The representatives sent by the enterprise are Yunyou and Su Ming, the representatives of the legion are the thousand-man Walli and Pangolin, and the representative of the academy is Jiang Xuezhou, the student of the B-level researcher who has never shown his face.
As for the representatives of the alliance, they are Ye Shi and an NPC of the scientific expedition team.
The latter's name is Meng Liang, a former resident of Shelter No. 401. After being rescued from the hands of the predators by the alliance, he joined the scientific expedition team aimed at recovering the remains of pre-war civilization. Under the guidance of Yin Fang, he learned archaeological knowledge and is currently serving as an explorer on the airship.
The exploration of Shelter No. 0 is mainly based on scientific investigation.
The investigation of the ruins cannot be completely relied on by the enterprise. Even if it is an ally, it is not obliged to disclose all the information it has investigated to the alliance.
Chu Guang is very cautious in selecting the personnel to be dispatched. In addition to an NPC expert with relevant professional knowledge, he also needs a reliable player to bring the news inside the shelter to the outside in the most extreme case.
The information-sharing "Wasteland OL" forum is his biggest trump card besides the "immortal" players.
After confirming that the passage was safe, the delegation began to move forward and soon arrived at the entrance of the shelter.
The elevator that Yi Hai mentioned was right in the center of the B2 floor of the building.
It is shaped like a funnel embedded in the ground, with four corridors leading to the elevator in the center... It's like a circular theater without seats.
Due to the long period of no one paying attention to it and the special climate of the Great Desert with extremely uneven distribution of water resources, the walls are covered with mold and dry vines.
Searching every corner of this spacious room with a flashlight, Ye Shi muttered.
"Did the crew of the Pioneer really escape here?"
Meng Liang, who was walking beside him, said nervously.
"Yes, according to the intelligence..."
This is his first time to go out on duty.
And it's such an important operation right at the beginning.
Last night, he read the action log sent to him by the administrator several times, especially the column of known intelligence, and almost memorized the punctuation.
"But why are there no traces of fighting? There is not even a bullet mark on the wall." Ye Shi still had a trace of doubt on his face.
It was not because he was cautious by nature.
It was because the administrator did not give this important job to Lao Bai, who had the strongest combat power, but to him with the highest perception attribute.
Especially the discussion on the forum yesterday, which made him instinctively doubt that this task might not be as simple as he imagined.
Su Ming, who was walking on the other side, shrugged his shoulders and said with a grin.
"Maybe there were no pursuers when we fled here... Didn't the Willant people find the specific entrance to Shelter No. 0?"
"I see," Ye Shi nodded thoughtfully, but soon frowned again, "Hiss... But I still feel something is wrong."
Where are the people from the Enlightenment Society?
Don't those people know the entrance to Shelter No. 0?
Since Yi Hai knew that those people were trying to stop Enterprise from finding Shelter 0, the two sides should have fallen out before he froze them.
Ye Shi was puzzled and felt that he had missed some important clues.
It was a pity that Brother Fang was not here, and that old fool in the battlefield probably didn't dare to communicate with him.
"Reason?" Jiang Xuezhou, who had not spoken, finally couldn't help but speak.
She didn't like to communicate with people outside the academy, especially this person who seemed to have fought with her previous team.
However, this guy kept mumbling, making her very nervous since she entered the building... Obviously, they haven't even encountered a mutant hyena until now.
But Ye Shi didn't think so much, and didn't even feel the impatience in that sentence. Instead, he thought that the beauty was interested in him, so he made a smile that he thought was mysterious and charming.
"Intuition."
Intuition...
The corners of Jiang Xuezhou's mouth twitched, and his expression was a little tense.
What is that?
But Su Ming seemed to understand very well, laughing and patting Ye Shi's shoulder.
"Brother, I know that feeling. Sometimes nothing happened, but I just felt something was wrong... My captain said I was about to awaken, I hope it's not true, I'm not married yet. Anyway, be alert, I also think this place is a bit weird."
At this moment, Zhan Di Lao wanted to go over and ask what this guy felt, after all, the highest T0 strongman in the perception system of the whole server is not bragging.
