This Game Is Too Real
Chapter 585: The Life of Eure

Chapter 585: Chapter 585: The Life of Eure

The "Champion" biomass anti-radiation project got off the ground quickly, taking just a short week to go from approval to establishment.

Even before the project was officially approved, Eure had followed his senior, Zhao Feiyu, and reported to the research institute in Brocade River City.

As Chu Guang had predicted, the institute they came to was the "Champion" Biological Pharmaceutical Research Institute, located in Brocade River City.

It was the same coordinates given to him by the Academy.

At that time, Eure was still a bit of an awkward young man, not very good at socializing, and he was utterly devoted to his research.

Although the average working hours per person in the Human Alliance Era was only one hour, it didn’t mean that all positions were like this; there was a significant difference when it came to specific industries.

Take scientific research positions, for example.

Spending twenty-four hours a day in the laboratory was common.

However, Eure didn’t find it tedious, nor did he have any "everyone else is on vacation while I’m working" type of anxiety, because in this era, work was no longer a necessity for survival but a realization of self-worth.

Repetitive and monotonous tasks had long since been handed over to machines, and people could live a wealthy and affluent life without working a day in their lives... This was something that people from the Classic Era could hardly imagine, or only dared to think about in movies and TV shows.

Rare events are what people call miracles.

It was for this reason that this infinitely wonderful era was named the Prosperity Epoch, distinguishing it from past olden times.

For Eure, being able to enter a world-renowned corporation and engage in an innovative study right after graduation was an interesting and meaningful thing in itself.

Thus, he practically lived in the laboratory, spending all his time, except for sleeping, on the research he was involved in.

And Eure, with such passion for his research, was just one of the many members of the huge research team.

Moreover, he was the most simple and inconspicuous one.

Of course, although Eure himself was enjoying it, Chu Guang, as a bystander, found it yawn-inducing to watch.

Since this guy had not left the research institute once since coming to Brocade River City, Chu Guang had no choice but to stand by and watch while he worked in the laboratory, unable to go out and wander around the institute.

The images he could see were all constructed from fragments of Eure’s memories.

If it was something that had been seen and forgotten, it might have been restored, but if it had never been seen at all, it would have had to be made up out of thin air.

Eventually, Chu Guang got so bored with watching that he simply snatched the remote control from Xiao Qi, and manually increased the fast-forward speed to a hundred times, a thousand times, even ten thousand times...

Then, in a blink of an eye, four years had passed, and the year had reached 2125.

Chu Guang suddenly remembered that this year seemed to be the start of the Three-Year War, so he immediately canceled the fast forward.

And quite coincidentally, at the same time he brought the flow of time back to one, the research institute also had a new change.

A few soldiers wearing military exoskeletons stood at the entrance of the laboratory, and a serious-looking soldier was talking to the person in charge here.

The streets in the distance visibly dwindled, and most of the hologram advertisements on the screens were taken down, leaving only those that were endlessly broadcasting news about the war situation and advertisements for war mobilization.

Chu Guang couldn’t hear their conversation, so he simply returned to Eure’s side, where he was now talking to his senior, Zhao Feiyu.

After four years of growth, this young man had evolved from his original naivete to a dependable researcher.

For a moment, Chu Guang saw the shadow of Yin Fang in him.

The two were actually quite similar.

Both were rather pure researchers.

At least for now, that was still the case.

"Our lab has been incorporated and now falls under the jurisdiction of the Central War Research Institute."

"...Incorporated?" Eure looked at Zhao Feiyu with a puzzled look and asked, "We don’t research weapons here."

"That’s right, so our job isn’t to research weapons... but to assist the Army in assessing the risk of biological disasters and to help the rescue departments develop some low-cost medications," Zhao Feiyu replied.

Looking at the worried Eure, Zhao Feiyu patted his shoulder.

"Don’t worry, this is actually... a good thing. At this critical juncture, our needs are the first to be met; the Academy has secured us a large budget."

In the Prosperity Epoch, the Academy was a loose academic organization, mainly made up of well-known figures in academia, similar in nature to a merchant’s Business Association or a worker’s union.

The feeling of being looked after was nice, but Zhao Feiyu, who said this, didn’t show any sign of happiness on his face.

