Shelter 79!

"Holy crap?!" In the kitchen of Falling Leaves Camp, staring at the small mountain of potatoes piled before him, Battlefield Guy clutched a small knife, his eyes glazed and his jaw practically hitting the floor. Was this cooking for pigs?! How many tons of potatoes did these bastards eat in a day?! However... The cook who had assigned him the task didn't care in the slightest about the look on his face, merely issuing orders in an imperious tone. "You... your name's Pangolin, right? These potatoes are your work for today. Before evening, I expect to see them all washed and peeled." "If the job isn't done, you'll be in for a world of hurt." Throwing down those words, the cook wandered off to who knows where. Looking at the small knife in his hand, then glancing at the three scrawny survivors beside him, Battlefield Guy felt like crying without tears. "This... how the hell long is it gonna take me to peel all this?" Just yesterday, he had boasted on the official website that he'd knocked out three people's worth of work in half a day. Yet the moment he logged on today, yesterday's output had become today's baseline—and quadrupled on top of that. They were really shearing this fat sheep for all it was worth! And worst of all, there was no quest reward! Compared to the Legion, their esteemed Administrator was a living saint! No... Did these bastards even deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as the Administrator?? The more Battlefield Guy thought about it, the angrier he got. He gripped the small knife tightly, barely holding back the urge to chase after that arrogant fat pig and carve a new hole in his backside. Still, remembering the hidden quest and the hefty rewards he had unlocked on the official website last night, he took a deep breath and swallowed his temper. A real man knows when to bend and when to stand tall. For the supreme Administrator... Grandpa will endure! "We gotta modify the tools. Peeling with this knife, we won't finish by this time tomorrow," Battlefield Guy said, turning back to the three apprentices behind him, gesturing with his hands as he spoke in halting Human Alliance language. The three apprentices exchanged glances, catching only half of it, their faces completely bewildered. Battlefield Guy sighed, picked a guy who seemed slightly sharper, and sent him to the scavengers' scrap heap to find a few pieces of scrap iron. Once he had the parts and tools, he used a piece of flint to wear a slot through the middle of the iron plates, then wound some wire around them a few times to create four makeshift peelers. The contraptions looked a bit like razors. Though far from automated, they were at least much faster than carving away with a knife. Under his patient instruction, the three apprentices quickly learned how to peel potatoes more efficiently. This time, Battlefield Guy had learned his lesson; he didn't rush around bragging, but instead squatted beside the three apprentices and slacked off. Seeing his relaxed demeanor, an apprentice beside him couldn't help saying enviously, "Brother, do you peel potatoes often?" "Nah, why?" "No reason... You just look real practiced, and this tool you modified works pretty great." Battlefield Guy chuckled. "What's the big deal? Everyone peels them like this back where I'm from. I learned it from someone else too." Hearing this, the expressions on the three apprentices grew even more envious. In the wasteland, crops with a growth cycle exceeding two months were not something ordinary people could afford to eat. Most survivor settlements grew green wheat not because people loved its distinctive grassy sourness, but because other crops couldn't even survive until harvest—they were either ruined by marauders or trampled by mutants. The more turbulent the times, the more people leaned toward crops with short growth cycles and low demands for soil, fertility, and labor. This was true in any world. Since he had nothing better to do anyway, Battlefield Guy chatted with the apprentices in his half-baked Human Alliance language about life back in the Alliance. Of course, he didn't mention the Alliance or Dawn City, still using Bet Street as a placeholder. Talking until his mouth was parched, Battlefield Guy paused, suddenly noticing a dense crowd of residents gathered in the open space outside the kitchen. "What's going on over there?" One of the apprentices squatting beside him answered quickly, "I heard the Legion is recruiting soldiers..." "Recruiting?" "Yeah. Able-bodied survivors or those with special abilities can sign up. They said as long as you join the Legion's ranks, you get to eat potatoes and beef." As he spoke, the apprentice wore an envious expression, clearly tempted. Yet perhaps thinking that he might just be sent to the front lines as cannon fodder, he ultimately couldn't bring himself to try his luck. Battlefield Guy looked at him strangely, then tossed a potato he had peeled and