svetikya Page 344
Page 344
Finding the hidden Les manufacturing plant within such a range would be extremely difficult without considerable effort.
Fortunately, Kares had already passed the location there to Navia through Miles—with the map area expanding year by year, even the location in the game no longer matched, and only through that record could the trace be found.
"The underwater world is so amazing." Fairy Ellie exclaimed, gazing at the fish and seaweed around her. Then, she looked curiously at the well-hidden cave entrance in the distance: "Is this the Les manufacturing plant?"
"It looks rather unremarkable."
"Heh, it's good that it's inconspicuous. Wouldn't it be less appealing if such a clandestine industry were to be made a big show of it?" Virgil was somewhat excited, even forgetting to conceal his true feelings, his gaze fixed greedily on the cave entrance before him.
"But then again, I didn't expect Les's production base to be so close to Fontaine, that's really..."
"Fontaine is a place that harbors filth and corruption, so there's nothing strange about that." Navia said coldly, looking at the Les factory in front of her, her tone revealing a hint of sarcasm.
In a sense, this is also a rare formula.
To say that everyone living in Fontainebleau is a bad person would be unfair and would wrong many good people.
However, if we were to take everyone in Fontainebleau out and shoot them one by one, there would definitely be a bunch of people who slipped through the net.
"Okay, let's go in."
After they went inside, 'Fuchsia'—Furina—emerged from the nearby water plants and muttered quietly, "Fontaine isn't this bad, is it?"
"But it's not exactly great either."
'Frinina'—Jiang Qiao sighed softly. The more glamorous a place is, the more filth it hides. The integrity of the nobles in Fontaine is far ahead of others in the humanoid category, even in the entire Teyvat.
Of course, if we consider the origins of the Fontainebleau people, then they are indeed not human.
However, when discussing pure water spirits, it is important to understand that they are the most benevolent race in the world, apart from the Fairy Spirits and the Lannaro Clan. They cannot tolerate even the slightest evil thought—because that would cause their core consciousness to collapse.
The result is that this race, even before officially becoming human, has already reached an exceptionally high level of talent in showing their utter depravity.
However, he could understand Fontaine's problem—because that place was inherently of questionable character.
The Kingdom of Fontaine was established by a coalition of various lords in rebellion against the Lemurian Empire. Previously, those nobles were merely minor leaders at a primitive stage, and in terms of foundation, they were at the very bottom of Teyvat.
The fact that Fontaine took such a compromise path to establish itself, coupled with the fact that the previous water god was a hands-off person who was either indifferent or powerless, does indeed make people feel a bit overwhelmed.
"Alright, let's follow."
"Hey, wait for me! I can't keep up!" Funina shouted, somewhat annoyed.
Although the people of Fontaine are all good swimmers and are difficult to drown due to the protection of certain forces, Miss Funina, who is not used to swimming and has lived a life of luxury, is obviously not very good at it, especially when using Jiang Qiao's male body, where she is quite clumsy and difficult to swim.
“...I really can’t do anything with you.” The blue-and-white-haired girl looked back and shook her head helplessly. Then, amidst Funina’s exclamation of “Ugh!”, she hugged her waist and rushed into Marcell’s headquarters.
Jacob and René lived five hundred years ago, and the dilapidated ruins inside this secret experimental facility exude a heavy sense of history.
As an important research base, this site is very large in scale and layout. After passing through the broken walls and rising to the surface of the water, you can see the many clockwork mechanisms full of Fontaine's characteristics.
The excessively long stagnation left most of the gears rusted and stuck, but what was most noteworthy was the large number of guard mechanisms.
The canine-like creatures faithfully fulfilled their guard duties, launching an attack on intruders like Navia—they were initially hesitant, but Marcel, hiding behind them, secretly issued the order to 'kill without mercy'.
Unfortunately, these small security units didn't seem to pose much of a threat to Navia. Even without her guards Miles and Silver, she could easily handle them with her God's Eye alone, not to mention the sword-wielding, raucous Firefly.
As an observer, Marcel clicked his tongue. Although he knew that such a sophisticated mechanism would not be able to deal with these major threats, he was still somewhat annoyed to see the result.
Hmph, if only the defense mechanisms in this secret base hadn't aged to the point of failure.
Looking around at the hidden mechanisms that Navia and the others had completely overlooked—these were left behind by Rene and Jacob five hundred years ago. In fact, because their relationship with another friend, Alan, had not yet broken down at that time, Alan had also helped them design the defenses here.
As the greatest genius of the Fontaine Power Engineering Institute, even his suggestions are enough to cause the security level of this place to rise exponentially.
But it doesn't matter, so what if we get rid of these small security agencies?
Marcel wasn't worried at all about dealing with Navia and that blonde girl with the pink-haired floating spirit, after all—the security apparatus he had built up over the years by selling Les was all located in a much deeper area.
With so many security agencies, even the possessor of the Eye of God would be no match for them, unable to escape!
...Wait, where's that man named Virgil?
Marcellus suddenly felt a little strange. Why were only the old dog's daughter and that nameless blonde girl fighting?
Sudden...
