This Game Is Too Real
Chapter 590: Deprive It of the Soil to Survive

Chapter 590: Chapter 590: Deprive It of the Soil to Survive

The loud voice was like an arrow piercing the clouds, and under its command, the faces that were lost and dumbfounded suddenly seemed to have found their backbone, one after another, filled with righteous indignation.

"No way! How can that be acceptable!"

"Who’s going to make our work schedule?!"

"Exactly!"

Apart from those whose excitement turned their faces red and necks thick, there were also those with tears and runny noses. An old man leaning on a cane trembled as he approached Quit Smoking and begged,

"Sir... You’re not from here, you don’t understand, without the farm owner, we’ll starve to death."

Quit Smoking was also baffled.

"Ah, this... Does that farm owner even teach you how to farm?"

He had seen that farm owner.

Standing on the stairs like a simpleton, striking a pose, manipulated by that Luo Gan like a puppet on strings.

He couldn’t understand how that guy could be capable of anything!

A few old men glanced at each other before looking at him and spoke in a low voice.

"That kind of hard work doesn’t need teaching."

"But sir, we only know how to farm..."

"The lord does take a little... but not much, what’s left is enough to feed our family. Working for him counts as payment; if we were to go to the Wasteland, that’d be the end of us. You don’t know how Mutants call us, they call us two-legged beasts!"

"Exactly, outside is the Wasteland... Without the lord to manage us, will you guys take care of us?"

As soon as the old man finished speaking, what appeared to be a servant from the manor couldn’t help but shout out urgently,

"We don’t need you to manage us! The young miss is still alive... She is the new owner of the farm!"

Realizing his slip of the tongue, the old man quickly corrected himself, shouting loyally,

"That’s right! Return... the young miss to us!"

Shouts echoed at the entrance.

The farm owner’s private soldiers stood silently in the distance, neither standing with the crowd nor helping the people from the Alliance.

That was the order from their superiors.

Regardless of whether last night’s Nightmare was the work of the Torch Church, those who had experienced it once didn’t want to feel that sensation of being led by the neck again.

Such power was so strong it defied all reason.

Once plunged into that indescribably surreal dream, it was as if a certain melody wafted into the brain, and then one’s body no longer belonged to oneself.

Never mind cannibalism.

If the Alliance asked them to eat shit, they’d probably lie down happily and gulp it down until they woke up and retched from disgust.

After all, the Mind Interference Device was currently in the hands of those people, wasn’t it?

In a conspiratorial thought, perhaps one had already been brainwashed, and it was just that the brainwashing hadn’t finished, so one didn’t know.

Some officers really thought this way.

It was for this reason they dared not step forward to vie for the position of the farm owner, nor dared to inquire about the condition of the young miss in the manor.

Whatever the Alliance asked them to do, they would do, whether it was moving bodies or maintaining order, but they definitely wouldn’t do anything extra.

Watching the emotionally charged crowd, Quit Smoking was dumbfounded, opening his mouth but unable to utter a word.

He wanted to help them.

There was no special reason.

He didn’t see the issue from the perspective of a Manager; they just looked pitiful, and he happened to have no worries about food and clothing, wearing gear that was more expensive than all their rags put together.

To put it another way, does a Level 30 big shot need a reason to show off in Novice Village? The realization of self-worth is also a need.

However, he genuinely didn’t know how to help in this situation.

That Zhao Tiangan was already dead.

The survivors here could have discussed together what to do next, and no matter which path they took, act like adults and take responsibility for their choices.

But instead, they refused to do so, preferring to push all the responsibility onto an eight-year-old child, who was still sulking and at odds with her best friend.

If this were real life, she would be too young to have finished elementary school.

Does everything automatically improve just because someone takes responsibility?

Does the pie just fall from the sky as long as one entrusts all responsibility and power to an imagined omnipotent god?

What sort of idealism is this...

"No, this is your community..."

