This Game is Too Real

  Chapter 745 The last hole card

  Wandering Swamp, far north.

  The cold wind and snow are like thousands of flying shuttles, weaving the endless white into an endless Milky Way.

  This is not only the northernmost border of the college, but also the northernmost border of the entire Central Continent. The temperature is below minus 20 degrees all year round, and even reaches minus 100 degrees at the coldest time.

  The extreme climate is a natural barrier, just like the desert surrounding the oasis in Luoxia Province.

   Only a few thick-haired, fat and hypertrophic xenomorphs can move in this area.

  However, in this bitterly cold place frozen thousands of miles away, there is one of the most prosperous settlements in the Wandering Swamp.

   Its name is Ice Sea City.

  As the name suggests, this settlement sits on the shore of the permafrost.

  The settlement hundreds of meters high is entirely cast from alloy, like a giant ax draped over an iceberg, and the metal walls emit a cold light in the wind and snow.

   It is said that more than two centuries ago, it was the seed bank of the People's Federation. It was not until a century and a half ago that it was transformed into a settlement, where the first batch of technicians who left the post-war reconstruction committee lived.

   Later, the Science and Technology Committee was established, and this place was placed under the management of the Science and Technology Committee.

  However, although it is managed by the Science and Technology Committee, because of the particularity of this settlement, the people living here are not living a difficult life.

The whistling wind, snow and severe cold are all blocked out by the walls of the settlement. Except for the seed area embedded in the iceberg, which can feel the cold of tens of degrees below zero, the other production areas and living areas can even be said to be four-seasonal. spring.

   Besides, the people here don't work too hard.

The most common job is that of a gardener, and the "hardest" work that needs to be done is just regular care of some special crops grown in tropical climates in a hot and sweaty greenhouse, and most of the time is spent watching drinking tea while looking at the monitor screen.

   Besides the most common gardeners, the most sought-after positions here are undoubtedly the assistants and apprentices recruited by the academy's official researchers.

  Different from the apprentices in the college, the apprentices in Ice Sea City are just a job position, usually tied to a specific research project, mainly for young survivors between the ages of 12 and 18 who have excellent higher education examinations.

  Although the treatment of this position is no different from that of a gardener, for a child who is preparing for the exam in December every year, it is an excellent opportunity to get in touch with tutors and scientific research work in advance.

  As long as these boys and girls are a little smarter and not stupid enough to offend their boss, they will get some care.

  After all, most of their bosses have also experienced that exam, understand their situation at the moment, and prepare for the exam that determines the fate of their lives while participating in work.

  Usually, just one or two words of advice can save these children from detours for several years.

And when they pass the assessment and become real apprentices, a letter of recommendation or just a name on their work resume will allow them to spend the apprenticeship period more easily than children in other areas of the Science and Technology Committee, and even get a mentor's appointment. Recognized, skip the Prospector rank and go straight to an honorable Researcher.

Even if it is a 10,000-step back, a genuine apprentice who has not been admitted to the academy after N years of examination, and has to give up his position to others when he reaches the age of 18, this apprentice from Ice Sea City can usually get a place in the settlement because of his own scientific research experience. Get a good job, or even enter the management of the Science and Technology Committee to start another life.

  Because of the favorable conditions here, any researcher with some energy and deep affection for his family will find a way to stuff his family into this settlement.

  The researchers who go out from this settlement will more or less take care of their own hometown, and help this settlement as much as they can.

It is precisely because of this that although the researchers of the college do not directly participate in the management of the gathering place under the Science and Technology Committee, it still gives the settlement of Ice Sea City a detached status, and even formed a name of Ice Sea City among the students. regional factions.

It's just that due to the relative indifference and weak interpersonal relationships in the academy, factions that rely on blood and geography are not as strong as those that have direct interests. Therefore, this faction doesn't get much attention, and only has influence on some insignificant issues. force.

