"Achoo—!"
Standing at the entrance of the command tent, General Macklen sneezed loudly. His teeth slipped, and the cigarette butt clamped in his mouth went flying into the sand.
Rubbing his sunburnt nose, he glanced down at the cigarette sticking out of the dirt and cursed under his breath.
"...Damn it."
Even though this was a flawless plan, the thought that he—a dignified two-star myriarch and an exalted "Sky Conqueror"—had been reduced to acting as a construction foreman out in the middle of the desert filled his chest with stifling grievance.
And for some inexplicable reason, a chill had been creeping down his spine since earlier.
He had felt this exact same sensation two or three months ago. Shortly after that ominous premonition, the propellers of his beloved *Heart of Steel* had gotten fouled by a rogue hydrogen balloon drifting out of nowhere.
To this day, he still hadn't figured out which miserable dog had floated that balloon into the sky...
"Step up the patrols!" Macklen barked, turning to a newly promoted chiliarch beside him with a darkened face. "Expand the search perimeter from three kilometers to five! Arrest anyone who approaches! Shoot on sight if they resist!"
The officer snapped to attention and saluted crisply.
"Sir!"
Watching the officer jog off to carry out his orders, General Macklen stamped out the smoldering cigarette butt with his boot, ground it into the grit, and finally clasped his hands behind his back before strolling toward the northern side of the camp.
Construction on the airfield's runway was currently underway.
Without earthmoving excavators, everything had to be dug out with hand shovels, while wheelbarrows and trucks hauled away the dirt and rock.
The soil here was severely desertified. To keep the ground from caving in whenever planes touched down, the runway foundation had to be packed thoroughly solid.
Over fifty infantrymen patrolled the perimeter of the runway while supervising the retainers at work.
Beneath the scorching sun, more than a thousand retainers toiled half-naked, digging and shifting earth.
Looking at those bare arms and glistening shoulders, Macklen cleared his throat and projected his voice across the grounds.
"The August sun is like a red-hot furnace! I know your heads are spinning from the heat and your limbs feel like lead right now... but baking under the sun here beats the front line, where white phosphorus will roast you into charcoal and gasoline will burn you down to nothing!"
"That is what happened to your allies! Your enemies will torture you with the cruelest methods imaginable, which is why you must fight! You must press forward! That is your only path to survival! Thank us for pointing you down a clear road—you will not have to become slaves to petty kings, nor puppets to the Enterprise! Every drop of suffering you bear today will be repaid to our enemies a hundredfold tomorrow!"
"They will repent in the flames! They will be reduced to ash under temperatures of tens of millions of degrees! They will be crushed into dust beneath our fury!"
"Put some more muscle into it!"
"Move!"
Seeing the laborers dig with renewed vigor, Macklen nodded in satisfaction and turned back toward the encampment.
If only he could have a tub of ice cream right now, it would be perfection. Even better if Princess Consort Teresa were there to feed it to him... No, she had been captured by barbarians, which made her tainted goods. Once this war was over, he would simply pay a visit to that old king's harem instead.
His interest in women was actually quite ordinary; after all, such things were far too easy for a man of his standing to obtain.
That ice cream, however, was a rare delicacy produced in the alpine pastures along the Solat River—a luxury reserved exclusively for nobility, even tens of thousands of kilometers away.
With that unlucky fellow Finod around, those natives should know its true value.
He only hoped those bumpkins hadn't devoured every last drop of it...
***
The evening sun was sinking toward the horizon.
Beneath the shade of a wooden wine cask, a black-and-white cat yawned lazily and gave its paw a casual lick.
Just then, a dried fish dangled into view.
Catching the savory, salty scent drifting through the air, the feline narrowed its amber pupils and stepped forward in an elegant, padded prowl.
It uttered a polite meow toward the dried fish. Seeing that its "servant" had no objection, it dug in without hesitation.
Evidently, it was already well-accustomed to being fed—or rather, receiving offerings.
It seemed the old man named Booma hadn't been lying; the people here truly adored cats, so much so that the local felines lived leisurely lives, completely unafraid of humans.
"Here, kitty~"
Gently scritching the warm, fluffy nape of its neck and listening to its contented purrs, Sesame Paste squatted on the ground with her eyes crinkling into crescent moons. Her cat ears flicked leisurely back and forth, her face radiant with pure satisfaction.
A burly white bear crouched beside her, staring with wide, curious eyes at the tiny creature on the ground.
"Say, did all the cats across the entire wasteland flee here?"
