Chapter 65 - 64: The Delusional Baguette Lads
Chapter 65: Chapter 64: The Delusional Baguette Lads
Ultimately, the twin brothers put their heads together and decided to share the secret they knew with a few of their close friends, hoping everyone could help decide what to do.
During the party that night, amidst everyone’s doubts about the higher-ups and anxieties about the unknown, they also brought up the matter of Philier’s two precious antiques.
At the time, Philier had actually started to connect the conversation to the items back at his house, but his grandfather had always told him that those stories were basically all fabricated.
Whenever Philier pressed him about the map and the Scroll, his grandfather would refuse to say more, always brushing him off with a line like, "Knowing too much about that sort of thing won’t do you any good."
Good heavens. To a teenager going through a rebellious phase, that was tantamount to telling him:
"There’s a world-shattering secret here, but I don’t want you to get involved. I want you to live a peaceful life, so don’t ask again. I’m not telling you!"
Well, that kind of excuse was pure poison. Back then, Philier used every trick in the book to try and uncover the map’s secret.
Between the ages of fourteen and nineteen, no matter how rebellious he was, how much he disobeyed, how many times the school complained, or how ineffective his parents’ discipline seemed...
...all it took was a single word from his grandfather, and the boy who was a rascal in everyone else’s eyes would instantly become perfectly obedient.
But even so, Philier failed to uncover any more secrets.
A few days before his grandfather passed away, he finally relented and said a little more.
Philier would never forget that day.
That day, his grandfather was lying in his bed, the light of the setting sun pouring through the window and into the room.
He had Philier fetch the old map and the Scroll and sit by his bedside.
Gazing at the grandson who had grown into a strong young man, and faced with his years of desperate curiosity, he finally relented.
"Philier, this obsession of yours... perhaps I can understand. When I was young..."
A withered finger pointed to the map and the Scroll. Philier quickly placed both items on the bed before his grandfather.
As if stroking a baby’s skin, his grandfather’s old, age-spotted hand gently brushed over the symbol in the corner of the map, the one that looked like a burning flame.
"I can’t say for certain how many generations these things have been passed down in our Creek Clan."
"There was once a group of people..."
"They might have been the most detestable people in the world, or they might have been the smartest and most cunning..."
"Perhaps it wasn’t money or power they sought, but they could undoubtedly manipulate both with ease..."
His grandfather weakly ruffled Philier’s hair, a loving smile on his face.
"Those stories are just one piece of evidence of their past deeds, Philier. I know your mind is filled with grand ideas, but... well, just go ahead and believe they’re real."
Looking at Philier’s expectant eyes, his grandfather ultimately couldn’t bring himself to reveal everything about the organization. ’Perhaps it’s better,’ he thought, ’to take these secrets to the grave.’
"Philier, those people are long gone."
"Has Dawn really disappeared?"
Hearing his grandfather’s words, Philier couldn’t help but ask.
The old man on the bed seemed slightly surprised, but then he considered the modern information age. It wasn’t so strange that his grandson would know the name.
"Perhaps... Perhaps the Branding Scepter..."
He never finished the ambiguous sentence. Philier’s parents came in and told him to go eat and not to disturb his grandfather’s rest.
In the time between then and his grandfather’s death a few days later, Philier never got another chance to ask for more information.
The grief of his grandfather’s passing washed over and diluted that fervent thirst for knowledge.
But fading didn’t mean it was forgotten.
It was just that as he grew older, the fervent passion of his younger, more dramatic years was increasingly suppressed by reason.
...
The secret the twin brothers shared was world-shaking, and the brief trip down memory lane made Philier recall that time when he was desperately pursuing the truth.
Since everyone was asking, Philier decided not to hold anything back.
He recounted what his grandfather had told him, adding his own interpretation.
That’s right—his own dramatic teenage interpretation that his grandfather ’didn’t want his peaceful life to be shattered.’
It got everyone fired up.
With the Olliers twins on the case, it was only natural that they’d try to investigate again using their technical skills.
