The voice also reached Zhanil Fezhe and Dr. Robanton who were stopping their bleeding.
“Incineration procedure will begin in 30 seconds.”
That voice that rang after the loud alarm.
“In-incineration?”
“It means burning. This horrible place!”
Dr. Robanton shouted angrily.
Zhanil made a dumbfounded expression.
No, even if he was a doctor and Zhanil just a ranger.
Was he treating him like an idiot who couldn’t understand words?
Zhanil got angry too.
“I know that, you bastard!”
When he burst out in anger, Dr. Robanton stiffened in surprise.
His face was pale. Understandable, having three fingers cut off by a flying snake.
Finally, Zhanil sighed and suppressed his anger.
“Haa, sorry for yelling. For now, we shouldn’t be fighting among ourselves…”
“Right. We need to find a way to survive somehow.”
He worried Dr. Robanton might burst into tears.
Fortunately, such a terrible thing didn’t happen.
“Either we find a place the flames won’t reach… or find a way to cancel the incineration.”
That was the rational judgment.
But it seemed time wasn’t exactly plentiful.
“25, 24, 23…”
The countdown could be heard in real-time.
“Damn it, th-that way…!”
They could tell this was the dungeon’s center.
Those hideous tanks and experimental spaces wouldn’t likely be in the dungeon’s outskirts.
The ranger’s sense of direction suggested the same.
“We might be able to do something there.”
There was a room with complex machinery.
Robanton read the engraved text above it.
“C-control room…!”
Dr. Robanton had heard much about Pelerian’s dungeons.
Wasn’t he the mage who left behind the most dungeons in the world?
His period of activity wasn’t that long ago either.
Even just a few decades ago, new Pelerian dungeons were occasionally discovered.
But he never knew a dungeon like this existed.
He couldn’t understand how it was made.
The dwarves said Pelerian himself constructed half the dungeon.
It was true that his elemental magic reached the heavens.
But the system controlling the dungeon using magic spirits was the real deal.
“Magic spirit, respond!”
Robanton shouted that in front of the control device.
Zhanil Fezhe looked at him with a dumbfounded face.
“You called?”
But really, an answer came from the air.
Dr. Robanton shouted with a hopeful face.
“Stop, stop the incineration procedure immediately!”
When abroad, even meeting someone from your hometown is welcome.
Inside a dungeon about to be filled with flames, meeting someone you could communicate with made his legs tremble.
However, Robanton and Zhanil’s faces soon had to twist.
“Cannot verify identity.”
“Cannot stop procedure.”
Of course.
They wouldn’t have made it so just anyone could operate it.
Then they must quietly stay trapped and die.
“Try something!”
“U-uwaaaaah!”
“12, 11, 10…”
The control room was full of strange machinery.
Even Robanton, a scholar, couldn’t guess how to use them.
Fairy technology perhaps, or rather Pelerian’s unique technology.
They tried operating various levers and buttons.
They tried to figure out how to use them for a very brief moment but.
“8, 7, 6…”
There wasn’t time for that.
All they could do was bang, pull, and press randomly like children playing with toys.
“Ah, aah…!”
Zhanil let out a gasp.
Because something like a long pipe emerged from the ceiling.
It was clearly machinery for ‘incineration’.
Meaning even this control room would burn.
“5, 4, 3…”
Zhanil joined in pressing buttons until they broke.
Bang!
“What are you doing!”
“Wait, something seems to be working…!”
After a beeping sound effect.
The magic spirit uttered:
“Playing calming music.”
“Damn it!”
This time Robanton pulled a red lever.
Indeed, there was a hissing sound along with the sound of compressed air being released.
Could the incineration procedure have stopped?
“…1. Initiating incineration.”
“…Draining and manipulating culture fluid.”
The magic spirit’s voices overlapped so the latter part wasn’t clear, but they heard incineration was starting.
Zhanil and Robanton screamed and hugged each other.
But was it heaven’s help?
Or did their random machine operation have an effect?
A miracle occurred.
“Test subjects not retrieved. Temporarily suspending incineration procedure.”
The exposed nozzles in the ceiling didn’t retract but didn’t spew hot flames either.
“Wh-what…”
“Seems we touched something good?”
What did it mean test subjects weren’t retrieved?
Test subjects must refer to those strange creatures floating in the wall tanks, but none of the tanks were empty.
“…Let’s get out first.”
Now Robanton seemed braver instead.
Zhanil nodded with an impressed expression.
“You’re brave, Doctor.”
“Being dragged to Chugota’s nest was scarier. This is nothing.”
Though his screams earlier weren’t exactly small for someone saying that.
But Zhanil quietly followed Robanton.
Well, regardless of what anyone says, the doctor is an impressive person.
Hadn’t he overcome his terrible trauma and returned to the mountains?
The doctor’s noble will impressed even Zhanil.
“We can’t die in a place like this.”
The doctor muttered thus.
And when they exited the control room…
“Oh.”
The corridor outside the control room had a circular structure.
The control room was inside, and tanks were on the outer walls.
Splash.
But the floor was wet.
A sticky, fishy-smelling liquid had pooled up to their ankles.
The source of the liquid was obvious.
Culture fluid was leaking from the tanks.
“Did pulling the lever cause this?”
Could the monsters in the tanks have woken up?
If only Zhanil had such worries.
Dr. Robanton approached close to a tank.
“Could it have been a lever to drain the culture fluid and kill these things, or…”
Or what?
Such curiosity arose.
Bang!
Suddenly with a loud noise, the light inside the tank went out.
The magical lighting had been working, why suddenly.
The corridor was already dark, and when even the tank lights went out, nothing could be seen inside.
“Well.”
Dr. Robanton tapped the tank with his finger.
“A bit…”
Feeling uneasy, Zhanil said a word.
“Step away…”
Crack-!
Suddenly the tank cracked, a jagged line spreading across the glass like a frozen bolt of lightning. The sound was sharp and distinct in the quiet room.
Looking to see if it happened just from tapping with a finger, that wasn’t it.
Something had pierced through the tank’s glass.
