Chapter 6207: Soul Machine Utopia (74)

Fortunately, besides these large vehicles, the Ancient Ones also had small cars for individual use. The middle was like a flying saucer cockpit, but it didn’t use hover power. On the side of the cockpit, there were legs made of mechanical tentacles, overall resembling a crab.

These mechanical tentacles could walk on land, swim in the deep sea, and even had flying devices below for short-distance flights—truly capable of going anywhere.

Perhaps, to the Ancient Ones, relying on such vehicles to reach the heavens and escape to the earth might seem shameful, as they originally didn’t need external assistance to achieve this. However, from the human perspective, these were amazing devices, far more advanced than human cars.

Professor Dale was also a bit excited. He rubbed his hands and walked next to the crab vehicle, looking around and studying it. He finally discovered that the cockpit door was at the top. The squid could probably jump straight in, but humans needed to climb up.

Professor Dale felt a bit troubled. Climbing a snowy mountain would be fine, with an ice axe striking here and there without concern, but for such a beautiful car, any scratches and he wouldn’t know whom to ask for repairs. Finally, he turned to Shiller.

Shiller snorted but still flew to the top of the car. After entering the cockpit, he studied the driver’s area and discovered that all the control buttons were at the bottom. As expected, a car driven by squid was naturally designed to match their body structure.

The car’s control panel was on the floor, clearly convenient for the Ancient Ones to use the tentacles below while standing. However, for humans, it was somewhat troublesome. With only two legs, one foot for the accelerator and brake, the other for the clutch, one can’t manage more. The floor was densely packed with dozens of buttons; driving it was harder than a dance machine.

Fortunately, because Earth has gravity, directions have a standard. After finding the downward direction button, the rest could be easily located. Shiller tried each button once again, finally making the tentacles squat, lowering the cockpit to the ground.

Professor Dale jumped up, looking around with some excitement. The cockpit wasn’t spacious as the peak-era Ancient Ones weren’t much bigger than humans, a bit over two meters tall, and the tentacles unfolded to only a few dozen centimeters. One person barely fit in the cockpit, and Shiller chose to perch on Professor Dale’s shoulder.

Professor Dale also studied the directional buttons and found that the keys were peculiar; merely pressing the buttons couldn’t smoothly control the tentacles, with some directions not reachable.

Then he discovered a few small holes on the floor where human hands couldn’t reach. He looked around and then at Shiller, who had to jump down and use the mechanical arm from the equipment to reach inside.

He thought he might feel something, but unexpectedly, as the mechanical arm moved inside, the outside tentacles moved correspondingly. Professor Dale revealed a knowing expression. This was actually a sensing device for mimicking the squid tentacles’ movements. With this, there was no need to control via buttons; just insert the tentacle into the hole and make various gestures to flexibly control the external legs.

“Looks like you’ll have to drive this car,” Professor Dale said, touching the cat’s head, a tone tinged with disappointment.

Shiller didn’t know what he was disappointed about. There’s nothing honorable about driving a crab, is there?

However, they didn’t rush to drive the car away. For one thing, they didn’t know what the energy source was, whether it needed fuel or batteries to prevent a lack of power. Also, they needed to gather equipment, bringing some things back since they were here.

One person and a cat began looting the weapon warehouse, taking anything they thought might be useful. Luckily, the Ancient Ones’ body size wasn’t outrageously big, so the equipment was about the same size as human single-soldier equipment, and it could be stacked. When Professor Dale stuffed part into the cockpit, he found out the car also had a trunk, underneath the vehicle.

Under the car was an expandable space, whose extent depended on how high the tentacles lifted the cockpit. Shiller operated the car to lift the cockpit a bit higher, placing the items inside first, then lowering it to the very bottom to let Professor Dale climb up.

This process was quite frustrating. If too many items were loaded, the cockpit was too high for Professor Dale to climb. Yet taking fewer things felt inadequate. Professor Dale really regretted coming alone; even bringing another person, even a cat, would have allowed them to drive another crab and bring more things back.

As it turns out, no one can restrain their greed in a loot-and-evacuate game. Professor Dale even thought of staying behind himself, letting the cat drive a trip to call more people to take everything away.

But clearly, Shiller wouldn’t agree to such a crazy plan. Don’t forget, there’s still a Shuggos in the city. It’s probably quiet now because the Shuggos recognized them as wild animals. But if an Ancient One came, the situation would be dire, as in the original work. So once they had enough, it would be wise to leave quickly.

Professor Dale hesitated briefly before getting in the car. Anyway, such a big mountain wouldn’t run away; there would be time to move it all later. Shiller maneuvered the car slowly outward. After getting used to the operation, he found it much more convenient than humans turning a steering wheel.

If it weren’t for Professor Dale there, Shiller would have loved to use the tentacles on his tail to drive, as they felt like a part of him, surely more controllable than anything else. Unfortunately, he couldn’t use them now. But after this trip, maybe next time he could find a car for himself.