"!!!" Marcellus felt a terrible sense of crisis as he felt a great sense of danger. His experience as an adventurer exploring the wild had given him excellent alertness. However, perhaps because he had neglected it for so many years, even though Marcellus sensed something was wrong and reacted in time to try to avoid it, he was still a step too late.
"Snap!" Blood burst open on his shoulder, and a piercing pain made Marcell cry out in agony.
"Ah, sorry."
Upon closer inspection, Virgil, who had not participated in the battle, was leaning against the wall, looking 'panicked'. Beside him was the culprit that had caused Marcell's pain: a well-hidden steam catapult trap.
The billowing white mist speaks volumes.
Marcel stared in astonishment at the steam catapult trap, questioning his existence—he remembered that the mechanism was clearly malfunctioning!
Because it had no practical value, or at least he didn't have the time or ability to fix it, he didn't bother with it.
Just then, Navia and Luminous also dealt with the small, spring-loaded mechanisms that had triggered the attack. When Navia saw Vasher's bleeding wound, the corners of her mouth involuntarily turned up—it was harder to suppress than an AK-47, but she managed to suppress the urge to laugh out loud, forcing herself to appear very concerned and asking:
"Uncle Marcellor, are you alright?!"
Marcellus had a deadpan expression—Do I look like I'm alright to you?
If he hadn't been an adventurer with some experience in getting injured, he would have been lying on the ground long ago after being hit like that.
Even so, the excruciating pain made Marcell turn pale.
He wanted to say something, but Navia patted him on the shoulder with great concern, quite solemnly:
"Uncle Marcellus, if you can't go any further, you should stay here for now. It's not good to continue walking with your injuries."
"I...it's okay..."
Marcel's expression instantly turned as if he had swallowed fly droppings, but he couldn't bring himself to curse out loud, so he could only force a smile.
"Are you really alright? Your wound doesn't look like it's nothing serious."
"...No, you can't go any further. You've taken care of me for so many years, I can't let you risk your life to do something so dangerous with me, Uncle Marcellor." Amid Marcellor's inner lament, Navia first looked doubtful, then made a gesture of great struggle, loudly trying to make a decision.
Without a doubt, Marcel felt extremely comfortable—he felt like he was about to faint.
If you're really that worried about me, could you at least stop the bleeding for me first?
With a deathly pale face, Marcel suppressed the urge to burst into curses—he had already lost a lot of blood from the wound, and if it continued to bleed like this, he felt he wouldn't dare do anything; he might die from blood loss first.
Navia seemed to have noticed this important moment as well, and she quickly said:
"Oh dear, Uncle Marcellor, you're bleeding a lot. Let me bandage you up..."
"No, no, I'll do it myself..."
Seeing Navia eagerly approaching him, Marcel, who had almost been scared out of his wits by the slap earlier, quickly refused.
"This is really possible! I must take good care of you!"
"No, really!"
“You’re welcome!”
"Cough cough!" The sudden coughing drew the attention of Navia and Ying, who was watching from the side. Virgil, who had been ignored because of Marcel's injury, looked serious and guilty: "Mr. Marcel's injury is entirely because of me. Please let me do this!"
He looked serious and stubborn, as if he would rather die by crashing his head into the seaweed if he wasn't allowed to do it.
"Well... alright, then let this young man do it."
Marcellus was somewhat speechless, but after glancing at Navia, he still felt that Virgil might be a better choice, at least his actions wouldn't be so rough, right?
That didn't seem like they were there to help at all; they were just there to hasten their own demise.
Although he also hated Virgil, after comparing the two, Marcellus chose to compromise to avoid further problems.
Just bear with it for a bit. Once we get into the core area, I'll kill all these guys...
“Ahhhhhh——!!!”
Chapter 251 Touch it! Why don't you touch it!
Clearly, trying to get Virgil to help stop the bleeding and bandage the wound was an extremely unwise choice. It's not that his skills were bad; although his profession wasn't exactly honorable and even as the boss he wouldn't do many things himself, some medical knowledge was essential for moving freely among the various ruins.
Unfortunately, Mr. Virgil was not a kind and compassionate philanthropist.
It would be fine if he helped deal with his underlings, but Marcellus... ha, Virgil despises these glamorous people the most. He'd love to kill them all and then take their treasure.
Stopping the bleeding, even just to avoid suspicion, is necessary, but wasn't the technique a bit rough...?
"Oh, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry!" Hearing Marcell's somewhat shrill screams, Virgil, though feeling incredibly pleased, still maintained a facade of extreme fear and guilt. "I haven't done these things in a long time, my skills have become a bit rusty! Mr. Marcell, are you alright?"
"Cough...cough cough, I'm fine...okay, I can do it myself..." Marcellus was extremely weak, suppressing a trembling voice as she forced a smile. Of course, even so, she couldn't suppress the murderous glint in her eyes.
"This...this won't do!" Virgil said earnestly. "You're injured, and since it was my mistake, I can't just leave it like this!"
If I let you interfere any further, I'm really going to die!
Marcel roared inwardly, but couldn't curse because of his image. He could only try to pull his hand away from the bastard in front of him who seemed to be deliberately messing with him.
"open."