Volume 12: Yaguna Kotor Chapter 572: Caves and Wells
Regardless of whether these caves are qualified to be called "ruins", what is certain is that they were definitely not dug by humans... As for whether it was the Alpha civilization, there is no way of knowing.
Unfortunately, there were no words or symbols left on the walls of these caves, and Ke Lan had no way of determining their purpose.
In the section several dozen meters at the outermost end of the cave, there are some simple sheds. The outside of the sheds are wrapped with a lot of plastic sheets and straps, and inside are piled with dirty, worn-out bedding and some equally tattered clothes.
There were several rusty Type 01 rifles against the wall, and next to the rifles was a box of ammunition that was obviously made in a workshop. The tolerance was so large that there was a question whether the ammunition would get stuck in the bolt. However, compared with what could barely be called a "magazine" next to it, these bullets could be considered "well-made".
Those magazines were simply made by splicing two pieces of rolled rotten iron sheets together, with the surface wrapped with several circles of dirty tape. Even the junk sold on the black market called "disposable items" were much better than these things.
So far, everything Ke Lan had seen was very similar to what he saw in any other exile settlement in the wilderness.
If there is any difference, it is probably that the spatial planning of these caves is too neat, and even the messy sheds seem to be well organized - most of the exile settlements in the wilderness have no layout or structure to speak of, and from the perspective of the top, they look like a randomly growing tumor. But all the sheds here are built against the rock wall, giving people a very neat feeling.
Ke Lan walked in another ten meters, and an extinguished campfire appeared in front of him.
"To make a fire in a place like this without any smoke exhaust device, aren't you afraid of carbon monoxide poisoning?" Ke Lan muttered as he bent down to stir up the charred remains in the bonfire. A warm feeling instantly passed through the armor to his hands. He immediately pushed away the ashes underneath, and several pieces of coal that were not completely extinguished and were still emitting a bright black and red light were immediately revealed.
He was not surprised that the heretics could get coal. Swamps occupied about 9% of the area of the wilderness of Alpha Star. In these swamps, a large amount of coal was buried under the shallow peat layer. People did not even need heavy machinery to dig. One person with a shovel and a pickaxe could dig out dozens of kilograms of coal in a day.
It is precisely because of these rich coal reserves that equipment that uses fossil fuels as energy, which had almost disappeared on the Ark, has become popular again.
But what made Ke Lan feel alert was that these still burning coals proved that not long ago there were people sitting around this campfire to keep warm - whether it was the unmanned reconnaissance aircraft in the sky or the Marines of Fleet Zero that surrounded the area, they did not find anyone leaving this place, so where did these disappeared people go?
Ke Lan couldn't help but look deeper into the cave.
Could it be that these people followed the prophet in?
Ke Lan picked up a can next to the campfire. It was a can of luncheon meat produced by the Ark Field Force Military Food Factory. The production date was 945, and it had been four years past its two-year shelf life... However, as long as the military cans were well sealed, they could still be eaten even if they were decades past their expiration date, but the taste might become worse.
This can had been dug out halfway, and the inside of the can was stained with a circle of white lard that had solidified due to the low temperature, but the meat inside still retained a certain degree of softness, forming a sharp contrast with another can next to it that had never been opened and was frozen harder than a stone.
These people should have been eating before... If they stopped halfway through the meal, it must be something important.
For the exiles in the wilderness, there are probably few things more important than filling their stomachs.
Even if the "prophet", the leader of the heretical sect, came, he would not just throw the unfinished cans next to the campfire.
Ke Lan increasingly felt that something was wrong with this place... Not only was there something wrong with this place, but even the fact that Dr. Renee had defected seemed to be filled with a strong smell of conspiracy.
First of all, judging from the surveillance video of the New Dawn and the traces at the crash site, Dr. Renee's defection was purely spur of the moment - she did not expect the incident to develop to that extent at first, but when the metal can exploded in the crowd, the matter slid into an uncontrollable abyss.
Dr. Renee was in a hurry to return to the Ark in order to grab Professor Smith's first-hand research data - although Ke Lan knew that those materials had long been destroyed by the "Seraph", even if there were some clues left, they had already fallen into the hands of the Undead Crew, and it was impossible for Dr. Renee to pick up the leaks.
But Dr. Renee didn't know these things. Considering her passion and madness for research, it was completely reasonable for her to do so and it didn't seem like acting at all.
The possibility of Dr. Renee colluding with the heretical sect in advance is extremely low. Especially after finding out the traitor Park Sang-woo, the Undead Crew will definitely carefully investigate the research team members sent to Yaguna Tor to avoid similar incidents from happening again as much as possible.
There might be spies of heretical sects hidden among the ordinary members, but for a person like her who is in charge, if there is any problem, she would have been discovered long ago. Once there was any unusual movement, she would have been subdued or even shot dead by the people who were secretly watching her, and she would not have had the chance to seize a transport plane and escape.
The prophet… or the prophet’s substitute, appeared at a very coincidental time. The crash site of the transport plane was not far from Fleet Zero, and it took the Marines only an hour to reach the crash site. However, in this hour, the prophet not only found Dr. Renee before the Marines, but also took her away without leaving any trace.
If this was just a coincidence, Ke Lan felt like her IQ was being rubbed hard on the ground.
The prophet clearly knew in advance that Dr. Renee would defect. He even estimated the approximate location where the transport plane would crash, which was why he showed up there so promptly!
Apart from Dr. Renee herself, there are only two people who are most likely to be suspects - the researcher who threw the metal can out and the researcher who was sitting in the co-pilot seat and died after the crash.
