Chapter 961: Return

Chapter 961: Return

"Respected His Majesty Salun, the evacuation of West Sail Port is nearing its end. As per your instructions, we have completely taken over all assets of the Southern Army, while the remaining facilities have been handed over to our puppets.

General Grove hopes we can increase his bounty on the playing cards to fifteen million Dinars, as well as elevate the military rank of the Gibson Wanfuzhang whom he defeated... I would say this is making a vexatious nuisance, but his explanation makes a modicum of sense, as he believes it was either Gurion or Tyr who forgot to raise his bounty and promote Wanfuzhang Gibson.

We also cannot comprehend why General Gurion would appoint a one-star Wanfuzhang to lead the southern front forces, but the commander of the northern front forces fighting the northern field army of the Bharata Nation and the army of the Mammoth Country, Wanfuzhang Aulet, is indeed a two-star Wanfuzhang, there is no doubt about this.

In short, everything is for you to decide.

——Telegram from the Temporary Headquarters of West Sail Port"

"Tell him to get lost and find Tyr.

——Telegram from the Nord City Imperial Palace of the Eastern Empire"

...

The Lavenca Industrial Zone.

Beside the dust-laden construction site, swift and wind-like figures traversed the streets.

Knocking-off time had arrived, and once again, it was the season when all things revived.

The young fellows stepping off the assembly lines rushed out of the factories like frolicking ducks, hurrying home wave after wave, and then surging toward the market in wave after wave.

Most of their big money had been spent on buying bicycles, but they could still scrape together loose coins from here and there.

Clutching this spare change, they haggled with the vendors in the market, exchanging those small coins or paper notes for trivial items like nail clippers, marker pens, and short-sleeved shirts from stalls of all sizes.

They didn't even know what use these gadgets would be once bought home, they just felt that it was so damn worth it that small coins or paper slips could actually "gamble a small stake for a huge return"!

Jealous of the magical power to "exchange everything," some people took risks to manufacture counterfeit money, even using pencils to draw them, though after receiving a thorough beating of iron fists and clubs, these fellows—who had one daring to spend and another daring to accept—all became well-behaved.

Apart from this, some trendy cultural youths bought stereos, while others bought karaoke machines.

Listening to those discs imported from the Alliance, they not only sang of the desolation on the wasteland with their sand-grit voices, but also rented them out to share with others at the price of one silver coin per half hour.

Where a demand arises, there are people to solve it.

Upon discovering that some outsiders made money by doing business, some quick-witted local wastelander residents also began waiting at the docks, swarming forward whenever those cargo-carrying freighters berthed, taking in large and small bundles of goods to set up stalls near the factories.

These were all clever people capable of saving money.

They did not waste the first wage they earned on exaggerated outfits, but used it as seed capital to start a business.

It wouldn't be long before they became the first batch of survivors with "credit" in this settlement.

Banks would be very willing to lend them money, helping them expand their small businesses into big ones.

The prototype of a market took shape just like this.

Those who felt delighted were not just the small vendors, but also the artisans.

Rasoff, who sold bicycles, earned his first bucket of gold, while the bicycle masters from Golden Gallon Port who came with him to the Lavenca Industrial Zone earned their second.

Some people spotted the business opportunity, also entrusting shipping companies to tow some bicycles or bike locks in from Golden Gallon Port, opening bicycle shops that concurrently ran repair services locally.

Although the Lavenca Industrial Zone currently held only about three hundred thousand people, the colonies of the Southern Army spanned 2.7 million square square kilometers, and the non-colonized interior of the great desert was an even vaster land.

Those sands were worthless, but the ruins buried beneath the sand still held considerable value.

Moreover, for a very long time in the future, vaults would successively open there.

After capturing the radio signals of the Lavenca Industrial Zone, a portion of them would definitely attempt to find this place...

In any case, Hope, the chief of the Development Foundation responsible for the reform, indeed fulfilled his initial promise—to make the "animals" on the great desert run.

Fang Chang was also quite satisfied with his work, which saved him a vast amount of time from repetitive operations.

For many things, he only needed to mention them slightly, and that guy could implement them into specific policies.

Very strong.

His starting point was far higher than that of Yodu, the mayor of Golden Gallon Port whom he had trained previously.

Generally speaking, the difficulty of "clearing" this region should not be greater than that of Golden Gallon Port or even the Bharata Province.

More than 2,000 tribes sounded terrifying, but in fact, once the number increased to a certain extent, it ceased to be a "bad thing," and instead became a "good thing."

At least standing from the perspective of the "Manager," this meant that these hard-to-digest wastelanders were sliced into tiny atoms, just like chewed-up food.

The Bharata Province, however, was different.

On the surface, a thousand tribes lived there, but with deeper contact, it wasn't hard to discover that the people living under those one thousand "totem poles" actually shared the exact same set of theories, all believing in Rowell as the one "True God" in their hearts.

Their underlying logic was identical, even if various tribes possessed completely different surnames and slightly different customs.

Pondering the difference between the two, a concept he had heard of a long, long time ago during the early version suddenly popped into Fang Chang's mind—

"Hive."

This word had appeared several times in the Alliance Biological Research Institute's research reports on "Gaia," and had been established as a joint research project by the Academy of Social Sciences.

Back then, he had reviewed these materials existing on the game's background lore purely out of a desire to understand this world and learn the language of the Human Federation.

And as they went deeper into the wasteland, gradually moving from the center of the old battlefields toward the wastelands swept by the "aftermath," these materials were gradually put aside by him.

Now, however, he recalled them once more.

He still remembered that in a research report, a researcher whose name he could no longer recall proposed his own conjecture regarding the origin of the "Gaia" consciousness.

