"What? That call was from Miss Skadi."
After the meeting ended, Lin Ye told the group about the phone call and conversation that occurred. After learning what was said on the phone, everyone seemed surprised upon hearing what was spoken.
"But how could that be? Miss Kal'tsit told us that Miss Skadi lost contact with us. Then who could have called you?" Magallan who seemed to be the most surprised out of the whole group exclaimed "This is unscientific."
Why are you thinking scientifically? We are fighting other-worldly monsters here. Nothing in this world makes sense to begin with.
Lin Ye looked at her weirdly.
"I thought you actually called your girlfriend," Matoimaru's focus and attention seemed to be on and off. "Wait a minute, isn't Skadi one of your girlfriends?"
"... Really now?" Lin Ye sighed helplessly.
Lin Ye observed all of them for a while and choose to ask Blue Poison who had been quiet for quite some time.
She seems happy. Why is that?
"Do you have any thoughts on this, Blue Poison?"
Lin Ye's question seemed to wake her up from her daydream.
"My thoughts?"
"Yeah," He nodded at her, "You are the most experienced in this kind of situation compared to the rest of us".
"... Okay."
When everyone's attention was focused on Blue Poison, she suddenly became more nervous, fidgeting ever so slight, but quickly shook it off as soon it seemed to start.
She said softly, "First of all what I want to know is, Doctor Lin Ye, have you confirmed that the call was real?"
"Of course," Lin Ye nodded, "I stayed outside for almost half an hour to be sure that the call was real."
"But Miss Skadi did not respond?"
"Yes," Lin Ye smiled bitterly, "Or I'm not sure whether Skadi is actually there or not. But I don't think she's in any danger, otherwise, she would have had no reason not to reply."
"In that case... Let's divide it into two possibilities for discussion. One is that the call was real and the other is that the call was fake," Blue Poison stated. "Let's talk about the first possibility, if the call was from Miss Skadi but she didn't speak, it only means that she wasn't able to speak at that time. It may be because of her own reasons, or it may be because the situation around her didn't allow her to do so."
"If that's the case, why would she still call me?" Lin Ye was a little puzzled.
"Delivering information," Magallan answered Lin Ye's question and also expressed her doubts "I also encountered a similar situation when I was at the scientific research station, but it was not so strange. Generally speaking, text messages are a more secure way of transmitting information than calls. If Miss Skadi couldn't talk at the time but wanted to contact you again, why didn't send a text message? Miss Skadi should be more than able to do so".
Lin Ye nodded "That's true."
Matoimaru, who has been listening to this, thought about it for a while and also expressed her own opinion "Maybe her eyes had a problem or maybe she couldn't see the phone screen, so she could only reluctantly call instead of text. If she can't speak... Maybe her throat is destroyed?".
Her guesses gave Lin Ye a mental image in his mind of Skadi's current condition and he shuddered just from the thought of it alone.
"That... it's impossible, isn't it?" Lin Ye's words sounded like a whisper, "Skadi can't be..."
Frostleaf glanced at Matoimaru's and said faintly "You should stop talking nonsense."
She scratched her head "Umm... Well, I just said-".
"It's not impossible," Blue Poison said gently again.
This attracted everyone's attention.
"Although I don't want to think about it, we must also admit that this is not impossible," Blue Poison noted, "Miss Skadi is very likely to have been seriously injured, and there was no way to send any text messages, but she has no way to speak. All she can do is to call Doctor Lin Ye... But since Miss Skadi can't send text messages, it should have been difficult to dial an accurate number."
"Couldn't she just speed-dial his number?" Magallan used her mobile phone to demonstrate "If you use it, it only takes two steps to make a call".
"Then why did she call Doctor Lin Ye?" Blue Poison asked again. "Phone contacts are sorted by surname, right? Doctor Lin Ye shouldn't be the first on the list".
"Because on Skadi's contact list..." Lin Ye said softly, "I'm the only one on there..."
At this time, everyone became stunned. Lin Ye didn't know what expression to make, he just felt his cheeks becoming stiff and he felt terrified. He couldn't even squeeze a smile out.
"Skadi told me that she barely uses her phone... Because there is no one she wanted to call. At most, she used to call Kal'tsit, but Kal'tsit is the one calling her. So, she didn't bother saving her number," Lin Ye's voice was getting quieter and quieter with every word that he said, "She only has my number..."
Finally, he couldn't say anything because he remembered the conversation that he had with Skadi that day.
"You should add more people."
"You are enough. Goodbye, Lin Ye."
I told you. Goddamit.
"I did not expect that Miss Skadi only had Doctor Lin Ye's contact number in her phone," Blue Poison obviously didn't expect that Skadi's social circle would be this small. It could not even be described as a social circle, as much as it should have been called a communication spoon.
"Maybe this is the reason why Miss Kal'tsit asked Doctor Lin Ye for help," Magallan said, "After all, if she really suffered such a serious injury, only Doctor Lin Ye knows her best... and is the only person she could contact in any way."
Lin Ye raised his head and looked at Blue Poison's eyes. He was tired of thinking "What should I do?"
"Doctor Lin Ye, please don't worry" Blue Poison tried to calm him down, "What we just said is only a possibility, and a very low probability at that. After all, Miss Skadi is very strong after all".
