This Game Is Too Real
Chapter 560 Slave Owner and Mutants

Chapter 560: Chapter 560 Slave Owner and Mutants

Pinecone Wood Farm.

The towering enclosing wall, made of a mix of stone bricks and wooden stakes, encompassed a large piece of land. On one side of the wall were dense houses, and on the other were fields crisscrossed with paths and orchards speckled with broken snow.

To call this place a farm would be an understatement; it more closely resembled a city from the Classical Era.

Inside the wall lived twelve to twenty thousand people, forming a settlement with the market at its core, inhabited by officials, craftsmen, soldiers, and their families. Outside the wall lived thirty to forty thousand people, the majority of whom were farmers, over half of whom were serfs that had lost their freedom. The rest were tenants who rented the land and hadn’t yet gone bankrupt.

Everything here belonged to the farm owner.

Both the land and the people.

If Giant Stone City was the extreme product of industrialization coordinated by the War Construction Committee’s Production Department, then this farm represented another extreme produced by the free growth of a survivor settlement post-collapse.

There was not the slightest sign of industrialization to be seen here.

Though the city of the near future was close by, no trace of its legacy could be found here—not even a semblance of something similar.

The reason was quite simple.

A ship moored can’t move by itself; it needs either the wind to blow or people to row.

For Pinecone Wood Farm, this ship, neither element was present—they were neither a part of the War Construction Committee’s plans nor did they have the drive to develop industry.

The farm owner did purchase a few machines from Giant Stone City, but they weren’t very effective and ended up collecting dust in the storage.

Put simply, whether they were bankrupt serfs or tenants teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, they could all be considered the private property of the farm owner.

Dressing these poor souls in new clothes would be, for the farm owner here, as pointless as putting a new wallet around the bills in his pocket.

However, even so, Pinecone Wood Farm was far better off than the majority of survivor settlements that were still in the "tribal period."

At least they were no match for the tribes of Looters; this place’s agricultural products could even be transported to River Valley Province in the north.

Trading their abundant agricultural outputs and cash crops directly for industrial goods from Giant Stone City had been the economic lifeline of this farm for the past century.

It was no exaggeration to say that without the landlords of Giant Stone City, there would be no small landlords in Brocade River Province, big or small.

Most of the farm owners here would collaborate with the traveling merchants from Giant Stone City, or simply keep a few loyal servants as their spokespeople for profit.

Pinecone Wood Farm was no exception, and its master Zhao Tiangan was more ambitious than any other farm owner in these lands.

His forefathers had built up a significant fortune for him, and a small settlement was no longer satisfying to his appetite.

He wanted to build a vast and everlasting kingdom on this wild land, just like the royal families of Luo Xia Province!

To realize this lofty ambition, he demonstrated an enlightened attitude and a willingness to learn from the talents and technologies of the Wasteland. With the savings from his grain trade, he recruited soldiers and stockpiled weapons.

However, just as he was full of confidence and ready to make big moves, bad news suddenly came from the north.

A revolution had broken out in Giant Stone City, the Stone Building collapsed overnight, and the Inner City Nobles were either exiled or sent to the Alliance’s POW camps for reformation.

And his patrons had basically all fallen in that revolution.

The news he heard on the radio at that moment sent a chill down his spine and kept him awake for days.

Building a vast Agricultural Empire in the south was undeniably contingent on the support of northern industrialists. After all, he couldn’t expect a group of uneducated farmers to learn to operate machines, knowledge that was precisely what he could never afford to give them.

Now, his biggest partner had defected to the Alliance.

Although the Alliance was also his trading partner, ever since the war in the west ended and the railway from Luo Xia Province to Southern River Valley was completed, the grains from Luo Xia Province had almost completely replaced theirs.

This was almost fatal to the slave owners of the Brocade River Province.

Using chemical fertilizers and high-yield seeds, an acre of land could even support two or three people. Without the results of industry, primitive agricultural techniques meant it took three acres to sustain just one person.

When the profits from exporting agricultural products could not be exchanged for enough means of production and the weapons to protect those means, the virtuous cycle would break, and their good days would end.

Although they wouldn’t go bankrupt immediately, a contraction in productive activity was nearly inevitable.

If there were no external disturbances, it would probably take them twenty or forty years to completely run through the social wealth accumulated over the past hundred years through trade with Giant Stone City, until they entered a new cycle and stabilized once more.

Their current prosperity, too, would follow that already constructed railway and shift to the green oases in the desert.

