SCP Corporation: Contain Bonfire
Chapter 223 - 223 223 Task Progress 99.1

Chapter 223: Chapter 223 Task Progress 99.1% Chapter 223: Chapter 223 Task Progress 99.1% “The ‘Hague Research Institute’ was established after the War of Godslaying, during the post-disaster reconstruction period, initiated by the ‘me’ of this world. Initially, the shelter had a population of around 170,000, making it the strongest force in this region in secret…”

“The core technology is ‘Nano Intellectual Mechanism’, however…”

Colin sat alone in an office so vast it could certainly be deemed gigantic, reviewing the documents on his desk. He had assumed this technology was developed independently; he had not expected it to have been obtained through participating in certain missions within Bonfire Company.

No, to be more precise, most of the technology here stemmed from rewards given by Bonfire Company’s missions.

It seemed that many other shelters derived a lot of their technology from them as well.

“I recall that the other shelters have virtually no knowledge of ‘Bonfire Company’, is it because it was too high-level and wasn’t included in the library at that time?”

Colin set aside the file in his hand and turned to look at the nano-mechanical maid keeping guard. He issued an order for her to go out and inquire about what the others, who were not qualified and temporarily unable to enter, knew about Bonfire Company.

If it were before, his question might not have received a response from the personnel from those two shelters, but now it was different.

Soon, Colin received a message: The awareness of Bonfire among the two major shelters was essentially “0”.

“Was this a deliberate act by that ‘Administrator’? To hide themselves as much as possible?”

Colin pondered as he put down the introduction to ‘The Hague Shelter’ and then spoke, “Regarding ‘The Hague Shelter’, how many people are still alive there now?”

He hadn’t forgotten the plea on the parchment left by “his future self,” begging for help for the people of their shelter.

Now that he had the chance, he didn’t mind lending a hand.

“37 people…”

“37 people?”

Upon hearing this number, Colin was taken aback and tilted his head, “Didn’t we have about two hundred thousand people before ‘I’ left?”

“Yes, but now, only 37 remain.”

The silver, exquisitely designed cat-eared maid said, “Before your arrival, some had already defected, and the defenses were contaminated, including some parts other than me, as the ‘Core Intellectual Mechanism’. This led to the distortion of the information I received, rendering me unable to respond, unsure of the situation inside the facility…”

“In the years since you left, many were turned into consumables by some of the esteemed researchers who used to visit you, to slow down the decay of the ‘Mother of the Deep Sea’, ensuring Her longevity…”

“The head of the armed forces tried to resist and break away, but it was too late; only a small number of people survived by hiding in dormant pods.”

Hisss… This, the entire shelter was destroyed just like that. Were these guests those followers of ‘Red Moon’? It wouldn’t be surprising if that were the case; these creeps are indeed everywhere like cockroaches. And also…

Colin turned to look at the cat-eared maid. With such a significant blunder, it showed not a shred of shame or anything of the sort, but upon reflection, it seemed normal—after all, it was nothing but an intelligent machine, what could it understand about emotions?

Rubbing his forehead, he then checked the information on the few surviving members of The Hague Shelter. They were mostly children in their teens.

In a sense, the legacy of this shelter had already been severed.

“Whether to take these people with us tomorrow is a rather difficult decision to make. Also, it’s likely that other shelters might propose that we take some of their people away.”

The situation was becoming a bit of a headache…

Truth be told, Colin didn’t know if taking people out was a good thing, nor did he know what stance Qin Chuan and the other official personnel had towards such matters.

Without dwelling on this too much, he decided to go out later and ask directly, then temporarily moved on from the issue and began to go through other files.

“Before the tsunami disaster struck, ‘Bonfire’ had already informed me about it, telling us to prepare, including preparation for battle…”

“In 2024, at the beginning of the year, disaster struck. United with multiple forces, we boarded a massive ship and challenged the resurrected Ancient Sea God. Through an extremely brutal battle, we finally succeeded in killing it, and not long after, the sea water receded…”

“But after the fact, I always felt there was something strange about that battle…”

“We never understood why It went mad, nor why It seemed to repeatedly hold back during the fight, not killing us outright—everywhere there were oddities…”

“However, the subsequent collapse of the world left us with no time to ponder these questions; now, the only way to continue our civilization is to find the true method to leave and abandon this false world.”

“Ultimately we determined two directions…”

“One was that under the gradual disintegration of the world, if we could kill all the ‘Ancient Gods’, once completed, then we could use the power of these ‘Ancient Gods’ to directly depart…”

“But can we achieve that before the arrival of the end of the world?”

“The second was through a certain ritual, allowing us to descend into ‘Parallel Worlds’ that may theoretically exist at the right moment, replace another version of ourselves, and then, with the help of ‘Bonfire’, establish a point of arrival in that world and open a gateway…”

“Though this action is somewhat cruel to the ‘me’ of that world, sacrifice is inevitable.”

…

Could my coming here be because of replacing someone due to some similarity?

Colin thought about it and guessed that their method probably failed.

Moreover, based on the content above, it can be almost confirmed that “Bonfire” is the errant Administrator referred to by the ‘Father of the Deep Sea’ within the ‘Seventh Box Garden’.

With the corresponding intelligence at hand, he could clearly discern from these pieces of information that this individual seemed to be pushing these people to take action to leave from behind the scenes.

The ‘Father of the Deep Sea’ went mad, most likely because of the ‘Administrator’s’ first move, followed by a stab in the back from Colin and others.

But, rather than pursuing the details of that mess from the past, what he was more interested in knowing was how the ‘Administrator’ within the Box Garden World found out about his outer world self.

Was it coincidence?

Or was there some kind of tendency?

If this issue wasn’t resolved, wouldn’t it mean that they could just use a similar method in the future to toss him into all sorts of random places at any time?

The most crucial part was that this method was simply too unforeseen.

During the transfer process, Colin didn’t feel anything at all, and by the time he realized it, he had already appeared in the Other World.

“The ‘reminder task’ that followed must have been issued by Lady Bunny, which means she should have a way; in that case, I’ll wait until I can go out and ask her.”

Colin continued to sift through the documents, carrying out his task of collecting intelligence on the ‘The Hague Shelter’.

At this point, the task progress had nearly reached one hundred percent…

But the problem was, after rapidly flipping through several documents, it froze at ninety-nine percent and wouldn’t budge.

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