  For example, the special zone jointly established by the alliance and the academy.

  For the college, it doesn’t matter where the special zone is located in the Science and Technology Committee. Anyway, the core interests of most researchers are within the college.

   As a result, this special zone landed in Ice Sea City.

   It has been half a year since the special zone landed, and some shelter residents from the alliance have indeed brought a lot of interesting new gadgets to the local area.

  Whether it is material or spiritual, their optimism and bravery are something that people here have not seen for a long time.

certainly.

  These guys who came from afar didn’t bring all the happy things.

  On the tarmac on the dome of Ice Sea City, a long shuttle-shaped aircraft slowly landed and stopped.

  A refrigerated stasis chamber was lifted down and placed on the snowy ground.

   Two old men, a man and a woman, stood at the entrance of the tarmac. They were wearing thick winter clothing, leaning against each other, silently watching the coffin sunk into the snow.

  The transparent mask was covered with a layer of hoarfrost, making it impossible to see the expressions on the faces of the two of them clearly.

   But from that silent atmosphere, people around can feel the pervasive sadness.

A soldier wearing an exoskeleton stepped across the snow and walked up to the two old people. He tapped his left arm twice with his index finger, unfolded a palm-sized holographic screen on his arm, and gently pushed it to the two old people. in front of.

   "Condolences."

  The woman who saw the picture on the holographic screen swayed and seemed to faint.

  The husband standing aside put his arms around her shoulders, looked at the soldier and said nothing, just nodded silently.

  The three of them only communicated with that one sentence.

   After the soldier nodded, he turned and returned to the shuttle-shaped aircraft.

  The silver-white fuselage rose slowly, and a faint blue flame shot out from the tail, and disappeared into the boundless snowstorm, as if it had never been here before...

  A dozen residents of Ice Sea City stood at the entrance of the tarmac, arm in arm and leaning together, holding a simple funeral for the poor child.

  Afterwards, his body will be sent to be cremated, part of it will be preserved as a memorial, and part of it will be sprinkled on the wind and snow flying in the sky.

  Standing by the floor-to-ceiling windows in the settlement, several players wearing exoskeletons cast their eyes on the tarmac with interest.

  They recognized the soldier's equipment, especially the gas mask embedded in the helmet, and there was no doubt that it was a member of the Alpha Task Force.

   One thing to say, this game is really realistic. Even the NPC killed by the plot in the background board has a complete life of his own.

  They only heard about the defeat in the battle thousands of kilometers away on the forum, but they didn't expect to see the corpse dragged from the front line in the game within a few days.

  Insignificant NPCs like changing to other games may just make up the number in the cutscenes, and then refresh them.

   "...I thought that the members of the Alpha Task Force were all poor ghosts who couldn't eat potatoes."

  A strength player muttered, with an obvious expression of surprise on his face.

  The agile player next to him also nodded and said with emotion.

   "I didn't expect there to be guys from Ice Sea City."

   Having stayed in this settlement for a few days, they still have a good understanding of the local situation.

  Even if the ideal city is used as a reference, the life of the local residents can definitely be called affluent, just not as good as the prospectors and researchers of the academy.

  Whether the guy is looking for excitement, pursuing a different life and ideals, or just rebelling against dogma, joining "Alpha" requires courage.

   Another intelligence player interjected.

   "But at least his relatives can receive the urn, and others may not."

  The strength player shrugged.

   "That's the two sides of the world."

   While talking, a group of people took the elevator to the exit of the settlement, and got on the all-terrain crawler vehicle that was already waiting there.

   Their task today is to go to the ruins of the nearby city of Molokova, collect local fruiting body samples, and bring them to the researchers of the Alliance Institute of Biology stationed in Ice Sea City.

  There is a dormant brood hidden deep in the ruins, somewhere below the subway station. Due to the camouflage effect produced by a large number of spore coats, existing technical means cannot determine its specific location.

