Chapter 259: laboratory room

After entering the tunnel passage completely, through their night vision goggles, Clark and Dickson moved forward at a fairly swift pace.

They crawled forward at a steady speed with their body laid horizontally and exposed vulnerably, they could only pray that no enemy would suddenly spring up to them at such bad timing.

Though the hollow tunnel passage was dark, Clark who was at the front could detect faint blue flashes that were probably from electrical malfunctions lighting up occasionally on the metal walls.

He could not pinpoint what was causing it at this moment, he could only rein in his curiosity and focus on moving forward while paying attention to the flow of time to know how long this tunnel was.

After crawling forward for about 5 minutes, Clark noticed a hole leading upwards on the tunnel wall that was just before him.

His heart grew tense a bit as he tapped his feet on the wall 2 times, indicating to Dickson that he should stop crawling and keep silent. The latter obeyed immediately, bringing absolute silence to the tunnel.

After brazing himself for a few seconds, Clark suddenly pushed himself forward. He arrived directly under the hole in a second as he pointed the laser pistol that was on his hand up.

“Just a ventilation vent?”

He heaved a sigh of relief, it seemed that his fear was unfounded. After letting Dickson know that it was a ventilation vent, he continued crawling forward.

They both crawled forward for another 5 minutes, during which they saw other 3 ventilation vents. After this 10-minute crawl, the straight tunnel finally bent downwards at the front.

After telling Dickson to stop moving, Clark crawled towards the bend as silently as he could. Dipping his face through, he saw another ventilation vent below, but this one was not simple like the others.

Though the metal bars of the vent obstructed his view a bit, he could still see from his position that a large room that looked like a lab was below it. It seems that they were currently in a ceiling.

He quickly took footage of the scene and transferred it to Dickson.

After they both took a good look at it, they didn’t discover anything that could ring alarms. This may not be reliable, but they still decided to go down.

After going through the bend, Clark finally placed his hands on the vent. Coiling his body, a bit, he was able to wriggle his hands into his bag and bring out a short bolt screwdriver.

After screwing a bit, the vent was finally set free from its hold. Clark did not let it fall, he held it at the last moment while supporting his weight with his legs hooked to the tunnel walls.

Dickson also held him from behind, granting him stability.

After doing this, he finally dropped himself lower to let his head peek through at an extremely slow pace. The room was already expanding before his eyes and it seems that he was correct, this was a lab.

His heart was palpitating rapidly as his grip on the laser pistol became tighter, he was ready to pull the trigger immediately if necessary.

As soon as his head left the constraints of the tight tunnel passage, his eyes finally fell completely upon the full structure that was before him.

White was the dominant color in the surroundings. The room was fairly large, about 5 meters by width and length, and most of the space was filled with extremely large machines.

He didn’t look at all this extravagance immediately though, his eyes rapidly scanned around the room to detect any threat.

Detecting none, he heaved a sigh of relief.

“The area is all clear! You can release my legs”. He finally whispered to Dickson who was waiting for his feedback, also tense all over.

Hearing what he said, Dickson also heaved a sigh of relief and released his grip on his legs the next moment.

Thud!

Clark fell through the ceiling into the lab immediately after being released.

Due to his quick reflex, he flipped himself in mid-air and dropped in the softest possible manner with his multi-purpose boots absorbing the rest of the residual noise.

Dickson landed beside him the next moment. They stood side by side with their backs facing each other; they finally did a real survey of this strange laboratory room.

The laboratory room was divided into 3 parts. The middle part where they landed seemed to be the observation chamber of the scientists who previously worked here, chairs and tables were arranged neatly in rows and columns.

At the center table which was made from the same metal that was used to coat the tunnel entrance’s walls laid dozens of books of various sizes, bringing an extreme scholastic vibe to the laboratory.

A map of the planet was placed at the wall, and various regions of the map were marked red. Both soldiers did not know what it meant.

Another board was on the wall, and a biological chart was on it. Dozens of beasts and exobeast pictures were on it, there were some animals that Clark’s implant didn’t even recognize.

Overall, the middle part was what was expected of the observation chamber of a research laboratory. But the baffling fact was that the place seemed a little disorganized; like the scientists were rushing when they left.

“What happened here that could fluster Aragan scientists so much? Did they not have assistants and guards?” A lot of thoughts went through both soldiers’ minds.

