Workers' Home — Infirmary.
The air carried a faint buckwheat scent, and from outside came a cheerful tune.
A suspicious hooded man—like someone awakening from a sarcophagus—slowly opened his eyes on the sickbed.
"Where am I…? Ngh, my head hurts."
Hao Fan sat up stiffly, staring around in a daze.
He remembered it: after recklessly barging into that underground space, he'd nearly been killed by a Burrowing Quyu Beast.
Luckily, a red-haired Sarkaz girl wielding a flaming greatsword had appeared in time and saved him…
"Doctor, you're awake?"
At that moment, Dr. Miguel approached, snapping Hao Fan out of the mess in his head.
"Relax. Your injuries aren't serious. The Emberglow Buckwheat you had in your pocket was made into Qiao-heal powder, and it worked."
He pushed up his reading glasses, offered reassurance—then abruptly changed tone.
"But after checking you, I found your mental state seemed… off. So I injected you with a dose of Sanity Recovery Fluid. How do you feel now?"
"My head still hurts… but my thoughts are clearer."
Hao Fan fully came back to himself.
Only now did he realize the side effect of his rock-eating ability: it reduced sanity.
Because normally, eating Originium should restore sanity, right? Why was it doing the opposite…
Maybe it had something to do with quality.
He'd eaten low-grade ore, so his sanity dropped.
If he ate pure Originium, maybe his sanity would increase instead.
That was his theory.
At the same time, he reflexively raised a hand to his arm.
He remembered the Quyu Beast had fractured it—the searing pain was still vivid in memory—yet now it seemed healed.
That was thanks to the Emberglow Buckwheat he'd gathered earlier. Without it—and with medical supplies scarce—he'd have been out of commission for months.
"Doctor, are you alright?"
Eric rushed into the infirmary.
He looked busy, but still carved out time to check on him.
"I'm fine. Miguel already treated me… right—what about the supply crates?"
Hao Fan suddenly remembered why he'd left the base in the first place and asked immediately.
"Don't worry. The logistics robot transported all the crates to Workers' Home. The delayed supplies issue is resolved."
Eric poured him a cup of hot water and handed it over.
"Doctor—there are signs the logistics robot was repaired after being damaged… you found it, didn't you?"
"Yeah. In a hidden cave inside the canyon. Something went wrong during transport. As long as the stuff arrived, that's what matters…"
Then Hao Fan's expression tightened.
"Eric—did you see a red-haired girl?"
He hadn't found her anywhere in the infirmary.
So he asked seriously.
"She saved me. Otherwise I'd already be food for those Quyu Beasts… I want to talk to her. At least say thank you."
Hearing that—
Miguel and Eric exchanged a look.
Then came an answer that was, somehow, disappointing.
"Sorry, Doctor. We didn't see any red-haired girl."
"…Then why am I here?"
Hao Fan froze.
He didn't believe he'd hallucinated. That sudden spike in temperature, burned into his memory, was too real.
And the confused "Doctor…" he'd heard—he didn't think it was an auditory illusion either, even if his sanity had been low.
So he had met Surtr's "Traveler" in that underground space…
He just didn't understand why she'd been there.
Maybe the unnatural retreat of the Originium bugs in the canyon had drawn her attention?
If so… maybe that counted as fate.
He was spiraling in his own thoughts when Eric continued:
"Actually, we found you in a cave in the Southern Meadowlands."
He organized his words and explained.
"That cave used to be blocked by rock. But someone cut it open—there was even a loud explosion-like sound, like flames detonating. It alarmed Workers' Home."
"So I and the others rushed there immediately. We found you unconscious at the cave entrance, with Groundsplitter corpses beside you… and some missing supply crates."
"And most importantly: inside the underground space, we found two Burrowing Quyu Beast corpses—all sword wounds and burn marks. They died horribly. Only their sensory whiskers were mostly intact."
At that, Eric's face lit up.
Those whiskers—used for sensing the environment—looked like tree roots and had no nutritional value, but the texture was excellent.
