Wasteland Echoer.

Chapter 3 Underground
  After an unknown amount of time, faint red light balls gradually appeared in the darkness not far from Haibo's sight. They jumped and rolled in front of Haibo, like a dancer groping for the world in the darkness.

The faint red ball of light swam wantonly and irregularly, and suddenly exploded near Haibo.

The spreading red sparks replicated and spread like a virus, slowly approaching his body and gradually binding him completely.

The red sparks seemed to deprive Haibo of all the air around him, and he felt that inexplicable things were pouring into his mouth and nose, making him feel suffocated.

After a while, he finally heard a vague word spoken in an old voice:
  "underground!"

"Huh!" Haibo didn't feel the familiar relief when he woke up from his dream. He looked at his commonly used old watch. The three hands all pointed upward, indicating that it was already 12 noon the next day.

Looking at the still dim world outside the glass window, Haibo couldn't wait for the influx of sunlight at noon and got up.

After changing into the standard work clothes of the escort, Haibo remembered a pack of "daily necessities" that George gave him before leaving yesterday.

"It seems that there are a lot of things about Wright who should be the warrior chosen by George. As the old saying goes, talents come first in the wasteland, but after inheriting this body, I shouldn't be much worse than Wright, right? , Wright?" After Haibo laughed at himself, he unexpectedly opened the tightly wrapped package skillfully.

The food, a few pieces of unbranded black bread wrapped in oil paper, was just enough to satisfy my hunger.

Wright's physical recovery and yesterday's busyness made Haibo forget to eat. Although the hunger was inexplicably not as intense as expected, this thing could just make up for his withered body.

There are also some, new coins, these are new coins, right.

From the remaining memory fragments of Wright, Haibo learned that this was the currency issued by the Zine Empire after the apocalyptic crisis of the New Yuan Dynasty.

It is jointly issued by the Imperial Bank of Zhne and the Industrial Bank of Sokra, with gold as its reserve asset.

Thirty-five new dollars was exchanged for one ounce of gold. With the support of sufficient supplies and precious metals such as gold and silver, the currency value was maintained stable through two-way exchange and became the only hard currency banknote in the entire western continent.

Although new currency needs to be continuously issued for material circulation, maintaining currency value stability requires strict control of issuance, which creates a contradiction under the fixed exchange system.

However, the production and consumption of human strongholds in the wasteland can always reach a strange balance, which also results in the value of the new currency being stable for a long time.

The new currency uses the yuan as the basic unit, with points as the auxiliary currency below, and 100 points are exchanged for one yuan. However, new coins in cents were mostly minted in copper or silver coins.

A piece of bread costs about 5-10 cents, and Mr. George gave me a lot, a full thousand new dollars.

Looking at the ten brand-new coins with portraits of the heroes of the city of Socra on the front and dark-toned cityscapes of the city of Socra on the back, Haibo suddenly felt that the world was so beautiful.

After all, he received a large amount of wealth when he arrived.

In the original world, if you wanted to get such a large amount of purchasing power, in addition to working hard for a year, you also had to ensure that you did not make mistakes or lose your job.

As for the assets of one thousand new dollars, in addition to being able to buy the best weapons and equipment in the city of Sugra, even if it only buys food, it can also fill several warehouses.

From Wright's memory, Haibo learned that this member of the escort did not seem to care about money. No matter how much money he had, it was like dirt to him. After all, surviving in this wasteland era was the first priority.

After folding the new coins and simply placing them in your jacket pocket, there shouldn't be much valuable left in the package.

After sorting out the messy items, Haibo discovered that there was a dark yellow envelope without stamps placed in an inconspicuous corner of the package.

It just happened to be stuck in a corner of the gap between items and packages, and it was impossible to find it without dumping everything out.

"Envelope, does George want to tell Wright alone if there is any inconvenience?" Haibo asked doubtfully.

After taking out a slightly rusty paper knife from the drawer, Haibo slowly opened the envelope along the glued area.

"Yes, an exam question? A test question?" Haibo looked at the paper neatly printed on a manual typewriter with some confusion.

This letter marked the intention and purpose in a minimalist style. The Zine Empire letters of the test question at the top were large and clear, and there was only a simple text description below except for a picture.

"A train is going to pass through a railway track. There are five people tied up at one end, and a person who accidentally entered is sitting on the abandoned railway track on the other side. Now you control the controller and can choose to guide the train to run over one person or five people. How do you choose? "

"The trolley problem? Sure enough, you need to take this kind of question to survive in the wasteland. Most people's answers should be two, save five people, or save one person. But, it's my choice." Haibo's mouth curled up slightly. rising.

He found the "Zhu Yuan brand" pencil that was rarely used but had a finely trimmed tip from the drawer, and wrote down his answer.

"Do not activate the controller, and hand over the person who violated the regulations and strayed onto the abandoned railway tracks to the Socratic Committee for trial. To survive in the wasteland, human beings must accept their own destiny, and those who violate the order must pay the price for it. .”

He is not a saint, and if he encounters a similar real situation, he will not dare to take responsibility that is not his own.

What seems like a question of saving one person or saving five people is actually a trap.

This is a wasteland world, this is a wasteland world full of dangers and people die every day!
  After finishing this question, Haibo stuffed the letter paper back into the envelope and began to greedily eat the bread.