But there was a thousand-man captain staring at him, so he could only think about it in his heart.
Looking at Walli with a confident smile on his face, Zhan Di Lao thought about at least asking for some information, so he lowered his voice and asked.
"Sir, do we have any plans?"
Wali said bluntly.
"No."
"... No?" Zhan Di Lao thought he had heard it wrong and was stunned.
Walli laughed out loud and said with disdain.
"Only weak people would believe that a shelter can solve all problems. Our Marshal has never placed his hopes on such illusory rumors."
Zhandi Lao said with a smile.
"Then why are we here..."
"Although Lord Cohen doesn't think that there may be something that can end the wasteland, it is a relic left over from the prosperous era after all... God knows what is inside, what if it is a weapon?" Wall-E glanced at the representatives of the enterprise and the academy, and said indifferently, "In short, the enterprise and the academy are interested, so we can't just leave it alone."
Zhandi Lao: "..."
From the perspective of the Weilant people, this makes a lot of sense.
So much so that he didn't know how to refute it for a while.
The group soon came to the elevator.
Yunyou reached out and touched the elevator door, and cast his eyes on the two representatives of the alliance.
"Who has the access card?"
"Here I am."
Meng Liang responded immediately, walked forward, took out the card the manager had given him, and stuck it on the card reader's shell.
A pale blue light appeared in front of the door, sweeping over the people in front of the door, and then the floor trembled slightly, and the door slowly moved to both sides.
The elevator space is indeed not big.
It's so surprising that the entrance to Shelter No. 0 is so narrow.
Or is there actually another entrance here?
"Unbelievable..." Ye Shi muttered in a low voice, "It's been two centuries, and these facilities are still in operation."
And there is no one to maintain them.
"It's actually an unactivated access card." Looking at the convergent scanning light, Yun You frowned.
"What do you mean?" Meng Liang asked nervously.
"It means... after being activated once, our information is written into the security system and bound to the code of the access card. This elevator can be used with or without the card. As for other people, unless we rewrite the security system here or give them another unactivated access card, other people cannot enter... at least they cannot enter with this card."
After a pause, she continued.
"This can effectively prevent unauthorized personnel from sneaking into the shelter... but this system usually appears in unfinished shelters, unless there is a special request from the shelter manager, it rarely appears in mature shelters that have been assigned managers."
Ye Shi muttered.
"In other words, it is not possible to bring the card up and shake people down?"
Yun Yu glanced at him and did not understand what this junior said.
Meng Liang, who was standing aside, was shocked by another message in this sentence, and looked at her in surprise.
"You mean... this shelter is not completed?"
Yun Yu shrugged.
"Who knows? I didn't build this shelter. I just happened to work in the relevant department and heard some rumors."
Without waiting for Meng Liang to digest the huge amount of information in this sentence, she glanced at the elevator door, said nothing, and walked straight in.
Seeing this, Su Ming on the side immediately followed.
After taking back the useless access card in his hand, Meng Liang looked at Ye Shi and said nervously.
"Let's go too."
"Well, let's go."
Ye Shi nodded, took a last look at the spacious room behind him, and stepped through the open elevator door.
And just as he stepped through the door, a familiar stale smell penetrated his nose, making him alert.
The omen lingering in his heart seemed to be getting stronger and stronger...
...
In the camp.
Although the planned construction of the wall and barracks has been completed, the five engineering vehicles parked in the center of the camp are still rumbling there.
In addition to the players who were sent to perform tasks near the industrial building, other players were not idle. They scattered around to find some scraps and brought them back. Using the drawings stored on the engineering vehicles, they remelted and processed these scraps into various parts.
Due to the strong demand for orders, there was even a long queue in front of these engineering vehicles.
Several small players who were standing nearby were holding bundles of scrap metal and waiting excitedly, fearing that the feed ports of these machines would be empty.
An employee of a company happened to pass by and saw a lot of people around the engineering vehicle, so he leaned over to take a look and asked curiously.
"Isn't the camp already built? What are you doing?"
Seeing the NPC talking to him, I was the darkest, carrying a large bundle of steel, and smiled and said in a non-standard human language.
