DOTM: Chapter 452/453

Chapter 452: Sleeping Betty

The question was, who discovered their arrival?

Was it adventurers? Or some powerful creature?

Ethan already knew that many powerful monsters lived in the latter half of the route. These monsters even hunted adventurers as prey, and Ethan and his companions were clearly within their hunting range.

"Anyway, be careful!"

Their individual strengths were considerable, but that didn't mean they didn't need to be vigilant. Ethan didn't have a clear idea of just how strong the monsters in this world could become.

Considering Clyde and Beckford could freely travel this route, these monsters likely couldn't truly threaten them. What they needed to be cautious of were some peculiar abilities. Even if they weren't injured, getting caught up in one would be embarrassing.

They waded through the cool river water, moving deeper into the cave. The cave gradually widened. Ethan casually conjured a ball of light in his palm and let it float above their heads for illumination.

Ada put away the lighting equipment she had just taken out. With Ethan present, there was no need for those things.

There was no sound in the dark, damp cave, only the splashing of people wading through water. Ethan kept turning his head, looking left and right, but found nothing worth noting.

At the same time, he carefully kept his senses extended into the water, in case something suddenly appeared.

But the water turned out to be incredibly clear. Let alone monsters, he couldn't even see dirt. The river water was so clean it looked safe to drink without worry.

"It seems there's nothing here."

Laura wasn't just observing. She was using her Druid abilities, trying to sense whether any creatures or plants were nearby.

As long as there were animals or plants, she could communicate with them and obtain information.

But she sensed for a long time and detected nothing. There was only stone and water here.

"Shall we continue?"

"Of course!"

Laura wasn't afraid. This only made things more interesting for her. She was looking forward to a powerful monster in the depths of the cave so she could properly showcase her training.

After walking for half an hour, the group finally reached a spacious cavern. There was an elevated area of ground here, so they no longer had to stand in the water.

"What is this?"

On the platform, besides a rectangular object, there was nothing else.

"There's no way forward. I checked, and this water flows out from countless tiny pores. This is the deepest part of the cave."

After looking around, Ada confirmed they couldn't proceed further. Ethan also saw several small holes on the cave wall from which clear water constantly flowed, merging into the river they had waded through.

"Then all the secrets are here."

There was nothing else, only that rectangular object. It seemed to be the most suspicious item in this place.

According to Ethan's senses, the energy hidden in the water was emitted from this object.

"Could there be a magic stone hidden inside this rectangular block?"

Ethan reached out and gently touched it, only to suddenly realize it wasn't a stone block at all. The appearance of stone was just an illusion projected by the object.

As his hand touched it, the huge block distorted. When Ethan released a trace of magic power to impact the image, the distortion grew more intense until the illusion completely dissipated, revealing the true form beneath.

"This is...?"

"It looks like a high-tech facility," Ethan said, examining the sci-fi-looking rectangular device carefully. "The energy it uses is very similar to a magic stone, but slightly different."

After looking it over several times, Ethan found what looked like a switch and pressed it.

At once, the facility emitted a deep roar, followed by white gas venting from below.

Ethan, Ada, and Laura quickly stepped back, but soon realized the smoke only made them feel a bit cold and posed no threat.

"This..." Ada looked at the device as it slowly opened. She suddenly thought of countless movies she had seen. "Could this be a cryogenic sleep pod?"

Ethan had the same feeling. The way the lid opened was too similar to sleep pods from movies.

As the lid fully opened, revealing the inside, Ethan sighed helplessly. "You guessed right. This is a sleep pod."

He could already sense life signs reawakening, showing a clear trend of recovery. There was indeed a living person inside.

Stepping closer, Ethan saw a young girl lying within. She had beautiful blonde hair and wore a white outfit with pretty patterned decorations. There were also designs on her chest and shoulders.

As he wondered what those patterns meant, the girl opened her eyes. Perhaps she had slept too long, for the sudden light made her uncomfortable. She raised her hand to block it, then blinked several times before opening her eyes again to examine Ethan, who stood in front of her.

"Are you from the rescue team?" The girl tried to get up, but her arms were too weak to support her. "Damn, how long have I been in hibernation? How did the rescue team's efficiency get so bad?"

Ethan raised his head slightly, exchanging glances with Ada. The girl had just revealed some information.

It might have been effective to pretend to be rescue personnel to gather intel, but Ethan didn't like that method, especially since he had no malicious intent.

"You might have misunderstood. I'm not from any rescue team."

"Not the rescue team?" The girl lay still for a while, then, after regaining some strength, fumbled for something beside her. She found a syringe, pulled up her sleeve, pressed it to her wrist, and injected.

Afterward, her pale face regained some color. Her condition improved, her mobility returned, and she finally managed to sit up.

She rubbed her eyes again, adjusting to the light, then looked at Ethan with a surprised expression.

"Not from the rescue team?"

She looked him up and down, taking in his very casual clothes, then turned her head to Ada and Laura.

Laura was casually dressed in a T-shirt and capri pants. Aside from the strange animal on her head, there was nothing noteworthy.

