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Late Morning - Late Winter - Year 24 : Acardi Wreckage Island

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-What psyco stuffed an antimatter reactor.

. with uranium..?- Looking right around the reactor, into a likely once-sealed room completely stuffed with fizzling uranium, I felt myself cringe.

-What psyco even gathered this much uranium in the first place.

.?- With a conservative guess, it was about two dozen tons of ore, more than enough to level a large empire in a single blast.

However, rather than being laid in one large pile, it was all neatly sectioned out, separated by mostly melted walls of lead, clearly indicating the person who laid it all there knew clumping it all together would make it go supercritical.

But that was a level of knowledge unbefitting this world. -That's.. odd...-

From my initial looks at the reactor, I was certain that someone had tampered with everything, however, the more I looked, the more I had to question that assertion.

Stepping back and using my aura to try and paint a larger picture, I started seeing things that didn't line up.

Closer to the reactor, it was clear where the surrounding damage came from, with the melted dividers between the separated uranium piles, the walls to adjacent rooms, and the countless nearby control panels, computers, and even towering masses of machinery melting because of heat from the reactor prior to it all being doused in water.

But as I looked out farther and farther, more questions started ripping through my mind. -I.. can't see the bottom...-

Trying to look through the dozens and dozens of layers composing the structure, each nearly a hundred and fifty meters tall, separated by a thick layer of reinforced alloy, I felt my perception of scale start to warp.

Even at the farthest edge of my readable aura, the structure continued to stretch into the depths, exposing what I could only think was a huge scar, where the structure had been melted in half.

In comparison to the reactor, the damage here was on a scale I could only fathom with my memories as Nott; a level of heat that couldn't be generated by anything less than hundreds, if not possibly thousands of kilograms of antimatter. -And that's being conservative...-

Pushing a bit of my aura into the unbelievably thick layers of metal between each level of rooms, I found all sorts of cabling, plumbing, conveyor belts, and runes meant to insulate the already scientifically unfathomable heat-reflective tiles.

Yet regardless of those protections.. every layer, without fail, was melted to nothingness, with the damage spreading into the layers farther and farther the deeper I looked.

At the top, here around the reactor, the damage seemed to be minimal from that planet-splitting blast of heat, with the top layer and nearby machinery rooms completely layered in sealife, showing just how long it had all been submerged for.

However, the reactor and storage room didn't share that age.

Looking at the reactor again, only the far side was coated in a layer of carbon, or showed any signs of oceanic corrosion, while the inside looked as if it had only just been exposed to water along with the few adjacent rooms. -Meaning the reactor must have just melted all of this away, and previously, this area was watertight. ..-

Knowing the reactor couldn't just ignite itself, nor just magically stuff itself with uranium despite the conveyer in the floor leading into the bottom of it, I started turning my attention to smaller details, trying to find traces of tampering like the small antimatter charge pylons' runes being freshly cleaned along with areas on nearby machinery where the algae, barnacles, and coral had been scraped off.

It was more than abundantly obvious that someone had tampered with stuff, but it wasn't until I properly looked at the machinery in nearby rooms, trying to learn what they were for, that horror finally came to my face.

-Wait a second... These machines were manufacturing the fusion reactor ignition cores.

.. They're fabricators...- And after looking more in detail at the areas of the machines that were cleaned, I started really questioning my initial idea that the person who tampered with everything was stupid.

From areas where ore was refined, to the cast of molds, and even the storage areas were all exposed, as if they were trying to learn how it all worked.

And possibly.. how to replicate it...

It was everything a dragon needed to know how to make them besides acquiring the ores in the first place. -But considering it looks like they took those pieces from the machine...- I felt my expression go dark in a flash.

Although I didn't have any idea who the person who came down here was, it made me anxious that there was an equal chance of it being either some random researcher, or someone on the Holy Kingdom's side. -That's bad...-

And what made it worse was the cleaned antimatter runes... -Someone definitely studied those...- Looking at where one had been disassembled and reassembled a little imperfectly, I felt my gaze darken. -That makes me wonder...-

Looking over at the reactor, barely staying intact thanks to the dense surrounding water sucking away heat just fast enough, I glanced at the remaining several tons of uranium with a thin glare. -Someone set it off on purpose...-

Although still nothing more than a guess, the more I thought about it, the more likely it seemed.

