Nikke, something’s seriously wrong with this evacuation point! Chapter 123 123: Megastructure Tower · SCHALE

The subway platform had no station staff, no passengers, and no trains–only a pitch-black tunnel whose interior could not be seen.

"Going in there… is probably impossible, right?" Charon looked down at the tracks and asked uncertainly.

But Rose did not respond. Instead, she kept continuously scanning everything around them.

「Go to the control room.」

Charon never questioned Rose's instructions. Perhaps he might suspect Sleeping Beauty of having ulterior motives soday, but at the very least, he would never doubt anything related to survival.

Even if she did have ulterior motives, nothing could possibly trigger before the Shittim Chest was fully repaired.

Besides–what ulterior motives? Mine is mine. The Shittim Chest is mine, and so is Rose.

The control room was easy to locate, but it required a keycard to enter. Rose initially suggested that Charon go back and search through the pile of boxes, but he simply pulled out his "Physics Holy Sword"(Crowbar) and perford a physical lockpick on the spot.

Nothing works better than a crowbar when it cos to opening locks.

With a aningless crash of the doorfra, Charon stepped into a space filled with rusted levers and shattered monitors.

The screens displayed trains that appeared to be running, yet not a single functioning subway train could be seen anywhere in the entire city–not even a sound.

「Charon, please connect the Shittim Chest to the main console. The data here is too chaotic. I need to perform a full defragntation before I can extract any logic from it.」

Charon complied. The mont the data cable was plugged into the Shittim Chest, a burst of blue light erupted from the screen, spreading through the cable and into the entire console. The entire scene looked like the digital world was invading reality.

「Parsing low-level protocols… Hidden route "Kivotos" detected. Encryption level: high. Preparing brute-force decryption… Decryption complete.」

From "preparing to decrypt" to "decryption complete," less than a second had passed.

So this "high-level encryption" was basically nothing to Rose.

"How exactly did you get such strong hacking abilities?" Charon suddenly asked.

「As you might expect, this is my most proficient capability.」 Rose replied calmly, though she sounded slightly resigned. 「I have already requested a direct train. Please prepare to board. It will only stop for thirty seconds.」

Thirty seconds?!

Charon imdiately grabbed the Shittim Chest, unplugged the cable, and started sprinting.

The weight of the Tier-6 gear was absurd. Every step made the ground tremble. From a distance, it looked almost like an earthquake–but he still maintained impressive speed.

By the ti he reached the platform, a brand-new, highly technological train was already there, doors open, quietly docked. Its windows were completely black, revealing nothing inside.

「Only this train can take us where we need to go. Please board, Charon.」

Charon did not hesitate and stepped into the carriage.

Inside, it was empty. Spotless. The air-conditioning was so strong it even made him feel slightly cold.

He picked a seat at random and sat down. The doors closed. The hanging straps swayed slightly as the train started moving, accelerating faster and faster.

Outside the windows, the darkness was not constant. At first it was just a black tunnel, but soon binary code began appearing on the walls. As the code grew denser, the train accelerated to a speed Charon could no longer even calculate, rushing into a blinding white light.

The intense brightness made him instinctively blink–but in the next mont, he realized the train was now traveling above the sea.

Outside the window, there was a deep blue sky so beautiful it was almost intoxicating. A massive halo hung above the clouds.

Everything felt unfamiliar… yet faintly familiar in a way he could not quite understand.

"…Where is this?"

「The academic city, Kivotos.」 Rose's complicated voice echoed in his ear. 「But this is not the Kivotos I know.」

「Kivotos has already been destroyed. This is rely a shell constructed from data.」

"You said a city…" Charon looked forward. There was no "city" in sight–but there was sothing impossible to ignore.

A gigantic skyscraper standing on the sea, piercing through the clouds. Its height was so extre it likely exceeded a thousand ters in both width and length as well.

And that was only from their current perspective.

It was so enormous that even calling it a "gastructure" might be an understatent.

「I don't know.」 Rose admitted honestly. 「In the Shittim Chest database, Kivotos is not supposed to contain a structure of this scale. It is a city composed of thousands of academies and industries–not a single isolated tower in the sea.」

No city. No port. No mountains or rivers. No academies.

Only a single gastructure.

"How much ti is left?" Charon asked.

「From entering Zone One until now, less than one hour has passed.」

"That's perfect, isn't it?" Charon smiled. "We've got plenty of ti to explore. You're in charge of support from now on."

「Understood.」

He had expected to rely entirely on Rose for this run–but if even she had never seen this place, then they were both starting from zero. A fair fight. A shared path forward.

Soon, the train stopped at a station.

Only then did Charon truly understand what "gastructure" ant.

Ordinary skyscrapers were no longer "buildings" in comparison–they were ants. It was like a wall piercing straight into the sky. In reality, such a structure should have been impossible due to its foundation alone.

"Ever seen anything like this before?"

「Instead of wasting ti chatting, you should enter the building and investigate what's inside.」

"Oh, oh–there's sothing written above the entrance?"

"Welco to… Federal Investigation Departnt… SCHALE?"

"So that's it. 'SCHALE' is the na of this building."

That strange sense of familiarity returned–but faded just as quickly. It seed the na itself was not important.

What mattered was what was inside.

The wooden door in front of them was only about three ters wide, completely mismatched with the scale of the gastructure. Yet it bore a symbol carved into it.

「That is… the emblem of Abydos Academy.」 Rose's voice sounded. 「It is an academy located in the desert. Please proceed with caution.」