With rest, the two once again began their journey towards the room. In between them were two hallways. If things played themselves out generically, then it was obviously the next safest hallway would also be straight to the doors. The most important thing is to focus on the current task. With the first step, she was ready for anything. Though this didn’t guarantee anything would happen.
Nothing. This didn’t make things better, the lack of response made her feel a little strange, and the tension increased with the second step. Once again, she didn’t find any problems. Unlike the first step, this time she completely stopped. For a split second, she almost panicked.
Her heart exploded as she was drowned in self-doubt and dark thoughts of possible consequences. She couldn’t stop thoughts of invisible wires from invading her imagination, as it stopped her from taking another step in fear that she had failed to feel the danger and had already made a fatal mistake.
When she didn’t move for a good minute or two. This caused John who was behind her to pay more attention to posture and start to feel the tension in her body. As he cleared his throat rather loudly, she subconsciously turned around before stopping halfway through. She didn’t dare turn all the way around.
She did turn far enough to see one of his arms moving wildly in front of him as he stood behind her. As he moved, he came up right behind her as he moved his arm in front of her with his continued movement. He could understand why she was gripped with so much fear. Very few people explored multiple laboratories. Those that did were all of very high grades.
Because of the popularity of Izic, stories of laboratories were very common. This was to the point even normal people that never entered a dungeon, let alone a laboratory, knew a lot about them. In the notebook alone there was a large collection of stories that were unconfirmed but spoke of many dangers. Middle reaches were the most consistent portion of the laboratories. It was no small thing that it was said that on average every two steps was a trap. Meaning taking two steps meant they had missed a trap, with the notoriety of the invisible wire stories were so common it was a common plot that was used consistently in the horror genre in not just human culture but the rest of the continent.
Seeing his hand in front of her completely intact caused her to settle down a lot. It also caused a big wave of embarrassment. She tried hard not to get close to him, and yet it was also hard not to bond even a little when he did things like this. When she was about to thank him, he leaned in a little due to the inertia of his arm. As soon as he did, he leaned back in reflex. Yet the second he did, he instantly stopped as she grabbed his arm and held him in place.
He stopped immediately. When he was about to pull his arm out of her grasp, he heard her speak in a serious tone, “Stop!”
As he was about to reply in response, she clamped down even harder that he had no choice but to respond in kind. She was actually using mana to clamp down on his arm. But before he could yank his arm out of her grasp, he remembered she was still wearing the worker’s collar. If she was seriously trying to attack him, she would die before she could seriously injure him in any way.
As she loosened her shoulder, her backpack was quickly drooping onto the arm that was holding his arm, but she held firm and didn’t allow the extra weight to affect her grasp as his arm stood in place. No matter how careful she was, it couldn't stop the two from moving minutely. Because of this, as she tried to dig into the backpack as carefully as she could, he felt something wet on his finger.
As Jessica was being careful not to make any large motions that would affect his arm position as she held it in place, her movements were gentle. This caused her action to be relatively quiet as she pulled something out of her backpack. When a droplet of something red fell from the tip of his finger, he heard it loud and clear. It was only at that moment he realized what exactly was going on.
With gauze in hand, she very gently pulled his arm down as she used the gauze to quickly wrap his finger. She didn’t have time to treat the wound and could only tightly apply the wrapping to apply pressure. To help with this, she had increased the pressure as she moved her arm to his wrist as she tried to clamp down hard enough to stop the blood flow as she quickly wrapped the finger the best she could.
When all was said and done, they could see a small bit of red blood floating in midair as the blood clung to the wire that was too fine to see. Pulling out the distorted daggers, she gently made a cutting motion towards the wire. With the blood, she was able to see its exact position. As she did, the tip of the dagger was cut off without any resistance. This gave both of them a serious expression.
Even with the metal being distorted destroying the integrity there was no resistance as the wire had cleanly cut through the metal without any problems. “Memorize the position of the wire. If there is another trap, and you need to maneuver, you will have to make sure you avoid the previous wires.”
It was all she could do. The rest of the hall was dealt with like that. While sounding easy, if not for his action, she might have died. Time and time again the old man had told her not to depend too much on her premonitions as there were far too many life-threatening things that wouldn’t immediately kill her. They weren’t omnipotent.
With the already heavy atmosphere, she wasn’t given any help as she inspected the next three halls. With no surprise, the safest hall was leading to the doors. This didn’t make her feel better, instead no matter how tightly she tried, she could feel herself becoming more and more excited by the prospect.
Making their way forward, she kept the second dagger, as the first had lost half of its blade. Without any choice, she could only put it in her bag. When she knew where the wire was she could only cut off a tiny section, yet when she cut the space in front of them she was met with wires randomly that would cut into the blade at different intervals depending on her distance. With another two steps without any danger, she once again felt a large amount of tension that started to cause her to stiffen up.
No matter how she tried to calm herself with deep breaths or moving her limbs, she still felt incredibly stiff. During this time, John didn’t say anything and waited patiently for her. He almost seemed invisible as he tried hard not to add any more pressure to her. With a good ten-minute break, she finally got some feeling back. During her third step, she had to stop.
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There wasn’t danger, but she felt pressure pressing down on her left arm. She didn’t immediately turn her head or lean back. Using her peripheral vision, she was able to see that a wire had drawn blood. Being lucky, the tension caused her to move slowly, slow enough the cut barely broke skin. As she leaned back, she could see a red line under her clothes as the wire had cut through and created a paper thin cut that happened to draw a small amount of blood.
