This Game Is Too Real
Chapter 584: Is He Actually an Old Ice Lolly?

Chapter 584: Chapter 584: Is He Actually an Old Ice Lolly?

Floating above the clouds, the "Viper" transport plane carrying the "Iron Heart" retracted its plasmatic engine’s wake and steadied itself upon the steel runway.

Four men cloaked in gray robes were escorted out of the Viper’s cabin by four players donned in exoskeletons.

One of them had a gunshot wound on his left leg, hastily bandaged, and he hobbled as he walked. The other three hadn’t been shot, but their dirt-covered faces clearly showed they had suffered a great deal.

However, no one here would feel sympathy for them.

They were all Apostles of the Torch Church.

Or rather, war criminals.

In just a few short hours, at least ten thousand survivors had died, either directly or indirectly, due to the interference from Wave 03 of the Mind Interference Device.

The number of those driven to mental breakdown was beyond count.

About twenty soldiers from the Guards Corps had been waiting by the landing pad well in advance.

Seeing the group of heavily armed soldiers, Eure’s face turned slightly pale. As the person in charge of both the Pine Wood Farm parish and the research on Wave 03, if he were captured, the Tribunal would certainly not ignore him.

Yet, seeing these fellows and the airship beneath his feet, he seriously doubted whether the Tribunal had the capacity to pull him out.

"Anti-gravity device... You’ve actually reclaimed anti-gravity technology!" he muttered to himself, but no one paid him any mind.

To prevent him from concealing a locator or eavesdropping device, one of the soldiers stepped forward and placed a metal ring with a shielding instrument around his neck, and around the necks of the other three Apostles.

An Apostle tried to resist but quieted down after taking a blow from a rifle butt.

Watching Night Ten approach, Lu Bei lifted his right fist and neatly knocked it against the left side of his breastplate, delivering a crisp military salute.

"Hard work."

"No problem. Send my regards to the Manager. The rest is up to you," Night Ten said with a smile, returning the salute.

Lu Bei nodded, watched him return to the plane, and then led the four dirt-covered fellows towards the elevator.

There was no communication along the way.

Finally, unable to contain himself, Eure spoke up.

"Where... do you plan to take us?"

Lu Bei didn’t speak and just walked straight to a door, knocked, and then pushed it open.

Seeing Zhao Tiangan lying face-up on the ground, Eure’s pupils tightened suddenly, his complexion turned even paler, and his Adam’s apple involuntarily moved.

The man in the blue power armor looked him over, then turned to the soldier standing beside him.

"One at a time. Find a place to hold the others."

"Yes, sir!"

The man bowed respectfully, then gestured with a wave of his hand, leading a contingent of soldiers to take Eure’s three colleagues elsewhere.

Soon only Eure was left at the door.

Standing there alone at the entrance, he inadvertently met the gaze of the man in the blue power armor, and a sudden chill rippled through his heart.

Those eyes were as deep as black holes.

Just a moment of eye contact made him feel as though his soul had been extracted from his body, left utterly exposed to the sun’s rays and searing light.

No secret could hide...

As a researcher, he didn’t believe in such ethereal things as souls, much less that someone in this world could actually read a person’s soul through their eyes.

Nevertheless, he couldn’t help but avert his gaze.

That’s when the man spoke.

"What’s your name?"

"Eure." The response came out spontaneously, even though he didn’t want to say a word, which only fueled his irritation.

Chu Guang continued, looking into his eyes.

"Do you understand what you have done?"

Eure lifted his head, defiantly holding his ground.

"I understand..."

He had thought the man would ask him why he had done it, but instead, the man simply nodded.

"That’s good."

The finality in his tone took Eure by surprise.

He hadn’t said anything—how could this man act as if he knew everything?

Could he really read minds?

A flicker of panic crossed Eure’s eyes, but he quickly felt foolish for the thought, and the panic dissolved into anger.

How could there be such metaphysical nonsense!

This guy must be bluffing!

If they thought he would be frightened into confessing everything so easily, they didn’t know him at all.

If his sacrifice was necessary, then so be it.

Eure held his head high, putting on a defiant demeanor, and said with feigned bravado,

"Heh, I won’t say a word—"

Before he could finish, a pair of glasses was placed on his nose.

The view blurred behind the dark lenses, and Eure hesitated for a moment.

This is...

In an instant, he seemed to think of something, and his face suddenly changed.

A memory extractor?!

How do these guys even have such a thing!

"Wait a minute, I—"

Unfortunately, before he could utter the word "say," a buzzing electrical sound pierced through his eardrums, and his consciousness flickered off like a forcefully shutdown computer.