The Pinecone Wood Farm was doing slightly better, after all, with a sufficient family foundation, a settlement of more than fifty thousand people would automatically see the emergence of carpenters, blacksmiths, weavers, alchemists, and other craftsmen.

However, other smaller farmers were out of luck, staring at the Kamu fruits rotting in the fields, which had gradually become the common bitter result of losing their financial backers.

Fortunately, the forces of The Church from further south extended their helping hand to the locals in time.

Since cultivating common crops was no longer profitable—

They might as well plant some Nago.

The land planted with Nago was no longer suitable for the growth of ordinary crops, but the crops eroded by Nago would grow exceptionally robust.

Survivors who ate Nago would not only become immune to hundreds of diseases but also become modest and gentle, working industriously and obediently like puppets on strings.

Seen from another perspective, they actually didn’t need chemical fertilizers that much, not even herbicides anymore, as all their material desires would be fulfilled.

Beneath that emerald halo, man and nature would merge perfectly, achieving the true state of "I am nature".

To gain the support of the forces of The Southern Church, Pinecone Wood Farm also introduced Nago.

The effects of Nago didn’t disappoint Zhao Tiangan at all.

After eating Nago, his serfs stopped being lazy, and no one complained anymore; everyone was docile like sheep.

They might not be excellent soldiers or fit for specialist positions, but they were definitely the best farmers and laborers.

Turning them into cannon fodder was also simple, just one injection of "Holy Water" was enough, as The Torch Church had drugs to prevent addiction symptoms.

And the withdrawal reactions could become the rope that tied them down; no one dared to be lazy again, as they would work even more desperately while sober to hear the gospel of the Saint Heir.

However, unlike those farmers who had given up, Zhao Tiangan was always uneasy about those charlatans.

His personal physician told him that those serfs who had eaten Nago were not truly invulnerable to all poisons; instead, their bodily functions had completely given up on resisting viruses and bacteria. Similarly, the viruses and bacteria had also lost their aggressiveness, forming a symbiotic relationship with the infected under the influence of a special kind of mycelium.

This resulted in these serfs becoming hotbeds for breeding germs, and normal people who hadn’t eaten Nago were almost guaranteed to contract strange infectious diseases if they came near.

Some tenants who were not forcefully fed Nago had, due to a lack of enough antibiotics and other medicines, been forced to eat Nago as well.

Initially, Zhao Tiangan planned to have 20% of the residents undergo the baptism of the "sacred fruit," but by the time he realized what was happening, the entire settlement had become believers of The Torch Church.

It seemed too late to stop now...

In the splendid manor house with its lush lawns, a group of children were laughing and playing.

Not far from the main building, Zhao Tiangan stood by the window, gazing out at the smoke drifting from the settlement, his furrowed brows revealing a trace of concern.

He had never been so worried about the future of this settlement, nor had he ever felt so lost about the future. Yet now, that feeling of being unsure where to go was stronger than ever.

The fruits and faith brought by those believers solved most of the problems he faced, but the biggest issue was, he didn’t know where those people were taking him.

A faint itch in his throat, Zhao Tiangan couldn’t help but cough into his handkerchief.

As he moved the handkerchief away from his mouth, a faint trace of blood caught his eye, causing an involuntary tightened knot in his heart.

"Damn it!"

Cursing under his breath, he hastily pulled out a box of pills from his pocket, tapped two into his palm, threw them into his mouth, and washed them down with warm water from the cup on the table.

Moments later, he slowly exhaled a sigh of relief, feeling somewhat better.

Lately, for some unknown reason, his lungs had developed a minor ailment; initially, some medication had seemed to help, but the malady had returned persistently, and now he had even coughed up blood.

He didn’t know why this was happening, but coughing up blood was not a good sign.

Just then, there was a knock at the door,

Zhao Tiangan cleared his throat and stuffed the handkerchief into his pocket.

"Come in."

The door opened.

The visitor was an elderly man with patches of white at his temples. His name was Ma Zhongxian, the Farm’s Manager as well as the master’s trusted confidant.

As he saw Zhao Tiangan stand by the window, the old man nodded slightly in greeting and respectfully said,

"Sir."

Without engaging in pleasantries, Zhao Tiangan immediately asked,

"Any news from Yang River?"

Ma Zhongxian nodded and replied,

"He just reported to me that they have procured the weapons on the list, and the transport team is heading our way... However, with the snowfall on the mountain roads, they have been delayed at the border of the two provinces and will likely take a few more days to arrive."