"Yeah, now that you mention it, it really is weird. I haven't seen a single cat anywhere else... Dogs, though, I've seen plenty," Sesame Paste replied, recalling carefully.
Seeing how the cat had food, drink, and personal attendants, Rou Rou's face flushed with envy.
"Damn it, I want to pet it too..."
"Go ahead, but be careful. Your paws are huge, so don't hurt it," Sesame Paste said, scooting aside to make a little room for Rou Rou.
"Hehe, don't worry! I'm super gentle when I pet cats!"
Rubbing her paws together excitedly, Rou Rou extended a massive bear paw with utmost caution.
Yet before her paw could even graze the cat's fur, the feline's hair stood on end. It let out an alarmed hiss.
Rou Rou froze, completely flustered, and hastily jerked her paw back.
She opened her mouth to explain that she meant no harm, but the cat had no intention of sticking around to listen. Clamping down on the dried fish, it spun around and bolted into the shadows of a nearby alley.
Watching the cat vanish into the alleyway, Rou Rou wore an expression of utter dejection and heartbreak.
"Ugh... Am I really that scary-looking?"
Sesame Paste didn't quite know how to comfort her, but seeing that look on the verge of tears, she couldn't just leave her hanging. Chuckling wryly, she dusted off her hands, stood up, and patted Rou Rou's broad, furry shoulder.
"Of course not! Rou Rou is super cute... Maybe it just hasn't ever seen a talking bear before."
The people here were superstitious, yet remarkably tolerant of the unknown.
Even when confronted with a talking bear, their reaction was merely, "Hey, your bear can actually talk!" rather than shouting, "Monster!" and grabbing weapons to attack.
This was likely not just because strange occurrences were common on the wasteland, but also because the locals engaged heavily in commerce, making them accustomed to all sorts of oddities.
Take the Cactus Hotel right next to them, for example.
The receptionist at the front desk was an antique bionic android—one so ancient that its synthetic skin had completely faded.
Supposedly, back in the Era of Prosperity, it had worked as a front desk clerk at a resort hotel twenty kilometers away. When its operational lifespan expired, it had been dispatched to a scrap processing center.
Before it could be dismantled, the Final War broke out, and it sat abandoned on a factory assembly line for nearly two centuries. It wasn't until a few decades ago, when the proprietor of this inn scavenged it, that it resumed its old profession.
Its actual operating time had far exceeded its intended design life, resulting in occasional nonsensical remarks, inadvertent offenses toward guests, and frequent spells of spacing out for long stretches at a time.
Whenever that happened, the innkeeper would step in to register the guests' information in its stead.
"...I remember when I first laid eyes on it, I was only seven years old. Now I'm pushing forty-seven. Time sure flies when you look back on it."
"It really does," Sisi agreed with a casual nod as she waited by the counter.
Forty-seven.
That was considered a ripe old age on the wasteland.
She vaguely recalled hearing someone mention that, according to the game's lore, the average life expectancy for NPCs in this world was merely thirty-five years, and most people met an insurmountable disaster in their twenties.
Flipping through a battered ledger, the innkeeper rubbed his thumb over the pages before suddenly looking up with an apologetic, awkward expression.
"My apologies, guests. We've had quite an influx of patrons lately, and only one double room remains... Would it be acceptable to switch the other one to a room with a king bed?"
Before Sisi could answer, Tail bounced over eagerly, raising her right hand with unbridled enthusiasm.
"Ooh! No problem at all! Tail will sleep with Sisi!"
Sisi gave a soft, dry cough.
"Then... one double room and one king room, please."
With that, she placed several gold camel coins with a face value of 10 onto the counter. She had exchanged some of the loot salvaged from marauders for pocket change at the bazaar earlier, leaving them with roughly six to seven hundred in savings.
It was more than enough for daily expenses.
Lodging here was fairly reasonable: nine gold camel coins per room, which even included a generous chunk of rye bread for breakfast.
Word had it that if one wasn't picky about accommodations, there were even rooms going for two gold camel coins a night—converted utility closets normally meant for servants were also rented out to travelers.
Renting garage space, on the other hand, was slightly steeper at fifteen gold camel coins a day, though a monthly pass cost only three hundred.
This realization made Sisi groan inward at how badly she had been swindled.
A rolled-up "tourist map" paired with a regional guidebook had actually cost her the equivalent of nine nights' rent!
No wonder that vendor hadn't even bothered counting before stashing the coin pouch she had tossed onto the stall right into his robes.
