Chapter 21 (2/2)

As she said that, Lapis traced her fingers on the box once again.

This time the whole surface flashed red and black words started flowing across the surface.

The sudden change made Ritz and the others back off, and Loren, who was surprised as well, continued to watch over Lapis. Lapis put her hand on her chin and started thinking, and after a moment clapped her hands together.

“That’s right. This is a laboratory.”

“What about it? Anyways, what’s with the red box and the words on them?”

“There are always researchers inside laboratories.”

‘That’s…I guess there is.”

“Researchers are usually registered into the laboratory’s system.”

“So, what? What are you trying to say here?”

Loren couldn’t understand what Lapis was talking about and began to get irritated, but she took no notice of it and traced her finger on the box’s surface once again.

Meanwhile, the words that were flowing across the surface of the box sped up, and the light that was being emitted from the walls became disgusting shade of red as well.

Then the three doors on each wall fully opened.

“H-hey. What’s going on?”

Ritz asked Lapis nervously, but she replied without even looking up, with her hands still moving furiously.

“I’ve failed the biometric authentication.”

“Biometric…What?”

“This control panel is only supposed to be operated by researchers registered into the system. Since someone that isn’t registered, in this case that would be me, tried to operate it, it kicked me out.”

“What?”

Ritz and the others started panicking as they finally understood what was happening, but Lapis paid no attention to them and kept working.

“Since I failed to send the shutdown command three times, it locked me out. I can’t operate it.”

“Is that what the red and black words are talking about?”

Although Loren asked Lapis, a part of him knew that he was wrong.

He felt himself becoming more pessimistic by the minute, but after all the bad things that kept happening to him, he started to think it might be okay to have pessimistic thoughts.

“That’s incorrect. The red words in the beginning were warnings, but these black words aren’t.”

“Then what does it say?”

“To put it simply, the system recognized us as intruders.”

Although Lapis said it like it was nothing, the reality that they were facing wasn’t something that should’ve been said so lightly. At Lapis’ words, Loren smiled weakly, and the rest of them turned pale.

During all that, Lapis continued to work.

“What are you doing!? This is really bad!”

Ritz tried to grab Lapis, but Nim and Jack, who managed to stay calm, held him back.

They did so because they knew lashing out at Lapis wouldn’t do anything, but their worry and anxiousness could be seen on their faces.

“The facility’s defense mechanism just activated.”

“Can you be more specific?”

It may have been obvious for some people, but Loren had no idea what was going to happen.

After Loren had asked for an explanation, Lapis put her thoughts together and explained their current situation.

“The ruins have recognized us as foreign existences, and will eliminate us using goblins.”

“What are we going to do?”

“I believe that all the goblins that are already produced will all rush towards this room, so for the time being, please keep them away.”

Ritz and his party’s faces were filled with despair.

Loren grabbed the handle of his great sword and prepared for battle.

If the mock-goblins came it would be quite a hard fight, but there was a chance that they wouldn’t show up.

There were three entrances, but he didn’t think that many of them would swarm in at once. As Loren thought that if it were a few of them at once they still had a good chance, he heard Lapis’ voice.

“I’ll try to fool the system. Once I get in, it won’t matter how many goblins are here.”

“I just have to buy you some time, right?”

“I’m sorry. I’ll be defenseless while operating this, so.”

“How do you even know how to do that, anyway.”

Although he felt hopeless, Ritz must have realized that fighting was the only choice they had right now. Ritz asked Lapis as he readied his sword and shield.

“I’m a priest of the Knowledge god, after all!”

“You can’t say that every time, you know that?”

Loren snapped at her convenient excuse.

Part of him was trying to warn Lapis that it won’t work for everything, but the other part was trying to save the reputations of other priests of the Knowledge god that were out there. He also didn’t want Ritz and the others to get a mistaken image of them, either.

“I haven’t said anything that isn’t true you know?”

“I guess you haven’t, but…Never mind, just keep doing what you’re doing.”

As much as Loren wanted to defend the priests’ reputations, he reminded Lapis that there were other things they had to do right now. Lapis nodded and went back to focusing on the control panel.

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