This Game Is Too Real-Chapter 787: Strange, How Did This Door Open By Itself?

"Damn it, they’ve discovered us!"

In the surveillance room of the underground facility, the staff seated before the terminal let out a cry of dismay as the image they’d finally managed to repair was infiltrated by human figures.

Alzu’s face, too, betrayed a flash of panic.

Although he had often operated alongside the Tribunal’s executioners before being entrusted with a significant task by the Saint, having experienced the frontlines of battle, he was ultimately not a professional combatant, let alone a match for so many from the Regular Army.

Most of the Torch Church’s research facilities were established in reliance on shelters, a point somewhat similar to the Enlightenment Society and even the Alliance.

This underground facility was no exception. Originally named Shelter No.182, it was opened in the early Wasteland Era and later repurposed by the Torch Church into Biological Research Institute No.182, focusing on research related to perfect life forms and their sub-projects.

The entrance to the facility was located in the center of the old site of Fortress Town, and at this moment, the Alliance was sending two squads to search toward them.

All the staff’s hearts were in their throats, their faces uniformly painted with panic.

"It’s probably the mutants on the surface that have exposed our whereabouts..." an older researcher swallowed and cursed, "Useless morons, screwed up as usual!"

A researcher standing beside him said nervously.

"Mutants... Why would mutants come here?!"

Another researcher, wearing glasses, spoke with a grave expression.

"Who knows... Most certainly they came over because the communication equipment was damaged and they wanted to know what happened. Damn... Those idiots, can’t they adapt to the situation!"

From the images on the surveillance monitor, it was clear that not just a few mutants had taken refuge in this area—there was a force of a full hundred!

He even began to suspect that these idiots might be deserters from the frontlines.

Some researchers were arguing with no clear plan, while others were silently relieved.

The latter were mainly researchers from North Island.

If Charles hadn’t held them at gunpoint and the people here hadn’t threatened to implant some brainwashing chip, no one in their right mind would willingly come to this godforsaken place to design equipment for mutants.

While they dared not show it on their faces, they were the ones who were most delighted at this moment.

Since the Alliance had landed on Death Coast, Charles must have been finished.

Although they were still in danger, at least their families were safe.

Ignoring the endless quarreling of the staff, Alzu urgently pressed the communication engineer, who was rushing to repair the communication device.

"How much longer until it is fixed!"

"Soon, very soon! Just give me 10 more minutes!" That engineer tapped feverishly on a tablet’s touchscreen with his index finger, sweat streaming down his forehead.

Displayed on the tablet screen was a thumb-sized flying-insect robot nestled among a tangle of wires, its needle-fine mechanical arms manipulating the connections, with sparks of electricity occasionally bursting from their tips.

Finally, as his sweat dripped onto the floor for the umpteenth time, the circuit-repair robot finished all of its soldering tasks and fixed the circuit segments that had been burned out by the electromagnetic pulse.

He leaned back in his chair with a sigh of relief, joyfully wiping the sweat from his brow and saying,

"It’s done—"

Before he could finish, Alzu pushed him aside and feverishly snatched up the tablet, tapping rapidly on it to connect to the Tribunal located elsewhere.

Upon seeing the "Communication Connected" icon appear on the screen, a wild joy flashed across his face as he put on the headset and bellowed without any restraint.

"Calling the Tribunal, this is Research Institute No.182! The Alliance is closing in on us, we need support!"

Research Institute No.182 housed a wealth of information on the perfect life forms project, and the Tribunal would not abandon them!

Compared to those mutant cannon fodder, it was the combat elites, equipped with pre-war era gear produced by the Black Box, who were the real trump cards of the Torch Church!

After a brief silence, a calm and reliable voice came through the other end of the communication channel.

"...This is the Punishment Squad; we’ve received orders to head toward your location. Please lock down the entrance and wait patiently!"

Hearing that voice akin to the sound of celestial music, Alzu excitedly clenched his fists.

They were saved!

Elsewhere, just two kilometers from the underground facility, in the mountainous area.

Around 40 soldiers clad in exoskeletons lay in stealth on the edge of the jungle, their outlines nearly completely transparent, seamlessly blending into their surroundings.

Thanks to the optical camouflage, as long as they remained still, no one could detect them with the naked eye.

Standing amidst the troops, the commanding officer looked sternly toward the direction of Fortress Town, tapping lightly on his helmet with his index finger.

