Chapter 114: Underground
After ten seconds, the elevator reached the underground floor. Marie immediately pulls the level to send it back up with the doors closed and began its ascent.
Reinhard sighed, watching the floor indicator light change. "Either it goes up before anyone notices it’s gone, or it goes up after someone notices."
Marie nodded, her expression serious. "Which means we need to find a spot to hide just in case."
Scáth hummed thoughtfully, her wine-colored eyes tracking across the underground corridor visible through the elevator’s closing doors. "Why not just find hiding spots we can easily reach along the way?"
Roana nodded slowly, her tactical mind engaging. "That could work. If anything, Reinhard can use his Shadow Spear to create a distraction, allowing us to bypass guards."
Scáth sighed, disappointment evident. "So we really can’t beat them up?"
Reinhard shook his head firmly. "We need to make sure no one knows we’re here." He paused, then added with a slight grimace, "But thinking about what happened at the clinic, I wouldn’t be surprised if a Beast was down here and attacked us."
Scáth’s eyes lit up immediately, her entire face transforming with excitement. Marie giggled at the predictable reaction. Roana sighed, already anticipating the complications Scáth’s enthusiasm would bring.
Reinhard took the lead as he began moving to the elevator cage and pushing them open slightly to check the corridor beyond.
Once he saw nothing, he gestured the others forward, and they slipped out into the underground facility.
The space was dramatically different from upstairs. The walls here were reinforced cobblestone rather than decorative plaster.
Doors lined both sides of the corridor, each marked with codes rather than descriptive labels. Reinhard saw some of them, which were B2-07, B2-14, and B2-23, the numbering suggested extensive facilities.
Then Reinhard’s ears twitched as he heard voices down, most likely the guards conversing and their words echoing off hard surfaces.
Reinhard signaled a halt, and the group pressed against the wall, moving forward slowly to bring them within earshot without being seen.
"Third shift is killing me." One voice complained, male and young. "I swear they’re scheduling me for every overnight this week."
"At least the pay is good." Another responded, older and more resigned. "Better than working the farms."
"True enough. You hear the rumor about Lord Phineas planning to celebrate early?"
"The festival party? Yeah, something about sponsors coming together to throw it in Mekhko Research’s honor. For that new discovery about healing."
Reinhard and Roana both frowned simultaneously. A celebration would mean increased security, more people moving through facilities, and heightened awareness of anything unusual. It would make future infiltration significantly harder, but it would also open some opportunities to investigate other places.
They continued to press forward silently, with the guards’ voices fading as they moved in the opposite direction and their patrol route took them away.
The group advanced, using doorways and equipment alcoves for cover.
Reinhard activated Grand Scan periodically, the pulses revealing guard positions throughout the underground level. They navigated around patrols with practiced efficiency, always staying one step ahead of detection.
Another conversation reached them from around a corner, with Reinhard signaling another halt.
"-can’t believe you actually went into the forbidden room." A voice was saying, carrying shock and concern. "Are you insane?"
"It was an accident!" The other voice responded defensively. "The door wasn’t locked, and I thought it was the supply closet. By the time I realized-"
"What did you see?"
A pause before the voice responded, but quieter. "Documents about experiments. It was... Not a good sight."
"You need to be more careful." The first voice said with a sigh. "Knowing too much isn’t good for people like us. You understand?"
"I understand."
"Good. Forget what you saw and focus on your job. Nothing else."
Their footsteps receded, moving away down the corridor.
Reinhard glanced at Roana, who nodded with both of them thinking the same thing. He glanced at Marie, who was beaming at him, and Scath, who had a curious look on her face. He smiled as it seemed everyone wanted to find that forbidden room, and so they continued moving.
Reinhard continued using Grand Scan to guide their path.
The facility was extensive, corridors branching in multiple directions, but Roana’s ability provided perfect spatial awareness. Each scan built a mental map, piece by piece, until the layout became clear.
A door appeared ahead, distinguished from others by a red stripe painted across its frame. No label and no code, but just that warning yellow stripe.
The forbidden room.
Two guards stood nearby, positioned to watch the corridor but not directly in front of the door. Their posture suggested boredom rather than alertness, routine rather than active threat assessment.
Reinhard studied their positions from cover. Vector Path showed their movement patterns where one would shift his weight in eight seconds and turn slightly away. The other would check his pocket watch twelve seconds after that.
He gestured the sequence to Roana silently. She nodded and activated Grand Scan one more time, confirming no additional guards were approaching.
The first guard shifted.
Reinhard moved immediately, using Shadow Striker to create a spear from the corridor’s dim corners. The spear materialized silently, moving through shadow, and then tapped against a wall ten feet behind the guards.
Both guards turned toward the sound, hands moving to weapons.
"What was that?"
"Let’s check it out."
They moved away from the door to investigate the noise.
Reinhard, Marie, Roana, and Scáth rushed forward in the opening created, reaching the forbidden room’s door. Reinhard placed his hand against the shadow at the door’s base and channeled Shadow Striker again.
Two spears formed inside the room, their black shapes moving up to the door handle’s interior mechanism. They looped over the handle and pulled down to disengage the latch, and then the door opened inward silently.
All four slipped inside, and Reinhard pulled the door closed behind them just as the guards returned to their positions, finding nothing amiss.
The room beyond was small, clearly not meant for regular use. It had a desk with its surface buried under files and papers. Filing cabinets lined one wall, their drawers marked with more codes, and a single overhead light provided illumination.
Reinhard moved to the desk immediately, and his hands were sorting through papers. His expression began changing from surprise to disbelief, and then that turned into grim understanding.
"Over here, guys, you might want to see this." Reinhard says softly, leading the others to gather around to read alongside him.
The documents described research that had nothing to do with crops or farming.
Mekhko Research has been studying outer space. Specifically, the potential for other planets containing resources that Hesod desperately needed. Diagrams showed astronomical observations, calculations about distances, and travel times.
But the research had concluded interplanetary travel was impractical. The distances were too vast, the technology insufficient, and the timeframes extending beyond human lifespans.
So, a researcher named Barnel had proposed an alternative, Dimensions.
If they could uncover the secrets of dimensional travel and create portals, they could shuttle themselves to the required dimensions that possessed the needed resources.
Not just parallel dimensions in their own reality, but higher-dimensions theorized by Professor Atlas decades ago.