This game is too real.

Chapter 800 Hell is always exactly the same
In a dark tunnel.

More than a dozen Willant soldiers in protective suits were holding flashlights, while carefully searching every shadowed corner around them, while advancing cautiously.

The air here is suffocating and oppressive, and there seem to be pairs of coveting eyes hidden in the darkness...these are the coveting of the dead for the living.

Because this space is too quiet, any slight sound will appear abrupt, so everyone has intentionally or unintentionally reduced communication, and only talk to each other when necessary.

It has been an hour since the team of thousands led by Favri discovered the tunnel, and it has also been a full hour since the exploration team went deep into the ruins to search.

However, until now, they still have not explored to the end of this tunnel.As a result, many people even couldn't help but began to wonder if they were spinning in circles.

No wonder they think so.

After all, this tunnel is as long as a black hole.

As a result, the deeper you explore, the stronger the feeling of uneasiness in everyone's hearts.

It's as if after staying here for a long time, I can't get out anymore...

"Damn... where did the diggers find this hapless tunnel?"

"Ghost knows..."

"The ruins of the settlement more than 100 years ago... I just want to know what's the point of exploring this stuff? Could there still be living people here?"

"That's enough, shut up!"

Telling ghost stories at this time has no benefit other than scaring yourself, the man who was reprimanded by the captain stopped talking with a sarcasm.

The others also involuntarily shut their mouths, and the eerie silence returned to the bottomless tunnel.

Finally, it was time for the routine report.

The Willant soldier standing at the front of the line took a deep breath, took off the walkie-talkie hanging on his shoulder and said in a low voice.

"This is the 'sleigh'... Everything below is normal, and no suspicious targets have been found for the time being."

After a brief rustle of electricity, the voice of the superior came from the communication channel.

"Continue to search."

"……Yes!"

Obviously.

It is impossible for the superiors to allow them to come back empty-handed.

Before finding enough valuable targets, they can only continue to search in this bottomless tunnel.

The Wilante captain who led the team hung up the communication, gestured to the teammates behind him, and then led the demoralized people to continue walking towards the depths of the tunnel.

After passing through a crooked steel bar, everyone crossed a half-collapsed ventilation duct, and the space in front suddenly became spacious.

Seeing that the situation ahead had finally changed, everyone's faces showed excited expressions, and they all quickened their pace and continued to move forward. It didn't take long before they came to a small square with about a hundred square meters.

I saw a square stone tablet standing in the center of the square, and around the stone tablet were a bunch of crooked chairs.

Most of these chairs are empty, but remnants of clothing and several fully weathered skeletons can be seen nearby.

Enduring the discomfort in his heart, the Willant captain walked up to the stele with a flashlight, and followed the light of the flashlight to search around.

"Here's the 'sleigh'... We found a plaza that was supposed to be a gathering place for local survivors."

After a pause, he aimed the flashlight at the stele, and found lines of tiny words engraved on it, so he continued.

"There is a stone tablet in the center of the square. We found some engraved writing on it, which seems to be the names of local residents... Wait, there seems to be a line of writing at the bottom of the stone tablet."

After carefully deciphering the tiny handwriting, he said barely decipherable.

"'Our world has ended, we will start a new cycle'... I don't understand, is this some kind of strange religion?"

Voices continued to be heard from the headquarters.

"Is there any geographical information about this settlement on the stele? Like the name?"

"I haven't found it... Before confirming the place name, let me call this place 'Stone Tablet Town'."

With an expression of interest on the face of the Willant captain, he circled behind the stele with the flashlight in his hand.

Since his attention was all on the stele, he didn't notice his feet at all, until the crisp sound of "creak" came through the soles of his boots, and he lowered his head subconsciously, only to belatedly realize that he had stepped on the ground. a human skull.

At this moment, he saw a scene that he will never forget.

I saw that in the open space behind the stele, densely packed corpses grew in a disorderly manner like weeds.And the head that he stepped on was just an insignificant one, and the human bones piled up like a hill in this not-so-large space...

This doesn't look like a colony at all.

It's more like some kind of cult's sacrificial place.

What the hell is going on here? !

Even though he was used to the tragedy of mountains of corpses and seas of bones on the battlefield, he still unconsciously felt a little fear of this strange death.

"Oh shit……"

Swallowing with difficulty, he couldn't help taking a step back until his shoulder hit the stone tablet behind him.

At this moment, not only him, but the other Willant soldiers who followed him into the tunnel also discovered the situation behind the stele, and all of them felt the coldness of their hands and feet in unison.

The command at the other end of the communication channel seemed to be aware of the abnormality of the situation below, and hurried voices soon came from the earphones.

"This is the headquarters, what have you found?"

"dead……"

"dead?"

"That's right...there are dead people everywhere. From behind the stone monument in the square to the streets that are suspected to be buried in garbage, there are at least tens of thousands of bones lying here. It feels like..."

