Alien Relic Hunter

"A plan that has continued from Alpha Civilization to the present day..." The clown said this, and suddenly paused. He looked at Soap and Nuval, and found that their eyes were full of doubts and curiosity. He shook his head and said, "I can't Let me tell you more details...cognition is pollution. This plan involves too many dangerous things. If I reveal this information to you, there is a high chance that you will be eroded...and eventually become like Luo Monsters like Ni. Of course, if you strongly demand to know the truth, I will respect your choice, but you must be prepared to bear the corresponding price."

"..." Nuval and Soap looked at each other, but neither of them continued to ask further questions.

The clown continued: "Although this kind of erosion is irreversible, it will not be very obvious in the early stage... By the time the body shows mutation symptoms, it can already be regarded as the 'late stage'. Even if all the memories are erased at that time, it will not be very obvious..." There is nothing that can be done to prevent the symptoms from worsening. Speaking of which, I actually retain a certain degree of selfishness. I hope that the degree of erosion between you two will always be kept at a low level..."

"People with low erosion levels are considered 'high-quality supplies' for you, right?" Noir asked calmly, "Being 'absorbed' by you can delay more time. I'm right. Bar?"

"That's right." The clown didn't deny it.

"After all, you still want to eat us..." Soap complained in a low voice, "At the end of the day, we still have to die... Damn, damn... I knew it..."

Noir was not as frustrated as Soap. He continued to ask: "I still have a question. Why did Roni develop to the 'late stage' so quickly after coming into contact with the survivor? This erosion speed depends on the person. Is it different?"

"It varies from person to person, but the level of corrosion in Roni's body is already close to the dangerous level... There is no risk of exposure to the survivor, and the cognitive contamination is also very slight, so you are basically not affected, but , but it became the straw that broke the camel's back." The clown sighed in a very rare way, and said with some regret, "Ronnie's career is destined to expose her to a large number of 'dangerous sources' of erosion. Previously, the heretical sect attacked the Mukach base, and a large number of soldiers were infected by the corrosive seed. Those twisted limbs and the seemingly meaningless murmurs before death could actually affect the people around them. Over time, The erosion of these medical personnel will reach a very dangerous level."

"Will you be infected by this level of contact..." Noir's face became very ugly, "Then if General Maginot really wants to gather troops and start a war with these things occupying the Ark, then during the battle, The soldiers participating in the war will inevitably be corroded, right?"

"There's no way around it," the Joker said.

"Then we are bound to lose this war?!" Zao shouted, "Since you have known all this for a long time, why don't you tell General Maginot directly? This war... we still need to fight ?"

"It's not that we have no chance of winning, it's just that the winning chip is not in Maginot's hands."

…

Fortress Mukach, General Maginot's office.

After Ke Lan finished speaking the last word, Maginot dared to carefully exhale a breath. He stretched out his hand towards the coffee cup on the table, but his fingers kept trembling and he couldn't exert any strength to pinch the ear of the coffee cup.

After trying several times to no avail, Maginot retracted his hand, stood up with his elbows on the armrests of his seat, walked to the window with some trembling, and looked at the busy soldiers on the playground in the distance. go.

His back at this time looked as if he had aged thirty years in an instant, from a prosperous middle-aged man to a swollen and fat old man in the blink of an eye.

After a while, he walked back to the chair, sat down slumped, and asked, "Can you guarantee that everything you said is true?"

"It's absolutely true." Ke Lan replied, "I don't have to lie to you about this kind of thing."

"Then what I'm doing now is meaningless. Even if we can take back the Ark and get rid of those who have been eroded, we will also lose this new home that we finally found... What awaits us is like a bereaved dog. , endless drifting in the universe... The ultimate fate of human civilization is either to perish on its own in the interstellar drift, or to be captured by one of those 'gods' and become an insignificant nutrient for them..."

Maginot opened the drawer of his desk, looked at the exquisitely crafted pistol lying inside, and laughed self-deprecatingly: "To be honest, I really want to hit my temple right now. Gun, so that I would be completely free... The funny thing is, I couldn't even muster the courage to commit suicide."

"Damn fat man, you are a general after all. Do you make me feel like a waste?" Hound stepped forward and slapped the table hard, causing the mixing spoon next to the coffee cup to jump up and hit it. There was a crisp sound on the plate, "What do you mean, everything we do is meaningless... Compared to us, the situation of the Alpha people is truly desperate... At least, we still have a chance to escape, right? ?”

"Where can we escape?" Maginot stared at the hound and asked, "According to what Ke Lan said, our final destiny is just to hand over the baton to the hands of human civilization in another time and space... Everything we do now Effort seems to me like the death struggle of a group of insects."

"There is one thing I must correct." Ke Lan said, "We don't even have the ability to hand over the baton to the hands of human civilization in another time and space. If we give up here, then the Alpha civilization and the one who once helped them Unknown human civilizations that have broken through the technical difficulties of re-fusion, as well as other human civilizations that we are not aware of but have passed on the 'baton'...these beliefs and legacies that have been passed down as a unit of civilization have been completely cut off by us. Lost……"

"Damn Fatty, it's actually not difficult to understand...According to what you said, a person only lives a few decades. After death, everything has nothing to do with you, so what's the meaning of life?" Hound's tone softened slightly. He said a little more, "Although I am not married and have no children...but every time I see the children of my old subordinates, I feel like I am seeing my own children. They represent the future and hope of mankind. Between me and So after retiring, I became a relic hunter, working hard to make money, just to give them better education and living conditions. Speaking from a young age, I feel that the wishes that my parents and I have not been able to achieve in this life can be realized by them; To put it bluntly, they are the continuation of the fire of human civilization... When we die and our bodies are thrown into the incinerator and burned to ashes, they become us, passed down from generation to generation, to continue to do what we have done, to do Things we wanted to do but couldn’t do, and even things we couldn’t even imagine doing.”

