Chapter 788.1: The End Of The Road

The battle was over, and it had ended in a complete New Alliance victory.

In the square of Fortress Town, Difficult Name stood beside an armored vehicle, switched off the visual battlefield guidance system on his tactical visor, removed his helmet, and looked around before suddenly letting out a sigh. “It’s hard to believe.”

Nirvana, standing nearby with his rifle in his arms, glanced at him curiously. “What’s hard to believe?”

“Hard to believe that more than 20,000 people once lived here.” Difficult Name’s gaze fell on the playground equipment at the edge of the square. Rust-spotted horizontal bars and a slide still stood there, proof that the people who had lived here had once enjoyed better days.

Life on the wasteland was difficult, but it wasn’t nothing but endless struggle.

Mega Poor, who had been silent until now, curled his lips and sneered, “Eh, the little place I’m from has millions of people.”

Difficult Name sighed. “Tsk. How is reality even remotely comparable to the wasteland?”

Nirvana laughed and teased him. “Haha, shouldn’t you be asking how a game is remotely comparable to reality?”

Suddenly thinking of something, Difficult Name spoke again. “Come to think of it, given how realistic this game has been so far... those 20,000 people should really have existed, right?”

Nirvana frowned. “Maybe. Why?”

“Nothing.” Difficult Name fell silent for a moment before he muttered, “I was just wondering... where all those people went.”

...

Ample Time had expected a hard fight once they entered the shelter. Instead, to his surprise, he had barely reached the entrance when the other side simply surrendered.

“I surrender!” Looking at the exoframe standing in the doorway and the exoskeleton-clad soldiers behind it, Arzu raised both hands without the slightest hesitation.

There was no question that the people in the monitoring room had opened the door. But whether they opened it or not honestly didn’t matter anymore. No one understood how to pry open shelter doors better than the New Alliance. After all, quite a few of those people were shelter residents themselves.

A million thoughts flashed through his mind in an instant, but in the end he still raised his hands.

Being captured was not necessarily a bad thing. He still had plenty of chips left outside, so there was no need to sacrifice his physical body in pointless resistance.

The moment Ample Time saw the gray robe on the man, he knew his status had to be high and that there was almost certainly a chip inside his head. Without another word, he pulled out a medical gun and aimed it at him.

The weapon had an effective range of only 20 meters. It could fire hemostatic capsule rounds containing nanomachines, as well as tranquilizer rounds loaded with anesthetic alkaloids. It sold for 10,000 Silver on the official website and was one of those flashy imported pieces of equipment the New Alliance had purchased from Ideal City in its early days.

Since players wealthy enough to use the thing usually wore armor, while players without armor generally didn’t need treatment, its practical applications were extremely limited. It was only occasionally used during specimen-retrieval missions for the Biological Research Institution.

Not knowing that it was a medical gun, Arzu looked stunned. He instinctively raised his right hand while taking a step backward. “Wait... I already surrendered...”

Before he could finish, there was a bang, and something hot struck his arm. Before he could even react, drowsiness climbed into his brain and dragged his consciousness down into a bottomless mire.

“You can sleep for a while.” Ample Time glanced at the suspected VIP target lying unconscious on the ground, then looked toward the staff member sitting on the floor beside him, who had already wet his pants.

He couldn’t help but tease, “If you don’t want to end up like him, you’d better cooperate with us.”

The staff member nodded nervously. “I-I’ll cooperate. I definitely will.”

“Good.” Satisfied with the expression on his face, Ample Time nodded and continued casually, “Introduce yourself, the man beside you, and this underground facility.”

The man nodded again, trembling, then stammered, “I... I’m Tomiller. This... this man is Arzu. He’s an Apostle of the Torch Church, though his status is somewhat higher than that of an ordinary Apostle.”

Ample Time raised a hand and stopped him. “Can you stand while you talk? I would rather listen while walking than stand around at the entrance.”

No longer caring about concealing the wet patch on the floor or his trousers, the staff member hurriedly climbed to his feet. “Y-yes... I can show you around. Please don’t kill me.”

“You think we’re like you people? Of course, whether you ultimately survive will depend on the judge’s ruling and how you behave after surrendering.”

After saying that, Ample Time tapped his helmet and contacted rear command. “This is Ample Time. We have successfully secured Shelter 182. It appears to have been converted by the Torch Church into a research facility. We captured a suspected high-ranking Apostle and a suspected researcher at the entrance. No trace of the missing residents of Fortress Town has been found.”

