Chapter 753: The Recent Situation of Fries Port and the Southern Front

Chapter 753: The Status of French Fries Harbor and the Southern Front

On the Wasteland OL official website.

"War of the Heavens" Campaign Progress: Key passes on the Northern Front have fallen one after another; the Ten Peaks are now under Allied control, and the gateway to the Seacliff Province stands wide open!

The Southern Front remains contested around the southern waters. Players in this theatre are urged to redouble their efforts, as the final reward calculation will tie directly to campaign progress!

Shortly after the announcement surfaced on the official forum, the message boards erupted into a flurry of activity.

Elena: "Incredible. The dog developers are actually badgering us for updates now. (Funny face)"

Elven King Fugui: "Any other game would nerf gear stats to stall player progress for fear they'd clear it too quickly. This is the only game that actively complains we're too slow. (Funny face)"

Escaped Mole of the Rift: "Fang Chang, are you guys up to the task or what? (Funny face)"

Tail: "Dolly: Fang Chang, can you even do it?! (Blushing)"

Sisi: "Calm down, Ah Wei. You're deployed on the Southern Front too."

Tail: "Eek! I completely forgot! °ロ°)!"

Maka Bazi: "Too weak! (Funny face)"

Feng Qing: "It can't be helped. The W-2's airspeed is just too low to breach the Federation destroyers' close-in weapon systems. The limitations of these vintage propeller planes are simply too glaring. T.T"

Gui Gui: "+10086, the Southern Front desperately needs supersonic fighters!"

WC Really Has Many Mosquitoes: "Cough, Kamikaze runs with those things would be far too expensive. You'll have to make do with propellers for now, or perhaps I could fashion you some without landing gear."

Feng Qing: "!!!"

Gui Gui: "Damn it! Guild Leader, are you even human?!"

Elena: "This game is entirely too realistic. (Funny face)"

...

Scanning the complaints riddling the comment section of the official announcement, Fang Chang felt his brow twitch, but he ultimately resisted the urge to chime in.

That Light fellow was truly being somewhat unfair.

Could the sluggish progress on the Southern Front really be blamed on the players?

Consider those few destroyers belonging to the Northern Federation and the Southern Archipelago; transporting any single one of them into reality would easily outclass a whole fleet of "conceptual warships."

By contrast, the Baiyue Company possessed nothing but a flock of propeller planes that had been modified time and again.

To be fair, these aircraft were indeed effective for ground assault, boasting long loiter times, low costs, and overwhelming numbers.

Yet, when pitted against dense point-defense systems and high-precision guided weaponry, they found themselves severely outmatched.

This was especially true in naval warfare, where beyond-visual-range combat dictated the terms; often, they had barely cleared the runway before the enemy already had them locked.

Naturally, the Alliance retained its own advantages, such as an army whose combat capability and individual equipment far surpassed those of the Northern Federation.

If they could slip past the Federation fleet's naval picket lines and stage a direct landing on the enemy islands, the campaign would undoubtedly unfold far more smoothly than it currently did.

The crux of the matter, however, was that the enemy knew this all too well. Consequently, their picket sonars and radars remained active twenty-four hours a day, while patrol boats laden with depth charges maintained a ceaseless vigil across the uninhabited reaches of the sea.

To say nothing of landing, any approach within a hundred kilometers risked drawing a beyond-visual-range strike.

Of course, this reality cut both ways.

While the Northern Federation watched warily for Alliance aircraft and paratroopers, the Southern Archipelago Alliance kept an equally sharp lookout for the Torch Church's "frogman" units, keeping various early-warning systems and long-range strike capabilities primed around the clock.

Not long ago, several waves of mutants equipped with specialized underwater combat gear had attempted to swim toward Paradise Island to launch a surprise raid. Yet, before they could even reach Coral City, the majority were obliterated by a handful of depth charges, leaving the scattered survivors to perish in the bellies of predatory fish.