He had easily made at least forty coins of pure profit off those eighty gold camel coins!
Careless mistake!
Handing the double room key to Sesame Paste and Rou Rou, Sisi led Tail upstairs.
Walking down the corridor, she spotted a bearded man standing beside a second-floor window with a sorrowful woman.
The man wore a faded gray linen shirt and carried the hardened demeanor of someone who had served in an army—or at least commanded a caravan escort detail.
The woman facing him wore a beige dress. Her wavy brown hair framed a comely face, and her slightly rounded belly hinted that she was recently pregnant.
"...There's bound to be a way. I heard they're hiring sailors over in Silver Moon City. Worst comes to worst, I'll try my luck there."
"But... what about me and the baby?" A trace of misery welled up in the woman's eyes.
"..." The man fell silent, clearly at his wits' end.
The woman hesitated for a moment, then seemed to make up her mind as she slid the ring from her ring finger.
"Why don't you take this and see if you can trade it for—"
The man quickly seized her hand.
"Don't... Let me think of another way."
Sisi appraised the pair, guessing they were refugees who had fled from Oasis No. 9 or Oasis No. 3 and had exhausted all their savings upon reaching this place.
As Sisi observed them, the man also noticed the two young women coming up the stairs. After a brief hesitation, he stepped forward.
"Excuse me, miss... I am terribly sorry to bother you, but would you... be willing to exchange some currency with me?"
Sisi glanced at the coin pouch in his hand. Inside were gold lion coins, and quite a few of them—probably three to four hundred. It seemed this couple hailed from the Lion Kingdom.
Evidently realizing the awkwardness of his abrupt request, the man felt heat rush to his weathered face and began pulling his hand back.
He knew full well that the currency of a losing nation was practically worthless.
A few months ago, this pouch could have fetched at least four hundred gold camel coins.
Now, knocking off two zeros would still be a hard sell. Even at the end of his rope, he couldn't bring himself to treat these two young girls like suckers.
Yet Sisi reached out, took the pouch from his hand, and pressed one of her own into his grasp.
"Deal. Once this journey wraps up, we happen to be heading to Oasis No. 9 anyway. It'll save us the trouble of exchanging money when we get there."
Staring at the pouch the girl had handed him, the man froze, speaking with a guilty stammer.
"This... this is far too much."
The weighty heft felt like at least three hundred gold camel coins—enough to sustain a modest living for nearly half a year if spent sparingly.
It was even enough to start a small trade.
Sisi hefted the pouch in her hands and remarked casually, "Your country hasn't lost yet. The resolve of those still fighting is well worth this price. Take it."
The man's Adam's apple bobbed. His face showed a blend of profound gratitude and shame.
After a brief silence, he accepted the pouch and bowed deeply.
It was the only gesture he could offer right now.
"Thank you for your generosity. May the Spirit of the Sand Sea bless your journey. My name is Charlie... While it is a trifling name unworthy of your remembrance, should fate allow us to cross paths again, I will repay the kindness you have shown my wife and me."
Finding the man rather endearing, Sisi smiled slightly.
"Don't take it to heart. It was just a transaction. Just treat your wife well."
Beside her, Tail grinned cheerfully.
"Yeah! May your blessings come true—hopefully we'll find a massive haul of treasure on our way back! Oh, by the way, we're from the White Bear Knights! Our captain is a big talking white bear! Make sure you spread our legend far and wide, the more ridiculous the better!"
The man blinked in surprise at the two girls, then bowed deeply once more before hurrying back to his wife to share the wonderful news.
Watched by two pairs of grateful eyes, Sisi and Tail made their way toward the room at the end of the corridor.
Watching Sisi retrieve the key and unlock the door, Tail rubbed her chin thoughtfully for a good while. Suddenly, as if stumbling upon some earth-shattering secret, she proclaimed with great gravity:
"Unbelievable! To think even Sisi has a soft spot! You didn't even suspect that couple might be scammers!"
Sisi replied dismissively, hiding her embarrassment:
"No, I just figured out-of-print coins won't be available much longer, so I bought them as souvenirs... Ah, right, deduct this expense from my share of the profits. It's just my personal hobby, after all."
Even though the others didn't seem to care much about such matters, she felt it was best to keep accounts clear.
She had seen far too many tight-knit guilds tear themselves apart over a piece of gear that got nerfed two patches later.
Tail looked wide-eyed at Sisi as the door swung open.
"Ehh?! Sisi wants to hog the limited-edition gold coins all to herself?!"
