Chapter 298. Slope
Charles whipped around and found not an enemy but his navigator, Tobba. Tobba clutched his right hand with a fresh hole in it made by the still-lodged Dark Blade, and bubbles churned as he let out a soundless cry.
How did this lunatic get here? Is he not afraid of the water's immense pressure? Charles thought. He grabbed Tobba by the collar and rushed toward the hatch connected to the decompression chamber.
Tobba's loud cries instantly pervaded the chamber as the water drained out.
"Aaaah! My haaand! It hurts! It really huuurts!
"It's bleeding! Quick! Get me bandages!
"Goodness! Save meeee! Aaaaaaah!"
"Enough! Stop shouting!" Charles yanked the Dark Blade out of Tobba's hand and asked, "How did you get down here? Do you not know that it's dangerous out there?"
Tobba looked as if he had been wronged as he explained, "I saw that you were about to open the safe containing 079, so I had no choice but to go out there and stop you because it has a nasty temper."
"079? That box contained a relic from the main island?" Charles asked.
"Mmhm." Tobba nodded and said, "You shouldn't provoke it. It's very dangerous. I was just trying to stop you, but you stabbed me. You stabbed your benefactor!"
Charles fell into contemplation while staring at Tobba in front of him. Eventually, he asked, "Since you said that 079 has a nasty temper, does that mean that it can communicate?"
"Yes, it can! We're good friends. Actually, I get along well with most of the projects," Tobba replied.
"Great!" Charles opened the decompression chamber and yelled, "Linda! Come here and bandage Tobba's wound."
Linda moved quickly to stop Tobba's bleeding. The crying old geezer was about to head back to his cabin when Charles stood in his way. Tobba stared at Charles in a daze amidst the pain.
Charles shoved a heavy diving helmet down Tobba's head before saying, "Tobba, do me a favor and ask 079 where we can find 319. Since it seems to have been here for a long time, it must be familiar with the area.
"Complete this task for me, and I'll tell you as many stories as you want."
Tobba had told Charles that he was familiar with the relic, so Charles decided to take advantage of that and extract information from the relics.
Actually, he had no way to locate 319, so he had no choice but to rely on a method that might work.
Tobba was soon sent back into the sea. He stood on the seafloor and gestured angrily at the periscopes for quite a while. Eventually, his head drooped as he dejectedly walked up toward the rusty safe.
He glanced at the Narwhale before lifting his foot and kicking the rusty box.
However, the rusty box offered no reaction.
Tobba seemed infuriated upon receiving no response. He bent over and looked around him before picking up a rock. He then hurled it at the rusty box, but the rusty box remained quiet.
In the end, Tobba simply stuck his head into the rusty box—a move that got the crew members worried for Tobba. Soon, Tobba fished out what looked like a tree branch before stumbling his way over to the Narwhale.
"Pull his oxygen tube and bring him back. Everyone, stay away from the decompression chamber for now," Charles ordered. He hadn't forgotten Tobba's words about how 079 was dangerous with a nasty temper.
Even if 079 were kind and amiable, it was still better to err on the side of caution when dealing with relics.
Tobba was soon pulled up into the decompression chamber, and Charles could finally see the tree branch in his arms. It wasn't a tree branch but a broken umbrella.
A plain old black umbrella with only its ribs; it was missing its canopy.
Tobba took off his diving helmet and sat on the floor before bawling like a child.
Charles felt that there was something amiss upon seeing that. Tobba was a lunatic, but his manic episodes were predictable. Regardless of the situation, Charles couldn't see Tobba reacting like this unless something special had happened.
The decompression chamber was opening slightly, and Feuerbach asked through the crease.
"What's wrong, buddy? Why are you crying?" Feuerbach asked.
"079 is dead! It's dead! Waaaaaaaah!" Tobba bawled.
Charles immediately pushed open the door to the decompression chamber and walked in. He took the broken umbrella from Tobba's hands and inspected it. Indeed, it seemed like it had become nothing more than an ordinary umbrella missing its canopy.
"Are you sure this is 079? Are you not mistaken?" Charles asked with a hint of doubt in his voice.
Tobba wiped his tears away as he replied, "There's no way I'd mistake it for something else! It's 079, and it's dead! Someone stole its heart."
Relics can actually die? Charles had spent so many years at sea, and this was the first time he heard that the concept of life and death applied to relics, too. Until now, dangerous relics had only ever been abandoned—never killed or destroyed.
Honestly, Charles couldn't care less about the answer to that question. The fact that 079 was dead meant that he no longer had a lead to find 319.
Wait, is 319 even alive? Without 319, Charles wouldn't be able to extract the information that had been engraved in his subconscious. Charles felt his heart sink at the possibility that 319 had perished long ago.
However, he didn't have the luxury of time to ponder over assumptions.
Charles grabbed Tobba's diving suit and pushed him out of the decompression chamber, shouting, "Get to your stations, everyone! The salvage operation will continue! Hurry up and get moving!"
The crew began moving at the captain's orders; they continued their search for 319, which they had never seen before. The Narwhale moved forward; the bottom of the tunnel seemed as wide as it was long. The vessel had been moving slowly for two hours now, but they still hadn't stumbled upon a wall.
The flat terrain gradually changed, and the ground began to grow steeper and steeper until the slope reached thirty degrees. Charles found another relic inside the same rusty box that contained 079.
The relic was a glove, and Tobba didn't have to confirm its vital signs for Charles to deduce that it was dead. The glove looked more like tattered cloth, and its colors seemed to have faded to inky black.
Charles frowned and left it behind to continue moving forward.
The pitch-black waters were quiet and placid, but Charles didn't feel happy at all. He was more worried about his voyage producing zero results rather than any crises.
Something's not right. The tunnel is upright, so every single relic should have been around each other if they had fallen straight down the tunnel from above. They can't be so distant from each other; something must be moving them around.
Perhaps that something is their murderer... Charles thought with a frown.
Just then, he sensed something, prompting him to look up. A four-meter-tall humanoid figure was standing on the Narwhale, and Charles could clearly make out its features due to their close distance.
The humanoid figure was short and fat; its body seemed to be secreting a grayish-white mucus. Seven or eight cherry-pink tentacles, the size of a baby's arm, were attached to each limb, and each tentacle became progressively more transparent toward the tips.
The tentacles on its right hand had wrapped around a rusty box.
Is that the murderer of these relics? Wait, what is it trying to do? Charles cast a dumbfounded gaze at the humanoid figure. The divers around Charles saw him standing frozen and realized that something was amiss.
They quickly moved closer to each other and signaled at the periscopes using flag semaphore.
Can it communicate? Charles wondered. He stepped forward to say something when his instincts screamed at him to throw himself to the side.
But it was too late—an enormous bloody maw descended upon them, and a thunderous boom echoed as the seven divers were engulfed and swallowed into the creature's belly.
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