"It turns out that the well is too small. There is a groundwater reservoir underneath. We plan to dig a deeper well."
The construction site boy and brick carrying a sack echoed.
"That's right! This time we lengthened the threaded pipe in the blueprint!"
The company employee was stunned for a moment, and before he could come back to his senses, several other players next to him started chattering in a language he couldn't understand.
"Speaking of which, the groundwater reservoir here is quite rich."
"That's a must, otherwise why would we camp here."
"By the way, what's the point of just digging a well? I suggest building a greenhouse and growing some vegetables or something."
"That's a good idea!"
"!!! I brought seeds!"
The players talked at once, and there were a few more blueprints in the production queue, and the required materials also increased a lot.
Including polyethylene materials for making greenhouses, including culture tanks for cultivating vegetables and aluminum alloys for water pipes, etc.
The greenhouse has been arranged, and there are sources of carbohydrates and vitamins, and animal protein and fat cannot be left behind.
A balanced diet can ensure combat effectiveness.
Raising cattle and sheep is not very realistic, after all, there is not so much pasture here.
But there are always more solutions than problems.
Soon I thought of the white and fat worms that the Burning Legion brothers had found in the mutant tribe.
It's a bit disgusting to eat that thing directly, and no one except Lao Na can accept it, but it should be fine to make it into a nutritional paste.
Anyway, they are not the ones staying here, and the trouble is also the newbies who came here to open up the wasteland in confusion...
As for NPCs.
Except for their managers, they don't seem to be picky eaters.
Not far away, several Willant officers looked at the busy Alliance people and couldn't help muttering.
"What are these guys doing."
"I don't know..."
"Isn't this just a temporary camp? Why are they setting up so many sheds?"
"Are they planning to stay..."
Thinking of this, several Willant officers immediately became alert.
The Alliance actually stretched its feet behind the buttocks of their vassal state.
This is not a good sign...
In fact, it is not just the employees of the enterprise and the officers of the Weilant who are confused, even the players themselves are not quite sure what they are going to do.
The fun of sandbox games is to experience the process, and no one cares too much about the purpose and results.
The manager told them that the alliance intends to keep this place as the alliance's outpost in the Great Desert. They can DIY the buildings here according to their preferences, and the five engineering vehicles can satisfy their needs to turn their ideas into reality as much as possible before they are taken back.
So, the interested players came to line up with a bunch of building materials.
There are not many tasks in the new map. Anyway, they are idle, so many players took the task of expanding the camp. Although the reward is not high, it is quite interesting.
Chu Guang did not tell them what they must build this outpost like, and completely left it to them to play.
It turns out that these little players are better than he thought. From drinking water to a stable source of food, to hygiene and safety, they have considered everything for him.
There are even detailed plans for the placement of various facilities... These are not just imaginary, but also refer to the layout of overseas military bases or construction sites in reality, and take into account the situation of being out of the supply line, so that the planned camp has a certain degree of self-sufficiency.
Looking at the busy little players, Chu Guang nodded with satisfaction.
"Not bad!"
If this is outsourced to the construction team of the enterprise, it will cost at least several million Cr, and even if it is a self-owned construction team, it will cost at least several million silver coins.
But if it is handed over to these little players, it can be done without even 100,000 silver coins. The manpower is almost free, the materials can be obtained locally, and the ideas are copied and discussed from the Internet.
But anyway, this outpost will be used by them after it is built, so it can't be considered as a profit.
Taking his eyes off the little players, Chu Guang walked to the corner of the camp to arrange the rooms for the rescued survivors.
After the treatment in the twelve treatment cabins, most of the survivors' wounds have been healed.
Some mechanical prostheses with only basic functions are not very expensive, otherwise even the scavengers would not be able to afford them.
It happened that there were some simple prostheses in the weapons seized from the Weilants, so Chu Guang asked the company's doctors to replace them.
By the way, since there were reporters from the company on the airship, Wu Changnian expressed his willingness to bear part of the cost of rescuing the survivors for the sake of showmanship.
Chu Guang was not polite and casually quoted him 100,000 Cr. When Wu Changnian heard that it was so cheap, he signed it without frowning.