"Heave-ho."

Dragging Eure from behind him, Frost energetically pulled him to a corner against the wall to sit down.

Watching the unconscious Eure, Chu Guang’s expression was devoid of any mercy.

That memory extractor had been seized from the Enlightenment Society, and its working principle involved using the most fearful fragments from the user’s subconscious to weave dreams and seal off the user’s memories, allowing only bit by bit to leak out. It would unravel them repeatedly until nothing remained.

The more one resisted, the more painful it became.

In theory, not only could this device extract people’s memories, but it could even help recall things they themselves had forgotten.

Because it would impose a certain burden on the mind, he almost never used this device for interrogation.

If someone was deceived, coerced, or had unspeakable hardships, he would give the guy a chance for leniency in exchange for being frank.

But this guy had said himself that he was clear about it.

In that case, being treated with the same method, he shouldn’t have any complaints, right? Compared to the survivors of the Pinecone Wood Farm, this punishment was still too light for him.

Looking at the doll sitting on his shoulder, Chu Guang asked,

"Xiao Qi, how long will the memory retrieval take?"

Finger resting on her chin, Xiao Qi, already connected to the memory extractor with her eyes closed, thought for a moment.

"Uh, maybe one or two hours?"

She said uncertainly, then her eyes suddenly opened, and she continued with a hint of surprise, "... This guy actually has a bionic chip in his brain?"

Chu Guang frowned slightly.

"Is there a problem?"

Xiao Qi looked toward Solar Eclipse standing to the side and whispered,

"Solar Eclipse, can you handle the security programs on the chip? I’m transferring it to you."

Solar Eclipse nodded expressionlessly.

"No big issue."

As she said this, pale blue data streams were already reflected in the center of her pupils.

Having received an affirmative answer, Xiao Qi swiftly looked back at Chu Guang, proudly sticking a thumb up.

"It’s no big deal, Master! Leave it to Xiao Qi with confidence!"

Chu Guang: "..."

Never mind.

At least the result was good.

...

The retrieval of memories was swiftly completed.

Normally, the process would take quite a bit of time, but Xiao Qi had set the memory retrieval program on the refuge’s server.

The data processing capability of that server was simply not in the same dimension as that of any portable electronic device.

To make an imprecise comparison, one was a rocket, the other a bicycle.

It was like fitting a bicycle with nitrous oxide acceleration.

An hour in the dream only equated to half a minute in reality.

In fact, if it weren’t for the brain’s limit in information throughput, the speed of reading memories could be even more exaggerated.

Yet even though Xiao Qi had shown restraint, the Apostle who had been drained of memories still suffered no small amount of mental strain.

Though he had woken up, he wasn’t much different from a vegetative person, perhaps even more extreme.

Looking at Eure babbling away and walking toward the wall, Chu Guang’s expression couldn’t help but reveal a hint of oddness.

"So is he awake now or not?"

Xiao Qi’s expression was somewhat subtle.

"Eh... he’s probably awake, but not completely."

"What do you mean?"

"Simply put, the imagery he sees is that of the dream formed from his memories, but his brain has actually regained control of his body... So in our eyes, he looks like he’s walking into the wall, but in his own eyes, he might just think he’s walking from the living room into the kitchen."

So, like a high ping player then?

While other players see him continuously walking into a wall, in his own eyes, he’s already moved from bomb site B to the middle door.

Chu Guang had a thought.

"Like sleepwalking?"

"Yeah, although there’s a slight difference, that’s the general idea."

As he said this, Xiao Qi added softly,

"I suggest we tie him up to be safe... or he might end up eating something strange for breakfast."

"Like a shoe, for example."

Chu Guang nodded and turned to a soldier beside him, instructing him to take the guy to the isolation room and tie him to the bed for a couple of days.

It would prevent the man from causing trouble.

A few passing players happened to see the guy continuously walking into the wall and immediately began to excitedly whisper among themselves.

"Is this NPC stuck in the wall?"

"BUG! It’s a BUG!"

"Awesome, the Game actually has a BUG!"

Although with every update it seemed like the Dog plan was fixing bugs, no one had ever seen what a real bug actually looked like.

This time they really saw one!

Not bothering with the prisoners any longer, Chu Guang returned to the Captain’s room alone, sat down on the chair, and put on the virtual reality headset from the table.

With a gentle tap of his index finger on the side, he spoke.

"Xiao Qi, help me connect to the extracted memories."

A spirited voice quickly rang in his ears.

"Okay, Master!"

As soon as the voice fell, pale blue lights started to spread from the center of his vision outwards, transforming everything they touched into a different scene.