The aberrations roaming the open ocean were far more terrifying than their terrestrial counterparts, and their varieties far more diverse.

Without the protective shroud of a "Sea Shanty," a solitary mutant could not hope to survive in deep waters for even an hour.

Wary of the submarines harbored at Paradise Island, the Federation fleet likewise dared not cross the picket lines to penetrate deep into the heartland of the Southern Archipelago Alliance.

Because of this, the two factions had lapsed into a bizarre state of engagement.

They resembled two burly men armed with rifles, each pressed against his respective cover with a fifty-meter expanse between them, occasionally exchanging a shot or two before instantly ducking back into concealment.

Neither side could afford the price of a single mistake; thus, neither dared step beyond their cover to press the assault.

However—

This did not mean the stalemate would endure indefinitely.

With the backing of the Alliance, the Southern Archipelago Alliance was currently developing "underwater carrier-subs" in preparation for a landing on the northern islands.

Meanwhile, the Northern Federation was clearly preparing its own hidden trump card with the support of the Torch Church.

Both sides understood perfectly well that this war would not drag on for long. In particular, the steady, encroaching pressure exerted by the Allied forces in the north had made it imperative for the Torch Church to carve out strategic breathing room to the south.

Everyone was preparing for the impending decisive battle.

Against such a backdrop, the room for player maneuver was actually quite narrow.

Even Fang Chang found himself with little to do, save for devoting extra effort to infrastructure projects across the southern waters and the Baiyue Strait, using economic and trade incentives to win over the various islands aligned with the Alliance.

After a simple dinner, Fang Chang went downstairs for an evening jog before donning his helmet and returning to the virtual world.

A regular meeting was scheduled for ten o'clock in the morning, game time, inside the Governor's office at the French Fries Harbor City Hall.

As the CEO and Chairman of the Baiyue Company, the Governor from Dawn City would exchange views with him regarding regional affairs and the next phase of development work, while concurrently conveying the intentions of the Administrator.

Though styled a "Governor," this official differed fundamentally from the governors of the Empire.

The latter represented the interests and authority of an Emperor, serving as the sovereign's local incarnation, whereas the former represented the Alliance and its constitution.

From the perspective of rights and duties, this position within the Alliance resembled that of a "City Lord."

That is to say, they represented the central government of the Alliance in supervising local affairs, managed routine local defense, and rendered judgments on matters affecting the collective interests of the Alliance from its institutional standpoint.

As for specific local administration and the execution of public authority, those duties fell to the City Hall or more specialized administrative bodies.

Only under highly exceptional circumstances—such as when the local populace entirely lacked the capacity or foundation for self-governance, or when the Alliance required a repository for such survivors—would a City Lord or Governor concurrently manage specific local affairs.

Take Singularity City, for instance.

If the Alliance failed to dispatch someone to oversee it, the local survivors would reduce the Alliance constitution to toilet paper within moments and erect a fraudulent "Red River Alliance" in its stead.

In a place like French Fries Harbor, however, the players themselves were entirely capable of fostering robust development, and the Administrator was content to leave management to the players and locals, establishing merely a Governor's office within the City Hall.

When there was no pressing business, the Governor typically spent his days sipping tea and reading newspapers, compiling local status reports to telegraph to the Administrator, and issuing directives to local bodies based on the feedback received...

Assuming Monsieur the Administrator offered any feedback at all.

For the past several months at least, the Administrator's replies had consisted solely of the word "Reviewed."

Evidently, even that meticulously thorough Administrator could find no fault with the fruits of their labor.

This time, however, was different.

Word had spread that the Administrator had uncharacteristically issued explicit instructions, which naturally piqued Fang Chang's curiosity regarding the upcoming meeting.

Since some time remained before the session, he felt no urge to report immediately to the City Hall, choosing instead to stroll leisurely through the settlement they had raised with their own hands.