Zhao Tiangan spoke irritably,

"Tell him to hurry up."

Ma Zhongxian respectfully nodded.

"Yes."

Zhao Tiangan glanced out the window at the children playing, narrowing his eyes slightly at the little girl sitting next to his daughter.

At the beginning of December in previous years, Yang River would have returned from selling the autumn grain near the Clear Spring. However, this year, his return was delayed by over a month.

Yet Zhao Tiangan was not worried about the merchant absconding with the profits.

That fellow’s precious daughter was still held hostage in his hands.

He trusted that Yang River would make the right decision, knowing what to take and what not to.

Seeing that the old Manager showed no sign of leaving, Zhao Tiangan inquired further,

"Is there something else?"

"Yes, there is one more thing..."

"Speak."

Ma Zhongxian hesitated for a moment, then said in a low voice,

"The Apostle who went to Dusty Town to proselytize has been out of contact for three days now, along with the 41 Militia members he took with him."

Zhao Tiangan frowned,

"Why has it taken so long?"

Three days.

It was enough time for two round trips.

Ma Zhongxian shook his head sadly,

"I don’t know... My suggestion is that we’d better send someone to investigate the situation there."

Clicking his tongue, Zhao Tiangan waved his hand impatiently,

"Arrange it yourself."

He was not very fond of those charlatans.

But it was also a fact that he had to rely on those fellows right now.

"As you command."

Ma Zhongxian bowed slightly, and as he stepped out, he carefully closed the door behind him.

Watching the door close again, Zhao Tiangan, unable to suppress his anxiety any longer, covered his mouth with his right hand and coughed hard twice.

Feeling the warmth in his palm, his heart sank slightly, and indeed, when he moved his hand away from his mouth, he glimpsed a smear of dark red blood.

Despite his calmness, the sight of the blood made his heart flutter with a touch of panic.

Although he held supreme power in this Survivor Settlement, he was ultimately mortal, unable to escape the vagaries of life and death.

"Damn... is it really not working?"

After hesitating for a while, he hurried back to his desk, opened the drawer, and retrieved a silver box.

Upon opening the box, three emerald fruits lay silently inside.

These three fruits were a gift from an Apostle named Zhang Zhengyang, the so-called "Holy Fruits" from the Sacred Land that purportedly could rid one of all afflictions.

Of course, he didn’t believe the man’s nonsense.

Remaining reason told him that this was no good thing.

Although Holy Water could keep him lucid, it also meant his wit and even his life were in someone else’s hands.

Under normal circumstances, he would never consume such a thing.

But now, it seemed his physical condition no longer allowed him the luxury of hesitation.

He was still at the prime of his youth, how could he show signs of weakness like an old man?

This Settlement—and indeed, the entire Wasteland—needed his strength, and he had too many things left undone, he couldn’t fall here!

"Just one..."

Zhao Tiangan consoled himself inwardly, taking the smallest emerald fruit and carefully placing it into his mouth.

The instant their lips met, sweetness streamed down his taste buds, into his throat. It felt like honey brewed for the soul, causing his spirit to sway momentarily in rapture.

The ensuing euphoria quickly dispelled all his ailments.

Inside him, regardless of the form of life, a reconciliation was reached under the influence of some unknown power.

And that wasn’t all—

He felt healthier and stronger than ever before.

Wrapping his arms around his shoulders, Zhao Tiangan suddenly chuckled.

"Hehe... Hahaha!"

His laughter grew louder, bordering on mania.

So that’s it.

In this moment, he finally understood why those people couldn’t stop...

...

About one to two hundred kilometers from Brocade River City, in the hilly region, six modified trucks were stranded by the roadside, their orange muzzle flashes twinkling atop a nearby slope.

More than twenty Looters lay firing their automatic rifles from the hilltop, raining down bullets from above.

The Caravan guards were caught off guard and scrambled awkwardly away from the trucks, tumbling behind large boulders for cover, returning fire to the hilltop from behind their scant shelter.

The empty shells clinked as they fell to the ground. A Looter, his shoulders draped in bullet chains and hands on a machine gun, shouted excitedly to his boss.

"Haha! We’re gonna be rich, boss!"

"Easy there! Don’t damage the goods in the trucks!"

Flushed with excitement and his eyes sparkling with greed, Wang Youhu, wearing a beastskin hat, fixed his gaze on the stranded convoy.

That cargo, containing at least a few hundred guns and tens of thousands of bullets!

