This Game Is Too Real
Chapter 447: Hundred Years of Solitude

Chapter 447: Chapter 447: Hundred Years of Solitude

"Colonel, our operations in the center of Qingquan City have reached a deadlock," the report read. "The soldiers fight gallantly, and our enemies are suffering heavy losses, but unfortunately, we still haven’t managed to get close to the Lair."

"Although the Hover Tanks are highly mobile and have reliable armor, they require major repairs every time they return from a mission, and the parts needed for these repairs simply cannot be found here."

"Especially problematic is our equipment, which has no advantage when facing the siege of Mucosal Entities; they fall in swathes and then rush in groups... It’s just like a tide. Before we manage to eliminate them all, I’m afraid we will be overwhelmed first by our collapsing logistics."

"What worries me most are those ’Evolutionary bodys’—a term coined by the technicians who entered the city center with us. We’ve discovered that some Mucosal Entities have undergone a secondary mutation on top of their initial one and have even started mimicking us, evolving structures similar to power armors and exoskeletons, and have even infiltrated our drones and tanks."

"This is not some rambling on my part; I know it sounds incredible, but if we continue to perceive them as mere beasts fighting with teeth and claws or as biochemical weapons deployed by our enemies, we will likely pay a severe price... In fact, our casualties are already severe enough."

"More than advanced weapons, we need convenient and plentiful equipment, not like now, using precious gear and manpower to fill an unfilled front line."

"Let me share some good news, the outer walls of the Stone Building have been completed, and the brothers from the Production Department remain reliable as ever. This magnificent structure can at least shelter a hundred thousand people through the harshest winter. The displaced people to the south no longer need to migrate north and can be resettled right here in the western suburbs of Qingquan City; at least we’ve achieved our initial goals. We will take a brief rest before launching into stage two of our operations."

"I’ve heard that the technical department is looking for a way to solve the mucosal problem at the genetic level."

"I, for my part, have an idea—why not use the genes in our gene bank to ’produce’ a group of super soldiers who aren’t afraid of death?"

"Even if they aren’t useful on the battlefield, they could at least help us move things. Those robots and androids are too troublesome to maintain; we’d probably need to add another maintenance battalion."

"——From a frontline dispatch (three), March 21, 2150."

Aboard the Iron Heart.

Sitting in the captain’s quarters and resting, Chu Guang was browsing the official forum of Wasteland OL through a holographic computer.

These messages had been recovered by the players of the Death Legion and synchronized to the servers in the shelter using the mission’s communication radio.

Reading the photos uploaded by the players to the official website, he thoughtfully stroked his chin and leaned back in his chair.

"2150... should be the 21st year of the Wasteland Era."

He was very sensitive to numbers and clearly remembered that the first year of the Wasteland Era was 2129.

"But to assault the center of Qingquan City in March... that’s really foolhardy."

Spring was the peak period for the Tide outbreak, with the reproductive rate of the Mutated slime fungus reaching its peak and the density of spores in the air also at its highest.

Of course, this perspective came from hindsight.

Perhaps the survivors at that time hadn’t grasped the concept of the Tide, as indicated in the dispatch, the Post-War Reconstruction Committee had underestimated the threat of the Mutants.

And...

It must have been nuclear winter at that time, right?

But these weren’t the main points.

What concerned Chu Guang more was the last line of the dispatch.

"...a group of soldiers unafraid of death, are they referring to the Weilante people?"

Upon reading this, Chu Guang was puzzled.

Those folks weren’t as fearless as one might imagine...

Maybe it was because the players were all Awakeners, or perhaps his Attribute Panel was simply outrageous, but he didn’t find those guys to be particularly strong in combat.

They were probably a bit stronger than the average person.

"Xiao Qi."

A vibrant voice quickly filled his ears, today unusually in a mature female tone.

"Here, Master."

After pondering for a moment, Chu Guang spoke.

"...Retrieve all the information gathered by the Death Legion players, not just about the Weilante people, I need everything on the Armies, enterprises, and Academies."

"Got it!"

Upon hearing the enthusiastic response, Chu Guang waited briefly. In less than a minute, Xiao Qi had completed the search through all the photographs...

Whether those uploaded by the players or those saved in personal albums.

All the information had been systematically organized into a text document, with a table of contents for ease of reference.

Although the players had gathered mostly fragmented clues, they had unexpectedly pieced together quite some startling information.

Just as he had suspected.