So he brought them back, had people season them with buckwheat powder and citrus-fruit powder, and cooked up a rare-ingredient meat stew with a fruity aroma—
The "First Workday Meat Soup."
The recipe supposedly traced back to the very first day construction began in Valley No. 4.
Ask what people ate that day and you'll get ten different answers, but many old workers insisted it was a fruity meat soup.
And after eating it—
You felt full of strength.
"Here, drink a bowl. It'll help you recover—tastes incredible!"
Eric had someone bring over a steaming bowl and handed it to the Doctor.
Hao Fan didn't recognize the meat, but he didn't refuse.
He really was hungry.
And the stew tasted absurdly good.
He'd never had anything like it before. What meat was this, exactly?
He couldn't help sinking into thought.
But compared to the soup, he cared far more about the mysterious red-haired girl.
If earlier he'd just been uneasy, now he wanted to find his savior.
After all, she'd saved his life—and he didn't even know her name. That wasn't acceptable.
So he decided: he would find her.
"Surtr's Traveler… what is your name now…?"
Holding the now-empty bowl, Hao Fan murmured to himself.
Just then, the Protocol Syncer relayed a message from Andre:
"Kid, you reading me?"
"Signal in the valley is partially restored. It's unstable, but we can communicate through Baker."
"The prototype work is done. Yesterday we only invited the Administrator, but you can come take a look too."
"Down in the underground lab!"
The Syncer clearly also functioned as a comm terminal—ridiculously practical.
Hao Fan thought for a moment, then didn't refuse.
He was interested in that prototype too.
"Miguel—Fat Big Bird—cough, I mean, Mr. Andre is looking for me. I'll head out first."
Before leaving, Hao Fan saw the gray-haired doctor pull out several vials and hand them over.
"Doctor—your sanity-loss symptoms look a bit like the Administrator's… Take these Sanity potions. They'll come in handy."
Miguel said flatly.
Sanity Recovery Fluid was a drug that restored sanity.
Normally you didn't need it, but Miguel kept some on hand for late-night work.
He also shoved in an instruction sheet.
"If you see double while reading this, it's recommended you double the dose… uh, anyway—thanks. Do I need to pay?"
"No. It's a gift."
Miguel refused Hao Fan's gold note.
"If you're not seriously injured, leave already. Don't hog the bed—I need it for other patients."
And with that, he stopped paying Hao Fan any attention and went back to work.
Hao Fan didn't make a fuss. He pocketed the Sanity Recovery Fluid and left.
They weren't exactly close, but they were familiar enough.
No need to overthink it.
…
Underground Laboratory.
The blinking red warning lights had returned to normal. The bodies on the floor were already cleared away.
Hao Fan went down the stairs to the terminal and found he actually had permission to open the lab door.
"Temporary access, I guess… yep, it opened."
When the door slid open—
He saw the rest of the crisis response group had arrived ahead of him, gathered around the prototype while Andre did the final tuning.
"Doctor—good afternoon!"
Perica waved at the hooded man as he entered.
"Yeah, afternoon… wait, what's with that look?"
He noticed Perica, the Administrator, and Chen Qianyu were all looking at him with a weird, hard-to-describe expression.
Hao Fan checked himself—nothing seemed off.
"Uh, Doctor… Chen Qianyu already told us. She saw you… eating Originium raw."
Perica spoke with a complicated expression.
Back in the Rhodes Island/Terra-era database, she'd read some ridiculous rumors: the Doctor pouring boiling water into his mouth like instant noodles, even eating Originium raw.
But she never imagined it was true.
This was way too extreme.
Perica flat-out couldn't understand the Doctor's hobbies.
The Administrator, though, looked curious—like she was genuinely thinking about what Originium tasted like.
Hopefully she wouldn't try it.
"…Ahem. Just treat it as my Originium Arts."
Hao Fan didn't want to explain and forcefully skipped past the topic.
"Anyway, I have a driving record here. It might contain info about a red-haired girl. Perica, can you extract it for me? I want to confirm her identity… ideally find her."
"Understood. Leave it to me."
Perica accepted the record cleanly.
She'd already heard the gist of the Doctor's near-death incident.