Afterwards, Chu Guang asked the logistics officer to calculate and found that the total value of the batch of mechanical prostheses might be less than 100,000 chips...
Chu Guang was also embarrassed. He still had a bottom line. He had never thought of making money from those poor people, let alone caring about the mere 100,000 Cr.
But it was not appropriate to tell the company that they had given too much. After all, Minister Wu had already pretended to be so arrogant, so he could only let his logistics officer keep this secret.
The door of the barracks was pushed open.
Looking at the light passing through the door and the footsteps coming in together, the women lying on the beds subconsciously shrank back.
Seeing that they were not mutants, everyone was relieved.
The people lying in the ward were all survivors who had just completed prosthetic surgery, about twenty people.
Although he didn't want them to recall bad memories, in order to collect information about the torch badge, Chu Guang tried to speak in a gentle tone.
"Where are you from?"
Everyone in the room looked at each other and didn't speak.
The air was silent for a while.
Just when Chu Guang was hesitating whether to find a more gentle female player to communicate, a woman in her early twenties suddenly raised her hand tremblingly and said in a hoarse voice.
"My name is Rama... I'm from the province of Bharata."
"Bharata?"
The birthplace of the two-headed bull?
It's said to be in the southwest of the Hump Kingdom.
That's really far away...
Chu Guang continued in a gentle tone.
"Can you tell me how you got here?"
Here, he suddenly thought of something and added after a pause.
"Of course, if you don't want to recall that unpleasant memory, we won't force you."
Rama shook his head.
"It doesn't matter... I'm very grateful that you can save us from hell."
She paused and continued.
"I was born in a small village. One day, a group of merchants came to the village. They said they wanted to buy two-headed cows and transport them to Silver Moon Bay in the northeast. They were generous and the price they offered was quite good. The villagers were very polite to them. The village chief also took out good wine to entertain them... I drank a little at that time, and I was in a cage when I woke up."
Chu Guang was silent for a while.
"Slave traders?"
"...I think so." Rama's eyes were full of fear, but he still said it bravely, "Those people also said...my family sold me to them, but I don't believe them. They must have drunk everyone."
Chu Guang sympathized with her experience, but that part was not what he cared about most.
Frowning, he continued to ask.
"...Do those slave traders trade with mutants?"
To Chu Guang's surprise, the girl named Rama shook her head, and the fear flashing in her eyes became stronger.
"They... sold us to another group of people. They took me across the desert and brought me here."
Chu Guang clenched his fists and said in a deep voice.
"Who are they?"
"I don't know..."
The girl hugged her head, and her ten fingers that penetrated into her hair trembled slightly. It seemed that just recalling what happened at that time made her feel extremely terrified.
Chu Guang changed the way of asking and said patiently.
"Do those people have... any characteristics? For example, their appearance, or clothes, or what uniform accessories they carry..."
The scattered Tong Kong suddenly began to focus. Rama seemed to recall something, loosened his hands holding his head, and raised his head suddenly.
"Those people... seem to be wearing blue coats."
Blue coats?
Really or not...
Hearing this shocking clue, Chu Guang's face was a little surprised.
From what he had seen and heard in Qingquan City, those little white rabbits who came out of the shelters would be lucky if they didn't get their kidneys choked, let alone harm others.
The reason why he was so kind to Xiaoyu and her family was largely because they didn't harm him... This was already very difficult in the wasteland.
However, the girl named Rama was not the only one. Many survivors in the ward also nodded silently, saying that they had similar or the same experiences.
Chu Guang's expression gradually became gloomy. He took out a small notebook from his pocket and recorded the clues Rama had narrated.
Most residents of the shelters acted ignorant of the world after returning to the surface, and were often slaughtered by the wastelanders who were far weaker than them because of their self-esteem, kindness, weakness, guilt for abandoning their compatriots in the past, or superiority.
For example, Shelter No. 401 was like this.
The shelter that was completely destroyed by the looters was a classic example. All the staff became hard workers who rolled pills, and even the black box in their hands was almost lost.
Of course, there are also a few shelters that have developed into powerful regional forces. For example, some of the ancestors of Enterprise were residents of Shelter No. 6.
