"How is that possible!"
Betty looked at the data with an expression of disbelief. After a moment of being stunned, she immediately performed a series of operations, re-testing the data, but the final result showed the exact same numbers as before.
"Eight hundred and seventy-three years?"
Laura looked at the stunned Betty. She didn't think, this girl is so pitiful. Instead, she complained to Ada about the equipment in front of them.
"It can keep a person in hibernation for over eight hundred and seventy years without issue. This hibernation pod is really high quality."
Ada also nodded, indicating that the equipment's lifespan was indeed astonishing, then looked up at Ethan.
Ethan happened to look back at her, and their eyes conveyed the same meaning: We must take this thing back and study it thoroughly!
"Ahem!"
He lightly coughed, reminding the girl named Betty.
"It seems your hibernation time exceeded expectations..."
Betty froze for a moment, finally recovering somewhat. She performed some operations again, and a string of data appeared on the holographic image, but this time it didn't display information quickly like before. Instead, it showed errors, data loss, system damage, and other messages.
"Looks like I praised it too early."
In a confined space like a cave, Laura didn't deliberately lower her voice, so Betty could hear what she was saying.
"Eight hundred and seventy-three years, it's normal for various problems to occur." Betty busied herself for a while, finally realizing that the only data she could get was the fact that she had slept for over eight hundred years. "Although this type of hibernation pod was advertised as being able to operate normally for over a thousand years, everyone just treated it as a slogan. No one thought this thing could really let someone sleep safely for a thousand years without problems."
Betty finally gave up on continuing the operations and put on all the equipment she could take out, including a vest-like outer garment with armor plates attached.
A belt, gloves, wrist guards, and other items, and finally, one long and one short firearm.
Although their appearance was a style Ethan had never seen before, both Ada and Ethan recognized them as firearms at first glance. Based on some of Betty's inspection movements, both were energy weapons.
"According to the self-check status just now, most of the systems in this hibernation pod are broken, and only the life support system is barely running. Even the automatic wake-up device is broken... If you hadn't arrived, maybe I would have died in my sleep in a few more years..."
After checking her equipment, Betty thanked Ethan again.
"Thank you very much for saving me."
"You're welcome. Actually, we didn't do much."
Ethan and the others were only here to check the island, to see if there was anything special. They didn't expect to find a living person, and one who was over eight hundred... nearly nine hundred years old.
"Regardless, it's a fact that you saved me."
Betty sighed helplessly, perhaps pondering what the outside world had become, or what had gone wrong. Why had Ethan and the others, these outsiders, appeared in a place where outsiders should never enter?
"I want to confirm, you are not students from the Imperial Military Academy, right?"
"No." Ethan shook his head. He didn't see the point in fabricating a student identity. "And we don't know what that academy you mentioned is."
"Don't know the academy?"
Betty's brows furrowed even more. She realized the situation seemed worse than she had imagined.
"How is that possible? The Imperial Military Academy is the most famous academy in the Empire, the academy that countless young people in the Empire most hope to enter..."
Betty suddenly thought of something, then carefully looked at everyone's clothing again. She seemed to have suddenly thought of a possibility, but she quickly dismissed her idea.
"Impossible, how could it be natives."
Betty only mumbled softly to herself, almost without making a sound, but it didn't escape Ethan's ears. His brows lifted slightly. The information behind that sentence was not very pleasant.
Just then, Laura started to feel bored. After all, there was nothing here. "Can we talk about things outside? Do you like this dark and damp place?"
Betty turned her head and looked at Laura again. This time she noticed the little creature, Auriel, perched on Laura's shoulder. At first, she didn't pay much attention, but then, as if remembering something, she examined it carefully, and then looked around at everyone with an expression of disbelief.
"Although I'm not sure what exactly you've thought of, I hope you'll explain everything later."
Ethan already had some guesses, and he felt his speculation was very likely the truth.
"But for now, as Laura said, let's leave here first."
Perhaps it was because of the cold air being expelled from the hibernation pod, or perhaps it was a normal temperature change, but the temperature in this cave was getting lower and lower.