Someone had come down here to study fusion and antimatter, and learn how to harness it, before stuffing the reactor with uranium and turning it on, expecting it to explode and set off the uranium in the storage with it.

Had they been successful, nothing there would have been left.

It was enough uranium to blow the ocean above me into orbit, glass half the island, and send out tsunamis tall enough to cover Ampelos.

-But because the antimatter is shooting into the reactor so slowly.

. it looks like it will eventually fizzle out. ..-

Thankfully, the reactor wasn't a proper antimatter one, seemingly being more for testing fission and fusion cores, just using a bit of antimatter as the spark.

Without electricity, it was of course still too hot for the reactor to handle, without the electromagnets in the shell being on, and not everything could be contained, but remarkably, the reactor didn't totally melt down thanks to the conditions of the water managing to keep the shell from completely melting down. -But that's all it'll do...-

Once the reactor shell finally melts, the reaction would just fizzle out, and the remaining antimatter would just send a bunch of steam to the surface and perpetuate the storm. -So as long as I turn the pylons off, it'll eventually fizzle out...-

However, as I swam over to deactivate them, I hesitated.. before slowly backing off. -Not yet...-

Remembering Chioni's mention of people that were frequently checking on the hotspot right after its ignition, the idea that the burnoff was on purpose was nearly pinned onto certainty in my mind.

-If they set this off on purpose.. they would have frequented this place until it exploded.

. but if it never does...- I had two options.

I could either replicate the blast and turn them off the trail.. or... -I could use it as bait...- If it never exploded, there was a chance they would come back to make sure it was destroyed.

However, at the end of the day that all hindered on what the actual story was, so after investigating a bit more, I made my way up to the surface before cleaning out the uranium caught between my scales and making my way back to the island.

By then, it was already dark, and thanks to thick clouds rolling in from the south, the ground was even darker, with the research huts only barely illuminated by the warm glow of lanterns and light artifacts. -How quiet...-

Eventually making my way to the ground after making sure I wasn't a walking mass of nuclear fallout, I landed in front of the hut Hera and Krystallo were in before making my way inside.

"That was fast." Hera was quick to greet me with a warm gaze. "I thought you were going to be down there for at least a few days."

Watching Krystallo shoot me a glare, I wanted to laugh. "Don't worry, that place will take years to explore... I just stayed around the reactor."

"It was that big..?" Hera's gaze rapidly softened as her tail settled with worry.

But I could do nothing but nod. "I couldn't see the bottom. Even if it isn't the size of the entire island.. well.. all I can say is it'd still be the largest structure I've ever seen..." -It makes the Academy look tiny in comparison...-

"I-I see..." Not sure what to think, the warmth in her expression turned conflicted, and her tail subconsciously curled under her paw. "You mentioned a reactor as well. Was that the source of the hotspot?"

Nodding, I found a spot to lie down and explain everything I could, speaking on my theories regarding the meltdown being on purpose, as well as that the person who did it all seemed to be well informed with the rules of fission and fusion.

But it just made the atmosphere in the room turn dark.

"That's not good..." Turning her gaze to the ground as she sank into thought, Hera's mind raced.

"Nothing regarding developments like that have been reported at all in my time as Monarch.

The Foreign Intelligence branch likely doesn't know anything either.

.." Meaning the researcher was more than likely not associated with Bahamut.

"If the Holy Kingdom manages to replicate those cores. . you know how bad it'll be..."

Nodding, I steadied my stance. "But I have an idea. If it was burned off on purpose, the people who came to check it out repeatedly, the ones you asked Chioni to describe, might be wanting to make sure its all properly destroyed. If I had to guess, they were waiting for it to explode."

Hera's eyes instantly shot open.

"So if I suffocated it before the Atlas team arrives.. they might come back to try and make sure it's all destroyed."

"And if that happens, we might be able to figure out who the researcher was..."

"Correct."

But at the same time, it wasn't that simple. After discussing between ourselves a bit more, we rather quickly concluded that we needed to stay completely out of sight, and act as if we never came here while having the blaze slowly settle.

The issue was we only had a few days before the Atlas team arrived, and figured if they were here, whoever was messing with the reactor would be less likely to show up and investigate, so we had to race against the clock.

We were going to lay a trap for someone we weren't certain even existed, but regardless, as soon as I turned off the antimatter pylons and the hotspot started shrinking, rumors spread like wildfire, and the bait was laid.

All we had to do was wait and see if the creatures we wanted to bite would take the bait.