Chapter 66: I want to go down and take a look
Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
Editor: Karai
A sea of tall trees lay beneath the craft, of varying species, but most of them with broad, tender leaves that were glowing bright red and yellow, the wind from the craft sending waves through the sea.
By the mission’s astronomers’ calculations, it was still thirteen days before the Earth’s day-night equinox, but the vehicle’s temperature measurements showed that the average outside temperature had already reached 20 degrees Celsius.
As Lin Xu remembered, the area around the base was surrounded by hardy coniferous forests, but now it had all changed.
For three thousand years, Earth was gradually warming up, the polar glaciers were melting, flooding the remains of many coastal cities, and the East Region’s main base, which was originally inland, had become seaward, with a glimpse of the blue ocean on the horizon.
Who would have thought that during every logistical meeting at the apocalypse base, the biggest headache for Lin Xu and others would be the cold nuclear winter and where to get the energy needed to heat the base. More terrible than the zombies, and more capable of destroying human civilization, was the thermonuclear war caused by human hands.
Long before the emergence of the zombies, the war between humans had already begun. At first it was a localized hot war, then it expanded dramatically, the whole world was involved. When the first finger pressed the nuclear button, it was destined for more horrible weapons to be dropped.
A large amount of smoke filled the sky over Earth, ash blotted out the sun, crops, plants and animals died in the cold of the nuclear winter, and the shortage of resources brought about by the high-consumption war would not quench the burning fire, but would only make the fight intensify. More human, material and financial resources were put into the war machine, and everything seemed to have no end in sight.
Until the zombie virus, and plant and animal mutations broke this vicious circle, the old warring groups were overthrown, the only remaining humans stopped killing each other and began to work together to fight the zombies and mutations – it was difficult to tell whether this was salvation or the ultimate punishment for humanity.
As the pain and despair continued to spread, the Northern Regional Headquarters shared with the top brass of each base the information they found on the remnants of the old group, which documented the cause of the zombie crisis – one side in the war wanted to build a biological weapon, but the experiment leaked and the immature and dangerous source of infection caused human mutation.
At the summit, the top brass of the bases jointly signed an agreement that they would absolutely keep this secret until the zombie crisis was lifted.
It was true that making it public would completely destroy the old groups in the shadows that were foolishly looking for a comeback in terms of rationality, and no one would ever question the political organization of the base.
But the human mind in distress could not bear another painful fire at this time, being told that all destruction was caused by its own greed and madness. What humanity needed was the hope of renewal.
Three thousand years later in the warm spring, the trees send out new branches, white birds flying, wings shining with a soft light. In the midst of the dense forest, the pulsating lake was like a huge turquoise stone, lying flat between the mountains and rivers, wrinkled by the breeze.
Looking down from the aircraft, this area could not see any traces of human civilization. Due to the overgrown vegetation, the aircraft could not find a suitable landing position, so Heinrich turned on the auto-hover mode to leave the aircraft in the air, and the two of them relied on the speed rope to land on the surface.
Earth’s gravity was less than Imperial’s standard gravity, and it took Lin Xu and Heinrich a while to get used to the soft soil and moss before they could walk properly.
The forest was silent, the hovering mode was nearly silent, and the only thing left in the ears was the mountain breeze through the forest and leaves.
Lin Xu took a glance at the near-pristine forest and walked with Heinrich toward the destination lake. As they approached, the radiation value on the isolation suit detector began to rise, and when they stopped at the lake shore, the detector issued a sharp alarm, “High radiation value, please approach with caution.”
The lake was still turquoise blue and calm. “What is this place?” Heinrich looked at Lin Xu.
“… Remnants of human civilization.” Lin Xu gazed at the lake. The turquoise blue water reflected the blue sky and was bottomless, but in its natural state, it was impossible for a lake with a radiation value that exceeded the surrounding area by hundreds of times to appear.
Whether or not this was once a base, something must have happened in this area. Lin Xu wanted to continue forward, but Heinrich grabbed his arm, “What are you doing?”
Lin Xu glanced back and frowned, “I need to go down and check out the bottom of the lake.”
He sounded bland and serious, as if jumping into a lake with excessive radiation and unfathomable depths was a normal, everyday task, and Lin Xu was still questioning with puzzled eyes when Heinrich dragged him back to his side. “The bottom of the lake is unknown.”
Lin Xu replies, “Yes, I know.” What was he doing down there if he could see the bottom at first glance?
“You…” Heinrich didn’t know how to respond to Lin Xu’s answer for a moment. From memory, Lin Xu did seem to always respond to crises with his bare hands, whether it was at the Silver Fortress or at Sand star, “The craft has deep water detection equipment, you don’t have to go down there yourself.”
“Oh… Okay.”
Heinrich, who had stopped Lin Xu, sighed in relief and used the terminal to contact the craft, asking the AI to put the spherical deep-water probe into the lake, the probe ball entering the water stirred up waves and a circle of ripples that spread to the riverbank, quickly disappearing into the water.
Lin Xu took a few more steps in Heinrich’s direction and looked at the images and data coming back from the probe on the light screen.
