Elenor left the training hall and headed back to the greenhouse section. Moving straight across the room, she entered it. Five meters past the door, two more doors greeted her. She calmly scanned her surroundings, waited a moment, listened carefully, and when she confirmed there was no issue, she advanced and examined both doors.

  'An elevator and stairs… So the laboratory is downstairs—but what’s upstairs?'

  She looked upward, thought for a moment, then made a guess.

  'Probably an observation tower. Grandpa likes watching space and the surroundings. There’s no need to go there for now—the door is already locked.'

  She stepped up to the elevator and pressed the panel with her thumb. A green light lit up, the doors split down the middle, and slid open to the sides. Elenor entered the elevator and read the text on the touch panel to her left.

  [Upper Floor: Observation Tower]

  [Ground Floor: Living Area]

  [Lower Floor: Laboratory]

  She tapped the lower floor with her index finger. The doors slowly closed, and the elevator began moving with a slight vibration. When she arrived, she didn’t lower her guard—shotgun raised, she remained on alert.

  'In dangerous times, I should always stay ready. Once I settle in, I really should stash weapons in several areas. If I get into trouble, if outsiders enter the lab, or if a rift suddenly opens and monsters pour in, I can’t afford to be unarmed…'

  She felt the cold metal of the tactical belt around her waist and the weight of the weapons attached to it. Touching the front of the belt with her left hand, she thought:

  'Looks like this will be my daily accessory. I don’t want to walk around without a handgun.'

  That line of thought took only three seconds. The elevator doors opened. She stepped out cautiously. The sound of her heeled boots echoed through the empty corridor. She waited a few seconds, listening, slowed her breathing as much as possible, and kept the shotgun’s barrel sweeping left and right, ready to fire. After a full minute, she finally relaxed.

  'Corridor is clear.'

  Elenor proceeded to explore the laboratory area methodically. There were sections for biology, chemistry, machinery, a weapons workshop, rune studies, and a repair workshop directly beneath the garage. After checking each one carefully, she finally felt at ease.

  'That just leaves the house. The environment seems clean, but before going there, I should reinforce the security systems.'

  She entered the control center inside the laboratory and activated the panel.

  [Security Level 3: Active >>> Level 5 Maximum Security Activated]

  […]

  [Laboratory entering high-security mode…]

  [Garage doors sealing…]

  [Cargo doors sealing…]

  [Observation tower sealing…]

  [Generators active. Operational status: 100%]

  [Weapon systems: Active]

  [Security drones: Ready]

  [Laboratory shields activating at full power…]

  [Full authorization granted to Elenor Altarez for all laboratory systems.]

  [Monster repellent: Active]

  After reading the confirmation messages, Elenor let out a relieved breath. Then she decided to check the security cameras.

  “Heh. Grandpa never disappoints,” she muttered with a mocking smile.

  “He’s installed cameras watching every single centimeter inside. I can even see the living quarters… Wait.”

  She enlarged the camera feeds of the living area and examined them carefully. What she saw made her eyebrow twitch violently as shock rapidly turned into anger.

  “What the hell happened to the kitchen!? No—let me rephrase—what the hell happened to the entire house!? Is that Grandpa’s underwear sitting on top of the couch!? How many weeks have those dishes been sitting in the sink!? Why do the beds look like they just came out of a war zone!? Why are those swords lying around in the middle of the living room!? The bathroom—mud everywhere! At least the bedrooms look somewhat humane, but still… WHAT IS THIS HOUSE!?”

  Instead of calming down, Elenor grew even more agitated. She rubbed her temples hard with her fingertips, and as she thought about her grandfather and Uncle Omar, her ruby-red eyes narrowed with a dangerous glint. A smile—demonic and fueled by pure rage—spread across her face. She could feel the veins bulging on her forehead, her palms clenched so tightly her nails dug into her skin.

  She took several deep, controlled breaths, trying to restrain herself. Then, with a graceful motion, she tapped her smartwatch and initiated a call. The connection took only four seconds. The moment Soren accepted, chaos burst from the speaker—monster roars, heavy gunfire, and the deafening thunder of exploding magic filled the room.

  Through all that noise, Soren’s warm, elderly voice rang out:

  “My honey bun! Did you make it safely to my laboratory?”

  Elenor’s reply was ice-cold.

  “Yes.”

