Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 866: Hunting Garden
“‘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 who could only survive for a few decades and do nothing can be fortunate enough to become a part of Him, gaining eternal life and the supreme position in the universe… Can this be considered a ‘disaster’?”
"I understand now... Did you learn the Prophet's stupid rhetoric from him?"
"He did stay here for a while."
"Then why wasn't he swallowed by the disaster... Well, according to you, why didn't he throw himself into the arms of that great god and become one with Him?" Ke Lan asked.
"He once considered this option, but he finally decided to become a messenger of God and guide more people to become..."
"Become the food of that great god." Ke Lan interrupted the other party again, "Okay, stop talking nonsense, just tell me whether you can tell me what happened in the nest city. If yes, then yes, if no, then no, 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 have really listened to Ke Lan's request and stopped talking after Ke Lan finished speaking... The sudden 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 Ke Lan, which made him a little disappointed... If one of the two "Nietos" had been corroded beyond the critical point, then it would undoubtedly be the "Nietos" in the Upper City. As for what was on the dome...
In fact, Ke Lan was also very curious, but he would never look up unless it was absolutely necessary.
This was a risky move, and one that the managers of Upper City were very eager to see themselves make... In the conversation just now, the other party's purpose was so clear that there was almost no disguise: no matter what Ke Lan asked, the other party had only one answer - and that was to let Ke Lan raise his head to look at the dome.
If the managers of the upper city really had even a little bit of sincerity, at least they could always tell themselves how the hive was destroyed through oral narration - even the last survivors of the hive could write down those events in words through notes, which means that the "disaster" is not impossible to describe with words. The survivors and the "Nieto" in the lower city were unwilling to explain because they were afraid of the further spread of the "disaster", but why did this "Nieto" in the upper city do so?
It obviously highly respects "disaster"... In that case, why not just tell the whole thing to itself?
If this information contains "forbidden knowledge", wouldn't it just deepen the degree of your own erosion...isn't this exactly what the other party wants to see?
From the perspective of conventional logic, this doesn't make sense.
"Thirty-three, is that guy still bothering you?" Ke Lan looked at Thirty-three and asked.
Thirty-three shook her head. "No, she really shut up after you told her to shut up just now."
"So obedient?" Ke Lan muttered, "Or... is this guy up to some other trick?"
"Ke Lan, there is one thing I can't figure out." Sanshisan said, "If she wanted us to see the dome so much, why didn't she put mirrors all around? In this way, even if we don't look up, the moment we leave the passage, we will unconsciously see the dome through the reflection of the mirrors... This is much simpler. There is no need to use words to trick us into looking up, right?"
"I'm not sure. Maybe it can't do it... I think its current condition may be worse than we imagined... It is likely that it has lost control of the Upper City." Ke Lan analyzed.
"This is the best, so she doesn't have to set a lot of traps for us..." Thirty-Three said, "What should we do now? Go find the manager of this floor?"
"Well, let's find its body first." Ke Lan nodded. "Although there are some huge differences between the upper and lower city districts, the block divisions and urban structures are mirror images of each other... According to the location of the square where 'Nieto' is located in the lower city district, it should be... this location."
On the wall of the garbage disposal plant, there is a simple structural diagram of the Upper City. From the diagram, we can see that in addition to the luxurious commercial and residential areas, there is also a large artificial forest and an artificial rockery with an altitude of about 300 meters. The peak of this rockery is located in the center of the forest, and the forest just divides the entire Upper City into the east and west sides, forming a gray-green isolation zone.
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 of this family is a kite-shaped shield composed of dozens of gears of various sizes and specifications. The outer edge of the shield is wrapped with a circle of thorns - it is full of retro artistic atmosphere, and is filled with the power and mechanical sense unique to the industrial age.
As for the square where "Nietzsche" is located, the location directly opposite it happens to be in the core area of this family's sphere of influence.
"You said that these emblems represent families?" After listening to Ke Lan's explanation, Thirty-three stared at the map with a strange look on his face and muttered, "This is quite similar to the Ark. In the eyes of ordinary people, the top of power is a group of powerful families... But in fact, only those who have climbed to a high enough level know that above these powerful people, there are real rulers."
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 layer "Cloud Top".
"Actually, I'm quite puzzled... This group of people have reached the point where they need to hide in underground shelters... Why can they still maintain such a high standard of living? The speed at which the Upper City consumes the necessary materials for survival can only be described as extravagant and debauched... Without even a detailed calculation, the Upper City's daily consumption is estimated to meet the basic needs of the Lower City and the Bottom Nest for a whole year... or even more." Thirty-three said as he tried to make an expression that could reveal his thoughts, but he tried several times and finally gave up.
He sighed, shook his head, frowned and said: "This nest city... is it really a refuge?"