Despite its odd shape, the car ran quite fast, exiting the cave within a dozen minutes. Shiller first curled the tentacles and then suddenly straightened them, making the crab leap three to four meters high. While descending, Shiller pressed the flight button with his claw. The claws suddenly released wing membranes, connecting them together, turning the whole vehicle into an open umbrella. The descending speed became very slow, even hovering leisurely mid-air.

They glided over the mountain peaks that had taken them five to six days to traverse previously, but took less than half a day to return. Truly, the alien technology was reliable.

Upon landing, although there was snow on the ground, it posed no challenge to the long-legged crab. Despite moving swiftly through the snow, it was actually faster to hop: storing energy to leap and then gliding for a distance, jumping and gliding again.

Despite the large range of motion, the cockpit was quite stable, and the Ancient One’s vehicle had a seatbelt-like device. Professor Dale just needed to secure himself and wouldn’t feel the bumps, at most he’d experience a bit of weightlessness.

This was understandable since the Ancient One was a former space organism and not as sensitive to gravity as the human race. Fortunately, Professor Dale’s physical strength was robust, and this feeling of weightlessness didn’t make him uncomfortable.

This way, they bounced all the way back near the Weddell Sea. Seeing Dexter and Frank going for their guns, it was good that the cockpit had a transparent cover, and Professor Dale quickly waved at them.

The long-legged crab stopped, the cockpit descended, and the cover opened. Professor Dale said excitedly, “See? This is an alien vehicle!”

“Oh my God!” Frank exclaimed, “Damn it, why didn’t I go? I should be the first human to drive an alien vehicle! You can’t even distinguish human car brands, I should be first!”

Professor Dale rarely laughed aloud, then clambered out of the cockpit, and staggered slightly upon landing. This thing’s climbing difficulty was still too high for the human race, so Dexter hurried to help him.

Shiller also jumped out of the cockpit and found that the height could be controlled from outside the vehicle as well. It made sense; just like how the human car’s trunk has a switch button, these functions are universal to intelligent life forms.

They didn’t take out the contents because it wasn’t time for research yet. First, they needed to arm those Ancient Ones. Just as Shiller was checking the gear and preparing to drive the vehicle to the sea, Dexter quickly stopped him and said, “Some fighting happened over there just now, not sure what’s going on. You guys better not go over yet.”

“Fighting?!” Shiller and Professor Dale exclaimed in unison.

Professor Dale asked eagerly, “What’s going on? Why is there fighting? With whom?”

“I don’t know,” Dexter said, “The cat noticed movement there, said it could be enemies of the Ancient Ones coming, and told us to stay put.”

Shiller quickly climbed onto the vehicle, realizing it was likely the Origin Shuggos, namely Reck, who had tracked them here. The Shuggos must have a way to trace the Ancient Ones; the one inside the mountain might not come out, but Reck could easily find the Weddell Sea.

The few humans wanted to follow, but before they could climb onto the vehicle, Shiller had closed the cockpit, then soared in a big jump towards the coast.

Upon reaching above the coast, the scent of blood was evident; the seawater continued to churn. Shiller quickly pressed another button, the webbing between the legs unfolded again, but this time not in an arc, it turned into a flat surface, steadily landing on the water.

Shiller wasn’t sure if this thing could be waterproof; after all, the Ancient Ones weren’t afraid of water. He worried that starting the underwater mode would let water in directly, but given the urgency, he couldn’t think of that much, so he pressed each button. Soon, the webbing between the legs retracted, and the entire vehicle began to sink.

As the cockpit descended below the surface, no water came in. Evidently, the cockpit was waterproof. Shiller breathed a sigh of relief and quickly manipulated the tentacles to start swimming. The tentacles’ semi-unfurled webbing greatly increased the water’s push, much like a duck’s webbed feet, and the tentacles were so powerful that a single stroke propelled the vehicle tens of meters forward, both fast and steady.

Shiller operated the vehicle swiftly to dive deeper, reaching about five hundred meters underwater level, where he turned on the lights, and soon saw some unusual water flows. Following the currents, an Ancient One spun and flew right over him.

Shiller immediately pressed a horn button. Yes, this vehicle had a horn, although it didn’t make noise but emitted a vibration sound wave that cats couldn’t hear, but to the Ancient Ones, it was like thunder.

The rapidly swooping Ancient One immediately turned around; Shiller could even see a shocked expression on the starfish-like head. He quickly pointed down with his paw and opened the underside trunk.

The Ancient One dove under the vehicle, pulling out all the equipment from the trunk, its long tentacles flaying wildly, evidently shocked beyond words.

Shiller was somewhat speechless. Hadn’t they already communicated the plan earlier? How little faith did they have in humans to be this shocked?