  The fruiting body produced by that brood is also quite characteristic. It is extremely good at camouflage, can integrate with the environment, and suddenly attack after the prey approaches.

The current long-term goal of the Myxoplasma special zone is to find the specific coordinates of the mother nest and eat it with Xiaoyu. The short-term goal is to analyze the mother nest and provide reference data for the research projects of variant slime molds in various regions of the Myxoplasma .

  Although it is only a tiny job, any huge plan is composed of countless such tiny jobs.

  At the same time as the group of people left, a man and a woman stood in front of the French window where they had stopped before.

  Looking at the dormant cabin outside the window, Jiang Xuezhou's face was full of complex expressions.

  She didn't know the parents, let alone the person lying in the dormant cabin.

  She just suddenly thought that if she hadn't been able to come out of No. 0 shelter that day, but had died in this wasteland like countless researchers who had encountered accidents...

  Her heart tightened slightly, she lowered her head for a moment, and whispered something.

"Hello…"

  Seeing Jiang Xuezhou's serious face, Ye Shi who was standing beside him made a helpless expression.

   "What's wrong with you again."

  Jiang Xuezhou continued in a low voice.

   “…I want to go home.”

   "Come back."

  Ye Shi gave her a strange look, do you need to tell yourself this kind of thing?

  Lips moved, Jiang Xuezhou was a little embarrassed to speak, but finally opened his mouth.

   "...can you go back with me?"

  Since becoming an apprentice, she hasn't been back for a long time, and she doesn't know how to face those familiar and unfamiliar relatives, so she subconsciously wants to find a trusted partner to go back with her.

  As soon as Ye Shi heard that it was such a trivial matter, Ye Shi didn't think too much about it, and simply agreed.

   "OK, when?"

  Jiang Xuezhou froze for a moment.

  She just mentioned it casually, and didn't even plan on when to go back. She didn't expect the wooden man to agree so simply, and even asked when to leave.

   "...then... how about tomorrow?"

   Unprepared to say this sentence, it was only then that she suddenly realized something, and her cheeks gradually became hot.

  However, what she didn't know was that a certain guy didn't think that much at all, just when an exclamation point popped up on the NPC's head.

"no problem…"

  Seeing Jiang Xuezhou whose face suddenly turned red into an apple, Ye Shi couldn't help but have a strange expression on his face.

  This guy has been distracted lately.

   Could it be a fever?

  …

  The front line thousands of kilometers away.

  The scorching flames even melted the snow on the Blood Mountain.

  The roar of artillery fire was earth-shattering, followed by crackling gunshots and roars of mutants.

   It seems that to avenge the shame, the Alpha Task Force re-formulated a more careful combat plan based on the intelligence collected in the previous battle, and launched a more violent offensive than before.

   This time it was not just two hundred-man squadrons that were pushed to the front line, but a whole ten squadrons with a total of 1,000 people!

  The two sides started a fierce exchange of fire in the cave.

  Under the cover of the drone attack formation, teams filled in the abyss-like cave in an orderly manner. Some people went in, but no one came out.

  Looking at the ferocious offensive of the Alpha Task Force, General Modlin, who was standing halfway up Broken Blade Mountain, couldn't help showing a surprised expression on his face.

  Including the adjutant standing next to him, there was a look of disbelief on his face.

   "...Are these guys on drugs?" Looking at the direction of the front line, he muttered to himself.

  In just three days, the group of lifeless guys seemed to have changed.

  Although he couldn't see the situation in the cave, he could clearly feel the difference in those guys just by looking at their aura.

   "Maybe you really guessed it right." General Modlin frowned and lowered the telescope in his hand.

  The High Command of the Allied Forces has disclosed the characteristics of the Alpha Protozoa.

   According to that standard, the entire 310,000th team is afraid that only the punishment team and some awakened people with strong physical strength can block the erosion of the red mist.

  The operation three days ago has shown that the Alpha Task Force is not good at physical strength.