With this hoard of munitions, not only could they target small villages, but even Zhao’s Pine Wood Farm—scaling up their "Hill Wolves" gang was no longer a dream!

But—

They had clearly picked the wrong target.

Just as they were firing away, a squadron of warriors clad in jet-black exoskeleton armor had already crept up the side of the hill.

With a short "bang" of a gunshot, a spray of blood mist burst from the machine gunner’s head, and he fell silent to the ground.

Next to him, another Looter attempting to take over the machine gun barely peeked his head out of cover before another shot took him down.

Two men were dead in a blink.

The Looters atop the hill finally snapped back to their senses and turned their guns toward the slope on their flank. But at that moment, a barrage of bullets roared in, pinning them behind cover, unable to lift their heads.

Catching a glimpse of the shiny black exoskeleton armor, Wang Youhu’s eyes flashed with panic, and greed vanished from his heart as he shouted to his brothers.

"Damn it, retreat!"

The K-10 "Iron Wall" heavy exoskeleton!

What was Giant Stone City’s Regular Army doing here?!

No time to ponder that question, he hastily abandoned his cover and dashed down the back of the hill.

Seeing the boss flee, the other underlings abandoned their positions, scattering like birds and beasts into the woods, leaving the precious machine gun behind without a second thought.

The fight was over.

Seeing the Looters vanish, Falling Feather didn’t chase them into the woods but walked over to the machine gun.

Kicking the corpse aside, he inspected the weapon, surprise flickering in his eyes.

"Well, well, even the bandits are using Maxims now."

It looked a bit worn.

Most likely surplus from a previous Tide.

After several rounds of equipment upgrades, the Alliance Army hardly used such bulky, water-cooled machine guns anymore; even the goblin-engineered Maxim-II adopted an air-cooled design resembling the MG42 and increased the caliber from 7mm to 10mm.

These early Maxim-I’s were mostly distributed to traders in the Wasteland.

Some less affluent Survivor Settlements still took an interest in these small-caliber machine guns for their cheap bullets, high rate of fire, and strong suppressive capability.

How they wound up in the hands of Looters was anybody’s guess.

Maybe they looted them themselves, or perhaps a trader sold it to them.

Seeing Falling Feather return to the convoy with a machine gun and a box of ammunition, a man in a leather jacket immediately approached and asked with concern.

"Are you alright?"

This NPC was named Wu Wen Zhou, leader of the Commercial Team, and also a subordinate of the contracting client.

"I’m fine, they’ve run off... Ah, right."

Dropping the box of ammunition and the Maxim in front of the NPC, Falling Feather spoke concisely.

"You buying this thing?"

Wu Wen Zhou was taken aback, apparently not keeping up with the thoughts of the man before him.

Seeing that he didn’t seem to be joking, he bent down to examine the machine gun for a moment, then glanced at the box of ammo, speaking hesitantly.

"It’s a bit neglected, but still usable... How about 600 silver coins?"

For a Maxim-II, if he remembered correctly, the market price was about 1000~1200 silver coins.

But this older, out-of-production Maxim-I would probably not even fetch the price of the 7mm full-power bullets in the crate next to it under normal circumstances.

He wouldn’t normally offer such a high price—400 silver coins would be tops. Yet since this man had just saved their lives, he didn’t want to seem stingy.

Hearing the offer, Falling Feather was pleasantly surprised.

Six hundred!

Wow!

This one’s more generous than a mosquito!

Being a Mercenary sure was profitable!

After ordering his men to toss the machine gun onto the truck, Wu Wen Zhou called out to his subordinates.

"Move quickly, everyone, get ready to hit the road!"

"Once we get over the forest and hills ahead, we’ll be able to see our destination!"

"If you don’t want to spend the night outside, we better hurry and reach Town of Hope before dark. Otherwise, when night falls, those things will be everywhere!"

After a hasty cleanup of the battlefield, the group continued on their way.

Gazing at the distant forest shrouded in mist, and realizing he was now standing at the forefront of Brocade River Province, a wave of excitement surged through Falling Feather’s heart.

He never thought he would stand at the edge of the frontier one day.

Unable to resist his curiosity, he turned to a nearby NPC and asked.

"What exactly is that Pinecone Wood Farm like?"

Sitting next to him, Wu Wen Zhou smiled and replied.

"It’s a large settlement... although it probably doesn’t have as many buildings as Giant Stone City."

"An old-fashioned small town?"

"Small town... not exactly."

