Chapter 4342 - 3437: Divine Doctor with Wonderful Hands (44)
When Shiller rushed to the entrance of the passage, Loki, who was on night shift, was already listening to the noises coming from there. He pointed to the surgery room where Stark was and said, "It seems that something went wrong there. Was there another equipment explosion?"
"This is not the kind of commotion caused by an equipment explosion." Shiller said sternly with a glance at Manny. Manny shook her head at him.
Soon, a figure floated out of another pipe. Henry drifted to the front of the crowd and said, "You guys have caused a big disaster, you've drilled open the cage of that big guy down there."
He clearly knew a lot and chose to hide the truth, but Shiller didn't have time to argue with him. First, he had to ensure the safety of Batman and Stark, as they were the most likely buyers to purchase the hospital. Next, he needed to protect the hospital itself; if it were destroyed by something, his plans would be ruined.
At that moment, Thor waved off everyone else, saying, "I'll go check it out first, if there's no danger, I'll call you."
As Thor entered the passage, Natasha and Arkham Batman arrived too. Natasha glanced into the tunnel and shook her head, "You should have waited for us to come over. The big guy might not be able to handle such complex terrain, after all, he used to fly..."
"No worries, Thor often falls into gravity traps because he doesn't watch where he's going; he's experienced in this respect."
"Are you sure it's because he doesn't watch where he's going that he falls in?" Shiller looked at Loki with some skepticism, and Loki averted his gaze.
Before long, Thor's voice came from down the passage, "Half of the surgery room has collapsed, but the area for landing is fine, you can come over now."
Several people slid down the passage one after another. After landing, Shiller looked at the huge pit with surprise. Parts of the drilling machine were scattered around, as if they had been swatted apart. Batman and Stark were nowhere to be seen.
Shiller turned to look at the rack for mechas that was supposed to be directly opposite the passage, only to find it missing. He breathed a sigh of relief; this indicated that Stark had gone down wearing his suit, which meant they had been prepared.
"What the hell are they up to?" Shiller couldn't help but complain. "If they detected something unusual, why didn't they call for help immediately instead of exploring on their own? Even Batman is willing to mess around with Tony."
Natasha walked to the edge of the pit, knelt down, and picked up a bit of powder, then said, "This seems similar to the slag we encountered deep in the mine; it's much wetter than what's on the surface. That means something has come up from the ground. The two of them might have been taken down."
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A sense of urgency rose in Shiller. He glanced at Arkham Batman, who said, "I can go down with Natasha to take a look."
After speaking, he took out grapples, gloves, and a gun. Natasha, on the other hand, waved her hand and cast a slow descent technique on herself. The two descended into the pit together.
Shiller remembered their earlier conversation about how there was a passageway at the bottom of the mine that pointed towards the hospital. It seemed that the correct route should have been to explore the mine first and find the way to the underground of the hospital on that path.
But now, because of their excessive mining, they had directly drilled through. Whatever was down there, it must have been just as unexpected for them.
It's not that Shiller and the others didn't want to go down; the key issue was they were all ordinary people at the moment. Not to mention fighting monsters, he and Strange were barely able to jump to the bottom of the deep pit without injury, so it was better not to add to the chaos.
Shiller, for one, wasn't interested in fighting; he preferred to solve problems from a different angle. He followed the passage back to the hospital lobby and sat at the counter, asking Manny, "What's underground?"
"Another me."
Not an entirely unexpected answer. Shiller thought, the little girl in front of him had some resentments, but not much, and she seemed quite rational overall. The scenario he saw in the dream and the state of the mummified corpse were more like a hope that someone would understand the truth.
But if what he said was true, and many years ago, various forces sacrificed a little girl in a very evil way for the sake of mining the Magic Energy Source, then her resentments must be terrifying, and not so easy to deal with.
"What exactly happened?" Shiller asked.
"They drained my blood," Manny said.
"I already knew that," Shiller nodded. He had known since the night he had a long talk with Manny. At that time, the group had divided the energy resource by making the little girl absorb magic power and then drew her blood out to be processed into a drug they would consume. That's why in the dream, the little girl showed symptoms of severe blood loss.
"They wanted not just an energy source but all of it," Manny said.
"They wanted your special constitution?" Shiller asked with a frown. He had previously speculated that if one had a constitution that could directly contact the Magic Energy Source, then all the world's Magic Energy Sources would become possessions within reach.
Manny nodded and said, "They asked me, they tortured me. I didn't know what to do."
After thinking for a moment, Shiller said, "So, they pulled out your teeth and nails to interrogate you. And because you didn't know what was happening either and couldn't answer them, they got frustrated and cut off your tongue."
Manny nodded again.
