Erik crouched behind a fallen pillar, scanning the overgrown plaza for movent. Thick vines and clusters of ferns provided patchy cover between his position and the hotel's side entrance.
[I don't see movents at the windows,] the system said.
[No, they can be hidden. You stay alert. So thaids can mask their presence.]
Erik moved in haste between patches of vegetation, freezing whenever the wind stirred the leaves above.
He pressed himself against a crumbling wall as sothing rustled in the upper floors of a nearby building. Only after several tense monts did the biological computer confirm it was just debris settling.
[Erik, use Instability to check if anyone is nearby,] the system said. [It would give us a better idea about the situation inside.]
Erik channeled mana through his neural links and extended his consciousness outward, probing the area with his mana.
The power reached for any mind within range, but there were simply too many for him to be able to make sothing out of it. It was a jumbled ss of thoughts, urges, and primal desires.
Hunger, lust, and fear—primal emotions and instincts that clouded his mind and made him want to puke.
Yet Erik kept searching, sweeping the area ter by ter.
However, there was no whisper of coherent thought, no trace of self-aware consciousness.
[Not necessarily,] the system said. [They could be out hunting. Your friends need to eat, after all. The range of Instability is limited. They might be just beyond its reach. Or they might have already moved on. But that's not the point.]
Erik frowned.
[You idiot!] the system said. [We're not just looking for people—we're looking for signs they were here. If we find evidence your companions passed through this area, it ans they survived. It ans they're out there sowhere.]
Erik's eyes widened. Not because of what the system said—that was obvious enough. He had been too disappointed to see it without the biological supercomputer pointing it out. No, what moved him was the system's thoughtfulness.
True, the others might simply be outside of Instability's range, and Erik could have just waited outside for signs of activity rather than entering a dangerous building. But the system wanted Erik to check inside anyway—just to put his mind at ease, just to cross out the chance they had at least been there.
Erik's hand tightened on the crumbling wall. The system was right. Any proof his friends had been here would an they made it off Mannard alive. It would have relieved him to no end to know they were safe.
[Even old traces would help,] the system said. [Abandoned camps, supply caches, defensive positions—anything that shows they ca this way.]
At that point, Erik just wanted to stop feeling disappointed.
[Then we keep searching. But right now, this hotel is our best lead.]
Erik nodded, pushing away from the wall. The system's logic was sound. Even if his friends weren't here now, any evidence of their passage would give him hope—and perhaps a direction to search next.
[Yes. A good tremor might be enough to make it collapse, and with the thaids in the vicinity, that is not an impossible situation.]
Aside from that, there was so water damage on the walls, which had left dark stains on them, and that spread mold and fungi.
These infestations weren't just unsightly; they could literally eat away at the building's integrity, breaking down materials at a microscopic level, which would further reduce their solidity.
The spores had likely penetrated deep into the walls, weakening the structural supports over centuries of unchecked growth.
The system showed Erik where the mold damage was worst, telling him to stay away from those areas since they were the least safe. Even a small explosion could have made entire sections of the weakened walls collapse.
[Based on the layout, there should be multiple escape routes,] the system said, sending Erik a ntal image of where the exits should have been. [You better keep this in mind, since sothing might be here, or at least on the upper floors.]
Erik nodded. In truth, there were multiple things in this building, as he perceived thanks to the Instability brain crystal power, but based on what Erik felt, they were not that strong. The only challenge would be killing them without blowing up the building.
Of course, he would do nothing reckless, since there might still be thaids who could pose danger even without their brain crystal powers.
He then moved around a collapsed section of ceiling, noting how the rubble had been used to make chokepoints.
Whether it was his companions or the blackguards was unclear.
Yet the blackguards were the most likely ones to have made sothing like that. After all, they had been on Mur for years, and they checked every single place on this damned continent in search of the biological supercomputer.
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