At this point, Falling Feather could clearly feel that the NPC’s gaze became complex, seemingly reluctant to talk more about that place.

Even though it was his hometown.

"... Anyway, it’s just a day or two’s journey away. You’ll know when we get there."

...

Just as dusk was falling, the convoy heading for Pinecone Wood Farm finally reached the outskirts of Town of Hope.

At the same time, miles away in Brocade River City, a Viper transport plane trailing a pale blue arc silently approached a quiet district of the city.

The city was like a corpse—its quiet streets devoid of any sign of life, every building like a tomb, every window like a standing grave.

Like Qingquan City, the city center was teeming with Variants, but unlike it, there were no deadly "mutated slime fungus" or Lair, nor the annual Tide.

Gliding along the edge of the ruined high-rise buildings, the silent Viper eventually stopped on the rooftop of an abandoned building.

Dressed in power armor, Night Ten leaped from the cabin, setting foot on the dry concrete surface.

With his LD-50 carbine at the ready, he carefully checked every corner of the rooftop, and only after ensuring it was safe did he switch to the Gauss sniper rifle he carried on his back, crawling to the edge of the building and lying prone by the guardrail.

The mission coordinates identified on pre-war maps were labeled "Champion" Biological Pharmaceutical Research Institute.

This company seemed to hold some renown before the war—the "Champion" injection was their proud product, and the pre-war Human Alliance Army’s T-10 "Champion" power armor was also suspected to have ambiguous ties with this enterprise.

The facility was divided into above and below ground levels.

Above ground, there were four hundred-story buildings, each with an entrance leading down to the underground.

According to the Academy’s information, the one thousand cubic meters of liquid helium-3 were stored in the backup power supply of the underground research facility, contained in high-pressure storage cylinders each holding 1L.

Their job was to sneak in there and empty all the storage cylinders.

The only trouble was, the underground security systems were still operational, and everything about the subterranean facility was a complete mystery.

They knew nothing about what was being researched there, the level of security, or even whether they had competitors eyeing the treasures within.

"I’ve reached the position, the mission coordinates are about seven hundred meters from me, confirming the target situation now..."

Skilfully fitting his helmet visor to the scope, Night Ten glanced at the distant buildings, his expression suddenly changing slightly.

"Shit!"

Sparks of electricity flickered through the communication screen.

After a moment, Old White’s voice came through.

"Night Ten, what’s happening over there?"

"Mutants! And not just one or two... There are at least a hundred of them visible outside!"

Scanning the building’s facade through his scope, observing the reinforced concrete and iron shelters, Night Ten cursed under his breath.

"Damn it, these bastards have nested up there!"

As his words faded, the communications channel buzzed with his teammates’ murmurs.

"Mutants?! What do those greenskins want helium-3 for?"

"Have they figured out how to do nuclear fusion now???"

"It’s not really necessary for them to understand; they just need one remaining fusion device... we did the same, didn’t we?"

Then, Fang Chang’s voice broke in over the communication channel, interrupting the chatter.

"B Squad has reached the position... There are unexpectedly many people here, and although our firepower should give us an advantage, we’re too close to that ’Qi’ tribe."

"It’s not a good idea to let them know we’re after the same target. Whatever they’re looking for here, they haven’t got their hands on it yet... otherwise, they wouldn’t still be patrolling around."

Old White: "Hmm, makes sense."

Watching the green head in the crosshairs and the grotesque, demon-like face, Night Ten’s finger rubbed the trigger unwillingly.

"Are we really going to let it go today?"

Fang Chang patiently added,

"We don’t have enough manpower. Even if we attacked by force, we’d need at least a squad to hold off the enemy reinforcements, or to launch a feint attack on their nest."

"Otherwise, even if we break through, if that group of mutants blocks our exit, we’re screwed."

Old White agreed with his point.

"At least the stuff we want is likely still inside, and there seems to be other things beside the nuclear fuel... Anyway, let’s report to the Manager first."

"Alright then."

Taking one last reluctant look at the drooling green head and its ugly face, Night Ten suppressed the urge to fire a shot and reluctantly put the rifle away.

You got lucky, bastard!

The mutant, drooling from the corner of its mouth, snorted unaware, completely oblivious that it had just skirted the edge of Hell’s Gate.

Turning to return to the Viper plane, Night Ten had just stepped into the cabin and was about to climb aboard when suddenly, a distant "crack" of a gunshot tore through the night’s silence.

Hearing that sound, he jolted.

What the hell?!

Didn’t we agree not to shoot?!

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