fiddled with for ages into the basket beside him. That two-headed ox and those potatoes... Didn't they come from your own homes in the first place? Just as Battlefield Guy was peeling potatoes and pondering whether to go test his luck at the recruitment area, Korwei, standing in the middle of the camp, was reviewing the roster handed up by his subordinates. In four days, they had rounded up a total of 7,400 survivors and cleared out nearly seventeen survivor settlements. The largest of them had a population of a full thousand, and the settlement had even possessed a cast-iron makeshift cannon. However... In front of a 400mm main gun, such a thing was nothing more than a toy. Especially after the residents heard that "that iron airship wiped out an entire hundred-man company of the Enterprise with a single shot," the locals couldn't muster the slightest courage to resist, obediently packing their belongings and migrating here with them. They had already deployed wood-fired generators in the camp to power the nutrient paste synthesis units. Later, they would set up several smelting furnaces to re-smelt the scrap scavenged from the city into useful metal castings, producing Ripper rifles and ammunition. The mission General McLaren had assigned him was to train a thousand-man unit of locals within two months to fight alongside their aerospace marines. This would lay the groundwork for bringing the southern plains of River Valley Province under their sphere of influence. Standing beside Korwei, Logistics Officer Finod narrowed his eyes slightly as he looked at the line of survivors and the camp taking shape before them. "We need to pick up the pace... The Enterprise has already caught wind of our movements. Our patrols came back empty-handed several times." Korwei: "I've already brought this up with Mr. Rachel. We'll increase the number of patrols going forward..." "There's one more thing." "What is it?" "I heard that in the survivor settlement at No. 79 Xiangling Street, a Deathclaw two stories tall showed up... Is that true?" Korwei recalled the matter and nodded. "That did happen. I reported the situation there to Mr. Rachel. Considering it was only a settlement of two to three hundred people, and those locals might not survive the jaws of that Deathclaw anyway, I had my men cross that settlement off the list... Is there a problem?" It wasn't that he feared the beast; he simply felt it wasn't worth wasting his men's lives and precious ammunition just to slay a monster. The aerospace marines were limited in number and couldn't be replenished from the rear, and the Enterprise's guerrillas had given him enough headaches these past few days. Finod said amiably, "No problem. Missing two or three hundred people is inconsequential, but General McLaren is very interested in that beast. He spotted it from the bridge and has been going on about hanging its head from the bow of the Heart of Steel to bring back for General Griffin to see." Korwei stared at Finod in surprise, speechless for a long moment. The smile on Finod's face remained unchanged, his tone still gentle. "Could I trouble you with that?" It would be best if he could refuse, of course, but this was General McLaren's order. Even with ten thousand objections in his heart, Korwei could only nod with a numb scalp. "Understood..." ... "...Wait, wasn't this library supposed to have no basement?" In the dim tunnel. Sisi shone her flashlight around. It felt like an air-raid shelter to her, though she had never seen what a real one looked like in the real world either. Sesame Paste walked beside her, clutching a radio to her chest, her cat ears perked alertly and her eyes darting in every direction. Right then, the radio that had been dead silent a second before suddenly let out an ear-grating cackle, startling her so badly she nearly dropped it. "...Who told you that?" "The local residents." "Heh... What do they know?" Fair enough. Sisi nodded thoughtfully, not pressing the inconsequential matter further. If anyone could find the shelter's entrance, it would undoubtedly be a form of torture for both those inside and those outside—physically and mentally. The two continued forward along the pitch-black tunnel. The further they went, the wider it became, expanding from barely four people abreast at first to something as wide as a two-lane road. Looking at the branching paths along the tunnel, Sisi felt even more certain of her earlier deduction. Shelter 79 had to have more than one entrance. And its capacity far exceeded the scale of a mere thousand people! The elevator hidden behind the bookshelf along the wall on the library's second floor was merely one entrance into this tunnel. As for how they had found that entrance, it went back to half an hour ago. Half an hour ago, they had found that radio on the second floor of the library, receiving a signal from who knew where. The man on the radio claimed to be the Administrator of Shelter 