Chapter 960: Hero

Chapter 960 Heroes

【You Brolos, calm the hell down. I gave you that stuff to counterbalance the Alliance, to make you ‘our South Sea Alliance,’ not to slaughter each other! Hell, I can’t even watch this anymore!

— Eastern Empire, Telegram】

【Got it! Got it! We’ll pass the word right away, try to kill fewer!

— Snake Prefecture, Telegram】

【······

— Eastern Empire, Telegram】

……

Outside the Dawn City airport, soldiers in exoskeletons stood at attention, while not far off, players and River Valley survivors gathered with expressions of amused curiosity.

“Here they come again.”

“Tsk, tsk…”

“Where’s the train? Someone haul a train over.”

“Come on… they’re pitiful too.”

“Pitiful? I don’t see it. They ate the Family Council’s grapes and now want to spit out the skins? Only thinking about the good stuff.”

“Hilarious… wasn’t it this bunch who hyped up Zaid when he first popped up?”

“I didn’t see that, but from the bound volumes of the Golden Grain Port Survivors’ Daily, they really didn’t like Rasi and Absak.”

“Well, isn’t that perfect? Both sinners are out of power, so why aren’t they happy now?”

“Too hard to please.”

Murmurs of criticism rustled through the crowd. In the distance, Duke Garava watched and shook his head with a sigh.

In the midst of the onlookers, a group of well-dressed people lay prostrate on the ground, their foreheads pressed firmly into the mud.

Their status must have been considerable, yet their posture was abased to the dust.

They held up signs listing the various crimes of the Family Council.

Including snake grass, including fraud, including proselytizing, including a heap of messy things both real and imagined.

What made Chu Guang find it both ridiculous and exasperating was that these people, apparently at their wit’s end, had even pinned the death of a certain intellectual named Niyang on the Family Council, and even wrote on their signs that the Family Council had colluded with the Enlightenment Society, with the Torch Church, and with Gaia.

It was truly a feat that these great scholars had racked their brains to come up with so many charges.

Not far away, another group of “Mammoth People” protesting Shava also listed some accusations, including the recent 1500 Massacre and so on.

They even blamed Shava for Rasi’s death, trying to use their imagined legal reasoning to persuade him to send troops to teach Shava a lesson.

It seemed the version had been updated.

Chu Guang vaguely recalled that last time they had opposed Rasi and Absak, supporting the Family Council and the Lunar Resistance.

Those literati had, in the newspapers, forcibly blown Zaid up into a Mahatma and elevated several elders of the Lunar Resistance to saviors.

That the elders of the Lunar Resistance hadn’t taken power was probably their miscalculation—after all, Rasi hadn’t carried out the thorough purge they’d hoped for, nor had he completed the version update for the Lunar Resistance on their behalf.

But Zaid, at least, was someone they themselves had praised, yet now they disowned him.

Of course, another possibility couldn’t be ruled out: that those who praised Zaid had all gone to the Celestial Capital to welcome the Holy Lord.

So those who hadn’t gone to the Celestial Capital, and had instead come here in the opposite direction, were naturally his haters, weren’t they?

The two matters were the work of two separate groups.

They could have joined forces to pull off something big, but instead they united to commit a stupid act that would lose for both sides.

Chu Guang looked down at the tops of their heads, his eyes holding both pity and a touch of regret, but no real disappointment.

They weren’t all acting for profit—most of them weren’t, that much was beyond doubt.

Just like Lowell creating Red Earth—could that have been for profit?

That was sacrifice!

That was martyrdom!

If he hadn’t messed with that Red Earth nonsense, scraping through the Wasteland Era wouldn’t have been too hard; he might even have outlived the first mayor of Boulder City.

But that was a separate matter from whether what he did was smart.

Chu Guang had originally intended to leave without a word, but he realized these people wouldn’t take no for an answer—they’d probably chase after him and block another train.

Considering that train was Alliance citizen property, he stopped.

“Do you know what I think?”

A sea of hopeful faces finally lifted, their eyes brimming with anticipation.

The righteous magistrate had finally noticed them!

But Chu Guang’s next words plunged everyone kneeling there into despair.

“You are Zaid who never took power; you are the Family Council in opposition.”

The man kneeling at the front gasped, his expression one of betrayal as he stared at Chu Guang in disbelief.

“How… how can you say that about us?”

Judging by his attire, he was probably an intellectual, but now he couldn’t be bothered with dignity.

Nor was he alone; the others prostrate on the ground also stirred with indignation.

But Chu Guang looked at him and the crowd behind him without expression.

“Because he did the same things you did—he just wasn’t as lucky as you; he never even got to see me before he died.”

The man froze, clearly unaware of that past event, and the crowd quieted down.

Chu Guang slowly continued.

