This Game Is Too Real -
Chapter 621 "Tree" and "Tree Man
Chapter 621: Chapter 621 "Tree" and "Tree Man
He arrived at the entrance to Shelter No.100.
I Max Black found the communication terminal on the wall beside the door, pulled a data cable from the VM on his left arm, and inserted it into the terminal’s port below.
Watching the signal light flash green, the faces of the players lit up with joy and surprise.
It was unimaginable.
Having soaked in sewage and rubbish for so many years, this electronic device produced two centuries ago could still be started!
One had to admit, the technology of the Human Alliance was indeed something special.
Just as I Max Black opened the scientific expedition team’s "mini program" and started importing the electronic key into the terminal, waiting for the loading bar, Chu Guang, who was at Camp 101, was also paying attention to the situation at Shelter No.100.
Perched on Chu Guang’s shoulder, Xiao Qi suddenly opened its eyes and looked at him.
"The terminal shows signs of use."
Chu Guang looked at it and asked,
"Hasn’t the gate never been opened?"
A stream of data flashed through its pale blue pupils; Xiao Qi rubbed its chin and muttered,
"Hmm... the power system for the gate has indeed been shut down for two centuries, but there are access records from the year 2190."
2190.
Was that the 61st year of the Wasteland Era?
Chu Guang nodded thoughtfully.
It wasn’t hard to understand, really.
According to Dr. Method, Camp 101 had previously attempted to explore Shelter No.100, but in the end, it was abandoned due to prohibitive conditions.
Shelter 101 was started after the dissolution of the Post-War Reconstruction Committee, around the year 2174— during the 45th year of the Wasteland Era.
Between the 45th and 61st years of the Wasteland Era, it was very possible that Camp 101 had already appeared, after all, according to Dr. Method, although Shelter 101 was isolated from the world, it did not sever all contact with the outside and was continually enlightening some wandering Waste Land Wanderers, conducting indirect scientific research on the outside world through them.
At that time, there weren’t as many rampant extreme Variants on the Wasteland, so it was entirely possible for the residents of Camp 101 to reach the entrance of Shelter No.100 using diving equipment.
While the human and AI were exchanging information, I Max Black’s VM had already secured the authority to activate the shelter’s gate.
And it was at this moment that a silver metallic sphere appeared on the terminal’s display.
"Welcome! Friends of the future! You’ve finally found us; we thought you had forgotten about us. By the way, what year is it now? How many colony planets do we have? I always said that having just one Aurora star would cause problems! If we had a hundred Auroras, none of those troublesome things would have happened."
I Max Black had some trouble understanding what he was saying but responded to the parts he could comprehend,
"Year 2342 of the Human Alliance Calendar, the 213th year of the Wasteland Era, and I’m sorry to say we are still on our home planet... Don’t you have a clock or something?"
The silver sphere seemed to freeze for a moment, its shaking motion becoming somewhat anxious.
"Wait, still on the home planet? You mean, not even one? How is that possible? What about the Pioneer? Surely the colony ship Pioneer must have reached its destination!"
The Pioneer?
I Max Black thought for a long time before remembering, that was apparently the destination the enterprise’s colony ship had initially planned to head for. He said with a complex expression,
"No... if you’re talking about the Pioneer, they never left the Solar System; instead, they deliberately grounded themselves in the Province of Yúnjiānxíng. They built a new city there according to the standards of a colony, and from what I hear, they took in quite a few survivors."
The silver metallic sphere seemed to pause for a moment before squeezing out a statement with its clicking, rotating mouth,
"Such a waste..."
I Max Black didn’t understand what it meant by a waste, but what intrigued him more was what this thing was exactly.
"My name is I Max Black, and you? How should I address you?"
"Bell... that’s what they call me because I clang and jingle when I walk and talk, just like a rusted bell. My designer created me 55,845 work cycles ago, and he thought that by the time the gate reopened, the outside would be a new world, and someone would take me to work in a museum or something. But it seems his wish has come to naught."
As if having lost his initial energy, the silver metallic sphere sagged with its soft antennae, rambling on to itself.
Those aimless words seemed to answer the visitor’s questions but also an act of self-pity for its own fate.