The hound licked his dry lips, drank the coffee at hand, and continued: "To be honest, I don't like to tell others big truths, and I hate others telling me the truth the most... But if you If you insist on asking me what the meaning of civilization is and what the meaning of life is, then I can only tell you that this is the meaning."

Maginot raised his head, looked at the hound with some disbelief, and murmured: "Nick...Nick, do you really think so?"

He had always hated other people, especially the hound who called him by his real name. This time, he unexpectedly did not resist. He nodded very solemnly and said, "Even if we can only be dispensable in this long relay, It’s a blow, but at least we have to do better than Alpha Civilization… Otherwise, it would be too embarrassing.”

Maginot took a deep breath, then exhaled it forcefully, and turned to look at Ke Lan: "I understand... then, what should we do next?"

"Continue to gather troops." Ke Lan replied, "Your original plan is fine, but our main goal is not to recapture the Ark, but to eliminate those who have been severely eroded... Their existence will prematurely Exposing our civilization to that existence may even trigger a new round of 'disaster'... Once all human beings are branded, we will have no chance at all."

"What about after taking back the Ark and clearing out the corroders?" Maginot asked.

"Gather supplies and survivors, open up a new home in the folded space inside Yagunaktor, and at the same time collect and digest as much of the legacy left by the Alpha civilization on this planet... wait until we put these legacy After digestion is almost complete, we can escape from Alpha Planet on Yagunaktor."

"This should take a long time... digesting the legacy left by the Alpha civilization is probably not something that can be completed in one generation." Magino frowned.

Since Ark discovered the Alpha Planet in 840 of the New Era, countless human scientists have devoted themselves to this undertaking. It has been more than a hundred years now. However, during these hundreds of years, this part of the "heritage" digested by humans only accounts for a very small amount. Small proportion - let’s not talk about the things and technologies that are still buried deep in various ruins and have not been unearthed. Just talking about the technologies that have been discovered by ruin hunters, less than one tenth of them can be applied. .

Moreover, it is just an application, not a complete analysis... There are many principles of Alpha civilization technology that Ark civilization cannot understand, such as energy crystals and Nino alloys that can be seen everywhere, these two things have been completely integrated into the daily life of Ark civilization. Among them, but to this day, the "technical black box" existing in it has still not been opened.

"As long as the Alpha language can be deciphered, this process can be greatly accelerated." Ke Lan said, "In my plan, this process takes about three to four hundred years... For an individual human being, this is a period of time. It’s a long time, but not a long time for civilization as a whole.”

"Do we really have three to four hundred years left?" Maginot asked.

"As long as the corroders can be completely eliminated and the 'disaster' does not break out again during this period of time, I think the time left for us will be much longer than three to four hundred years." Ke Lan said in a positive tone.

For that being, a primary civilization like human civilization has as many stars as its control area. It is impossible for him to pay attention to every weak civilization that is going to perish or transforming into a dependent tribe. If he wants to let his The probability of his eyes landing on the same planet repeatedly is extremely slim.

Even if there is, the interval is probably extremely long, so long that even the word "eternal" cannot be used to describe it.

Maginot once saw a statement called "crater theory" in military textbooks. It means that when veterans are attacked by enemy artillery fire on the battlefield and cannot find reliable bunkers, they often choose to lie down in the first few rounds of shelling. in the crater left behind. Because the probability of two shells landing at the same point is very low, and the crater can help soldiers avoid flying metal fragments and shock waves, so in this case, the bomb crater becomes the battlefield The safest place.

This Earth, or in other words, Alpha Planet, is such a crater.

…

Yagunakitor, the first block of the ecological zone.

Layton and Ivan left the infirmary. They walked around the base several times, and finally entered here through the teleportation channel at Layton's suggestion.

"So, the development of this first block is pretty good, right?" Standing in front of the outpost, Layton said to Ivan as if to show off, "After you go to the Gray Mist Forest, the people we left behind will start Step up the development of this area, first drive the 'indigenous creatures' here to the edge, use walls and deep ditches to isolate them from our activity area, and then carry out large-scale construction and build various bases and strongholds... said To be honest, it feels like the Ark just landed on Alpha Planet a few decades ago, and people built a network of transit stations step by step in the wilderness."

"You talk as if you have experienced that era." Ivan rolled his eyes at Layton and complained, "In that era, you were not even born yet."

"Ah, I was not born, but there are many documentaries describing that era, and there are many real video materials... Tsk, let's not talk about it for now. Can I take you in to take a look?"

"Okay." Ivan nodded.

The two walked into the gate of the base, and the first thing they saw was a vast area of ​​farmland.

"After identification by agricultural experts, the soil here is not only capable of growing plants on the earth, but is also very fertile in nutrients... At that time, I was still a little confused as to why the Alpha people would leave such a place. Now that I think about it, it should be that they specialize in It’s ready for us.”