System Programmer Chapter 31: Rune Technology Everywhere!

Resisting the urge to just start experimenting right away, he was about to contact Catherine but she reached out to him first.

"Joshua, I know you're excited but it's already nighttime. We should establish a camp," she told him.

Hearing this, he checked the clock. Indeed, it was close to midnight. He might be a spirit, but the rest of the group had to eat and sleep.

"I'm pretty sure this place has sleeping quarters. That woman was living here after all," he answered.

"Good point, let's look for them."

"Let's regroup at the staircase, I can't wait to show you what I found!"

A moment later, Joshua joined up with the rest of the party, still carrying the book and the sword. A quick glance at them showed they had been patched up by Catherine.

"My friends, I, Joshua Lockman, have made an amazing discovery!" he shouted in an overly dramatic tone while activating the flaming sword.

Everyone's eyes widened upon seeing the weapon. Considering Joshua was already able to make weapons like this himself, there had to be more to it.

"Is there a whole arsenal?" Catherine asked.

"Better, it's a whole factory! Look at this book! It's full of advanced rune designs! And there is equipment there to inscribe them both on items like this sword but also on the human body!"

"That's almost… too good to be true," she replied.

"Well, it's not like we can use it just like that. Studying the whole thing will take some time. But for now, let's look for some lodgings for you guys."

Catherine nodded smiling.

With two areas of the four having been searched, they split into two groups to investigate the remaining two. Joshua was followed by the twins while Catherine took the other path with Eric and Boris. That way, they could contact each other if needed.

Unlike the previous hallways, the one Catherine explored ended up leading to a path having about twenty doors, evenly divided between the walls. As she opened the first door on her right, a delicious fragrance tickled her nose. Unmistakably, it was a strong woman's scent, this was most likely the room Delila had adopted as her own. The room was fairly sober by design, there was a single person's bed, a closet, and a small table and chair. The table was empty and a quick look at the closet merely revealed some spare clothes for the Siren.

Meanwhile, Eric had opened the room in the opposite direction, it was a similar room, although unoccupied. Similarly, Boris had started to examine the doors further down the hall. They were all leading to unoccupied bedrooms.

Thinking of Joshua, that smell really bothered Catherine. It was best to get rid of it. There were enough rooms for everyone anyway, so they didn't need this one.

"Eric, can you put this room on fire? Be sure to get rid of the smell," she asked.

Eric was confused for a second and stepped into the room. The wonderful fragrance almost made him feel dizzy, so he took a step back. Since he was very familiar with mental attacks and he knew the previous tenant of the place was using them, he quickly understood the situation and burned both the bed and the clothes inside the closet. A few moments later, the wonderful perfume had been replaced with a thick burning smell. Satisfied, Catherine closed the door.

Most of the other doors were similar small rooms, only the last few were different. Boris seemed confused at their content so Catherine took a look. She understood his reaction, most rooms were adorned with unknown devices. Still, Joshua had showcased her a lot of machines of his homeworld so she could take a guess at their use. Furthermore, while she wasn't as well versed in runes as Joshua, she could consult Luna's database to recognize the symbols engraved on the machines.

One of the rooms was a kitchen. In one corner, there was a large box engraved with a frost rune. She opened it and as she expected, it was used to store food. Next to the box was another door also engraved with a frost rune. She carefully opened it as well and found a small cold room used to store meat. Various frost runes were engraved on the walls to keep the content of the place frozen until needed. She started to shiver from the cold and quickly closed the place. The kitchen was also with some faucets linked to a water rune as well what appeared to be an oven, powered by a fire rune. Compared to what she was used to, this place was pure luxury.

The other rooms had a similar extravagant design. There was a bathroom equipped with a tub and a shower, a living room equipped with high-quality furniture and even a recreational room, where various games were on display, most of them unknown to her.

Meanwhile, the last hallway had led Joshua and the twins to two doors. Compared to the rune factory, they were not as marvelous discoveries but were still of interest for Joshua. The first room led to some sort of reactor. This wasn't surprising, the various devices he had seen were connected to a circuit going through the wall, there had to be a power source somewhere. A brief examination seemed to indicate this power source used energy storage stones as its main resource. Considering he had done something similar in his soul world with the one Catherine's father had given him, he wasn't surprised. The reactor seemed to have a slot for each type of stone. He checked the stone inside the reactor, they appeared to be low-grade ones which wouldn't serve much to improve his training. The fact that such weak stones could power the whole facility was interesting, however. It suggested the amount of energy that was used by the reactor was well optimized.

The reactor room had another door at its opposite end and Joshua wasn't surprised to see it lead to an energy stone warehouse. Like in the reactor, the stones were of low-grade so he didn't pay attention to them. The twins, however, couldn't believe their eyes. The amount of stone present was worth a fortune.

The last room led to the camera surveillance post. Instead of walls, this room had monitors everywhere. A few screens showed various places in the building, which fell within Joshua expectations, but the majority of them were actually showing areas from the forest. He hadn't expected this but in retrospect it made sense. This was the only way Delila could have located them as soon as they entered the area. He hadn't spotted any cameras on his way to the building though, so whatever was broadcasting the feeds had to be shaped differently. Actually, some feeds were actively moving around which made him guess some of those were actually direct feeds from the eyes of an animal. This was very interesting and he suspected it worked by implementing a rune on the beast's body and connect it to the display here somehow. In other words, there was some kind of wireless connection between the two runes… With a bit of luck, he would find how to establish such a connection in all the tomes he found.

Catherine contacted him as he was still examining the surveillance post telling him they had found the living quarters. He spotted her on one of the monitors and replied he would be there soon. A moment later, the group had reunited. Since it was pretty late, everyone picked a room and went to sleep. To avoid blocking Luna's scan, they decided to leave their doors open, so the system could warn them in case of danger.

Joshua had vanished from sight and after climbing into her bed, Catherine went to visit him in his soul world. To her surprise, Joshua was about to go sleep himself and had created a bedroom. He was sitting on the bed, his outfit had been replaced with pajamas full of cute bears motives, which made her giggle.

He smiled as she entered the place and asked:

"Ah, Catherine, do you need something?"

"Sorry, I wasn't expecting you go to sleep right away."

"Yeah, a lot had happened today. I feel it would be better if I rested tonight. Tomorrow is another day!"

Catherine nodded, approached him and kissed his cheek.

"Remember, my door is always open if you need it," she told him.

Joshua sighed and looked at her with an air of melancholy. He gently grabbed her hand and held it very tight for a moment. He looked at her, apparently hesitating to say something, before kissing her hand and letting her go.

"Thank you, I won't forget how you helped me today," he finally said.

He didn't want to say anything more so she left him alone. After she left, Joshua climbed in his bed but had trouble falling asleep. While he was tired, the events of the day kept replaying in his head, making him very nervous. Finally, he took a deep breath and did his best to lie still. A few minutes later, he finally dozed off.

As he was lying motionless, a small figure entered his room and went straight for his bed. The figure gently poked his arm until he woke up and opened his eyes. When he saw what had woken him, he jumped up in horror.

Black blood still streaming down her neck, the little girl smiled and simply said:

"Hi, Daddy!"

Chapter end