After the two talked, they said good night to each other in the corridor and then went back to their rooms to rest.
Bertha lay in bed, unable to sleep all night. It seemed that Jobtran brought her much more hope than hiring an expedition team.
Until the sun slowly rose from the east, Bertha sighed and climbed out of bed.
She walked out of the room with some trepidation.
After a basic wash, she walked down the stairs.
"Hey, good morning."
At this time, Joe Butran was already sitting at the bar, with some documents and materials on the bar, and he seemed to be writing something.
He didn't even raise his head, but just lowered his head and spoke softly.
"Good morning, why are you up so early?"
Bertha asked curiously, and sat down next to Joet Brown.
"Make some small plans, and don't waste the remaining days."
Jobtran moved the drafted plan in front of Bertha, but there were some words on it that Bertha could not understand.
"Okay, but I suggest you negotiate with the mouse. The journey may not take as long as planned.
Have you had breakfast
If not, can I get you some cereal?"
Bertha asked, then walked into the kitchen.
"good."
Jobtran replied briefly.
He had heard noises outside the bar door, and a panting man seemed to be standing outside the door.
Jobtran stood up and opened the door, but the person outside was the mouse who had arrived earlier.
"Good morning, sir."
When the mouse saw that the person who opened the door was Jobtran, he bowed respectfully.
"Come in."
Joe Butran said bluntly.
Jobtran took a look at the bags that the mouse was carrying, and found that several of the large packages were wrapped tightly.
"Have you bought all the equipment?"
Jobtran pointed to a chair next to the bar and motioned for the mouse to sit down and rest for a while.
“Well, I’ve bought most of them, and I’ve found corresponding substitutes for some of the things I couldn’t find.
Damn the Environmental Protection Agency, you have to register with your real name to buy an ice axe now, so I had to go to several stores to get a few usable ones."
As soon as the mouse sat down, he complained to Jobtran.
"Don't worry, drink some water."
Jobtran walked to the back of the bar, picked up a wooden cup, filled it with water, and pushed it in front of the mouse.
"Thank you, sir."
The mouse took it and drank it up in gulps. After putting the cup down, he rolled up his sleeves and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
"Now the control is getting stricter and stricter. Many things are restricted on the surface. I also heard that people from the Environmental Protection Agency seem to be patrolling near Katla Volcano, strictly prohibiting people from going up the mountain without permission.
My Lord, I don’t think this trip will go smoothly.”
A trace of melancholy appeared on the mouse's face. He hoped that this news would not displease the big man in front of him.
After hearing this, Joe Butran pondered for a while and then waved his hand.
“It doesn’t matter, such a small matter should be within my authority.
I was inconsiderate. If I had given you my ID, you wouldn't have to run around so many places."
"My Lord, you don't know that this is the most difficult thing to deal with.
You can’t buy it in the market.”
The mouse leaned forward and pointed stealthily at a large package on the ground.
"Oh? What did you get? Let me guess, nitroglycerin?"
Joe Butron said jokingly with a smile on his face.
"Um, I can't get any nitroglycerin either. Here's just some black powder for blasting."
The mouse scratched his head in embarrassment, but when he came to his senses, he immediately asked back,
"Why, sir, how did you guess that? I have wrapped these packages so tightly."
"The shape, weight, and the charcoal powder outside the cloth bag, is it difficult to guess?"
Jobtran patted the mouse gently on the shoulder.
"Put these things in the room first, I have to go to the police station.
Have you eaten yet? If not, I'll ask Bertha to make you some oatmeal."
After that, Jobtran pointed upstairs, and the mouse took the initiative to lead all the luggage upstairs, and replied,
"I have already eaten, sir. It is up to you."
Joet Brown nodded slightly and buried his head in eating the cereal that Bertha brought out.
There are some sorghum and fruit slices in it, which is quite rich for breakfast.
"Thanks for the treat, see you later."