“Money, technology, ideas, culture, talent, factories, railways, schools, tanks, planes, artillery—even the ‘Administrator’s Logs’ that Lowell and others didn’t write or forgot to write—we’ve made up for you as best we could. What more are you dissatisfied with?”

“Our volunteers even helped you hold off the Southern Legion. What else do you want us to do? Do you want to be our colony that badly?”

“You never even asked the survivors of the Brolo Province for their opinion. You thought yourselves clever, made yourselves their fathers, treated them as your subjects, and then blamed them for listening to others instead of you. No wonder they rejected you.”

“You’re not even as good as Zaid. Whether he truly cared for family or not, at least he went into every household to coax them, to paint his grand picture. And you? You kneel here in Dawn City, begging the Alliance to love you one more time?”

The Brolo Province was probably the unnumbered shelter, the largest shelter in this wasteland.

His players had tried to awaken some hibernating comrades there, and they had indeed succeeded with a few.

But unfortunately—

“No one is innocent—not you, not those you abandoned, not those who abandoned you.”

“In Alliance law, this is called conspiracy to commit a crime.”

“But we have no obligation to judge you. Your legal reasoning comes from no one’s recognition—only from yourselves. And those who punish you will be yourselves.”

“Starting with the children as tall as a cartwheel, the rest of their lives will be spent atoning for their crimes, until an entire generation dies out in the cycle of revelry and fear.”

“We have no interest in the rest.”

"Since it's the path you chose yourselves, then you must walk it to the end."

……

If back then the residents of Boulder City had abandoned Elisa, Melvin would never have returned with wagonloads of grain to save them, and the players would never have extended a helping hand either, watching their ugly forms freeze into statues.

If that had been the case, the vast majority of Boulder City's residents would have perished in that hopeless winter, and perhaps some of the murderers might have survived by sheer luck, but nothing good would have awaited them.

Indeed, most people, upon hearing their story, would simply say, "Good riddance."

But now, the residents of Boulder City have not only survived the winter and enjoy a prosperous life, but they also have spare time to join the players in their antics, sharing their surplus resources with those in need, fulfilling their own sense of worth.

When they finally realize it, they are no longer the wastelanders struggling desperately for survival.

Good people may not live long, but in the end, they are rewarded.

And the reverse is also true.

At this very moment, the residents of Celestial City wait quietly along both sides of the road, lining the way to welcome their new sovereign, unaware of the trials that await them in the years to come.

Gopal and Shahrukh arrive first.

The former is the commander-in-chief of the Grey Wolf Army, commanding a hundred thousand elite troops; the latter is the nominal commander of the Snake Province Theater, stripped of real power. Behind them walks the "Butcher" Piklivan, a ten-thousand-man commander and hero of the defense of Celestial City.

Abhishek has been dismissed by the committee.

From the moment he lost control of the Northern Field Army, he was automatically excluded from Celestial City's core power circle; even the governor would no longer take his calls.

The outcome is decided.

In everyone's eyes, Abhishek, who issued two appointment letters to a single Snake Province, ultimately shot himself in the foot, while Shahrukh, who could stomach an elephant, is the true master of trust and cunning.

As Shahrukh struts arrogantly, Gopal is still plotting how to put him in his place, flaunting his military might while pledging loyalty to Zayed, and vying for the position of crown prince against the soft-spoken Sawa. Little does he know that an embellished secret telegram has already been sent from Celestial City's underground network to Snake Province, darkening Zayed's face.

Seeing the murderous intent in his father's eyes, the harmless-looking Sawa finally breathes a sigh of relief, putting the just-written letter of confession back into the drawer for now.

He knows that no matter whether Gopal or Shahrukh takes the lead, he himself has already made it into the final round…

Moreover, recently, while engaged in internal affairs, he has heard of a technology that can affect fetal brain development, activating prehistoric genetic diseases hidden in the DNA code that would otherwise remain unexpressed.

This is a byproduct of research into clone cannon fodder.

In the past, the Wilant people tried to use this technology to mass-produce Awakened, replacing the unstable Awakened potions that affected fertility, only to find that the results were premature, deformed infants even worse than ordinary clone cannon fodder, utterly useless in combat.

Thus, this superfluous research was abandoned.

But Sawa, as an "adopted son," became intrigued upon hearing of it.

Just now, the Emperor of the Eastern Empire has expressed dissatisfaction with Zayed; perhaps he could trouble his brothers over there to search for it, and see if everyone can be pleased…

……

Sea Prefecture, Settlement No. 1.

Little Ruby, playing with building blocks at home, accidentally collapses the castle she just built. Thinking of her morning's efforts, she begins to sob sadly.

Hearing the child's cries, Margaret, who has just set breakfast on the table, hurries over, gently picks up little Ruby from the floor, and pats her back to comfort her.

"Don't cry, don't cry… Mommy will help you build an even bigger castle later."