Perhaps by the time he reached his destination, he would already surmise the nature of the Administrator's instructions without the Governor from Dawn City having to utter a word.

The calendar within the game had already advanced to early August, and the Baiyue Strait, caught in the grip of the rainy season, shifted unpredictably between sudden downpours and brief clearances.

Often, one second the sun is blazing high, and the next, torrential rain pours from the sky.

Yet that rain is not at all unpleasant; after the rain clears, Fries Harbor is like polished glass, exuding a refreshing clarity inside and out.

After months of development, Fries Harbor has begun to take shape.

With the completion of the port, a large surplus of materials like cement, steel, bricks, and construction equipment remained, so the port’s municipal government simply signed a document to improve residential housing, encouraging local residents through active subsidies to convert their hand-built single-story wooden cabins into three-story concrete villas.

On one hand, this was for the city’s appearance; on the other, it was to guard against tsunamis and earthquakes, since the old wooden houses were only makeshift. But more importantly, it aimed to boost the local economy, playing the long game.

After all, only when those survivors owned their own homes could they rent out unused floors or use the street-level floor for small businesses.

For Fries Harbor, with its vast land and sparse population, land was practically the cheapest commodity.

It wasn’t just the survivors’ homes that changed; the roads in front of their doors transformed dramatically as well.

The muddy paths that once turned into quagmires on rainy days were now replaced with clean, smooth concrete roads.

Speaking of these concrete roads, they were quite a marvel.

Due to well-known reasons, road maintenance in the Baiyue Strait was extremely costly, and strictly speaking, it wasn’t suitable to apply Dawn City’s methods for building settlements.

But not long ago, a research team from the Alliance Institute of Biology, based on studies of local biological samples and the Hive Mother in Clearwater City, developed a biomaterial called “living cement.”

This material had a peculiar self-repairing property, drawing energy and nutrients from surface biomass to physically maintain the “structural material” as its base, preserving its original form.

A vivid but imperfect analogy would be that the microorganisms attached to the material were like tiny hermit crabs, and the pores of the living cement were the “shells” they depended on.

To protect their shells, they would actively combat biological factors threatening the concrete’s stability, using themselves as binders to maintain it.

The project was spearheaded by Chen Yutong, head of the Alliance Institute of Biology’s Fries Harbor branch.

It was no exaggeration to say this astonishing technology effectively removed the “industrial and infrastructure cost +900%” debuff from Fries Harbor.

This self-repairing “living cement” was itself a living entity, not only immune to erosion by the region’s thriving species but also benefiting from the “lush growth” buff, thereby reducing road maintenance costs.

The only drawback was that this living material required an extra step in both production and use compared to traditional cement.

But compared to the positive impact of this material, that slight increase in cost was negligible.

As it turned out, there are always more solutions than problems.

With technological progress, what was once deemed impossible gradually became possible.

Yet even with the industrial debuff removed, Fang Chang had no immediate plans to change the local development strategy of “primary industry first, tertiary industry second,” leaving secondary industry for last.

After all, the accelerated growth buff was incredibly beneficial for crops!

The same crop yielded only one season in Dawn City, but here it could produce three seasons without fertility loss, even surpassing the production efficiency of Luoxia Province.

It was only limited by current scale and transport capacity; once Fries Harbor developed, it might become a bigger granary than Luoxia Province!

As for secondary industry, that could be left to Golden Harbor to handle.

Recently, a flood of immigrants had poured into the suburbs of Golden Harbor along the Eternal Flow River, with a massive workforce of young adults nearly exceeding the local infrastructure’s capacity.

There was no better place for developing secondary industry.

Finally strolling slowly to the entrance of the municipal hall, Fang Chang squinted as he studied the brick-and-stone landmark building for a moment, then suddenly called out to an NPC emerging from inside, asking with a smile.

“Friend, where are you from?”

The man, likely a recent immigrant, didn’t recognize his face. He was taken aback by the odd question, then replied.