I Max Black counted on his fingers, if by work cycles it means days, then over fifty-five thousand work cycles would equate to... over one hundred and fifty years?!
In other words, this guy had been around since about the sixtieth year of the Wasteland Era and lived all the way to February of the year 213!
Standing at the doorway, counting on his fingers, I Max Black saw Bell smacking its toggle-like mouth.
"I Max Black, is it... I must say, you really are dark enough."
After glancing at the sewage and mud on his body, I Max Black patted his filthy breastplate and rolled his eyes, saying,
"Anyway, can you open the door? We’ve already given you the password."
Bell: "Of course, you can come in anytime, just by gently pressing the open door button on your terminal... Or do you think all doors should open automatically for you?"
Listening to this guy’s nonsense, I Max Black rolled his eyes and jabbed his index finger on the VM’s screen.
With a tremor that shook the ground and the grinding noise of friction, giant metal gears slowly rolled to one side, revealing a gap wide enough for two cars.
A staircase led directly to a spacious buffer zone, and directly opposite the hole were two tightly closed airlock doors with transparent windows.
The orange-yellow light and warning lamps were lit one by one, and the shadows cast by the metal parts flickered and danced on the floor, accompanied by odd clanking noises.
The entire shelter was like an aging diesel engine that had been ignited by a new spark plug, reluctantly opening its murky eyes.
I Max Black’s VM screen displayed that the shelter’s fusion reactor had been reignited, and all facilities were gradually switching from the auxiliary power supply to the regular power supply.
Chu Guang, who was looking at the screen from Camp 101, couldn’t help but be moved.
Shelter 100’s fusion reactor still had leftover fuel!
As I Max Black was stunned by the changes before him, several ghost-faced insects suddenly rushed out, nearly causing him to reflexively raise the muzzle of his gun.
"Hey! Wait, these little guys are harmless—"
Seeing his motion to raise the gun, Bell was startled and tried to stop him, but I Max Black had already pulled the trigger.
Amidst the pop pop pop of gunfire, several ghost-faced insects lay splattered on the rust-streaked corridor, their guts turned upside down.
Looking at the fallen creatures, Bell let out a plaintive complaint from the screen.
"You executioner! You’ve killed them all!"
Careful not to be negligent, I Max Black carefully checked the passage behind the door, then made a hand signal to his teammates behind him, sending five forward into the buffer zone to clear out any lurking Variants, while he stayed at the doorway.
Watching Bell, still grieving for the little lives, he lowered his gun and suppressed the urge to roll his eyes, saying,
"They’re not interested in you because you’re a Robot, but we’ve bumped into these things all the way in... They pounce as soon as they see us."
Bell was startled.
"Wait, you just said... you’ve encountered these things outside too?"
I Max Black: "Yes, what about it?"
"It’s unbelievable..." Bell murmured in a low voice, full of amazement, "It’s impossible by all accounts; the door has never been opened after it was closed, not once. They couldn’t have gotten out... Could there be a leak somewhere? Strange."
Looking at the babbling robot, Type 5 Superman and Limping Kevin, following behind I Max Black, exchanged a glance and whispered to each other.
"Why do I have this feeling of déjà vu?"
"+1"
Looking at Bell’s surprise, I Max Black frowned slightly.
"Do you know them?"
Bell cleared his throat and spoke in a storytelling manner,
"Of course, they’re called ’Crunchy,’ they provide an abundant source of chitin, a natural high polymer, premium industrial raw material. In addition to the protein and nutrients they offer, which are quite exceptional, they only need a little bit of garbage. It’s no exaggeration to say that they are one of this museum’s—oh no, shelter’s greatest achievements."
I Max Black twitched his eyebrows, feeling nothing remotely ’great’ about these highly aggressive creatures.
"We call them ghost-faced insects."
Hearing this amusing name, Bell let out a grating laugh that echoed eerily through the dark subway tunnel.
"Ghost-faced insects? That’s also a nice name... Let’s go with your term then; this place belongs to you all now."
"Could you give us a tour?"
I Max Black tried to make the request, and that silver metallic sphere on the screen nodded its round head without hesitation.
"No problem; this is my work after all. Follow me."
As Bell said this, he turned around.
Just when I Max Black was hesitating about how to keep up with him, the iron gate of the buffer zone ahead hissed open.