War had suddenly erupted.

Without any warning.

It was said that the space station at the Lagrange Point had detected hostile actions coming from the direction of Proxima Centauri, but what that hostile action specifically entailed, and why the colonists initiated the war, remained unknown to anyone.

Perhaps these details would only be revealed after the war had concluded. In any case, the scale of this sudden war exceeded everyone’s imagination.

Especially for the vast majority of people in this era, war was an entirely foreign concept, rarely seen in news reports, let alone in films or television.

Of course, even so, the Human Alliance still had a significant advantage.

Relying on their immense industrial capacity, as well as reserves of talent and mobilization capabilities, they managed to raise an enormous force from scratch in just one month.

Nevertheless, the situation remained dire.

The traitors four light-years away had played their ace right from the start, releasing an indescribable fungal organism onto their home planet.

It was a life form no one had ever seen before.

Even Earth’s ecosystem contained no similar specimen.

Clearly, it was a Variant unique to South Gate 2, and the colonial authorities, instead of reporting its discovery to the Human Alliance, kept it as a trump card.

It might have been the fancy of a few individuals, or a collective decision; pondering such questions at this critical moment was pointless.

The fungal spores and fruiting bodies had spread throughout the complex orbital traffic, making Qingquan City, eight hundred kilometers away, instantly uninhabitable.

And it wasn’t just Qingquan City; nearly every major city had suffered the same fate, while lesser-known cities like Brocade River City were fortunately spared.

As all measures to prevent the organism from expanding were ineffective, the authorities were left with no choice but to use their last resort—

To purify it with the all-powerful neutron radiation before it could spread to other city clusters.

Whether from an economic standpoint or others, this was the option that would result in the least impact and, using purely fusion-based hydrogen bombs without residual radiation, even buildings could be preserved.

"...In a nutshell, our job is to confirm the impact of neutron radiation on the Mucor Nest and to assess the damage," explained Zhao Feiyu, his expression complex as he looked at the soldiers. "They are planning to design a weapon that can release Neutron Feather Flow in a stable and targeted manner; meaning we might not even need an explosion. The Academy has contacted a physics research institute to collaborate with us in this assessment."

"Do we really need to test something like that?" Eure asked, giving him a strange look.

Although he was no expert in nuclear weapons, he was well aware that no living creature could survive neutron radiation.

That thing would puncture the life out of nucleic acids, proteins, and enzymes—halting all vital activities based on these large molecules.

It was absolutely impossible for any organism to survive under neutron radiation—

No, that might not necessarily be true.

Such organisms did in fact exist.

Eure suddenly recalled, in the petri dishes of the laboratory, that the bluish mushrooms possessed that kind of miraculous power.

Since internal monologues were part of memory, Chu Guang, standing nearby, could see not only his spoken words but also those thoughts unvoiced.

"Some are concerned that a nuclear strike might cause the mutated slime fungi to mutate further, worsening the situation," Zhao Feiyu said, complex emotions in his eyes as he observed the soldiers. "Honestly, I think so too... They must have known we would resort to this. Would they be unprepared?"

As Chu Guang watched their exchange, a hint of puzzled curiosity surfaced in his eyes.

If he remembered correctly, nuclear bombs had been employed early in the war, as documented in the notes marked with a blood handprint.

So why was it different in Eure’s memory?

With such doubts, Chu Guang pressed fast forward and continued watching.

A month later, as he sat in the cafeteria dining, Eure saw a mushroom cloud bloom in the sky over Qingquan City from the news broadcast.

Although the news anchor claimed that the residents of the city had fully evacuated or sought refuge in shelters, their pallid words were hardly convincing.

It was a massive city with a population in the hundreds of millions.

How exactly could all those people have been evacuated?

And where could they be relocated to accommodate so many?

At least in Brocade River City, he had not seen a single person from Qingquan City.

Eure sat frozen, his hand trembling, and the spoon clattered onto his plate.

Startled by the noise, he didn’t reach to pick it up; instead, he pushed back his chair abruptly and swiftly made his way to his senior’s office, barging in without even knocking.

"What’s going on? A nuclear bomb? Wasn’t I still doing technical validation? And why is it a nuclear bomb..."

