Chapter One...

Chapter One...

In a corner of the square, Yin Fang stood shoulder to shoulder with Qi Liu, the director of the Academy's Investigation Department.

The latter had once been the superior of his superior's... superior—in short, a figure so far above him that he could never have hoped to meet him.

Yet now, the two stood on equal footing.

Strictly speaking, Yin Fang even held a slight edge over his former top boss.

After all, he was now the Alliance's chief scientist, a position that corresponded to the Academy's chief technology officer.

But he was not one to fuss over such rigid hierarchies, nor did he care for putting on airs of superiority.

At this moment, he stood here simply as a former Academy prospector, welcoming the new era he had long awaited.

"I've been thinking about something."

Hearing the voice beside him, Qi Liu smiled warmly and spoke in a courteous tone.

"What is it?"

Gazing toward the monument, Yin Fang squinted and let out a carefree laugh.

"Sometimes I can't help but wonder—when you sent your people chasing me all the way here back then, was it deliberate? To drive me to this very spot?"

Qi Liu paused briefly, then chuckled.

"No, not at all. Your situation was pure coincidence—or rather, an accident."

"Is that so?" Yin Fang smiled. "I thought everything was within your calculations. Seems that's not the case."

"Just figuring that out now?" Qi Liu, rather than taking offense, teased him with a grin. "To be honest, most of our plans have strayed from their original intentions. It's the unintended actions that have yielded unexpected results. Sometimes I wonder if there isn't some grander scheme that has enveloped us all along, turning every mistake into the best possible arrangement."

Yin Fang replied in a casual tone.

"I see it differently. It's not that mistakes became the best arrangement, but that people's unanimous choices steered us away from the worst possible outcome."

Qi Liu glanced at him in surprise, and a flicker of admiration gradually appeared on his otherwise calm face.

"If only every prospector in the Academy had your vision."

"How do you know they don't?"

Yin Fang smiled faintly, his tone noncommittal.

"But perhaps that's where we differ. We never demand that every researcher in the Alliance possess the vision of a chief technology officer. Instead, we believe every researcher has the potential to become one. The day I'm gone, there will be a thousand more like me."

Qi Liu tried to imagine that future, and finally let out a soft sigh.

"...That's quite terrifying."

...

As the speech came to an end, the medal ceremony began. Players who had taken part in the final battle stepped up the steps beneath the monument, one by one, as Chu Guang personally pinned on them the medals symbolizing the highest honor.

Except for the Burning Legion, still drifting at the Lagrange point space station, nearly every Alliance legion participated in this ceremony. They wore the gleaming honors on their chests and strode proudly into the crowd, receiving flowers, applause, cheers, and admiration.

In a sense, this was a uniquely Alliance-style military parade.

For the players, this realization of self-worth and elevation of life goals was utterly exhilarating—an experience no amount of money could buy.

Some veteran players, having experienced similar moments before, remained relatively composed, while a few newcomers, unaccustomed to such grandeur, were so overwhelmed they nearly disconnected on the spot.

The grand ceremony continued. Drones captured footage from multiple angles, transmitting live data back to the Endpoint Cloud in Ideal City.

By now, the Endpoint Cloud's users were no longer limited to Ideal City's residents. They included major survivor settlements across central and eastern Zhongzhou Continent—

Including Dawn City in the Valley Province, Weifu City in Jinchuan Province, settlements along the Death Coast, and French Fry Port in the Baixia Strait.

Even the islands of the South Sea Alliance, as well as Golden Harbor and Silver Moon Bay, were connected.

For survivors unable to attend in person, they still had the chance to witness the spectacle at Dawn City Square and share in the joy of the new era alongside the locals...

Meanwhile, similar spectacles unfolded not only in Dawn City but also in other parts of the wasteland.

Emperor Saren of the Eastern Empire stood on the castle walls of Norton City, delivering a speech about the new era. Belatedly, he awarded General Griffin a medal of mixed repute—

A dedicated general, but one who had chosen the wrong side and followed the wrong leader.

Now that the Eastern Expansionist faction had scattered like a tree full of monkeys, Saren could finally close the coffin he had kept open for so long.

From now on, the Eastern Empire would enter a new historical phase. What they needed to consider was no longer which direction to expand, but how to strike a balance between the old and the new.

On the other side of the Great Desert,

Zaid the Saint, having executed the traitor Grove and his followers, jubilantly declared a decisive victory in the war against the Red Earth. He made the outrageous claim that he had never said Red Earth was inedible—if one was too full, a little earth could serve as a palate cleanser.

The new Education Commissioner and Propaganda Commissioner, who had replaced Sir Kabah, immediately patched up his earlier statements. Behind him, Commissioner Sava promptly raised his hand, claiming those words were his own. Everyone then plunged into another bloody game of power struggles.

But thankfully, the once-forbidden Red Earth was now edible again. Overnight, it seemed Red Earth no longer encroached on farmland but had become a mere dietary supplement.

In dealing with the devastating famine in the Brahmaputra Province, General Lowell's Red Earth once again played an indelible, decisive role, allowing the overstuffed masses to finally hold their heads high.

No one would deny his achievements this time.

Yet, sadly, the man who had once written his biography now lay buried in the very earth he had planted.

Even if, once again, that had never been his intention...

...

The Great Rift Valley.

In the obsidian-carved meeting room, the Chief, who had lived for untold years, smiled approvingly at the pale blue light hovering above the conference table.

"I was right about him—that man is 'the Professor'... No wonder he could accomplish what I could not."

Conclusion, sitting with arms crossed at the table, let out a sneer.

"You know, my teacher's greatest fear in life was that you would think that way."

