Hiking together when you have time

"Row, row, row--"

In the steam grotto, after pushing open the valves of the lab, a skeletal humanoid sitting on a desk, constantly writing something, slowly raised his head and met the intruder's eyes with a vacant stare.

"To the ... Immortalized... Steam and Machinery..."

Witcher, who had lost his faith long ago, was silent for a moment and attempted a greeting in his former camp language.

"May the Holy Light be with you?"

"Intruders... GUARDS!!!"

The Mechanical Theocracy researcher, who had been dead for an unknown length of time long ago, loosened the long-worn quill and pressed the red button next to it.

"..."

After waiting a long time, with no alarms sounding and no hurried footsteps arriving from those of yesteryear, he was confused for a moment and slowly rose to his feet.

Inside that ragged uniform was a grotesque combination of flesh and blood and machinery.

No wonder you can live so long...

Eleazar watched silently as the reformed man raised his arm, a cracked crystal set in his palm, bubbling an ethereal light at himself.

Fire tuned to cut the head!

In the next second, Witcher appeared at the researcher's side, and in a flash of instantaneous fire in his slowly retracting palm, a head sprouting electric sparks flew up.

Without the idea of observing how strong such a reformer was, Eleazar made quick work of him.

The headless body, which had spun in place several times, spewed sticky blood that seemed like motor oil from its severed mouth and ended up sprawled on the scratched and etched table.

The few papers that remained on it were soaked in a dark red liquid.

"Energy Room Work Log...

Looking at the line of ancient words slowly stained red, Eleazar quickly drew it out and shook off the blood, looking at it thoughtfully.

"This is the energy room?"

Looking around, this empty room, except for the table in front of him, there were three metal tables covered with a semi-circular crystal cover spread around it, a long probe with dense circuits engraved on its surface, which seemed to be used as a means of guiding something, but the inside of the crystal cover was now empty.

Eyes back in the report.

"11: The energy room is functioning normally, no abnormalities in the equipment, no errors reported!"

"12: Received order from supervisor to apply overloaded energy delivery to Lab 1, which lasted for 12 leaks, and overloaded Converter 3, which returned to normal after maintenance."

"13th: Supplies delivered from headquarters arrived, but the assistant I wanted hadn't arrived yet, and it's just too lonely to work alone."

"Day 14: Unknown error in upper lab, violent shaking."

"Day 15: Error persists, anomalies in energy draw from upper levels, the supervisor told me not to ask more questions."

"16: Errors are mounting."

"Day 1: The experiment has been confirmed a failure, evacuation orders are in place, and everyone begins destroying all records around them!"

"Day 5: Why hasn't anyone come to pick us up yet?"

"On the 10th: on the orders of my supervisor, I cut off the energy delivery, I was told that the upper levels were dead and there was no longer a need to continue distributing energy..."

"I... What the hell do I do?"

"Day 20: Backup energy is almost depleted, we still haven't waited for help to arrive, and the base has been put on low-energy standby."

"1st: No! I can't die like this!"

"Day 3: I've managed to acclimatize down to the Star Core, my body seems to have changed a little, but that's not important, what is important is that I can move around again!"

"Day 5: The secret order for the gate has been changed!!!"

"6th: I must calculate a new secret order, I can't die here, I must get out!"

At the end of the log is a myriad of formulas for calculations, which look fairly rigorous in the front, but are purely scribbled in the back.

Eleazar puts down the log report and looks at the headless cyborg body in disbelief.

This energy chamber monitor, fitted the core of the Void Creature to himself, and then not long after, went completely insane.

Crouching down, he peeled open the man's chest, and then where the heart was, Eleazar saw a black stone that looked like a meteorite.

Slicing through the steel plates and tearing through the fascia, he took out the star core that had condensed dark matter.

The energy fluctuations are very weak and close to extinguishing...

Already useless wreckage, Eleazar casually discarded the stone.

Then rummaged around in that workbench for a while.

"There's another one here..."

A blue crystal vial containing what seemed to be liquid and what seemed to be gaseous raging energy, changing form every moment.

With a gentle shake, the crystal bottle instantly exploded with densely packed electric wires, extremely unstable and furious!

3rd Order Alchemical Material - Energy of Origin: Synthesized from Origin Flame, Origin Earth, Origin Air, and Origin Water, four of the purest elements through high-level alchemy.

"Just be productive..."

Eleazar sighed with relief.

Storm Pathway's magic potion is saved!

Although this trip didn't manage to digest the magic potion, finding a copy of the main ingredient of the magic potion was already a worthwhile trip.

Picking up the palm-sized chunk of magical steel from the floor and taking up the four pillars of evergold, Eleazar stood in the hallway and looked around silently.

This lab, presumably, is studying Void creatures.

It seems that the Mechanical Theocracy, at that time, was no longer content to study the species on their planet.

Carrying another small shortening of the pass chalk, and a couple of those heavy as hell metals, he swam out with a bit of an arduous effort.

Just as soon as he left that drainage channel, his body sank in a straight line, not giving him a chance to struggle at all, and he landed directly on the sandy seabed.

"Well, it looks like it can't be brought up at once."

Just let go of the metal post and swim up for air first.

Then it took 4 trips back and forth and a lot of effort to bring up all that transcendent metal.

Standing on the reef with everything, Eleazar began to think of new things.

"How do I get back to the surface?"

...

The waves clamor against the cliffs and the youth who had managed to trick his aunt and uncle into coming over for a souvenir photo set up the rental camera in the back.

Hearing the impatient urging of those two, the youth secretly clenched his teeth.

"What you all lied to me in the first place, you're all going to spit it out today!"

Just then, a couple of pillars were suddenly thrown up on the edge of the cliff, startling several people.

The milky-white metal, glowing brilliantly in the sunlight, looks of exceptional value!

No sooner had they gone over to pick it up than a large hand reached out from the edge of the cliff again and clasped the ground.

Then a mysterious young man with dark hair climbed up from below.

Patting the dust from his body, Eleazar cocked his head at the dazed trio.

"Good morning, are you guys hiking too?"