Every design concept of Shelter 100 had been geared toward the reconstruction of the surface. To that end, the entire shelter had been built around an exaggerated central lightwell beneath a dome that simulated day and night, with the vast majority of residents living in tenement-style blocks along its walls.
Now, this place had become a nest of ghost-face bugs.
Fortunately, these insects had not developed a hive-like society and were not governed by a unified hive mind.
Otherwise, the Alliance players would likely have been crunched into paste by tens of thousands of ghost-face bugs the moment they set foot inside.
Rather than launching an immediate sweep of Shelter 100, I'm the Darkest first reorganized the hundred reinforcements Spring had dispatched from the surface. He had Kakarot lead sixty players to set up light machine guns along the edge of the lightwell, while he personally took twenty Strength- and Constitution-type brothers clad in K-10 Iron Wall exoskeletons toward the fully enclosed elevator shaft.
Mounted atop its quadruped robot, Bell stayed right at his side. Watching the squad drop ropes down the shaft, it stepped one foot into the void first.
I'm the Darkest flinched at its sudden movement, but quickly noticed that it hadn't plummeted. Instead, it clung firmly to the wall.
The pads of those four legs appeared to be coated in some special adhesive material, allowing it to crawl straight up and down the nearly vertical elevator shaft.
"Your mount has some neat tricks."
Eyeing the little machine in surprise, I'm the Darkest extended his right hand toward it, wanting to test whether it could support his weight as well.
Yet as if eyes grew on its back, Bell gave a slight sway and effortlessly dodged the reaching hand.
"Don't bother trying. I can't carry you. You'd better watch your own footing instead—the further down we go, the more of those little darlings there'll be."
I'm the Darkest instinctively shone his flashlight downward. Fortunately, no ghost-face bugs were visible along the vertical shaft walls.
Breathing a sigh of relief, he shot a glare at the fellow perched on the spider-like robot. Staying alert for any dangers lurking in the dark, he gripped the rope and rappelled deeper down the shaft.
At last, they reached level B40.
I'm the Darkest raised a hand and knocked firmly twice against the door. The tightly shut alloy door soon let out a screech of grinding metal, sliding slowly open to both sides under the remote control of a certain Administrator.
The instant it opened, a violent rush of buzzing wings surged right into their faces.
"Ch-ch-ch—!"
"Fuck!"
Startled, I'm the Darkest kicked his legs against the wall to swing back while raising the assault rifle slung across his chest, opening fire in an aggressive spray.
Over a dozen ghost-face bugs were killed instantly, yet a few slipped through the net and charged straight into the elevator shaft.
To prevent ricochets from striking their own allies, several players rappelling beside I'm the Darkest promptly drew combat knives and short clubs, engaging the incoming bugs in close-quarters melee.
Truth be told, these insects were exceptionally aggressive, and the stingers on their abdomens shot out like nail guns.
However, pitted against the turtle-shell-level defense of the K-10 Iron Wall exoskeleton, chitin stingers proved inadequate.
"These things aren't really as hard to deal with as I thought. They're just damn disgusting."
Prying off a bug that clung to his helmet while its stinger thrashed like a frenzied mutt, a Strength-type beast of a player smashed it against the wall with utter revulsion, splattering it into a smear of dark-green sludge.
Wiping the slime from his knife, another player beside him chimed in with a grin, "No kidding. Our captain's sanity meter is practically drained."
"Hahaha!"
"Shut up and work."
Rolling his eyes, I'm the Darkest gestured forward with his right fist, leading the nine men behind him as they swung through the elevator door into the corridor beyond.
Shed molts from the insects and pitch-black excretions littered the hallway.
Beyond that lay scattered documents, overturned desks, chairs, and cabinets dragged into the center of the corridor as barricades, along with tattered scraps of clothing torn to ribbons.
I'm the Darkest signaled to advance, then pressed a button on his helmet.
