Chapter 437 - Humans?

While the administrator was so focused on Cecil's situation, it had failed to see that something even more troubling was taking place on the fifth stage of the trial.

Underneath all of the hot sand of the fifth stage, Angelia, Gabriel, and Kira was currently exploring the ancient underground ruins that they fell into after being sucked under the sand.

From first observation, Gabriel figured that the ruins he was exploring were some sort of city, but after taking his time to explore and observe the place, it was a city, and yet, it wasn't.

The presumed city seemed to be more of a large factory complex that had many sectors to it. As for what kind of things that were manufactured in this large factory, he couldn't quite figure that out.

"Big brother, the quest objective is supposed to be somewhere in here, right?" Angelia asked for the umpteenth time.

"Yes, Angel."

"So where is it then~?!" Angelia screamed out in anger.

They had walked through the entirety of the underground ruins and couldn't find a single thing other than the monsters which would suddenly pop up from time to time.

Angelia and the other two couldn't find the power station of the factory ruins so they couldn't continue with their quest. The quest itself sounded easy, but the problem of where the power station was located served to be quite the obstacle.

"Take a break for today, Angelia. We already searched the northern underground caves today so we should proceed to the final caves in the south. Since it's not located inside the ruins complex, then it's probably somewhere at the end of all these tunnels which lead back to here," Gabriel said.

His reasoning was correct, but Angelia was fed up with it. They had come out from one of the underground caves which led to the ruins and after exploring the ruins and not finding the power station which was their quest objective, Gabriel concluded that the only other place the power station would be in was at the end of one of the tunnels.

With that in mind, Gabriel decided that they should also explore and investigate the caves one by one until they found the ruins' power station. They had spent who knows how many days to explore every one of those caves until finally, all that they needed to do was explore the 3 final caves.

Gabriel firmly believed that the power station was at the end of one of these 3 caves. If not, then he wouldn't know what to do after that.

Just before the two were about to head back to the building where they set up their temporary residence, Kira was seen rushing towards them from the south side of the factory complex in a frantic matter.

"Judging by his face...I'm guessing it's something urgent," Angelia said with a huff.

"Captain! Lady Angelia!" Kira called out to them.

"What is it, Kira?"

"L-Lady Angelia, I...I found something on the south side!"

"It better be the power station!"

"W-well..."

"Well?"

"I-It's not the power station—"

"Don't waste our time Kira! We have to prioritize finding the station! Why would you waste your time on something else?!" Angelia exclaimed in irritation.

"B-but Lady Angelia, Captain, the two of you really must take a look at this. There are humans here!"

"Huh?"

"Show us, Kira," Gabriel said.

"Follow me!"

With Kira in the lead, the trio quickly made their way to the western district which housed the factory complex's storage warehouses.

They had already swept through that area just yesterday and only found some broken scraps of metal and equipment so Gabriel and Angelia were surprised that Kira had actually found humans there.

Gabriel concluded that the humans that Kira found weren't people who were originally there but participants of the trial just like them who came a few days after they swept through the area.

They already knew about the nature of the trials so the 3 knew that they were unlikely to be the only ones participating.

Right now, rather than being cautious, Gabriel was rather glad to have encountered some people because for the past weeks since they were forcefully pulled into the trials, they hadn't met up with any other people.

They arrived in the western district and Kira led them towards one particular warehouse which was much smaller than the rest. It seemed inconspicuous at first glance, but if one took a closer look, it was the most conspicuous since it was situated in the middle of the western district and was the only warehouse that was smaller than the rest of the warehouses.

Gabriel and Angelia at first thought that this small warehouse was some sort of relay for the people who once worked in the factory complex so they didn't pay it too much mind after giving the place a cursory sweep.

They, unfortunately, didn't have Cecil's Mana Sense so they wouldn't be able to notice that there was actually an underground floor which was connected to a hidden elevator at the far side of the small warehouse.

Luckily for them, Kira's specialty was detection so he was able to find it after giving the place a much closer inspection. Kira led Gabriel and Angelia towards an empty wall, placed his hand on a particular spot on the wall which at first glance didn't have anything special to it.

If one took a closer look, they would be able to see the slight difference between that spot and the rest of the wall. It had a slight indention which after Kira pressed down on was pushed back and slid upwards, revealing some sort of panel behind it.

"What's this?" Angelia curiously asked.

"It's some kind of access panel, Lady Angelia. One sec, let me activate it," Kira replied.

"Does it respond to...mana?"

"Yes, captain, but get this. It's not just any kind of mana, but mana unique to ours!"

"What do you mean?"

"This panel doesn't respond to elemental mana. It only responds to non-elemental mana which, fortunately, we possess!" Kira exclaimed excitedly.

He was naturally curious about this. From what he learned, the only people who could possess non-elemental mana were those from Earth and the people from the Non Continent.

If this place was part of the trial, then it meant that this particular area could only be accessed by people with special constitutions or them, the Earthlings.

"That's great and all, but so what? Hurry up and activate it and lead us to these people you've found," Angelia quipped.

"Wait a minute. It takes a minute or two to activate... My mana reserves are low and it takes a while for me to channel the required amount of mana to activate the elevator."

"Move aside, Kira, let me do it then!" Angelia said as she gently pushed Kira aside.

"O-Okay..."

"All I have to do is channel my mana into this panel, right?"

"Yup!"

Angelia immediately did that and not long after, the panel lit up. A rectangular light lit up on the wall and the wall slid to the side and revealed a room behind it.

When they walked into the room, Angelia and Gabriel looked around and found it rather familiar.

"This really is an elevator..." Gabriel mumbled.

"Yes, but it only leads to one floor below. Anyway, that's the place where I found the humans!"

Kira tapped onto the only button on the inside of the elevator and the wall from earlier slid down and the elevator's door closed. They immediately felt the elevator slowly descend in the next instant.

"These humans you found...did they show you any hostility?" Gabriel asked while they waited for the elevator to arrive on the underground floor.

Kira immediately replied to Gabriel's question, "That's the thing, Captain. They were all asleep inside these weird pods."

"Huh?"

"The pods were also collecting dust so it's like they were asleep inside the pods for a very long time. I'm not sure how long, but I'm guessing a couple of years or more."

"...So there were people who had come here before us..."

"They couldn't finish the trials and decided to just wait it out here?" Angelia added after thinking for a moment.

"I hope that's not the case. If they couldn't complete this trial's stage then what about us?" Gabriel spoke up and said.

"..."

"..."

The two children became mum after Gabriel's words.

"Anyways, we'll find out soon enough after we wake them up."

"C-captain, are you sure it's a good idea to wake them up? What happens if they're hostile and attack us the moment they wake up?"

"You shouldn't worry about that, Kira. You should be more worried about whether or not they're even still alive after sleeping for so long," Angelia added.

"Ah...Uhm...Yeah..."

"It's better to wake them up anyway. If they are people from the previous trials then we can ask them for some information before putting them back to sleep," Gabriel said.

The elevator stopped moving right after his words and the elevator's doors opened.

The three stepped out of the elevator and looked around the underground floor that the elevator led them to.

"Over there. Those are the pods that the humans are sleeping in!" Kira said while pointing towards the large pods that were covered in a layer of thick dust.

There was only one that was partially cleaned which was most likely the pod that Kira had looked into to find the human.

When Gabriel walked over and peered into the pod, he saw a n.a.k.e.d human sleeping inside it. What more, the human sleeping inside was actually a young girl...

"..."

"Big bro, Kira... you perverts..."