Quit Smoking said with a mix of laughter and tears.

"Have you never thought about... managing things yourselves?"

His comment was drowned out by the tumultuous roar of the crowd.

Standing at the door, he didn’t notice that, amidst the crowd, a pair of eyes watched everything with a cold sideline gaze.

The onlooker, as if having anticipated this, had a faint cold smile on his face.

It was as if watching a clown trying to teach goats to sing, that smile brimming with derision...

...

The annex of the Pinecone Timber Farm.

Players sitting in an empty room were holding a strategy meeting, exchanging the intelligence they had just transferred from the official website in a clamorous discussion.

The only hint given to them by the Manager was—

The plethora of "pathogens" at Pinecone Timber Farm posed a hidden threat to the plans of the Torch Church.

Especially since they likely knew through the farm’s internal spy that the Alliance was developing antidotes and vaccines.

To thwart the Alliance’s plan and to retrieve the experimental data not taken last night, the Torch Church was very likely plotting the next offensive against this settlement!

As for information about Holy Land, Pioneers, Apostles, Executioners, and other various settings, everyone learned about them from the updated collections on the official website.

According to Fang Chang’s speculation, it should be the result of last night’s interrogation of the captured Executioner and Apostle on the Iron Heart.

However, Fang Chang hadn’t expected that his wild guess would actually be right on the money.

That Holy Land indeed turned out to be a program operating in the Virtual Space.

And not just that.

This thing was more badass than your average virtual space—it was a distributed computing network formed by countless brains implanted with bionic chips!

Night Ten stroked his chin and thought for a while, then suddenly exclaimed.

"Holy shit... I got it."

Wild Wind gave him a glance.

"What do you understand now?"

"Simply put, this thing’s like Voldemort’s Horcrux! It can store a part of consciousness in other people’s brains!"

Hearing this analogy, Falling Feather almost choked on his saliva.

"Pfft... You’ve got quite the imagination."

"But now that you mention it, I get it," Old White said, touching his chin, "That means there might be hundreds of those, what do you call it, Horcruxes, hidden here in the settlement... Holy fuck?"

He finally realized the severity of the situation, and his complexion slightly changed.

Damn.

This was playing with the whole map wide open!

Fang Chang’s expression also turned grave as he slowly nodded his head.

"In theory, any NPC here could become Luo Gan’s eyes... But luckily, Luo Gan can only personally intervene with those chess pieces when he enters God’s state. Otherwise, the influence he has on them is limited to communicating in their heads or making their eyelids twitch."

Everyone fell into silence.

Even so, this cheat was outrageously powerful.

"...The problem now is that we don’t know where the monsters will spawn from. If there is another tunnel hidden in this settlement, I am afraid we may have to engage in street warfare with the mutants here."

As Fang Chang felt troubled, the voice of Quit Smoking, who was troubled, suddenly came from the public communication channel.

"Have you guys come to a conclusion yet?"

Fang Chang instinctively blurted out a response.

"We’re still discussing, it won’t be that fast... What’s up?"

The other side of the communication channel was noisy, and you could faintly hear some chaotic shouting.

Quit Smoking said with a look of exasperation.

"The survivors of this settlement have blocked the manor’s gate... I feel if we don’t do something soon, we might end up clashing with the survivors here first."

At these words, Night Ten was stunned.

"Blocked the gate? What’s going on?"

It was clear he was not the only one confused; the others also displayed bewildered expressions.

Knowing this wasn’t something that could be explained in a few words, Quit Smoking simply stopped explaining and directly transmitted the live video feed.

Seeing the agitated crowd in the camera lens, all the players were momentarily dumbfounded.

"...Fuck me."

"Have these people lost their minds?"

Night Ten scratched his head in bewilderment.

"I don’t get it... What the hell are they trying to do?"

The old lord is gone...

Isn’t that supposed to be good news?

