This Game Is Too Realistic-Chapter 453.1: Out of Control

Wasteland Online Official Website

[Beta 0.4 Version Update]

[Intercontinental Trade System Implemented: Trade routes to Sunset Province are now open. Players can now trade with NPCs in the Lion Kingdom, invest in local farms or other industries. Additionally, more tradeable regions have been unlocked. Players are encouraged to explore them in-game.]

[New Training Site Added at the corporate air base in the north of West Continent Municipality: Cloudfly flight training is now available. Players can pay 500,000 silver coins via VM to self-fund training. Those with flight skill level above LV7 and contribution level of a Senior Citizen can apply for free training.]

[The Heart of Steel now functions as a mobile New Alliance base, providing save points, however, anchor location is not guaranteed.]

[Shelter 404’s access has been expanded to level B6. B5 remains under maintenance. Stay tuned.]

[Closed beta player cap increased from 8,000 to 12,000!]

[Fixed a few bugs...]

...

Falling Feather: Holy crap?!

Professor Yang: Now what?

Falling Feather: It’s moving again!

Little Wind: 0.0?

Little Ghost: Huh?

Falling Feather: The respawn countdown is ticking again! Hahaha! Thank you, Brother Light! Mwah!

This_lord_is_arrogant_what_can_you_do: Heh, keep acting, all of you. I’ll just sit here and watch the show.

Irene: Jealousy really does tear people apart. (funny emoji)

Elf Wang: +1 (funny emoji)

...

Same time, back in Shelter 404.

A squad of fully geared players stood at the entrance to level B6.

It was confirmed that the entire level was a biological lab focused on Mutant Slime Mold research. Judging from the signs, most of the specimens being studied were from the early Wasteland Era, possibly even the ancient War of the Three Departments.

Even the fragmented audio logs made it clear. The escaped subject was no joke. In fact, it was extremely dangerous. It wiped out the entire security team, forcing the First Administrator to perform an emergency shock therapy by shutting down the whole level.

Chu Guang had no intention of playing hero, especially not when the fog of war was clearly full of landmines.

Why risk it, when he had a bunch of fearless players ready to do the job for him?

Right as Beta 0.4 went live, all players chosen by Chu Guang to enter level B6 received the same blinking VM pop-up.

[Mission: Reclaim level B6]

[Description: A test subject stored on level B6 has gone rogue, resulting in widespread Slime Mold contamination.]

[Objectives: 1. Locate the suspected mother body/Hive. 2. Retrieve experimental logs from the lab. 3. Access the data room and extract any unuploaded data.]

Staring at the blue glowing icons on his VM, Night Ten’s eyes sparkled with excitement.

“Awesome! Can’t believe we got such a huge mission right at home!”

Sunset Province was the main stage for the Storm Corps and Skeleton Corps.

The Burning Corps, on the other hand, was smaller and specialized in urban warfare. They were not suited for the open plains, so they’d mostly been sidelined the whole war.

The fools had been watching everyone fight the whole war and could only participate on the forums... At long last, their time to shine had come.

Trailing behind Gale, Quit Smoking glanced at his VM and suddenly joked, “You think the rogue subject might be Falling Feather?”

Gale chuckled, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “... Probably not, unless there’s a time machine here that sent him back a hundred years...”

Quit Smoking raised his eyebrow in shock. “Wait, there’s a time machine?!”

Gale sneered, “Can you not interrupt me mid-sentence?”

Staring at the fungus-covered walls, Night Ten clicked his tongue. “Holy crap... This stuff’s been without water, power, or oxygen for who knows how long, and it’s still alive?!”

Gale glanced around, brows furrowed. “Yeah... It knocked out 85% of electronics and almost all cameras in this area. It’s probably more complicated than we thought.”

“Doesn’t matter how complicated.” Old White said with a grin, locking his visor and chambering a round. His OD-10 Dragon Cavalry exoframe he wore hummed softly.

He shouted over the communication channel, “The mission is now active in your VM! Our objective is to reclaim the lost B6 sector!”

“Squad A, with me, locate and subdue the host. Inject inhibitors and secure the target.”

“Squad B, follow Night Ten to the archive. Retrieve all experiment logs.”

“Squad C, go with Gale to the data room and collect all surviving hard drives.”

“We regroup at the entrance. Keep your comms open. The administrator is watching us!”

“Move out!”

The elite players split into three squads, advancing cautiously.

The Burning Corps, ranked as the strongest corps in the server, were highly skilled at special operations. No one was better at close-quarters combat in confined indoor spaces.

Up on level B4, Chu Guang sat watching through the video feeds from the players’ bodycams.

Alongside him were Yin Fang and Hyrja, acting as technical consultants, ready to provide expert guidance when needed.

But from the moment the mission began, Hyrja’s attention was completely absorbed by the lab itself.

She wasn’t just impressed, she was downright jealous.

“I don’t get it! How much was your budget?! You’re ranked behind us, but why do you get all the best stuff?!”