A shelter, as the name suggests, is a survival facility built to avoid disasters... Even if the interiors of those high-end shelters built for the rich are as luxurious as mansions, it still cannot change the essence of a shelter - the most important thing about a shelter is the storage of supplies.
Without good long-term planning, even the most well-stocked shelters will eventually become graves or be abandoned... Although the Hive City is large in area, its productivity is not strong, and many things cannot be self-sufficient... In this case, even the powerful and wealthy must be as frugal as possible, instead of living a more wasteful life than the rich on Earth in the old era, as Ke Lan and the others have seen.
Take the Ark as an example. Although the history of those noble families can be traced back to the era of interstellar drifting 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. Even the young masters and young ladies of wealthy families tightened their belts and invested precious and limited resources in the places 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 could only get one bag of synthetic food a day, while the nobles could probably get three bags, and perhaps an extra bag of pickled mustard.
Many of the powerful and wealthy who are over fifty years old often sigh when they recall the life in that era - a can of luncheon meat that was almost entirely starch and synthetic fat had to be shared by the whole family, and they had to eat it for a week. This was something that was simply unimaginable for the young masters and young ladies who were born nine hundred and thirty years after the new era.
"Perhaps... they are not short of resources." Ke Lan rubbed the pads of his thumb and middle finger and thought, "Although the entire nest is now sealed at the bottom of the sea, it was not completely closed before they took the initiative to sink the nest to the bottom of the sea... They even regularly send out ground exploration teams, although the survival rate of these exploration teams is shockingly low ... Oh, if only I could get a report file of the ground exploration team."
Ke Lan suddenly had a doubt in her heart - "Ice Age", is it really "frozen" as the word means? Or is it just a reference?
Just like the word "disaster" that appears most frequently in the conversation with Neto?
In fact, there are abundant resources on the surface, but for some reason, people have to hide underground...
The following picture popped up in Ke Lan's mind: On the surface of Alpha, a large number of automated production facilities are spread everywhere, and all kinds of living resources are continuously produced from the factory assembly lines... and the humans who created all this have hidden in the underground hive city, and can only send out a small team every once in a while to bring the things produced by these automatic factories back to the hive city... and for some reason, the team members who carry out this task have an extremely high loss rate... From a certain perspective, they are like the fuel used by vehicles transporting supplies, a kind of... consumables.
But since they have adopted fully automated production, why not simply set up a fully automated conveyor line to directly deliver materials produced on the surface to the hive? At worst, it would be fine to use robots instead of 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 these temporary 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 were too many unreasonable things...but Ke Lan's subconscious mind told him again and again that the picture he had 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 the things sealed deep in his mind that are "playing tricks" - unlike the directly unlocked memory fragments, the "subconscious" will not tell Ke Lan the answer directly, but 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 Sanshisan, "From where we are now, we have to go through the eastern half first, and then through this artificial forest... I'm afraid we will inevitably encounter a battle, and this without Ze Luo's assistance."
"How can you be sure that we will encounter a battle? Haven't the managers of this level already lost control of the hive?" Thirty-Three asked curiously.
"Do you know what the rich and powerful like to do when they are bored?"
"Hold 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 retiring, I either run a small restaurant or explore ruins. How would I know the daily activities of the upper class..."
"It's hunting." Ke Lan said, "In the old era, whether in the East or the West, the noble class was extremely keen on hunting. Many countries would specially set aside a large area as a hunting park to meet the needs of the powerful and noble class. And in this artificial forest, there is a fairly large area marked as a 'hunting ground'."
"You mean... there might still be a group of prey alive in this hunting ground..." Thirty-three followed Ke Lan's words and said, "No... it should be said that they are the descendants of the prey back then. However, after experiencing the impact of the disaster and hundreds of thousands of years of evolution and mutation, those who can still survive should be extremely perverted monsters... Just thinking about it is tricky enough."
"Yes. This is also what I am more concerned about." Ke Lan nodded. "Although the tunnel dwellers have also mutated, they have not been affected by the disaster in essence... According to my speculation, the 'disaster' that broke out in the upper city should be more serious than that in the lower city and the bottom nest. What we will encounter on this level... is hard to say."
"Don't be so pessimistic. The bottom nest and the lower city have been cleared out. Maybe the upper city is also empty... Hundreds of thousands of years have passed. Even if it is the erosion corpse, it should have turned into dust long ago..."
"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 mind. "Thirty-three, what do you think... when a human, or a certain creature, is corroded beyond the critical point and becomes a corpse, can it still retain its fertility?"
"This... this is hard to say." Thirty-three took a breath of cold air, "Unless the crazy people in the research institute caught a living sample of the Erosion Corpse... With their weird brain circuits, they might really give it a try..."
