Mystery Detective of the Steam World

Chapter 475 Underground Research
The Fraunhofer Institute, as its name suggests, is located in Fraunhofer Mountain—a remote mountain range within the Kingdom of Krant.

According to Miss Anne, most of the biological research institutes in the Kingdom of Krant were built in such places.

It's either an isolated island, a lake, or a deep mountain; in short, it's all to avoid causing any irreversible damage to the city.

Anne didn't know much about the Fraunhofer Mountain Research Institute. She only knew that it was originally a mine, which was later converted into a research institute by the Kingdom of Krant. As for what they were researching there, she wasn't quite sure, since everyone had their own research tasks to complete and didn't care much about the research directions of other research institutes.

Unless it overlaps with itself.

"It seems this place has indeed been abandoned."

Stepping off the airship, Annie looked down at a mine pit not far away, surrounded by several buildings. These buildings had likely once been used by miners and later modified, but now they were all abandoned. Even the entrances and exits were blocked off, with collapsed rubble on both sides completely sealing the area. If the Eye of the Sky hadn't been an airship, entering would have been extremely difficult.

Inside, weeds grew rampant, and large patches of ivy covered the dilapidated houses. But even so, the mine entrance remained firmly sealed, despite its rusty exterior.

Annie was wearing a set of comfortable sportswear and holding a gecko-like creature in her arms. This was one of the things she had packed in her suitcase that day. According to Annie, it was a synthetic beast she had created. It had a keen sense of smell and touch and would react immediately if it detected any dangerous poison gas or any danger that humans could not detect.

"I really don't know what happened here; they almost destroyed everything."

Anne stroked the alarm lizard in her hand, looked around, and whispered. Levi, however, remained silent, his expression grave as he gripped his gun tightly and stared at the sealed door before him.

Even before descending, Li Wei had already scanned the area with [Soul Vision].

Yes, below was a bright red light that made him feel unsafe. This was the first time Li Wei had seen something familiar since arriving in this parallel world.

But he prefers not to be so familiar with it.

Clearly, the accidents and disasters that occurred here are not so simple.

"Katie, open the door."

As always, Li Wei assigned Katie the task of opening the seemingly impossible-to-open iron gate, and she happily agreed, then stepped forward and began circling around, considering where to start.

Anne looked at her with a puzzled expression, then turned to Levi.

"I never knew that the Empire's beastman technology had reached this level."

"What are you saying, Miss Anne?"

“Miss Katie.”

Anne looked at Katie.

"Is she the Empire's latest beast-like soldier?"

"...Of course not."

Li Wei looked at Annie in surprise.

How could you have had such an idea?

"Because her strength is clearly greater than that of humans."

Anne looked at Levi again.

"Moreover, she has already accomplished many things that are difficult for many beast-transformed soldiers to do even before she has transformed."

“Uh… I think you’ve misunderstood, Miss Anne. Katie is simply stronger than the average person…”

"Squeak—!"

Just then, a piercing sound rang out, and the two stopped talking and looked ahead. They saw Katie gripping the round lock in the center of the heavy iron door with both hands, pulling it forcefully to the side. Under her pull, the door was torn apart like a limp cake, leaving a large hole.

"...More strong than the average person?"

"That's true."

Without the slightest hesitation, Li Wei met Annie's suspicious gaze.

"There are always some people who are born with great strength, right?"

"…………………Okay, maybe so."

Perhaps realizing she couldn't get any more information from Levi, Annie turned around and looked at the dark hole in front of her.

Then she reached out and gently stroked the alarm lizard that was wrapped around her arm.

"The air inside looks normal, with no toxic gas residue. I think we can go in now."

"But it's pitch black inside, shouldn't we bring an oil lamp or a flashlight for lighting?"

Katie frowned, looking at the pitch blackness inside, and pouted.

"I don't like mines; nothing good happened to me last time."

"I feel the same way."

Li Wei knew that Katie was referring to Alice's case, the time they encountered the statue in that abandoned silver mine, and Li Wei even lost a priceless doll because of it — well, there couldn't possibly be another statue here, could there?

“We have a better way, I can try.” With that, Annie walked to the entrance of the mine, then took a whistle from her pocket, put it to her lips, and blew a melody into the mine. The melody echoed through the mine, carrying deep into its depths. Then, something unexpected happened.