  At that moment, Omar’s energetic shout—clearly coming from the middle of battle—rang out:

  “HAHAHAHA! I TOLD YOU SHE’D MAKE IT! WATCH THE LEFT FLANK! MINOTAURS INCOMING!”

  Gunfire, explosions, and the dying screams of monsters overlapped as Soren’s murmured incantation echoed through the chaos:

  “Flame Tempest!”

  A massive, ear-splitting roar followed, but Elenor didn’t care in the slightest. She trusted her grandfather’s and Omar’s strength completely. The real battlefield wasn’t outside—it was inside the house.

  “HAHAHAHA! OF COURSE SHE DID! THAT’S MY GRANDDAUGHTER!”

  Soren roared, then tried to lower his tone.

  “Elenor, about the cargo I sent—”

  “Soran Altarez! Omar Demir!”

  Elenor’s voice, paired with the dangerously gleaming eyes reflected in the laboratory lights, made the temperature in the room seem to drop several degrees. The veins on her forehead stood out clearly now. She was using her most authoritative, most queen-like tone—as if she weren’t addressing two legendary warriors, but two children caught misbehaving.

  “Would you care to explain why the house I’m supposed to live in looks like it hasn’t seen a broom in months? Your underwear is lying around everywhere! There are swords casually left in the living room! The kitchen is coated in filth, leftover food, and grease! The bedrooms look worse than a battlefield, the bathroom is a breeding ground for bacteria, and the laundry room is piled with mountains of dirty clothes! Am I your maid!? If Aunt Amanda were here and saw the state of the place she was supposed to live in, she’d turn both of you into target practice!”

  Elenor was not shouting, yet the coldness in her voice was as clear and sharp as the edge of a blade. With a faint, unsettling smile forming on her lips, she continued:

  “Would you tell me, my dear grandfather… while there isn’t a single speck of dust in that enormous laboratory of yours, why is only the living area in this state? Huh?”

  Amid the chaos and explosion sounds pouring from the watch, there came the unmistakable sound of both heroes swallowing at the same time:

  “Oh no!” ×2

  Omar immediately tried to take control of the situation.

  “I GOT IT! I’LL PERSONALLY PROVIDE SUPPORT ON THE RIGHT FLANK! OLD MAN, THIS PLACE IS YOURS!”

  “HEY! OMAR, DON’T YOU DARE RUN AWAY! DAMN IT! COME BACK!”

  Soren shouted helplessly.

  Elenor cut him off in an authoritative tone:

  “Answer me, Grandfather.”

  Soren seemed to choke for a moment. He was paying a heavy price for having forgotten, even briefly, Elenor’s obsession with discipline, hygiene, and order. The level of disorder in the living area was, for Elenor, right on the edge of a nervous breakdown. Soren stammered in a trembling, guilty voice:

  “Ah… well, this situation… actually, everything has a perfectly logical explanation, my honey bun…”

  Suddenly, a bloodcurdling, feral roar erupted from the watch. Immediately after, Soren’s voice echoed with a panic and urgency Elenor had never heard before:

  “DAMN IT! Elenor, listen to me carefully! Use the device in the cargo I sent you. Right now! This is more important to me than anything else!”

  Elenor frowned, the anger inside her giving way to a sudden sense of unease.

  “What’s going on?”

  Soren tried to answer, but his voice roughened, dissolving into digital static.

  “I’ll expla—… Bzzz… Bzzz… Bzzz…”

  Elenor touched her watch in shock, trying to restore the signal.

  “What’s happening? Did the signal drop? But why?”

  At that moment, an invisible force swept through the laboratory; a massive electromagnetic wave shook everything. Systems instantly went berserk—lights flickered, screens turned on and off at random. Red alarm sirens began screaming in every corner of the lab. Elenor struck the main panel in disbelief.

  “I asked what’s going on!”

  [!!!!!!System Error!!!!!!]

  [!!!!!!System Error!!!!!!]

  [!!!!!!System Error!!!!!!]

  [!!!!!!System Error!!!!!!]

  Elenor’s fingers flew across the keyboard as she entered code after code to resolve the failure, but suddenly a sharp tingling followed by intense pain surged through her left wrist.

  “AGHHH! WHAT IS HAPPENING?!”