The bread George gave him was very dark and did not have the golden crust he had seen before.

And the taste in the mouth is like chewing plastic, without any extra taste to stimulate appetite.

But now this piece of bread is more delicious than any delicacy in the world, and his body belonging to Wright is now in an unprecedented state of hunger.

Without food, his body will fall into a sleepy state and die. Or be carried away by the desire for food, guided by a mysterious virus, and become an unintentional person who destroys the world.

After simply eating the food that didn't look like food, Haibo subconsciously began to organize his clothes and put on his equipment.

Whether it was Wright's remaining memory fragments or Haibo's innate sixth sense, he realized that there would be a combat mission today. "Wright, the commander of the escort is here."

Just as he was clipping the revolver he saw first and the "Wild Bear" pistol issued by the Socra Committee for the escort to his waist, the harsh and shrill voice of the fat landlady Lena came to Haibo. in the ears.

The sound was almost the same as the whine of the steam machinery outside. The only difference might be that the landlady made it from a human mouth.

Humans have human voices, and beasts have beast voices. When a voice comes from another body, things get weird.

After thinking of the few words he read in some book, Haibo chuckled, but immediately replied:
  "Here we come, come down immediately!"

Without thinking too much, Haibo rushed down the dilapidated wooden stairs.

The person who came was a young man in his twenties. He had a clean face under his brown hair. It seemed that he had washed himself deliberately before coming here.

He is wearing a silver-backed guard uniform similar to Haibo's. If there is any difference, it should be the "Long Sword and Hammer" badge on the chest that represents the Sogra Guard.

The badges of ordinary guardsmen are black, those with lower positions are silver, and those with higher ranks classified as generals are gold.

The badge of the person in front of me is pure silvery white!
  "De?" Haibo blurted out. In Wright's memory, the name of the person in front of him was De Moti, a squad leader of Team Z of the Socra Guard.

Although they are said to be able to take care of things, compared to many people with status, they are not big figures.

"Well, thank you, madam. I have something to say to Wright, do you understand?" De ignored Haibo directly, but turned his head and pushed away the bloated landlord.

The landlady was also very honest. Although she looked down on Haibo from the outer area, the captain of the escort team in front of her was a native of Sugra that she could not afford to offend.

"Wright, I know you just came back from the outer area. You really shouldn't be assigned any tasks at this time.

However, the meaning of the escort is also very clear. As a human born in the outer area, if you want to gain a foothold in Sokra, the capital of the Zine Empire, you must know how to play your own value. So you have to go for today's mission. "

value? Residual value?

De's tone made Haibo a little bit crazy. He originally wanted to continue wandering around the city of Sogra to piece together Wright's memories, but he had just woken up and regained some strength and came to the task. De really hit the right time.

Although there were 100 million reluctances in his heart, Haibo still had an unusually interested expression on his face.

In Wright's memory fragments, he is a person from outside the area. He is full of curiosity about everything about Sogra, and he has to learn as much as possible.

Haibo must not let anyone know that he is a time traveler. Haibo secretly set a bottom line for himself.

"I'm going, shall I go now?" Haibo replied neatly. His attitude may determine his future status and development in Sogra.

Seeing Haibo agreeing so quickly, De couldn't hide his joy.

After pulling Haibo into the escort's unique mechanical vehicle, he began to introduce the details of the mission to him with great interest.

"Wright, you know, our city Socra is a great whole. But the unintentional and the lost will always target us. Our unique city defense system has always fulfilled its mission responsibly, but those The Lost Ones of Evolution are always looking for holes in our city.”

"Loophole?" Haibo became interested.

Everything that is huge has details that cannot be noticed, and Haibo is happy to hear about it.

"That's right. Every forty years, when the power of the Lord of the Night and the Goddess of Light gather in this city, the dome will disappear, and those mysterious powers will emerge from the waterways.

What maintains the power of the city of Socra has never been those machines that can only fight, but the power of magic and a series of mysterious forces. However, these powers will cause the lost and the unintentional to notice.

In addition, every time the dome is opened, something will try to sneak in. So, Wright, your mission this time is to go to Sogra to check the water channels underground. But don't worry, these are routine inspections.

In the past five hundred years, the dome has been opened more than forty times, but nothing has ever been able to sneak into the center of Socra.

Of course, this mission is also a test for you. You must carefully check all the waterways for the above to see, otherwise you may return to the outer area and leave here at any time. "De explained.

It must be a simple task, but rather than calling it a bug, this situation is an unavoidable design issue.

I guess there shouldn't be any danger!
  The mechanical chariot shaped like the back of a turtle drove zigzag around the K-Z part of Sugra's residential area for a long time until there were no civilian buildings around.

At De's signal, the member of the escort team who was traveling with them parked the car near a dark building.

It seems that there is not much distance from the edge of the city where the dark dome and high wall are located.

Haibo observed that compared with the urban area, which is somewhat dim but does not affect life, such areas near the edge of Sogra city may only be able to see clearly through lights.

After following De and taking a few steps forward, Haibo and the others stopped at a huge man-made cave that resembled the entrance of a tunnel.

Except for a few large abandoned military buildings, there are only traces of black soil with a dirty smell around here.

Although it is within the city limits of Sogra, it seems so out of place with residential and commercial areas.

"This is the only passage to Sogra's underground."

(End of this chapter)