This Game Is Too Real
Chapter 505: The Gloom Buried Deep Underground

Chapter 505: Chapter 505: The Gloom Buried Deep Underground

The representatives dispatched by the Enterprise faction were Yun Yi and Su Ming, the representatives from the Army were the Thousands of leaders Wall and Pangolin, while the Academy’s representative was Jiang Xuezhou, a student of that unseen B-level researcher.

As for the representatives from the Alliance, they were Night Ten and an NPC from the archaeological team.

The latter, named Meng Liang, was a former resident of Shelter No. 401. After being rescued by the Alliance from the Looters, he joined the archaeological team dedicated to recovering relics of pre-war civilization. Under Yin Fang’s guidance, he learned about archaeology and currently serves as an in-flight prospector on the airship.

The exploration of No.0 Shelter was primarily conducted as a scientific expedition.

The investigation of the relics could not solely rely on the Enterprise. Even as allies, they were under no obligation to disclose all gathered intelligence to the Alliance.

In choosing the dispatched personnel, Chu Guang was very cautious. Besides one NPC expert with relevant professional knowledge, he also needed a reliable player who, in the most extreme cases, could bring internal information from the shelter to the outside world.

The Wasteland OL Forum, where information was shared, was his biggest trump card aside from the "Immortal" players.

Once they confirmed the passage was safe, the delegation proceeded forward and soon reached the entrance of the shelter.

The elevator mentioned by Yi Hai was right in the middle of the B2 floor of the building.

It was shaped like a funnel embedded in the ground, with four corridors leading to the central elevator... It resembled an amphitheater without seats.

Due to long periods of neglect and the extremely uneven distribution of water resources in the Great Desert’s unique climate, the walls were covered in mold and dry vines.

Searching every corner of this spacious room with a flashlight, Night Ten muttered.

"Had the crew of the Pioneer really escaped here?"

Walking beside him, Meng Liang nervously replied,

"The intelligence says so..."

It was his first mission.

And it was such an important one right from the start.

Last night, he had read the operation log sent by the Manager several times, especially the section on known intelligence, almost memorizing the punctuation.

"Why aren’t there any signs of battle? I can’t even see a bullet mark on the walls." Night Ten still had a hint of doubt in his face.

It wasn’t that he was naturally cautious.

It was because the Manager had not assigned this crucial task to Old White, who had the strongest combat power, but to him, who had the highest Perception Attributes.

Especially after yesterday’s discussion on the forum, he instinctively suspected that the task wasn’t as simple as he had imagined.

Walking on the other side, Su Ming shrugged his shoulders and grinned,

"Maybe by the time they escaped here, there were no pursuers... Weylent people didn’t find the specific entrance to Shelter No.0, right?"

"That makes sense," Night Ten nodded thoughtfully but soon furrowed his brows again, "Hiss... but I still feel something is off."

Where were the people from the Enlightenment Society?

Didn’t they know the entrance to Shelter No.0?

Since Yi Hai knew that those people were trying to prevent the Enterprise from finding Shelter No.0, the two sides must have fallen out before he was frozen.

Night Ten was puzzled, feeling like he was missing some vital clue.

Alas, Brother Fang Chang wasn’t here, and that fool from the battlefield probably wouldn’t dare communicate with him.

"Reason?" Jiang Xuezhou, who had been silent, couldn’t help but speak up.

She wasn’t very fond of interacting with people outside the Academy, especially since this man seemed to have clashed with her previous squad.

But this guy had been muttering all along, making her nervous ever since they entered the building... even though they hadn’t encountered a single mutated hyena yet.

However, Night Ten didn’t think too much about it and didn’t even notice the impatience in her words. Instead, he thought the beauty was interested in him and gave what he considered a mysterious and charming smile.

"Intuition."

Intuition...

Jiang Xuezhou’s mouth twitched, struggling to keep her composure.

What was that supposed to mean?

Yet Su Ming seemed to understand perfectly, laughing and patting Night Ten’s shoulder,

"Bro, I get that feeling, sometimes nothing has happened, but you still feel something is off... My captain said I was about to awaken, I hope not, I haven’t gotten married yet. Anyway, stay alert, I also think there’s something fishy about this place."