  She felt a searing pain and prickling sensation in her left wrist, as if a red-hot iron were pressed against her skin. When she looked down, she froze in horror: smoke was rising from her smart watch, sparks of electricity leaping from within it. The screen had turned blood red.

  “This is not good at all!”

  In sheer panic, Elenor grabbed the strap of the watch, yanked it off with force, and hurled it into the trash bin before jumping back. Seconds later, the watch exploded with a deafening bang. Gritting her teeth in pain, she clutched her burned left wrist; her brows were tightly furrowed, but she had no time to stop. She immediately grabbed a fire extinguisher and put out the flames caused by the blast.

  “Why did this happen now?”

  Ignoring the throbbing pain in her wrist, she returned to the panel. She tried dozens of different access routes and emergency codes, but the screen returned the same cold message every time.

  “System not responding… I’ll have to do a complete reboot.”

  For a full seven minutes, her fingers worked at machine-like speed. Finally, she managed to reset the system. She let herself fall into the chair, exhaled deeply, rubbed her pounding head, and then looked at the screen.

  [Reboot time: 7 hours…]

  Elenor sighed.

  “Looks like I won’t be able to do anything for seven hours… What just happened? Why did the systems go insane? Why did my watch explode? That was my favorite watch!”

  She muttered with a mix of irritation and sadness. She was very different from other girls; she saw jewelry and adornments as pointless and could never understand why people pierced their bodies. To her, the only truly valuable accessory was a functional one—her watch.

  “Whatever. I won’t find out before seven hours anyway. At least there’s still power, and the security locks are intact. Though, if the system doesn’t recover, that means I’ll be trapped here for a long time.”

  She ran a hand through her hair in frustration. In the past two hours, her entire life had been turned upside down. Her thoughts were still with her grandfather and Uncle Omar.

  ‘Please…’ she thought silently,

  ‘All of you, be okay.’

  She stood up and reached for the shotgun resting on the table. As the sharp pain in her left wrist flared again, she grimaced.

  “I’ll need to apply a burn ointment to this as soon as possible.”

  After giving the trash bin one last look to make sure it wouldn’t ignite again, she left the laboratory. When she reached the upper floor—the living area—she took a deep breath and looked around at the silence.

  “It seems this will be my new home for quite a long time…”

  Slipping the shotgun over her shoulder, Elenor walked to the center of the greenhouse. She stared at the house and let out a long sigh, raking her fingers through her hair as if she were about to lose her mind.

  “Uncle Omar… Grandfather…” she muttered through clenched teeth.

  “I hope you survive. Because I want to kill you with my own hands!”

  She took several deep breaths to rein herself in, closing her eyes and trying to slow her pulse.

  “…I hate this obsession with order.”

  In truth, it wasn’t something she could control; whenever she saw an excessively messy place, every mental fuse in her head blew, and she went berserk.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  “Let’s set that aside for now. It’s been a very long morning. First, I need to unload the car. Luckily, I saw a transport platform in the garage—I can move everything inside in one go.”

  Stretching, she turned and headed back toward the garage. Passing through the automatic door and entering the corridor, she paused in front of the infirmary. Even looking at the door made her feel the ache in her wrist again.

  “First, I should get some cream for this burn.”

  She stepped inside and stopped in front of the medicine cabinet, quickly scanning the shelves.

  “Where is it… Ah, here it is.”

  She took the ointment, opened the lid, and generously applied it to her reddened wrist. As she gently rubbed it in, she felt a mild tingling sensation; the burn mark faded from the surface of her skin as if it had never existed. Elenor chuckled softly.

  “Everything my grandfather makes is truly amazing.”

  She glanced at her now unmarked wrist and sighed wistfully before leaving the infirmary. Continuing toward the garage, she stopped once more in front of the cargo section. As she looked at the door with curiosity, her grandfather’s last words echoed in her mind.

  “What exactly did Grandfather mean? Why would that small cargo be so important?”

  Unable to resist her curiosity, she entered the cargo room. Inside, she carefully examined the two cargo packages.

  “The small one is the one Grandfather mentioned… Then what is this big one?”

  She circled the larger container first. Unable to figure out what it was, she placed her hand on the panel. As soon as the panel finished scanning Elenor’s biometric data, a cheerful recorded voice echoed through the room:

  [HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MY DEAR GRANDDAUGHTER!]