Fang Chang, on the other hand, seemed unfazed, seemingly having anticipated this situation. Seeing Night Ten’s confusion, he succinctly said.

"This is actually easy to understand—think about it, if you were a serf and your landlord died, what would be your first thought?"

Night Ten immediately said.

"Well, that’s definitely to divide up the land!"

Not at all surprised by Night Ten’s answer, Fang Chang smiled and said.

"As a 21st-century modern youth, of course, you would think that, but the people here are different—they don’t even believe that the land under their feet is theirs. Therefore, for various reasons, they will try to concoct a new farm owner, so that they can continue the work they have always done."

Night Ten was dumbfounded for quite a while, absolutely unable to understand why, with the original farm owner dead, a new one absolutely had to be found to replace him.

"No more crops in the fields without a farm owner?"

"...This is just too absurd."

Fang Chang looked at the bewildered Night Ten and said with a smile,

"It’s not about being absurd or not. Think about it from a different angle. Would you have wanted to pioneer new lands 150 years ago when Singular Point City was still thriving?"

Night Ten didn’t understand why Fang Chang had posed this question, but he tried to consider it from the perspective of the game’s setting.

Pioneering on the Wasteland...

Without a second life, he most likely wouldn’t have dared.

Fang Chang didn’t wait for him to resolve his thoughts completely. Almost a second before Night Ten could open his mouth, Fang Chang continued,

"Most residents of Singular Point City lived quite well under the care of the War Construction Committee, but those were the last few years of its life, and supplies couldn’t always be so plentiful. As a result, the authorities promised to cut the general residents’ rations and provide certain help to those going out to pioneer."

"You’re an idealistic young man who thinks it’s better to take a chance than to starve. So, you risked your life and headed into the wilderness of the Wasteland, digging out the first well, cultivating the first plot of land, and building the first house with a hoe and shovel, on ground as hard as steel. Next year, you traded surplus grains for seeds, fertilizer, and livestock..."

"Up until then, life went fairly smoothly. Then, a group of wandering Waste Land Wanderers arrived at your doorstep, begging for your shelter."

"Whether it was for their labor or out of compassion, you generously nodded, agreeing to let them live not far from you, since you couldn’t possibly till all that fertile land to death, and more people meant more safety. You knew very well that the Wasteland’s environment was getting worse by the day and that, no matter how tough you were, you were just one person with only two hands and not even three guns could change that."

"Later on, when a crisis broke out in Singular Point City, the Mutants replaced the Old Humans and became the new masters, and more refugees flocked to you. You really wanted to help them, but you couldn’t give away the hard-earned provisions you had saved up, so you came up with a compromise—you lent them food, seeds, and farming tools, and in exchange, they would pay you back with either the next year’s crop or newly cultivated land, which benefited both parties."

Night Ten scratched his head.

"Is there a problem with that?"

Seeing Night Ten puzzled, Fang Chang chuckled and said,

"There is no problem at all. Plantation economy was actually relatively progressive during the early Wasteland Era, as it encouraged large settlements to expand outward. During the era of the War Construction Committee, most settlements didn’t want to trouble themselves because they had the ’Black Box’ of the Production Department that could fix everything."

"Some small plantations, though not technically mature, took in a large number of survivors who could no longer be accommodated by the settlements and, to some extent, prevented the rise of Looters."

"Without those plantations, after the Singular Point City crisis erupted, this place would probably have become the kingdom of the Looters. Not only Mutants would eat people, things would have been even worse than they are now."

At this point, Fang Chang suddenly changed the direction of the conversation.

"But the problem lies in the fact that a century and a half has passed, and the locals are still managing this society, which has in fact developed into a settlement, using the methods of running a farm."

"The farm owners carefully manage their little bit of authority, hoping to accomplish with mortal wisdom what even gods couldn’t manage, just like their ancestors, meticulously arranging every single task. The greatest dream of his life is probably to take over the surrounding settlements. As for developing industry, that’s not something he could think of, or rather, it’s not something any Noble could think of; it would at least take a group of insatiable Nobles like in Giant Stone City."