The Old Soldier wanted to ask what exactly he had sensed, especially since the server’s top T0 player with the highest Perception surely wasn’t boasting.

Yet, with a Thousands of leaders looking on, he could only think it to himself.

Watching the confidently smiling Wall, the Old Soldier thought at least to gather some intelligence and thus lowered his voice to ask,

"Sir, do we have a plan?"

Wall simply replied,

"No."

"No?" The Old Soldier thought he had misheard and paused.

Wall laughed heartily and disdainfully said,

"Only the weak would believe that a shelter alone could solve anything. Our Marshal has never placed hope on such unsubstantial rumors."

The Old Soldier chuckled helplessly,

"Then why are we here..."

"Though Lord Cohen doesn’t believe that something capable of ending the Wasteland is stored inside, it’s still a relic left from the Prosperity Epoch... who knows what we might find inside, perhaps weapons?" Wall glanced at the representatives from the Enterprise and Academy, then said nonchalantly, "In short, if the Enterprise and Academy are interested, we can’t just ignore it."

Old Soldier: "..."

Positioned from the Weylent perspective, this reasoning sounded so sensible.

So much so that he didn’t know how to respond.

Soon, the group arrived in front of the elevator.

Yun Yi reached out to touch the elevator door and glanced at the two representatives from the Alliance.

"Who has the access card?"

"I do."

Meng Liang immediately responded, stepping forward, and took out the card given to him by the Manager, pressing it against the card reader’s exterior.

A pale blue light appeared in front of the door, scanning over the bodies of those present before the floor trembled slightly, and the gates slowly shifted to the sides.

The space inside the elevator was indeed small.

So much so that it was surprising how narrow the entrance to Shelter No.0 was.

"Or could there actually be other entrances here?"

"Unbelievable," Night Ten muttered softly, "After two centuries, these facilities are still operational."

And that’s with no one maintaining them.

"It turns out."

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean is... after being activated once, our information was written into the security system and tied to the coding of that access card. We can use this elevator even without the card. As for others, unless we rewrite the security here or give them another unactivated access card, they can’t enter... at least not with this card."

She paused, then continued.

"This effectively prevents unauthorized persons from sneaking into the shelter... However, such systems usually appear in unfinished shelters, unless specially requested by the shelter manager, and are rarely found in mature shelters with assigned managers."

Night Ten muttered a sentence.

"So, you mean taking the card up and shaking people down won’t work?"

Yun Yi glanced at him, not understanding what the junior was saying.

Meng Liang, standing beside her, was shocked by another piece of information in her statement and looked at her in amazement.

"You mean... this shelter is not completed?"

Yun Yi shrugged her shoulders.

"Who knows, I didn’t build this shelter. I just happened to have worked in the relevant department and heard some rumors."

Before Meng Liang could digest the huge amount of information in her words, she glanced at the elevator’s door and, without saying anything, walked straight in.

Upon seeing this, Su Ming immediately followed her.

Having taken back the now-useless access card, Meng Liang turned to Night Ten and said anxiously,

"Let’s go too."

"Yeah, let’s go."

Night Ten nodded, took one last look at the spacious room behind him, and stepped through the open elevator door.

The moment he crossed the threshold, a familiar musty smell hit his nose, instantly putting him on high alert.

The premonition lingering in his mind seemed to get stronger...

...

Inside the camp.

Though the planned enclosing wall and barracks construction were completed, five construction vehicles parked in the middle of the camp were still rumbling non-stop.

Apart from the players sent near the Industrial Building for a mission, the others weren’t idle either. They scattered around to collect some junk, using the blueprints stored in the construction vehicles to remelt and process these junk items into various parts.

Due to strong demand, there was even a long queue forming in front of these construction vehicles.

A few young players holding bundles of scrap metal eagerly waited nearby, worried that the machines’ feeders might empty out.

A corporate employee happened to pass by and noticed the crowd near the construction vehicles. Approaching curiously, he asked,

"Isn’t the camp already built? What are you guys up to now?"