Sisi paused, then broke into an amused smile, tossing the pouch into Tail's hands.
"...Fine, consider Tail an equal partner then."
The room that cost nine gold camel coins was considerably more spacious than a three-coin cubicle. Not only did it feature bright windows and a plush king bed, but it also boasted an en-suite bathroom.
Petra Fortress did not sit directly within an oasis, but it was Camel Hump Kingdom territory nonetheless. Fresh water was slightly pricey, yet far from scarce.
Furthermore, Oasis No. 4 differed from the other oases; not all of its fresh water was supplied by the River Embankment. The Zhubar River, cascading from the mountain range toward Silver Moon Bay, irrigated vast swathes of land.
In the local slang of the Camel Hump Kingdom, the pronunciation of "Zhubar" carried the meanings of "greatness" and "mother"—one of the cultural traditions forged in the post-apocalyptic era.
The moment they dropped their luggage, Tail dashed into the bathroom like a gust of wind. Before long, the sound of splashing water echoed out.
A month without a shower had driven her nearly mad.
Sisi walked over to the window and sat down. Listening to the hawking and bustling commotion from the street below, she rested *The Oasis Beneath the Zhubar Mountains*, which she had bought with cold hard cash, on her knees and flipped through the pages attentively.
The author was listed as "White Dove," evidently a pen name. In the frontispiece, he summarized his life in a few brief strokes, claiming to hail from the Wandering Marsh. Having stumbled upon this hidden gem nestled at the foot of the mountains amidst that desolate wasteland, he had abandoned his employer's mission to settle here, marrying a fisherman's daughter while teaching and writing.
Penned in Year 150 of the Wasteland Era, the book was just as famous as its author, primarily chronicling the geographical features, customs, and culture of Oasis No. 4 and the Camel Hump Kingdom.
If the Zhubar Mountains were equated to the real world's "Roof of the World," the Camel Hump Kingdom's position bore an eerie resemblance to an alternate-world Bengal.
However, its area was much smaller—only about eighty thousand square kilometers with a population of roughly 1.5 million, distributed across twelve city-states, including Petra Fortress.
The capital was Camel City, home to a third of the oasis's population, situated at the southwestern corner of the bay.
If one passed through Petra Fortress and followed the Zhubar River southward all the way to the floodplain at the river mouth, one would arrive at the most prosperous hub in the entire oasis: Silver Moon Bay.
Perched upon the floodplain, Silver Moon City stood as the Camel Hump Kingdom's thriving port metropolis, characterized uniquely by scattered islets and navigable canals threading between buildings.
Though its population was only three hundred thousand, over seventy percent of the kingdom's fiscal revenue originated there.
"...The locals trade with the southern archipelagos and Polo Province to the southwest. To think the desert's big-horned cattle were actually imported to Silver Moon Bay from Polo Province... And supposedly there are gilled fishmen and giant acid-spitting frogs over there... Incredible."
"Ooh! Poros?! Can you find Poros over there?!" Rubbing her damp hair with a towel, Tail emerged from the bathroom and caught Sisi murmuring to herself, immediately leaning in with sheer curiosity.
Catching sight of her, Sisi's face flushed crimson. She reached out and yanked the curtains shut.
"Put... put some clothes on, at least!"
Tail planted her hands on her hips with pride, tilting her chin up fearlessly.
"What's the big deal?! I heard nobody wears clothes in dorm rooms!"
Sisi averted her gaze with a subtle twitch of her eye.
"...I must have gone to a fake university."
After fooling around for a bit, Tail finally recovered her modesty. Slipping into a T-shirt, she sat obediently beside Sisi, wrapping her hair in a towel to let it dry naturally.
Despite having functional bionic androids, this place didn't even have a hair dryer; one had to admit, that was the wasteland for you.
Leaning over the open book, Tail's eyes sparkled as she scrutinized the illustrations, trying to hunt down clues about new map regions so she could boast on the forums later.
Sisi cleared her throat gently, steering the conversation back to the previous topic.
"It's just a coincidence that the pronunciation sounds similar. A direct translation would be 'the land south of the towering mountains,' but I prefer transliterating it as 'Polo.' Geographically, that province looks somewhat like a wider Italian peninsula. The fortress we're in now is like Innsbruck, Camel City is like Ravenna, and Silver Moon City is like Venice... strictly in terms of geographical position, that is."
The Zhubar Mountains, stretching toward the southwest, severed overland passage, meaning the only route from Oasis No. 4 to Polo Province was by sea.