Looking at the news on the holographic screen, Zhao Feiyu’s expression was filled with gravity.

"I don’t know..."

A trace of annoyance flickered across Eure’s face.

"So what’s the point of our experiment? Just a waste of a month for no reason at all, they never planned to consider our assessment recommendations in the first place! Why didn’t they tell me this from the start!"

"Sorry, I really didn’t know." Zhao Feiyu sighed, "Maybe... someone just needed us to do this, to appease the vast majority who are bewildered and helpless."

"For example, the idea that the nuclear bomb is to eliminate a malicious biological weapon, detonated by ourselves under the advice of professionals... Does that sound more acceptable than ’the Air and Space Army’s defensive line was breached by the invasion force from the colony’?"

Eure said blankly.

"The Air and Space Army’s defensive line was breached?"

"It’s just nonsense I made up, you’re better off not taking it seriously."

Looking at Eure’s dazed expression, Zhao Feiyu smiled relaxedly, but there was no sign of relaxation on his face.

After a pause, he continued.

"Back to the earlier point, I think a different explanation might be more conducive to unity. Now is not the time for quarreling. We’re experiencing a catastrophe that hasn’t occurred in over a hundred years, and even if we need to find who’s responsible, it should be after everything is over. At least for now, unity is more important than the truth."

"I hope my speculation is wrong, because that would mean while we are talking here, many people have already died."

With that, he reached out and turned off the news, paused for a moment, and then continued.

"But if the worst assumption, my speculation, is correct... perhaps what we are facing is not just a biological weapon."

"You should know, right? In the South Gate Two System, aside from yellow dwarf stars like South Gate 2A and South Gate 2B, there are also red dwarf stars like Proxima Centauri, whose flare activity releases radiation hundreds of times that of the Sun... which is a lethal dose for the life on Earth."

Eure nodded.

Extraterrestrial life was not his expertise, but he had heard about those Variants in the colonies, a rather complex ecosystem.

If the war hadn’t suddenly erupted, he had planned to apply for an academic exchange there once conditions improved.

Seeing him nod, Zhao Feiyu continued.

"So in early theories, the astronomical community speculated based on experience that habitable planets couldn’t possibly exist in the South Gate Two System... until our probes actually flew there and saw that world shrouded in auroras, and then we began to study that ecosystem we had never seen before."

"You must have noticed that neutron rays are lethal to us, but not necessarily to the Variants on the colony, as they have evolved in an environment with frequent stellar flares."

"Simple biological weapons aren’t enough to have an immediate effect. The traitors in the colony may be intending to make the home planet uninhabitable... just using biological weapons would be unlikely to achieve their purpose."

"Reasonably suspecting, before we even received our assignment, the nuclear bomb already detonated. It’s hard to say whether it or that mucor is the incidental gift."

Eure swallowed nervously.

"A dirty bomb..."

"Most likely," Zhao Feiyu nodded and sighed, "It might not be considered ’dirty’ to the Variants in the South Gate Two System, as they grow up in a radiation environment, but for the species on Earth, it’s dire enough."

Why would they do that?!

Eure didn’t voice the question but kept it in his heart.

He knew the confusion wasn’t his alone; his senior Zhao Feiyu felt the same bewilderment at the turncoat kin.

Why must it come to this?

Can’t we just sit down and talk?

"Anyway, the project has changed, we need to continue the original topic, and in addition to radiation protection agents, we also need to start research on radiation removal agents. We’re running short on medical nanorobots and bionic organs, so we can only hope traditional medicine can solve our problems."

Eure looked up.

"Is this an order from the War Research Institute?"

Zhao Feiyu shook his head.

"No, it’s a suggestion from the Academy, and it’s also the director of the institute’s opinion... I think they are right. Instead of wasting time collaborating with the authorities to stabilize public emotions, it’s better to do something truly meaningful. It’s not enough just to prevent; we also have to eliminate the radiation damage that has already occurred."

In fact, two days after the news broadcast, they had received an order from the Central War Research Institute to end the study on "the impact of neutron radiation on the Mucor Nest."

Just as Eure’s predecessors had speculated, their research results themselves were not important; what mattered was that someone had to do the work.

