A few moments before Victoria’s shriek, Cain walked over to the tile under the red glow stick. It was only a tile away from the wall the trap came from; the perfect distance for Cain to lean against the wall and activate the trap at the same time, or so he thought.

He leaned his back against the wall and tried to stretch his legs out to reach the activation tile. Yet no matter how he positioned himself, it would have offset his heart from the trap. Cain decided to just lean against the wall like normal and position the trap over his heart then use a magic circle to activate the trap.

[0% - h]

He enacted his plan and created a magic circle that exerted a force of 600 or so Newtons, the force a lightweight person would exert on the ground due to gravity. The trap activated, launching a metallic spike from the hole behind Cain’s heart, piercing through his ribcage on both sides; Victoria screamed at this moment.

Cain’s blood splattered across the floor and walls, he suppressed a cough of blood as he converted the spike into mana. Cain turned the fringes of the areas that had contact with the spike into mana to prevent anything like rust accidentally staying in there. He kept his blood flowing through the proper veins using mana nets to form makeshift veins. Cain healed his heart within a few seconds as Dresil patched his clothes and triple checked his work.

[10% - s]

While Cain analyzed the successful regeneration of his heart, the puppet on the right, the one the party thought they disabled, sprung towards Jared. It haphazardly repaired its joints using the materials that splintered off from its companions and played dead, lying in wait for this opportunity.

Jacob detected movement behind him and stepped with his left foot while swinging his left arm to grab the puppets neck. Veronica launched three consecutive arrows into its head, forcibly ending its last attempt to harm the party. Victoria looked back towards Cain, her ears having picked up something triggering.

She saw him leaning against the wall with a red smudge on the side of his right hand. Cain converted his blood that scattered into mana moments before Victoria turned her head. “You good?” Victoria asked, unsure of what exactly happened, but knew something did indeed happen.

“Yep. Just casually dying.” Cain replied with a slight smile. “Oh, mood.” Victoria immediately replied then checked on Jacob for any possible injuries. Cain converted the remaining blood on his mouth and hand into mana as he trotted up to them. Dresil noticed some blood where it shouldn’t be and cleaned it up immediately. The tickle caused by her operations caused Cain to sneeze loudly.

Jared jumped like a cat when Cain sneezed near him. “Damn dude! That echoed too…” Veronica laughed and mocked Jared, erasing the tension that once prevailed after the fight. “Is there any orichalcum or mythril in these puppets?” Jacob asked as Cain knelt down to examine the craftsmanship.

“Not much. Can I keep one to study later?” Cain asked the party when he saw the intricacies of the joints and the adaptability of their functions. “Sure, we wouldn’t have made it this far without you anyways.” Victoria replied after everyone nodded. A portal swallowed the crushed puppets hanging from the wall and the third puppet sunk into another one. The former linked to the party’s loot and the latter to Cain’s.

“Were these also weakened?” Veronica asked while observing them disappear. “Yep. Most of their functions were turned off to prolong their run time-er, lifespan. They were able to make a variety of weapons from the extra parts stored within them, but doing so would have drained them immediately.

“I think they said they only had 3 or 4 minutes of lifetime left? Something like that.” Cain explained, casting a downcast over the party's efforts. “Don’t worry though, I was expecting someone to get injured but you guys did better than I expected.” Cain lifted their moods with his last statement.

The party merrily followed after Cain as he entered the next room. Cain created several heavy duty flashlights that lit up the entire lab, taking the necessary precautions to hide their creation. “Hover” Cain muttered while raising the lights into different corners of the room near the ceiling.

“It’s completely safe here. You guys can wander as you want.” Cain stated while bee lining to some computers. He examined the parts to see if he could find anything that resembled a hard drive. They’re probably dead… but meh. Cain thought as he stored 4 pieces of similar hardware.

—Group Chat: Cain, Dresil, Bob, and Rex— (38ms)

Rex: How do they even have similar technology…

Cain: Either someone from the modern era or someone with knowledge about computers was summoned or they naturally came upon this path.

Rex: Is the second option even possible?

Cain: It is. iirc, two printing presses were created around the same time in different countries with slightly varying designs even though the designers themselves never had contact with each other.