After finishing his meal in a hurry, Jobtran stood up. At this time, the rats had already carried all the luggage upstairs. If these things were left outside and triggered by some reckless drunkard, it could be fatal.
"Sir, where are we going today?"
The mouse asked respectfully, bending over.
"Don't call me Sir, just call me Joe Boutram. Let's go to the police station."
Jobtran put on a sun hat and spoke casually.
"Yes, Mr. Jobtran."
Even though Jobtran didn't care, the mouse still chose to use honorifics, which came from the bottom of his heart.
The two men walked slowly down the harbor pier, with Joet Brown walking ahead.
"Mr. Joe Butran, this direction is not the way to the police station."
The mouse reminded.
"I know. I'm just telling you something I should know."
Jobtran found a pier where the boatman used to tie ropes, brushed off the dust on it and sat down.
He looked at the calm sea, where carefree seagulls were flying, and waited silently for the mouse to tell him the secret of his family's destruction.
The mouse struggled for a while, then sighed.
"Mr. Jobtrand, my family is originally a family of geoarchaeologists. My father, my brother and I all studied at the University of Iceland, Department of Geoarchaeology.
On the surface, we are doing archaeological work, but in reality...
We can only make a living by selling cultural relics.”
After hearing this, Jobtran frowned and asked,
"This is not reasonable. Archaeology, especially geological archaeology, should receive a lot of subsidies and support.
Each project can be approved in Germany for at least 2,000 gold marks."
The mouse shook his head helplessly.
“The allowance does exist, but it does not reach the hands of those of us at the grassroots level.
The dean of the department lives a happy life every day, drinking fine wine and hugging beautiful women, but we...
In the most difficult times, we had no choice but to take this path to the black market."
"Corruption? It really is a problem that exists all over the world. Haha.
But this also explains why you purchased black powder, so continue."
Joe Butran sneered twice. Now that he knew it, he had to deal with it.
"My father and I were on an archaeological expedition when we encountered a terrible accident.
In the end, I was the only one who came back alive.”
The mouse recalled the memory that had plunged him into despair, and covered his face in sorrow.
"An accident? Was it a blasting error or an attack by a wild animal?"
Jobtran sensed that something seemed amiss, so he tried it out with a common surprise.
“No, there were no problems with the blasting.
We have also prepared countermeasures to deal with wild animals. Our family is quite experienced in surviving in the wild."
The mouse bit his lip and said with gritted teeth,
"It was an exploration of the tombs at the southern end of Vatnajökull, right below the glacial lake.
Yes, it was actually a tomb-robbing job.
We avoided many traps and passed through many dangerous places that ordinary people could not pass, but we stopped in an empty hall. "
"What's in the hall?"
asked Joe Butran curiously.
“Countless ice crystals like diamonds were suspended on the ceiling.
When we looked up, we realized that the ceiling of the tomb was a whole piece of ice.
As you walk into the hall, you can feel the cold and dampness seeping down from the glacial lake above.
Behind these moving beauties lies a great terror that I will never forget in my life.
By the way, the entire hall is arc-shaped, even the ice coffin in the middle."
After the mouse finished speaking, his hands began to tremble uncontrollably.
"Mr. Jobtran, I have never told anyone the rest of the story because I was afraid people would think I was crazy.
"Would you do it, too?"
The mouse asked, looking expectantly at Jobtran who was sitting on the stool.
"Don't worry, I've seen more horrors than you can imagine."
Jobtran pulled out a pack of his own cigarettes from his bosom, lit one and handed it to Mouse.
The mouse took it and took a deep breath.
“The murals around the temples have some obscure designs on them, and they look very, very old.
The murals show animals we've never heard of, worshipping something that looks like a starfish, with tentacles with eyes hiding in the shadows.
The tentacles rolled towards the creatures in the picture, tearing them apart, while the starfish-like things showed anger and fought back at the tentacles.
But the final scene is a ruined city submerged in ice and snow.