The Willant captain swallowed again, looked around the devastated mess, and said in a hoarse voice.

"It's like hell..."

……

At the same time that the Willant soldiers were exploring deep into Hell, at the refugee camp established by the Alliance a few kilometers away, two vertical takeoff and landing orca transport planes slowly landed on the open space near the camp.

There are tens of thousands of survivors stranded there, and Haibei City, which is still surrounded by the realm of heaven, is obviously not a suitable place to resettle. Whether it is the delivery of supplies or sanitation, it is a big trouble.

Therefore, the Union Army Command issued new instructions to the front-line troops, requiring the troops stationed there to transfer the survivors to the coastline [-] kilometers away for resettlement.

There is a temporary camp for the alliance, as well as a temporary dock that allows cargo ships to load and unload supplies, more than enough to accommodate [-] survivors.

However, since the "Overlord" transport aircraft independently developed by the alliance must rely on the runway to take off and land, the task of transferring refugees can only be entrusted to the corporate aviation team.

Looking at the long line of survivors waiting in front of the tarmac, the pilot sitting in the driver's seat couldn't help but clicked his tongue and said to the Union soldiers who came to hand over the work.

"No offense intended...are you guys picked up from hell?"

People with missing arms and legs abound here, and it is almost impossible to find a complete person.

And more than that.

Many people have rotten scars on their bodies, which look distorted and hideous, which makes people unable to bear to look directly at them.

"Basically, we just crawled out of hell after all."

The murderous dagger grinned at the corner of his mouth, smiled at the pilot who made a fuss, and joked casually.

"Mutants like to eat live food. They often eat half of it and throw it away. If they can't finish eating, they throw it back into the dungeon to raise... These survivors who ate Nago basically don't have to worry about wound infection. The rotten meat will be with them. The new flesh on the body grows together, and finally it becomes what you see."

The pilot sitting in the co-pilot's seat retched, and it took a long time before he raised his head pale, looked at the murderous dagger standing next to the cockpit and protested.

"...Enough, stop talking!"

That description made him feel physically uncomfortable.

The murderous dagger shrugged his shoulders, threw the personnel list into the cockpit, and at the same time patted the pilot's shoulder with a smile.

"There are still more than 7000 targets that need to be transferred, and the captives from the Willant people are also going to be handed over to us... The task is arduous. Anyway, I will leave it to you, come on!"

Watching the soldier turn and leave, the two pilots sitting in the cockpit looked at each other, and couldn't help but whisper to each other.

"I suspect that these people are mentally abnormal...otherwise, how could they not feel any discomfort at all."

"I totally agree with you..."

After explaining the matter here, the murderous dagger patted the hatch of the cockpit, then turned around and went to do other things.

While the enterprise's transport plane was busy transferring survivors to the coastline, two Viper transport planes carrying researchers from the Alliance Scientific Expedition Team flew over from the coastline and stopped not far from the killer whale transport plane.

A group of researchers in white coats quickly got off the plane, and under the escort of a group of players with live ammunition, they quickly went to the entrance of Vault 20.

At present, the entire refuge is still under the control of the Alliance's Burning Corps. Not only have new monitoring equipment been replaced on the nearby streets, but drones have been arranged to patrol around the area 24 hours a day.

The Vault will not be released to other members of the Cohesion until the inspection of the materials kept in the Vault has been completed.

It wasn't just Chu Guang who was following the latest progress of the investigation. Chang Fang, who was interested in Vault No. 20, also paid attention to the latest investigation progress of the scientific expedition team.

While he was waiting for the results of the investigation, Lao Bai, who came back from patrol outside, brought him unexpected news.

"I have good news and bad news here, which do you want to hear first?"

Hearing this tricky statement, Fang Chang coughed lightly.

"You just start with the important one."

Lao Bai grinned and said.

"Remember the group of Willanters before? They really dug something from the position we gave up before."

Fang Chang was stunned for a few seconds when he heard the words, and then looked at Lao Bai in disbelief.

"real or fake?"

Lao Bai nodded and said.

"It's the news given to me by the old man in the battlefield. It should be correct."

Fang Chang asked immediately.

"What about the good news?"

Lao Bai said with a grin.

"The one you heard just now is the good news. As for the bad news...it's a pity that our friendly army was not very lucky, and nothing was dug up except for the corpse."

Fang Chang frowned slightly.

"...Did you dig up anything but the corpse?"

Lao Bai nodded and continued.

"Yes, the passage they dug seems to be the entrance to a certain settlement, but that settlement has been abandoned for more than a century, and there is nothing in it except the bodies of local survivors."

Looking at Fang Chang who was lost in thought, Lao Bai paused and continued.

"However, talking about the settlement is also very weird. According to the Willant people who went down to investigate the ruins, they found that the entire settlement seemed to be buried in an instant."