79, stating in a tone that was hard to tell whether self-deprecating or remorseful that "half the barbarism on this land can be traced back to me," advising the two to leave this place of turmoil immediately. Sisi reserved judgment on his claim. For now, though, this guy seemed to be the only one who knew the entrance to Shelter 79. She had thought it would take considerable effort to win the Administrator's trust. To her surprise, without much persuasion at all, she had actually convinced the guy using her halting Human Alliance language to let them take a look at Shelter 79. Truth be told, being convinced so easily was almost unbelievable to Sisi. Could it be... Her hidden Charisma stat was actually really high? At that thought, a subtle expression crossed Sisi's face. Just then, the radio suddenly spoke up. "Speaking of which, I forgot to ask. What kind of place is Shelter 404?" "Just a very ordinary shelter?" "Oh, is that so..." "What is it?" "Nothing. I just wanted to be sure I wasn't interfering with other friends' work... Heh." The chuckle sounded somewhat loaded with meaning. Yet Sisi didn't think much of it. After all, this aged radio crackled with static at all times, even when no one was speaking. "By the way, what should we call you?" "Just call me the Administrator." "But we already have an Administrator. There has to be a way to tell you apart." The voice paused in thought for a moment. "Apologies. I've been alone for too long. My name hasn't been used in ages, so it took me a moment to remember. You can... call me Yong Shi." Sisi was mildly surprised, but said nothing more, giving an "oh" and a nod. Most NPCs in this game had odd names. Even their own Administrator had always referred to himself by the codename "Dawn," only occasionally using the name "Chu Guang." Judging from what this guy said, though, he seemed like an old monster who had lived all the way from the pre-war era... This quest was getting more and more interesting. Walking beside her, Sesame Paste couldn't understand what they were discussing at all, asking somewhat apprehensively: "How much longer until we get there?" Sisi relayed the question, and the radio answered promptly: "Just up ahead... But before that, I hope you prepare yourselves mentally. As I said, that place never sheltered any survivors." "I'm prepared." For a dungeon guide, this NPC sure talked a lot. Just as Sisi was thinking this, a massive alloy door shaped like a gear finally appeared at the end of the tunnel. The "79" stamped in the center of the gear hadn't faded in the slightest, even after two centuries. Excitement flared in their eyes at once. Quest complete! They had found the entrance to Shelter 79! "Too bad Tail isn't here... Should we call her over?" "Going back and forth takes too much time. We finally made it here, so let's check out what it looks like inside first..." Holding back the excitement in her voice, Sisi looked at the radio in Sesame Paste's arms and asked in Human Alliance language, "...How do we get in?" The moment the words left her mouth, pebbles on the ground began to bounce lightly. A tremor like an earthquake rose from beneath their feet as the massive gear, weighing who knew how many tons, slowly rolled to one side. Gazing at the straight corridor behind the colossal door and the buffer chamber as spacious as an athletic field, Sisi's eyes widened in astonishment. Just the area before her eyes was ten times that of Shelter 404... Yet what shocked her even more came after. When she and Sesame Paste crossed the vast buffer chamber and passed through the door at the end of the corridor, a floor-to-ceiling window over a dozen meters high swept into view. And what lay behind that floor-to-ceiling window completely overturned their understanding of a shelter. Square high-rises, like crisp, sharp-edged rulers, stood arranged across an exceptionally vast expanse, extending down into the bottomless subterranean depths. Steep, straight corridors connected those boxy buildings together. They were like interconnected blocks, stacked and linked to one another, pushing the utilization of space to the absolute limit in a manner acceptable to human aesthetics. And right now, they were standing at the highest point of this "underground city"... Sisi's eyes were wide. Her fingers instinctively reached to her ear, resting frozen on the shutter button of her headset. Sesame Paste beside her was completely dumbfounded, her eyes wide and her mouth open so far an egg could have fit inside. "Is this... really a shelter?" "Welcome to Ruigu City 2.0," a pleasant voice drifted from the radio. "It's been a very, very long time since new guests arrived here." The moment the words fell, a flash of vigilance darted through the eyes beneath the cat ears. Sesame Paste's right hand swiftly drew the 12mm caliber revolver holstered at her hip, her thumb cocking the hammer with practiced ease. This was a pistol she had bought from the