SCP Corporation: Contain Bonfire
Chapter 224 - 224 224 A Gift from Another World - 1

Chapter 224: Chapter 224 A “Gift” from Another World – 1 Chapter 224: Chapter 224 A “Gift” from Another World – 1 “What’s going on? The progress bar shouldn’t be stuck at this time, should it?”

Colin continued flipping through the pages, but even after two hours had passed, there was no movement in the progress bar—

Could it be that some key information is missing?

Just as he was feeling somewhat baffled, the cat-eared maid beside him suddenly stepped forward and said, “Director, shortly before you arrived here, I received a message from you. The message asked me to tell you the words on this note once you had re-examined most of the important materials…

“Would you like me to carry out that instruction?”

Huh? Sent a message a little while ago? Wasn’t “I” dead?!

Colin felt a chill run up his spine from his coccyx, feeling as though he had seen a ghost.

But a bright idea struck him a second later, realizing that the received message might be related to the parchment he had taken away, which might have automatically sent a signal or something when getting close to this place…

The last words left behind in the sewer might have included more than just what was on the surface.

“Go ahead.”

Colin waved his hand, indeed curious to see what else the other party might have left behind.

The cat-eared maid nodded, mimicking human speech, and began, “Be careful! From the very beginning, this was a trap for both you and us. To us, this was never a teleportation ritual, but rather…”

After pausing for two seconds without hearing the rest, Colin asked, “But rather what?”

No answer came, as the Nano Intellectual Mechanism suddenly leaped backward. While Colin was on guard and puzzled, he saw it spark like it had short-circuited, its body emitting sparks and thick smoke, then twisting as if it was being twisted into a twizzler, jerking a few times before melting away completely.

This… Colin was dumbfounded.

But not long after, on the other side of the room, a pile of silver liquid seeped out from a crack and arched upward, transforming into a new cat-eared maid Nano Intellectual Mechanism.

“Core malfunction due to unknown short circuit, currently repairing…”

“Short circuit? Getting shot eight times in the back is suicide, right?”

Colin couldn’t believe it was just a short circuit. Sensing something, he asked, “Continue what you were saying just now…”

“This is a document about the history of ‘The Hague Shelter’…”

“No, not that, the very last part.”

“I’m sorry, that message is the last of my existing memories. Attempting to search for lost backups…”

‘…Forget it.’

Colin felt that he would not recover the memory. He suspected that it was some kind of interference left by the “Administrator” who had already departed. Whenever certain key information was about to be revealed, an accident would occur.

This kind of tactic was not unusual…

“So the only viable content of that statement was ‘this is not a teleportation ritual,’ and then it blew up. What was the rest?”

Resting his chin in his hand, Colin had a hunch about some theories inside his mind but was not quite sure.

For instance, looking at the result, “Colin” didn’t go over, but Colin came through, which likely meant this was not just a teleportation ritual, but more likely a summoning ritual.

“But even if it was interrupted, it’s not hard to guess, right? Could there be something else?”

Colin was puzzled, feeling that he was on the verge of grasping the whole truth, capable of completing the mission, but in the end, he was stuck on this last one percent.

After a while, the cat-eared maid completed “self-repair” and informed Colin that indeed an unknown fault had occurred, possibly due to a bug in a pre-existing program triggering a short circuit.

The good news was that the bug had been fixed…

The bad news was that the memory files had been completely lost and could not be retrieved.

“They’ve already fled, so why leave these traps behind?”

Colin was speechless at the actions of this “Administrator” who had defected from Bonfire Company—Was it necessary to go to such extremes?

Without giving it much more thought, knowing that he was unlikely to get the last bit of information, Colin lost interest in examining these reports and got up to leave the secret office.

As he was leaving, Colin said to the “cat-eared maid,” “Unlock all document permissions and transfer them to the personnel of ‘Human Future Research Institute’ and ‘Dawn’s Light Foundation’.”

There was nothing on top of them that they shouldn’t know. It didn’t matter if he gave it all away before leaving…

After all, no one in the institute would oppose it.

“Yes, all permission restrictions removed, transfer in progress. Expected to take three days.”

“Right.”

Colin did not inquire further and left the office, then he arrived at the main hall, where he saw Qin Chuan and others lying on beds, being treated by “Nano Intellectual Mechanism” nurses.

These nurses had cat ears, rabbit ears, fox tails, elves’ long ears, little bat wings on their backs, and others Colin couldn’t immediately identify which species’ anthropomorphism they were…

“This ‘me’ has a thing for non-humans, huh…”

With an internal critique, Colin then looked at Qin Chuan, who was lying there, and said without any more politeness:

“If tomorrow, when it’s time to leave, you could bring some people with you, what would you think?”