  Elenor’s eyebrow began twitching wildly again. Rolling her eyes, she muttered:

  “Please… please don’t let it be something ridiculous.”

  The cargo lid did not open with a loud crash, but slid aside in a silence befitting advanced technology. Elenor stood there with her arms crossed beneath her chest, watching with wary, curious eyes. Yet when the gift inside was fully revealed, the distant expression she always wore shattered; her eyes widened in shock, her lips parting in disbelief.

  “Grandfather…” she whispered, her voice trembling.

  “For the first time, you’ve actually made something I’ll truly love.”

  Before her stood a sporty beast that looked as though it had leapt straight out of the future, its silver body gleaming brilliantly. Three meters long and one and a half meters wide, its frame was adorned with finely placed blue neon lights. The sharp, thin headlight at the front, shaped like a precise “V,” gave it a predatory gaze. With four elegant exhausts, custom-made thick tires, and those strange, layered plates mounted on either side of the front wheel, the vehicle was nothing short of a technological marvel.

  Elenor fell in love with the machine at first sight. Her greatest passion was not locking herself away in laboratories and inventing things like her grandfather, but riding a motorcycle with the wind against her face. The sense of freedom and exhilaration she felt while on a bike was something she would never trade for anything else. Make no mistake—Elenor had done everything she ever wanted throughout her life, and her grandfather had always supported her. The only subject they ever truly disagreed on was the classic grandfather reflex: the “boyfriend” issue. But Elenor had never been particularly interested in matters like love or marriage anyway. She had long since decided to stand on her own feet and, if necessary, carry on the Altarez legacy by adopting a child.

  “Hello there, beautiful…”

  Trying to suppress the excitement bubbling inside her, Elenor stepped closer to the motorcycle and gently ran her hand over its smooth silver surface. She had already completely forgotten about the new car she had left outside. As she examined it carefully, her gaze caught on the strange technological plates mounted beside the front wheel.

  “Strange… What are these for? Just decoration? No—Grandfather would never put something useless on it. There has to be a trick to it.”

  Before long, she abandoned technical analysis and continued to fuss over the bike as if she were speaking to a living being.

  “Ah, I’m sorry, baby… It really hurts that I won’t be able to use you for a long time.”

  Still, curiosity got the better of her; at the very least, she wanted to hear the engine roar. She grabbed the handlebars and pressed the ignition button. The digital display flared to life in a brilliant blue glow:

  [DNA verified…]

  [Fingerprint verified…]

  [Key not detected… Please try again with the key…]

  Elenor frowned at the warning.

  “A key? So DNA and fingerprint scans aren’t enough? Grandfather really went overboard again.”

  With a sigh, she scanned the cargo area the bike had come from. In the corner, hidden inside a cabinet, she noticed a case. She reached out and pulled it free—it was no ordinary bag. Adorned with dark red neon lines and crafted entirely from a metallic alloy, it radiated an ominous elegance. Elenor pressed her thumb against the touch-sensitive area, but the result was the same. A mechanical yet refined female voice echoed in the empty space:

  [Please try again with the key…]

  Elenor’s eyebrow began twitching with irritation.

  “I hope that damn key is somewhere around here, Grandfather! If you get me this excited and then leave me hanging, you’re going to regret it.”

  She removed the case from the cargo drone and placed it on the ground beside the bike. Casting one last resentful look at her new “baby,” she felt genuinely disappointed—being unable to hear that powerful engine roar hurt more than she expected. Taking a deep breath, she turned toward the smaller cargo. When she pressed her finger to its touch screen, she finally heard the confirmation sound she had been waiting for:

  [Identity verified!]

  The drone’s cargo compartment split into four sections and slid open. From inside emerged a sleek black box traced with blue neon lines. Elenor raised a single eyebrow and picked it up. It was heavier than she had expected, and the moment the cold metal surface touched her skin, a shiver ran through her body.

  ‘Why did I feel that chill?’ she thought uneasily.

  She considered opening the box immediately, but stopped herself.

  “I’ve already wasted too much time. First, I need to unload the car. I’ll examine this upstairs, in the comfort of the house.”

  Gripping the box tightly, she headed for the door. Before leaving, she turned back to look at the silver motorcycle one last time. She felt a genuine ache in her chest.