   Without changing the equipment, he can only suspect that these guys should have taken some medicine to improve immunity, or installed some bionic plug-in that can fight infection.

  Besides this, there was another thing that caught his attention.

   That is, he only saw these people coming in wave after wave, but no one came out of it.

  Either they fought to the last moment and died there, or they should have acquired some kind of ability to continue to recover during the battle.

  Thinking of this, General Modlin's eyes couldn't help showing a hint of interest, and he couldn't help but look forward to the outcome of this battle.

   It was not only General Modlin who was watching the battle, but also Commander Spring, the commander of the Storm Corps, and Edge, the commander of the Death Corps.

  The two of them also stood on the mountainside of Broken Blade Mountain, watching the battlefield that was close at hand.

   "Oh my god... they are a bunch of ruthless people." With a shocked expression on his face, he couldn't help but let out a sigh when he was paddling on the edge of the water.

   Not counting those clones without complete minds, it was the first time he saw a guy in this game who was not afraid of death like them.

   "Indeed..." Commander Quanshui nodded in agreement, and stared at the battle situation on the front line with his binoculars.

  In a sense, the Torch is really a match this time.

  Although the college's attitude towards Blue Coat is relatively friendly, he still has to complain that these guys are not their opponents when it comes to being inappropriate.

  Thousands of biological prosthetics were inoculated in three days, and one-third of the alphas on the front line "transferred" in situ, from mechanized soldiers to half-biological and half-mechanized soldiers.

  Although Xiaoyu is still quite cute after watching for a long time, it doesn’t seem to be a problem to change the skin occasionally to play, but all this is based on the premise of being able to be resurrected.

  If he can’t be resurrected, or if he can’t be resurrected, the biological prosthetic body won’t be washed away. He feels that even in the game, he might have to hesitate to pretend to be this thing.

   While the commanders of the coalition forces were watching the battle, the beast king standing on the blood mountain was also overlooking the entire battlefield.

   And there was also a trace of obvious surprise on that expressionless face.

"What it is?"

  He kept muttering, his eyes were full of astonishment, he couldn't believe what he saw in the eyes of those mutants, let alone understand.

  He witnessed a soldier of the Alpha Task Force being impaled in the chest by a stab thrown by a mutant mutant, and then thrown out violently.

  The hot blood even sprinkled on it (his) head, and the hot touch can never be an illusion simulated by holographic technology.

  For humans, that is undoubtedly a fatal wound.

However, it (he) had just wiped away the blood sticking to the spikes when it saw the unconscious soldier twitch suddenly, then lay on his side, grabbed his rifle, and pointed at it (him) with a burst of twitching. sweep.

  Unprepared, several electromagnetically accelerated projectiles smashed the mutant's chest and brain.

  He also lost his perception of the mutant for a moment, and returned to the perspective of God with a blank face.

  The brutal fighting continues.

   These guys with gas masks seem to have found a way to fight the poisonous fog.

   And not only that, their recovery ability has also become stronger, as if they have become another species overnight.

   "Haha...hahahaha!"

  The astonishment in his eyes gradually turned into frenzy, and he suddenly laughed out loud while looking down at his feet.

   "Fun...so much fun!"

   Active inoculation of fruiting bodies of benign varieties prior to infection with slime mold spores for immunity?

  These old things are not as rigid as he imagined, and they know how to adapt.

   Sure enough, it is interesting to compete with such a thoughtful opponent.

   Fighting with those Willant people, apart from getting a batch of organic matter, he can't learn anything.

   Overlooking the members of the Alpha Task Force Mobile Squad standing at the foot of the mountain, the Beastmaster said in a very soft voice.

   "...I want to understand the secrets of those guys, can I ask you to eat them?"

  That is not the sound transmitted by sound waves, but the communication between consciousness and consciousness.

   After waiting for a few minutes, the dull sound like an ancient clock slowly entered his sea of ​​consciousness.