Chu Guang avoided her gaze, pretending not to hear.

... As if he knew anything about the pre-Wasteland Era budget.

Ask the First Administrator if you're so curious!

Yin Fang, more focused, gave the first practical suggestion. “... Honestly, I’d recommend sending in android units instead. That way even if something goes wrong, we won’t be feeding the organism fresh biomass.”

Chu Guang replied casually, “I trust my soldiers. They’re more useful than androids.”

Both Hyrja and Yin Fang glanced at him, especially at his use of the word ‘use’.

But Chu Guang remained expressionless, eyes locked on the screen.

In the time they’d been chatting, Squad A had already made contact. The strain they encountered was different from the ones in Clearspring City.

The humanoid offshoots they encountered were thin, almost like zombies. They weren’t packed together in swarms, but hiding silently behind corners and overturned cabinets.

Some even played dead, only to ambush unsuspecting players at close range, turning a heroic RPG into a full-on horror game.

Squad B, led by Night Ten, advanced the fastest thanks to his superior perception, preemptively detecting and dodging threats.

Though the Slime Mold spawn launched sudden attacks, no players were injured. The worst they suffered was a few jump scares.

Their exoskeletons, no matter how lightly armored, couldn’t be scratched by scrawny limbs or rotten teeth. Especially not Old White’s exoframe.

Against starship-grade alloy, fragile flesh was as good as paper.

Old White didn’t even bother with his rifle. He just pulled out the spiked hammer on his armor and smashed anything that charged him.

In these tight quarters, opening fire risked ricochets or friendly fire. Blunt weapons were the smarter choice.

“It’s probably because of the long isolation...” Hyrja said thoughtfully, rubbing her chin. “The Slime Mold here didn’t get enough nutrients to evolve. And with no need to hunt, these variants were likely produced purely for scavenging and energy conservation.”

After getting permission from Chu Guang to take over level B6, her attention finally focused on the Slime Mold there.

Chu Guang nodded in agreement. “The shortage of organic matter also means they can’t release spores in large quantities... Damn, why does this sound exactly like the Slime Mold at Lost Valley in Oasis No.7?”

Yin Fang nodded as well. “The only difference is the level of deprivation... Oasis No.7 is a desert. This is more like a space station cut off from supply.”

Then Chu Guang suddenly turned to Hyrja. “Wait, you mentioned before... Slime Mold evolved in different environments are incompatible and won’t exchange genetic information. But what if two strains evolved in similar resource-scarce environments? Could they be compatible?”

He knew his question was awkwardly phrased, he wasn’t a biologist, after all, but it was a genuine hunch that had just occurred to him.

Hyrja thought about it seriously and replied, “In that case, competition and genetic exchange might occur simultaneously... Or to put it more bluntly, they will devour each other.”

“Devour?” Chu Guang repeated.

“Yeah,” Hyrja nodded, “It’s just my theory, but if strain A and strain B evolved under similar low-resource conditions, then they likely developed some overlapping genetic structures... Some of those structures might be exactly what the other side is ‘interested in’.”

“At that point, one might absorb, or be absorbed by, the other and inherit the desired genes, whether actively or passively.”

“Slime Mold genetics aren’t just simple lines of code. Think of them as an enormous library made up of countless strands.”

“When creating spawn, the mother body selects a few specific strands from that library to generate what it needs. Even if Crunchers and Tyrants have different chromosome counts, they still belong to the same collective if they come from the same mother body.”

“In this sense, they aren’t individual organisms. They’re more like organs of a massive organism... That’s what I mean by a Hive.”

“To truly understand them, we need to capture a mother body, we need their original gene library used to create their offspring. That’s the root of all subspecies and the template for all evolution.”

As Hyrja was passionately explaining the science, the players exploring deeper into level B6 finally ran into real trouble.

A harsh roar suddenly echoed from the end of the hallway.

A gray-black exoframe unit stood at the far end of the corridor.

It was massive, equal in size to the Dragon Cavalry suits, perhaps even bulkier. Its faded paint suggested it was once a police model.

The moment Old White saw it, his instincts screamed that danger had arrived.

He hurled his spiked hammer like a meteor straight at the helmet of the exoframe.

With his strength and the suit’s mechanical enhancement, that throw could dent a tank.

But the suit merely swatted the hammer aside with a swing of its arm, barely slowing down, and charged forward like a cannon shell.

Old White raised his rifle and emptied the mag, but not a single bullet made a dent.

Realizing the 7mm rounds were useless, he tossed the rifle aside and drew a thermal cutting axe from his belt.

But... The evolved entity was faster. Before he could raise the axe, the armored shoulder slammed into his chest plate. 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

Clang!

The clash of metal-on-metal rang out through the corridor.

With no room to back off, his three teammates could only watch the brawl between two titans.

Old White staggered from the impact. His right arm was locked by the enemy’s left. Gritting his teeth, he steadied himself and pulled a combat knife from his belt with his left hand, thrusting it toward a gap in the helmet.