And thanks to their busy efforts, in collaboration with the media, the confidence of the residents outside the war zone was stabilized, and the Human Alliance was not immediately brought to its knees by their adversaries.

Although the surprise attacks by the colonies inflicted huge losses on the mother planet, the war had just begun, and the Human Alliance still had significant chances of winning.

Yet, Eure still felt a hint of discouragement.

He had been busy for nothing for a month.

If he had known from the start that the outcome of the research was not important, why then expend so much effort? Besides, whether this made any sense at all, no one knew.

As time passed day by day, thanks to the significant breakthroughs made in the research of radiation mitigation agents and radiation protection agents, more and more materials were being delivered to the research institute.

And the most recent delivery, from the Human Alliance Army, consisted of a batch of helium-3 nuclear fuel, measuring up to thousands of cubic meters, which unsettled everyone.

Such quantities of materials were not something a research institute could consume.

Perhaps this meant the war was destined to become a war of attrition.

Looking at the canisters of nuclear fuel, Chu Guang, peering from the side, was covetously itching for them; however, as it was just a memory, he’d have to wait until those mutants there were dealt with.

In any case, he noted down the location where the nuclear fuel was stored.

When the time came, the players would recover these treasures for him.

Who knows how much time passed again.

As the war continued to escalate, the living environment on the surface deteriorated steadily, forcing the research front to move from above ground to underground facilities.

Although Chu Guang hadn’t witnessed a real battle in the insignificant memories of Eure, from the suffocating atmosphere of the street outside the research institute and the visible desolation, one could easily sense the grimness of the frontline war situation.

Regrettably, after moving to the underground research facilities, Eure never went out again, and external information was abruptly cut off.

At first, there were news reports to watch, but then even the news stopped coming; only the periodic deliveries of materials brought some news from the outside world.

In reality, it wasn’t that someone had locked him in there, preventing his departure; the elevator was constantly in use, and the researchers here could come and go as they pleased.

However, seeing each of those grave faces, and thinking about the whistling cold winds and the radioactive dust outside, evoking imagery of an apocalyptic world...

No one wanted to venture out.

Most people still wished to retain some pleasant memories of that era.

And rather than confronting a world already in ruins, they preferred to expend their energy on the tasks at hand—at least their immediate working environment was relatively good, the supply of materials was prioritized, and amidst the busyness, they could even enjoy a cup of coffee brewed by a beautiful android.

However, there would come a day when the work was done.

Through the efforts of countless people, the final products of the radiation mitigation and protection agents were finally developed, and the formulas and production processes simplified—so much so that even the basic refugee settlements could produce them with limited equipment and resources.

Intriguingly, this project was initially started by the Champion Corporation as a money-making scheme, yet, before they could make their fortune, Credit Points had become meaningless.

When most people couldn’t be sure they’d be alive the next day, credit became an absurd concept.

The formulas for the radiation mitigation and protection agents were openly shared with all settlements for free use, and the researchers at the institute finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Then, the delivery personnel brought some good news—the prolonged war that had lasted almost three years was finally coming to an end.

Reportedly, thanks to the valiant efforts of the frontline troops, the defenses of the colonies were crumbling, their last resistance a spent force.

Undoubtedly, this was the best news in three years, and the atmosphere in the laboratory bustled as if in celebration of a festival.

Although at this moment Chu Guang really wanted to tell them that they were celebrating too soon, for after three years of war would follow the Wasteland Era, spanning two centuries and still showing no signs of ending.

Civilization would decline at an unprecedented rate into a chaotic age, and compared to the darkness of those two centuries, these brief three years of torment were nothing.

At least they still had the pretty androids to serve them tea and water, and the delivery of materials had never been interrupted.

But chances were, even if he could communicate with these excited individuals, they probably wouldn’t believe a word he said.

A celebratory party started in the laboratory, while the not-so-social Eure couldn’t restrain himself and went outside the lab.

This man, no longer young, mustered the courage to step onto the surface once again.

And when he beheld this world, unrecognizable from before, he was dumbstruck, mouth agape, unable to utter a single word.

Then a sigh came from behind him.

"As you see, our world is already doomed."