Whether or not they could take people back to Earth, Colin didn’t have the final say; the decision lay with the person in front of them. If they disagreed, that was fine, but if they agreed and something went wrong later, the responsibility wouldn’t fall entirely on him.

“I…”

Qin Chuan hissed, equally undecided.

Based on the current intelligence, it was clear to both them and the local forces that the collapse of this world was almost certain. If they didn’t leave, most people here would have no chance to survive. Qin Chuan, who as a child had pledged to protect the common people, found it hard to bear such a thing happening.

But… if the people from here carried some special virus or contamination to Earth, that would be a big problem.

During the conversation between the two men, Xia Liufang and the others refrained from interrupting, mostly sharing the same thoughts.

They felt sympathy for the plight of this world, but they were more concerned that their compassion could bring terrifying disasters to their own kin.

“What about you, what are your thoughts?” Qin Chuan looked up and asked Colin.

The ball was back in his court… Seeing Qin Chuan’s hesitation, Colin shook his head and spoke:

“Since we’re undecided, let’s talk about it tomorrow. After all, I’m still not sure exactly how we’re going to leave this world.”

If they were to leave through something like Bonfire Company’s “Descent Protocol,” Colin wouldn’t mind taking some people with him.

Even taking them to “World Code-13” would be better than here…

“Okay,” Qin Chuan nodded, not pursuing the matter further.

After the conversation ended, the air suddenly fell silent.

Qin Chuan wanted to find a topic to understand Colin’s thoughts but didn’t know how to start the conversation. However, they weren’t surprised by Colin’s “no longer pretending.”

Because, unless there was a method to erase memories without detection, Colin’s identity would definitely be exposed eventually. They weren’t fools; under scrutiny, even the smallest inconsistency would be caught.

Their approach wasn’t one of “innocent until proven guilty,” but rather “better to err on the side of caution.”

Moreover, now wasn’t the time for chatting, since some in the group were looking at Colin with suspicious and somewhat angry eyes.

In their view, Colin possessed mysterious methods, a suspected inside agent for Bonfire Company, and considering everything, this incident could even be his conspiracy.

No, to be more precise, both he and the Eighth Level Personnel were suspected of being inside agents.

Even if he had saved them before, it might have been for some special purpose…

“You don’t need to look at me like that. What’s happening now really has nothing to do with me, and it annoys me too,” Colin said, sensing those gazes and shaking his head helplessly.

Finished speaking, without waiting for a response from those fellows, he walked to the other side and chose a seat at random, sitting there alone.

Time passed quickly, and with the last eight hours remaining, the evacuation began.

In accordance with the agreement with the Father of the Deep Sea, Colin went to the predetermined spot on the beach. Beside him, apart from Qin Chuan and others, there were also many of The Innocents, selected from the two shelters.

These were humans with contamination levels below 0.01, the seeds they planned to send off from this world.

Of course, they had been told beforehand that if the means of departure ended up being special and they couldn’t take them along, they would harbor no hard feelings…

At this moment, 223, who had acquired a new body, came walking up, arrived beside Colin holding a metal briefcase in his hand. Passing it over while facing the bewildered looks from Colin and the others, he said:

“This case is a special hard drive, guaranteed to be uncontaminated. It contains records from over a dozen shelters after the disaster, our technical methods, personnel lists, our actions, our perseverance and struggle, our failures and mistakes, our efforts…”

“Of course, it also includes knowledge from the Dawn’s Light Foundation and the Human Future Research Institute, as well as knowledge organized from the Hague Research Institute. Plus all the names and deeds of everyone we could gather…”

“In addition, it contains most of the world’s records about various monsters, as well as the geography and history before and after the disaster, observations on changes to physical constants, mathematics, and more…”

“We have documented all the knowledge and information our world could record, as a gift for you…”

“Even if you can’t take any person from this land with you, we don’t mind, because it’s an understandable situation, without any need for guilt…”

“After all, you are humans, and so are we. Your presence has shown us that we are not alone and have not been severed…”

“I am saddened that our world is coming to an end, but I am happy to know there are kin far away…”

“Please convey my regards to one person living there…”

“Anyway, this is a gift, one that requires no return gift…”

“I hope this gift can bring some help within your reach to your world.”

Having said his lengthy piece, 223 looked at the somewhat stunned people including Colin, spit out a word, and then jokingly said:

“I don’t know who wrote this script, making the latter half so sentimental. I just don’t like that.

“But there’s something I have to say, we’re not entirely without self-interest.

“If a long, long time from now, you still remember that there was a world that brought you some small help, or even remember that there was a man named 223 at the Dawn Foundation…

“Then I would be very happy, because that would mean we haven’t truly perished.”