Volume 2: The Undersea City Chapter 59: Diving Chamber
"Ah?" Not to mention Zofia herself, even First Mate Caroline beside her had a look of astonishment.
"...Why do you want this? Aren't you hunters exploring ruins for money? Why don't you just ask for money? Or, if you want a portion of the Soma Consortium's shares, I can do that... " Zofia shook her head in confusion, "I can give you 0.3% of the Soma Consortium's shares. The interest and dividends alone are enough for you to enjoy the life of an aristocrat for the rest of your life."
"Yeah... You've seen how difficult these deep-sea giant eels are to deal with. These weird things are everywhere on the seabed. Even if you get the intelligence, it will be difficult to enter the underwater city..." First Mate Caroline also advised.
"Well... to be honest, money... tsk... these external things are actually enough. I chose to become a relic hunter more to satisfy my curiosity and desire to explore... So, I still choose intelligence." Ke Lan reluctantly made up a reason. To be honest, this reason was hard to convince even himself - 0.3% of the shares! That's not the shares of a company, but 0.3% of the entire Soma Consortium. What Zofia said was absolutely right. He didn't need to transfer this part of the shares. Just relying on the dividend income, he could surpass 99% of the hunters, and... without risking his life.
If it was any previous mission, he would choose to accept Zofia's advice, but not this time.
They were not doing this operation for money, nor did they think about entering the underwater city. What they wanted to save was the life of a brother who had been with them through thick and thin.
But Ke Lan couldn't directly ask the other party to get a flesh-eating worm. Not to mention whether the Soma Group could get such a thing, even if they could, they would probably be immediately targeted by the Security Bureau.
That's almost the same as turning yourself in.
At this step, Ke Lan and the others can only rely on themselves... The greatest help that Zofia can provide them is the information that is officially classified as highly confidential... Especially the things related to that video, which are extremely important to them.
"But..." Zofia said with difficulty, "I don't have the information you want."
"No?!" Ke Lan was stunned. "Aren't you the captain of the Pioneer?"
"I am the captain, that's right... All the records and documents from the previous underwater exploration operations were taken away by the Security Bureau. Not only did they not leave any backups, they also issued a gag order to the captain's people. But in fact, apart from those Security Bureau staff, we know very little." Zofia said helplessly.
"Why would the Security Bureau get involved?" Ke Lan asked, "Logically speaking, exploring ruins shouldn't be their responsibility."
"I don't know..." Zofia frowned slightly, "The Soma Consortium...the family also told me not to get involved in this matter and to cooperate with the Security Bureau as much as possible."
"That is to say... there is no exploration left here? What about the personnel? Are there any personnel involved in the exploration?"
"The relevant personnel were also taken away. The remaining sailors and boatmen don't know more than me." Caroline added, "In fact, there is not much intelligence at all. All that was fished up were corpses, no living people. They didn't leave any written records, nor did they bring up any relics of the Alpha civilization. The video equipment they brought was either damaged or lost... Otherwise, the description of the underwater city on the Hunter Network would not be blank."
"Corpses... do you remember what corpses look like, Ms. Caroline?... Well, I mean, if we can analyze the cause of death of those people from the corpses, we may be able to prepare countermeasures in advance when we go to the underwater city." Ke Lan asked anxiously.
"I didn't notice that..." Caroline recalled, "...the autopsies of those bodies were all done by the Security Bureau, and we couldn't see the results."
"Then...are there anything ? Maybe there are some special monsters or traps?" Ke Lan asked tentatively. He wanted to lead the topic to the corpse in the video as little as possible without arousing the other party's suspicion.
"In fact, those corpses all look similar. The corrosiveness and toxicity of sea water can make them unrecognizable... Most of them died from attacks by sea beasts, with all kinds of wounds, such as bites, entanglements, electric shocks, collisions... Some of them died from damage to diving equipment... Well, in fact, if you go to the deck now, you will see that the dead are almost the same as those who died in the battle just now." Caroline scratched the back of her head and said.
"But I remember there seemed to be a special corpse...Caroline, do you remember it?" Zofia suddenly said.
"Which one? To be honest, so many people have died on this ship in the past half month that I can't remember them all..." Caroline smiled at Ke Lan embarrassedly.
"The body that was dragged out of diving chamber No. 6 looked like a mummy in a horror novel with all the flesh and blood sucked out, but its belly was swollen like that of a pregnant woman..." Zofia's expression was slightly resistant. After all, no one would feel good when recalling such a weird and terrifying scene.
Although Ke Lan didn't show any expression on his face, his heart was suddenly excited - the purpose of their trip was to find the "thing" that might be in the stomach of the corpse!
If it really is a flesh-eating worm, then at least so far, all their efforts have not been in vain.
"Oh! I remember he was here! But that guy didn't seem to be from the exploration team. He was an agent of the Security Bureau... But he seemed to be the one who stayed down there the longest, about four hours... No, it should be five hours." Caroline said.
"Five hours?" Ke Lan glanced at Caroline and pretended to be puzzled. "What happened to him that made him look like that... that strange thing?"
"I don't know about that." Caroline shrugged regretfully. "The entire operation was completed by the Security Bureau. Even the first officer, like me, was not allowed to get close. As soon as the body was fished out, it was sent to the Security Bureau's special plane. Well, but I remember that the expressions of those Security Bureau people after seeing the body were very strange, and they looked very nervous."
"anything else?"
"It's gone. They said the body was taken away."
What a pity... the clues are gone... Ke Lan sighed inwardly. Until now, they could only guess based on the appearance of the corpse. But what if all this has nothing to do with flesh-eating worms at all?
"You seem to care a lot about that corpse?" Sofia had noticed something unusual about Ke Lan and asked.
"...I'm just very curious. I've explored many relics of Alpha civilization, but have never encountered such a situation." Ke Lan quickly covered up.
"In fact, sometimes I envy you relic hunters," Zofia turned around and opened a cabinet next to her desk. "It's a pity that my family doesn't allow me to come to the Pioneer. It's already their biggest concession."
"In fact, being a hunter is not fun at all, it's very dangerous..." Ke Lan didn't know how to respond to this sentence. He suddenly felt that if he continued to dwell on this topic, their intentions might be exposed.
"It's not like we don't have any clues at all," Zofia took out a key card from the cabinet, "There's one thing the security guys didn't take away."
"What?"
"The diving chamber is now in cargo hold No. 9 on the bottom floor of the Pioneer." Zofia raised the key card in her hand.