Ada's attire didn't look special at first glance, but the black combat suit under her red shirt caught the girl's attention. "Are you also students undergoing assessment?"

The girl's gaze lingered on Ada's combat suit.

"Where was this combat suit manufactured? Why don't I recognize the brand?"

"Our team made it ourselves," Ada replied casually, and the girl didn't find it suspicious.

"No wonder."

The girl gently moved, then slowly climbed out of the pod. She pressed something inside, and the lid opened further, revealing shoes and other belongings.

She put on her shoes in front of Ethan, then jumped to the ground and bounced lightly. But her legs were weak, and she almost fell. Ethan quickly steadied her, preventing her from falling awkwardly.

"Thank you."

She thanked him softly, then straightened her clothes before introducing herself.

"I am Betty, a student of Warship Piloting Science at the Imperial Military Academy. Thank you very much for your help."

Ethan narrowed his eyes as Betty saluted him. "I think you might not have understood the current situation."

Seeing he didn't return the salute as expected, Betty immediately sensed something was off. Though she didn't step back, she subtly shifted her body so her back wasn't fully exposed.

She clearly had combat training. Ethan could sense her hand moving toward her weapon.

"Don't be nervous. We mean no harm."

He spread his hands, showing no weapons and no hostility.

This gesture seemed universal across civilizations. Betty relaxed slightly, though her guard remained.

"What exactly do you want?"

"Who exactly are you? Why are you here?"

Ethan already had vague guesses, but he wanted confirmation.

Betty frowned, her sea-blue eyes studying him.

"I'm a student of the Imperial Military Academy, undergoing assessment here... Could it be you're not academy students? That's impossible! Outsiders can't enter here at all..."

Before Ethan could answer, she turned to her pod. After fiddling with it, a holographic image appeared on the lid, displaying data.

The text was written in the language of this world, which Ethan could naturally read. He immediately noticed one line:

Entered hibernation state eight hundred and seventy-three years ago.

(To be continued.)

Chapter 453: Betty's Dilemma

"How is that possible!"

Betty looked at the data with an expression of disbelief. After a moment of being stunned, she immediately performed a series of operations, re-testing the data, but the final result showed the exact same numbers as before.

"Eight hundred and seventy-three years?"

Laura looked at the stunned Betty. She didn't think, this girl is so pitiful. Instead, she complained to Ada about the equipment in front of them.

"It can keep a person in hibernation for over eight hundred and seventy years without issue. This hibernation pod is really high quality."

Ada also nodded, indicating that the equipment's lifespan was indeed astonishing, then looked up at Ethan.

Ethan happened to look back at her, and their eyes conveyed the same meaning: We must take this thing back and study it thoroughly!

"Ahem!"

He lightly coughed, reminding the girl named Betty.

"It seems your hibernation time exceeded expectations..."

Betty froze for a moment, finally recovering somewhat. She performed some operations again, and a string of data appeared on the holographic image, but this time it didn't display information quickly like before. Instead, it showed errors, data loss, system damage, and other messages.

"Looks like I praised it too early."

In a confined space like a cave, Laura didn't deliberately lower her voice, so Betty could hear what she was saying.

"Eight hundred and seventy-three years, it's normal for various problems to occur." Betty busied herself for a while, finally realizing that the only data she could get was the fact that she had slept for over eight hundred years. "Although this type of hibernation pod was advertised as being able to operate normally for over a thousand years, everyone just treated it as a slogan. No one thought this thing could really let someone sleep safely for a thousand years without problems."

Betty finally gave up on continuing the operations and put on all the equipment she could take out, including a vest-like outer garment with armor plates attached.

A belt, gloves, wrist guards, and other items, and finally, one long and one short firearm.

Although their appearance was a style Ethan had never seen before, both Ada and Ethan recognized them as firearms at first glance. Based on some of Betty's inspection movements, both were energy weapons.

"According to the self-check status just now, most of the systems in this hibernation pod are broken, and only the life support system is barely running. Even the automatic wake-up device is broken... If you hadn't arrived, maybe I would have died in my sleep in a few more years..."

After checking her equipment, Betty thanked Ethan again.

"Thank you very much for saving me."

"You're welcome. Actually, we didn't do much."

Ethan and the others were only here to check the island, to see if there was anything special. They didn't expect to find a living person, and one who was over eight hundred... nearly nine hundred years old.

"Regardless, it's a fact that you saved me."

Betty sighed helplessly, perhaps pondering what the outside world had become, or what had gone wrong. Why had Ethan and the others, these outsiders, appeared in a place where outsiders should never enter?

"I want to confirm, you are not students from the Imperial Military Academy, right?"

"No." Ethan shook his head. He didn't see the point in fabricating a student identity. "And we don't know what that academy you mentioned is."

"Don't know the academy?"

Betty's brows furrowed even more. She realized the situation seemed worse than she had imagined.

"How is that possible? The Imperial Military Academy is the most famous academy in the Empire, the academy that countless young people in the Empire most hope to enter..."