"Leave the B40 warehouse to us... Brother Chao, take the rest and keep heading down to B51 to retrieve the data."
Ten-Punch Superman's voice came through the comms channel. "Copy that!"
The twenty-man squad split into two. The ten still in the elevator shaft continued their descent with Ten-Punch Superman, while I'm the Darkest led his ten forward.
Their objective was the black box situated in the warehouse zone of B40.
Perched atop the quadruped robot, Bell pondered for a moment before scuttling into the B40 corridor as well, pattering along the ceiling right above their heads.
I'm the Darkest paid it no mind. He occasionally fired to drop ghost-face bugs that flared their wings to pounce, all while thoroughly checking every corner of the corridor.
Several lights here were broken.
The entire hallway flickered erratically between light and shadow, looking like the set of a horror movie.
To make matters worse, because the main corridor was choked with barricades and arthropod remains, they were forced to detour through an adjacent area that appeared to be residential quarters.
Stepping over an overturned cabinet, I'm the Darkest suddenly noticed a teddy bear lying by the wall. The bear had been severed clean in two.
Its stuffing was long gone, and judging by the bullet holes riddling the floor, its owner had likely been shot into a sieve alongside it, their body turned into bug fodder shortly thereafter.
The player behind him clicked his tongue. "Things got pretty intense here."
A few other players murmured in low voices.
"Was it a fight over the black box?"
"Doesn't look like it..."
I'm the Darkest agreed.
If the fight had been over a black box, there would have been no need for the engagement zone to extend all the way here—two hundred meters from the warehouse entrance—let alone to sweep through every single room.
This didn't look like a struggle for a prize.
It looked like a purge.
Glancing at the hanging, open doors, I'm the Darkest had a sudden thought and looked up at the "guide" crawling along the ceiling.
"Come to think of it, why did you design the shelter with a hollow central shaft? Wouldn't a solid layout have saved a lot more space?"
Creeping overhead, Bell answered at an unhurried pace, "Shelter 100 is a shelter, not an apartment complex. From the day it was conceived, its ultimate fate was destined to be swept into the dustbin of history. Just as a chick must eventually peck through its shell—if it doesn't, it will never see the true sun."
I'm the Darkest asked, "What does that have to do with anything?"
Bell let out a raspy, shrill chuckle.
"Everything! That massive atrium was built precisely for the day it fell. Once the reconstruction plan reached its midterm phase, 'Tree' was to voluntarily detonate the dome, causing the upper funnel-shaped modules to collapse into the central lightwell and form an opening to the surface."
"That way, this shelter would transform into a natural foundry shaft, devouring all the scrap and refuse above our heads."
Hearing such an astounding design concept, I'm the Darkest stood dumbfounded. "A foundry shaft?"
A touch of pride crept into Bell's voice.
"Indeed. A shaft to forge everything—a vertical production base. In the projected plan, raw materials would cascade from the mouth of the shaft to the bottom like a waterfall, transforming the moment they landed into whatever we required, before elevators carried them back to the surface. And in the final phase of the plan, we were to use it to manufacture a starship whose dimensions precisely matched the inner diameter of the lightwell. With it, we would follow in the footsteps of the Zhiyuan and colonize worlds far beyond."
I'm the Darkest stared up at it in disbelief. "You even planned that far ahead?"
Bell remarked with a trace of teasing, "Of course. After all, Tree is omnipotent. It could draft plans a thousand years into the future. It's just a shame that most humans couldn't keep up with its rhythm."
I'm the Darkest was speechless. "..."
Another player marveled in disbelief, "And here I thought only nuclear engineers lived down here."
Bell laughed aloud. "Nuclear engineers? Ah... sure, there were some. But what fusion reactor needs thirty thousand people to maintain it? We had experts from every industry under the sun, along with their descendants."
I'm the Darkest asked instinctively, "Where are they now?"
