Alien Relic Hunter.

Chapter 875 Hunting Garden
"'Calamity'? No, only ignorant people will call it 'Calamity'." The voice said, "This is not a disaster at all, but His mercy and gift for lower creatures... ...Those who could only survive for decades and do nothing, can be fortunate enough to be a part of Him and gain eternal life and supremacy in the universe ... Can this be considered a 'disaster'?"

"I understand...the prophet's stupid rhetoric, you learned it from here, right?"

"He did stay here for a while."

"Then why wasn't he swallowed up by Calamity... Well, according to what you said, why didn't he fall into the arms of that great god and become one with Him?" Ke Lan asked.

"He had considered this choice, but he finally decided to become the messenger of the gods and guide more people to become..."

"Become the food of that great god." Ke Lan interrupted the other party again, "Okay, don't talk nonsense, just say if you can tell me what happened in the hive, it's okay, it's okay, No, no, no, it's that simple!"

"If you want to know everything, just look up..."

"Fuck you." Ke Lan said in a very calm and refined tone, "You can shut up now."

The other party seemed to really obey Ke Lan's request, and stopped speaking after Ke Lan said this... The suddenly quiet environment made Ke Lan feel a little uncomfortable.

The managers of both the lower city and the upper city were reluctant to reveal more information to themselves, which made Ke Lan a little disappointed... If one of the two "Nietos" has already eroded Beyond the critical point, there is no doubt that it should be this "Nieto" in the upper city. As for what is on the dome...

In fact, Ke Lan was also very curious, but he would never raise his head to look at it unless it was a last resort.

This is a dangerous move, and it's a move that the managers of the upper city really want to see him play... In the conversation just now, the other party's purpose was so clear that he hardly made any cover up: no matter what Ke Lan asked, the other party would There is only one answer - that is to ask Ke Lan to look up at the dome.

If the managers of the upper city really have the slightest sincerity, at least the process of how the hive was destroyed can always be told to themselves through dictation - even the last survivors of the hive can use the notes to use those events. It is written down, which means that the "calamity" is not indescribable with words and words.The survivors and the "Nieto" in the lower city do not want to explain, because they are afraid of the further spread of "disaster", but why is this "Nieto" in the upper city?

It obviously admires "calamity" very much... In this case, why not tell the whole thing directly to yourself?
If the information contained "forbidden knowledge", wouldn't it just be able to deepen one's own erosion... Isn't this what the other party wants to see?

Considering conventional logic, this does not make sense.

"33, is that guy still bothering you?" Ke Lan glanced at 33 and asked.

33 shook his head: "No, after you just told her to shut up, she really shut up."

"So obedient?" Ke Lan muttered, "Or... this guy is trying to make something else?"

"Ke Lan, there's actually one thing I can't understand." 33 said, "If she wanted us to see the dome so much, why didn't she put mirrors around it? That way, even if we don't look up, The moment we leave the tunnel, we will unconsciously see the dome through the reflection of the mirror... This is much simpler, there is no need to use words to trick us into looking up, right?"

"I don't know, maybe it can't do it... I think its current situation may be worse than we thought... There is a high probability that it has lost its control over the upper city." Ke Lan analyzed.

"This is the best way, so that she doesn't set up a lot of traps for us..." 33 said, "What should we do now? Find out the managers at this level?"

"Well, let's find out its main body first." Ke Lan nodded, "Although there are some huge differences between the upper city and the lower city, the neighborhood divisions and urban structure are mirror images of each other... According to the "nirvana" of the lower city The location of the square where To' is located should be... this location."

On the wall of the waste treatment plant, there is a simple structural map of the upper city. From the picture, it can be seen that in addition to the luxurious commercial and residential areas, the upper city also has a large artificial forest and a An artificial rockery with an altitude of about 300 meters, the peak of this rockery is located in the middle of the forest, and the forest just divides the east and west sides of the entire upper city, forming a gray-green isolation belt.

According to the markings on the map, the eastern half belongs to the territory of dozens of small and medium-sized "families", while the entire western half belongs to the sphere of influence of a family whose family crest is composed of dozens of large and small pieces. A kite-shaped shield composed of gears of different sizes, with a circle of thorny thorns wrapped around the outer edge of the shield - full of retro artistic atmosphere, but also full of the unique power and mechanical sense of the industrial age.

As for the square where "Nieto" was located, the location directly opposite happened to be in the core area of ​​the family's sphere of influence.

"You said that these badges represent each family?" After listening to Ke Lan's explanation, 33 stared at the map with a strange face and muttered, "This is quite similar to Ark. In the eyes of ordinary people, power The top level of the world is a group of dignitaries... But in fact, only those who have climbed to a high enough level know that there are real rulers on top of these dignitaries."

The real ruler on the ark refers to the "Undead Crew Association", and in the hive, it naturally refers to the people living in the fourth floor "Genting".

"Actually, I'm quite puzzled... This group of people has reached the point where they need to hide in underground shelters... Why can they still maintain such a high standard of living? The speed of consumption of necessary materials for survival in this upper city can be compared with luxury and lust. To describe...you don't need to calculate it carefully, the consumption of the upper city in one day is estimated to be able to meet the basic needs of the lower city and the bottom nest for a whole year...even more." 33 said, while trying to make a picture that can express himself Thoughtful expression, but he tried several times, but finally gave up.

He let out a long sigh, shook his head, frowned and said, "This hive...is it really a sanctuary?"

A shelter, as the name suggests, is a kind of survival fortification built to avoid disasters... Even if those high-end shelters for the rich are as luxurious as mansions inside, they still cannot change the essence of the shelter—a shelter, the most important thing The most important thing is the reserve of materials.

