Volume 5: Bottomless Sinkhole Chapter 236 Making a Decision
"That's all the information I can provide... To be honest, although that place is indeed very profitable, I suggest you wait and see for a while. After all, if you go crazy, I'll lose a big client. By the way, I'm having a promotion recently, with 20% off on all information. Considering our relationship, I'll give you half price, and just transfer the money to the same account as before." After saying this, ACMS_0420 directly closed the conversation window.
Ke Lan raised his head and exchanged a glance with Hound and the others. They had also seen what had just happened.
"More than half of the hunters who returned have gone crazy... Isn't this too weird?" The Hound subconsciously rubbed the stubble on his chin and said uneasily.
"I'm afraid it's more than that..." Ke Lan tapped the table lightly with his fingernails. "The time these people go crazy is not consistent. The shortest is seventy-two hours after leaving the tiankeng ruins, and the longest is almost a week. Among the remaining normal hunters, some people will suddenly go crazy from time to time... The proportion is still increasing. I think this may be one of the reasons why the bottomless tiankeng is rated as S-level."
"It's really weird! If that's the case, why don't they just seal up the ruins? Instead, why do they hide all this information?" Leighton said angrily.
"Because of interests... these hunters did not die in the process of exploring the ruins. Compared with death, the social opinion caused by mental disorder will be much smaller... Moreover, there is no evidence to prove that their mental disorder has any connection with the ruins No. S-018. In comparison, the research value of the stone tablets they mined from the tiankeng is much more valuable than their lives. What's more, the current 'average mortality rate' of this S-level ruins is less than 1%." Ke Lan said in a low voice.
"Reality is so fucked up... The officials and the research institute got the stone tablet they wanted most, the hunters' hunting groups and the big financial groups behind them made a fortune because of the lucrative profits, and the only ones hurt were the relic hunters who were used as money-making tools by the hunting groups... But who would care about their lives... The officials and the hunting groups are even working together to conceal this news, just to trick more hunters into going deeper into the tiankeng..." The Hound said with disdain, "In the eyes of those bastards, the lives of the lower class are not worth much money."
"These relic hunters were able to dig out so many things from the tiankeng. In the eyes of the people above, even if they paid with their lives, it was still a business of making a small profit with a big gain. What's more, the people are not dead, they are just crazy... But then again, our job is to exchange our lives for money." Ivan shrugged and said indifferently.
"Then...then are we still going to this tiankeng?" Zhuo Ligetu asked, his voice full of hesitation.
"Go... Let's go and take a look first. We still have too little intelligence. We should be able to discover more things through field investigation. Besides, I also want to take a look... at those unearthed stone tablets. Maybe there will be some unexpected gains." Ke Lan said. Although this relic is indeed very weird, there is one thing ACMS_0420 said that is correct - compared with other S-level ruins, this place is not dangerous at all.
As for the other dozen or so S-level ruins, less than half of the people who entered came out alive. On the other hand, in the bottomless pit, even if all those crazy people were counted as "death toll", it would only barely reach the threshold of S-level ruins.
"As the saying goes, 'Practice makes perfect.' I think Ke Lan is right. Let's go there first and see. If we find something wrong, we can just give up the mission." The Hound patted the table and said, "Layton, you are responsible for finding a transport plane... No , this time we can just charter an empty ship. Remember, it's a charter, not a shared trip. I don't want to run into a bug like last time."
"Uh... Old dog, it seems unnecessary..." Ke Lan glanced at his phone and pulled Hound's sleeve awkwardly, "Soma... Soma Consortium has just allocated the use of a 'Phantom-class' high-speed airship to me. The validity period of the right to use it is... ninety-nine years..."
"Soma Group?" The Hound was stunned for a moment, then reacted immediately, "This spaceship was given to you by that young lady? What is this? I remember that there seemed to be a term in the old era called makeup... Oh, yes, dowry! Could this be her dowry?"
"It's just the right to use it, can you be a little more normal..." Ke Lan stretched out his hand and waved it in front of the hound.
The registered starting capital of a consortium-level hunting group is 300 million, and the cost of building a "Phantom-class" high-speed airship is ten times that figure. Add to that the various internal facilities, additional weapons, and the cost of hiring fleet members. To get such an airship into the sky, the cost would be at least 5 billion.
"Ninety-nine years, is this any different from giving it to you directly? And you don't have to pay for the salaries of the crew on board... To be honest, I'm jealous. If I were twenty years younger, I would definitely chase this rich woman!" The Hound pushed Ke Lan's hand away and stood up. "Okay, stop talking nonsense. Go back and pack your things first. Prepare the equipment and consumables you need. Buy what you need. If you can't buy anything, tell me and I'll find a way. We'll set off at 12 noon tomorrow. That's it!"
After accepting the mission of exploring the "Bottomless Sinkhole" of ruins S-018 at the office, Ke Lan and others chose to act separately - Hound and Layton needed to purchase some equipment that could not be bought on the black market; Ivan and Natasha had to go back to the clinic to deal with things there first; Zhuo Ligetu and Asano Akira, who had nothing to do, returned to the safe house and waited... As for Ke Lan, he had a more important mission.
In the intelligence files sent by ACMS_0420, there is the name and address of a hospital... This is the special hospital that accommodates all the crazy hunters who came back from the bottomless pit. Ke Lan plans to contact these crazy hunters before setting off to this place - in his opinion, the unconscious "murmurs" of those madmen may contain "key information" that has been ignored by everyone.
After all, ordinary humans cannot hear the language of the Alpha civilization... If these people became like this because they heard some "voices that humans cannot hear" or saw some "words that humans cannot understand ", he might be able to find some special "things" from them...
