Chapter 192 Volume IV - Chapter 37: Depths of the Bunker
"Be everyone ready?"
Dorhud, as the leader of our group, looked briefly at the three of us in front of the large door leading deeper into the bunker.
We were all ready. My black obsidian sword was in the dimensional button in my pocket and I could unleash it at any moment. My mana reserves were full and I was mostly healed.
Ezareth, too, was more alert than ever. Her weapons were presumably inside her dimensional ring, waiting to materialize in this world. She was wearing normal clothes until now, but now she was in a set of light armor.
Hardil… Well, he had no armor or weapon. So he only had a simple, straight dagger that Ezareth had given him.
"Then let's go."
Dorhud took a deep breath, placed his hand on the great door, and pushed it gently. The door not only lifted the dust from the floor but also crumbled slightly, revealing the darkness behind it as it opened wide.
There were stairs leading downward, and no light sources were visible ahead of us. It was pitch black, in short.
"I'll be goin' ahead. Follow behind me in the order of Aiden, Hardil, and Ezareth."
Hardil was the weakest, so he put him in the middle.
Wait, doesn't that mean he thinks I'm weak, too? Although... Ezareth is definitely stronger than me, I guess.
I'm just a little upset...
"Let's go."
With that, we started moving forward with our own light source in the order Dorhud had told us to. My watch and Dorhud's bracelet were two perfectly adequate light sources.
As we moved into the pitch blackness, I focused on my surroundings, especially the smells and sounds.
The staircase seemed to crumble with each step we took, the years had not been kind to this place. This became more and more evident as we moved forward. Likewise, there was a strange smell in the air, a smell that grew stronger as we descended, a smell I couldn't quite identify...
Ah, isn't this... rust?
"It smells of rust."
If the group did not stop walking at my words, they were lost in thought for a moment.
"The end of the stairs is in sight, we'll learn soon."
I squinted at Dorhud's words and looked into the darkness.
Indeed, the stairs led to a room ahead.
"Get yerselves ready."
Hardil trembled and clutched a dagger Ezareth had given him, his eyes darting back and forth. Ezareth was focused in front with a short sword in her right hand and a dagger in her left, her horned figure in the darkness looking a little... hostile, but nothing to be done.
I, on the other hand, had drawn my black sword and was right behind Dorhud, gripping the hilt with both hands.
That's how we finally entered the room, so the first thing we noticed was why the stairs smelled of rust.
"A- are these... iron?"
Hardil was visibly extremely tense, easily visible.
"Yes, a lot of iron at that... all rusted to the roots..."
They looked like the rebar collected in front of construction sites in my old world, except that the whole room seemed to be full of it. And as I said, they were all rusted to the point that there was not a pinhole in them.
"This is not normal."
Ezareth's voice was calm, yet she too was hesitant. With the two weapons in her hands, she was ready for anything.
"Exactly, it's impossible for the iron to rust that much in a place like this, even after eighty years. Especially in this room, whose door was closed before we arrived-"
"Humidity and oxygen..."
Hardil's eyes sparkled.
"This connects to the outside!"
Our eyes all turned to what appeared at the end of the room, a door. An open door, to be more precise.
It was impossible to notice it unless one paid particular attention to it, yet there was a breeze filling the room... And the air was a little stifling, I only just noticed it, but the room was indeed damp.
I turned my eyes to Dorhud, and the dwarf's face, despite this information, was not very pleasant. In fact, his normally positive demeanor was completely absent this time.
"Let's continue."
With that, our group made our way through the rebars in the room to the open door on the other side, where we found something different from the first room.
The room was completely empty, there was not a single thing inside and it was quite big. Nevertheless, when we shone the light, we could see another door about twenty meters away, this time closed. And it didn't look like a door that would open easily, that had weakened with the passage of time.
But that was not the important thing. What was noticeable was that there were some easily visible holes in the walls, especially where the breeze came from, and they were right next to the door across the room. And they were big enough for us to pass through. They looked like holes that had been forced open from the other side of the room... as if something had ripped them open.
Even if we couldn't really see it in the pitch darkness... The door and wall might have been the strongest thing in this whole bunker. So... whatever made these holes was definitely not a nice thing.
"Sealed, it seems."
I nodded when Dorhud made his first comment.
"That door wasn't meant to be opened, but those holes... a bit suspicious."
These two short sentences between us caused Hardil to start shaking like crazy again.
"W- what do we do?"
"We will go into the room."
Ezareth's cursory answer brought a smile to the dwarf doctor's face. Not a smile of joy, but a smile of... pain.
"W- what if there be somethin' inside?"
"If it is an enemy... we simply kill it, eighty years ago none of the humans could fight creatures. So they ran away even from simple creatures. I mean, I don't think there's a chance that there's something extremely dangerous and powerful behind the door. In fact, if there is something there, it's probably dead. If there was something really powerful, that door wouldn't be like this."
Dorhud nodded his head in agreement, but he still had the same serious expression on his face. With that, he took a step towards- the door.
"Then let's-"
~crunch!
The room was suddenly deathly silent. Everyone looked at the ground beneath Dorhud's feet at the same time. Everyone could see the femur, split in two, lying there.
Hardil's eyes widened as Dorhud and Ezareth remained expressionless.
"A human bone-"
But he couldn't finish his sentence... because an unexpected scream suddenly echoed through the room, interrupting him.
"AAAAARRRRRGGHHHH!"
Hardil's ear-splitting scream caused everyone to instantly assume battle stances. Ezareth had taken a stance so abruptly and professionally, without any deficit, that I was surprised.
But what really caught my eye was the change in Dorhud.
Dorhud's clothes rippled the moment Hardil's scream began, and the metal bumps that had appeared out of nowhere all over his body moved as if they were a liquid substance, forming an armor. I wanted to look at the armor as it quickly detailed, but I didn't have time for that. No one did…
"I SAW IT! I SAW IT! I SAW A GLINTIN' RED THING IN ONE O' THEM HOLES BY THE DOOR!"
"Quiet, Hardil!"
Dorhud's overwhelming voice made Hardil fall silent at once. Yet he did not seem angry with him, his eyes and focus were completely on the sealed door.
Hardil continued to mutter even though he lowered his voice.
"There is somethin' there! I swear I saw it...!"
I swallowed involuntarily, simply turning my eyes to the holes near the door.
Unlike the weak dwarf, no matter how hard I looked, I couldn't see anything there, the darkness had already obscured my vision to a great extent.
And that's why I turned around to look at Hardil and Ezareth, just out of curiosity.
Then... the deep, deathly silence that enveloped the room suddenly hit me more clearly than ever. I stiffened as if the darkness was closing in on me, my blood literally froze.
There was something in the pitch black. Something standing right behind us, right behind Hardil, only a small part of it visible, the source of the deathly silence and the blood-curdling air in the room.
Two pairs of red eyes that literally piercing the darkness... and a big smile filled from ear to ear with irregular, yellow-colored fangs.
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