System Programmer Chapter 33: Lost in Translation

With Luna's help, he flipped through page after page and soon finished the book he was holding. He recognized some patterns in the runes but most of them were unknown. The problem was that while the designs were accompanied by an explanation, it was of course written in Easan, which he didn't understand.

In other words, to understand what the unknown runes were used for, he had two options, he could either spend some time to try and translate the text, or he could just simulate the rune and see what happen. It goes without saying he chose the latter, it sounded way more fun.

He ran back to Catherine and entered his soul world. A few moments later, he was in his lab and proceeded to craft the first rune in the book. It appeared behind the Plexiglass and without further ado, Joshua activated it, his eyes shining with anticipation.

The entire lab exploded. Before he could react, his body was pierced by shards of Plexiglass succeed by being heavily burned by the blast. The force of the explosion projected what remained of his body several dozens of meters away. He landed on a 17-inch monitor, his head going right through it. His right arm was gone and the rest of his body looked like it was about to fall apart. With great difficulty, he used his left arm to push out his head out of the screen. His face was cut all over and full of glass shards. He spat one out and merely said one word: 'Whoops.'

Luckily, he was a mere spirit and he quickly reformed his soul projected body. Looking at the ruins of his lab, he scratched his head.

'Well, that didn't go as planned…'

What exactly did go wrong? He had runes not working as intended before when he experienced with the basic models, but he never caused a major explosion. While he didn't know what the effect the rune would have, he was sure exploding on activation wasn't it. He considered to mass produce this rune to use it as a bomb, but that didn't seem like a good idea. There were too many unknown factors here. For example, maybe he had put too much energy in the rune, or had put the energy in it with the wrong way. Maybe the rune couldn't be used on its own and had to be combined with another. Or maybe the text he didn't understand just said: 'This is a perfect example of the kind of rune you must never produce, as the design is so stupid, it will blow up in your face.' In any case, he had to set randomly trying out unknown runes aside from now on.

'Well… At least until I manage to build a lab solid enough to resist an explosion,' he thought, grinning.

He spent a moment cleaning up his lab and rebuilding what had been destroyed. The group was going to wake up soon, so he headed for the kitchen and prepared breakfast for everyone. The refrigerator was actually well furnished, he presumed Delila had been living quite the luxury life here. Grabbing a couple of eggs he started making omelets. Joshua was actually a fairly decent cook, following a recipe was like following a software installation procedure in his mind. This random thought he had would soon prove itself to be of vital importance.

As the party members woke up and made their way to the kitchen, they couldn't help but stare at Joshua who was dressed as a famous chef. He welcomed them with a smile, the table was well furnished by now and tasting what he had prepared, everyone was pleasantly surprised. Catherine was glad to see he was back on his feet and acting 'normally'. Of course, he didn't mention anything about the visit he had during the night so he just told her he woke up early to prepare food.

When they were done eating, Catherine decided to hold a status meeting.

"Everyone, with the discovery of this building, I think we have reached a milestone in our journey," she started, " I propose we remain here until we have inspected every nook and cranny of the area."

Everyone nodded, this place was an obvious boon for them, therefore, it was no surprise they all agreed to halt their journey for a moment.

"His Majesty is looking for ancient weaponry. The rune factory we found alone could qualify as a success for the mission," Eric added.

"Technically, he had no idea what he wanted when he sent us down here," Joshua added in a sarcastic tone, "He basically told us 'Go down there and find ancient stuff that can be useful for the war.' which is about as vague as it can get. We could just grab the weapons in the factory and go back up and he should be happy we actually found something."

Joshua didn't personally care for the mission, Catherine and he had a much bigger problem to deal with, the Crow. It just happened that their goal aligned with that of the king or he would have looked for a loophole to abort this ridiculous escapade.

"In any case, we should explore the entire area," Catherine said, "Cynthia, Lydia, and Boris, I'll charge you with inspecting the floors above. It's mostly in ruins but maybe there will be something useful."

The three nodded.

"Eric, Joshua and I will form the research team. We'll examine all the records and machines down here and learn as much as we can."

"About that, unsurprisingly the documents here are written in Easan. Translating them will take some time," Joshua explained.

"This isn't unexpected, can Luna help us with the translation?" Catherine replied.

"We'll need as much sample data of the language as possible. But even then, it will probably take some time. Auto-translation is incorporated in the system, but Luna can't translate a language that she's never seen before."

"I see," she nodded and turned to the exploration team," if you guys find any documents or books while searching above, bring them to us. Even the apparently most useless details, anything should help."

"Very well, we'll be on our way!" Cynthia replied, pumping her fist in the air before leaving along with her sister and Boris.

As for the research team, Eric was interested in the species in the vats so he would start by making an inventory of what was present. Catherine and Joshua decided to read as many books as possible to boost Luna's database. Catherine left ahead for the library while Joshua put the plates they had used for breakfast away.

He opened a random drawer and was surprised to find a book inside. He opened it, and it looked like a cookbook. As expected, it was written in Easan. He flipped through the pages and saw that several recipes were actually illustrated which gave him an idea.

He picked a recipe for what appeared to be some sort of salad. There were drawings of the various ingredients and the required amount. Based on the drawings, he figured out several vegetable names. Next, he moved on to the instructions and had Luna record the text. The first line stood right next to the image of a man cutting carrots in pieces with a knife. He then added 'Cut carrots with a knife' as suggested translation for the first line in the system. He repeated the process for every picture he saw. Unfortunately, there wasn't a picture for every line, so he ended up with a half-translated recipe. Not giving up, he made a guess at the missing instructions and tried to prepare the salad. This took him about 20 min. The end result didn't look very good which made him believe he had made a mistake somewhere. He bravely grabbed a spoon and put a piece in his mouth. It was disgusting. With great difficulty, he swallowed it. Still, since he ate it, Luna could analyze the food and make suggestions on what had gone wrong. He then revised his recipe and tried again.

It was about this time that Catherine contacted him.

"Where are you? I thought you would jump at the opportunity to examine all those runes."

"I think I found a way to improve our Easan that's more efficient than randomly reading books, come back to the kitchen, I'll show you."

She smiled.

"Well, if you think it's more interesting than runes, it must be quite something. I'll be right back."

A few minutes later, she was back and saw him busy cooking. She looked confused so he proceeded to explain his plan to use the cooking book to learn some words in Easan.

"That's a good idea, I'll give you a hand."

Their progress together was much faster, as some recipes were still known in modern-day Cestor and Catherine was able to fill in the blanks.

By the end of the day, they had managed to successfully prepare most dishes in the book.

While they were still a far way off of understanding a complex book about runecrafting, they had gained quite a bit of basic vocabulary.

The exploration team returned around six in the evening. Boris had made a few trips back and forth to bring the guardians they had fought at the entrance back to the lab. Eric had taken out a sketchbook and made drawings and took notes on the various creatures in the vats, unknown or not. As for the twins, they had spent the day gathering all kinds of ruined documents. Joshua glanced through them briefly to look for something easy to understand like the cookbook and rejoiced upon seeing a pile Lydia had found.

"Comic books!"

Chapter end