"A large number of corpses of survivors gathered at the square at the entrance of the settlement, and there was no sign of resistance at the scene... Those survivors seemed to accept their fate, they engraved their names on the stone tablet, and at the same time At the end, the prophecy of the end is written, and finally the final death is greeted peacefully."

"The whole ruins have a wicked smell from head to toe, and what's even more wicked is that I also heard from the field guys that the Weilant soldiers who came back from below had some mental problems. They seemed to be trapped Something seemed to be frightened and became suspicious... It stands to reason that this is abnormal, they are all experienced fighters, and they wouldn't be frightened like this by a few corpses."

Fang Chang nodded in agreement, and after thinking for a while, he suddenly raised a possibility.

"Could it be the influence of a mind interference device or some kind of bacteria?"

Lao Bai shook his head and said.

"Then I don't know. Actually, I was thinking that it would be nice if I could find a few 'wounded' from the Legion to cooperate with our research, but the problem now is...we obtained the information through abnormal means, and they If you don’t take the initiative to confess, it’s not easy for us to speak up.”

Fang Chang said with a sigh.

"Indeed... However, according to the clues unearthed by the Willant people, it can support some of the conclusions of the scientific expedition team."

Lao Bai's heart moved, and he asked in surprise.

"Is there any result from the scientific expedition team?"

Fang Chang nodded and spoke slowly.

"According to the investigation opinion of the scientific expedition team, the log of the manager of Vault 20 should have been deleted artificially, and it was after a catastrophic experiment result."

Lao Bai asked with a frown.

"Catastrophic experimental results?"

Fang Chang nodded and continued.

"The main research direction of Vault 20 is the development of outer space. According to the two technical assumptions they designed for 'return to space', they have considered two sets of plans in the 51 years after the 20st year of the wasteland era. "

"The first plan is to use limited resources to build a trackless space elevator, step by step to walk the path that the People's Federation has traveled. The other plan is to find another way to launch thinking into the outer layer The space is still working on the space equipment of the People's Union era, so as to complete the rescue from the outside to the inside... This can be regarded as a kind of overtaking on a corner in disguise."

"According to the investigation conclusion of the scientific expedition team, it is very likely that after the first set of plans was conceived, the No. 20 shelter plan was abolished from the stage of technical feasibility demonstration, and all chips were placed on the ground from the beginning. On the second set... we couldn't find any specific experimental plans for the first set of plans on the shelter's servers and for this reason, they never tried it from the beginning."

Lao Bai frowned.

"Does that mean... that plan for a trackless space elevator won't work?"

"It's not," Fang Chang shook his head, "How can something that has never been tried say it won't work? If that thing is really a technology that cannot be realized in principle, it won't turn into a proposal and appear here. In a shelter."

Lao Bai asked puzzledly.

"Then why did they just give up?"

Fang Chang recalled what he had just heard from the NPC for a moment, and continued.

"The scientific expedition team's opinion is...the residents of No. 20 Shelter at that time judged that the material cost and time cost required by the first plan were beyond their ability to bear. If the plan was pushed forward, they might spend 50 years or even much longer."

Lao Bai said thoughtfully.

"50 years ... that doesn't sound like it's unacceptable."

"It seemed so to us, but it seemed to them at the time that this time was too long... In fact, from their point of view, it is not difficult to think that it would take such a long time to return to outer space. If you want to restore the territory of the People's Federation in its heyday, then you have to wait until when."

After a pause, Fang Chang continued.

"The scientific expedition team speculates that due to various factors, they have a high probability of directly choosing the second set of plans as the direction of their efforts... they put all their hopes on the seemingly cheaper cost, but there are more uncertainties. factors in the mind-projection technique."

Lao Bai couldn't help asking.

"Then they... succeeded?"

Fang Chang sighed lightly.

"Didn't I say that the manager's log was deleted after a disastrous experiment..."

After a pause, he continued.

"We have no way of knowing what they did in the 51 years from 72 to 21 of the Wasteland Era, but if the corpses dug up by the Willant people were left by them, then the results of that experiment are self-evident ...the rush of the residents of Vault 20 led to such disastrous results that it turned the entire experiment into a desperate mass suicide."

Listening to this cruel inference, Lao Bai's Adam's Apple moved up and down, and finally shook his head, holding back only one sentence.

"It's crazy..."

Fang Chang nodded and said after a moment of silence.

"Indeed, that is another group of lunatics. They belong to a different era from Torch, but the madness of the two is exactly the same."

"So much so that it's hard not to doubt whether the torch was inspired by the experience of the No. 20 shelter, so that it did so many outrageous things..."
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(Thanks to the leader of "Book Friends 20230621171246491" for the reward!!!)
　I feel like my cold is getting better, a little bit better than before...

　　
　
(End of this chapter)