Betty suddenly thought of something, then carefully looked at everyone's clothing again. She seemed to have suddenly thought of a possibility, but she quickly dismissed her idea.

"Impossible, how could it be natives."

Betty only mumbled softly to herself, almost without making a sound, but it didn't escape Ethan's ears. His brows lifted slightly. The information behind that sentence was not very pleasant.

Just then, Laura started to feel bored. After all, there was nothing here. "Can we talk about things outside? Do you like this dark and damp place?"

Betty turned her head and looked at Laura again. This time she noticed the little creature, Auriel, perched on Laura's shoulder. At first, she didn't pay much attention, but then, as if remembering something, she examined it carefully, and then looked around at everyone with an expression of disbelief.

"Although I'm not sure what exactly you've thought of, I hope you'll explain everything later."

Ethan already had some guesses, and he felt his speculation was very likely the truth.

"But for now, as Laura said, let's leave here first."

Perhaps it was because of the cold air being expelled from the hibernation pod, or perhaps it was a normal temperature change, but the temperature in this cave was getting lower and lower.

"Alright!"

Betty thought for a moment. Regardless, leaving here first was the most important thing right now. There were also some things she wanted to confirm, which she also needed to ask Ethan about.

Although she felt that asking these people about those matters might not be the right choice, she had no other options now.

"Wait, I'll put this away first..." Ethan specifically asked Betty again. "Do you still want this hibernation pod?"

"No, but this hibernation pod cannot be folded back up after it's expanded... and without lifting equipment, it's impossible to..."

Before Betty could finish speaking, she felt a blur in front of her eyes, as if a blue light flashed, and then the hibernation pod she had just been lying in disappeared.

"What just happened?"

Betty walked back and forth three times in the place where the hibernation pod had been, and also squatted down and touched the ground, which was clearly different from the surrounding area.

Aside from a clear mark, the large, heavy hibernation pod was gone as if it had never existed.

"What did you do?"

Betty guessed that Ethan had done something, because just before the hibernation pod disappeared, this man had asked her if she didn't want it. She had just replied that she didn't, and the hibernation pod was gone.

"Just put it away. What? Do you need to get anything else?"

"No, I'm just curious where you put such a large hibernation pod?" Betty circled Ethan three times again, finding that there didn't seem to be any special equipment on him. "Is it some kind of special spatial technology?"

"Something like that."

Without clarifying Betty's situation and confirming his own speculation, Ethan didn't want to reveal too much. After signaling to Ada and Laura, Ethan reminded Betty to follow along.

Betty was standing there in a daze. It wasn't until the ball of light above her head moved with Ethan and the environment around her began to darken that she reacted, hurrying to catch up.

At this point, she noticed the sphere of light floating above again. She had initially thought it was just a normal lighting device, but after watching it for a while, she realized it seemed to be a pure energy aggregate.

The device on her wrist also gave the same conclusion, but she couldn't understand how this mass of energy was controlled by Ethan and the others.

She found that these people, who were suspected natives, were completely different from the kind she was familiar with in the past.

"However, is this detector broken? Why does it keep showing high energy readings?"

Betty scratched her head, finally turning off the alarm notice.

She sighed helplessly. After sleeping for over eight hundred years, it wasn't strange for various devices to have problems. It was already fortunate that they could still be used.

For example, the short gun on her waist had actually lost its function, and the long gun on her back only had very little energy, and she didn't know how many shots it could still fire. Even if it could still shoot, there was always the risk of explosion.

She carried these weapons only as a deterrent. If she really encountered danger, she couldn't rely on these two weapons to protect herself.

The only thing still usable was actually just a short knife. Even more tragically, all the high-tech functions on the short knife were broken, and it could only be used as a completely ordinary short knife.

If it were against the natives she remembered from the past, a short knife could barely be considered a self-defense weapon.

But facing Ethan and the others, she felt no sense of security at all.

"Hope my luck isn't too bad. This person named Ethan seems to be a good person."

Wading through the cold river water, Betty didn't feel uncomfortable. Her clothes could effectively block out the cold water and its chill, ensuring she wouldn't be affected at all. This was the only piece of equipment on her that was still functioning normally.

So when she walked out of the cave, she didn't feel any discomfort.

She looked up at Ethan and the others. The girl named Laura was taking off her shoes and socks, wringing out the water from her cotton socks, tying them casually on her arm, and then putting her shoes back on barefoot.

The woman in red was wearing a combat suit, which should also be waterproof, so she didn't do anything similar.

As for the person named Ethan, he didn't seem to care that his pants and shoes were soaked, standing there as if thinking about something.

"Are we still going up the mountain?"

Laura tied her socks and casually took a magic stone from her pocket, offering it to Auriel's mouth, but Auriel refused with a look of disdain.

"No, we're going back to the beach."

Ethan glanced at Betty, who was standing there looking at them. He felt that the information Betty held was much more important than figuring out the secrets of this island. It was very likely that Betty knew what was going on with this island, and perhaps after asking her, all the problems would be solved.

In this situation, there was no need to keep wandering around the island.

(To be continued.)