Although Shelter No. 101 did not develop into a powerful regional force, under the guidance of Dr. Method, it still had a limited impact on some survivors who survived.
Shelter No. 79 was not a little white rabbit. Those guys killed themselves, but except for the crazy "Yongshi", others did not cause much harm to the survivors on the surface.
As for the Enlightenment Society...
It was probably the other extreme of the "Blue Jacket" group.
Chu Guang didn't know what they had encountered in the past.
So much so that they completely put down the pride and reserve of civilized people and went to trade with mutants and slave traders.
In any case, they have crossed the line.
Someone took the lead, and other survivors soon confessed their origins and how they were sold to these mutants.
Most of them came from Luoxia Province, especially the Falcon Kingdom and Honey Badger Kingdom where war broke out, but some came from Jinchuan or the river valley. Although there was no war in those places, the chaos was no less than the war zone in Luoxia Province.
Chu Guang made a statistics of them one by one.
His kindness was not so excessive that he would avenge someone he had just met for a few days, but the enlightenment meeting composed of the residents of the shelter made him feel deeply uneasy.
Even if it was not out of morality.
Just for the sake of the interests of the alliance, he could not leave those guys hiding in the dark alone.
At least he had to figure out what the motives of those people were, where their hometowns were, and how many kilometers away from the alliance...
"...I'm sorry for your experience. You may have met some unfriendly residents of the shelter, but I believe not all residents of the shelter are like this."
After a pause, Chu Guang continued.
"We will provide you with some help."
Rama nodded and said sincerely, holding the edge of the quilt tightly with his right hand.
"Thank you..."
"You're welcome, have a good rest... I have asked all the questions I want to ask, forget the unpleasantness in the past."
Chu Guang glanced at the notebook in his hand, closed it and put it in his pocket.
However, just when he was about to return to the airship, he suddenly thought of something and turned around and walked to Yi Hai's barracks.
Something that suddenly came to his mind made him a little concerned.
If he didn't ask clearly.
He would be so concerned that he couldn't sleep...
...
Underground of the industrial building.
The number of floors is unknown.
After the elevator door opened, a gear-shaped metal giant door quickly caught the eyes of the investigation team.
In the middle of the giant metal gear, there was an angular rhombus printed. The middle of the rhombus was hollowed out, which was undoubtedly the digital body of the number "0".
The passage leading to the inside of the shelter is right next to the giant door. It is obvious that someone has been here and opened it.
The crew of the Pioneer is right in front!
However, what makes Su Ming feel uneasy is why they have already arrived here, but no one comes out to greet them...
"... Shelter No. 0 actually exists." Shocked by something completely different, Yun Yu unconsciously stepped forward.
Su Ming also stepped forward immediately and followed her closely.
Staring at the giant gear-shaped door for a while, Ye Shi touched his chin and muttered in human language.
"Strange..."
"What's strange?" Jiang Xuezhou glanced at this man who was not an ordinary chatterbox. He had said too much on the way.
Ye Shi said embarrassedly.
"I always feel that... this zero is a little crooked. Is this really Shelter No. 0?"
Jiang Xuezhou stared at the symbol for a while.
"Shelter Zero is originally a shelter without a number. Its symbol is like this... It basically matches the intelligence collected by the academy before."
"Okay... Maybe I'm overthinking."
Ye Shi shrugged his shoulders, cast his eyes on the deep corridor, followed the enterprise representative, and continued to walk forward.
"We're on it too."
Wal-E patted Pangolin's shoulder and followed him with big strides.
Zhan Di Lao noticed that his eyes were flashing with strong excitement and curiosity.
Although this guy said that he didn't care what was in Shelter Zero, his body was surprisingly honest...
The group walked through the corridor and soon arrived inside the shelter.
However, what surprised everyone was that the structure here was not as complicated as they imagined, and it was even simple to the point of being sloppy.
This place didn't look like a shelter at all.
It was more like a laboratory.
Of course, what surprised everyone even more was not this.
Rather, it was the dark red fungus spots crawling all over the corners and cracks of the doors, and the ominous gray-green particles floating in the air...
Slime mold!
There is slime mold here too! ?