Kingdom of Corrosion
Chapter 90 - 89 Fortress and the Truth

Chapter 90: Chapter 89 Fortress and the Truth

Maya nodded to acknowledge Lin Wu’s additional explanations and continued, "The Sawmill’s resources are imbalanced and a certain distance from the material area, which is acceptable. I believe that the architectural units of the Sawmill are far more numerous than those of the fire station and the baseball field. I estimate that the Sawmill will provide a certain amount of building materials daily because I suspect that the Sawmill is a tower defense-style base."

Maya: "The strength of its defense is directly related to sentry towers, so we must build double sentry towers. The primary function of a sentry tower is to deal with sieges; therefore, they don’t need to operate 24 hours like a baseball field. The downside is in defense, the defenders at the Sawmill have no geographic advantage. Besides the double sentry towers, other personnel must confront zombies on the ground, with zombies entering the base from all sides."

Stone asked, "What about the defense capability of the fire station?"

Maya replied, "The fire station is a three-story building with a walled-off open space on the right side, connected to shops on both sides, so we don’t need to worry about defending the flanks. The front entrance is an unbreachable system wall, but there are two doors, one in front of the building and the other in front of the open space on the side, and we must sacrifice an open space unit to build a sentry tower. The back entrance is similar to the front, with two doors as well."

Maya said, "If it’s high-intensity defense, I suggest we abandon all the facilities on the first floor and fully retreat to the second floor, holding the only staircase leading upstairs."

Shana added, "I took a look from the outside, and I estimate the staircase is about two meters wide, with the first floor’s height between 3.6 and 4.2 meters."

Stone asked, "So you’re saying it’s defensible, but we must abandon the first-floor facilities?"

Maya nodded, "Yes."

Stone asked, "What about the sentry?"

Maya replied, "We could use a non-system method to draw a rope from the third floor to the sentry tower, leaving a retreat path for the sentry."

Faced with three bases, each with significant strengths and weaknesses, Stone looked around and asked, "What are your thoughts?"

Lin Wu raised his hand and said, "As an excellent and qualified scout, it’s necessary for me to speak up. In my personal assessment of the situation, the baseball field would be the easiest to take down, followed by the Sawmill. The fire station is the most difficult, and Maya suggested using two gunmen to continuously fire and draw away the zombies from Highway 4. I can be one of the gunmen, but who will be the second?"

Lin Wu continued, "Moreover, after deducting the two gunmen, everyone else must resort to stealth to deal with zombies within the safe zone. The safe zone includes several stores, the main building of the fire station, the open space beside it, and the area covered by the back door. Normal zombies won’t climb ladders, but the Frenzy possess some intelligence, and they might find a way to reach the rooftop. We can shuttle between the rooftops of different buildings, and the Frenzy could do the same."

Lin Wu said, "How long can two gunmen hold out? Little Knife and I can handle a few Frenzy as gunmen, but how should the siege personnel be distributed to quickly and quietly clear out the zombies in the safe zone? In my opinion, with our current numbers and equipment, attacking the fire station is extremely difficult."

Little Knife expressed his surprise, "You speak well." That did not fit Lin Wu’s character at all. Given the choice between 1 or 0, Lin Wu would choose 1 without pondering why he should choose between 1 and 0.

Shana looked at Lin Wu, who grinned cheekily, "Pure plagiarism, it’s Shana’s viewpoint."

Shana took over, "Indeed, I think that the current strength of the Former Shadow Base is inadequate to take down the fire station."

Maya asked, "So, your plan is to progress gradually? First take down the baseball field, and after we recruit and develop further, then aim for the fire station?"

Shana inquired, "Why not the Sawmill?"

Maya said, "The sawmill belongs to the type of base that fosters comfortable living. The baseball field requires sentries to be on duty 24 hours a day, which is exhausting but can help players improve their shooting skills."

Shana suggested, "We propose to unite with other bases to take down the fire station."

