As soon as that idea popped into Nero's mind, he had an ominous premonition. He did not know what the Eldrim's purpose was in making these berserkers, but it hardly mattered anymore.
What mattered was that, at a glance, it seemed like these research specimens had been alive, or in some kind of stasis state for almost 1200 years, at the very least. Being alive, or keeping someone alive for that long was already enough to drive everyone else insane. Every country would want to get their hands on that technology or technique.
But more than that, being able to mass produce such powerful monsters such as berserkers in a lab ultimately gave anyone the ability to create an army of monsters.
Nero could imagine a future where instead of being sent to the front lines of various cursed zones, criminals in Kolar were instead sent to labs to be turned into berserkers. Whether that was wise or not was another matter altogether. What mattered was that compared to ordinary Neophytes, berserkers were much stronger.
If they could be elevated to the Initiate realm, or perhaps even the Arcanist realm, then their destructive capabilities could only be imagined.
The worst part was that while Nero knew some people might not be open to the idea of testing and experimenting on humans, countries like Dolziya and Creta would not hesitate whatsoever.
"Whatever you do, do not approach the glass," Nero said in a very calm and tempered voice. "We don't know if any disturbances will wake them up, and we don't know how many of them there are in this room."
"They won't wake up so easily," said the blonde girl, her gaze fixed on the skinny specimen in the glass box. "I checked the previous boxes. They're tempered glass, and very strong ones at that. Even if they do wake up, breaking out of the glass won't be so simple."
Nero took a step back, and continued to explore the room. He got the feeling that there was more to this berserker research than there appeared, but unless he got access to their research logs it was impossible for him to know more.
He continued to come across glass boxes, and some of them had the skinny specimen, while others were empty. He must have crossed dozens of such boxes before the layout of the room suddenly changed. The railing that had been blocking access to the glass boxes suddenly turned at the ninety degree angle, and the room became wider.
Since there was poor visibility, Nero was not sure if he should continue to follow the railing, or head towards the centre of the room, though there would be nothing guiding him forward if he left the railing behind.
After a slight hesitation, he decided to head towards the middle of the room. Tall stands and various machines came into view, reminding him of the many machines he saw in the tower when he entered the city. He touched them, wondering exactly how everyone else was able to use them.
He felt a soft pull on his aether, and allowed it to flow, but as soon as it entered the machine he lost that sense of pull, and nothing happened.
"Remi, come here," he called out softly. Although he could not see her in the fog, his team was all closeby, so he knew she had to be somewhere close.
"Can you see what these machines do?" he asked her when she stepped forward.
With a simple nod, she got to work, her nervousness somehow noticeably reduced in the thick fog.
"I can't tell," she said after a moment. "It's trying to connect to something, but is unable to. Without the connection, this one is as good as scrap."
But without needing any prompting, she moved from one machine to another, testing them all out one by one.
The other teams were also exploring somewhere in the fog, and for a brief moment Nero felt like he heard something odd in the distance. It sounded like footsteps speeding up, but due to the strange distortion of the fog, he wasn't sure if he actually heard that or just imagined it.
Nero tightened his grip on his spear. In the situation where he wasn't sure about something, he'd rather err on the side of caution.
"I found something. It's a…" before Remi could finish her sentence, with a loud click, various lights in the room turned on, and there was a soft tremor in the ground.
The lights actually reduced the visibility, as they only emphasised the fog more, but Nero did not need to see to identify that the vibration was coming from up ahead.
"It's the door to a vault. It's up ahead," Remi whispered, though that was hardly needed. Everyone in the room must have felt the vibrations.
As if in agreement, they all moved towards the vault, going around the various machines that seemed to serve no purpose, though as they went through the fog Nero noticed some of the bigger machines had been smashed.
Ignoring them for now, Nero reached the other end of the room simultaneously with the other teams, revealing what lay ahead. A large opening revealed a very small room with only three shelves. One of the shelves was empty, while another one had a small statue of a strange figurine of humanoid being in a long robe.
Nero would have just called it human, save for the fact that the proportions of the body were wrong, and that the skin was grey, and that the head was oddly shaped. Was that… an Eldrim?
He didn't ponder the question for long, and looked at the third shelf, which contained a blank slate. It looked just like an Eldrim card, only larger and blank.
As it happened, both those items matched the description of the artefacts that they were looking for. Silence filled the room as everyone stood still, first looking at the objects, then at each other.
They had an agreement to face whatever they found downstairs before competing for the artefacts, but now there didn't seem to be any threats at all. There was no cursed energy either, which did not mean curses could not spontaneously appear, but at least there weren't any preexisting ones.
They weren't completely safe, but at the same time, there was nothing stopping them from taking the artefacts.
"How do you want to do this gentlemen?" Nero asked with a smile. "We can do this fair and square, or we can have a free for all."
Arter frowned. It was not like he expected the others to just… let him take the artefacts, but ability was not an easy one to use if he was trying to avoid killing someone. At the very least, he'd end up seriously maiming them even with his lightest attack.
"How do you want to compete?" he asked. "Keep in mind, if we fight, not just anyone can survive my blade. The lightest cut can sever an arm."
"I remember," Nero said, recalling the headless berserkers. "But if you think only you're strong and everyone else is a pushover, then you're sadly mistaken. A fair fight would be between captains. Winner takes all. A free for all would be, well, a free for all. Once again, the winner takes all."
Silence followed Nero's suggestion. No one brought up any naive suggestion such as splitting the artefacts between two teams. Everyone here wanted the entire prize.
Nero looked towards Leonard who had sword and shield ready. A fight between captains suited him best.
"How do I know one of your teammates won't nab the artefacts while we're fighting?" Arter said, scrutinising the two. He had not forgotten how they had been cooperating before. Asking for a fight between just the leaders might be a way to outnumber him. But if that was the case, even a free for all would leave him outnumbered as well.
"It's a matter of trust. If there's no trust, well, I might as well ask you where your last teammate is - the blonde."
The question confused Arter. Obviously all his teammates were all around him - they just couldn't be seen due to the fog.
But when he looked around, waiting for her to step forward, he noticed that the others came close to him, but the girl was missing.
"What did you do?" he asked, turning back towards Nero. Even if one couldn't see the expression on his face, just the sound of his voice was enough to tell how angry he was.
"What do you mean what did I do? I did nothing. You're the one with the missing teammate."
Arter clearly did not believe Nero, assuming that he had kidnapped his teammate earlier on. Just like Nero said, their understanding was based on trust. Since Arters trust was broken, he no longer continued wasting time talking.
"Grab the artefacts," he barked to his teammates while he swung his sword towards Nero, holding nothing back.
"So a free for all it is," Nero said, blocking the sword with the length of his spear, completely unperturbed by Arter's anger.