  “Not being able to ride such a beautiful baby really hurts…”

  She began walking at a slow pace. The shotgun was slung over her shoulder, the mysterious box held in her right hand. Her left hand, now empty, stayed alert—ready to reach for the pistol at her waist at any moment. Elenor was not foolish; even if the laboratory looked clean and safe, she would not let her guard down.

  Her grandfather had built this lab at a point where the probability of a rift opening was minimal, taking thousands of precautions. In fact, all shelters across the Empire had been designed by Soren with the same meticulous care. The reason he had directed Elenor here was twofold: to give her a space of her own, and to keep her safer under the protection of his inventions. Moreover, during the connection with LYRA, Elenor would be vulnerable and would suffer greatly; Soren wanted the process to be flawless, with no possibility of interference.

  She reached the garage door with calm steps and touched the panel. The door slid open silently. As she stepped inside and walked toward Omar’s vehicle, she scanned her surroundings—and spotted what she was looking for.

  “There it is.”

  Elenor walked toward the carrier with measured steps; the rhythmic sound of her heeled boots echoed across the empty garage. When she reached the vehicles, she paused for a brief analysis and chose the largest one.

  “That way, I can carry everything upstairs in a single trip,” she thought.

  She climbed into the carrier’s pilot seat and started the engine. Thanks to its advanced gravity stabilizers, the vehicle rose fifteen centimeters off the ground and began gliding silently. Skillfully maneuvering the controls, Elenor guided the carrier alongside the SUV. The carrier was nearly half the size of the car, but its cargo bay was designed to be remarkably deep and spacious.

  She climbed out of the cockpit and opened the trunk and side doors of the vehicle. Her plan was clear in her mind:

  “First, the food. Weapons and explosives must go on top. If they’re buried underneath and get activated by accident, there’s no coming back. Especially if one of those poisonous gas bombs detonates… Considering they can kill a troll in seconds, a normal human like me wouldn’t stand a chance.”

  This time, the frantic chaos from earlier was replaced by calm, systematic work. She arranged everything with meticulous care, placing bags of clothing between food packages and chemical materials to absorb impacts. She neatly covered the food supplies with a picnic blanket she found in the car. The entire loading process took about forty-five minutes. When she finished, Elenor stretched her arms overhead and smiled faintly.

  “Finally done…”

  But the moment the pitiful mess of the house upstairs crossed her mind, her smile vanished instantly, her expression darkening.

  “Oh, what wonderful peace…” she muttered with weary sarcasm.

  Elenor sighed, straightened the back seat of the car, closed the doors firmly, and locked the vehicle with the physical key from her pocket.

  “Good thing Uncle Omar has a habit of keeping a spare key inside the car. With my smart watch blown up, starting this thing digitally wouldn’t really be possible anymore.”

  She boarded the carrier, gave the garage one last glance, and headed deeper into the greenhouse section. Within seconds, she arrived at the residence at the end of the corridor. It resembled a small mansion. Its exterior was painted a modern smoke-gray tone, and the massive windows of the living room and kitchen stretched seamlessly from floor to ceiling. At the entrance stood a wide veranda that radiated a sense of calm. On the veranda, a stylish relaxation area had been arranged: a round wooden table with a modern fire pit at its center, a pristine white rug beneath it, two intricately carved wooden chairs, and comfortable sofas.

  Elenor parked the carrier right beside the veranda. Stepping off the vehicle, she reached the steps and gracefully removed her heeled boots. She took slippers from the shoe cabinet beside the entrance, slipped them on, and slowly climbed the wooden steps. A faint smile appeared on her face as she glanced at the warm-looking seating area to her left.

  “This was definitely Uncle Omar’s idea,” she thought with a soft chuckle.

  “He loves grilling. Who knows how much meat has been cooked over that fire pit…”

  When she reached the entrance, an elegant door with wooden carvings and glass details greeted her. She placed her finger on the scanner beside it, and once the system confirmed her identity, the door opened silently. Out of habit, Elenor subjected the door to a brief analysis.

  “Looks like wood, but it must be made from that special tree extracted from the depths of the rifts—ten times harder than steel. And the glass is probably top-tier reinforced. I still can’t tell whether Grandfather’s obsession with excess comes from narcissism or just a love of playing it safe.”

  The moment she stepped inside and confronted the chaos she had been expecting, her eyebrow began twitching wildly again. She took a deep breath, left the door open, and quickly stepped back outside. Her first task was to take out the food items that needed to go into the freezer and carry them into the kitchen. When she opened the refrigerator and saw the stacks of packaged meat inside, she smiled helplessly.