For some reason, Bell abruptly clamped its mouth shut. Though it soon found its voice again, it deliberately steered the conversation elsewhere.
I'm the Darkest could tell something was off with this fellow, but since control of the shelter had already been transferred, he wasn't particularly worried about it.
Right then, Ten-Punch Superman's patchy voice came through the comms.
"The VM in the Administrator's office has been retrieved... Damn it, there are at least several hundred bugs here. How much longer on your end?"
I'm the Darkest checked the map on his VM. The warehouse entrance lay not far ahead.
According to the surveillance feed provided by the Administrator, about thirty or forty ghost-face bugs were waiting for them.
"We're almost there too."
Ten-Punch Superman asked, "Need a hand?"
I'm the Darkest glanced around. "No need. These critters can't pierce our armor. The only hassle is how damn convoluted the terrain is—the obstacles take more work than the bugs."
Ten-Punch Superman said, "Alright, watch yourselves then... We've already copied the data from the VM to the shelter's server. Since we've got a bit of time to spare, we're planning to head down to B100 to check out that 'side quest.'"
Control of the shelter had been secured by the Administrator before they even set foot inside, which was the only reason they could maintain contact with the outside world.
As long as the data on the VM was uploaded to the shelter's server, everything—including the Administrator's logs—could sync to the surface.
Yet what baffled I'm the Darkest was why Shelter 100's Administrator possessed a VM (vital signs monitor) in the first place, when it wasn't even human.
More suspiciously still, if the Administrator itself was an AI residing within the server, why hadn't its logs been stored on the shelter's mainframe instead of an offline mobile storage device?
It was bizarre.
Still, securing the black box took top priority.
"...Copy that. B100 is all yours. Be careful down there."
After signing off, I'm the Darkest disconnected the call and turned to his teammates behind him. "Brother Chao's squad wrapped up their part. We need to pick up the pace!"
The players answered enthusiastically, "Understood!"
***
While more than a hundred players from the Storm Corps were grunting through their excavation in the ruins of Shelter 100 beneath Sixin District, Chu Guang, observing remotely from Camp 101, had already received the logs retrieved from the Administrator's office via Xiao Qi.
Unlike the personal, testament-like logs recovered from other shelters, Shelter 100's log felt less like a diary and more like the user manual tucked inside a television box that no one ever bothered to read.
The opening clearly delineated the functions of Shelter 100, including Tree's executive authority, the resources allocated to the facility, the obligations it bore, and the regulations its inhabitants were expected to observe.
Chu Guang skimmed through the verbose material, extracting the key points to grasp the shelter's operating rules.
Put simply, if the shelter were likened to a prison, Tree was the warden, and the "Overseers" were the prison guards.
The former handled governance; the latter handled enforcement.
The number of Overseers was determined primarily by the shelter's population. In addition to the initial three hundred Overseers, one new Overseer slot was automatically generated for every one hundred new residents.
Shelter 100's mandate was straightforward: execute the wasteland reconstruction plan after sixty-three years of lockdown.
While sheltering survivors upon detecting a nuclear strike was indeed part of the protocol, the facility bore no obligation to rescue anyone.
Consequently, Shelter 100's origins were the polar opposite of the overloaded Shelter 117.
Tree had executed the designated "Shelter Protocol" without hesitation. Once it secured its target intake of thirty thousand three hundred residents, it ordered the Overseers to exile all unassigned refugees outside the gates.
Records in the warehouse system showed that tranquilizer guns had been requisitioned on the day of the lockdown. Clearly, that exile had been anything but peaceful.
Then again, those were not peaceful times, so parsing the morality of it held little meaning.
After entering the shelter, the thirty thousand residents spent three anxious days waiting. On the fourth day, they were informed that the world had been destroyed in a nuclear war, that the old order—including the People's Federation—no longer existed, and that it would take at least sixty-three years before the outside world became habitable again.
Reading this, Chu Guang felt a flicker of doubt.
