150

I didn’t know if it could be called a burial.

But if I buried him in the soil and stacked stones that looked like they could become a grave, it certainly looked the part.

I closed my eyes, crossed myself before my chest, and offered a silent prayer.

It pained me that the flowers I offered were just whatever happened to be blooming nearby, but he seemed like the kind of man who would say that crossing over with a single wild flower in hand wasn’t so bad.

“I wanted to ask you so much more…”

There was so much I wanted to know.

So much I still wanted to ask.

But he—who must have already been at his limit—couldn’t hold on.

Meeting me was surely his miracle, not mine.

“I got a lot of information. I met a fellow survivor. I’ll call that enough.”

Turning my back on Lark’s grave—something no one could call well-made—I returned to the facility.

From what I’d seen, it was in remarkably good condition, so there was a high chance I’d adopt it as my main base.

If I could secure a way to keep warm, winter would stop being a concern, so I decided to thoroughly check the inside.

First, I needed to confirm what was going on with the electrical system.

I tried hard to operate the terminal at the reception desk that caught my eye, but with these fingers, the controls were clumsy and unreliable.

“Isn’t there something I can use?”

I set my pack down and rummaged through it, and found a pen and a ladle.

‘Of the things I have, these two are the only ones that might work.’

I hesitated over the underwhelming choice, but in the end I grabbed the pen.

Pinching it between my thumb and index finger, I tapped at the keyboard, clicking out inputs.

I figured I’d have it give me a facility guide, but unfortunately it wasn’t working properly—after a beep, it froze.

It was noisy, so I shut the power off, but were there any functioning devices at all?

About a minute after I worried that, I found an electronic guidance board that actually worked.

It was touch-panel, so even my fingers were fine.

First I confirmed the location info, and then I started by finding the map he’d left behind.

The room I wanted—Lark’s bedroom—was found quickly.

It was a room meant for humans, so getting inside took some effort, but I managed to wedge my body in by simply breaking the door.

Now then—where was it?

I pinched the desk drawers with my fingertips, yanked them open, and checked the contents one by one.

In the second drawer, I found a folded sheet of paper that looked promising, so I took it out and unfolded it.

“Ah… I get why you didn’t bother telling me.”

There really was a map, just like he’d said.

But the marks that seemed meant to indicate facility locations—aside from here—numbered only two.

One of those points was not far from here, but there was a high chance it was the facility with that octopus-type chimera.

And the other was probably the facility where the spider man had been—meaning, the place I’d been using as a base.

‘So there’s no haul… no, even so, I should go confirm it.’

It was worth that much. I carefully folded the map and put it into my pack.

There was a chance this wasn’t the only thing Lark had left, so I searched the room thoroughly, but there was no other map-like item.

Instead, I obtained an old lantern.

I couldn’t help thinking, Why would he have this?

But when I examined it more closely, the construction was rough—more like amateur work—so I settled on the conclusion that Lark had made it to go into places where the lights didn’t work.

In that case, I’d take it. I hung it from my pack.

With the shovel already there, I looked like some kind of laborer.

If I had a pickaxe, I’d be a miner.

Now then—I’d left the room, so it was time to check other areas.

To me, this was an unexplored facility.

I had no idea what was inside, so I needed to confirm everything with my own eyes.

So I explored the facility for a while, and found a kitchen, a storage room, and a game room.

When I said “kitchen,” it was really just a place Lark had used for that purpose—there wasn’t any noteworthy equipment tied to it.

Still, the moderately cleared space suited me too, and continuing to use it was an option.

When I rummaged around lightly, I found multiple traps that looked like they’d been used to catch small animals.

In addition, I found dried meat and what looked like edible wild plants in a space that seemed like a pantry.

I gratefully took them.

I wanted to complain about how bad the dried meat tasted, but I chewed it in silence while searching the storage room.

Unlike me, who carried back anything that seemed remotely usable, Lark had surprisingly packed only what he needed.

The problem was that most of it was stuff I didn’t need now, so there wasn’t much I could call a haul.

I didn’t have the guts to open a two-hundred-year-old can.

But if it was here… had Lark been eating it?

I tried opening one, but it was no good.

As for the game room… it was just something the researchers had once been provided and Lark used as-is, so there was nothing particularly valuable. I gave it a quick look and moved on.

“Hm. I don’t see a control room… He said there was another facility next door—maybe it’s over there?”

Considering Lark had been here, there was a chance the two were connected somewhere.

I decided to explore the areas I’d avoided because wedging my body through them was a hassle, and found a pitch-dark corridor.

‘There are lights… but the power isn’t on.’

Could this be the passage to the neighboring facility? I crawled forward slowly through the narrow darkness.

After going straight for a while, I smashed a door with my fist and entered.

Unlike the other side, this place was thick with dust.

There was no light. I exhaled in the pitch-black—then choked.

“Yeah… this place is seriously dusty.”

Also, the low ceiling was bothering me.

This side was clearly meant entirely for humans, so I lowered myself and pushed forward.

Kicking up the accumulated dust as I went, I eventually reached a wide space.

I looked around for some kind of guidance board, but there was nothing like that, and the terminal at what looked like the reception desk wasn’t receiving power either.

I kept walking while flipping wall switches, but there was no sign the lights would turn on.

So I started switching on every room I passed in the corridor—and finally found a flickering fluorescent light.

A second door at the back of the room.

I forced my body through, flipped the wall switch—

“…Found it.”

When I reached out and turned on the power, I clearly heard the startup sound.

While reading the letters appearing on the monitor, I used a researcher’s ID card sitting on a desk—one with a noticeably different dust pattern—to log in.

“So I can even check the facility status…”

Most of the power had been cut, and only the bare-minimum areas were being supplied electricity—that was the current state of this facility.

My eyes widened when I saw that one of the powered sections was a cryosleep unit.

“Are there others!?”

The words slipped out, but I focused on the terminal.

Still, once I understood it only meant the cryosleep unit was being powered—not that someone was inside—I let out a long breath.

Was I relieved no one was there?

Or disappointed?

Even I didn’t know.

But if I cut that power, I should be able to do something with it.

That was what I thought—but apparently this account didn’t have authorization to make those changes.

‘Yeah… if it could do that, it wouldn’t still be running.’

Nodding to myself, I checked other pages.

While struggling in an awkward posture, trying to see if there was information on the facility on the other side, I reached its status page far more easily than I expected.

Alerts were lit up for things like each room’s condition, power status, and the power-generation facility, and a conspicuous red message read: “Maintenance required.”

Multiple other sections showed the same kind of alert. There wasn’t a single area that was fully intact.

Everywhere had some kind of problem—the status colors were red and yellow across the board.

And then, among them, I found one single green—“Normal.”

Wondering where it was, I checked the details, and my words died in my throat.

It wasn’t the label “Specimen Cryo Chamber” that stole my voice.

It was the pod-status display: amid countless red indicators, there was exactly one green light.

“…Is there a survivor?”

I understood what it meant.

I wouldn’t know until I saw it—

But if someone truly was there, I would be forced to choose.

“Yeah. I know. I don’t have the luxury of choosing my means if I want to live.”

I somehow pulled my snagging body back out of the room and retraced my path.

I would tell myself the heaviness in my steps was just my imagination.