The Chief raised an eyebrow.

"In life?"

Conclusion retorted.

"Do you honestly believe he's still alive?"

"..."

The Chief fell silent for a long moment. A faint loneliness and melancholy flickered in his murky pupils—emotions rarely seen on his face, yet they lingered now, unusually long.

"I suppose you're right..."

As if letting go, he let out a long sigh, his voice tinged with self-mockery.

"Two hundred years... I still remember the first time I met him. I was just a child. Hah, this time, it's the white-haired sending off the black-haired... It's not so bad, really."

The only pity was that, aside from the old popsicles frozen in the fridge, few from that era remained.

The new era...

He wasn't all that eager to see it, after all.

Perhaps this, too, was one of the reasons he had never been able to muster much enthusiasm.

Of course.

There really wasn’t much they could do now, after all.

The War Construction Committee had once been strong, truly powerful... but that was over a century ago. Now, all they could do was cling to a corner of safety, relying on the power of the Aegis.

Glancing at the Chief, who was still lost in nostalgia, Doctor Conclusion suddenly thought of something and muttered to himself.

"...Speaking of which, it seems the war in the Free State has ended. In the end, it was Mayor Odo, the one who led the citizens in revolt, who won."

The Academy had not directly intervened in that war, merely observing from afar.

The Alliance and the Corporation had set up safe zones outside the Free State to shelter civilians, but beyond that, they did nothing more.

Of course, some volunteers had gone to fight—that was another matter entirely.

After all, the Free State and Flintstone Group had long exported mercenaries abroad; this time, the boomerang had simply come back around.

The Chief’s face showed little surprise—clearly, he already knew.

In fact, the one who had prompted Mayor Odo to change was none other than himself.

"...Is that so? Good. Though Sigma was a decent lad too—climbing from the lowest depths of the slums to the rooftop of the tower was no small feat—his era has ended, after all."

If there was one fault to find with him, it was that he hadn’t changed while there was still time, instead repeating the suffering he had endured onto others with even greater cruelty.

A dragon will always meet a stronger dragonslayer, especially when the entire Wasteland has turned upside down.

"Heh, you’ve made quite the comfortable escape as an absentee boss."

Doctor Conclusion’s remark was light and sarcastic.

But the Chief didn’t mind, replying in a flat tone.

"It’s not that I chose to be an absentee boss; it’s that I had no choice. I once tried to control everything, just as when you were still here, but in the end, everything spiraled out of control—just as you once witnessed."

Doctor Conclusion shrugged noncommittally.

He didn’t agree with that view. The Academy had plenty of positive examples in "cybernetics."

Of course, he also admitted that such achievements came at the cost of sacrificing some people.

The Chief fell silent for a moment, then continued.

"The fate of the Free State was sealed from the moment it was founded—today’s outcome was inevitable. Those who wanted both stability and freedom from restraint could only drift like hot-air balloons into the clouds, only to freefall once they reached the breaking point..."

"It’s not just the Free State; many places are the same. Their current predicament isn’t because some man named Sigma deceived them, but because all of them are deceivers—successful ones or failed ones."

"As for that Sigma, he was merely the most successful among them... Of course, now that they’ve realized the problem, they’ll soon move into the next historical phase."

At this point, the Chief suddenly turned his gaze to Doctor Conclusion, speaking with a hint of curiosity.

"What I’m most curious about is you... Even though the Wasteland Era is over, do you still intend to wander beyond the solar system with those researchers?"

Conclusion nodded.

"Yes."

The Chief looked at him in surprise, then suddenly laughed.

"I never thought there’d be someone more stubborn than an old fossil like me."

Conclusion gave a faint smile, utterly unbothered by the jab, and said with indifference.

"It has nothing to do with stubbornness, nor even with the Wasteland Era. I’m simply fulfilling my mentor’s last wish."

A flicker of astonishment appeared in the Chief’s eyes.

"Your mentor... You mean the Professor? He asked you to do this?"

His voice carried a hint of urgency, as if desperate for a confirmation.

But Conclusion merely shook his head, caring little for the old man’s opinion, and continued on his own.

"He didn’t ask me to do it. He only told me... that if the Wasteland Era hadn’t happened, he would likely have taken a group of like-minded people to do this, instead of diverting the resources and funds of the 'Ark' Project to build Black Boxes and shelters."

The Chief stared at him in stunned silence for a long moment, then murmured to himself.

"...So that’s it. I always wondered why it was called the Ark Project. Now I understand."

Ignoring the Chief of the Great Rift’s muttering, Conclusion spoke in a casual tone.

"He also told me many things. He said that if nothing went wrong, this ark sailing toward the future would, after several millennia, hatch an archaeological and academic organization called the Academy in this galaxy..."

"Unlike the Academy of today, that future Academy would be a cross-galactic cooperative organization dedicated to excavating the ruins of precursor civilizations and exploring the origins of the universe. Its members wouldn’t even be limited to humans—there would be aliens from other civilizations."

"It sounds a bit too far-sighted, I know, but I’ll never forget the expression on his face when he painted that picture for me... as if he had truly seen those things."

"From that moment on, I made up my mind. I decided to carry on his will and do this for him... To that end, I didn’t hesitate to upload my consciousness into a circuit board, trading death for endless life."

"It just so happened that the War Construction Committee was dissolving, and so many people were desperate to leave this 'dead planet.' That gave me and many others a common goal. Thanks to that, the Academy was no longer a loose academic organization but gained real political power."

As he said this, the man floating in the holographic image wore a faint smile.

"It’s actually not so bad."

"Now we can filter out those who just want to flee and leave them on the ground, taking only those who share our vision to do this great thing."