Lear had been deliberately avoiding the control room earlier precisely because a document left behind by a former Substation worker was hidden on the first floor. It contained information stating that insect eggs could be expelled from the body using herbs.
Upon arriving at the second floor of the control room, Nicholai had just found a place to sit down when a sudden, sharp pain surged through his abdomen, as if something were frantically gnawing at his internal organs.
He rolled across the floor in agony.
"Mr. Nicholai, how does it feel to be treated like a test subject?"
Lear watched coldly as the man writhed on the ground, his voice icy.
Nicholai struggled to lift his head, his voice trembling. "You... why? Killing me gains you nothing. You won't get any more money."
Lear walked slowly over to him and crouched down, staring straight into his eyes. "I don't care about your money at all. I just want your death to be a little more painful."
"You!!"
Nicholai mustered all his strength to reach out and grab Lear, but at that moment, a spine-chilling sound of cracking bone erupted from within him.
An insectile limb burst violently through his chest, followed by countless bugs frantically tearing their way out of his ribcage, scrambling to emerge. Nicholai could only let out one shrill scream after another.
Watching the insects break through the body, Lear didn't hesitate; he stomped to death every one of the flailing creatures as they tried to lunged at him.
Jill, who had remained silent until now, looked at Nicholai's corpse and then at Lear.
"Did you know all along what was going to happen?"
Jill's sudden question caught Lear slightly off-guard. Just as he was about to explain, Jill waved her hand dismissively, signaling that he didn't need to say more.
"I trust you."
Her words were brief but firm. After speaking, she turned and headed downstairs to begin inspecting the equipment on the first floor.
Watching Jill's retreating back, Lear felt a wave of complex emotions.
From the moment they met, this strong woman had likely noticed something was off. Whether it was fighting the Tyrant or facing the Nemesis, the combat prowess he displayed had long since exceeded the boundaries of a normal person. Yet Jill had never pressed him for answers; she hadn't given up on him even when he was suspected of being infected, and after his sudden recovery, she still chose to trust him without hesitation.
This unreserved trust caused a ripple of warmth to stir in the depths of Lear's heart.
After the two of them conducted a thorough search of the control room, Lear found a fax left by the Substation supervisor and located the positions of the circuit breakers on the monitor screens.
"Jill, over here."
"What is it?" Jill asked, quickly walking back upstairs at the sound of his voice.
Lear picked up the fax and said in a heavy tone, "It says here that we need to reset the circuit breakers." As he spoke, he pointed toward the monitor screen. "There are four in total, located in these positions."
Jill leaned in to look at the screen and nodded immediately. "Let's go. We need to restore power as soon as possible."
"Wait!" Lear walked over to Nicholai's corpse and pulled a satellite phone from his clothes. "This thing will come in handy."
Jill nodded, and the two stepped out of the control room, returning to the spot where Nicholai had been attacked by the insects. Moving further inside, they came upon a fork in the path.
Jill looked at Lear and spoke directly:
"Four circuit breakers. We'll each take two. Let's split up."
"Split up? That's not very safe." Lear frowned immediately.
Jill raised an eyebrow and let out a light chuckle. "What, worried about me? Then finish your job quickly and come find me."
Before Lear could say another word, she had already chosen one side of the passage and walked straight in.
Lear shook his head helplessly, called out a warning to "be careful" at her retreating back, and turned into the other path.
Lear remembered very clearly that in the original game plot, while Jill was inspecting the circuit breakers, insects would continuously attack her from behind.
It was for this reason that he was concerned for Jill's safety.
On second thought, however, he felt a bit more at ease considering Jill's combat prowess; as long as she was even slightly on guard, those things wouldn't be able to hurt her.
Even so, Lear quickened his pace to find the circuit breakers and begin the reset.
The actual operation was quite fast; in the game, Jill's process was only intentionally prolonged to heighten the tension.
It didn't take him long to flip both circuit breakers, quickly eliminating every insect that attacked him in the meantime.
After turning on the breakers, Lear returned to the fork where they had separated to meet up with Jill. To his surprise, when he reached the door, he found the Valkyrie had already returned.
Jill stood leaning against the wall on the first floor of the control room with her arms crossed, looking as if nothing had happened. Seeing Lear return, she teased him:
"Oh, Officer Lear is back? You're a bit slow. If you want to protect me, you might need more practice."
Hearing Jill's joke, Lear didn't play along. Instead, he replied with unusual earnestness:
"I'll work hard on it."
This sudden directness caught Jill off guard.
She quickly recovered, her cheeks flushing slightly as she whispered back:
"Good. I'll be waiting."
The two turned back the way they came, leaving the Substation and returning to the empty streets. Lear seemed to suddenly remember something and looked at Jill.
"Why do you trust me so much? Aren't you afraid I might be a second Wesker?"
Jill shook her head gently and looked up at the gray sky.
"Probably because of your actions," she said softly. "You may not say much, but your concern for your comrades can't be faked."
She looked back at Lear, her gaze firm and sincere.
"More importantly, I trust my gut. You will never be a second Wesker."
Lear looked into Jill's sincere eyes and felt a surge of warmth, but he found himself at a loss for words, unable to say anything.
The two walked side by side and soon reached the subway station. Seeing them return, Carlos, who had just finished clearing the Subway Control Room and brought his men back, immediately came to meet them.
"How did it go?"
"It's all set. We can start the subway in a moment," Lear nodded.
An excited look immediately appeared on Carlos's face. "Great! I'll go tell old man Victor right away. You two take a rest. I think we'll be out of this hellhole very soon!"
Watching Carlos walk away, Lear's brow furrowed slightly.
It wasn't that he didn't want a successful evacuation; he just felt a faint sense of unease.
He felt like he was forgetting something. Would things really end this easily?
But looking at the civilians and U.B.C.S. members around him who were thrilled to be leaving, and seeing the exhausted Jill beside him, Lear shook his head. In the end, he didn't voice his concerns.
However, he remained on high alert.
Soon, the civilians in the subway station were moved into the subway cars.
Lear, Jill, Brad, Katherine, and Sherry were placed together in the last car.
This was a gesture of goodwill from Victor, who wanted them to be away from the noisy crowd so they could get some rest.
The subway slowly pulled out of the station, heading out of Raccoon City.
Sitting in the car, Lear watched the tunnel walls racing past the window as a single thought circled repeatedly in his mind:
What exactly did I forget?
(Translated by yourtl.app)
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Tl note:
Hello everyone! I've started publishing a new translation: Warhammer: Wait, Do I Have to Sit on the Golden Throne Too? The story looks very promising, and the author has already written a Warhammer fanfiction with over 800 chapters, so I'm really excited to share this one with you. I'll leave the link in the comments for anyone who wants to check it out. Hope you enjoy it