Chapter 30
Everyone made it back at the library as they look over at some of the books they collected from both the library and the museum with exceptions of a few. Winter is on guard as she takes a few peeks outside to make sure that there isn't anymore undead showing up because it is close to night outside along with Kohta. Yuri, on the other hands, is looking at the map of the city to see if there is something like a greenhouse or an herb shop that still have a few seeds for some new hobbies she has an interest in such as alchemy and potion making. She has been reading a few books about alchemy and herbology and wants to try to do something a that also involve her gardening talents.
In the meantime, Jaune gathered a few more books that he found in the library.
"Man." he says as he places the books on the table. "For a library that had a lot of its books burned down, there are a ton of them."
"Not only that." Nora says as she puts down the house designer table. "We also got some good stuff to make new houses, a new superpower, and lots of other stuff."
"How many books do we have?"
"I lost track about 600." Nora then looks at Ren. "What about you Ren?"
Ren and Pyrrha aren't exactly paying attention to as they are busy reading some of the books that were collected. Ren is reading the 'Sheikah Slate Manual, Book Edition' for some strange reason. There isn't any Sheikah slates at the library or at the museum so he just reads it just in case any one comes across one. Pyrrha is reading 'Fighters Guild History, 1st Ed.' to learn more about some other worlds and their history. Both Nora and Jaune just look at them.
"Wow." Nora says. "They're really into reading."
"Yeah they do." Jaune agrees.
"Wanna read?"
"After I count the number of books again. May need to see how many books Team NDGO has first."
However, Team NDGO are too caught up with a gwent game than to read any of the books. Gwen is winning with 39 points with Octavia only 30 points.
Octavia then plays another siege tower, "Here is this then I use my leader card!" She uses the leader card to double all of her siege units which gives her a total of 40 points. "I win!" she raises her fists in the air as she claimed her victory.
"Damn it!" Gwen swears. "I need to get better cards."
"Maybe when the storm is over?" Dew suggests. "Well I mean Yuri wants to check out some of the alchemy shops and greenhouses to bring back some seeds if it ever does clear up tomorrow."
"How do you know that?" Nebula asks.
"She has been looking at that map a lot and she has been looking at areas that have plants. She also has a few alchemy books with her so she may have developed an interest in potion making."
"HEY!" Jaune shouts from the other side of the library. "DO YOU GIRLS HAVE ANY BOOKS ON YOU?! I'M TRYING TO KEEP COUNT!"
"NO, WE DON'T!" Nebula shouts back.
"OKAY!" Jaune says right before counting the books. But after counting up to four books, he looks at his teammates, "Hey, I just had a thought. What type of government should we have?"
Ren and Pyrrha stopped reading and looked at Jaune. Both of them are a little surprise to hear something that big and serious from such a little mind. Nora's jaw dropped when Jaune said that.
"Are you serious?" Pyrrha asked as she put the book down.
Jaune looked at his teammates staring at him. "Weeelllll, in case we're stuck here and can't get back home, we need to establish our own kingdom or some form of nation."
"I never really thought of that." Ren looked away with one finger on his chin.
Nora says to Ren, "Usually you have better foresight."
Ren looks back at Nora, "You really think so?"
"We've only been here for almost two weeks and you want to set up a government?" Pyrrha asked as she puts the book away.
"Well we should be thinking long-term just in case we haven't gone back to Remnant for a year." Jaune responds. "What if we are unable to go back home and...you know." Jaune lowers his neck to shoulder level with his shoulders rising with embarrassing blushes on his cheeks.
"You mean..." Pyrrha's face turned bright red with a puff of steam popped out of her head. She quickly buries her face in the book she was reading out of embarrassment.
Nora gives a big smile towards Ren. But it wasn't a cute friendly smile. It's her yandere smile towards Ren and Ren can feel the chill going down his spine.
"What me to make some pancakes?" Ren asked nervously.
Nora then gives a more friendly smile as she hugs him tight and presses her left cheek on Ren's right cheek. Then rubs her hand on Ren's chest, "As long as you give me pancakes, you're safe sweetie."
Ren starts to cringe, "Please don't call me that."
"Whatever. As long we're together forever."
"If you promise not to do anything...inappropriate, then maybe."
"Deal!"
"What?" says Jaune.
Pyrrha also says the same, "What?"
Nora looked at them, "Oh nothing!" She says in a delighted tone.