   "I think...you'd better not let that guy get close to me."

  The Beastmaster was slightly taken aback, and frowned slightly.

   "Can't you eat it?"

  The "Lord of Plague" located deep in the mountain spoke slowly.

"Generally speaking, we evolved to devour other organisms. The devouring of other broods is just an accident in evolution. That guy is different. Its evolutionary logic is completely opposite to ours. It exists purely to devour other slime molds , and the humans who raise it can coexist.”

   "Like those green-skinned guys who can tolerate my smell and even worship me, you can read it as... it's a 'mutant' among 'us'."

   After a pause, the voice continued.

   "I can feel it from that disgusting breathing sound, that guy has devoured at least two of his kind... I already have so many lovely children, I don't want to be the next one."

   Those believers are its children.

  It had never seen anything so interesting, embraced the distortions it had given them with cheer and love, instead of being terrified of what it looked like.

  The guy named Beastmaster told it that this is the "faith" of human beings, and they regard themselves as the mother who gave them life, even gods!

  It likes the title of Plague Lord very much, and it loves those believers who cheer its name even more than its own fruiting bodies.

It is precisely because of this that it will feed them with its own flesh and blood, and select the most devout guy among them as the "prophet" to cultivate the "plague", and then use that guy as a seedbed for spores to give them more Strong "evolution factor".

  In a sense, they are its subentities, at least in part.

  It has high hopes for them, hoping that they can continue to expand the size of the population until they occupy the entire planet, and go to conquer more distant worlds with their belief in themselves.

  One day, they, calling their names, will return to their mother—Gaia instead.

  Perhaps they can bring a word to Him for themselves.

   Beastmaster pondered for a moment, then suddenly spoke.

   "Then if you can devour it, wouldn't you also get... the ability to devour other slime molds?"

  He thought of the forest in Baiyue Province, where Naguo was born, and Naguo's weakness was there.

  If the brood there can be devoured, their kingdom of heaven will no longer have any weaknesses.

  The Lord of Plague was silent for a moment, then spoke slowly.

"That's right, but... its body doesn't seem to be here, so far only its fruiting bodies have appeared. My fruiting bodies can digest them, but that's only a physical digestion. If I eat it They may suffer from indigestion."

   "I see... I understand." The Beastmaster nodded thoughtfully.

   This is indeed a problem.

  But they can use scientific methods to solve it, such as making the samples harmless before feeding them.

certainly.

   That was after Qingquan City was taken.

   "Forget about this... My children are begging for my help, and you should have heard them crying." Looking at the beast king who seemed to be distracted, the voice of the Lord of Plague was urging.

  The situation on Blood Mountain is getting worse for its children.

   Not only its children, but also itself are in danger.

   It has a premonition.

   Bad things can happen if you let people into its lair with other slime mold fruiting bodies.

  The Beastmaster nodded slowly, turned around and looked at the gray sky in the southeast.

   That is the direction of Haiya Province.

  Standing on the top of the Blood Mountain, you can even see the gray fog permeating there, and the prosperous country hidden in the gray fog.

   He admitted that the fruiting bodies that lodged in people were beyond his expectations.

   But those guys are underestimating him if they think they can beat him with a surprise card or two.

  They set foot in this barren and chaotic land many years before these old things noticed the land.

  It took them more than ten years of operation to allow the seeds to take root, germinate, bloom, and bear abundant fruits.

  All the land from Shifeng Mountain to Weifu Wasteland is his domain, and the kingdom of heaven has descended here long ago.

   These guys just built a few houses on it and took down a few hills, thinking that it was their territory.

  It has always been his territory.

  He will make them remember this profound lesson.

"no need to worry."

  The Beastmaster waved his hand gently, and the red mist wrapped around the mountain seemed to be in a trance for a moment, and then it was replaced by the slowly rising gray-green thick fog.

   "It's time for fog."

  (end of this chapter)