Seeing an NPC engaging in conversation, I Max Black, holding a big bundle of steel, grinned and replied in imperfect United Human language,

"The old well was too small, and since there’s an aquifer below, we’re planning to dig a deeper well."

Another young worker at the site with a sack of cement agreed,

"That’s right! This time we extended the threaded pipe in the blueprint!"

The corporate employee was stupefied and still hadn’t regained his composure when other players started chattering in a language he couldn’t understand.

"Speaking of which, the groundwater here is quite abundant."

"Of course, why else would we camp here."

"But just drilling a well is boring; I suggest setting up a greenhouse to grow some vegetables."

"That’s a great idea!"

"!!! I brought seeds!"

As players conversed, several more items were added to the production queue in the blueprint, increasing the need for various materials.

This included polyethylene materials for constructing the greenhouse, aluminum alloys for cultivating vegetable growth tanks and water pipes...

With the greenhouse arranged, sources of carbohydrates and vitamins were secured, and sources of animal protein and fats could not be neglected.

Raising cattle or sheep was impractical as there was not much grass here.

But solutions often outnumber problems.

Soon, I Max Black thought of the plump white worms some brothers from the Burning Corps had obtained in a mutant tribe.

Eating those directly might turn one’s stomach—Old Na might be the exception—but making them into a nutritional paste would probably work.

After all, they weren’t the ones staying here, the misfortune was for those newbies who came here to clear the land...

Regarding NPCs.

Aside from their managers, they seemed not to be picky eaters.

Not far away, a few Weilante military officers watched the bustling Alliance people and couldn’t help but mutter,

"What are these guys up to?"

"I don’t know..."

"This is just a temporary camp; why are they setting up so many tents?"

"Are they planning to stay here..."

Thinking this, a few Weilante officers suddenly became alert.

The Alliance was extending its reach right behind their servant country.

This was not a good sign...

In fact, not just corporate employees and Weilante military officers were puzzled; even the players themselves weren’t quite clear about what they were actually up to.

The fun of a sandbox game lies in the experience of the process, and no one really cares about the purpose or the outcome.

The managers told them that the Alliance planned to keep this place as a forward outpost in the Great Desert, and they could DIY the buildings here to their liking. Until the five construction vehicles are recalled, their creative ideas can be brought to life as much as possible.

So, the interested players cheerfully came with piles of building materials to line up.

The new map didn’t have many missions, and, having nothing better to do, quite a few players undertook missions to expand the campsite. Although the rewards weren’t high, it was still quite fun.

Chu Guang didn’t specify how they had to build the Outpost Base, leaving it completely up to their discretion.

As it turned out, these players were even better than he had imagined. They considered everything from drinking water to stable food sources, and from sanitation to safety.

They even had detailed plans for the placement of various facilities... These weren’t conjured from thin air, largely drawing from the layout of overseas military bases or construction sites, considering the scenario of being cut off from supply lines, making the planned campsite somewhat self-sufficient.

Watching the players bustling about, Chu Guang nodded in satisfaction.

"Not bad!"

Had this been outsourced to a corporate construction team, it would’ve cost at least a few million Cr, and even using our own construction team wouldn’t have been cheaper than a few hundred thousand Silver coins.

But delegating the task to these players, they managed it for less than one hundred thousand Silver coins. The labor was almost free, materials were locally sourced, and the designs were copied and discussed online.

However, since the Outpost Base was ultimately for their use, it wasn’t really a profit for him.

Turning his gaze away from the players, Chu Guang walked over to the corner of the camp, where he arranged rooms for the rescued survivors.

After receiving treatment in twelve medical pods, most of the survivor’s wounds had healed.

Some basic mechanical prostheses weren’t very expensive, otherwise, even scavengers wouldn’t have been able to afford them.

Having recently seized some simple prosthetics from Weylent people, Chu Guang had the corporate doctors fit them.

By the way, since there were corporate journalists on the airship, and for the sake of a show, Wu Changnian expressed willingness to cover some of the costs of assisting the survivors.

Chu Guang didn’t hold back and casually asked for one hundred thousand Cr, which Wu Changnian agreed to without flinching at such a cheap cost.

Afterward, Chu Guang had his logistics officer do the math and found that the total value of the mechanical prostheses was probably even less than one hundred thousand chips...