"This is ’Hunter’; we’ve arrived near the target... Confirmation, the target has lost contact due to an EMP strike."

The Saint’s voice came through on the communication channel.

"What’s the situation like."

The one called Hunter spoke in a deep voice.

"The Alliance has landed onshore; the local garrison has been thoroughly defeated."

The communication channel went silent for a while before speaking again after about half a minute.

"...Bring back Alzu and the material from the research institute; take away as many other people as possible, and deal with those who can’t be taken."

A fierce glint flashed in Hunter’s eyes.

"Yes."

...

Just as Alzu was calling the Tribunal for reinforcements, two squads from the first company of the Burning Corps had reached the edge of Fortress Town, hidden in the dense forest.

The settlement resembled a castle, with outer strip houses acting like towering walls.

Windows on a single-story building started at six meters high, all secured with anti-theft nets twisted with steel bars. The highest windows were more than twenty meters high, and the roofs were designed as platforms for shooting with cover.

Only three to five steps wide separated the houses, straddled by rickety bridges, which, from a distance, resembled the gate towers of city walls.

[By Some Mistake] one could imagine how, when this settlement was populated, those survivors would have fought against the Looter invasions of their homeland.

They filled the bridges with obstacles, firing at the invaders from the rooftops. Once the invaders passed beneath the bridges, the survivors would drop the obstacles, dividing the enemy into front and rear segments.

But those brave people were gone now, their whereabouts unknown, leaving only a few green heads peering around.

"Step Into the Sky" opened the VM and retrieved the information he had previously downloaded from the official website.

"I heard that over a decade ago, an alliance of survivors called ’Iron Tower’ emerged in this region. They used a signal tower from the United Human era as a landmark and organized militias to patrol between settlements... quite similar to us."

"There’s information on the official website about this settlement. It was said to have been an outpost built by Shelter No. 182 on the surface. But at some point, Shelter No. 182 and the surface outpost were both abandoned, until the facilities here were repurposed by a group of Wasteland Wanderers about a hundred years into the Wasteland Era, who also expanded and improved the surrounding architecture."

"Then the ’Iron Tower’ was founded, taking control of the settlement. The population increased from a few hundred in the beginning to twenty thousand... until the Torch Church came here and reset that number to zero."

Even if this settlement’s ruins were not within the range of the Alliance’s third-stage offensive, they would have returned to search this place after completing the landing operation.

But just now, their drones spotted traces of mutant activity in the area, so Brother Kill dagger had them come here earlier to see if there were any big fish.

The two players following beside Step Into the Sky heard what he said and couldn’t help but scoff.

"Reset to zero, yeah right..."

"What a hell of a joke."

"That’s how it’s written in the setting collection. I’m just reading it as it is; if you have complaints, take them up with the planners."

Step Into the Sky, holding his family brother’s camera, took a few photos of the settlement’s exterior.

This camera was the only relic his good brother left in the world, although it took only a few days for that damn thing to come to life.

"... It’s true, the settlements on the Wasteland are really varied," murmured Half a year’s wasted time, with some emotion. "There’s Jin Jialun Port, with its millions-strong slums, there’s Ring Island, which is like a stack of checkered blocks, and then there’s this kind of rustic tower."

"After all, it’s the Wasteland," quipped Half a year’s wasted time.

"There are three mutants moving around the entrance... Can’t see what’s inside," putting down the camera, Step Into the Sky looked at Old Yin, inquiring with his eyes, "Do we strike directly, or should we sneak in first to see what’s inside?"

"Too much trouble," By Some Mistake raised his right hand, forming a fist, and made an attack signal to his teammates behind him. "Kill off all the animals here first, then we can slowly figure out what’s inside."

"The perfect infiltration is to kill everyone," Half a year’s wasted time excitedly picked up the rifle hanging on is chest, with a click chambered a round, "Time for work, for work!"

The mutants at the entrance to the settlement had no idea that disaster was upon them and continued to grunt and communicate amongst themselves.

Just then, almost simultaneously, three gunshots rang out, and three heads exploded into a mist of blood, red and white splattering everywhere with a thud.

"Alliance!!"

On noticing the sentries at the door falling, a mutant standing behind the gatehouse let out a roar and picked up its rifle, spraying bullets towards the entrance. After rattling on and on, it didn’t see anyone.

Caught off guard, it emptied its magazine and fumbled to replace it. However, before it could fit a new one, a quadcopter drone with a mounted gun barrel swooped over the porch and burst in, blowing its head off with a barrage of gunfire.