Ren then gets up and heads over towards the cooking area where he can start making pancakes. But right before he does making any, something large just crashed through the dirt ceiling that surprised everyone. What crashed down was three large shipping crates of unknown origin that left a huge hole in the ceiling. Another shipping container bashed through the fourth floor of the building. Rain and wind with some debris coming in hard with palm tree leaves, some plastic garbage, a few wooden planks, and even some stone are getting flung into the library. Some of Team NDGO's gwent cards got blown away, some of the books also get blown, some of the destroyed books get tossed around with some of those bookshelves, and everyone finds it hard to move with a lot of gusts blowing against them.
"GET THOSE HOLES COVERED UP!" Winter ordered. "WE NEED TO COVER THOSE UP BEFORE THE UNDEAD MONSTERS WILL GET IN TONIGHT!"
"ROGER!" everyone says in unison.
Jaune pulls out some dirt blocks, cobblestone blocks, and wooden log blocks from his inventory in order to get up and seal the ceiling. But it is a little tougher since the wind is pushing him off his block stack. Team NDGO try to get up to the fourth floor yet the wind keeps on blowing on them to slow their progress. Yuri and Toshimi try to get all the good books together with a few gwent cards that happen to be there. Winter and Kohta help out with Jaune along with the rest of Team JNPR scaling up to the ceiling. It is hard, but they managed to seal the place back-up before nightfall.
"There!" Jaune says as he places the last block. "Finished!"
Team NDGO also finished with their side. "ALL FINISHED HERE!" Nebula shouts from the other side.
"Just in time." Winter says as everyone starts climbing down the ladder on the side of the dirt tower.
"Man!" Kohta says while climbing down. "Must be one hell of a storm to blow cargo containers all the way here! Just what is inside them?"
"Don't know." Pyrrha says before reaching the floor. "But I think we should check it out before those ghosts come in."
Everyone went over to the once shipping crate over towards where Team NDGO sealed up the other hole. They open it up and find somethings that were...interesting to say the least. Inside are boxes filled with random stuff. Some include a few cybernetic augments such as arms and legs in boxes that says 'Sarif Industries' yet nothing happened to their implants. They found another box with some strange devices that are meant for cybernetic implants in some boxes that say 'TriOptimum' yet this time their implants show some sort of crafting recipes except they require some form of stations. Then they check out another box that says 'DedSec Only' which has chemicals, electronic parts, and some form of meds that he gives them some crafting recipes. Then they check out one of the other shipping containers where the re-patched hole is that has six chopper motorcycles in six colors.
"Sweet!" Kohta says out loud as they look at the motorcycles that are surprisingly intact.
Toshimi declares, "Dibs on the purple!"
"I get the yellow!" Jaune says.
"Wait until we check out on the other crates first." Winter says.
They then open the third container that contains furniture from House Flipper such as a Japanese refrigerator, double cabinet paks, mountable showers and a lot of other stuff. The fourth container contains some similar stuff. Yet there are pieces of a billboard that were covered in barnacles yet some areas are still visible.
"What is this?" Nora asked.
"Hold on a minute." Kohta says as he tries to piece together some of the billboards in his mind. "I think I know this from somewhere."
Everyone pieced together the billboard until they see a yellow background with many different people on it with a sign that says, 'Welcome to Rapture, Your Beautiful City'.
"Rapture?" Octavia asked as she looks at the pieced together billboard.
"Is it some sort of coastal city?" Jaune asked. "Because there are a lot or barnacles and rust on this thing."
"No." Kohta responds with a serious tone. "It's a city underwater."
Everyone looked at Kohta, who also has a very serious expression on his face.
"How do you know that?" Winter asked.
Kohta looks at everyone around him, "Because I know it from the game, Bioshock. The stuff from the TriOptinum boxes are also from System Shock 2. Two games made by the same people. If these are here, that means that we're gonna have to deal with a few new threats. Such as the Many from System Shock 2, parasitic lifeforms that acts like a hivemind. From Bioshock, lets just say that Utopia comes at a price that cost the entire city that turned people into genetically spliced monsters that are drug addicts that turned them into those monsters in the first place."
Some of the people in the group started to cringe, except for Yuri and Winter. Winter is a little more disgusted.
"I think I remember someone from my gardening club say something about System Shock 2." Yuri says. "Is that the one with the evil AI?"
"Yep." Kohta nodded. "So we may have to be aware of her as well."
"Her?" Winter asked.
"SHODAN. Sentient Hyper-Optimized Data Access Network. She was the main antagonist throughout the main series as well as both ally and the second antagonist of the second game. Although not sure about the third since it never came out."
"What about the stuff from Sarif Industries?" Toshimi asked. "What game did those come from?"
"I think I do remember seeing something like them from somewhere. I think I remember seeing a trailer for a game called, Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I've played the other two games but never the third one. I only saw the trailer for it on the internet before playing any of my shooter games. It looked good, but too much gold."