Rex: But the timelines for summoning don’t match. This place is 30k+ years old right?

Cain: Who said they had to? When the person was summoned, their planet could have been in the modern era, which means they’d be 30k+ years ahead of Earth right now.

Bob: It is indeed possible. The birth of civilizations across a multitude of planets vary greatly, thus causing gaps in technological difference. One point being this planet and Earth.

Cain: See? Our resident expert on all things space, time, and dimension related confirmed it.

Bob: :bow:

Rex: …I’m just going to look at some memes now.

--------------------------

“Cain! Check this out!” Jared yelled across the massive lab while pacing around what appeared to be a motorbike. Cain finished his search then joined Jared and the rest of the party. “What’s this?” Cain asked as he inspected the sleek model. It looked like someone grabbed the wheels of a motorcycle with each hand and stretched it out until the body scraped the floor, then took the wheels off.

“I’m pretty sure it’s a one-person vehicle. Historians speculate this is what the people of this era used for travel.” Victoria stated while wiping the dust off on some parts. Why would this be in a supposedly secret lab then? Cain pondered while dusting off the surroundings to find any clues.

He discovered stencils and what appeared to be canisters of paint. From this, Cain assumed they brought their bikes into work so they could spray paint it with the proper equipment. The stencils of these waifus needed such detail after all.

Cain dusted off the sides of every bike, observing each one. On the fourth, and final one, Cain concluded that their paint job either stopped midway through or didn’t even start. Whatever had caused them to perish or evacuate had been too sudden, but not sudden enough that remains of people or scattered clutter were evident.

It was then Cain remembered that these ruins were at least 30,000 years old, which is enough time to easily erase most traces of evidence. It was surprising these vehicles even remained in one piece. “Are these vehicles of any use?” Cain hollered towards Victoria after completing his inspection.

“We can donate them to the Magic Tower for research. Once they recover them enough to be usable, they’d give us half of them for free and auction off the others for research funds.” Victoria explained while tapping on one of the bikes, testing its current durability to see if it’d even be in a state to move.

“How do these even move?” Cain inspected the bikes for devices to make them roll, hover or fly, but could not find many without potentially damaging the parts. He had the mana within his mana zone avoid the bikes in case their contact worsened the state of any orichalcum or mythril parts.

“They hover.” Jared excitedly responded, trying his best not to jump around at the thought of having one. “They hover?” Cain asked for confirmation, unable to hear him correctly due to the distance. “They hover.” “Damn… I want one now.” Cain replied to Jared’s confirmation, joining Jacob and Veronica who stood on the side while Victoria and Jared did their things.

“We can give you one. Just one of these is already considered a national treasure.” Victoria offered while joining the circle. “Don’t mind if I do then.” Cain stated while submerging the hover bikes slowly into portals created by SRI. 3 of them were sent to the dimension linked to the party’s loot, and the last was sent to Cain’s.

—Group Chat: Cain, Dresil, Bob, and Rex— (52ms)

Rex: :dafuq:

Rex: Why did Victoria offer that when they’re only here because of you?

Cain: …you were listening right? I was going to give them all to the party anyways since I don’t have a use for them other than doing exactly what the Magic Tower would do.

Cain: At least if the tower did it, it’d probably be faster and less chance of screwing things up since they presumably have more experience and I’m going to be busy with a multitude of other things.

Rex: :hmm:

Rex: …why can’t you just be direct about it.

Cain: Should I tell you how many steps I take to get to the door while I’m at it?

Dresil:

Bob: :popcorn:

Rex: Point taken…

Dresil: Master, you were somewhat passive aggressive there…

Cain: Was I? Dang… I guess I’ve been getting annoyed from the lack of immediate results from the ruins.

Rex: …you say that yet you’ve tested 4 experiments and completed two of them during your time here.

Cain: Meh, I could’ve done that outside the ruins though and probably faster.

Rex: Fair enough.

--------------------------

The party wrapped up their search of the lab then followed Cain to the next room. They discovered a run down elevator and stairs to the floor below at the end of the lab. Cain walked down the stairs without stopping, the party hesitantly followed behind him, unsure if any traps remained.