By Some Mistake led the three players behind him into the alley first, his rifle spitting out bursts of gunfire, killing several mutants trying to surround them.

Meanwhile, a line of three squads dispersed into nine teams, each entering the abandoned town from nine different directions. The second line circled to the town’s flank, feigning an attack to distract the mutants’ fire.

Confronted with the assault on multiple fronts, the mutants in the town were completely disoriented.

Looking at the bodies lying in the alley, a Strength-type player reloaded his magazine and couldn’t resist taunting.

"The mutants in Qingquan City are much smarter than these."

Another player beside him said succinctly,

"They’re quite weak, probably new recruits."

Mutants actually weren’t stupid, just a bit hot-tempered.

According to the old players, a long time ago, the mutants they encountered in the suburbs of Qingquan City not only knew how to make landmines and traps but could even make their own rifles.

It wasn’t until the friends from the Pioneer had stepped in that those beasts were annihilated.

The recordings of that battle could still be found on the official Forum, so there was no room for bragging.

However, the mutants here were completely different; not to mention utilizing the terrain for battle, they even hadn’t figured out how to properly use the weapons in their hands.

The Torch Church seemed to have produced a batch of mutants through some special rapid production process, but these mutants were just like the Army’s clones with eight times the growth rate, far inferior in both intellect and experience to the naturally grown green-skinned beasts.

versus 100!

The entire battle held no suspense, turning completely into a one-sided slaughter!

Seeing how easy these mutants were to handle, some players couldn’t help but get a little cocky.

However, it was at this moment that the unexpected suddenly occurred.

A four-person squad was attempting to cross an alleyway to search the town center’s plaza when a loud "bang" suddenly rang out from directly ahead, and the player at the front had their head blown off instantly.

"Sniper!"

"Spread out!"

The other three were startled and, no longer joking around on the communication channel, they quickly dashed for cover on both sides.

One player hid behind a concrete block.

The other two players smashed through a window and tumbled into a house by the alley.

Yet at this moment, another loud bang resonated.

The squad leader, who had just flipped into the house, saw out of the corner of his eye that the teammate who had taken cover behind the concrete block was shot through along with the cover itself, spraying a mix of blood and cement debris everywhere.

"What the fuck? What is this thing?"

The player crouched by the window widened his eyes, his expression as if he’d seen a ghost.

They had fought from the edge of the small town to the center without a single death, but now, in just a few seconds, two were taken down by two shots!

"It’s a Gauss Rifle!"

The squad leader next to him had a grave expression as he looked in the direction where his two teammates had fallen; he circled the buildings directly ahead on the VM map while shouting into the walkie-talkie.

"Team A, engage the enemy! Teams B and C, spread out! Flank from both sides, wait for air support before engaging!"

After issuing the command to the other two squads, the squad leader switched communication channels and continued to shout loudly.

"This is First Platoon, Second Squad, we’ve encountered an enemy sniper! That bastard took down two of our brothers! We need air support!"

After hearing his voice, a quick response came from the other end of the communication channel.

"Received, can you lock onto their position?"

The team leader glanced out the window, didn’t dare to stick his head out, even less to reveal that he was right by the window, and could only grit his teeth and say,

"Exact position uncertain, but we’ve circled the approximate location on the map... Those bastards are definitely not mutants! They must be from the Torch Tribunal!"

"Understood, coordinates have been synced with the air force... They’ll be here within one minute!"

After cutting off the communication, the team leader gave a teammate beside him a look, and the latter swiftly took out a drone from behind and, crouching low, sneaked to the other side of the building and threw it out.

The quadrotor drone flipped in the air, quickly stabilizing itself, and with a buzz, shot upward towards the sky.

The drone camera quickly located the general area where the sniper was and provided the camera footage and relative coordinates to the incoming P-2 "Lightning" attack aircraft.

Teams B and C had already made their way near the sniper and were nervously counting down.

One minute felt as long as a century as both sides stood silently at an impasse.

It was then that the roar of the machine gun fire exploding on the ground suddenly echoed across the entire square!

Hundreds of large-caliber machine-gun bullets poured out in an instant, crushing a whole section of dilapidated buildings on the north side of the square with irresistible force.

Only when the fire and dust from the explosion shot into the sky did the thunderous sound of the machine guns firing and the whine of the attack aircraft’s engines belatedly sweep over the players’ heads.

"Boom!"