A silver metal sphere lay quietly atop a basin-sized, flat-shaped quadruped robot.
"What are you waiting for at the entrance? Come in quickly."
I Max Black exchanged glances with a few others beside him and followed the self-proclaimed Bell through the two airlock doors of the buffer zone and into the interior of the shelter.
The situation here wasn’t as bad as I’d imagined. Despite being submerged underwater for many years, no sewage had seeped in from outside. Even Bell, who had lived here for a century and a half, couldn’t figure out how those insects got outside.
However, even if it wasn’t as bad as imagined, the situation here was definitely not looking good.
A mass of "Crunchy" insects had overtaken the shelter, building their nests here like cockroaches, filling every possible filthy crevice. Their dark excrement was everywhere, and more than that, there were their shed carapaces shining with oily luster and fist-sized eggs.
Watching a few Ghost-faced Insects hissing, I Max Black and a group of ten players skillfully raised their guns and opened fire.
After a round of rapid gunfire, dozens of the insects perished immediately, along with the eggs in the room turning into a dark green slush.
Skilfully avoiding the debris on the ground with its four mechanical legs, Bell sitting atop the quadruped robot no longer called these visitors executioners, but merely whispered a reminder.
"Those are good materials. The shed carapaces are rich in chitin, which can be used to make many high-performance polymer materials... Most electronic devices and machines can use them."
I Max Black wasn’t in the mood to deal with this guy at the moment.
Looking at the dead bodies of Ghost-faced Insects and their metabolic byproducts littering the ground, he was changing the empty magazine and feeling his scalp tingle as he reported back on what he found in the shelter.
"...This is I Max Black; I have entered Shelter No.100. The place is covered with the metabolic byproducts and eggs of Ghost-faced Insects; there could be tens, maybe hundreds of thousands! I suggest cutting off the shelter’s air circulation system and coming back in a few days."
He now understood where those Mutated Water Frogs had come from.
Turns out it was all brought on by these little buggers!
Static crackled over the communication channel, followed by Brother Springs’ voice.
"I’ve reported the situation inside the shelter to the Manager... His reply was that the ventilation system of Shelter No.100 has malfunctioned. According to the self-diagnostic program’s analysis, something has clogged the air intake filter, perhaps eggs or shed exoskeletons. The Ghost-faced Insects active in the shelter have probably leaked out from there."
I Max Black asked with a tingling scalp.
"So... isn’t there an efficient way to get rid of these insects here?"
How long would he have to kill them one by one with a rifle?
You might as well get a bottle of pesticide!
Spring Water Commander, "As it looks now, there are no shortcuts. Unless you can go to Floor B2 and fix the ventilation system, but that would be too much trouble for you, and for me too. We’d at least need to clear the Variants from Floors B1 and B2, then arrange for the air conditioning master from Camp 101 to come in... But all these are plans for later, we will eventually recapture the entire shelter, but that’s not the task for today."
After clearing his throat, he continued.
"Let’s get to the crux of it. Our mission is to recover the Black Boxes stored in the warehouse on Floor B40; there are over twenty of them, you’ll know the specifics when you get there. Next is the Floor B51 manager’s office diary, which stores the data Lord Manager needs. Additionally, there’s a strange signal detected on Floor B100, suspected to be human life activity, but the signal is odd and doesn’t fully match that of a normal person. Anyway, the first two are main tasks, and the last is a side mission, that’s all."
That’s all, and still okay?
And this shelter actually has a hundred floors!
I Max Black couldn’t help but roll his eyes.
"Can’t you come in and help?!"
Spring Water Commander laughed apologetically.
"Sorry, brother, I’m just as bothered by insects as you are... and I admit, I’m more of a bureaucrat, better at talking than action. But don’t worry! I’ve added a hundred brothers to your team, you now have the strength of a platoon, and when we return, the top credit is yours!"
I Max Black, "%¥#@!"
With so many ridiculous points, he didn’t know where to start complaining and simply ended the conversation with some cursing.
Ignoring I Max Black’s mumbling, and not understanding a word he said, Bell continued to walk in front, casually speaking in the tone of a tour guide.
"...The great Shelter No.100 once sheltered 30,300 Residents. Their peak number even reached 81,711."