First the floor, then the tables and chairs, and finally the walls—The room under his feet changed from the Captain’s room to an entirely white room.

Chu Guang had never seen this place before.

But from the nurse in the room, the baby in the mother’s arms, and the father-like man standing beside the hospital bed, he could roughly guess that this was a delivery room.

The people in the delivery room were bustling about, the couple sweetly discussing what name to give to the child in their arms.

Nobody noticed the stranger standing in the middle of the room.

After all, this was "Eure’s" memory, and he didn’t belong here.

Chu Guang reached out his hand, passing right through an adjacent nurse’s body, then walked over to the window and looked outside.

The green plants outside the window were lush and fragrant with birdsong... He hadn’t expected that even these details had been perfectly recreated.

"Why did you bring me here?" Chu Guang’s voice carried a hint of frustration.

He had no interest in learning about the life of some minor character.

Even if this memory was perhaps significant to that person, it was irrelevant to him and to the Wasteland.

If he really watched these twenty or thirty years of memories from beginning to end, he wouldn’t have time for anything else.

The pale blue lights flickered.

Following Chu Guang into the memory and transforming into a doll-like figure, Xiao Qi perched on his shoulder, swinging her legs and said shyly,

"Sorry, Master... I’ll drag the progress bar!"

Seeing Xiao Qi’s timid smile, Chu Guang always felt like she was doing it on purpose.

Seeing that the Master didn’t speak, Xiao Qi asked softly with a guilty conscience,

"So... from the time he joined the Torch Church?"

"Hmm... wait."

Chu Guang was just about to nod when a detail caught his attention.

Beyond the verdant greenery outside the window, he could see towering skyscrapers and a never-ending flow of vehicles... Even Ideal City seemed pale in comparison.

This place was clearly not the Wasteland.

This guy was actually from before the War?

"... Start from the memory just before he entered the Sleep Cabin," he paused and continued, "I want to know which Shelter he entered."

However, Xiao Qi’s reply took him by surprise.

"He’s not a Resident of the refuge, oops."

Not a Resident of the refuge?

Chu Guang’s brows furrowed slightly.

"Then take me to right before he entered the Sleep Cabin... I want to know his reason for choosing ’time travel,’ and how he went about traveling to the future."

As he spoke, Chu Guang left the window and walked over to the bedside table, looking up at the holographic screen floating above the electronic clock.

The year was 2100.

The 75th year of the Prosperity Epoch.

The golden age was in full swing; humanity had built a Utopia on earth, satisfying both material and spiritual needs without limit.

And just ten years from now, in 2110, the industrial and academic worlds would once again unleash people’s imagination for a better future.

Gravitons and FTL engines would officially knock on the doors of the Interstellar era, and tickets to worlds light-years away would no longer be a one-way trip with no return, but an adventure open to anyone.

Of course, not everything that came with the future was pleasant. Taking a step forward might uncover new treasures, but it also meant new problems would arise.

For instance, just 13 years later, the Mind Interference Device, developed to replace the Infrasound Fence, was originally used to drive away dangerous Variants harassing the colonies. However, it ended up in a huge scandal in Qingquan City’s third ecological protection zone, with accusations of brainwashing and human experimentation.

The incident caused an uproar and even implicated the authorities, but for those living in Utopia, it was clearly just a minor episode.

Chu Guang felt that even if he could converse with the people in front of him across time, no one would believe that the infant lying in the cradle would do something in the distant future, two hundred years away, that would leave even Satan agape.

And if he were to tell the people here that it was just a minor incident in the distant future, and that all the splendor would come to an end after 29 years, he would probably be regarded as a strange lunatic.

The year was 2100.

Just 29 years left until the beginning of the Wasteland Era—the year 2129...

Faintly hearing the mother name her child in her arms "Eure," Chu Guang immediately saw the scenery beside him fly by as Xiao Qi dragged the progress bar.

Like many people of that era, Eure enjoyed a happy childhood, smoothly went to school, and then found employment...

When everything came to a standstill, the clean and bright delivery room had turned into a simple and spacious office, where floating clouds and forest-like skyscrapers could be seen through the broad floor-to-ceiling windows.

A young man in formal attire stood in front of the desk, excitedly talking to his boss seated behind the desk.

Chu Guang did not listen carefully to the content of their conversation, but instead immediately looked for clues containing time information.

Soon, on a holographic billboard outside the window, he found what he was looking for—

It was July 13, 2121.

In three days, some popular domestic security robot was going to have its launch event, and the pre-order price was just 100,000 Credit Points—but that wasn’t the point.

