NOVEL WEB Chapter 584: Where Did They Take It?
Fuck…
Our way back is cut off and we have no way of contacting the people outside…
"Great, so it was a trap after all…" I sighed.
"A trap to lock us in here?" The Pirate Lord mused, watching the fire that was still burning the corridor. "This changes nothing."
"Well it sure does make it more difficult for us."
"If we really need the help, we can just wait for the fire to die down, right? It's not like that fire is going to burn forever," The Pirate Lord pointed out.
I suppose that is true… Or I could just get Amber to subtly extinguish the flames as well…
As though reading my mind, Amber looked at me and pointed at the fire, silently asking me if she should put that out for me.
I shook my head. If she did that, it would be too unnatural and that would bring more attention to us.
"Anyway! Let's head forward!" The Pirate Lord ordered, pointing at the path going straight. "We'll just need to find a way to disable this facility's security so let's look for the security room first!"
I suppose that's one way to solve this problem… The androids must be receiving instructions from somewhere so if we can cut the link off, they would no longer be a threat.
That means we'll have to look for the security room like what the Pirate Lord said.
"You sure the security room's that way?" I asked.
"What? Do you think it's somewhere down here instead?"
"You can't really discount that possibility right? We don't even know where the path you picked leads."
"Hmm… Are you suggesting we split up then?"
I hesitated.
In a place like this, splitting up would be the worst choice ever since the enemy could just pick us off one by one.
I've seen enough movies and played enough games to know what happens when a group decides to split up so I would really prefer not to do that if possible…
But with how clueless we are of the place right now… Even if we stick together to search, we'll always be in danger of ambushes anyway and sticking together would also allow the enemy to concentrate all their resources in one place to keep hammering us down.
In the end, I decided to shake my head at the Pirate Lord, "No. Let's just stick together. We'll go with your path."
He seemed surprised at my decision, "Heeeeh, I thought for sure you would want to split up since we can be your meat shields while you sneak around us."
I rolled my eyes at him and chose not to dignify that with a response.
We continued our advance through the facility, leaving the burning corridor behind.
I did wonder why these people even bothered setting such a trap though? If they wanted to kill us, they could have triggered it while we were moving through that area but they only activated it after we went past it.
It's like… They want us to head deeper inside?
But why?
I was still wondering what reason they could have for making us move deeper inside the facility when the pirates in front of us suddenly stopped and I almost ran into the pirate in front of me.
I shifted my gaze to the front and I realised the corridor led to a set of three separate doors at the end with one leading to what was clearly a supply closet and the other two with signs indicating they were toilets.
Great… So this was a dead end…
There was a hole in the ceiling which I assumed was where the androids that tried to ambush us came from and had also used to escape and there was no way the Pirate Lord or myself could use that anyway so we had to turn back and head towards the intersection again.
Once we reached the intersection, I was just about to ask which way we should go when one of the pirates spoke up before I could.
"Where's Nelson?"
It took me a moment to remember that Nelson was the pirate that got himself killed by the android earlier and his body was gone.
The blood from where his body used to be was still there and if you looked closely enough, you could see some blood splatters leading towards the passage on our right. Like someone had picked up his corpse and carried it off in that direction.
"Those androids took him? They took his body?!" The Pirate Lord roared.
Huh… I didn't expect for him to get worked up like that.
At least this gives us a trail to follow since the androids must have taken his body somewhere, right? And why would they even take the body anyway? Is it to clean up?
But the disabled androids we shot down were still littered all over the place though… So were they only concerned about organic corpses?
The Pirate Lord was already leading the way down the trail of blood splatters so all of us had no choice but to follow after him anyway.
We ran through the corridor, the blood trail leading all the way to the end where it stopped at a large industrial lift.
Since this was the only way out of the corridor from here, there was no doubt that the androids had carried the corpse into the lift.
The Pirate Lord stared at the lift for a moment before he wordlessly nodded at one of the pirates.
That pirate lowered his weapon and went over to the console to call for the lift while the rest of us arranged ourselves in a firing line with our weapons pointed at the doors.
Surprisingly, the console actually activated and a low humming sound came from the doors as the lift started to descend to our level.
It took quite a while before the lift finally arrived and the 'ding' sound it let out prompted us to tense up as the doors slowly slid open.
The light from the lift illuminated the corridor and revealed an empty interior inside.
Just as we were about to lower our weapons, a pod popped out from the ceiling of the lift and four gun barrels extended from said pop to point it at us.
Before it could fire though, a single gunshot rang out and pierced through the centre of the pop, blowing a hole clean through the automated turret and shutting it down.
"Nice shot, Lea," I praised, turning to the Alv who was in the midst of lowering her sniper rifle.
She gave me a nod in response, ignoring the looks the others were giving her.
"Heh… You have a good crew as well, don't you?" The Pirate Lord commented.
I turned back to him, "Of course. Why else do you think I am confident of walking into your base while surrounded on all sides by pirates? You thought I was kidding when I said we went prepared to flatten the entire base to the ground?"
He looked at me silently for a few moments before turning away and stepping into the lift, the rest of us following him inside a moment later.
There was a fresh pool of blood in the centre of the lift so that Nelson's corpse definitely came through here.
The problem now is…
"Which floor, boss?" One of the pirates asked, gesturing at the lift console that had five different buttons for each level.
"The highest floor," The Pirate Lord answered confidently.
No one questioned it and the pirate at the console pressed the button on the console, prompting the lift doors to close before it started moving upwards.
Right then, a static sound came from hidden speakers within the elevator and our guns immediately pointed up at the ceiling, expecting more automated turrets to pop out.
However, the only sound that came was some jingling and what sounded like a flute being played through the speakers.
…
Is that fucking elevator music?
As though to confirm my thoughts, more instruments started to join in and it became clear that it was definitely elevator music being played through the speakers.
I don't even know how I should react to that…
The lift eventually reached the top floor and it opened to a huge, dark hall and we stepped out cautiously, fanning out from the lift to check the area around us.
The place was so big that our lights weren't able to reach any of the walls, making it feel like we were in some empty void instead.
Checking the ground, there weren't any blood splatters so the body of that pirate must have not gone through here.
Just as I was thinking about moving back into the lift, lights started coming on around us, illuminating the entire hall we were in and revealing that we were in some kind of cavern with the walls being made of stone from the mountain while the floor was flattened out.
And standing in the middle of the cavern… Was a giant Spider Tank that slowly turned towards us.
I looked behind and the lift doors shut closed before the light on the console turned off, indicating that it had been shut down.
Goddamn it.