Alien Relic Hunter

Chapter 974
Noah's Ark, inside the sandwich structure, "Underground Labyrinth".

After passing through a full 46 passages with constantly changing positions, the clown, Soap and Noir finally stopped.

"You can rest here for 10 minutes. There won't be any changes in this area within 10 minutes." The clown said.

The three of them basically never stopped along the way, and battles with mutant creatures living in the underground labyrinth broke out from time to time. Even if the clown could help the two recover their physical strength, the mental exhaustion could not be eliminated... It's only been three hours since I asked the clown eagerly about various things at the beginning, and now I don't bother to say a word when I see even abstract monsters.

Soap numbly filled the empty magazine with rounds after rounds, and Noir silently took out an energy bar, tore off the aluminum foil packaging, chewed and looked around - this place is different from the previous one. The passageway in is completely different, a room with multiple partitions.The wall is entirely made of metal materials, and yellow and black warning stripes and a three-leaf radiation hazard sign are printed on the edge of the entrance.

The soap pulled out the straw of the water bag, took a few sips of water, and then asked, "What is this place?"

"The early maintenance of the Ark's reactors and power furnaces relied on manpower, and here is a place for maintenance personnel to store equipment." The clown replied, "But later, fully automatic robots that are not afraid of radiation replaced human maintenance, and the robot only needs one machine. The library is just a charging pile, and this place was abandoned. Later, in several major module renovations, this place was separated separately, sunk into the structural layer, and became part of the underground labyrinth.”

The clown walked to a wall with an obvious gap, grabbed the raised handle on the wall and pulled it hard, and a cabinet hidden inside the wall was pulled out.

This is an equipment cabinet, most of the grids are empty, only a few grids are hung with worn-out old-fashioned protective clothing. A single piece of this protective clothing weighs more than [-] kilograms, and it is impossible for one person to put it on and take it off. , the ability to prevent radiation can only be said to be barely... As early as the era of interstellar drifting, this type of protective clothing has been eliminated.

It's no wonder that these equipments are all abandoned here, and no one recycles them.

"We need to bypass a main reactor on the road ahead. The radiation concentration in the surrounding area will be high. You'd better wear protective clothing." The clown said.

Soap and Noir walked to the equipment cabinet and made gestures in front of the hanging protective suits—these protective suits are all adjustable in size, and there is no problem of inappropriate size, but the rusty metal Whether the components and severely aged fabrics still have radiation protection ability has to be marked with a question mark.

"This thing looks very heavy." Soap muttered, pinching the sleeves of a protective suit and weighing it with his hands, "The mobility is not very good. It is difficult to walk with this thing, let alone open it. Guns and battles...the fingers of this protective glove can't even fit the trigger guard."

"You don't need to fight. If you encounter mutant creatures, I will deal with them." The clown said.

"Okay, I know you are very powerful... But to be honest, the most dangerous factor along the way is not those mutated creatures, but the damn underground labyrinth itself," Soap said.

Like the previous situation of moving on a zipline, they encountered it more than once. Several times, Soap and Noir fell into the abyss. Thanks to the clown who made a timely move and fished them back with his tentacles, neither of them fell to death. fate.

If you put on these heavy protective clothing, let alone move like a parkour, you can't even jump... Unless the road behind is as flat as the ground, otherwise wearing this thing is the same as stuffing yourself into it. There is no difference in a soft coffin.

Noir didn't speak, just walked to the other end of the room, unscrewed the valve of the airtight door, and pushed open a small slit that could only pass through a finger.

In the next second, his soapy skin felt a distinct needling sensation, and Noir immediately closed the door.

He glanced down at the screen of the multifunctional wristwatch, shook his head at the soap, and said, "The radiation intensity has greatly exceeded the danger threshold. According to calculations, if you enter this environment, it only takes 15 minutes to 10 minutes to be fatal. Even taking anti-radiation drugs is useless."

"Is the radiation of the Ark's main reactor so strong?" Soap froze for a moment, "In my impression, these reactors..."

Before he finished speaking, he suddenly slapped himself on the thigh: "Damn it, I forgot about those lunatics. In order to promote the mutation of these monsters in the underground labyrinth, all the protective compartments were removed... Fuck, This is equivalent to directly exposing a part of the underground labyrinth to the strong radiation area..."

Noir looked at the clown and asked, "How deep is the radiation zone? Is it possible to go around it?"

"I can't go around. If I go around, I need to plan a new route. As for the depth of the radiation zone, it is about one kilometer, but the road is not very easy to walk. At the speed we just traveled, it would take half an hour to go through it." time," said the clown.

"Half an hour..." Noir calculated, "Even if you take anti-radiation drugs, you can't last for so long... Even if you don't die, you will induce acute radiation sickness, but if you wear these protective clothing, you will not be able to go on this journey at all." past……"

"It's good now, we don't even have a chance to go back home now, haha." Soap shrugged and laughed at himself, "The passages we just walked through have all been disrupted, The only one who remembers the law of operation of the underground labyrinth is the clown, and he only remembers the change law of this road within a specified period of time... From the very beginning, this is a road that cannot be turned back."

"Clown, there is one thing I want to confirm with you again." Noir said.

"You said."

"Although the two of us are not important in your plan, as a 'drug' that can delay your erosion, it is definitely better to live than to die, right." Noir said, "At least, we are useful to you Yes, otherwise, you wouldn't have saved us so many times."

"Yes."