"Eh?" Gwen goes. A little confused.
"As in, the game as too many gold lights to it."
"Oh."
"But I have a much bigger question." Pyrrha says. "Where exactly do these things come from? Was there a freighter ship carrying all these objects? Are there other people that had a ship that was making voyage?"
"A lot more questions than answers about this world." Winter states. "Perhaps we should ask these another day. In the meantime..." Winter looks at Jaune. "Can you tell us more about what type of government we should have, Mr. Arc?"
Jaune is a little shocked. "You heard that?!"
"Indeed."
Jaune then clears his throat before speaking, "Well, I think we should wait until we discuss this with the others."
"Very well then."
"HEY GUYS!" Nebula shouts from inside one of the cargo containers. "I FOUND AN AUGER! THERE IS ALSO 10,000 GAS CANS AND 100 REPAIR KITS TOO! WE CAN USE THEM TO TUNNEL UNDER THE CITY STREETS TO GET TO THE OTHER BUILDINGS! I EVEN FOUND MINING HELMETS! ALTHOUGH THEY ARE LOW LEVEL!"
"That sounds good!" Jaune says with some excitement.
"But it is nighttime." Winter pointed out. "The ghosts are out searching for us right now."
"True." Toshimi agrees. "But we could link up the library with the other buildings with the tunnels before breaching their floors. When morning comes, we can breach through and take whatever we can get before heading back."
"That plan may hold some merit." Winter does seem to agree with Toshimi's idea. "Yet it will be a long night of digging in order to get to any of the other structures."
Yuri then shows the map of the city. "Then lets get started on making a plan. I only highlighted only the alchemy shops and greenhouses, but we could try to see what else we can get from this place before heading back."
Winter swipes the map from her and looks at it intensely.
"Your welcome." Yuri sounds a bit agitated when Winter just swipes the map.
Winter keeps looking at the map and notice a few key locations to check before heading back to the settlement. There is a bank only a few miles away to the northeast from the library. Some of the herbs from the locations she highlighted do sound interesting since some of them may provide some medicinal properties in the near future. Yet there are a few weapon shops, a treasury, and a few other places that may be of key value. But with the limited time they have, they have to decide on where to head first.
Winter looks at Yuri, "Yuri, I do apologize for swiping this map from you. Yet the areas you highlighted maybe a good idea to see since we are gonna need medicinal herbs for anything that we may encounter."
"Apology accepted." Yuri smiled as she accepts the apology.
"ANYTHING OUT THERE, REN!?" Octavia shouts from the ground floor while Ren is up on the fourth floor. "ANY LIGHTS OR MOVEMENT?!"
BICORN: Project REAPER has been disbanded for the evening. Resuming operations of the project: 720:15:29.
Ren takes a good look outside yet hard to see with all the rain and shadows everywhere. He doesn't sense anything nor sees any lights or movement when the lightning flashes. He looks back at everyone on ground level, "NO!" he shouted. "I DON'T SEE ANYTHING OUTSIDE!"
"ARE YOU SURE!?" Nora shouts back.
Ren looks outside from the fourth story window again to make sure. As lightning flashes again, he sees nothing right before turning back. "NOPE! THERE IS NOTHING!"
This is a bit of a shock for everyone.
"Okay, that's just weird." Gwen says aloud.
"Guess we got a lucky break...I guess?" Kohta says with a confused look.
Pyrrha looks at Kohta. "True, but that doesn't mean we should let our guard down."
Jaune is then seen carrying an auger, wearing a mining helmet, and ready to do some mining. "Okay, lets do some work before bed!"
Over at the vault; Sun, Scarlet, and Sage try to find out what the hell Neptune did to make himself immaculate, muscular, and super intelligent that made the other three jealous. They entered a room in the generator room to see what they can find.
"Sooooo...what exactly are we looking for?" Scarlet questions.
Sage rubs his hands on the walls. "A secret passage of some sort where Neptune is working out."
Sun looks on the other side of the room. "There is no way he got all that just by working out for a long time. He must be cheating."
"Well maybe we're just paranoid." Scarlet shrugs as he leans against the wall.
But what he doesn't realized is that he opened the wall up to a secret passage way behind him which ultimately cause him to fall backwards.
"Shit!" he falls backwards and lands on his back on some stairs. "OW!"
Sun and Sage approach the secret entrance that Scarlet just stumbled upon.
"I think we found it." Sun says as he looks down the stairs.
Scarlet raises his right hand, "Can anyone help me up? Because I'm in serious pain."