  “As expected… In a house where Uncle Omar and Aunt Amanda live, it’s impossible not to have meat. At this rate, thanks to them, I’ll probably become unable to live without it too.”

  She placed two kilos of lamb ribs onto the cluttered counter. When she saw the leftover food and stubborn grease stains on the surface, her expression soured again; an inexplicable wave of anger surged through her chest. She placed a hand over her heart and took a deep breath, holding the air in her lungs for a moment before releasing it slowly. She transferred the ribs into a large container taken from the cupboard.

  “I really hope this house has a walk-in freezer, and that it’s filled to the brim with meat.”

  As she examined the kitchen, a door caught her attention. She approached slowly and opened it, revealing a narrow yet functional room lined with empty shelves. It was wide enough for three or four people to stand side by side. Directly across the room stood a door made of fogged glass, and right beside it, a digital panel. Elenor wiped away the white mist on the glass with her hand and peered inside. When she found what she was looking for, a calm smile curved her lips.

  “So this is the freezer room.”

  The freezer room measured five meters in both length and width. Inside were two whole cattle, four whole lambs, and several crates of packaged meat. Elenor made a mental note to conduct a proper inventory later to determine exactly how much meat she had. After leaving the pantry, she carried the frozen items she had brought in on the cart from the kitchen and placed them into the freezer room. Her posture was tense like that of a gunslinger, and her ruby eyes were as sharp and focused as a predator locked onto its prey.

  “Time to clean.”

  With a determined motion, she rolled up the sleeves of her pajamas. After a brief sweep of the house, she found the laundry room stocked with cleaning supplies. She put on her gloves, secured her mask over her mouth, and entered the battle in earnest. She gathered Omar’s weapons scattered throughout the house and stacked them beside the carrier. The foul-smelling laundry, dirty clothes dragged across the floor, and underwear were sent to the waste disposal unit with visible disgust and destroyed. Eliminating the obvious chaos and foreign objects took more than two hours.

  She could have activated the cleaning drones; however, it was impossible for them to distinguish disorder on such a large scale. They would most likely mistake valuable items for trash and destroy them as well.

  “Why did artificial intelligences have to become corrupted?” she muttered.

  “If we could use AI, everything would be so much easier. Two hours and thirty-five minutes of my life wasted… I’m already making a note to give Grandpa and Uncle Omar the cold shoulder for a long time the next time I see them.”

  She walked over to the control panel for the cleaning drones and activated the screen, but what she saw was utterly disappointing:

  [System restarting…]

  [Remaining Time: 4 hours 32 minutes.]

  Elenor’s eyebrow twitched violently. She let out a deep sigh; the last few hours had been so intense that exhaustion had seeped into her bones, and she was still standing there in her pajamas. At that moment, a loud growl from her stomach broke the silence. She held her abdomen with her slender hands.

  “…I didn’t eat anything last night. On top of that, I skipped breakfast. If my stomach hadn’t growled, I would’ve forgotten I was even hungry.”

  She turned and headed toward the kitchen, but the environment still felt far too repulsive to her. Instead, she took clean plates from the cupboard and cutlery from a drawer, then quickly stepped out onto the veranda. She set everything down on the table near the fire pit, then brought out the ribs she had taken from inside along with bread and salad ingredients from the carrier. She reached for the panel to ignite the fire pit.

  “Please work… I really don’t want to survive on just salad right now.”

  The moment she touched the panel, the infamous warning appeared once again:

  [System Restarting.]

  With a groan of frustration, she dropped herself onto one of the sofas, spread her arms wide, and stared up at the ceiling.

  “That’s enough already! My sleep was interrupted, I drove like a racing master at the crack of dawn, killed a group of goblins and a troll! I inspected an entire laboratory and then cleaned up the filth of two elderly adolescents. I’m dying from exhaustion and hunger… Even Aunt Amanda’s harshest hunting training sessions were easier than this!”

  She swore she wouldn’t step back inside until the drones finished their job and left the house spotless. Calmly standing up, she reached for the bags on the carrier. While rummaging through the package of snacks, she found a rectangular almond chocolate bar. She opened it and took a large bite, and with the rush of sugar, she felt her stress slowly melt away. A warm, peaceful smile spread across her face.

