Chapter 317: Embers

Chapter 317: Chapter 317: Embers

"Find anything?"

Lyra Lowell’s voice was tinged with doubt.

He had clearly seen Seraphina Sinclair pause for a moment, but now that the light was shining on the desk, there was nothing but shredded paper.

The other two teammates, not knowing what was going on, followed his gaze to Seraphina Sinclair’s expressionless face.

Seraphina Sinclair was even more composed, raising an eyebrow as she asked in return, "What do you mean?"

"Uh..." Lyra Lowell was taken aback by the question. He immediately realized he might have overreacted and started to wonder if he’d just been too tense and had seen things.

He cleared his throat and moved the beam of his flashlight away. "It’s nothing. My eyes were probably playing tricks on me. This desk is filthy, and this place is creepy enough as it is."

"Tell me about it," Fayestar chimed in, glancing back at the sliver of light coming from the electric lamp beyond the door. "But this instance is a modern setting, isn’t it? This is the first time I’ve run into one like this."

"This is a Golden Instance," Lyra Lowell replied. "It’s normal for it to be different from the previous ones."

Alaric Hawthorn clicked his tongue impatiently and turned toward the stack of cardboard boxes in the corner. "Since there’s nothing to find here, we might as well check those boxes. It’s better than standing around chatting."

"Oh, right!" Fayestar remembered, jogging over with Mimi in her arms. But when she reached the boxes, she hesitated and looked back at the others. "These boxes... they’re not going to have something terrifying jump out when we open them, are they?"

Lyra Lowell walked over as well, sweeping his flashlight beam across each of the boxes. ℴ

The boxes were ordinary, old-fashioned kraft paper cartons. Their edges were heavily frayed, and they were tied with coarse hemp rope. The knots were caked with dust and cobwebs.

"Looks like no one’s touched these in a long time," he said cautiously. "But it never hurts to be careful."

While the three of them were investigating, Seraphina Sinclair glanced at the contents of the Stone Tablet.

’The Sunflower can bring you far more than you can imagine, but as for the price of the exchange... perhaps only those who have lost the Sunflower know.’

’What a ridiculously vague sentence.’

Seraphina Sinclair didn’t have time to dwell on it. She repeated the sentence in her mind, committing it to memory, before walking over to join them.

The three of them had been hesitating for a while. When they saw Seraphina Sinclair approach, Alaric Hawthorn shot her a glance and reached out to untie the knot.

Dust rained down.

"Hey, you—" Lyra Lowell instinctively tried to stop him, but Alaric Hawthorn’s hand had already touched the rope. The rest of the words caught in his throat, and he could only watch him with a complicated expression.

’If this is the kind of thing that kills whoever touches it, then of course I’d be happy to see my teammate go for it.’

’But if opening it unleashes something that kills everyone, then my mood won’t be so great.’

Lyra Lowell and Fayestar watched Alaric Hawthorn’s movements, their expressions tense.

The hemp rope had grown brittle with age, and the knot was tied extremely tight.

Alaric Hawthorn fumbled with it a few times without success, then applied a bit more force with his fingertips.

With a faint SNAP, the hemp rope broke.

Almost at the exact moment the rope broke, the lid of the cardboard box actually popped open, leaving a narrow gap!

A mixed odor, even stronger and more pungent than the one in the room, rushed out from the gap.

The heavy stench of mold, the smell of ancient dust, and an indescribable sour, corrosive scent, as if a Potion had evaporated.

Fayestar immediately took two steps back, covering her nose and mouth.

Lyra Lowell instantly aimed his flashlight at the gap.

Seraphina Sinclair was even faster. She shoved Alaric Hawthorn aside as a long blade materialized in her hand, then used the Blade to flip the lid open.

There were no terrifying objects or monsters inside the box as they had expected.

It was filled with papers.

Not the kind of brittle scrap paper on the desk that disintegrated at a touch, but thick stacks of bound documents. The paper was yellowed but relatively well-preserved.

On the cover of the topmost volume, a few blurry but still legible words were printed:

"Sector 7 Mine—Deep Sample Observation Log (Sealed)"

Below it was another line of smaller text, seemingly a date and a serial number, but it was too blurry to read.

"A mine!" Fayestar froze for a second before being the first to exclaim. "It really is a mine! When I saw that corpse, I thought this was some kind of lab, or a hospital."

Seraphina Sinclair said nothing, because she’d had the same thought.

Alaric Hawthorn snorted and shot back, "The instance’s name says it loud and clear. This is a mine."

Lyra Lowell’s lips twitched as he tried to smooth things over. "Well, this still tells us something, doesn’t it? No matter how you look at it, finding these things inside a mine is unusual."

Seraphina Sinclair ignored their bickering, picking up the topmost log and carefully opening it.

In the flashlight beam, the text on the page was from an old-fashioned typewriter. Some of the words had bled, but it was mostly legible.

"Date... illegible. Entry: Sample ID D-7. Observation Record: Test subject shows an abnormally strong reaction to the Embers. Irreversible crystallization appearing on the epidermis... Spirit status continues to deteriorate, experiencing severe auditory and visual hallucinations. Claims to hear Stone talking... Isolation measures have been escalated."

The words she read aloud seemed to drop the temperature in the room by several degrees.

"Embers?" Alaric Hawthorn frowned. "The Embers from the instance name?"

"Sample... test subject..." Fayestar’s face grew even paler. She subconsciously glanced at the strangely posed desiccated corpse next to her. "Could it be..."

"That’s right," Lyra Lowell’s voice was calm. His gaze fell on the corpse as he thought for a moment before speaking. "It was likely one of the early test subjects, or a sample contaminated by the Embers. Placing it here was probably meant as a warning."

Seraphina Sinclair didn’t jump to any conclusions and just kept flipping through the log.

The following entries were even more shocking.

"...The activity of the Embers far exceeds expecta... Some miners are exhibiting mild symptoms without direct contact... Management has decided to seal all related tunnels in Sector 7 Mine. All records are to be archived."

The log ended abruptly there. The next few pages had been violently torn out.

"So, the so-called mining disaster wasn’t an accident at all," Lyra Lowell concluded in a low voice, his flashlight beam sweeping over every corner of the room. "Based on this file, this looks exactly like a biohazard crisis. Or some kind of radiation leak. That’s why they sealed this place up and buried the people and the evidence underground."

"Then... then are we somewhere in this Sector 7 Mine right now?" Fayestar’s voice trembled. "But... then... then..."

Her voice was hoarse. She swallowed hard before managing to ask, "Are the Embers... still here?"

That was the deadliest question of all.

If the Embers were a contagious substance that could drive people mad and eventually turn them into monsters, and if they were still active somewhere in this mine, then the danger they were in was magnified infinitely.

Even... could they already be infected?

Alaric Hawthorn snatched the log from Seraphina Sinclair’s hands. He quickly flipped through the blank pages and torn stubs at the back, his face grim. "The torn-out part is the key! How to deal with the Embers, how to escape—it was probably all in there!"