After a brief burst of static, a steady voice came over the communications channel. “Command copies. Personnel from the New Alliance Scientific Expedition Team will arrive in two hours to investigate. Preserve the site as much as possible and keep all relevant personnel under control.”

“Copy.”

After closing the channel, Ample Time noticed that the staff member who had wet himself suddenly threw himself beside Arzu and started rummaging beneath his gray robe.

“Hey. What are you doing?” Ample Time pointed the medical gun at him, only to see the man pull a thumb-sized electronic component from Arzu’s clothes and hold it out with a fawning smile.

“T-this is for you!”

It looked a little like a USB drive.

Ample Time froze for a moment, then took it from his hand with interest while asking, “What is this?”

“Everything from Biological Research Institute 182!” Tomiller continued rapidly, “The data from Project Complete Human, along with all of the related research and experimental logs conducted here. Arzu copied everything from this research institute onto this drive, then deleted the original data from the servers.”

When he reached this point, he cautiously looked at the soldier in front of him, his voice one of fear and excitement. “Does... does this count as making a contribution?”

Amused by his cautious expression, Ample Time chuckled, “That depends on what we recover from it. I’m not a judge. At most, I can help submit the evidence for you.”

After a pause, he pointed the gun toward the airlock door and spoke. “Now I need you to show me around this shelter.”

Whether the data on the drive had any value would depend on the opinion of the New Alliance Scientific Expedition Team’s specialists.

The New Alliance was fairly reasonable when it came to these things. Generally, only decision-makers received the maximum punishment. For executors, the authorities would carefully determine which actions had been subjectively anti-human and which had been carried out under coercion. If someone had only been a researcher and had not participated in making the relevant decisions, a death sentence was unlikely. At worst, they might lose their personal freedom and spend the rest of their life confined inside Shelter 79.

Tomiller, however, misunderstood what he meant. He thought the New Alliance soldiers considered his contribution too insignificant. After all, they could have found the drive simply by searching Arzu’s body; they hadn’t needed him to hand it over. Seeing it as his only remaining chance, Tomiller hurriedly walked ahead of Ample Time and enthusiastically began introducing Shelter 182 to him and the soldiers following behind.

The group had barely passed through the buffer door and had not yet crossed the shelter’s central square when a large group of researchers poured through an access door from the corridor and rushed toward them. Before Ample Time could even ask what was going on, they charged over crying and sniffling, leaving him and the other players completely at a loss.

“What are you people doing?” Looking at the researchers who seemed ready to cling to his legs, Ample Time didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He reached down and hauled the most emotional one up from the floor.

A slightly older researcher grabbed his arm excitedly, his voice trembling. “Brothers from the New Alliance, you finally came!”

“You’ve... suffered.” Ample Time coughed lightly, then quickly turned toward Tomiller beside him. “What exactly is going on with these people?”

Not daring to conceal a thing, Tomiller immediately answered truthfully. “They’re researchers sent here by Chalas. They came from a company called North Island Heavy Industry. Those tanks and anti-tank guns outside were all designed by them.”

The moment the older researcher heard that, he panicked. “You can’t just say things like that! What do you mean they were all designed by us?”

Several younger researchers beside him immediately joined in. “Didn’t you force us to do it?!”

“Exactly! After seeing what happened to the residents of Fortress Town, how were we supposed to dare say no to you?”

“The residents of Fortress Town?” Something stirred in Ample Time’s mind, and he immediately looked at the younger researcher. “Are those people still alive?”

The square near the buffer door suddenly fell silent.

Including Tomiller, every researcher who had originally belonged to this facility and every researcher Chalas had abducted here wore a strange expression. None of them seemed willing to discuss the details.

Under Ample Time’s pressing gaze, the younger researcher finally stammered, “On the fifth underground level of the shelter, there’s a converted biochemical factory. The nurturing chambers there can transform living humans into Mutant Humans. I heard it was among the earliest Mutant Human cultivation equipment.”

Coincidence, standing beside Ample Time, gulped hard and forced out a sentence. “So that means...”

The researcher looked toward Tomiller as he continued, “They sent some of the residents to cultivate Na Fruit, and turned some of the others into Mutant Humans.”

Seeing the players turn hostile gazes toward him, cold sweat immediately poured from Tomiller’s forehead. He hurriedly stammered, “I-I wasn’t involved in that! The project team under Arzu was responsible for that research. I only handled the day-to-day operations of this research facility.”

“What a bunch of animals,” Coincidence couldn’t help cursing.

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