Modern World Warlock-Chapter 243: Cave Evacuation

At Parton’s lighthouse, Megan, Alice, and Madeline spoke with the group that was transported to the underwater cave with their earpieces.

When they heard that a group of people were being kept under with no means to escape, Megan called Camille to listen to her opinion.

Since the group’s mission was taking place quite far from the Jade Dragons’ territory, sending reinforcements could take them a few hours at the minimum, so the group of women had to come up with another plan on the spot.

As 11 p.m. approached, the street market booths at the pier were closing down and gathering their goods, prompting all visitors to slowly leave the area.

"I got an idea…" Megan muttered, glancing at a store where people could rent scuba diving gear.

The brunette shot another glance at Alice beside her, remembering she was an ex-detective, and wondered if she would be okay with her plan. However, she couldn’t think of any other options.

"You want to break in and get some gear for them, right?" Alice asked, prompting Megan to nod in agreement.

"Well, it’s an emergency, and I’m not a cop anymore, so…" she continued, unofficially giving her thumbs-up.

Meanwhile, Trinity heard about the underwater cave and began digging through different documents on her PC, remembering that she had read about the caves a few years ago.

Supposedly, there were three underwater caves right beside Parton’s northern shore that had been fully explored by divers.

However, the government never turned these caves into tourist attractions, as there were a few times during the year when the tide would utterly flood the caves without leaving any air pockets.

Deeming it too dangerous to be an attraction, they decided to leave the caves alone. Still, that only made those underwater caves the perfect hiding spot for the cartel’s hostages.

Based on the information that Dante and his group were giving her, Trinity was able to pinpoint the exact location of the underwater cave.

The hacker found three different maps that were left by the explorer divers. On the first map, she noticed that the cave could be entered by walking, so she eliminated that option.

The other two caves had underwater tunnels as their entrance, which were both around one hundred meters long. Nonetheless, when she inspected the rest of the map, she saw that one of the caves was significantly larger than the other, and the layout matched the description Dante gave them.

After finding the exact location, Trinity sent it to Megan’s group, making them realize the cave was quite close to them, as they could reach it if they dived from the cliff beside the seaside market.

As they waited for the streets to clear out a bit more, the three girls put on a facemask and rushed to the scuba diving store, shattering the windows and barging inside.

The few pedestrians that were close were startled and ran away from the scene, shouting for people to call the police.

Ignoring the panic outside the store, the three women quickly grabbed as many oxygen tanks as possible, a few divings masks, breathers, and BCD vests, which was short for "buoyancy control device."

A BCD vest was a piece of equipment that divers used to establish neutral buoyancy underwater and positive buoyancy on the surface, allowing them to float or sink as they preferred.

Once they grabbed everything they could muster, the trio began to make their way to the cliff beside the seaside market. However, running while carrying so many things became problematic for the trio—not because of the weight, but because they struggled to balance all the items.

"I’ll go touch the skull… You guys go through the entrance to make sure it’s the right one," Alice commented.

"Are you sure?" Megan asked, offering herself to be the one to touch the skull.

Still, Alice was determined, and after the two women nodded to acknowledge themselves, they quickly split up.

While Madeline transported scuba diving gear to the cliff, using her wings to go as fast as possible with Megan, Alice rushed back to the lighthouse.

When the ex-detective found herself before the translocation key, she took a deep breath to prepare herself and extended her hand.

Right as it made contact, Alice felt her body getting lighter for a brief moment, and in the blink of an eye, she was standing at the flooded entrance of the underwater cave.

"Hello!?" Alice roared, her voice echoing through the cave tunnel, where she could hear faint voices.

"Miss Alice!?" Zac replied from the other side of the cave, prompting the woman to confidently walk through the tunnel with all the gear she was carrying.

Zac, seeing the woman carrying oxygen tanks and breathers with her, hastily approached her to help. Still, when they tried guiding the first group of people through the tunnel to the entrance, they were too scared to grab their hands.

The redhead quickly summarized what Dante told him, explaining that the captive citizens had been mentally tortured, so it was difficult to approach them.

Alice, who had a serious and determined expression most of the time, suddenly turned serene and motherly when she faced a young married couple, trembling in absolute fear.

Zac noticed that he had never seen the woman make a face like that, and when Alice crouched in front of the couple, she gently placed her hands on their heads, reassuring them that they would be safe.

’Speaking nicely to them won’t work… I already tried,’ the redhead thought.

However, the couple’s eyes lit up with hope after hearing Alice, and Zac pondered if he was simply too ugly to console other people.

When the captive citizens gathered the courage to follow Alice through the tunnel, she began walking back with a small group, including Zac.

"How fast can you swim?" Alice asked the redhead.

"Umm…" Zac replied, turning his gaze away from the woman with a bit of embarrassment.

"Don’t tell me… You don’t know how to swim!?" Alice inquired, slightly altered.

"I grew up poor in a city! Where was I supposed to go swimming!?" Zac exclaimed.