Alien Relic Hunter

"'Disaster'? No, only ignorant people would call it a 'disaster'." The voice said, "This is not a disaster at all, but His mercy and gift to lower creatures... …Those people who could only live for a few decades and do nothing could be lucky enough to become a part of Him, gain eternal life and the supreme status in the universe…Can this be considered a ‘disaster’?”

"I finally understand... Did you learn the prophet's stupid rhetoric from here?"

"He did stay here for a while."

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

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

"Become the food of that great god." Ke Lan interrupted the other party again, "Okay, stop talking nonsense and just tell me if you can tell me what happened in the nest city. That's fine. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, it’s that simple!”

"If you want to know everything, just raise your head..."

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

The other party seemed to really obey Ke Lan's request. After Ke Lan said this, he stopped making any sound... The suddenly quiet environment made Ke Lan feel a little uncomfortable.

Neither the managers of the lower city nor the upper city were willing to reveal more information to him, which made Ke Lan feel a little disappointed... If one of the two "Nietos" has been eroded to such an extent, After passing the critical point, there is no doubt that it should be the "Nieto" in the upper city. As for what is on the dome...

In fact, Ke Lan is also very curious, but he will never raise his head to look unless it is absolutely necessary.

This is a risky move, and it is a move that the managers of Shangcheng District really want to see themselves play... In the conversation just now, the other party's purpose was so clear that there was almost no concealment: No matter what Ke Lan asked, the other party would always There is only one answer - let Ke Lan raise his head and look at the dome.

If the managers of the upper city are really sincere in the slightest, at least they can always tell themselves how the hive was destroyed through oral accounts - even the last survivors of the hive can use their notes to describe those events. Written descriptions mean that the “disaster” is not something that cannot be described using language and words. The survivors and the "Nieto" in the lower city did not want to explain because they were afraid of the further spread of the "disaster", but what was this "Nieto" in the upper city?

It obviously admires "disaster" very much... In this case, why not just tell the whole thing to itself?

If this information contains "forbidden knowledge", wouldn't it just deepen one's own erosion... Isn't this exactly what the other party wants to see?

From conventional logic, this makes little sense.

"Thirty-three, is that guy still bothering you?" Ke Lan looked at Thirty-Three and asked.

Thirty-three shook his head: "No, she really shut up after you told her to shut up just now."

"So obedient?" Ke Lan muttered, "Or...is this guy planning something else?"

"Ke Lan, there's actually one thing I haven't been able to figure out." Thirty-three said, "If she wants us to see the dome so much, why doesn't she put mirrors around it? In this way, even if we don't Looking up, the moment we leave the passage, we will unconsciously see the dome through the mirror reflection... It is much easier to do this, 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 imagined... There is a high probability that it has lost control of the upper city area." Ke Lan analyzed.

"This is best, to save her from setting a lot of traps for us..." Thirty-three said, "What should we do now? Find the managers on this floor?"

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

On the wall of the garbage treatment plant, there is a simple structural diagram of Shangcheng District. From the picture, you can see that in addition to luxurious commercial and residential areas, Shangcheng District also has a large man-made forest and a An artificial rockery about 300 meters above sea level, the peak of this rockery is located in the center of the forest, and the forest separates 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 dozens of small and medium-sized "families", while the entire western half belongs to the sphere of influence of one family. The family emblem is a family emblem made of dozens of large and small pieces. A kite-shaped shield composed of small gears of various sizes, with a circle of thorny thorns wrapped around the outer edge of the shield - full of retro artistic flavor, and full of the power and mechanical sense unique to the industrial age.

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

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

The real rulers on the Ark refer to the "Undead Crew", and in the hive, they naturally refer to the people living on the fourth level of "Cloud Top".

"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 level of life? The uptown area is consuming the necessary supplies for survival at a rate that can be compared to arrogance and extravagance. There is no need to describe it in detail. One day's consumption in the upper city area can probably meet the basic needs of the lower city area and the bottom nest for a whole year... There is even more." Thirty-three said while trying to make a An expression that could express his thoughts, but he tried several times and finally gave up.

He sighed, shook his head, frowned and said, "Is this hive... really a shelter?"

Shelters, as the name suggests, are survival fortifications built to avoid disasters... Even if those high-end shelters for the rich are as luxurious as mansions, 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 no long-term planning is done, a shelter with abundant material reserves will eventually be turned into a tomb or abandoned... Although the hive is large in area, its productivity is not strong, and many things cannot be self-sufficient... ...In this case, even the rich and powerful must try to save as much as possible, instead of living a more wasteful life 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 families can be traced back to the interstellar drifting era or 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 first few years after landing on Alpha Planet, even the young masters and ladies from wealthy families tightened their belts and invested precious and limited resources in places that needed them most.