Administrator long ago, mainly used against large mutants. Behind the door she was aiming at, a tiger two sizes larger than normal was staring at the two through the door's glass window, emitting a dangerous low growl. A pair of fangs curved outside its lips like razor-sharp daggers! Its claws scratched at the door, its teeth grinding against the frame, its gaze filled with ravenous urgency, as if it had been starved for a very long time. The moment their gazes locked, biological instinct made every hair on her body stand on end. Also sensing the aura of danger, Sisi swallowed hard with difficulty. With a clack, she chambered a round in her assault rifle. While aiming at the door, she asked the radio, "What... what is going on here?" Why were there mutants inside a shelter?! The radio let out a mournful sigh. "That is why I told you to prepare yourselves... As you can see, this city has already fallen." "Fallen..." "Yes." Resting in Sesame Paste's arms, the old radio spoke in a very soft voice, as if recounting a past tale: "The people here once enjoyed a brief period of prosperity. But while that colossal gate could shut out war and radiation, it could not shut out people's longing for the outside world and for freedom... I tried to convince them to wait a little longer. To wait until the radioactive fallout settled to the ground, until the glaciers freezing the land melted, and then we would step out into the outside world together. Yet..." "Yet?" "Yet they couldn't wait. They clamored and demanded to leave, and no matter how I tried to dissuade them, they wouldn't listen..." A trace of mockery colored the voice on the radio, but it soon shifted to a tone of release. "Enough of those ancient tales. I'm sure you aren't interested anyway. In any case, because that outer gate was opened and closed constantly, this place became no different from the outside world... in fact, even worse than the outside." "Our original intention was to help mutated organisms outside return to their original state. Yet who could have imagined that some fools wouldn't be satisfied with merely clearing out themselves—they carried organisms harboring unfinished gene archetypes out with them, leading to those mutated monstrosities being everywhere outside now." Sisi frowned. "You mean... the mutants outside all escaped from here?" The radio replied curtly: "Roughly so. At least, I reckon at least half of them did. As for the rest, you'll have to ask other shelters... God knows what they were messing with." Pausing, its tone seemed to carry a trace of deep self-reproach. "Of course, it's not as though we didn't try to make amends. Before the final crisis, we were constantly searching for a method to contain the spread of the gene archetypes. In fact, that magnificent work was almost complete... Unfortunately, at the very last moment, the research sector—the only one that hadn't fallen—was finally breached." Sisi's eyes shone brightly. "We're willing to continue your unfinished work! Restoring this planet's ecology to normal is also part of our mission to revive the Human Alliance!" Any major research discovery made in the wasteland, whether encrypted data or physical samples, could be exchanged for handsome rewards with the Scientific Expedition NPC Yin Fang. A shelter this huge... The research inside would surely fetch plenty of rewards, wouldn't it? Unaware of her thoughts, a gratified voice drifted from the radio: "I'm very glad to hear you say that. It seems my trust in you wasn't misplaced." After a slight pause, it continued: "In the center of the city stands a silver-white building. Its exterior is very conspicuous; you should be able to see it from where you are. That is the shelter's research sector. All of our research achievements are stored there, including our experimental data and the serum samples we already completed." Sisi: "Serum?" "A serum capable of reversing mutations. We only completed the one for Deathclaws... because they were the most dangerous." Hearing this, Sisi froze. "Can such a thing really be done?" Reversing mutations that had already occurred... That sounded like a pipe dream. Yet the radio said in an assertive tone: "Of course it can. It's not that difficult to achieve. Back to the point: if you truly wish to carry on our work, bring those things out into the open for us. Since you come from a shelter, you must know how to use them." "Naturally, the mutants here aren't easy to deal with, and there's more than one Deathclaw here. You can head back to prepare first, then return when you're ready." "I do plan to do that..." Sisi glanced at the tiger outside the door. She truly needed to make preparations. Earlier, when entering Xiangling Town, she and Sesame Paste had only brought basic self-defense weapons to show good faith. With the meager ammunition on hand, they probably couldn't even handle the beast behind this door. They had to at least gather everyone! ... During