Chu Guang was quite embarrassed. He had morals, after all, and hadn’t planned to profit from those unfortunate souls, much less be concerned about a mere one hundred thousand Cr.

But he couldn’t well tell the corporate side that he had given too much, especially since Wu had already boasted; he could only keep the logistics officer to keep this secret to himself.

The barracks door was pushed open.

Seeing the light coming through the doorway and the accompanying footsteps, the women lying on the beds instinctively shrank back.

Relieved that it wasn’t the mutants, they calmed down.

Those lying in the infirmary were survivors who had just undergone prosthetic surgery, approximately twenty people.

Though he didn’t want to remind them of their past traumas, to gather information about the torch emblem, Chu Guang still asked in a gentle tone,

"Where are you folks from?"

The people in the room glanced at each other, none of them speaking.

The air grew momentarily silent.

Just as Chu Guang was hesitating whether to find a more approachable female player to communicate, a woman in her early twenties suddenly raised her hand tremulously, speaking with a hoarse voice,

"My name is Lama... I come from Poluo Province."

"Poluo Province?"

The origin of the Double-headed Cow?

It’s said to be in the southwest of the Camel Hump Kingdom.

That’s quite far...

Chu Guang continued in a gentle tone,

"Can you tell me how you got here?"

Pausing, he quickly added,

"Of course, if you’d rather not recall those unpleasant memories, we won’t force you."

Lama shook her head.

"It’s okay... I’m very thankful that you rescued us from hell."

She paused, then continued,

"I was born in a small village; one day, a group of traders came. They wanted to buy Double-headed Cows to transport to Silver Moon Bay in the northeast. They were generous and offered good prices, and everyone in the village was very courteous to them. The village chief even brought out fine wine to entertain them... I had a bit to drink myself, and when I woke up, I was in a cage."

Chu Guang fell silent for a while.

"Slave traders?"

"...Probably," Lama’s eyes filled with fear, but she bravely spoke up, "Those people also said... my own family had sold me to them, but I don’t believe them, they must have drugged everyone."

Chu Guang sympathized with her plight, but that wasn’t his main concern.

Frowning, he continued to probe.

"...Do these slave traders deal with mutants?"

To Chu Guang’s surprise, Lama shook her head, the terror in her eyes intensifying.

"They... sold us to another group of people. Those people took us across the desert and brought us here."

Chu Guang clenched his fist, speaking solemnly,

"Who are they?"

"I don’t know..."

The young woman hugged her head, her fingers trembling, lightly threaded through her hair. It seemed that merely recalling the event was terrifying her.

Chu Guang changed his approach, patiently saying,

"Do those people have any... distinctive features? Such as appearance, or clothing, or something uniform they carried..."

Lama’s scattered gaze suddenly focused as she recalled something. Releasing her head, she abruptly raised it,

"Those people... all seemed to be wearing blue jackets."

Blue Jackets?

Really?

Hearing this shocking clue, a hint of astonishment appeared on Chu Guang’s face.

From what he knew around Qingquan City, those little rabbits coming out of the shelters hardly harmed others; not getting picked themselves was already a blessing.

The reason he was so kind to Little Fish and her family was largely because they hadn’t harmed him... and that was already not easy on the Wasteland.

However, Lama wasn’t the only one; many survivors in the infirmary silently nodded, indicating they had similar or the same experiences.

Chu Guang’s expression gradually became somber as he took out a small notebook from his pocket and recorded the clues narrated by Lama.

Most of the residents of the shelters, after returning to the surface, showed their naivety and often, due to the self-esteem, kindness, weakness of civilized people, and the guilt of having abandoned their compatriots or a sense of superiority, were treated like sheep to be slaughtered by the much weaker Waste Land Wanderers.

Shelter No. 401 was an example of this.

That shelter, completely upended by the Looters, saw all its members turned into laborers making medicine pills, almost losing even their black boxes.

Of course, there were a few shelters that evolved into strong regional powers, like those entrepreneurs whose ancestors included residents from Shelter No. 6.

Although Shelter 101 did not develop into a powerful regional force, under Dr. Method’s guidance, it still had a limited influence on some of the surviving residents.

