CH 374

C374: Graveyard

When I woke up, Jean had prepared breakfast for me. It was a simple, but tasty and well-balanced menu: grain soup, similar to corn soup, sandwiches with vegetables and dried meat on bread, and fried potatoes.

“If all goes well, we may reach the lowest level by the end of the day.”

Jean reported, sipping a cup of charcoal bean tea while looking at the map.

“Let’s not overdo it. Safety is more important than time.”

Kiyone didn’t like dried meat and she dexterously moved the dried meat to my plate.

“I hope you don’t mind if I eat some more of this.”

Linnecarlo liked the sandwich so much that she gobbled it up and asked for more.

“I’m sorry, but we’re out of bread. There’s still plenty of soup, so you’ll have to make do with that.”

Linnecarlo looks around the dining table when Jean tells her that. When she saw that Nagisa had left a sandwich, she said,

“Nagisa, if you don’t want to eat it, I can take it.”

“What? I’ll eat it. You’ve already eaten yours, haven’t you?”

“I’m just saying that if you don’t eat it, it’s a waste of money and I’ll eat it for you!”

As if to prevent Nagisa from saying something back, Emitz interrupted her.

“Linnecarlo-san, if you don’t mind, I would like you to have mine. I’m already full.”

Perhaps sensing that the battle between Nagisa and Linnecarlo was about to begin, Emitz suggested that.

“Is that so? I don’t blame you if you’re full. I’ll take it.”

Linnecarlo is obsessed with food, for a royal……I wonder if something happened to her a long time ago.

After breakfast, we set off for the lowest level. For a while, we made good progress without any particular disturbance. However, when we came to a large, dimly lit wilderness area after descending two levels, we were all rendered speechless by the bizarre sight.

“I wonder if these are all graves…….”

As Nagisa said there were countless tombstone-like stone monuments lined up. I don’t know much about the culture of people from ancient civilizations, but to my Japanese senses, they looked like tombs.

“It certainly looks like a graveyard. If there are so many of them, then the graves of all the people in this facility might be gathered here.”

It’s a ridiculously large research facility, so I can imagine that a lot of people lived here, but I was surprised to see the number of graves. As Kiyone said, it’s not surprising to think that the graves of all the people in the facility are gathered here.

“It’s like a communal cemetery. I’m surprised that so many people lived here.”

Jean’s words were followed by Feri’s commentary.

“At its peak, this facility housed over a million people. It was one of the largest urban research facilities on the continent, and there were many people who were born here and never left until they died.”

An urban research facility is another unfamiliar term. It was more like a big city than a research facility.

“Let’s pass this place quickly.”

Nagisa suggested, as she didn’t like the creepy scene. It’s true that she has always been bad with scary things but I remember how she used to invite me to watch horror movies with her, even though she was scared.

“As much as I’d like to pass by quickly, this is the highest speed we can go. Well, it’s a sight you don’t get to see very often, so go ahead and take it in.”

Jean said it without hesitation, as if he was totally fine with this kind of thing. But then he said something strange, as if something strange had happened.

“Huh? That’s strange. We’re slowing down.”

“Jean! Don’t start acting weird.”

“No, it’s really weird. It’s not moving the way I want it to.”

At first, I thought it was an act to scare Nagisa, but apparently it was not. In fact, the speed of Mirai’s progress visibly slowed down.