Night Ten asked confusedly,

"But there are also many officers here... Like Luo Feihui, who wanted to use our Strength to rise to power earlier. Can’t he be considered a Noble?"

Fang Chang shook his head.

"He, just like Yang River who has already escaped from this farm, is merely making use of the partial authority granted by the farm owner. Essentially, he’s just a servant with power."

He paused and then continued,

"However, it’s not just a problem for the Farm owner alone; you can notice that local survivors are very careful not to take on a single extra bit of responsibility."

"They embrace the idea that less trouble is better than more. No matter what happens, they take it as it comes, wishing they could bury their heads in the ground so the tall folks would have to bear it, yet also wishing they could stick their butts to the sky, all to grab a stool when daylight comes."

"Mutants always have the two-legged livestock on their lips, snarling about eating people. The Church doesn’t even consider them human; they’d kill tens of thousands as if it were nothing. Maybe deep down, you also look down on them, merely sympathizing with their plight from the perspective of a modern person... But who truly treats them the least like humans? Isn’t it themselves?"

"Don’t you see? This is actually the result of a two-way rush; there’s no need for anyone to put a noose around their necks because it’s utterly unnecessary. The situation here is completely different from that of Giant Stone City. So don’t expect a few words to remind them that they are human. This four-wheel drive doesn’t even have an accelerator; start by teaching them to read. Then give them a copy of ’How Giant Stone City Was Made’ to read; at least being able to shout a couple of slogans would be good."

Falling Feather interjected,

"Isn’t it called ’Awakener Bol’?"

Fang Chang coughed.

"I forgot..."

How embarrassing.

His partner was the editor of that book after all.

Staring blankly at Fang Chang, Night Ten’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he tried to say something but swallowed it back.

He thought of Little Lamb.

In her last moments, that girl wasn’t thinking about surviving herself; she was even willing to be eaten by that lady.

And she never considered whether her self-sacrifice was truly good for Yinyin.

To eat people...

Even if you don’t go mad, that’s going to be a lifelong psychological shadow.

Even Old Na, who dares to put anything in her mouth and shouts that it doesn’t matter in the Game, didn’t dare to try to find out what people tasted like.

Let alone the flesh of a good friend...

In the end, she had never regarded herself as human, even though she was smart and clever, nowhere near childlike.

For a moment, Night Ten suddenly felt that, although the methods of the Torch Church might be extreme, they weren’t completely without reason.

These people weren’t going crazy because of Nago.

They were fundamentally abnormal.

And yet, the absurdity lay in the fact that this farm was a relatively normal settlement in the Wasteland, way less crazy than many out there.

"... No wonder the Enlightenment Society wants to end the world."

Watching Night Ten muttering to himself there, Old White patted his shoulder.

"All right, don’t listen to Fang Chang’s nonsense. If this guy were thrown into the Prosperity Epoch, he’d probably be a shareholder of the Enlightenment Society. Listening to his ramblings will lead you astray."

Fang Chang retorted discontentedly.

"You’re slandering me now. No matter what, I would never do anything that extreme."

"Well, you never know with you brainy types, who knows what you’re thinking about every day," Old White laughed and patted Night Ten on the shoulder, "Go have a chat with Yinyin, get her to cooperate with us."

"Ah?" Night Ten was stunned and blurted out, "What can a little brat do?"

Falling Feather teased him with a suggestive eyebrow wiggle.

"You’re not going to teach her, are you? Don’t you like them young?"

Hearing that, Night Ten jumped up like a rabbit that had its tail stepped on, glaring at Falling Feather who was smirking.

"Get lost! I, I... like them just a bit older than me."

Wild Wind stroked his chin thoughtfully.

"Got it, no wonder..."

Night Ten’s face flushed with haste.