According to the book's descriptions, the oceans harbored mutant species as well, with combat capabilities reputed to rival sea monsters.
However, these mutants generally frequented only the deep sea and were extremely sensitive to scents.
The locals had discovered that these creatures despised the odor of black ironwood, so they constructed wooden steamships from black ironwood for long-distance maritime trade. In the relatively shallow coastal waters, they also utilized ironclad vessels.
The author who wrote under the pseudonym White Dove possessed a rigorous narrative style; he might very well have been an Academy researcher.
While Sisi pondered this, Tail, who was resting her chin in her hands while staring at the illustrations, let out a sudden breath of wonder.
"I had no idea this world was so huge!"
"It really is..."
"Across the sea..." Tail stroked her chin, her expression abruptly turning solemn. "Are there enemies?"
Sisi blinked, then burst out laughing.
"...Wrong anime, Tail."
"Hehe..."
Tail scratched the back of her head, sheepish.
Just then, she spotted the scroll resting on the bedside table and remembered the treasure map. With an energetic "heave-ho," she bounced up and brought it over.
Watching the map unfurl across the floor, Sisi raised her eyebrows in mild surprise.
"Oh, it's actually pretty big."
Looked at that way, it wasn't a total rip-off.
"Look, Sisi! There's a red X marked on the map! It really is a treasure map!"
"Anyone with a pen could draw a mark like that."
Sisi tossed back a casual reply to Tail's dramatic antics. But as her gaze lingered on the map for a few moments, her brow furrowed slightly.
Her index finger instinctively flipped back through the pages of the book until she located the passage describing the Lost Valley.
Whether in a material or spiritual sense, the impact of that ruin upon the oasis kingdoms was profoundly far-reaching.
Consequently, the book dedicated considerable space to it.
*"...According to local folklore, the Sky God fell there, and its burning scepter turned the plain into a valley. That was unquestionably Oasis No. 7. Based on known records, I suspect radioactive material and mutant slime mold linger there... or what one might call the remnants of a curse."*
*"I ought to go take a look, but my body can no longer endure such hardship. For the sake of my beloved son, I must suppress this adventurous impulse. Perhaps one day in the future, when I have no more attachments, I will venture there. If it could be repaired, that would be wonderful, though I harbor no real hope."*
*"A century and a half ago, they were living gods. Trying to solve the problems of gods with wrenches and screwdrivers is even less reliable than lighting a candle and praying."*
Reading to this point, Sisi was almost entirely certain that the author known as White Dove was an Academy researcher—or rather, a prospector.
That pessimistic, self-deprecating tone was practically a carbon copy of a certain researcher back home who was obsessed with coffee machines.
*"The more you understand, the more pessimistic you get. Be glad you have an optimistic Administrator; if it were me, I'd have given up on treatment long ago"*—that was a catchphrase that particular NPC loved to spout.
Her eyes locked onto a specific line in the book. Synthesizing the surrounding context, Sisi managed a rough interpretation with her limited vocabulary.
"...A Titan."
Tail snapped her head up, her eyes gleaming with wild excitement.
"A Titan?!"
It really was a hidden quest!
Sisi nodded, her gaze sweeping across the printed text. After a moment's reflection, she said:
"Yeah... The author compiled the folklore surrounding the Sky God. Based on local accounts, he concluded it was likely some kind of corvette-scale heavy ground warfare unit equipped with a mobile reactor, heavy ordnance, and starship-grade shielding."
A machine wielding holy flame, locked in mortal combat with an evil spirit thrashing countless tendrils, ultimately consumed beneath a scepter falling from the heavens... It sounded like Transformers battling a tentacle monster.
If one interpreted the tentacle monster as a broodmother, the machine wielding holy flame made perfect sense.
It was probably something akin to a Giant Death Robot from *Civilization VI*, or an armored colossus from *Titanfall*.
This didn't sound like a battle from the Three-Year War; rather, it seemed to date back to the Committee era.
"Yeah, there really might be something extraordinary out there. But—"
*Still, it's best not to invite unnecessary trouble right now.*
After all, compared to an unknown ruin with uncertain difficulty and rewards, the cargo worth millions sitting in their hands was undeniably more important.
However—
Meeting those sparkling, expectant eyes, a helpless smile crept onto Sisi's clever face.
Snapping the book shut, Sisi set it aside, dusted off her hands, and stood up from the floor.
"...It really would be a shame if we didn't go check it out."
Tail leaped into the air with a cheer.
"Woohoo! Charge!"
Chapter 432