Jack's squad, those black dogs wouldn't attack them.

On closer inspection, the black dogs' target wasn't the squad, but a girl in the group.

Someone noticed the anomaly and shouted, "Teacher, those monsters are after Lena!"

At this point, everyone understood that from the beginning, these black dogs had been chasing Lena, not them.

Since they had shielded Lena in the middle of the crowd, they had mistakenly thought the black dogs would attack everyone.

Realizing this, nearly all the students instinctively stayed away from that girl.

As expected, the black dogs bypassed them directly, and the crisis was averted in an instant.

Watching this unfold, Su Lun connected the clues in his mind, and a conspiracy took shape.

He came to a realization, "So the monster's 'extremely sensitive sense of smell to certain specific scents' is used like this!"

It was like a trained drug-sniffing dog that wouldn't bite ordinary people but would attack criminals carrying contraband.

"Is this monster being controlled by someone?!"

Su Lun immediately concluded, "To avoid causing too many casualties, someone created such a targeted monster and laid an ambush here... the culprit has to be some Big Shot from the inner city!"

Anyone could guess that this was definitely some dog-blood finance family infighting.

The mastermind behind all this was to kill the girl called "Lena"!

....

Su Lun Jue felt it was a pain in the ass, inadvertently getting involved in the inner city finance family struggles.

With his current status as a minor gang member, in such indirect major power struggles, he was nothing but cannon fodder.

Regardless of whether the mastermind's conspiracy succeeded, as the guide, he would be implicated.

He might even be framed as an accomplice, after all, he was the one who led the trial!

"Really got into big trouble…"

This undeserved disaster had befallen him, giving Su Lun a sense of being screwed over by fate.