"Prompt message: Residual information has been read"

"Close the information interface."

As I walked into the dark mine, a piercing siren blared in my ears.

I saw a piece of red light flashing next to the gear icon in my field of vision, like an iron block that had been red-hot by a blacksmith, burned into my retina.

At that time, my left foot had already stepped into the mine, and I stood on tiptoe with my right foot, pushing myself into the bottomless darkness with just one step.

I'm secretly glad that I got this reminder.

The doubts I had in the hot spring house just now must have been too strong. Driven by curiosity, I rashly wanted to step into a mine that had not been used for many years without carrying any lighting, first aid, or breathing equipment.

Cave roof collapse, gas leakage, poisonous creatures, ferocious beasts, leftover traps...

Either one has the ability to kill me.

After all, I went out today and learned that while the colonist system increases my abilities, it does not guarantee my invulnerability.

When I was hit by the pony, my abdomen was already in a negative state. If the heart and head were attacked...

After calming down, facing this dark abyss, I finally woke up and found a rock to sit down on, and started to check the alarm.

Unexpectedly, after turning on the alarm, a long monologue appeared.

It may be taken from a diary, a memoir, a letter, or just a person's ramblings.

Judging from the hidden part of the monologue, the span of this information is very huge, and the distribution of the story may last for several years or decades.

I wrote and drew on the land, trying to clarify the context. Although the time was not clearly stated, these stories should be distributed linearly.

I started to think about the protagonist.

The protagonist is an illegal immigrant who landed on the island earlier, and carried out a violent and radical development and construction in the island's mines. The five people traveling with him, from the appearance of the characters, are at least Old Yorkson and Little Hooker.

, Antonio, and Dolanco, plus "I" as the protagonist, and one person who never showed up.

"I" was an ordinary miner with little education, who later learned a little knowledge on his own. He had the courage and caution consistent with his status, and finally escaped by boat alone, but failed in success.

There is no problem with this. Most of the people related to this mine ended up dead or missing in the mine.

Among those who were clearly dead, Antonio was only mentioned in the monologue. He died in a suspected fall from a cliff, but the place where he was found was on flat land like a plantation. There was no doubt that the body had been moved.

Then the act of moving the corpse seemed particularly suspicious. Even if he was not the murderer, he clearly had the purpose of framing the person and making the water in this town muddy enough.

And the person named "Yockson Providence" that I care about most is probably the old Yorkson in the monologue.

He is a learned and wise old man. He was decisive when he was young, but he was obsessed with books when he was old.

The centralized political system and long-term development model on the island he proposed laid a sufficient foundation for the subsequent prosperity of Ore Town.

Moreover, he presided over the construction of Rose Square and finally built this hot spring house, which is consistent with the information I have.

But the old man's final outcome was that he disappeared into his house when his body was no longer able to walk freely.

Unlike those equalitarians who ventured into the mountains, no one explicitly stated that he disappeared into the mines.

The same thing happened to Dolanco.

As one of the miners' leaders and a carpenter on the island, he has the closest contact with the mountain.

But his final whereabouts did indeed disappear during the patrol of the mountain. Knowing that so many people had disappeared, he insisted on searching the mountain alone. Was it driven by justice, or was there another purpose?

If it was those ordinary miners who later killed Antonio in a struggle for power, then the disappearance of these two men would seem illogical.

As the town's police chief, "I" interrogated Little Hook immediately after Antonio's death. Then why did this loner, known as the "skeptic", give up going into the mountains so early?

Looking for another way at the foot of the mountain?

It is true that Little Hook is a serious suspect in terms of the motive and time of the murder, but this killing method alone is a huge flaw.

If I were a murderer, I would never move the body to my plantation after killing someone, without making any cover-up, and wait for the crime to be exposed in the morning.

From this point of view, it is enough to clear Little Hook's suspicion. Old Yorkson must also have thought of this before proposing protective custody measures, placing Little Hook in full view of the public to prevent the murderer from continuing to kill.

After all, what could be more reasonable than committing murder and committing suicide out of fear of guilt?

At this time, Old Yorkson had maintained his absolutely rational choice.

It can be seen that even though little Hook kept questioning his decision-making, the old man only used his elder wisdom to maintain the relative stability of the team instead of expelling an unstable factor.

Young Hooker only maintained his skeptical spirit and did not interfere with the collective decision. He was even willing to be imprisoned and arrested and suffered unknown injustices.

Well, Old Yorkson and Young Hooker, two people with completely opposite opinions, turned out to be mutually trusting allies at this time.

Therefore, in the long run, it is a submissive "I", and Dolanco, who did his own thing in the later period, seems to be free from the outside.

There is a theory that those egalitarians, in order to create an opportunity for struggle, murdered the die-hard Antonio among the people in power, and then they died collectively in the trap left by the six miners.

But this does not explain why the town later fell into chaos caused by a rumor.

The horrifying story of the drunkard has repeatedly focused attention on the surroundings of Little Hook. It is very likely that he is also a pawn of the equalitarian faction to sow discord.

But this still cannot explain the collective terrorist disappearance that he later testified about.

Telling this news will only make the previous hard work of the equalitarians in vain.

The best way would be to make crazy hints and frame up the six old miners, forcing them to come up with a compromise plan to settle the dispute!

I seemed to feel that behind the strange events in the town, there was a pair of eyes full of malice, watching everything happen.

The mastermind behind the scenes is not satisfied with any compromise and mediation. What it wants is for this town to fall into absolute chaos and panic, to plunge this originally prosperous town into a virus of fear, and to destroy the development soil that has been cultivated for many years.

But who is it?

No one has come forward to take responsibility for this incident.

No one benefited from it.

There is not even a single person with existing records who could complete this crazy farce.

………

This time the colonist system put a huge puzzle in front of me, which made me think hard but still couldn't find the answer.

I kept drawing relationship diagrams on the ground and recreating the events, but in the end I only got a messy graffiti.

The clues of everyone above are related to each other, and the suspicions of everyone are contradictory, turning each small problem into a whirlpool of huge problems.

I suddenly began to sympathize with the nameless "I" in the monologue.

He used his meager knowledge and tried his best to crack the conspiracy.

But from his position, he was unable to objectively and impartially analyze the motives of his close friends.

Even with his investigative abilities, he couldn't easily investigate every clue.

The final result is that even though he once stood closer to the truth than me, he still became a pawn in the conspiracy after putting in huge efforts.

I'm thinking that maybe, in addition to the old old Yorkson, letting young Hook investigate this matter will be more promising to find out the truth.

And judging from the fact that he lives at the foot of the mountain and doesn't want to go into the mine anymore, did he find any clues?

………

The mysterious sixth person, the unknown murderer, the final whereabouts of the original residents, the answer to the town's mystery...

These questions lingered in my mind and couldn't go away. Until I returned to the foot of the mountain, I still couldn't find a reasonable explanation.

In fact, I have some immature clues in my heart that still need to be verified one by one, so I can only keep these doubts in my heart.

After all, survival is the first priority.

My mind suddenly flew through distant time and space, and I remembered that there were six people back then who, like me now, were struggling to gain a foothold in a new world.
Chapter completed!