Above the mine, patches of white light gradually appeared. At first, they flickered a few times like incandescent bulbs, but quickly stabilized.

"Waaaaah——————"

Katie was quite surprised to see this, while Levi remained much calmer. After all, he had seen similar things in the vault before, but for Katie, it was still quite unusual.

"What is that? A glowing bug?"

"That's right, a modified firefly."

Anne nodded.

"They feed on bacteria and glow when stimulated. Although this place has been abandoned, the ecosystem doesn't seem to have been damaged, and for now, these little guys seem to be able to survive in this environment."

"It does feel quite convenient; you don't need to run electrical wires or worry about whether the light bulbs will break."

Katie sighed, and Levi nodded slightly. Indeed, if it were a machine, after so many years without maintenance, even if it could still function, it would likely have many problems, and becoming unusable would be the norm. But these light bulb fireflies obviously wouldn't have such problems. Unless a huge fire burned everything to the ground, these fireflies should be able to live here generation after generation.

Until the end of the world.

Biotechnology does seem to have its merits.

Under the lights, the interior corridors were visible. Unlike the silver mine tunnel that Levi and Katie had visited before, the mine tunnels here had been completely transformed into smooth passages with floor tiles on the ground. At first glance, it looked more like a secret underground research base than an abandoned mine.

Yes, that's essentially true.

Although the surrounding environment appeared relatively stable, other things told a different story. Overturned tables, carts, and chairs indicated that something terrible had clearly happened. People were desperately fleeing, crashing into everything in their path, but…

They were unable to escape.

Li Wei lowered his head, looking at the edge of the gate, where numerous skeletons lay, curled up and sprawled on the ground. One could imagine these people rushing towards the gate, only to have it shut mercilessly. Desperate, they could only pound on the heavy iron door, ultimately awaiting their death in despair.

"It's strange, they don't look like they've been subjected to any kind of biological threat."

Anne had obviously seen all of this as well. She went through the large hole, carefully examined the skeletons on the ground, and then drew her conclusions.

"Based on the current situation, they should not have died from some kind of physical attack. There are no physical wounds left on the skeletons, and the color is also healthy, so it does not look like they were killed by poison gas."

"Then their deaths are quite interesting, aren't they?"

As a detective, Levi is also adept at finding clues from corpses.

"Yes."

Anne nodded, then she squatted down, picked up a thigh bone, and kept poking at the bones around it.

"It's strange, how did they die? It seems to me that they called for help here and then suddenly died... If their bodies were still here, perhaps we could find more clues, but as it stands, with just these bones, well... I'm afraid we can't get much information."

As she spoke, Anne stood up and casually tossed the thigh bone aside.

"Let's go see what they're researching here."

Clearly, Anne has now also become interested in the research here.

The path leading underground wasn't difficult, but corpses were scattered everywhere. Judging from their appearance, most of them had perished while trying to escape. However, like the corpses at the entrance, neither Levi nor Annie could accurately determine the cause of their deaths from the skeletons.

It doesn't look like some kind of poison gas or some kind of physical damage.

Fortunately, Anne, as a former member of the Kingdom of Krant, was very familiar with the structure of such research institutes. Without her guidance, Levi and Katie would have definitely gotten lost in this place.

"Let's go this way."

Anne looked at the map and quickly gave a route.

"The research department is connected here by mining carts. I'm not sure if the carts are still usable after all this time. But it's worth a try."

Li Wei and Katie naturally wouldn't object to this.

Their journey went relatively smoothly. Occasionally, Annie would stop to explain the main functions of certain departments, which the two listened to with great interest. After all, biotechnology and steam technology are quite different; in fact, if Annie hadn't said it was a research institute, it would have resembled more of a farm or greenhouse.

There's a breeding center, an incubation department, a feed management department, and so on... If you didn't know better, you'd think this was some kind of agricultural research institution.

Next, the three arrived at the mine tunnel leading to the research department, where a minecart was parked, seemingly in good condition. However, at the other end of the minecart, something resembling tentacles was binding it.

"Okay, looks like it still works."

Seeing this, Annie breathed a sigh of relief.

"Let's go up."

With that, Anne started walking toward the mine cart.

However, at that moment, the alarm lizard on Annie's wrist suddenly raised its head and hissed. At the same time, a tentacle suddenly stretched out from the darkness in front of her and reached out to grab Annie!

(End of this chapter)