  'Hm~ chocolate really is a woman’s best friend…'

  As she moved to step onto the veranda, her gaze once again fell upon the small black box. She wiped the chocolate smeared at the corner of her full lips with her thumb, then, unable to resist her curiosity, picked up the box. The moment she felt its weight again, that same unsettling chill crawled over her body. Her brows knit together instinctively.

  “That’s twice now… Why do I freeze every time I touch this box? What’s inside it?” she murmured. “Grandpa told me to use it as soon as possible, but he tends to exaggerate everything about me, so I didn’t dwell on it much. Still, I don’t understand why my instincts react like this. I haven’t even seen what’s inside yet. Could it be some kind of master chip for the laboratory systems? But it can’t possibly be this heavy…”

  Thoughtfully, Elenor took another bite of her chocolate; the instant the familiar flavor touched her tongue, an uncontrollable smile appeared on her face. With the box in hand, she stepped onto the veranda and settled onto one of the sofas. Crossing one leg over the other, she set the box beside her and leaned back. As she finished her chocolate, she began planning while gazing at the smooth surface of the greenhouse reflecting artificial sunlight.

  'Hmm… First thing I need to do is prepare a supply list. No matter what I plant right now, nothing will grow overnight. Even with the most advanced fertilizers, harvesting takes eight to twelve weeks. I need to know exactly how much food I have and what types of seeds are available.'

  After finishing the last bite of chocolate, she wiped her lips with her finger, then slowly licked the remaining chocolate from it, savoring the taste. Her mind refused to rest, turning over possibilities one by one.

  I also need to be prepared for anything. If what Grandpa told me is true, the laboratory might not be as safe as it looks. There’s a risk of rift openings almost everywhere… At least the chances of high-level rifts appearing in this area are low. Still, the most logical move would be to hide weapons and ammunition in every frequently used room, everywhere I can reach.

  Elenor reached for the metallic belt around her waist and checked the equipment attached to it.

  'I should make my belt more functional… maybe even apply some upgrades.'

  Her gaze shifted from the greenhouse to the training hall. She knew she couldn’t rely solely on her weapons in close combat.

  “Uncle Omar’s training hall is the ideal place for me to improve myself. I’ll need to choose new weapons for close combat and start training.”

  Finally, she looked over the gardens in the greenhouse; she needed to examine every plant, every leaf one by one to fully understand what she was dealing with. There was much preparation to be done, and time was limited.

  'This place is now both my home and my fortress,' she said to herself.

  'I have to make the best possible use of it.'

  After letting out a deep sigh and rubbing her eyes with one hand, her gaze drifted back to the black box beside her.

  “Alright,” she murmured in a resolute tone.

  “It’s time to see what this thing really is.”

  The moment Elenor picked up the box, that unsettling chill swept through her body for the third time. It was starting to irritate her now; her intelligence and logic refused to accept such a meaningless physical reaction.

  “How did that saying go?” she muttered.

  “Once is coincidence, twice is luck, and the third time is enough to raise suspicion. Let’s see what it is that’s making me this instinctively uneasy.”

  She focused on the touch panel at the front of the box and placed her index finger onto the scanner. A faint red light scanned her finger from end to end, and a green confirmation light immediately followed—but at that exact second, Elenor felt a sharp pain in her finger and jerked her hand back reflexively.

  “ACK!”

  She stared at her finger in shock; the tip had been punctured by something like a tiny needle, and a thin line of blood slowly welled up. Without thinking, she brought her finger to her mouth and looked back at the box with suspicion.

  “A blood analysis? Grandpa must have been dead serious about this thing. If someone without the correct DNA had tried to open it, this device would’ve either exploded or locked itself permanently. It probably would’ve generated a massive shockwave too—enough to turn a fifty-meter radius into ash.”

  Her curiosity quickly overwhelmed her fear, and she slowly lifted the lid. Inside the box rested an exceptionally sleek smartwatch, its silver-colored, 50-millimeter round casing gleaming softly. Elenor’s eyebrows shot up in astonishment as she carefully picked it up and examined it more closely.

  “So… a smartwatch? Is this the ‘great invention’ and ‘secret delivery’ he was talking about? No… there’s no way he’d make such a fuss over just a watch. There has to be much more to this.”