She wanted to scold him for being reckless, but he'd been helping Workers' Home—she couldn't say much.
And besides, anything related to the Doctor was absurdly high-classified. Even as Endfield's Supervisor, she couldn't access everything.
So it was better to respect his wishes.
"Oh—successful boot!"
Andre finally finished the last step of tuning.
Staring at the now-responsive prototype, he beamed.
"Can you hear me? Hey, hello? TA-TA?"
"(● v ●)?"
"(> ω <)!"
On its display, the prototype showed a happy face—an emoticon shifting expressions.
Hao Fan immediately thought of the letter he'd found in the Originium byproduct center: it mentioned Yvonne insisting on customizing an assistive intelligence + expression interaction interface for the prototype.
So this was that.
"Looks like that genius Yvonne poured a lot of feelings into this prototype… is this an AI agent?"
Hao Fan tilted his head, puzzled.
The expression system didn't feel like a simple program—it felt like genuine emotion.
But this was just a device, wasn't it?
He couldn't make sense of it.
"Ah, great! Looks like the repair went well!"
Andre looked delighted, and even introduced everyone present.
"This is the brat—cough, I mean, this is the Doctor. This is Chen Qianyu. This is Supervisor Perica. And this—this is the Administrator."
At those introductions—
The prototype's emoticon "gaze" clearly locked onto the black-haired girl with the eyepatch, as if verifying something.
"…It remembers you?" Perica was surprised.
Andre laughed.
"This little thing's smart module was Yvonne's 'for fun' side project. Limited functions—just a toy, really."
"(? _ ?)."
The prototype displayed confusion, like it didn't understand, looking adorably blank.
The Administrator, meanwhile, was quietly wondering: Who is Yvonne?
And then—
As if some condition had been triggered, an angry middle-aged man's voice suddenly blasted from the prototype:
"AN—DRE—!"
"Eek! C-communication?!"
Andre jumped, then quickly realized something was wrong.
"No—it's a preset voice line. What the hell?"
But the recording continued:
"This voice message triggers only if you hard-boot in maintenance mode!"
"What did you do to my precious little car this time?"
"I don't know what you did, but you'd better come over here and beg for mercy!"
"And bring the car!"
"If there's a next time, don't blame me for not respecting my elders!"
The message ended.
It sounded like some uncle complaining—but Hao Fan, as a modern person, felt something was off…
Like the speaker was using a voice changer.
That was his instinct.
Andre looked utterly dead inside—just like last time when Qin Jiangchi wanted to see him.
"So unreasonable… Administrator, Supervisor Perica—you have to testify for me. I really tried my best!"
Andre sounded wronged, like he'd been framed.
After all, he'd poured basically everything into the prototype.
When the anchor fell, he'd even rushed to the lab without caring about his own safety.
He could honestly say he'd done his duty.
"I don't know who Yvonne is, but I'll do my best."
"Administrator—thank you!"
With that promise, Andre visibly relaxed, like he believed Yvonne would listen to the Administrator.
Which only made Hao Fan more suspicious: Yvonne probably wasn't a middle-aged man—maybe even a woman using a voice changer.
He couldn't confirm it. Just a hunch.
"But I did have a reason to restart it."
Andre started explaining why he'd booted the prototype.
"Even in maintenance mode, the prototype continuously monitors environmental data… thanks to the parts you brought back, that data has been successfully parsed."
"So that's why you called us here?" Chen Qianyu asked, curious.
"Stop teasing—tell us what you found."
"Alright. Before the anchor attack happened, there were several abnormal energy fluctuations in the direction of the valley fortress. The intervals between them were almost identical to the intervals between anchor arrivals."
Andre's face hardened.
"It's hard not to connect the two. I don't understand the mechanism yet, but this is a valuable breakthrough."
Hearing that—
Perica immediately grasped the seriousness.
"We need to contact them as soon as possible… Let's go to the Central Control Tower. Maybe we can do something with the comms node."
She already knew who to look for.
"And while we're at it, we'll ask Engineer Qin about the base situation."
....
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