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 could only get one bag of synthetic food a day, while nobles probably could. To three bags, maybe one more bag of mustard.

Many aristocratic people over fifty years old often lament when they recall the life of that era - a canned luncheon meat that was almost entirely filled with starch and synthetic fats was shared among the family, and they had to eat it for a week. This is something that is simply unimaginable to the young masters and ladies born after the 930th year of the New Era.

"Perhaps... they don't lack resources." Ke Lan relaxedly rubbed the pads of his thumb and middle finger and thought, "Although the entire nest is now sealed under the sea, when they take the initiative to sink the nest to the bottom of the sea, Before, the hive city was not in a completely closed state... they even sent out ground exploration teams regularly, although the survival rate of these exploration teams was appallingly low... Well, if only they could get a job as a ground exploration team Just report the document.”

Ke Lan suddenly had a doubt in his heart - is the "Ice Era" really "frozen" as it literally means? Or is it just a reference?

Just like the word "disaster" that appeared most frequently in conversations with Nieto?

In fact, there are extremely abundant materials on the surface of the earth, but for some reasons, people have to huddle underground...

A picture like this popped up in Ke Lan's mind: On the surface of Alpha Planet, a large number of automated production facilities are scattered everywhere, and all kinds of living resources are continuously produced from the factory assembly lines... And manufacturing The humans who had forgotten all this hid in the underground hive. They could only send out 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 people who performed this task Team members have an extremely high loss rate... From a certain perspective, they are like the fuel used by vehicles transporting supplies, and they are a... consumable.

But since we have adopted fully automated production, why not simply set up a fully automated transportation line to directly deliver the materials produced on the surface to the hive capital? No matter what, how about using robots to replace living people?

Although selecting a ground exploration team from the bottom nest is the cheapest option, it is also the least stable option. No one can be sure whether this temporarily formed team with varying qualities can complete the task. No one can guarantee that every member of every team will be loyal to their duties and do their best to complete their tasks as "consumables."

There were too many unreasonable things... But Ke Lan's subconscious told him over and over again that the picture he just imagined was very close to the truth.

Many things in the past have proved to Ke Lan the accuracy of this "subconscious" that appears from time to time - it is better to say that it is subconscious, but it is better to say that it is the things sealed deep in his mind that are "at work" - and The memory fragments that are directly unlocked are different. The "subconscious mind" will not tell Ke Lan the answer directly, but it will tell Ke Lan whether the option is "correct" or "wrong" when he "does the multiple-choice question."

"Let's go." Ke Lan said to Thirty-Three, "At our current location, 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 a battle, and without Ze Luo's assistance in the case of."

"How are you sure that you will encounter a battle? Haven't the managers at this level already lost control of the nest?" Thirty-three asked curiously.

"Do you know what the rich and powerful like to do most when they are bored?"

"Have a banquet or a party?" Thirty-three 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. After I retired, I was either running a small restaurant or exploring ruins. How do I know? Those daily activities of upper class society..."

"It's hunting." Ke Lan said, "In the old era, whether in the East or the West, the aristocracy was extremely keen on hunting. Many countries would dedicate a large area as a hunting park to satisfy the needs of the aristocracy. Demand. And in this man-made forest, there is a quite large area marked as a 'hunting ground'."

"You mean... there may still be a group of prey surviving in this hunting ground..." Thirty-three followed Ke Lan's words, "No... it should be said that they are the descendants of that batch of prey, but After experiencing the effects of disasters and hundreds of thousands of years of evolution and mutation, those who can still survive must be some extremely perverted monsters... It's quite troublesome just thinking about it."

"Yes. This is what I am more worried about." Ke Lan nodded, "Although the tunnel dwellers have also mutated, they have not been affected by disasters in essence... According to my inference, the outbreak in Shangcheng District that year The 'disaster' should be more serious than the lower city area and the bottom nest. What we will encounter on this level...it's hard to say."

"Don't be so pessimistic. Both the lower nest and the lower city have been emptied. Maybe the upper city is also empty... Hundreds of thousands have passed, even if they are eroded bones, they should have turned into dust long ago..."

"There is one thing that we have never been confirmed by." Ke Lan said solemnly, and a bold idea suddenly appeared in his head, "Thirty-three, you said... when humans, or... Can a certain organism retain its fertility after the erosion reaches a critical point and turns into a corpse?"

"This...it's really hard to say." Thirty-three took a breath of cold air, "Unless the group of lunatics at the research institute caught the living corpse samples...with their weird brain circuits, maybe they could still... I will really give it a try..."