The Weilante people were indeed created through genetic modification technology.

Although this project initially faced opposition from the committee’s technical departments, the ongoing severe casualties at the front and the vast amounts of unresolved work forced the committee’s defense department to press the technical departments.

In 2150, the 21st year of the Wasteland Era, propelled by the severe casualties of the Qingquan City operation, the super soldier project known as the "Weilante People Plan" was finally approved despite enormous pressure from all sides.

And the committee’s defense department, which was the precursor to the Army, had its name inseparably linked to the chaos a century and a half ago.

Intrigued, Chu Guang followed the leads organized by Xiao Qi and continued reading.

The 23 pairs of chromosomes of the Weilante people were entirely designed using gene modification technology, and the raw materials were extracted from an incomplete gene bank named "Weilante."

The first thousand of these genetically original beings possessed combat capabilities far beyond ordinary.

They retained their humanity while possessing almost animalistic combat instincts, and even without systematic training, they could still defeat more than five well-trained veteran soldiers in combat.

However, this was also the crux of their limitations.

Even on the battlefields after the Prosperity Epoch, there were still few opportunities for hand-to-hand combat.

Their formidable physicality made them more suitable for the most dangerous missions with the highest casualty rates, and although their superior reflexes and mobility allowed them to kill enemies more efficiently, the problem was that there were too few of them.

Ultimately, these super soldiers had little impact on the battlefield, which further marginalized them politically.

After several battles against the "Mutated slime fungus," the Weilante People were organized into a Fast Response Brigade and, under the leadership of a young commander named Julius, they supported the regular army using cheaper, low-maintenance equipment.

The life of this Julius was filled with legends; he was born in the same year as the "Weilante People Project" and had received a military education from childhood due to his father being a senior officer in the 111th Airborne Division of the Human Alliance.

As an "Old Human," he had practically grown up alongside those "New Humans" and, fifteen years later, had stepped onto the battlefield against the Mutated slime fungus as their commander.

Chu Guang used the search function to look up the name "Julius" and found that this seemingly ordinary name surprisingly appeared over a hundred times in the less than five hundred thousand characters of the documents.

"... Come to think of it, the marshal of the Army seems to have the same name," Chu Guang vaguely remembered Vanus mentioning the name of their marshal.

However, on the West Coast, few people would directly refer to him by his name, typically using the title Marshal instead.

"If the Army’s marshal and the Julius mentioned in the documents are the same person, then this guy must have lived for at least one hundred and fifty years!"

Chu Guang slightly marveled, unable to imagine what that kind of sensation might feel like.

In "Stars," an officer who had lived for one hundred and fifty years could have reached the maximum level even just by hanging around in a "patrol fleet" dealing with pirates.

His index finger continued to slide across the holographic screen, quickly flipping to the next page.

Skipping over the lengthy descriptions, time quickly advanced to the 41st year of the Wasteland Era.

The Committee was struggling significantly with the eradication of the slime fungus, and the endless winter worsened the already scarce resources and low productivity.

There were even climatologists who despaired that the planet might not be turning into a "Wasteland Planet," but rather evolving into a more fragile "Polar Planet," with one-third of its land eventually buried under 240 meters of ice.

That war likely set the world back eighteen thousand years.

Nonetheless, eradicating the slime fungus from this planet remained the primary issue. Various research indications showed that this "simple" organism was more cold-resistant than other indigenous carbon-based life forms on Earth.

If this issue were not resolved before conditions worsened further, the future problems would exceed everyone’s expectations.

So far, the survivors had not discovered any "self-limiting" nature of the slime fungus; they merely feared those creatures that not even nuclear bombs could clean up.

If the survivors of that time had known that by simply abandoning the urban centers of the Human Alliance Era and retreating to less densely built suburbs, the slime fungus would expand to a point where it would eventually enter a period of decline, perhaps many troubles could have been avoided.

Of course, this is a consideration from the perspective of those who came later; many research successes regarding the slime fungus were indeed uncovered during the war against it.

In any case, in order to reduce the loss of human resources, the Defense Department of the Committee, building upon the "Weilante People Plan," put forth even more demanding requirements—they needed a kind of clone soldier who could be rapidly mass-produced and effective on the battlefield.

They need not be very powerful or even possess the mental faculties of normal humans, but they must complete the cycle from assembly line to battlefield in the shortest time possible.

Compared to the Defense Department of the Wasteland Era 21 years earlier, the Department in year 41 had clearly become more extreme.

