Chapter 24- HAPPY Labs (Part 2)
Rain walked slowly inside the room only to find Asher standing still in the middle, staring down at something that she couldn't see at first glance. His body was motionless yet carried a hint of fear, shock, and bewilderment.
"What is it?" She asked only for Asher to simply step aside without saying a word as he kept looking down.
Rain walked forward and her eyes soon fell on what Asher was talking about. Her face changed slowly as a small frown took over her expression.
"What is this?" She murmured.
The thing they were looking at was a skeleton of what seemed to be a human… An obviously dead human. The bones were thrown around in a messy way, indicating that it has been an awfully long time since the last time someone entered this place.
However, the most noticeable thing about the skeleton was the skull itself. On it, a weird, distorted smile was as visible as the sun in the sky. The bones were seemingly twisted and reshaped to form a skull that was grinning widely. Ignoring the notion of that being possible or not, Asher found himself completely horrified at the mere sight of this skull.
There was something unsettling about it. Even with a smile, a skull should not possess any form of emotion nor can it hint at any form of emotion. Yet, Asher could feel it clearly, the madness of the owner of this skull. The pure, deep, unsettling happiness of the owner reached a point where their whole facial bones twisted to accommodate that wide smile. Whoever this person was, they were turned into a monster before their death.
"A smiling skull… What is the meaning of this?" Asher asked with a perturbed tone. His attempts to calm himself were proving to be futile.
"I do not know. No one ever mentioned the existence of such things inside the HAPPY Labs."
'Neither did I hear or read about any of this.' Asher thought.
"Are you sure this place isn't a shady place for human experiments?"
"I… I have no idea." Rain seemed as confused as Asher so he quickly shook his head and didn't ask any further.
"To think that such thing exists…"
"I guess the HAPPY Labs aren't as happy anymore." Turning around, Asher walked toward the door.
"Let's continue before anything weird happens. I don't want to stay in this place any longer." He said as he took a few deep breaths to calm his heart. Asher tried to keep calm but seeing human skulls with wide smiles wasn't easy to manage. He was a normal, introverted kid merely 2 weeks ago.
Rain also stood up and walked after him in a completely different mood. She didn't have the usual cold, unperturbed expression.
The two continued walking in pure silence, looking at the plates of doors one after the other. The task quickly turned from interesting to rhythmic and then from rhythmic to ominous.
What could be behind this door? Is it another smiling skull? Or is it something even more horrifying? They thought. In a sense, it felt like they were opening gifts except they knew that one of them contained a bomb.
For the next 15 minutes, none of the doors they opened after that contained a human skull. Eventually, they ended up in front of a room with a sign that said 'Mana Poisoning Lab storage'.
"I think this is it," Asher murmured as he stared at the plate for an awfully long time.
"Since this is my matter, I will open the door." Rain stepped forward and put her hand on the handle before twisting and opening it slowly.
The inside of the room was quite vast with many shelves that stored weird viles filled with colorful substances. Some of the shelves were thrown to the side. Fortunately, there was no trace of a human corpse.
"Fuuh… Let's get this over with." Asher said as he stepped inside.
Since he had no idea which substance Rain needed, he simply strolled around the place looking while she found what she came here for.
"Did you find it?" He asked as he walked deeper and deeper into the room.
"Not yet."
"Ok. Hm?" As he took a turn around the room, he noticed a weird light coming from the other side. It was something he was familiar with.
"A computer?"
Approaching the machine, he checked the monitor only to see an oddly familiar operating system.
'Is this a Windows rip-off?' He thought. 'Wait! No! How is this computer even working after being left in this building for years? There isn't even electricity to run it.'
But, as he thought about it for a moment, Asher realized that this world was far more advanced than Earth and so computers that don't need electricity to run weren't that impossible.
'The novel already mentioned that humanity achieved safe energy. What's wrong with me?'
Still, Asher's curiosity took the better of him and he used the mouse to check the computer. The files he found on the hard drive were mainly numbers and statistics about mana and mana poisoning that he didn't understand at all.
"Hmm, math is still my eternal enemy even after reincarnating." He murmured.
However, at that moment, Asher came upon a weird file that caught his attention.
"CCTV?" Clicking on it, Asher was presented with hundreds or even thousands of files, each with a different date and time.
Scrolling through the files, Asher clicked on the last recorded file before the cameras were destroyed.
"Almost 15 years ago."
Gulping a mouthful of saliva, Asher clicked on the file and started watching the footage. The cameras showed the corridors of the building, looking as normal as they should be. That was until at one point, something weird appeared in one of the cameras.
A man, wearing white clothes appeared walking slowly with his limbs and head hanging down as if he was a broken doll.
Asher squinted his eyes at the footage to see clearer. The man didn't seem to be aware of his surroundings at all.
"Hehehehehe…" Then, he started giggling quietly and his face lifted up.
"...!!"