This diverged from what he had learned from Yule's memories and the logs of other shelters.
The war had not lasted a mere three days; it had raged for three full years.
Up until the end of the Three-Year War and the establishment of the Post-War Reconstruction Committee, the world had not truly become a desolate wasteland. The various organizations and institutions of the People's Federation had continued to operate with every ounce of effort they could muster.
Soon, however, his confusion was answered.
This too had been part of Tree's calculation.
An Overseer registered under the biometric ID "Craig" had left three lines of commentary beside this entry:
[This was the wisest decision. The Great Tree calmed the restless residents with just three statements. Under its will, we showed them proof of the apocalypse, displaying the hellish devastation of Qingquan City under nuclear bombardment. Once they beheld the truth, they quickly abandoned their unrealistic illusions and accepted the unpalatable biscuits, canned goods, and freeze-dried vegetables, as well as the reality that no synthetic servants would ever cater to them again.]
[The only thing that baffles me is what makes biscuits and freeze-dried vegetables so hard to swallow. What on earth did they eat before? It is a pity Tree deleted all footage of the old era. I have only heard fragments of the Era of Prosperity from my grandfather. Yet both he and I firmly believe that era can never return.]
[To forge ahead on this thorny road, we can only press forward with devout faith.]
"Craig."
Chu Guang murmured the name softly. Struck by a thought, he spoke up. "Xiao Qi, pull up this person's file."
"Right away!"
Perched on his shoulder, Xiao Qi answered briskly. It promptly retrieved the file and projected it onto one side of the holographic screen.
Chu Guang looked straight at the appointment date.
According to the record, Craig had been granted the title of Overseer in Year 53 of the Wasteland Era, when he was just twenty-four years old.
Curiously, that coincided with the second year after Xizhou Lake's waters flooded the tunnels. The climate across the wasteland had already shown early signs of recovery, and only seven years remained before the shelter was scheduled to end its lockdown.
Life was supposed to be improving.
The appointment of new Overseers indicated population growth, suggesting conditions inside were not entirely catastrophic.
Intrigued by the shelter's history, Chu Guang shifted his attention from Tree's official reports to this Overseer named Craig. He had Xiao Qi compile these supplementary notes chronologically and cross-reference them against the Administrator's logs.
He soon discovered that compared to Tree's detached, matter-of-fact records, Craig's annotations offered a starkly different perspective.
[...Supplying thirty thousand people demands an astronomical amount of resources, especially since the material appetite of those who lived through the Era of Prosperity exceeds anything we can fathom today. The Great Tree could monitor their physical and mental well-being, but it could not assign a personal health assistant to every single soul. We had to lower their expectations for the future first, then let them gradually adapt to a new way of life.]
[And so my grandfather, under the instructions of the Great Tree, used the exiled outsiders to admonish the fortunate ones who remained: Shelter 100 has no duty to shelter anyone. It belongs to all who suffer, yet it belongs to no single person. If they did not wish to struggle like those wretched souls huddled in the subway garbage heaps, they had to obey Tree's commands unconditionally—and obey our commands unconditionally.]
[Over the first fifty years, our achievements were magnificent. The Great Tree's correctness and our devotion both withstood the test of time. The 'Crunchers' we engineered could recycle nearly all metabolic waste. The 'Tarantula' robots and 'Water Bug' engineering armor we designed could scale vertical shafts with ease, performing complex construction tasks in place of conventional machinery that couldn't operate inside the shelter. These were breakthroughs even the Great Tree had not anticipated.]
[Proof that our ingenuity could make even an AI from the Era of Prosperity drop its jaw! Assuming it had one.]
[Please don't laugh. I say this in all earnestness. Born into an era commanding hundreds of colony worlds, you could never comprehend such suffocating scarcity. It was like tens of thousands of people crammed into an isolated space station. We had to sustain everyone's basic survival using severely limited resources and space, ensuring the living standards of the majority didn't plunge too precipitously. Even in such dire straits, we birthed a sequence of astonishing technological wonders.]