The Post-War Reconstruction Committee convened a meeting to discuss relevant legislation; the departments of Production, Defense, and Technology were all involved in this debate.

This meeting was recorded in the documents as the "Trilateral Meeting."

This also marked the second major disagreement encountered by the Post-War Reconstruction Committee since its establishing.

Long-standing conflicts had already peaked before the meeting began, and the public debate seemed more like a vent.

The continuously suffering Defense Department requested that the Production and Technology departments provide a type of clone soldier that could sufficiently function on the battlefield and reduce the casualties among Human Alliance soldiers.

From the standpoint of the Defense Department, this was a completely reasonable demand.

After all, their soldiers were responsible not only for maintaining the safety and order of the settlements but also for protecting the prospectors of the Technology Department as they entered ruins to recover technologies from before the war.

The war had officially ended 41 years ago, but their war had never ceased. With a generation lasting twenty years, their sacrifices had spanned two generations, affecting at least four generations of people.

And like twenty years before, the Technology Department expressed strong opposition, claiming that it would bring not only technical risks like "DNA contamination" but could also potentially lead to the collapse of civilized society.

This concern was not unfounded.

The Weilante People, cultivated through genetic technology and lacking basic political rights, had become de facto "slave soldiers," setting the clock of history back even further to the slave societies of feudal times long before the Prosperity Epoch.

This line of thinking was wrong from the start; there were better options available.

For example, robots and AI.

However, this proposal was met with objections from the Production Department.

Without a robust industrial chain, the cost of producing a reliable robot was not merely several times or several dozen times higher but exponentially so.

The exorbitant production and maintenance costs were not something the current "Post-War Reconstruction Committee" could afford.

Unless expenditures for all survivor settlements, including the Giant Stone City, were completely cut, letting them fend for themselves.

Even then, the savings would still be far from sufficient to meet the Defense Department’s needs for manpower.

Moreover, cutting the budgets of all survivor settlements would mean that the Post-War Reconstruction Committee would lose a vast pool of human resources, which would be likened to drinking poison to quench a thirst.

In an attempt to pacify the Technology and Defense departments, the Production Department suggested many compromises.

For instance, they proposed granting the Weilante People limited political rights, such as lifting restrictions on reproduction, and appropriately integrating some Weilante People into the family of the Human Alliance, provided they could demonstrate outstanding merit on the battlefield.

As for the higher-producing clones, there was no need to confine their lives to the role of cannon fodder. They could be allowed to freely enter factories or farmland for resource production work.

This high-quality labor force was needed not only by the Defense Department but also by the Production Department.

The meeting ultimately did not yield any results, instead laying the groundwork for the disintegration of the Post-War Reconstruction Committee that followed.

The following year, in 2171, the 42nd year of the Wasteland Era, the exploration team from the Academy recovered the Weilante laboratory on the West Coast, which became the spark that ignited the powder keg.

It preserved the complete gene bank of the Weilante people and also held the unfinished "Singularity" technology from before the end of the Prosperity Epoch—life cycle modulation technology.

Under the leadership of General Julius, a Fast Response Brigade composed of Weilante people occupied the laboratory and detained all the prospectors from the Technology Department’s exploration team.

Faced with strong protests and negotiations from the Technology Department, the Defense Department merely claimed that it was Julius’s personal action and showed extreme reluctance to arrest this "out-of-control senior officer," even "accidentally" sending a nuclear fusion battery to the occupied lab.

Clearly, they were trying to complete this research or, more precisely, to utilize some sub-technologies within this research to create a "clone army with eightfold accelerated growth."

Objectively speaking, the Defense Department had already shown considerable restraint, because they could have just taken the technology directly but still fabricated a sloppy excuse as a formality.

The committee’s control over various departments had reached rock bottom, and the rift between the Defense Department and Technology Department had peaked.

In 2172, the 43rd year of the Wasteland Era, following several "accidental" incidents, the Technology Department completely lost trust in the Defense Department.

Under the leadership of then-Technology Department Minister and Academy Dean Dr. Conclusive, the Technology Department transferred a large number of core technical personnel to the Northern Swamp under the pretext of exploring large relics and started building their own armed exploration forces within the framework of the pre-war academic organization "Academy."

The Defense Department was indifferent to this, as their focus had already shifted westward to the Great Desert. Most military installations and Triumph City on the West Coast were actually under the control of that "out-of-control senior officer."