In the history Chu Guang knew, Shelter No.79 and its "Yong’s" plan had been launched last year.

The end of the Prosperity Epoch seemed to have already shown its signs.

People started to feel anxious about the future, consciously or unconsciously, and the consensus that tomorrow would be better was gradually being replaced by doomsday theories.

And anxiety, in itself, was a business opportunity.

Companies that sold family protection plans and protective gear all made a fortune from this, and the company under his feet was clearly no exception.

Chu Guang took a quick look around the office and was surprised to find that this place was actually the headquarters of "Champion" Pharmaceuticals!

Researchers from Shelter No.79 were hardcore fans of this company; even the coffee beans they used were this company’s brand!

However—

He had always wanted to point something out.

Is it really okay for a pharmaceutical company to sell coffee?

The conversation in the office gradually became clearer.

"...anti-radiation agents?"

Having finished reading the report in his hands, the boss stroked his chin, his expression unfathomable; the employee before him was describing something with an exaggerated tone.

"Yes! I’d bet this new type of anti-radiation drug will be the next growth point for the company’s profits! And I mean an explosive increase!"

Neither of the two was Eure.

But this was Eure’s memory; the guy was obviously nearby.

Chu Guang glanced around for a moment, not finding him, but then a thought struck him—the guy was only 21 years old and probably just a newcomer to the workplace. So he immediately walked out of the office.

As expected, the guy was at the door.

Carrying a briefcase in his hands, his gaze wandered all over, and from the very subtle expressions on his face, it was evident he must have just left campus not long ago.

Although he looked younger, there was no doubt that this kid was the same person he had just been interrogating.

Seeing Eure intently watching the conversation inside the office, Chu Guang also focused on the two people inside.

If Chu Guang wasn’t mistaken, they were discussing a new project right now, the formula for "synthesizing anti-radiation agents from Blue Umbrella Mushrooms."

In a sense, this formula indeed saved quite a few lives.

At least most of the mercenaries in Giant Stone City relied on this stuff to extend their lives, and his first pot of gold in the Wasteland was earned by selling those mushrooms.

"...to be more professional, DNA self-repair technology! We’ve found a special active substance in a blue fungus that can repair macromolecules inside organisms that have been damaged by neutron radiation."

"This idea is not bad... but if I may speak frankly, medical nanorobots could do better."

Placing the report on the table, the boss-like man interrupted the subordinate’s endless prattle and spread his hands, saying,

"We are a technology company, and if I may be frank, using mushrooms as medicine... it sounds like an ancient person’s idea."

However, Eure’s senior did not give up and continued to argue his point.

"War, my friend, I’m talking about the war era! Of course I know nanobots can perfectly repair damaged molecular nucleic acids, proteins, and enzymes, but where do you find those things in a war era?"

"Compared to nanomedicine robots that require an entire extensive industrial chain to be viable, my solution is much more practical! Even if the worst-case scenario occurs and suppliers completely collapse, and the price of all raw materials in the world skyrockets, we can still offer our consumers affordable and reliable anti-radiation drugs... Of course, a bit more expensive is also okay, we have an unmatched cost advantage!"

This time, the boss seated behind the desk did not immediately voice rejection but stroked his chin and showed a rather intrigued expression.

"Sounds a bit interesting."

Everyone felt that a split with the colonies was highly probable, and war seemed to have become the only way to resolve differences.

Even nowadays, nuclear weapons are still the most efficient means to wipe life off the surface of the Earth, with the only differences being the modes and scales of delivery.

An affordable anti-radiation drug, in an era overrun with radioactive dust, was undoubtedly far more practical than any nanorobot.

In the end, Eure’s senior successfully convinced the two people’s boss.

Even though the process was not easy, he did not spare his saliva.

Watching the senior step out of the office, Eure immediately approached and asked,

"How did it go?"

The senior’s face lit up with a bright smile.

"It’s all set! The boss agreed to lend us the research institute in Brocade River City, as long as we can produce tangible results, he’ll fight for a bigger budget for us at the board meeting... Time waits for no one, gather up the materials before you leave work, we’re setting off first thing tomorrow!"

Hearing this, Eure’s face showed surprise, and he clenched his fists with excitement, but the tongue-tied him managed to blurt out only one sentence after much effort.

"That’s great!"

The senior smiled slightly and patted his shoulder.

"Work hard."

Watching the two head toward the elevator, Chu Guang’s face revealed a hint of surprise.

If he remembered correctly, the "Champion" Corporation had only one research institute in Brocade River City—the same one given to him by the Academy.

And at this moment, that research institute was under the control of the Mutants...

Search the lightnovelworld.cc website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.