After this, she used both daggers to try and get a better representation of her body’s path through the hall. When she was five feet away from the crossroads, she could feel conflicting emotions. The tension in her body had reached a peak, and trying to take another short break wouldn’t help her. Instead, it would only make it worse. Maybe because of this she was more sensitive as she spotted a gleam from the side.
When she turned and inspected it, she was able to see a fairly faint glow of the tiny bit of light coming off the walls. In disbelief, she couldn’t help but scuff a little at herself. She didn’t believe she was really that lucky. But sure enough, if she moved, she wouldn’t see the wire anymore. Motioning for John behind her, she pointed out the wire before she checked the opposite direction as she moved around the wire.
It was the second she moved past the wire. She felt a cold chill run down her spine as she tried to jump back as she remembered the wire she had just passed. The hesitation was just long enough that she stalled as she felt something yank her back. Following a loud boom, there were a number of sparks that lit up the hall as a dark metal object danced on the floor as it bounced off the wall before flying at them again.
Lucky or maybe unluckily for her, John didn’t freeze. Because of the angle, she was fine once he pulled her back. The metal bolt couldn’t penetrate the walls or floor, so it simply bounced as it continued to travel down the hall. John was able to jump as it went right under him. As the two turned to see the bolt hit a wire before being split into two that quickly lost all momentum and lay motionlessly on the floor.
“What are you looking at?” John couldn’t help but ask as he turned back around and saw her looking above them.
She reached out, placing one hand on his head to gently pull it down as she pulled him closer to her as he looked back up after she released him. In the path behind her and right in front of where he had jumped was clearly a wire. Possibly intentional, it was only possible to see the wire after passing under it.
If she had jumped back like she normally would have, she would have at the very least gotten a shave that would have taken off the top of her scalp. If John was half a foot closer to her, his jump would have taken off his nose if not a large portion of his face. The last few feet felt extremely far.
Without any other surprises, the two made it to the doors. They didn’t immediately attempt to enter, instead she couldn’t help but look at John. He had an equally wry face. “I have never heard of a trap being placed on doors, at worst they will be fake. Though, I am not willing to test that theory. You shouldn’t blindly trust it either…”
With that, she didn’t. Yet even with testing, she didn’t feel any immediate danger. Very carefully, the two reached out and grabbed the loop knobs made of the same yellowish brown stone and pulled. Contrary to their original belief, the doors started to open. Once the doors opened enough to fit through, they were able to see a dark rectangular room.
The shadows on the other side of the room looked to be weapon stands. In fact, there were a few shadows that could possibly be armor. She had never even heard of armor being found in a laboratory before. No matter how fast her heart was beating, she tried to keep a straight face and not show any signs of her excitement.
One of her lifelong goals, dealt with money. She had a deal with the old man that if she could become Grade D or produce enough money. The thing she dreamt of since she was a child would come true. She knew this deal was his way of testing her. Not if she was worthy, but to push her. He was getting old and wouldn’t be able to stay with her forever. It was his way of looking out for her.
“Let’s rest here. I don’t think either of us are in a state to continue.” As she heard John speak, she couldn’t help but look back as their eyes met. She could see excitement and guilt as he looked at her. John was also someone that didn’t have much time left in life either. The amount of money that could be received from these items was hard to just let go. Seeing her reaction, he nodded at her and spoke once more, “Don’t worry, I remember the deal, these are yours.”
With a smile creeping on her face, she turned around and moved towards the opposite side of the hall. There was a pep in her steps that almost made it seem like she was skipping. Just by watching her, it was possible to see how excited and happy she was. Maybe that was why nobody was ready for what happened next. She was walking faster than John, so the distance of the two wasn’t short.
Never had there been a trap in the room with the failed products. There was never a fake room, either. So neither of them were ready for the floor to suddenly give out from under her. The only semblance of good luck she received was John having had time to use the rope he kept at his waist in case of an emergency.
Very quickly she tried with all her might to grasp at anything, so when she saw the rope she grabbed it so tightly she feared she might cut it as she was grasping onto it so hard. No matter how hard she tried, she still subconsciously looked down. But she couldn’t see anything, which only caused the fear to explode from every crevice of her brain. As John was pulling her up, there was a sudden change that neither of them were ready for.
Starting from midair in the center, the hole created was magically being replaced as it started to seal the hole from the center out. Even if she wasn’t in the air for long, she still fell a decent distance. When the hole started to close, the two worked overtime as they tried to pull her up. When she reached a distance close enough, the two stretched out their arms to each other.
By this time, there was barely enough room for her to slip through. To be honest, she was surprised John didn’t just release the rope and reached into the hole to try and pull her out. On the other side of the hall was a large influx of money that might be able to extend his life. So when the hole closed and was about to reach his wrist, she was surprised he didn’t let go. Once the magic floor made contact with his arm, it showed it wasn’t just an illusion as the floor dug into his arm as the two were separated.
As she started to fall, she could feel the panic building up. When it reached a crescendo, she was unable to look away from the light at the end of the tunnel. She didn’t believe there was actually more light down there, but that it was simply lighter than the hole. After the crescendo of panic was a calm that she couldn’t explain. She threw every ounce of mana into her legs as the light swallowed her.
As her feet slammed into the ground, she leaned forward and rolled to the best of her ability. She heard a devastatingly difficult to listen to cracking sound as she could feel the impact slowly spread as she rolled until she reached a kneeling position, supporting herself up. As she took a deep breath, she felt the ground give out.
When all was said and done, she tried to turn her head. But her entire body was being held in place. All she could do was cough up a mixture of blood and air as the multiple spikes that had penetrated her body held her semi-upright as she breathed her last.