Type Five couldn’t help but say,
"Eighty thousand people? Here?"
Although Brother Quanshui had mentioned over the communication channel that the shelter had a hundred levels, he still couldn’t imagine how this shelter hidden within the tunnels could fit nearly the population of a City of Dawn.
If it really had that population capacity, it would have to be an underground city like Shelter No.79, right?
But clearly, this place was not like that.
Unsurprised by his reaction, Bell just giggled shrilly a few times and stopped in front of a sliding door on the side of the hall.
"...Your horizon limits your imagination, not to mention eighty thousand people, theoretically, this shelter could accommodate two hundred thousand people with no issue."
As her voice fell, the sliding door slowly opened upward, revealing a world completely different from the claustrophobic world outside the shelter.
A spacious, circular corridor carved an extraordinarily broad space in the underground world and connected hundreds of densely packed rooms together.
The entire structure of the shelter resembled a vertical atrium, with a hemispherical dome emitting a beige light shining at the top.
The light was like a sun engraved inside the cave, pouring into the bottomless atrium.
The exoskeletons shed by the Ghost-faced Insects gathered on the atrium’s inner walls to form a honeycomb-like tower, which under the light, refracted a shimmer of iridescent colors.
Like a tangible rainbow!
And yet, the most shocking thing was still to come.
On the circular corridor, discarded exoskeletons and mechanical remnants littered around like garbage.
Among them were the most classic police equipment of the Human Alliance Era, the "Type Five" exoskeletons, as well as the "Type 6" Heavy Cavalry.
In addition, some machines resembling more construction tools than weapons—like several crab-shaped engineering robots—also joined the battle, waving their pincer-like limbs.
Their bodies and surroundings were riddled with bullet holes, and traces of explosives could be seen everywhere on the walls and ground.
The Variants active within the shelter devoured all the organic matter beneath the metallic skeletons, using layers of shed exoskeletons and mucus to integrate these exoskeletons and machines into the bug nest walls, together forming what was known as Shelter 100’s "tomb."
Observing the breathtaking scene, the players’ eyes stared in astonishment, especially I Max Black, who was closest to the door and almost subconsciously let out an expletive, "Holy shit."
This lighting effect!
This scene modeling!
Every frame looked as though the budget was burning!
Absolutely incredible!
Seemingly very pleased with the visitors’ shocked expressions, Bell laughed with a sound like the scraping of sharp tools after a moment of enjoyment.
Riding on a quadrupedal Machine, she passed through the sliding door to the circular corridor and stopped on the edge of the steep atrium.
"Welcome to Shelter 100, you are probably the first guests to set foot here since the doors closed two centuries ago."
I Max Black glanced at the widespread debris and inquired subconsciously.
"What exactly happened here?"
Bell spoke leisurely.
"Many, many things happened, if we start from the beginning that would be a long story. My master recorded the past of this place on his VM, that thing should be in the Manager’s Office. Go there and take a look, and you’ll know."
I Max Black continued to press for answers.
"Is your master the Manager here?"
"Manager? How could that be possible, are other shelters run by humans as managers?" Bell laughed heartily, "Regardless, here he is just a supervisor... But my master is still very impressive, he survived until the end! Of course, whether that can be considered fortunate is another matter."
Ten Punch Man stared blankly at her.
"Supervisor?"
Bell stated succinctly.
"The Manager of Shelter 100 is not a human, but a powerful AI. Its name is ’Tree,’ which has the highest access level in the shelter, responsible for making the most ideal decisions based on the parameters feedback from all the sensor modules in the shelter. If a light bulb goes out, it would know before the person beneath that light bulb and report the repair to the specific warehouse and workshop instantly."
"And the supervisors are residents that ensure ’Tree’s’ commands are executed. They are residents of the shelter, but at the same time, they are part of ’Tree’s’ sensor modules, responsible for monitoring the most unreliable module in the entire shelter—the residents of the refuge."
At this point, she paused for a moment and sarcastically added with a hint of amusement in her tone.
"However, ’supervisor’ is just what my master and his colleagues call themselves, just like you named the ’Crunchy’ as Ghost-faced Insects. Those mischievous Residents of the refuge didn’t like the official name either, and secretly referred to them in reverence as ’Tree Men.’"
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