"Then if I need you to take the two of us out of the radiation zone, can you do it?" Noir asked again.

"The two people together, plus the protective clothing and equipment, weigh almost a ton." The clown thought for a moment before nodding, "It should be possible, but I don't guarantee that when encountering stronger monsters , can still guarantee your safety."

"It doesn't matter, as long as you can move us with you, if you encounter a powerful monster, you can throw us aside, and we will find a way to protect ourselves."

"can."

After getting the clown's guarantee, Soap and Noir each chose a protective suit of decent quality to wear - the design of this protective suit is similar to the spacesuit of the old era, with the only difference There are just no jetpacks for astronauts to move around in zero gravity, or powered exoskeletons built into outboard coveralls.

This more than 100 kilograms of protective clothing needs to be supported by the wearer's own strength and driven to walk. In a gravity environment, this is undoubtedly a very stupid design.

"This thing should be used with a powered exoskeleton." Soap complained to Noir while wearing it, "Looking at the inner lining of the protective suit, there are fixed locks reserved for connecting with the exoskeleton , but there are only protective clothing here, no exoskeleton."

"The powered exoskeleton is much more valuable than this old-fashioned protective clothing, and it must have been taken away." Noir said, "Also, even if they left you a complete set of exoskeletons, after so many years, The motors are also old enough to be useless."

"That's true... Damn, it's a pity that my exoskeleton was overloaded and burned when I ran for my life just now... Otherwise, I wouldn't be in such a mess now."

The two helped each other, and it took 10 minutes to put on the protective clothing. After checking the airtightness for the last time, Noir moved to the airtight door step by step, and pushed the door open again.

Two arm-thin tentacles quietly extended from under the clown's cloak, wrapped around Noir and Soap, and the two felt their bodies lighten immediately, and their walking became much easier.

"I will try my best to keep the maximum autonomous mobility for you while reducing your burden. If you want to be more relaxed, I can connect the tentacles to your spine and read your nerve signals directly. In this way, These two tentacles can become a 'powered exoskeleton' controlled by your nerve signals, and you can use it to perform various actions."

"No, let's avoid it." Soap waved his hands again and again, "Although...although I don't dislike these things growing on your body so much, if you want to let them enter my body, then I absolutely cannot accept it... …Unless I am dead, you can do whatever you want with my body at that time, and I have no objection to eating it up. But not now, absolutely not.”

"Uh, this way, this is good." Noir said, "Let the tentacles enter the body, will it cause us to be eroded? Just like the four soldiers who were eaten by you."

"No, corrosion won't spread through direct contact." The clown said, "But since you don't want to, then I won't force it."

Under the connection of the two tentacles, the three people passed through the airtight door back and forth like conjoined people-behind the airtight door is a plank road that spirals downward around a huge cylinder. One side is directly welded to the cylinder, and the other side is a cliff without any guardrails, and the width of the plank road is less than two meters... just walking on it will make people's heart beat faster.

"To be honest, I really don't like this kind of terrain." Soap wanted to reach out to touch the gun hanging behind his back, but found that the range of motion of the arm of this protective suit did not support such large movements at all. After rotating the joints to the limit, he still couldn't reach the backpack behind him.

"The backpacks on this kind of protective clothing are for companions." Noir helped Soap take off the gun and handed it to him.

Soap took the gun, and pulled the bolt to load it clumsily—in order to solve the problem that the fingers of the protective glove could not pass through the trigger guard, he just sawed off the trigger guard. Although it was easy to misfire, at least it fired You don't have to take off your gloves any more.

This kind of glove is screwed on the cuff, and it takes several minutes to take it off alone.

Soap held the grip with one hand, and put the other hand across his chest, resting the handguard on his forearm, aiming the sight of the muzzle at the diagonal upward—at the position he was aiming at, a huge moth was sticking to the column The surface of the body remains motionless.

"I don't know if this moth is dead or alive." Soap said softly, "If it's alive, then we are very lucky to bump into such a big guy when we go out."

The wings of this moth are folded, but the length of the body has already exceeded 20 meters. If calculated according to the proportion of ordinary moths, its wingspan is estimated to exceed 50 meters after spreading, even in the shape of an indigenous creature. On Alpha Planet, which is obviously several circles larger than the creatures on Earth, it can also be regarded as a giant creature.

Although this underground space is wide, it is almost completely filled with various steel structure support columns, moving passages, and various pipes extending from the ground. Such a huge moth wants to be in such a place. How can it ensure that it does not hit those pillars and pipes?

There are eye-like deterrent patterns on the moth's folded wings... But in Soap's view, this guy's size alone is enough to be deterrent, and the existence of this kind of pattern is simply superfluous.

"Should it be... alive?" Noir murmured, "If it is a corpse, shouldn't the color of the wings be so bright? It looks like a processed specimen... But, if it is alive , Why did we use a tactical flashlight to shine on it, but it didn’t respond at all? Moths, no matter what kind they are, should belong to the kind of creatures that are very sensitive to light, right?”

"It's dormant, try not to disturb it." The clown reminded, "I know it. It has been attached to this waste pipe for at least 30 years and has not moved. This waste pipe is used to store reactor cores. waste, it lives by absorbing the radiation escaping from it."

"Can it live just by absorbing radiation? Doesn't it need to eat?" Soap asked curiously.

"Of course it needs to eat. The phosphorous powder on its wings can give off a special smell, luring other creatures to approach... It's not so much an animal, but its habit is more like a plant called a pitcher plant."

(End of this chapter)