peak log-off hours that day. The official forum was once again set ablaze by a post. [BREAKING NEWS! Shelter 79 Decrypted! The Underground Metropolis Hidden Beneath Ruigu City!] Jieyan: [Holy crap! An underground metropolis?!] Tail: [Mhm! The monsters inside are super strong! There are so many Scavenger Bros!] Scavenger Lv99: [???] I'm the Darkest: [666! Isn't this way more badass than Battlefield Guy's shabby dump of a map?] Battlefield Atmosphere Group: [Damn it, that wasn't what you were saying yesterday!] Lightning King Professor Yang: [At this scale... dropping another hundred thousand activation codes wouldn't be unreasonable, right?] Elaina: [...Tch, a beginner zone where Deathclaws spawn? Isn't this way more exciting than farming little monkeys in Shelter 117? (Funny)] Elven King Fugui: [And they spawn right in your face. (Funny)] Tyrannosaurus Warrior: [Let me in!!! If the damn devs don't give me a helmet, I'm reporting them! (Crazy)] Lao Bai: [(Stunned.jpg)] Sisi: [Anyway, that's the basic gist of Shelter 79... Since there's no internet here, we can only upload photos in a few days after heading back to the Storm Corps garrison.] [Also, we learned that the shelter possesses massive nuclear energy reserves. According to that Administrator named Yong Shi himself, it's more than enough to run for another three centuries. And the serum in the central research sector of that underground metropolis seems capable of reversing mutations?] Yaya: [Wait, doesn't that mean Rou Rou can turn into a human? (Excited)] Teng Teng: [(Anticipating) (Anticipating)] Rou Rou: [Hold on, I AM a human to begin with! (╯°Д°)╯] [Though I really am not human in the game.] [No wait! Saying that sounds weird too!] Posting three replies in a row, Rou Rou descended into utter confusion, though amid the players' excitement for the new map, her comments were soon drowned in the flood of replies. Reading through the post from start to finish, a certain game planner sitting in front of his computer wore a look of equal astonishment. "...Reversing mutations?!" What kind of black technology was this? At this moment, Chu Guang's shock was not a bit less than that of the player named Sisi. Fortunately, he had an expert he could consult. Without hesitation, Chu Guang stood up immediately and went to Floor B3, finding Heya busy at work in the laboratory. After hearing his inquiry, Heya paused what she was doing, clear shock showing in her eyes as well. "...Are you sure? Reversing mutations?" Chu Guang phrased his words carefully: "I can't guarantee the source is entirely accurate; I can only confirm I didn't mishear... But then again, even you're surprised?" "Well, rather than surprised, it's more like... I don't really understand the point of such a research project." Resting her index finger lightly against her chin, Heya wore a pensive look. "While human intervention cannot be ruled out for the mutant creatures on the wasteland, most are actually the result of natural selection. Only species with stronger survival capabilities could survive on this ecologically extreme planet—that is the root cause of the current state of affairs." "Without changing the environment itself, merely altering the traits of one or two organisms is meaningless. Those individuals unable to adapt to the current environment will quickly be eliminated, and their traits won't be passed down at all." Pausing, she continued: "Furthermore, evolution is a continuous process. Exactly which prior stage is that serum intending to revert the mutations to?" "So he's lying?" Chu Guang frowned slightly, having caught the logical inconsistency as well. "The research stored in Shelter 79 isn't as simple as he admitted." Heya teased, "My thoughts exactly. Your residents were probably taken for a ride. They really are cute in their naivety sometimes... Speaking of which, can't Yin Fang find any records on Shelter 79? Not even the Administrator's name?" Chu Guang shook his head. "Nothing. Shelters are like black boxes; from the outside, they're all blind boxes." Heya tilted her head with crossed arms, not quite understanding what a blind box was. Chu Guang didn't explain, his thoughts churning rapidly. He couldn't state definitively that "Yong Shi" was lying, but the man had most likely concealed part of the truth, all to get his players to bring the serum stored in the shelter out into the open. There could be many motives for doing so; speculating before figuring out what that serum actually was would be pointless. Yet what baffled Chu Guang was: why didn't the man do it himself? As long as he sealed the shelter's blast doors and cut the power, within a few days the organisms inside would die of asphyxiation. Even if a portion tenaciously survived, it would only be a matter of waiting a few more days. Either the man didn't possess full administrative authority... Or for some reason, he didn't want the mutants in the shelter to be wiped out completely...