The stone taken from the rock wall showed that it was probably more than a billion years old.
Ridiculous, isn't it? Where did human civilization come from a billion years ago? Haha."
The mouse laughed at himself and felt that what he said was extremely ridiculous.
“But it’s true.
Because those murals are not things left by humans, right?"
Joet Brown also lit a cigarette for himself and said as he looked at the calm sea with a somewhat vicissitudes of life.
“Hahahaha, you are worthy of being Mr. Jobtran, what you said is absolutely correct.
At first, our employer only asked us to take out a crystal from a tomb, a purple crystal. According to the rules, we could not and dared not ask.
Who could have thought that a job that was a sure profit of 2,000 Icelandic kronor and was extremely simple would turn out like this.
Hahahaha, the thing that left the mural is still alive.
Like a ghost guarding a tomb, it waits for intruders and then tears them apart."
The mouse laughed crazily and shed sad tears.
Joe Butran said nothing, but let this man with a rough fate cry for a while.
After a while, when the mouse calmed down, Jobtran asked,
"You feel better after venting the suppressed emotions in your heart, right?"
"Well, I'm sorry to have wasted Mr. Jobtran's time."
The mouse wiped his tears and said with some guilt.
"No problem, another cigarette?"
Joe Butran threw the burnt-out cigarette butt into the sea and asked casually.
The mouse waved his hand to indicate that it was not necessary, and continued speaking.
“In the middle of the hall is a coffin made of black ice. I am sure that it is black ice that has not melted for thousands of years.
And the statue we were looking for should be inside.
After all preparations were made, my father and my brother went forward to open the coffin, and then the horrible thing came out.”
"Is it a starfish, or is it a tentacle?"
Jobtran asked immediately.
"The thing lying in the black ice coffin is a starfish. It looks to be more than two meters tall, and its body is like a huge spindle-shaped barrel, with starfish-like limbs on the top and bottom of its body.
It looks like both plants and animals. If it were discovered by paleontologists, it would surely receive amazing praise from the academic community."
The mouse said helplessly.
"Is the starfish alive or dead?"
Jobtran frowned, feeling that things did not seem simple.
"It's alive, and the crystal our employer needs is in its mouth.
It seemed very unhappy and angry at our disturbance, as if we had disturbed its grand plan.
After it climbed out of the ice coffin, it danced its umbrella-shaped tentacles restlessly, as if it wanted to immediately lock itself in the ice coffin again and continue sleeping, but something strange happened.
Gray smoke appeared in the ice coffin, and I saw it with my own eyes.
That was smoke that appeared out of thin air.
Three hideous heads popped out from the smoke, staring at us with vicious eyes, as well as the target it had been hunting for years: the starfish-like monster.
I swear, the thing with three heads must be our legendary Gam, Cerberus in Greek mythology.
It easily tore the starfish monster into pieces, and also tore my father and brother into pieces in front of me.
At that time, I was like a coward, backing away and backing away, pressing my body against the edge of the curved hall.
I still remember the look in its eyes, empty and evil, but it didn't kill me. Instead, it returned to the gray fog.
It cruelly left me alone in this world.
That is my story, Mr. Jobtran."
After the mouse said this, he turned and looked at Jobtran's profile.
Jobtran turned his head and looked directly into the mouse's eyes. Besides the red veins due to sadness, there was sincerity in his eyes.
"I trust you.
Hound, haha, it's getting more and more complicated."
Jobtran remembered the painting hidden in the underground archives of the city of Umr.
"The Hound", an oil painting by the young painter Freya, shows three helpless men facing a three-headed dog emerging from the mist.
"Let's go. After we go to the police station, I guess I'll have to go somewhere else."
After saying this, Jobtran stood up, brushed off the cigarette ashes that had fallen on his body, and extended his hand to the mouse sitting on the ground.
Is this just a coincidence? Or is it fate
Joe Butran doesn't know, but he will find out the truth, even if it costs him a price.