Chapter : 277

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"We pick the lock like civilized investigators. Move over."

"Civilized people don't pick locks, Naomi. Criminals pick locks." Laxmi crossed her arms defiantly.

"Then congratulations, we're criminals for the day. Now let me work before you dissolve the evidence."

The two of them bickered so loudly that their voices echoed through the entire building. The argument bounced off concrete walls and traveled up through broken stairwells like thunder in a canyon.

Iris, two floors up, paused her search and pinched the bridge of her nose. From somewhere distant, she could hear Ken chattering away in his usual carefree tone. The 13th Unit was many things, but subtle was not one of them.

Zinia, who was sorting through dusty file cabinets nearby, offered a small sympathetic smile. "At least they're enthusiastic?" she suggested tentatively.

Iris gave her a look that could have frozen a campfire. "Enthusiasm is not the problem. Volume is the problem."

Down on the ground floor, Ken was having a much better time than anyone else. He had appointed himself Risa's unofficial guide, making up elaborate fake histories for each room they entered.

"And this," Ken declared, gesturing grandly at a closet full of broken beakers, "is where Dr. Carrion kept his world-famous collection of shattered glass. Very valuable. Each crack tells a story."

"That one there is about a love triangle between three chemists. Tragic ending. Lots of broken test tubes and hurt feelings."

Risa giggled, clutching her medical bag to her chest. "You're making that up."

"I absolutely am. But the glass is real, and love triangles are real, so technically it's half-true."

Risa smiled and stepped forward to examine a shelf of dusty bottles. Unfortunately, her foot caught on a thick power cable snaking across the floor. She stumbled forward with a small yelp.

She barely caught herself on the edge of a rusty table, her medical bag swinging wildly. "Whoa, careful!" Ken said, reaching out to steady her. "These cables are everywhere."

"It's like a spider webbed this place," he added, kicking a cable aside with his shoe. "A very messy, very trip-hazard spider."

"I'm sorry," Risa mumbled, her face flushing pink. "I keep tripping. The cables are so hard to see in this dim light."

She was right. The corridor was poorly lit, with dangling bulbs and exposed wiring crisscrossing the floor like an obstacle course. For someone as naturally clumsy as Risa, it was essentially a trap.

Ken watched her carefully as they moved deeper into the corridor. Risa was sweet and earnest, trying very hard to be useful despite clearly being out of her element. She kept scanning walls with her medical device.

"So, Risa," Ken said, keeping his voice light. "You're a healer, right? What do you make of all this?"

Risa looked around nervously, tucking a strand of pink hair behind her ear. "It's scary. Dr. Carrion was trying to help people with his research, and someone killed him for it. As a healer, that makes me feel sick inside."

Ken nodded slowly. His goofy smile faded for just a moment, replaced by something quieter and more serious. "Yeah. That part's not funny at all."

The moment passed quickly. Ken spotted a cable on the floor and deliberately stepped on it, making a ridiculous squelching sound with his shoe. Risa laughed despite herself, and the dark mood lifted.

They continued down the corridor, checking doors and peeking into empty rooms. Risa kept tripping over cables, and Ken kept catching her with increasingly theatrical rescue moves.

He swooped her sideways like a dance partner. He spun her away from a tangled wire like they were in a ballroom. He dipped her dramatically when she stumbled over a loose board.

Risa's laughter bounced off the grim walls and made the abandoned facility feel a little less haunted. Even the shadows seemed to retreat, as if they were embarrassed to share the hallway with someone having this much fun.

Then it happened.

Risa stepped backward to avoid a dangling light fixture, lost her footing on yet another cable, and tumbled backward directly toward a sharp, rusted pipe jutting from the wall at chest height.

Her eyes went wide with terror. The pipe was positioned perfectly to impale her. There was no time to stop. No time to think. Only time to move.

---

Ken didn't think. He didn't plan. He just moved.

He launched himself forward in a wildly exaggerated dive, arms outstretched, legs flailing, his entire body twisting into a controlled disaster. His left shoulder slammed into Risa's side, shoving her safely out of the pipe's path.

She tumbled sideways into a stack of empty crates, which collapsed around her in a heap of splintered wood and ancient dust. The crash echoed through the corridor like a small avalanche.

But Ken's momentum didn't stop. His body carried forward with the full force of his theatrical dive, and his right shoulder crashed directly into the brick wall behind where Risa had been standing.

The impact was enormous. A thunderous crack split the air, and Ken bounced off the wall like a ragdoll, landing on his backside in a cloud of dust and debris that billowed outward like a small explosion.

"Ow," he said flatly, rubbing his shoulder and wincing. "That was definitely not in the mystery novel. I would have remembered a scene where the hero breaks his own shoulder."

Then the wall moved.

Not crumbled. Not cracked. Moved. The entire section of brick wall swung inward on hidden hinges, groaning softly as ancient mechanisms activated for the first time in what must have been years. Beyond the opening lay pitch darkness.

A cold, stale gust of air rushed out from the darkness, carrying the smell of old paper, dried herbs, and something faintly metallic. It was the breath of a room that had been sealed shut for a very long time.

Risa sat in the pile of broken crates, staring at the open wall with her mouth hanging open. "Did you just break into a secret room by falling into it?"

"Oops," Ken said cheerfully, getting to his feet and dusting off his navy blue suit with exaggerated care. He picked a piece of brick dust from his collar and examined it critically.

"I guess the wall was fake," he added with a casual shrug that made his sore shoulder twinge. "Huh. Just like chapter twelve of my book."

Laxmi and Naomi came running from the back office, still holding the lockpick and the acid vial respectively. They skidded to a halt in front of the gaping black doorway, both breathing hard.

"What in the world?!" Laxmi shouted, her amber eyes wide. "How did you find a secret room?"

"I fell into it," Ken said, as if that explained everything. To be fair, in the 13th Unit, it sort of did.

Naomi stared at the open wall, then at Ken, then back at the wall. "You're telling me you accidentally broke a hidden magical lock by crashing into it."

"I accidentally saved Risa," Ken corrected with a bright smile. "The wall-breaking was a bonus. A painful bonus, but a bonus nonetheless."

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