Stone found Shana’s words quite sensible and added, "That’s right, the mountaintop base was only taken over through the joint operation of us from Shadow and the farm base. Currently, we have a relatively stable cooperative foundation with Invincible Base, and I can communicate with them about this matter to see if they are willing to cooperate."

Shana said, "The real challenge lies with Invincible himself. Does he want to lead in a small factory, or be a lackey in a big factory? Not everyone is as open-minded as Maya."

"I’ll handle it," Stone declared. "Even if Invincible disagrees with the merger, we still have the Wanderers as an option. Once Lin Wu upgrades the radio to level two, we should be able to reestablish contact with the Wanderers. If that doesn’t work, I can go to North Town to buy small bases. If all else fails, I’ll just directly recruit capable players."

With this topic concluded, the next item on the agenda, Maya said, "Tonight at eight o’clock, we will launch an attack on Building 2 infected with the Blood Plague. Su Shi has done her utmost to produce 12 F4 bombs, and we will detonate the remaining seven pipe bombs simultaneously. Additionally, Su Shi has made 3 soda can bombs and 20 Molotov Cocktails from scrap materials. I will perfect the battle plan today, and we will meet at 7:30 p.m. to assign specific tasks."

Maya said, "The night shift rests, the day shift works. Today is Monday..."

Little Knife and Lin Wu raised their hands, and Maya nodded at Stone, who then said, "Meeting adjourned."

...

To Little Knife and Lin Wu, carrying water didn’t count as labor; the two joked and played around, occasionally bursting into song, seemingly oblivious to the post-apocalyptic world. Their focus was different from others; upon seeing a little fish in the bucket, they could squat down and discuss and play with it for ten minutes. When encountering a zombie, someone would suddenly ask: How many small stones would it take to kill a zombie? Thus, Little Knife would throw the zombie to the ground, and they would take turns throwing stones at it; whoever killed the zombie earned the right to carry water one less time.

If they encountered the rare Frenzy, they wouldn’t hesitate to throw down their buckets and rush to claim the creature. Before returning to the base, they would bet on what Stone was doing, and the winner would carry water one less time. But it was just less water carrying, not less walking. The winner had to accompany the loser on the walk.

Stone just couldn’t understand their reasoning; why couldn’t they just take four buckets of water in one trip? Little Knife and Lin Wu’s response was that it was the winner’s reward.

When their water-carrying task was over, the day shift delivered a load of electronics, and Su Shi, after dismantling them, stopped Lin Wu, who was about to go out hunting for Frenzies: "Old Lin, upgrade the radio to level two."

Nobody expected that upgrading the radio once would take an hour. After sitting in front of the radio, foolishly watching the progress bar for an hour, the system announced the upgrade was successful. There was an additional signal dish on the church rooftop, and the biggest change was the addition of a video call system, and the system also provided a device similar to a 21st-century cell phone.

Now, players could use the cell phone to talk in real-time with the base, and the base could also see the content captured by the phone. After the upgrade, the radio was renamed Command Center, and the signal coverage radius reached eight kilometers.

In addition, the Command Center could receive system broadcasts. There were two channels in the system broadcast; one was the Fortress Company channel, where the more important content was survival tips from the Fortress Company. It was generally believed that two small adjacent safe zones were better than one large safe zone. Using a car to ram into Frenzies was considered an efficient and safe method. Patrol hordes possessed a certain degree of intelligence—maybe, who knows. The intelligence of red-eyed zombies exceeded that of ordinary zombies.

The second channel belonged to an organization called ’Truth.’ Hidden in non-infected areas, they believed that it was Fortress Company that had created the zombie virus, and that Fortress Company recruited mercenaries, sending Truth Agents deep into infected areas to destroy evidence. They also had a team of volunteer Truth Agents who delved deep into various infected zones to seek the truth about the virus and attempted to find a way to produce a vaccine.

Both channels attacked and mocked each other, each pleading with the surviving humans in the infected zones to provide more assistance to their cause.

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