“Silver Moon Bay… why?”

Fang Chang continued with a grin.

“How do you find life in Fries Harbor? Are you satisfied here?”

Hearing this, a look of emotion crossed the man’s face as he sincerely praised.

“It’s a wonderful place—I don’t know how else to describe it… But I’m certain that if heaven exists, it must be like this.”

There were no kings, no nobles, and no priests to support; hard work led to wealth—that was what pleased him most.

Of course, what kept him coming back was the bar along the coastal street.

At least a third of the money he earned last month went there.

Listening to sailors and mercenaries boast was far more entertaining than praying to statues!

Seeing this fellow who had completely forgotten the Spirit of the Sand Sea and the Silver Moon Goddess, Fang Chang laughed heartily.

“I think so too—this is practically paradise… I’m glad you like it; it means we didn’t come here for nothing.”

With that, he walked toward the door of the municipal hall, leaving the man staring in confusion.

…

When Fang Chang arrived at the meeting room, the governor had just arrived as well and politely had his secretary brew him a cup of tea.

There was little small talk.

The governor from Dawn City quickly got to the point, speaking earnestly.

“…Recently, Fries Harbor has been developing rapidly, with large job gaps in all sectors. The municipal government has asked us to absorb more immigrants from outside the Alliance, but we can’t let just anyone in—it would strain our refugee reception system. I’d like to hear if you have any good ideas.”

Fang Chang asked.

“What does the Administrator think?”

The governor replied seriously.

“The Administrator told me to ask for your opinion.”

Fang Chang pondered for a moment and said.

“It’s simple: use Fries Harbor’s budget or commission a third-party company to build some standard training institutions and schools in Golden Harbor, then encourage employers needing labor to recruit graduates with professional skill certifications from those schools. We only issue visas to those who already have employment contracts. That way, they have jobs as soon as they land, and with work and housing, they’re no longer refugees.”

The governor’s eyes lit up, and he gave a thumbs-up.

“Great idea!”

Fang Chang made a helpless expression.

Wasn’t this just standard procedure?

But considering that the Age of Prosperity probably had no such thing as visas, and the civilization of the Wasteland Era had suffered a break in continuity, losing this tradition was understandable.

After all, Ideal City was a culinary desert without even “steamed dishes”—compared to his hometown of Shanghai, that was unimaginable.

In fact, their Administrator had recently introduced an “electronic pass” through the Conclave, which was somewhat like a passport or visa.

Thanks to this electronic pass, survivor factions that had kept their doors shut now opened them a crack, and survivors living in Conclave member states gained the right to “limited free movement,” rather than having no choice most of the time as before.

To be honest, this was actually the most unusual part.

An Administrator from the era of the Human Union had come up with something that didn’t exist in that era, and used it so adeptly.

Sometimes Fang Chang couldn’t help but wonder if this guy was an NPC played by a real person.

As Fang Chang’s mind wandered, the governor across from him cleared his throat softly and continued.

“There’s one more thing, mainly concerning the Baiyue Company.”

Snapping back to reality, Fang Chang nodded and said straightforwardly.

“Go ahead.”

The governor spoke earnestly.

"The Administrator hopes you will suspend military conflict with the Empire and focus more on the southern sea region."

Though it was expected, Fang Chang couldn't help but reveal a hint of helplessness on his face.

"We are already doing that, including the submarine power grid, freshwater pipelines, ocean current power stations, and the restart of Coral City. These infrastructure projects are subtly uniting the survivors of the southern sea region to our side... but as you know, the impact of these efforts is hard to show immediately. The benefits of order take time to manifest."

Hearing this, the governor realized he had misunderstood his meaning and quickly explained.

"You misunderstand. The Administrator is not questioning your work; quite the opposite, he thinks you have done well. Whether in uniting the survivors of the southern sea region or handling the Expeditionary Force, you have earnestly considered the problems they face from the perspective of the 'governed.'"