Shelter No. 79 could not be called a helpless bunny. Those people purely brought destruction upon themselves, but aside from the crazed "Yong’s," the others did not particularly harm the survivors on the surface.

As for the Enlightenment Society...

It was probably the other extreme among the "Blue Jacket" group.

Chu Guang didn’t know what they had been through in the past.

To the extent that they had completely abandoned the pride and reservation of civilized people and even went to trade with Mutants and slave traders.

In any case, they had crossed the line.

Once someone started, other survivors quickly confessed their origins and how they ended up being sold to these mutants.

Most of these people came from Luo Xia Province, especially the war-torn regions of Falcon Kingdom and Honey Badger Kingdom, but some also came from Brocade River or River Valley, where, though no war erupted, the chaos was no less than in the war zones of Luo Xia Province.

Chu Guang recorded all of this.

His benevolence was not so overwhelming as to avenge people he had just met a few days ago, but the Enlightenment Society made up of shelter residents deeply unsettled him.

Even if not out of morality.

Just considering the interests of the Alliance, he couldn’t simply ignore those lurking in the shadows.

He had to figure out what their motives were, where their hometowns were located, and how many kilometers away they were from the Alliance...

"...I’m sorry for what you’ve gone through; you may have encountered some not-so-friendly shelter residents, but I believe not all shelter residents are like that."

Pausing, Chu Guang continued to speak.

"We will provide you some help."

Clutching the edge of the bedding tightly, Lama nodded and sincerely said,

"Thank you..."

"You’re welcome, rest well... I’ve asked everything I needed to, let’s forget the past unpleasantness."

Chu Guang glanced at the notebook in his hand, closed it, and stuffed it back into his pocket.

Just as he was about to return to the airship, a sudden thought crossed his mind, and he turned to go to Yi Hai’s tent.

A sudden thought concerned him.

If he didn’t get clarity,

He would have trouble sleeping...

...

Industrial Building underground.

The floor unknown.

After the elevator doors opened, a gear-shaped metallic giant door quickly came into view of the exploration team.

In the center of the giant metal gear, there was a sharp-angled rhombus, with a hollowed-out center that undeniably resembled a digital "0."

The passage leading to the inside of the shelter was right beside that giant door, clearly indicating someone had been here before and had opened it.

The Pioneer’s crew was just ahead!

However, what unsettled Su Ming was, why, having reached this place, was no one coming out to greet them...

"...No.0 Shelter really exists," Yun Yi stepped forward unconsciously, shocked by something entirely different.

Su Ming also quickly stepped forward, staying right beside her without leaving.

After staring at the gear-shaped giant door for a while, Night Ten touched his chin and muttered in United Human language.

"How strange..."

"What’s strange now?" Jiang Xuezhou glanced sideways at this excessively talkative man, who had been too chatty all along the way.

Embarrassed, Night Ten said,

"I just feel... this zero is drawn a bit crooked, is this really No.0 Shelter?"

Jiang Xuezhou stared at the symbol for a while.

"No.0 Shelter is an unnumbered shelter by definition, its symbol is supposed to be like this... It generally matches the intelligence previously collected by the Academy."

"Well... maybe I’m overthinking it."

Night Ten shrugged his shoulders and turned his gaze toward the deep corridor, following behind the corporate representative and continuing forward.

"We’re going in too."

Wally patted Pangolin’s shoulder and strode forward as well.

Old Soldier noticed, sparkles of intense excitement and curiosity flickered in his eyes.

Though he verbally didn’t care what was inside No.0 Shelter, his body was unexpectedly honest...

The group passed through the corridor and swiftly entered the interior of the shelter.

However, to their surprise, the structure here was not as complex as they had imagined; it was even rudimentary to the point of being sloppy.

This place didn’t resemble a shelter at all.

It looked more like a laboratory.

But what shocked them even more wasn’t just that.

It was the dark red fungal patches crawling in the crevices of the walls and doors and the sinister greenish-gray particles floating in the air...

Slime mold!

Were there slime molds here too?

-

(I had intended to finish writing the rest, but I simply ran out of time.)