As the depth of the lake increased, the brightness of the natural sunlight coming in gradually decreased, and the detector automatically turned on the lighting mode, the beam of light penetrated the lake water and spread out in all directions.
The lake was so clean that Lin Xu did not see any aquatic plants or animals in the thirty meters that the probe descended underwater.
The deeper into the lake the higher the radiation intensity, the harder it would be for life to survive in such extreme conditions, and since no runoff was found to be injected into the lake, the water lacked the nutrients to sustain life. It was a clear, tranquil pool of stagnant water.
The image was suddenly covered with a layer of soot, the descent of the detector stopped, and the values showed that the depth of the lake here was 117 meters.
Radiation values spiked, even to the detector’s electronic components, the screen flickered. After waiting for the dust in the water to stabilize, the picture returned to clarity, but there was nothing but silt and sand at the bottom of the lake. Heinrich asked, “Is there supposed to be something in the water?”
Lin Xu looked very clear, even stubborn, that there had been something in this area. “Mn. 117 meters…” Lin Xu recited, “Is there a way to see what’s below the silt layer?”
Base buildings don’t just disappear for no reason, and combined with the sunken terrain and the unusual radiation levels in the lake, Lin Xu guessed that an explosion might have occurred here. An enemy attack? Or an internal crisis?
He remembered that after the thermonuclear war back then, the underground part of the base building reached a maximum depth of 150 meters in order to counteract the danger to ordinary humans from the residual nuclear radiation on the surface.
“Detectable if there is still space below the surface.” Heinrich turned on the probe’s further procedures, and soon the probe returned data showing that there was still space under the silt. Without waiting for Lin Xu to ask further questions, Heinrich took the initiative to ask, “Do we need to dig?”
Lin Xu thought for a moment, “Dig.”
—
After receiving the order, Arnold flew another vehicle to bring in three intelligent drilling and excavation devices to put them in the lake where Lin Xu had specified. They had to wait.
Ripple after ripple spread out from the center of the lake, and Heinrich took a test tube of lake water for Arnold to take back to check the biomass.
Lin Xu stood by the lake for a while and asked Heinrich if he wanted to go for a stroll in the forest. It was three hours before sunset in the area, the warmest time of the day, and the green leaves were glowing, and the deep forest of Earth was a sight that the man-made forests on Capital Star could not possess.
Heinrich nodded in Lin Xu’s gray eyes. The two walked side by side through the forest, the wet and warm forest was particularly rich in species, and more than once Heinrich caught snakes that woke up, and after Lin Xu taught him to identify the species, he tossed them away so they wouldn’t bite.
Heinrich suddenly asked, “Lin Xu, do you like the environment of Cacamorra Plains very much?”
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m wondering where you’ll go when you find the answers and it’s all over.”
Lin Xu didn’t have a strong love or passion for the universe and stars, in contrast, walking through nature seemed to make him seem more relaxed, so when it was all over, Heinrich’s reason for abducting Lin Xu to the Victoria would not be valid.
“I…” Lin Xu was about to say that he didn’t have any extra savings, and if he didn’t live in that house on Cacamorra Plains, he’d have to go to the borderlands and take over the mountain, but then he suddenly remembered that Mariana had left him enough wealth to buy a planet, but the more options he had, the more clueless he became.
“Godric – that Godric who runs the shipping company, he said that he might establish a civilian route between Earth and Einstein Galaxy, maybe I could stay on Earth.”
“It will take a while to re-establish the city on Earth, and until then, you…” Is it possible to stay on the Victoria? Before Heinrich’s question could be asked, Lin Xu suddenly pulled his arm.
“What’s wrong?”
Lin Xu inclined his ears and stared, his suddenly serious face piercing the relaxed outing atmosphere, “There was a sound just now…”
As the two walked among the trees, in addition to the waves of leaves and birdsong sent by the breeze, the combat boots made a fine sound when they stepped on the moss and branches.
But the sound just now was not either of these, but rather like… rather like glass breaking. It takes millions of years for inorganic glass to degrade, so it’s not surprising that there were glass products left behind by humans in the forest.
But Lin Xu had a vague premonition that stung his temples, “You lift your foot and step back.”
Heinrich followed Lin Xu’s request and took a step back in the opposite direction, exposing the overgrown ground beneath his feet, his own weight plus the weight of his powered exoskeleton enough to bend the blades of grass and leave a deep footprint.
In the midst of the footprint, a transparent stone block broken into several pieces was emitting an orange glow, something like light and liquid flowing from the broken block, seeping into the fallen grass and leaves, a brownish-green vine thick enough to wriggle, absorbing all the contents of the broken block.
Heinrich followed the vine and looked as far as the eye could see without finding the body of the plant. Lin Xu’s pupils fluttered and he yelled at Heinrich, “Back off now!!!”
He kicked Heinrich out of the vine range before he could react, and the orange liquid was all absorbed, turning the rubble into a fragile collection of gray□□ dust.
Suddenly the vine lifted, the dust scattered in the air, and the thick vine attacked Lin Xu, who was closest to it, like a living tentacle.
Lin Xu quickly leaped up to avoid the vines that broke through the air, and the tree trunk behind him was cut off by the vines! It was a crystal core and an A-Class mutant plant!
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