Watching the fleeting silhouette, the morale of the players on the ground soared.

Taking advantage of the dust raised by the explosion, the squad leader quickly flipped out from cover, activating his exoskeleton and chasing after the rolling dust while shouting loudly in the communication channel.

"Encircle them!"

The three teams immediately took action, attacking from three directions towards the ruins swept by the machine gun, and indeed they found the retreating sniper and another soldier wearing an exoskeleton suit beside him.

It was the Torch Church tribunal!

Seeing the equipment on these people, players recognized their identities at a glance.

However, no one was afraid, instead, their faces lit up with surprise.

"Damn, the tribunal!"

"Elite monsters! A spawn of elite monsters!"

Although the two executioners weren’t taken out by the airstrike, they clearly suffered significant damage and didn’t dare to tangle with the surrounding players, quickly retreating.

Seeing the elite monsters trying to escape, the players were unwilling to let them go and chased after them.

Then, after only a few steps following the winding alleys, the team leader sensed something was off.

These two elite monsters seemed to be leading them on?

The more he thought about it, the more he felt something was amiss, and he immediately reset the rendezvous coordinates on the VM map.

"Cease pursuit! Second team, hear my command! All units, hold positions for defense!"

They had strayed a bit far from their teammates.

If the Torch Church’s executioners set up an ambush ahead, they could easily be wiped out.

Even though there was a risk of letting the two snipers escape, he didn’t dare gamble with his teammates’ revival CDs and equipment.

These guys were not easy to deal with!

At this thought, his eyes gleamed with excitement, and his palms began to sweat.

But not out of fear.

But out of excitement!

They had been bullying the weak for some time, and finally, they had the chance to match up against the strong!

Static crackled in the communication channel.

Team B leader: "Boss, we’re not chasing them?"

Team C leader: "Chase them, my ass! Didn’t you notice those two elites are kiting us?"

Team B leader: "What the hell?!"

At the same moment the players stopped their pursuit, the two retreating snipers gradually became aware of the situation behind them; those persistent soldiers suddenly stopped chasing them.

The two exchanged glances, and the spotter immediately reported the situation to the rear.

"The fish slipped the hook; the enemy squad has stopped chasing."

Meanwhile, the hunter lying in ambush within a three-story building hundreds of meters away frowned tightly.

The entrance to the underground facility was in the square, which was already under the control of the Alliance soldiers.

The battle on the beach was over; they had to finish the fight before the Alliance’s reinforcements arrived!

There was no time left to hesitate.

Making a decision in just a few seconds, the hunter hesitated no longer and ordered over the communication channel.

"First team, second team to advance; third team, fourth team to flank from the sides!"

"Quick battle, quick decision!"

"Sir!" The crisp replies echoed in the channel as figures lurking in the shadows of the abandoned buildings stepped out from their environments, almost merging as one with them, and surrounded the Alliance teams that had stopped the pursuit.

At the same time, the other two squads from the first row also sensed something was wrong and immediately called for the second row to move forward while they went to reinforce the direction of the second squad.

At this very moment, news that the team searching the relics of Fortress Town had encountered the Torch Church tribunal had reached Old White, who was directing the construction of the camp and the dock on the beachhead.

Looking at the map and comparing the intelligence for a moment, Old White made a judgment in just two seconds.

"Eighty percent chance it’s a big fish!"

"I think so too," Fang Chang nodded, touching his chin with interest, "I might as well take a team to reinforce and have a look."

According to the information they had collected, there was a shelter relic there; although it had been abandoned for nearly a century, they could not rule out the possibility that the Torch Church might have transformed it into a research facility.

A similar situation had occurred in the northern front as well.

Old White laughed heartily and slapped him on the shoulder.

"Alright, it’s all yours!"

The battle on the beach was basically over, and there wasn’t a great need for manpower.

The defense line of the Mutants’ Ten Thousand Corps had been thoroughly shattered by them, running around headlessly towards the rear, and the remaining work apart from clearing the battlefield was to build the dock, so Old White didn’t need to supervise here.

After coming out of the command tent, Fang Chang immediately boarded a "Chimera" armored personnel carrier that had just landed through the floating dock with a player battalion, and requested two Cloud Dragonfly Flapping Machines from the NPC troops for support, charging toward Fortress Town.

Just as he arrived at the battlefield, two platoons from the first battalion were locked in a fierce and indistinguishable battle with the Torch Church’s tribunal squad, the sound of gunfight echoing ceaselessly among the ruins.