“It’s safe… right?” Jacob asked, his senses on high alert in case anything happens. “Yep. There are no more traps on this floor and the one we’re heading to.” Cain replied without stopping. They continued down the steps in anxious silence, anticipating whatever rewards that might crop up.

Cain deleted the door leading to the next floor before the party saw it by converting it into mana. When he tried to open it, it wouldn’t budge, so he just denied its right to exist. Cain directed the flashlights that hovered behind him and the party to spread out and light up the new room; the same ones used to light up the previous lab.

Numerous tanks and vats emerged from the darkness. Pipes and wires laid on the ground, some torn, others smashed. Some cylindrical tanks appeared to have been smashed from the inside. A giant screen in the back of the room kept rotating diagrams of demi-humans, the images flickering in and out on the cracked monitor.

Well, this isn’t spooky at all. Cain thought while inspecting the tanks. Numerous mechanical parts littered the cold tiles. There were some from the drake model the party met on the 1st underground floor and the puppets. Cain identified some that appeared to be part of an even bigger guardian.

“Man… this is spooky. Any chance we can hurry it up and leave?” Jared asked while shivering and hugging himself. The ambient silence was further enhanced by the lack of Veronica’s mocking. “I can create a portal for you guys to leave, if you wish.” Cain offered while using SRI to gather all of the mechanical pieces.

The party violently nodded their heads then vanished into a portal Cain created moments later. Cain sighed then immediately expanded his mana zone to cover the entire ruins. He closed his eyes and focused on depositing any hard drive-like technology into a new dimension he created seconds before with SRI. He recovered quite a few pieces that he missed while manually searching for them earlier.

Cain noticed that his mana zone kept bouncing off a large cube. He walked towards the wall it hid behind, converting the stone tiles that blocked into mana. The entrance to a 10 meter³ safe appeared before him, completely made of orichalcum and mythril.

Cain used SRI to drill a hole through the safe by using the portals to extract a small cylindrical part and depositing it in his loot dimension. Cain created a portal covering the entrance to block changes within the air, lest the humidity accidentally destroy something that laid within. Once SRI completed the cylindrical extraction, Cain took the sample out of the storage dimension to inspect it.

It had a total length of 5 meters, with 2 meters of orichalcum followed by mythril, then 1 meter of steel. The orichalcum repelled any mana that tried to infiltrate it and the mythril absorbed any that managed to bypass the orichalcum. The steel increased the safe’s sturdiness and maintained its structural integrity.

Cain fed a stream of his mana through the gap he created to map out the contents of the safe after placing the extracted cylinder back in the loot dimension. His mana fed back details of 5 cubic meters hollowed out inside the safe. The walls littered with safety deposit boxes and a table in the center.

Only ashes remained instead of the original contents of the safety deposit boxes, the sealed environment having sped up their deterioration. Three flashdrive-like devices sat on the lone table within the center of the hollowed space. They were locked in sealed vacuum containers to preserve their components as best as possible.

Cain deposited each of the containers into the same dimension that contained the shattered flashdrive from the 1st underground floor. He then used SRI to extract the entirety of the safe and put it into one of the loot dimensions.

—Group Chat: Cain, Dresil, Bob, and Rex— (28ms)

Rex: So… any theories as to what all of this is?

Cain: Most likely something about their research, which is related to demi-humans in some way based on the monitor that kept flickering.

Bob: Perhaps the origin of the species?

Cain: Perhaps… whatever they made or experimented on seems to have trashed the lab.

Cain: I won’t be able to find out more until I figure out how to interact with the usb drives without damaging them.

Rex: True…

Dresil: I don’t like the vibes I’m getting from this…

Cain: Ye, it’s kind of unsettling, but also understandable.

Rex: …how is this understandable?

Cain: Humans will do just about anything to perceive the unknown, even if their methods harm their planet, aren’t efficient and create problems for the later generations, or it causes them to step on a landmine due to their lack of caution.

Rex: …your species is dumb

Cain: Tell me about it…

--------------------------

Cain wrapped up his business on this floor then created a portal to join the party on the surface; their first quest and ruins exploration having come to an end.