But digging up what was essentially historical apocrypha was different from hacking a firewall. No matter how good their skills were, it was still like finding a needle in a haystack. The limited information they found wasn’t much more than what Philier had managed to dig up on his own.
However, they did confirm the existence of a controversial organization called "Dawn."
Sometimes, strength in numbers can be the driving force that sets events in motion.
Philier had been tempted to follow the map and search for the location countless times before but had never gone through with it.
At the party, after seeing the "evidence" the twins had found and hearing Philier’s story, the group’s excitement was palpable. They immediately decided to find one of the "Dawn Secret Places" marked on the map.
They were an ambitious bunch.
The first step was to find the Secret Place on the map. If this so-called Secret Place didn’t exist, they would have to conclude that it was all a fabrication.
The next step? Either find the remnants of the Dawn organization, or... they would rebuild "Dawn" themselves!
They firmly believed that as long as Dawn was real, they could use their own efforts—along with the items in Philier’s possession—to recover its lost power.
...
「Back in the present, at the expedition’s camp.」
After a short afternoon nap, the older of the two brothers called to say the equipment had arrived and that he needed a few people to help carry it.
The car could only get within a kilometer of the site, and the diving gear was quite heavy.
By the time they had everything set up by the reservoir, it was already three in the afternoon, local time.
Philier knew how to dive, as did quite a few others in the group. While they weren’t exactly professionals, the reservoir didn’t have any dangerous currents to worry about.
A group of five, including Philier, strapped on their flippers, wriggled into their wetsuits, and turned on their powerful headlamps. Step by step, they waded from the shore toward the deeper water.
Philier, holding an underwater camera with a built-in high-intensity light, gave an "OK" signal to those on the shore, put in his breathing apparatus, and led the way into the water.
Even through their wetsuits, the bone-chilling cold of the water made them shiver uncontrollably.
The reservoir floor was quite vast.
Even with their powerful lights, visibility was low, and dense aquatic plants frequently blocked their view.
Fortunately, most of it wasn’t too deep.
None of them were expert divers, so they didn’t dare split up to search.
They searched until their oxygen ran low, but they found nothing besides a few dilapidated, decaying old houses at the bottom of the reservoir.
Still, the group wasn’t discouraged.
’After all this time, and with a reservoir floor this big, it’s normal that we wouldn’t find it on the first try,’ they reasoned.
They had brought enough oxygen tanks for five dives.
Eat to regain their strength, rest, refill the oxygen tanks, and dive again.
They repeated this cycle three times, continuing until the sky grew dark.
They were searching the southeastern corner of the reservoir floor. Though they were taking turns diving, Philier insisted on going down himself every single time.
Seeing his oxygen gauge drop below thirty percent, he knew it was time to head back up.
’It seems we’re not going to find it today,’ he thought, feeling a little discouraged.
Just as he was about to make the hand signal to return, a large fish suddenly darted past. The flash of its scales in his headlamp startled him, and in his panic, he fumbled with the camera.
Luckily, the underwater camera was attached to his wrist with a safety cord, so he didn’t lose it.
That night at the camp, Philier sat before the bonfire, his spirits low. The others tried to comfort him as they shared the dinner they had prepared.
"Come on, Philier. We searched so many wrong spots before and didn’t get discouraged. This isn’t over yet. Even if this isn’t the place, there are still other locations we haven’t checked," one of them said.
Philier smiled and nodded, but he still felt a knot of disappointment in his stomach.
"Hey, guys! Come over here and look at this!"
The young Black man who had been reviewing the footage from the underwater camera seemed to have found something.
At his call, everyone gathered around to see what was going on.
The young man was repeatedly playing the segment where the camera had been shaking wildly during Philier’s moment of panic underwater.
He slowed down the playback speed. Although the footage was mostly a dark, murky blur, a few frames flashed a glimpse of a hazy silhouette in the distance, in what looked like a gully in a deeper part of the reservoir.
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