The former became the fuse of the conflict. He took advantage of his own "mistake" to directly detonate the conflict between the two sides and successfully forced Dr. Renee into a situation where she had to seize the plane and escape. The other researcher, during the crash of the transport plane, tried his best to control the crash site within the area that the prophet could reach. According to the records of the black box on the transport plane, Dr. Renee fell into a coma after the transport plane was hit by the laser. From then on until the transport plane touched the ground and crashed, the researcher sitting in the co-pilot seat was controlling the plane.
Although these two people are dead, Ke Lan feels that death will not clear them of suspicion - if he can contact Fleet Zero or the Undead Crew now, the first thing he will do is to ask them to focus on investigating the background and details of these two researchers.
What puzzled Ke Lan even more was not how the heretic sect had planted these spies on the Ark, but the reason why the "Prophet" forced Dr. Renee to defect - sacrificing two spies buried so deeply, and taking the risk of the entire transport plane being blown to pieces (if Fleet Zero had not chosen to leave any survivors at that time). Was it just for Dr. Renee?
If Dr. Renee died in the plane crash, wouldn't all their efforts be in vain?
It’s not worth it, it’s totally not worth it!
Although Dr. is the top leader of the Yaguna Kotor research team, the exploration of Yaguna Kotor has not even started yet. The research results that the team can show off at this time are just a thin stack of A4 paper. Although it is not to say that these documents have no value, if the prophet is interested in these things, there is no need to go to such great lengths to "arrange" a defection and plane crash. The "hidden agent" planted in the research group can steal these things.
As for Dr. Renee herself, apart from her body that can easily arouse men's primitive impulses, she is at best a professor-level researcher. There were at least one or two hundred professor-level researchers like her in the research institute before the incident.
Every professor-level researcher can indeed be considered a brilliant person, but without the support of the team behind her, and without the favorable conditions and research environment provided by Ark and the institute, she would probably not be able to research anything on her own.
Could it be that the prophet was attracted by the beauty of this woman?
First, it is not for ability, and second, it is not for the flesh, so what is it for?
Wait?!
Ke Lan was suddenly startled - because he remembered something crucial.
Yaguna Kotor is not open to the public yet, so what project was Dr. Renee researching before she defected?
"Shit! What this woman has been studying...is me!"
Ke Lan suddenly felt a chill radiating along his spine - the people in the research institute had actually been studying their own cells, genes and the like. Professor Smith on the Ark had made a big mistake and invented something called "memes", so that the entire research institute was almost destroyed by the hands of the Seraph.
Ke Lan was still feeling lucky that Dr. Renee didn't do anything fatal, but she defected and had a plane crash. As luck would have it, Dr. Renee, who survived the crash, was "picked up" by the prophet.
Ke Lan remembered very clearly that when Dr. Renee defected, she brought a silver-white suitcase with her. The suitcase contained the results of her research during this period - and she had only been researching one object during this period.
That's Ke Lan.
The suitcase must contain things related to me. Maybe it even contains some of my own "clone cells"!
Moreover, according to the Marines who searched the crash site, they did not find such a silver-white briefcase in the wreckage of the transport plane.
Not only was Dr. Renee taken away by the Prophet, but the suitcase full of "deadly things" was also taken away by the Prophet.
Ke Lan even suspected that the prophet's first target was this suitcase... As for whether Renee was dead or alive, it was actually not that important.
If Renee was not dead, that would certainly be good news, but even if Renee was dead, as long as he could get the things in the suitcase, his goal would be achieved.
Professor Smith had created such a difficult monster simply by injecting the cells of the Seed of Corrosion into the cloned tissue of Ke Lan's cells. What if this cloned cell fell into the hands of the prophet...
Ke Lan didn't dare to think any further. He immediately quickened his pace and rushed into the depths of the cave.
…
…
Finally, after going about 300 meters deep into the cave horizontally, Ke Lan finally saw something different - on the wall of the passage at the other end of the maze, there were many two-person-high cylindrical jars embedded. These jars were made of the same material as the energy crystals. They were hard, highly transparent, and had excellent conductivity... and the bottoms of these jars were indeed connected to a large number of metal wires.
But these cans are empty, there is nothing inside, and they are as clean as if they were brand new.
There is a sealing lid made of metal on the top of the jar, and on the sealing lid there is a serial number marked in Alpha language - this is also the first time Ke Lan saw the Alpha civilization after entering the cave.
Unfortunately, apart from these serial numbers, he did not find any more information, nor could he determine the purpose of these crystal jars.
"The factory of Alpha civilization? Or...a laboratory?" Ke Lan guessed randomly in his mind.
He suddenly recalled that on the "deserted island" in the underwater city, Commander Ken of the 776 Special Forces Team had mentioned a black box similar to "Iwai".
The wall of the well was cut very smoothly, and there was a passage reinforced with metal structures inside... At the end of the well was a huge underground space, where the 776 special effects team also found a large number of "quartz jars" more than ten meters high...
The "quartz jar" that Commander Ken mentioned should be this jar made of energy crystals. After all, if you don't look closely, this material is indeed very similar to quartz glass after being polished.
Only when you get very close can you see the tiny filamentary crystal structures.
Ken also mentioned that those huge tanks were filled with turbid liquid...but the black box recording stopped here.
Something must have happened in that underground space...but at least one thing is certain, the 776 Special Forces Team was not wiped out there, otherwise they would not have found their remains and the black box in the cave.
Moreover, Ken also mentioned one point - the erosion seeds on the deserted island seemed to dare not approach those rock wells at all. It was for this reason that the members of the 776 Special Forces Team were able to survive the pursuit of the erosion seeds.
Why don't the seeds of erosion dare approach the rock well?
Are they afraid of the well itself... or... something in the well?
What is the relationship between the rock well on the
A bunch of question marks suddenly popped up, making Ke Lan's thoughts a mess.