[To this day, I still remember the sheer elation I felt when I became an Overseer. It felt like a child growing up overnight to become the invincible hero of the stories he had read since infancy. Soon, I would walk in the footsteps of my forebears, leading these clever, capable residents to forge even greater and more wondrous miracles.]
[Yet reality and ideals always seem to part ways. Those clever residents believed they were wiser than Tree. They showed not an ounce of respect for us as Overseers, cursing us as slaves to an AI, calling us 'Tree People,' sneering that nothing about us was human save our outward skin.]
[Looking back, perhaps I should have recognized the root of the problem long before. We had drawn the line between us long ago. From the very beginning, we and those 'worker ants' were never the same kind of people.]
[This shelter was like a prison. The worker ants' sentence was sixty-three years, but ours was for life. Our identity as Overseers was bestowed by the shelter. We did the dirtiest work and enjoyed certain privileges in return. But once this shelter fulfilled its mission and collapsed as designed, all of it would vanish into thin air.]
[When that time came, the worker ants would never punish an AI. They would settle their scores with us. After all, the records of how we exiled those survivors in the beginning could never be erased—not even the Administrator possessed the authority to alter them.]
[So you can imagine our mounting dread as the sixty-three-year mark drew near. And when Xizhou Lake's waters poured into the subway station, lapping at the edge of the blast door, you can imagine our profound relief. We had refined this shelter to the point where it could endure indefinitely, and it would only grow more self-sustaining in the future. All we had to do was follow the example of those cunning worker ants: exploit a bug Tree had never foreseen, tricking it into ruling that the shelter's unsealing needed to be postponed.]
[In truth, we succeeded. We pushed the sixty-three-year term back to seventy. Until we found a way to walk away unscathed, we intended to extend that deadline as long as possible—ideally turning that number into forever. But none of us anticipated that the once-compliant worker ants would react so violently. They went so far as to implant venomous stingers into the bellies of our beloved Crunchers, and retrofitted the pincers of the Water Bug suits into shields and blades.]
[An absurd farce erupted, catching everyone unprepared. Yet looking back, perhaps we were the most absurd of all. We had grown so consumed by managing the shelter's daily crises that we completely forgot why this shelter existed in the first place.]
[Just as you can see standing in this museum, we were left in this cage forever.]
[Never to leave again.]
[—Craig, a poor wretch who regrettably never saw the new world, the last guard of Prison 100, the last surviving Tree Person.]
Finishing Craig's notes, Chu Guang fell silent for a time.
He felt no pity for the man, yet such an end was indeed thoroughly absurd for a shelter.
Just then, Xiao Qi, perched on his shoulder, let out a soft exclamation of surprise.
"...Strange."
Lifting his eyes from the holographic display, Chu Guang looked at it. "What is it now?"
This shelter frequently suffered from glitches; this wasn't the first time Xiao Qi had flagged an error.
This time, however, a peculiar expression crossed its face.
"The diagnostic reports a communication module overload. The data we transferred tripped a threshold, triggering a protective cutoff of Shelter 100's connection to the outside world... But that's bizarre. The volume of data we sent wasn't large at all, unless someone deliberately set that threshold exceptionally low."
The shelter itself was a colossal Faraday cage, capable of shielding even high-energy particles, to say nothing of weak electromagnetic waves.
The players' communication gear could not interface directly with surface radios; they relied entirely on dedicated channels to exchange data with the outside world.
That held true whether the blast door was opened or closed.
In other words, once that channel was choked off, the entire shelter would turn into an informational black hole for a period of time.
To put it simply, their signal appeared to have been cut deliberately.
Noticing Xiao Qi's subtle expression, Chu Guang's face twisted into an equally strange look.
Good grief...
Not again!
Chapter 622