"Overpraise. We only did what we had to do." Raising his teacup for a sip, Fang Chang said modestly, though the corner of his mouth couldn't help but curl up.

That guy's approval was still quite gratifying to him.

The governor nodded and said.

"I'm glad you understand. In short, the Administrator is not urging you to gain an immediate advantage on the front line. What he means is that he hopes you can appropriately ease your attitude toward the Empire."

The corner of Fang Chang's mouth twitched, as if suppressing a laugh.

"Have we been too strict with the Empire?"

The embargo was clearly a unilateral act by the Empire. They had never restricted the flow of people and goods at Golden Gran Port, and even tacitly allowed the existence of shadow ports like Banana Head Bay.

As for the warlords appearing on the border, that had even less to do with them.

Due to the ceasefire negotiations, he had even suspended contact with the rebels within the Empire.

At Fang Chang's "plea of innocence," the governor made a helpless expression.

"I am not familiar with your affairs across the sea. I am merely conveying the Administrator's message. Additionally, the Alliance is about to sign a formal ceasefire agreement with the Empire. Duke Garava has already conceded on several key agreements. Mr. Administrator hopes that Golden Gran Port can release Governor Nihak as a gesture of our sincerity."

Fang Chang was taken aback.

"That's all?"

Governor: "Is there a difficulty?"

"No... rather, it's too simple."

Fang Chang said with a wry smile, then opened his VM in front of him, edited a message, and pressed send.

In a few minutes, the Golden Gran Port city hall would receive a telegram from Chipao Port, and the secretary he had promoted would quickly handle everything.

By this time tomorrow at the latest, Governor Nihak would leave prison and stand on the streets of Golden Gran Port, which had undergone earth-shaking changes...

He hoped that governor would not be too surprised by the changes in the place he once governed.

If the Empire was willing to take this as a gesture of goodwill, letting the more than 10,000 prisoners in the camp go home was not out of the question.

After sending the message, Fang Chang looked at the governor sitting across from him and said calmly.

"It's done."

This was probably the fastest task completion among all the tasks he had ever finished.

The governor's face showed surprise, as if astonished by his speed.

Fang Chang looked at him and continued asking.

"Is there anything else?"

Whether it was immigration management or demonstrating sincerity for a ceasefire, in his view, these were trivial matters.

If it were just these things, there was no need to convey them through the governor; a single line added to the task board would suffice.

He was more inclined to think there was something more important.

And indeed, it did not go beyond his expectations—the governor still had something to say.

The latter cleared his throat and continued.

"Also, regarding the listing of Baiyue Company you proposed earlier, Mr. Administrator has discussed it with experts from Camp 101. He believes your request is reasonable."

"The residents of the Alliance should share the fruits of the development of the Baiyue Strait. This will ignite their enthusiasm for pioneering the wasteland. For you, listing means easier access to funds and faster expansion of your business, making the pie bigger."

"However, before that, you need to cooperate with the regulators commissioned by the Alliance Bank to audit and evaluate your business, funds, and assets, ensuring the legitimate interests of investors and that equity transactions are conducted openly, fairly, and justly."

"If all goes smoothly, your listing will become a successful model. Mr. Administrator plans to establish a dedicated stock exchange in Dawn City later, to provide listing services for other companies with financing needs and sound operations."

Fang Chang was stunned at first, then a look of surprise lit up his face as he came to his senses. Without a second thought, he immediately agreed.

"Please rest assured, Mr. Administrator! We will do our utmost to cooperate with the Alliance Bank in completing the financial audit!"

The governor smiled and nodded.

"Compared to the first two matters, this is just a small thing, not worth mentioning. Just take note of it."

Hearing this, Fang Chang's face beamed with a bright smile, but he said nothing.

A small thing?

If this is considered a small thing, then there is probably nothing bigger than this!