Lin Ye slowly relaxed under Blue Poison's pacification. He smiled gratefully at her. She in turn smiled brightly at him.
Then she asked him "Did you heard anything?"
He carefully tried to recall the conversation with Skadi and then slowly shook his head, "I could only hear something similar to the current. It was very light and shouldn't be far away from here. There was also the sound of the wind and there was breathing too, but it sounded like the person was underwater. But it did not sound like Skadi at all."
"It feels weird listening to your explanation" Matoimaru tilted her head, "Then if it wasn't Skadi, who made the call?"
"There is another possibility," Blue Poison said lightly, "It means that Miss Skadi's cell phone is no longer with her."
" Yes," Magallan nodded. "It is true that Miss Skadi also had a special communicator to converse with Doctor Kal'tsit. After all, mobile phones are unreliable in harsh environments. But there was still a signal on it. We were able to detect the signal from the positioning device. It had not moved since Miss Skadi's disappeared."
She then taped on the laptop and started typing on it.
"It is about 2.6 kilometers away from our current location."
"It's only 2.6 kilometers away?" Lin Ye couldn't sit still "Then why don't we just go over and take a look for ourselves then."
"Because the 2.6 kilometers is not on land. It is very likely to be an island on the sea," Magallan continued "I had a look at the map for this area before we arrived. There are many small islands in the town of Harlan, Miss Skadi may be on one of the small islands. It's at least where her communicator is. If it is in the sea, it might have been damaged by the water."
"And those islands are also the main targets of this joint operation," Blue Poison said, "Once the powerful deep-sea creatures arrive at the shore, they will not easily go back. It is very likely they live in shallow waters. It is not only because of the tiredness that they will retreat but also for eating. Just use the small town of Harlan as an example. The residents of the town total more than two hundred thousand, even the largest deep-sea creatures need some time to digest those numbers."
Blue Poison's explanation made everyone feel a shiver on the back.
"This means that if the town of Haran was really attacked by deep-sea creatures, there is a high probability that these deep-sea creatures will still be nearby," Frostleaf said lightly. "It's no wonder that the Ursus military has to look for partners to cooperate and rush to explore here. Is it possible that they were completely wiped out?".
"It's true of course, the main reason is that this is not Ursus territory. They can't send a large number of troops" Blue Poison said, "And Ursus's military doesn't have much experience in hunting large creatures".
"But since such a powerful Abyssal hunter like Miss Skadi is in trouble, does it mean that traditional experience is not much use in such an incident as this?" Magallan told them her worries.
No one gave an answer back in reply to her worries.
"Our guesses here are all useless, right?" Matoimaru, being a straightforward kind of person, just blurted out her thoughts, "Even if it is a small island on the sea for 2.6 kilometers, it is not difficult to find a boat to row over there, right? We have already located the position of the communicator. We can just go there, or you can stay here and be scared all day long."
"But we have no reason to go to sea at this time," Magallan said.
"We can tell Mr. SilverSword that Miss Skadi had found a clue," Matoimaru stubbornly pursued them, "Let's go now."
Blue Poison said tentatively "Even if we say that Mr. SilverSword will not allow us to go to sea at this point in time."
Magallan shook her head and said, "They will definitely ask us to stay till dawn and then go with us."
"Isn't that good?" Matoimaru said disapprovingly, "We will also have the protection of the Ursus's military. Even if something really happens we can all deal with it."
"The problem is that Miss Skadi is not there," Magallan said, "And we may not find any clues except for the communicator. We would also be discovered by our partners in that we deceived them by lying about Miss Skadi's issue. Unless we continue to fabricate the lie and cover it with a bigger lie. This is obviously not a very good option, once the lie is punctured, Rhodes Island will have to bear the consequences from all the other parties involved.
"Tsk, this is too annoying," Matoimaru complained.
"And, the communication signal of the device is getting weaker and weaker," Magallan said again. "It may be that the battery is about to run out, and once we can no longer locate the communicator, it will be more difficult to find clues afterward."
"Also..." Blue Poison glanced at Lin Ye, who had been silent for a long time and said softly, "We still can't be sure whether Miss Skadi called Doctor Lin Ye for help. If Miss Skadi really did ask for help, this only shows that her condition is really bad."
Her statement felt like a hot knife going through his heart. He immediately took in a deep breath to calm himself.
"Alright," Then he immediately stood up "We are going tonight. We definitely can't wait until tomorrow morning."
"But we don't have a boat..." Magallan reminded him.
"A boat can easily be found in a place is like this," Matoimaru folded her arms "I have seen several boats here before came back to our camp. Although they are small boats, they will be fine to use."
"I have a question," Frostleaf raised her hand "Do we really care about the partner here? I don't."
Lin Ye thought about it and glanced at the sea.
"With this distance, even on the sea, it should be enough time to go back and forth in one night," He estimated, "If we can't find Skadi and only find the communicator, we will return before dawn,"
Frostleaf thought for a while, then put down her raised hand.
"Hah! So are we going to do it or not?" Matoimaru sounded a little excited "I'll just say it. No matter the monster, I'll cut it down!"
Blue Poison reminded them "Be careful. They are not the same as any enemies that you have encountered."
{Rhodes Island's Psychologist}
Draft by Jaq
Proofread by SM
Edit by Jaq