"They sacrificed me," Manny said, "hoping I would become a new source."
With Manny's succinct way of speaking, Shiller could only guess and then asked, "Did they sacrifice you back then because of your special constitution? What was the benefit of doing that?"
"I can absorb energy."
"Yes, I know... you mean, you can absorb not just the energy from the Magic Energy Source, but other types as well?"
Manny nodded her head.
Shiller gradually understood and said, "They want you to absorb souls, so they created the plague. All the energy in the souls of people who die here will be absorbed by you as a monster, and then they will extract this energy in another way."
Manny shook her head again and said, "No extraction."
"No extraction?" Shiller fell into contemplation and said, "Are they nurturing a monster? What do they want to do with the underground you?"
"War." Manny said.
Shiller felt confused. Why would these people want to think about war?
He felt there must be some historical context, so he went to find Loki. Loki was comforting patients with Wanda. After hearing Shiller's question, Loki pondered and then said:
"Perhaps, because the Westchester Duchy is a buffer zone between the two great empires. Its existence is because neither side wants to border the other directly. But if both sides want to wage war, Westchester Duchy would be the first to be wiped out."
"As far as I know, both empires have powerful war machines. The empire inclined towards technology has the steam throne, and the one inclined towards magic has forbidden curses, while Westchester has nothing."
"So, is that thing underground something the nobles of Westchester created for self-protection? If they had such capabilities, would they still be in a position to take abuse?"
Shiller pondered and felt this didn't seem right. Perhaps the monster was not something Westchester created but a trap one of the two empires laid here.
This could effectively prevent the other side from launching a surprise attack on Westchester and catching them off guard with a blitzkrieg.
If that sounds too complicated, then it's a bit like for the sake of preventing a blitzkrieg on Poland, laying a trap underground in Poland that could explode at any moment, interrupting the rhythm of the other side's offense.
Shiller didn't care who laid the trap; he only knew that the trap was built right under his hospital. If something went wrong, his assets would be the first to suffer.
"Extermination! It must be exterminated!"
However, there has been no prompt for mission completion, which means that he and Strange must figure out how the plague really erupted by themselves.
Shiller then found Strange, who was surprisingly still patient enough to operate. It is said that surgeons have their virtues—nothing prevents them from operating, not even when the sky is falling down.
"I feel we need to go down," Shiller said. "It seems we can't consider the mission complete unless we confront the source of the plague directly. And there is that unknown option that we must choose in order to pass the level."
Strange completed his actions unhurriedly, then said, "First, I don't know magic. Second, you don't have a Symbiont. Are you sure the two of us can succeed in passing the level?"
"We have to try anyway," Shriller shrugged, "Since we chose this ability-limited version, it shouldn't be too difficult. If all else fails, we can still ask for their help."
Strange wiped his hands clean, packed away his tools, and then asked, "When do you plan to leave?"
"Right now. Things are already prepared, and if we're lucky, we might even run into Batman."
Strange nodded, joined Shiller, and they went back to the original operating room, where they encountered Arrogant.
"The item that Batman left for me," Arrogant handed Shiller a metal box with a button on the back, and said, "This thing seems to be able to contact him. Press it if you encounter any problems."
"Are you being that generous?" Shiller squinted at him, "This isn't a bomb, is it?"
"Take it or leave it." Arrogant was about to take back the box when Shiller snatched it away.
He waved his hand and said, "If we succeed in passing the level, we probably won't be coming back up. I'll leave the keys to the cash drawer and the front door to the lucky bidder. Send me a message after you pass the level."
After speaking, Shiller picked up a rope from the side. He and Strange could only descend in this rather cumbersome way.
Neither of them was good at rapid descent, but luckily, Natasha and Arkham Knight had left a light source below when they descended. They could see that the pit was not so deep, just a few meters away, so they slowly descended holding onto the rope.
When Shiller landed, he felt the uneven ground and guessed it must have been blasted by something. When Strange landed, he nearly sprained his ankle and couldn't help complaining, "It's really inconvenient without magic."
"Yeah, too bad there are no male witches," Shiller shook his head.
The two of them, one in front of the other, marched forward with torches in hand. Below was clearly a man-made mining tunnel that looked quite old, reminding Shiller of the underground cave in the Faralines version he'd experienced before.
"Did you know I took part in a dice game version before?" Shiller's voice echoed in the spacious mine tunnel.
"What?"
"It was quite an interesting game. Most of the story was made up by us, and then fused together by the God of Stories. The exploration and combat in the game were all determined by the roll of dice, highly random..."
Shiller talked about their experiences in this version, especially the agent's clean shot. Shiller's complaints dissipated the oppressive atmosphere in the mine tunnel. Soon, a faint light appeared ahead on the path.