Chapter 208: The Underground Base That Saw Daylight Once More [Part 1]
Cillin and Czedow followed the gray cat into the building.
The building had interior lightning, and the kanos lit up automatically when Cillin and his group entered a particular area. They would turn off only when the group had completely left an area.
It was noticeable that the original master of this place was a somewhat conservative person when it came to power.
They saw an elevator not long after they entered the building. It opened automatically when they got near it, and the gray cat took the lead and walked inside. Hesitating no longer, Cillin walked into the elevator as well.
The elevator closed and began to descend into the ground.
When Cillin’s group had gotten on the elevator and descended underground, the lights inside the building went out completely. The ‘hills’ outside were the only things that were still lit. The rustling sound of wind blowing softly was the only thing that could be heard other than the sounds caused by the Sixth B Squadron’s spaceplanes and fighters.
Shawton and everyone were extremely puzzled. If they hadn’t seen those creatures with their own eyes earlier, they wouldn’t have suspected that there were higher lifeforms in this place at all. Despite searching across many places, they weren’t able to find even the shadow of those creatures. It was as if they had all evaporated into thin air.
“They can’t have gone underground, have they?” A technician said.
“That’s very likely, but the probes can’t scan anything underground. The scan data just doesn’t match reality no matter what,” Another technician stared at a scanned picture on the scanner and looked a little distressed.
“If these instruments are useless, then we can only search for them manually.”
For now, Shawton didn’t allow his squad members to head down underground. There were unknown dangers lying in wait underground, and the environment of this planet was extremely harmful to the human body. It was inevitable that one would encounter many inconveniences when clad in a protective suit, and it would be a disaster if those creatures had came out and attacked them at once. That was why Shawton couldn’t send his men in while the risk was very real. He could only hope that Cillin would send him news as soon as possible.
Cillin followed the gray cat and exited the elevator. There seemed to be a multiple passages leading down different directions, and this elevator was the intersection point of all of them.
The gray cat had a clear goal that it was headed to since they entered the elevator, and it didn’t hesitate after it exited the elevator. It didn’t try to explain too much to Cillin and simply ran down a certain direction singlemindedly.
Looking at the construction of these passages, Cillin didn’t think that they were the work of a super civilization. While these passages were built rather firm and solid, technology wise they actually didn’t compare to some bases in GAL.
While they were walking through the twisting corridors of the building, Cillin saw some single rooms, meeting rooms, a dining hall and an auditorium. They never stopped by these facilities, however. Right now, the gray cat was running faster and faster, and its joy seemed to be growing in proportion too. It yelled loudly while running.
“Sigma! I’m here! Show yourself and welcome me, quickly!”
Sigma?
Who’s Sigma?
Cillin stared to the front but saw neither humans nor animals.
“Whebeze, I’m so happy to meet you.”
Then, an excited voice rang as an opening suddenly appeared from the wall of a corridor ahead of them. A robot walked out of the opening.
If this was outside Sector Z, if this robot were to appear on the streets of the planets of the ten trade Sectors, it would definitely be made fun of and called antiqued, outmoded, ugly and outdated. However, this robot gave Cillin a special feeling.
If he were to look at the robot’s appearance alone, it was undeniable that it was antiqued in a way that possessed neither the human appearance nor the fluid movements of Czedow. In fact, this robot didn’t have a pair of legs; its cylindrical body supported by a semicircular object that could roll towards any direction. Its head was also a semicircular object that was connected to its body. A blue strip swept here and there, and Cillin reckoned that it was the robot’s ‘eyes’.
So what exactly made this robot named Sigma who looked just like a roly-poly toy so special?
It was his tone, his movements, and the changes in the blue strip.
The way it spoke naturally was just like how a human would speak. The blue light took on a wavy pattern that was something like a human’s smile when it said that it was very happy to see the gray cat. Also… this suspicious fellow was waving its hands up and down just like a fledgling that was flapping its wings while running when it rolled over!
The gray cat was so happy that it ran circles around Sigma, and Sigma kept spinning on the same spot until Cillin felt a little dizzy in the head.
“Say, can you both please stop for a moment?” Cillin said.
Sigma looked up at Cillin and Czedow behind him, and it let out a ‘wah!’ exclamation before it rolled circles around them while waving its hands.
“It’s a familiar scent!” Sigma was so happy that the blue strip on its face turned into many big wavy patterns.
Cillin’s mouth twitched. This robot… seemed like it possessed the personality of a child.
It was obvious that the gray cat had been communicating with this robot all this time.
After rolling around Cillin and Czedow for a bit, Sigma stopped in front of Cillin as the blue strip took the shape of a question mark.
“You’re human? But why do you smell just like us?” Sigma said.
The gray cat jumped up to Sigma’s semicircular head, stood steadily and briefly introduced both Cillin and Czedow to Sigma. It added, “Cillin’s an anomaly, but there’s no need to think too much about it. Just categorise him as one of us.”
“Alright,” Sigma did as told and categorised the gray cat, Cillin and Czedow as one of its own. Then, it told Cillin, “The air composition and environment of this place have been changed, so you can take off your protective suit now, Cillin.”
Czedow didn’t raise an objection against Sigma’s words. He had gauged the temperature, air pressure, humidity, air composition and so on of the current environment and found it very suitable for human life, so there was no need to put on a protective suit any longer.
This change had started only after Sigma had categorized Cillin as ‘one of its own’. The environment was changed completely in just a matter of few seconds.
Cillin took off his protective suit and took in a breath. The oxygen and carbon dioxide level of the air were pretty great and very much in line with the standard ratio.
“Come, come! I’ll take you on a tour around this base!” Sigma walked, no, rolled forwards while waving its hands.
Cillin was very curious about the principle behind its movements, but he figured it out when he saw Sigma climbing up a set of stairs by changing the exposed part of its semicircular bottom to the same shape as the stairs. That semicircular bottom that was its legs could switch forms at will.
The underground base was incredibly huge; Cillin knew this from the gray cat’s description earlier. But unlike other bases, the facilities here were incredibly complete. It was like a perfect underground world that even had a large manmade lake of its own.
“Sigma, have you always been alone in this place?” Cillin asked.
Sigma’s voice was suddenly filled with sadness, “Yeah, it was so boring that I had no choice but to enter hibernation mode. I won’t wake up unless an outsider shows up.”
“What about those cre… non-humans outside? We’ve seen them before we came here.”
“Oh, you mean the Lovages? They’re guardian beasts who guarded this place. They would hibernate when there are no outsiders on this planet, and they would wake to attack all outsiders who invade this planet.”
“Lovage?” Cillin was a little confused. He had never heard of this term, and he didn’t know what it meant either.
“Lovage means ‘Knight’. The reason Master created them is so that they would protect this base just like loyal knights.”
“Which Sector’s language is that?” Cillin asked.”
“It’s not from here. It’s a language from my home,” Sigma sounded even sadder now.
“You’re not a robot from GAL?”
“No, I’m not.”
“What about your master? Is he not from GAL too?”
“My Master is. He’s the one who brought me to this place. Later on, Master and everyone else left and told me to stay behind and protect this place,” The blue strip on Sigma’s face turned into a pair of flowing tears immediately as he said in a crying tone, “I was left behind by the Little Miss and everyone. I really hated to part with them, but Master said that I can only leave the base and search for them if ‘Shortcut’ activates once more…”