The Production Department of the committee, although low-key, was equally formidable.

Even prior to the tri-party meeting that served as a spark, they had already been covertly prioritizing construction of the settlements on the East Coast through means such as resource bias.

Ideal City was born against this backdrop.

Moreover, they even collaborated with the Manager of Shelter No. 6 and the then-captain of the Colony Ship to push forward the "Enterprise" plan, established a regional "Supreme Council," and proposed the "Industrial Salvation" overall policy.

Perhaps in the eyes of then-Production Department Minister, the colonists who stranded their colony ship on the surface to save Mother Earth and the Shelter No. 6 residents, who bravely opened the gates to save more survivors, were more trustworthy than the "colleagues" who quarreled heatedly at the negotiation table.

Although idealists seldom produce immediate tangible results, every step forward in civilization is inseparable from the exploration of idealists.

They decided to replace the committee and become the explorers of the new era.

In 2173, the 44th year of the Wasteland Era, the second spark incident occurred. The Production Department, sensing the inevitable disintegration of the Post-War Reconstruction Committee, unilaterally declared the "Province of Yúnjiānxíng Revival Act" through the now fully-fledged Ideal City.

The act stipulated that the strategic defensive regions of mountains, seas, islands, and inlets, the three urban circles of Northern Yún, Upper Yún, and Lower Yún, as well as the two industrial zones, No. 1 and No. 2, would be collectively owned by all residents of the survivor settlements of the Province of Yúnjiānxíng, including all relics from the pre-war civilization.

This may sound like a mild initiative and was reasonable.

But in practice, it harbored other intentions.

On the very night the bill was enacted, dozens of armed forces in the name of corporations left Ideal City, swiftly taking over all the East Coast research institutes of the Committee’s technical department, and the pre-war civilization relics under development.

Violent firefights broke out in parts of the research facilities.

The Academy’s armed forces, having been formed recently and being less formidable in combat power, still caused considerable trouble for the corporation’s troops with high-tech equipment and AI-controlled war machines.

Although the corporations ultimately prevailed, many research facilities were destroyed.

For instance, the experimental facilities engaged in "Perfect Life Form" Singularity Technology research turned to ash during the conflict.

This not only completely destroyed the original items of "Perfect Life Form" technology but also resulted in some experiment bodies with unstable DNA escaping to the Wasteland, some moving along the coastline, while others migrated towards the Great Desert.

And these experimental bodies lost in the Wasteland, became known later as Mutants.

Although this conflict occurred under the names of corporations and Ideal City, without the participation of the Production Department, the researchers from the Technical Department were not foolhardy.

Seizing this incident as an opportunity, Dr. Principle immediately announced the dissolution of the Technical Department. Not only did he take over all survivor settlements in the Wandering Swamp under the banner of the Academy, but he also permanently cut off all technological support outside the Wandering Swamp, even deleting databases in the Grand Canyon.

Especially parts concerning the coordinates of pre-war civilization relics.

Thus, the Army, the corporations, and the Academy stepped onto the stage of history.

And the Defense Department, Production Department, and Technical Departments that had completed the "asset transfer" swiftly discarded their historical burdens and jubilantly announced their dissolution.

The Post-War Reconstruction Committee, having lost three important departments and operated for 44 years, was virtually ineffective, unable to support survivor settlements everywhere.

By the year 2174, which marked the 45th year of the Wasteland Era.

Faced with the empty conference table, the Post-War Reconstruction Committee also finally took its last step—officially declaring dissolution.

From now on, settlements need no longer adhere to the temporary constitution set by the committee, nor accept its governance.

In turn, settlements need to find their own solutions, contending with the endless cold and the incursions of Variants to solve their own survival issues.

In its final declaration, the chief of the committee still expressed hopes that the management layers of each settlement would not forget their mission, helping their compatriots within their means as much as possible.

At the time, no one knew.

In the fifth year after the Post-War Reconstruction Committee declared dissolution, signs of the Earth’s atmospheric recovery began to appear.

The long nuclear winter ended to everyone’s surprise, and declining species began to reproduce once more on this land.

Thus, the Army, the Academies, and corporations entered their developmental period, and the Wasteland Era transitioned from the "Committee Era" to the "Refuge Era" lasting half a century.

As the climate reached the preset standards for ending dormancy, refuges progressively opened their doors, and the old sticks who walked out of the refuges gradually stepped onto the stage of this now barren land.