After doing a proper survey of this part of the room, they finally turned to look at the front part. The 3 parts of the room were isolated by a big transparent wall, probably made from a rare exotic.

The front part of the lab seemed to be the specimen section where test subjects were kept and experimented on.

Clark and Dickson felt their skin tingle a bit on seeing the sight before them. Dozens of animal samples, most probably exobeasts were lined on various containers across this section.

None of the animal samples kept there had decomposed. Despite being abandoned for so many years already, the systems of the laboratory were still working fine as cold air was constantly being pumped into the containers.

All the animal samples were frozen stiff.

Among the animals on display, Clark recognized some. He saw a mature Night Rakshasha, a big Black Bear that had its head cut open, its brain was exposed and could be seen.

Though these were all organic organisms, they were all dead, which meant that they presented no threat to both soldiers.

They heaved another sigh of relief before simultaneously inclining their heads to look at the last section of the laboratory room, which was the biggest section and was at the back.

If the previous 2 sections could be called the observation chamber and specimen chamber, this would be called the machinery chamber.

Dozens of machines lined up like mountain-sized mechs, towering above both soldiers, making them look like humans suffering from growth hormone deficiency.

This was the technological equipment section of this laboratory.

After meticulously checking everywhere with their sharp eyes, they found no threat but some sights in here made them feel tense. They felt goosebumps creep under their skins.

“Why skeletons again?” Clark had a solemn look on his face, but his mind was lamenting something else.

In the only 2 chairs that were in the machinery chamber sat 2 skeletons. From the injuries that were inflicted on both skeletons, they died before they could even react.

The one on the left had a big hole drilled through his skull, probably from a high-caliber bullet paired with a hot energy beam. It was practically cleaved through like a pig under the butcher’s mercy.

The second seemed was much less frightening, but to Clark who was a ranged specialist, this sight gave him the most creeps.

No breach could be detected in the machinery chamber, but somehow, a sniper was able to silently kill these 2 machine operators without them being able to react at all.

Clark kept quiet; he engaged his implant to the limits as he tried to reason how this was possible. A minute later, he found what he wanted, but he was even more horrified.

From the angle of the shot and other calculations that he made, he deduced that the sniper who killed both operators did not even enter this laboratory room.

And from how sturdy the walls of the laboratory were, not any type of bullet could breach it.

At a corner of the chamber, there was a small 2-way hole that the 2 operators created on the wall, probably to see to the room on the other side, and this was what brought their doom.

The glass covering the small hole was broken. Clark deduced that the soldier who killed both operators made his aim and released his bullets through this small hole to snipe these 2 operators that were looking to have fun.

Clark shuddered after coming to this conclusion.

“How perceptive and accurate must a soldier be to achieve that? And he must have probably been embroiled in a battle at the other room”.

“Perhaps, only veteran 3rd rank high-grade and above ranged soldiers can do this”.

After making all these deductions, he finally turned to his companion.

“Dickson, we are here, and it seems that no one is here yet. This laboratory is our prize for getting here first, let’s scour around and thoroughly take everything valuable away”.

“Leave the big machines alone, we cannot take those. Take the small sophisticated gadgets, maybe some organic specimen, and most importantly the experiment research records”.

Both soldiers did not dally around, they went to work immediately.

The 2 skeletons would not frighten them so easily, most especially as they’ve already confirmed that the laboratory was safe for now.

They didn’t know if they were the first to get to the ruin, but they were surely the first to enter this laboratory room so looting it to the barest minimum was the best they could do to honor it.

One thing that stood out to them though was that the tunnel they passed through to get passage here was definitely not the main entrance to the ruin. That was most likely a secret passageway.

Maybe the main entrance was far from here and their rivals already entered through it. That didn’t concern them now though, they would focus on the present and harvest as much benefit as they could.

They only looted for 30 minutes before they decided to leave the laboratory.

Though the things here were valuable, this was only the tip of the iceberg of this long-lost research base. This ruin had much more, and they still had the main target to go after.

“Let’s leave here”. Clark finally said.

“Ok”.

Clark held his spear tighter on his right hand while flexing with the laser pistol on his left hand, Dickson held his shield more stably as they slowly advanced to the door of the laboratory room.

Their journey to locate the main mission target just began.

[Thank you for reading this chapter, I really appreciate it.]