"Alright!"
Betty thought for a moment. Regardless, leaving here first was the most important thing right now. There were also some things she wanted to confirm, which she also needed to ask Ethan about.
Although she felt that asking these people about those matters might not be the right choice, she had no other options now.
"Wait, I'll put this away first..." Ethan specifically asked Betty again. "Do you still want this hibernation pod?"
"No, but this hibernation pod cannot be folded back up after it's expanded... and without lifting equipment, it's impossible to..."
Before Betty could finish speaking, she felt a blur in front of her eyes, as if a blue light flashed, and then the hibernation pod she had just been lying in disappeared.
"What just happened?"
Betty walked back and forth three times in the place where the hibernation pod had been, and also squatted down and touched the ground, which was clearly different from the surrounding area.
Aside from a clear mark, the large, heavy hibernation pod was gone as if it had never existed.
"What did you do?"
Betty guessed that Ethan had done something, because just before the hibernation pod disappeared, this man had asked her if she didn't want it. She had just replied that she didn't, and the hibernation pod was gone.
"Just put it away. What? Do you need to get anything else?"
"No, I'm just curious where you put such a large hibernation pod?" Betty circled Ethan three times again, finding that there didn't seem to be any special equipment on him. "Is it some kind of special spatial technology?"
"Something like that."
Without clarifying Betty's situation and confirming his own speculation, Ethan didn't want to reveal too much. After signaling to Ada and Laura, Ethan reminded Betty to follow along.
Betty was standing there in a daze. It wasn't until the ball of light above her head moved with Ethan and the environment around her began to darken that she reacted, hurrying to catch up.
At this point, she noticed the sphere of light floating above again. She had initially thought it was just a normal lighting device, but after watching it for a while, she realized it seemed to be a pure energy aggregate.
The device on her wrist also gave the same conclusion, but she couldn't understand how this mass of energy was controlled by Ethan and the others.
She found that these people, who were suspected natives, were completely different from the kind she was familiar with in the past.
"However, is this detector broken? Why does it keep showing high energy readings?"
Betty scratched her head, finally turning off the alarm notice.
She sighed helplessly. After sleeping for over eight hundred years, it wasn't strange for various devices to have problems. It was already fortunate that they could still be used.
For example, the short gun on her waist had actually lost its function, and the long gun on her back only had very little energy, and she didn't know how many shots it could still fire. Even if it could still shoot, there was always the risk of explosion.
She carried these weapons only as a deterrent. If she really encountered danger, she couldn't rely on these two weapons to protect herself.
The only thing still usable was actually just a short knife. Even more tragically, all the high-tech functions on the short knife were broken, and it could only be used as a completely ordinary short knife.
If it were against the natives she remembered from the past, a short knife could barely be considered a self-defense weapon.
But facing Ethan and the others, she felt no sense of security at all.
"Hope my luck isn't too bad. This person named Ethan seems to be a good person."
Wading through the cold river water, Betty didn't feel uncomfortable. Her clothes could effectively block out the cold water and its chill, ensuring she wouldn't be affected at all. This was the only piece of equipment on her that was still functioning normally.
So when she walked out of the cave, she didn't feel any discomfort.
She looked up at Ethan and the others. The girl named Laura was taking off her shoes and socks, wringing out the water from her cotton socks, tying them casually on her arm, and then putting her shoes back on barefoot.
The woman in red was wearing a combat suit, which should also be waterproof, so she didn't do anything similar.
As for the person named Ethan, he didn't seem to care that his pants and shoes were soaked, standing there as if thinking about something.
"Are we still going up the mountain?"
Laura tied her socks and casually took a magic stone from her pocket, offering it to Auriel's mouth, but Auriel refused with a look of disdain.
"No, we're going back to the beach."
Ethan glanced at Betty, who was standing there looking at them. He felt that the information Betty held was much more important than figuring out the secrets of this island. It was very likely that Betty knew what was going on with this island, and perhaps after asking her, all the problems would be solved.
In this situation, there was no need to keep wandering around the island.
(To be continued.)