Although the plan deviated from its expected trajectory from the start, most refuges did not find the now-dissolved Post-War Reconstruction Committee, nor were they able to manage the surface affairs as orderly as within the shelters.

But those who were out of place in this era had, in a short time, injected a strong stimulant into this decaying world. Using knowledge from the Prosperity Epoch and mysterious objects like the black box, they helped some of the Waste Land Wanderers survive the initial dark period following the loss of the Reconstruction Committee.

Chu Guang was surprised to find that these unknown secrets were just lying on the bookshelves of the Grand Canyon’s rest area, available for anyone to browse.

What astonished him even more was that the old neighbor to the north of the Alliance was actually the precursor to the Post-War Reconstruction Committee!

"Not... I can’t say I didn’t see it coming."

Chu Guang carefully recalled the holographic image left by Dr. Principle that he had watched with Yin Fang and linked it to the clues gathered by the Death Legion.

"... In the second year of the Wasteland Era, Dr. Principle, who awoke two years late, under the escort of Captain Zhao Weisheng of the 111th Airborne Division, headed to the Grand Canyon with over a thousand unexpected survivors to meet with comrades from the Post-War Reconstruction Committee."

"According to the description in the holographic image, the Grand Canyon was already under the control of the 111th Airborne Division... In other words, was the precursor to the precursor of the Army actually deployed in the River Valley Province?"

And they even saved one of the three founders of the Academy?!

Looking at the information retrieved by the players and reflecting on the events of the past century, Chu Guang couldn’t help but feel mixed emotions.

The outside world saw so many events unfold while Shelter No. 404 was closed...

At this moment, he could finally understand Dr. Method’s feelings and why he would seclude himself in Shelter 101.

If one were repeatedly betrayed by his team, especially a completely inexplicable second betrayal, it would undoubtedly sour their mood.

However, from the standpoint of the now-dissolved Defense Department and Production Department, they certainly had their reasons—

"I’ve shed blood and sweat to open relics for you, and you won’t even deploy clone technology? Fine, I’ll do it myself!"

"Since you’re bound to split eventually, why shouldn’t I be the first to act if it’s a likely event?"

As Chu Guang looked at the last page of the holographic image, he couldn’t help but think about his Alliance.

Both he and the Alliance were young, but there would come a day when he’d grow old, and human capability inevitably has limits; he couldn’t always keep up with the changes of the era.

The world of players was also moving forward, and with the technological support from the shelters, their progress could even outpace normal conditions and enter the Prosperity Epoch early.

When that time came, "Wasteland OL" would face new challenges.

"... No matter what, the Alliance will not follow the ’Committee’s’ steps."

Chu Guang muttered silently and stretched his index finger to swipe through the air, turning off the floating screen in front of him.

He had a strong sense of déjà vu.

It seemed he had once said something similar.

Just then, a pale blue popup suddenly flickered into view without warning.

[Emergency Mission Triggered!]

[Description: Morphological formation field device detects an abnormal individual, triggering "flag6" judgment, player ID: "Falling Feather" login rights temporarily frozen.]

[Requirement: This mission has been marked as highest priority, coordinates updated to the shelter’s server map file, please recover the abnormal individual promptly, anesthetize, and place on the conveyor belt on Level B1.]

[Reward: Unlock Floor B6]

It had been a long time since such a mission popup appeared, and Chu Guang almost didn’t recognize it.

When he saw the mission reward, he was even more stunned.

Floor B6?

Wait...

Wasn’t Floor B5 still locked?

How did it skip ahead?

But what concerned him more was the emergency mission description.

"... Abnormal individual?!"

What in the world?

Chu Guang froze for a few seconds, then immediately reopened the holographic computer and instructed his adorable assistant.

"Xiao Qi, immediately sync the latest coordinates received by the shelter server to my holographic computer."

Xiao Qi: "Received!"

The coordinates quickly appeared on the map.

Right at the southern part of Luo Xia Province, at the location of Lost Valley.

Seeing this coordinate, Chu Guang was even more baffled.

He clearly remembered that a nuclear bomb had exploded there just a few hours ago.

Even if some players recklessly tried to see what it felt like to be bombed, surely getting hit by a nuclear bomb wouldn’t leave anyone alive?

Could this game still be cheated?

As Chu Guang wondered what exactly had happened, a tragic cry of agony had already risen on the official forum.

"Frick!"

"I was counting down, why did the respawn timer stop?!!!"