"What the hell are you wondering about?!"

The room was filled with joyous vibes, diluting the gravity of a moment ago.

Sitting to the side, Fang Chang coughed and said to the eager-to-argue Night Ten.

"Seriously, I think Old White makes sense. If we don’t help that little girl, she’s likely to be pushed into the role of the farm owner by the people here."

In fact, that’s what those officers were thinking.

Apart from the now-deceased Luo Feihui, the rest preferred to support the young girl to become the owner here rather than taking on the role themselves.

This way, they could indirectly control the farmstead without the worry of messing everything up and inviting trouble, nor did they need to fight to the death over a thankless position.

After all, the situation was still unclear; the war between the Torch Church and the Alliance had just begun, and anything could happen.

Night Ten muttered.

"You worry too much; inheriting such a huge fortune, maybe she’s secretly thrilled."

Fang Chang glanced at him.

"And then mess everything up and get slaughtered as a scapegoat by that bunch?"

Night Ten couldn’t help but say,

"What do you expect a child to do? You said it yourself, that bunch is beyond hope."

Fang Chang shook his head.

"I never said they were beyond hope, that’s what the Torch thinks. I was just trying to say that ’Awakening’ doesn’t just fall from heaven. It’s not any one person’s responsibility, but everyone has an inescapable duty."

"That child is the same, she could quite comfortably accept the power and responsibility offered to her by those slaves, and her price is to become a puppet of those servants, especially since she doesn’t have her father’s skills, right?"

"Of course, she now has another choice, which is to give back the power and responsibility that her father took from everyone here and to gracefully opt out in exchange for a dignified end. This way, she could still keep some of her wealth."

Old White frowned in hesitation.

"Isn’t this too heavy for her? Alyssa is at least almost an adult... but she’s only eight years old."

Fang Chang shrugged.

"This is actually the easiest path for her. She just needs to nod and speak some ceremonial words in cooperation with us to secure a fairly dignified conclusion. If she refuses our help, then what she faces next is the heaviest burden."

Night Ten looked at him, puzzled.

"What do you mean?"

"This is a holy war launched against the faith of the Torch, so the battlefield is naturally not limited to what can be seen with the naked eye... I just thought of it now, the Holy Land isn’t as impregnable as we imagined. It can hide in anyone’s head, but it can’t hide in everyone’s, and these are the majority on this land. What would you do if you were the Manager?"

Instead of directly answering his question, Fang Chang posed this question to him.

Night Ten pondered for a long time, about to say he didn’t know, but suddenly an idea struck him, and he almost instinctively blurted out.

"Just make the Torch lose its breeding ground for survival..."

Nago doesn’t kill anyone.

But it makes the soil no longer suitable for Old Humans to live.

This is the foundation of all plans of the Torch Church, just as "Neutron Annihilation" is to the Enlightenment Society.

Likewise, the Torch Church and their plans can be implemented here precisely because there is soil here where filth can thrive and breed.

Just make this place no longer suitable for them.

The Alliance allows the survivors around to decide their own fate, provided they mess around in their own territory without bothering others.

But now this is clearly no longer just a local problem.

The arrival of the Alliance’s Iron Heart here is the most direct proof.

Watching Night Ten getting clever, Fang Chang nodded in approval.

"Exactly, by uniting the majority on this land, the Torch and its Nago lose their breeding ground. To achieve this, the Manager will almost certainly redistribute the land originally belonging to the farm owners to the serfs and re-establish the order here."

"After last night’s catastrophe, all settlements on this land must face a true-or-false question—"

"The Church or the Alliance."

The war had begun.

——

(Thanks to Boss Jingjing for sponsoring our book with the JingWan Cup singing contest! This is considered a crossover, haha. Huya Live Room 77927, qualifiers on the 26th at 6 pm sharp, brothers come and support if you have time, and interested book fans can also sign up, I’m tone-deaf, will just blend in as a judge~)