That researcher believed that "Gaia" did not evolve directly from slime mold into a higher civilization, but was the result of a higher civilization falling down from an even higher form of life.

Namely, the downward spiral.

For mortals to defeat giants, they didn't necessarily have to become taller and stronger giants.

They could also become cockroaches.

Even if a giant could crush a cockroach to death with one foot, he could not crush all cockroaches to death.

As long as they bred frantically in places unseen by the giant, the final victor would definitely be the cockroaches with a broader diet and stronger adaptability.

The duration of human civilization's existence was far too brief, making it difficult to glimpse the full picture of the evolutionary tree from within itself.

But if the timeline were stretched to a sufficient length, evidence could actually be found on Earth as well.

For instance, cockroaches, which originated in the Carboniferous period, outlasted the dinosaurs whose position in the food chain was far higher than theirs.

Under normal circumstances, humans naturally could not turn into cockroaches, but the technology to transform into another mammal existed within the background of "Wasteland OL."

For example, in the "Eternity" plan of Vault 79, a researcher had proposed using existing genetic technology to DIY a formidable species capable of surviving the wasteland era and carrying human consciousness.

Although this plan ultimately failed, it did not fail completely—at least two people succeeded, and one of them was still staying inside Vault 79.

As for Deathclaws, they were running all over the wasteland.

And in fact, this was precisely the compromise made by higher organisms, or rather civilizations, regarding their original principles for the continuation of civilization, or an act of "proactive dimension reduction" of their civilized nature.

Based on these existing clues, that researcher proposed a hypothesis.

Suppose on an isolated planet there existed a racial group named Gaia.

Within this group existed two major branches, A and B.

And in order to defeat each other, they all coincidentally abandoned their bottom lines, ultimately transforming from giants into slime mold—and neither side could ever go back.

This process was not completed in an instant; perhaps it would be an extremely long process of gaming and internal attrition.

First, they had to humble themselves to the dust, and for survival, they would stop at nothing.

Then, both sides lowered their bottom lines bit by bit, from giants to mortals, from mortals to cockroaches... step by step reducing their demands on the environment until every cell was immersed in culture fluid.

And when their self-diminution reached its extreme, abandoning all goals except "existence," and like a spring compressed to its limit, unable to compress further... they finally welcomed the final "Big Bang" in collapse.

No one knows what the universe looked like before the Big Bang.

Likewise, for the "Gaia" beings living before the Big Bang—no one knows where they would be after the explosion, where they would go, or what they would become.

Countless intelligent individuals, under the game of jungle law, arrived at the optimal solution—

That is to annihilate the will of the individual.

Let it all end.

We are tired.

Thus, the hive consciousness was born.

It made everything orderly; between populations, there were no more endless struggles, nor any upward or downward spirals.

Under Its will, the dead planet revived, and all nutrients would serve a final and sole consensus—

That is "existence."

Or rather—

Survival.

They would exist forever in the empty universe, forgetting all about the past, relying on the fragments left in their DNA to eat, reproduce, expand... or remain still.

Of course, this is merely a hypothesis proposed by a researcher in "Wasteland OL" regarding the Gaia planet, not the final conclusion.

But what is terrifying upon reflection is that Fang Chang suddenly realized that Tier was actually taking this very path—if you can't become a giant, then become a cockroach.

Perhaps Tier could achieve a pyrrhic victory in the cruel competition by constantly breaking bottom lines, but it might also be that in the second before victory, an awakened enemy who also breaks bottom lines would utterly destroy him.

Or, the two evenly matched sides could establish a lasting and painful balance, constantly lowering bottom lines, seeing who can't stand it first.

But obviously, the Southern Legion was not strong enough to make the Alliance break its bottom line.

As for the place where they fought—the Brahman Province—a different situation occurred.

The survivors there were themselves "Gaia."

Or rather, they were in the early game stage of Gaia's "Big Bang" and rebirth.

Most of the "abnormal" mutants, if they hadn't evolved "camouflage colors," were either killed or forced to flee.

As for what the future holds, it is not certain...

...

As usual, Fang Chang sat in his office flipping through the report handed to him by Hope.

At that moment, a knock came at the door, and he casually responded.

"Come in."

The door opened.

A young man wearing the military uniform of the Mammoth Kingdom walked in, led by a staff member from the Autonomous Committee.

He carried a simple aura of killing, his wooden face devoid of much expression, and he even looked like he couldn't fight well.

But no one would doubt that this lean young man could, with a single move, kill a man far stronger than him.

All he knew were killing techniques.

In the wasteland, there were rarely such people; after all, the wasteland was mostly barren, and if one were to speak of corpses, they might only be seen in large numbers in the tribes of raiders or mutants.

The staff member's face bore a tense expression as he looked at Fang Chang sitting behind the desk and said.

"He insisted on seeing you... said he must hand you the contents of the box personally."

"I know."

Putting down the report, Fang Chang looked him up and down, and when his gaze stopped on his hands, he couldn't help but tremble slightly.

"Ackman, First Battalion of the Assault Team..."

The young man introduced himself, walked forward silently, and placed the box on the table, "...our father, Raxi, asked us to return this to you."

Fang Chang didn't need to look to know what was in the box.

He took a deep breath, pressing his index finger and thumb against the bridge of his nose, trying not to let anyone hear the silent emotion.

"...What else did he say?"

Ackman said in a low voice.

"He said he will repay your kindness in his next life."

This world...

What the hell, is it really just a game?

With his eyes closed, Fang Chang remained silent for a long time, and finally, all he wanted to say turned into a long sigh.

"I understand..."

Ackman nodded, left a "thank you," and then without another word, silently followed the staff member waiting at the door and left.