If long-term planning is not done, no matter how rich the material reserves are, the shelter will eventually turn into a tomb or be abandoned... Although the area of ​​the nest is large, its productivity is not strong, and many things cannot be self-sufficient... … In this case, even the powerful class must save as much as possible, instead of living a life more wasteful than the wealthy class on the earth in the old era, as Ke Lan and the others saw.

Take the Ark as an example. Although the history of those noble clans can be traced back to the era of interstellar drifting and even the old era, before the Ark landed on Alpha and human society entered the stable period of the new era, the living conditions of these nobles were not good. Especially in the few years when they just landed on Alpha Star, even the young masters and young ladies of the wealthy families tightened their belts and invested their precious and limited resources where they were most needed.

At that time, the biggest difference between the rich and the poor on the Ark was probably limited to personal safety and basic food and clothing—for example, ordinary people can only get one bag of synthetic food a day, while nobles can probably share it. At least three bags, maybe one more bag of pickled mustard.

Many wealthy people who are over 50 years old recall their life in that era with regret—a canned luncheon meat that is almost entirely starch and synthetic fat is eaten by the family, and they will eat it for a week. For young masters and ladies born after 930 in the new era, this is simply unimaginable.

"Perhaps...they don't lack resources." Ke Lan rubbed the pulp of his thumb and middle finger with ease, thinking, "Although the entire nest is now sealed on the seabed, when they took the initiative to sink the nest into the seabed. Before, the hive was not completely closed... They even sent out ground exploration teams on a regular basis, although the survival rate of these exploration teams was appallingly low... Well, if you can get a ground exploration team The report file is just fine."

Ke Lan suddenly had a suspicion in his heart - "Frozen Era", is it really "frozen" as it literally means?Or is it just a reference?

Like the word "calamity" that appears most frequently in the conversation with Nieto?
In fact, the materials on the surface are extremely abundant, but for some reason, people have to hide in the ground...

This picture popped up in Ke Lan's mind: On the surface of Alpha Star, a large number of automated production facilities are scattered all over the place, and various living resources are continuously produced from the factory's assembly line... And manufacturing After all this, the human beings hid in the underground hive, and can only send a small team of people every once in a while to bring the things produced by these automatic factories back to the hive... And for some reason, the task of carrying out this task. Squad members have a very high loss rate... From a certain point of view, they are a kind of... consumables, just like the fuel used by vehicles that transport supplies.

But since fully automated production is adopted, why not simply set up a fully automatic transmission line to directly send the materials produced on the surface to the nest?No matter how bad it is, is it better to replace living people with robots?
Although selecting a ground exploration team from the bottom nest is the cheapest solution, it is also the solution with the worst stability. No one can be sure whether this team of temporarily formed teams with uneven qualities can complete the task. No one can guarantee that every member of each team will be loyal to their duties and do their best to complete their tasks as "consumables".

There are too many unreasonable things... but Ke Lan's subconscious is telling him over and over again that the picture he just imagined is very close to the truth.

A lot of things in the past have proved to Ke Lan that the accuracy of this "subconscious mind" that appears from time to time -- it's the subconscious mind, it's better to say that the things sealed in the back of his mind are "playing havoc" -- and The directly unlocked memory fragments are different. The "subconscious mind" will not tell Ke Lan the answer directly, but will tell Ke Lan whether the option is "correct" or "wrong" when he "does multiple-choice questions".

"Let's go." Ke Lan said to 33, "In our current position, we have to pass through the eastern half of the area first, and then pass through this artificial forest...I'm afraid we will inevitably encounter battles, and it will be without Ze Luo's assistance. Down."

"How can you be sure that there will be a battle? Didn't the managers at this level already lose control of the hive capital?" 33 asked curiously.

"Do you know what the elites like to do most when they are bored?"

"Have a banquet, have a party?" 33 was stunned for a moment, and said tentatively, "Don't look at me like that, I have been a soldier for most of my life, and after retiring, I either run small restaurants or explore ruins. The day-to-day activities of society..."

"It's hunting." Ke Lan said, "In the old era, no matter in the East or the West, the aristocrats were extremely keen on hunting, and many countries would dedicate a large area as a hunting garden to meet the needs of the elite. Demand. And in this man-made forest, there is quite a large area marked as a 'hunting ground'."

"You mean...in this hunting ground, there may still be a group of prey alive..." 33 followed Ke Lan's words, "No...it should be said that they are the descendants of that group of prey back then, but after experiencing After the impact of the disaster, and several 100,000 years of evolution and mutation, the ones who survived should be some extremely perverted monsters... Just thinking about it makes it tricky enough."

"Yeah. This is also something I am more concerned about." Ke Lan nodded and said, "Although the tunnel dwellers have also mutated, they have not been affected by the disaster in essence... According to my inference, the outbreak of the Shangcheng District that year. The 'disaster' should be more serious than the lower city and the bottom hive, what we will encounter on this floor...hard to say."

"Don't be so pessimistic, the bottom nest and the lower city area have been emptied, maybe the upper city area is also empty... Hundreds of thousands have passed, even if the corpse has been eroded, it should have already turned into dust..."

"There is one thing that seems to have never been confirmed by us." Ke Lan said solemnly, a bold idea suddenly popped up in his head, "33, you said... when a human being, or some kind of Biological, after the degree of erosion exceeds the critical point and becomes a carcass, can it still retain its fertility?"

"This...it's really hard to say." 33 took a breath, "Unless the group of lunatics in the research institute caught live samples of erosion... With their weird brain circuits, maybe it's true. Will give it a try...”

(End of this chapter)