Humans were indeed an insatiable lot. Or at least the ones who never tire of dying. Just when you thought they'd call it quits, time passed.
Sands sat in Snowdyne's watchtower, one hand clenching his jaw, the other pounding on the door. His fingertips tapped, tapping, tapping, tapping against the wooden boards.
The old timeline left much to be desired, aside from the humans who refused to give up. Killing away from prying eyes was one thing, but after a day or two of repetition, and the number of times it had happened had reached triple digits, I stopped caring about prying eyes. Naturally, I stopped caring about the surveillance cameras all over the underground.
I kept posting LOVE from the monster-dense core to post LOVE before the humans came, and when I got to Snowdyne, where the humans were supposed to come, there was no one there. No one was in Waterfall, no one was in Hotland. No matter how much I looked around, there was not a single handful of dust, so it couldn't be human. Someone must have evacuated the place. The only one who could have realized that a crazed monster had appeared out of nowhere and evacuated the others was Alfis, who was monitoring the underground from the lab. He was relieved that there were fewer monsters to suffer at the hands of humans, but it also meant fewer monsters for him to kill. As a result, he didn't enjoy the dust as much as he should have. It was an unpleasant experience.
Sands decided to go to the lab first. There would be no monsters to watch what he was doing and no monsters to evacuate. In the past, when he had been more conscious of being watched, he would have avoided or destroyed the surveillance cameras, but now he didn't have to. Satisfied with his idea, Sands stood up and took the shortcut.
* * *
An underground laboratory is a laboratory indeed.
A jumble of scribbled notes and important papers from one project or another occupy the desk, and beneath the desk are torn scraps of paper and crumpled stacks of papers that make up a surprising blend of chaos, A stack of unopened containers of instant noodles from all-nighters is stacked near the desk leg, and a folding bed has been set up in the corner of the lab for those brief moments when you have to go home to sleep, and tools that have been used and put out of place at some point in the past that you can't quite remember, along with blueprints that must have been used then.
The lab looks similar above and below ground, and perhaps this is its fate.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
Alfis was working on his computer as usual in such a lab when he was startled by the sound of footsteps behind him. If she had been doing her job, she wouldn't have been so surprised, but now she had reason to be. On the monitor she was looking at, a girl with cat ears was smiling at her. It was her favorite cartoon character, a kitten girl. The last thing she wanted was to be caught doing her work while she was supposed to be on duty, but instead was indulging in her hobby. Alfis quickly pressed the power button on his monitor. At the same instant, the kitten girl on the monitor disappeared. Her voice still blared from the speakers, cheerfully calling out to the others. The sound made Alfis panic even more, and he quickly pressed the power button on the computer's main unit. There was a paper he'd been working on before he turned on the animation, but that didn't matter now. Soon the computer was forced to shut down. Papers, I hope you've saved them. Alfis sighed and swiveled his chair around to look back.
"Heh, hey, Alfis."
There was Sands the bony bird.
"Ah, bird, Sands? If I'd known it was you, I wouldn't have turned it off. I, uh, blame myself for this one, but...."
Realizing that the skeleton was a familiar visitor, Alpis looked up and smiled awkwardly at him. Sands was smiling, as always, but at least he wasn't one to judge, Alpis was glad to see.