Judging by that steady, precise, and ruthless pace of attack, these guys were probably the so-called "Executioners" within the Torch Church’s Tribunal, just like those they had encountered before at the outskirts of Qingquan City and the Pinecone Wood Farm!

Seeing the alliance reinforcements charging onto the battlefield, a glimmer of utter despair surged in the eyes of the Hunter who was personally fighting on the frontlines.

Too fast!

Same as the landing, these guys were decisive in their actions; right after the strategic missiles were launched, landing crafts and armored vehicles charged forward,

They had just figured out why the front-line command post had lost contact when the Alliance’s landing troops had already breached the defense line they had established on the beachhead!

Now it was the same; they had engaged with the Alliance’s recon troops near Fortress Town for less than 20 minutes before the main force arrived to reinforce.

Not a single opportunity!

If they continued to entangle themselves like this, they might soon face an encirclement not by just several ten-man squads but by battalion-level or even army-level combat units.

Looking at the dozen or so corpses left by both sides, as well as the position that had been under attack for so long without falling, the Hunter finally clenched his teeth and barked an order through the communication channel. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

"Retreat!"

After dropping those words, he immediately turned and vanished into the shadows of the settlement’s buildings, daring not to linger here a moment longer.

The other squads did the same; just the second before the "Cloud Dragonfly" Flapping Machines were about to arrive at the battlefield, they turned and vacated the battleground, disappearing into the shadows.

The mission had already failed.

Now all they could do was minimize their losses.

However, every Executioner’s heart was heavy.

Although their faith was incredibly devout, and they had no doubts about the supreme Saint Heir, not only could they not see a glimmer of hope for victory—they had come to regard even "good news" as a luxury...

The pressure on the front line suddenly lessened, and the players hunkering behind cover finally let out a sigh of relief.

Although they were pretty thrilled about the fight, their opponent’s equipment was ridiculously strong—nearly everyone was equipped with holographic stealth, plus auto-aiming. Several times, they had nearly lost their position.

If the reinforcements had arrived just about 10 minutes later, the outcome of this battle would indeed be hard to predict.

Watching Fang Chang as he walked to the front line, By Some Mistake stepped up to report the course and casualties of this encounter.

"...At first, we were engaging with Mutants, then these guys suddenly came out of nowhere. I think they wanted to take something away, but they probably didn’t succeed."

"These people aren’t fools. They knew it was meaningless to keep fighting, so they decisively chose to retreat," Fang Chang glanced around slightly, narrowing his eyes with a faint smile on his lips, "Soon, we’ll find out what they were so desperate to take with them."

At the same moment his words ended, a player who had reinforced the area with him came over.

"We found an underground passage beneath the public restroom in the plaza, suspected to be the entrance to Shelter No.186."

Hearing the location of the entrance, By Some Mistake couldn’t help but twitch his eyebrows.

"These guys really have taste."

"It might not necessarily be these guys’ taste, what if it was designed by those from before the war?" Fang Chang joked, then looking at the player who came to report, he said, "Let’s go down together and take a look at what’s hidden in this shelter."

If it’s a shelter that was refurbished after being abandoned, its security procedures were unlikely to be the original pre-war models. It might be possible to unlock it through external hacking.

This largely depended on why the shelter was abandoned, the last Manager’s arrangements for its disposal, and how the successors took over, among other factors.

For shelters that have been restarted through unconventional means, an offline key produced by the officials could unlock it; for slightly more complex security programs, setting up an antenna and connecting to a network was all it took.

These were experiences summarized by the active players in Pioneer City, which were of course effective in other regions of the Wasteland as well.

Hearing that it was time to "open a Blind Box," the players immediately showed eagerness on their faces.

"Let’s go!"

"Haha, hurry up!"

At the same time, Alzu was pacing back and forth near the buffer doorway of the shelter, cursing under his breath from time to time.

"Damn it, why is it so slow?"

What are these guys dallying for!

He had already backed up all the data from the shelter into the chip in his brain and had cleaned out any original files he could delete, and scrambled the ones he couldn’t, all to make their escape smoother.

Just then, a staff member came running through the buffer door, approaching him in a fluster.

"Mr. Alzu... they’re here!"

Alzu’s face lit up at the news.

"They are? Well, then open up the door!"

Seeing that he was still blabbering, the staff member almost burst into tears.

"No, it’s not people from the Tribunal, it’s the Alliance here!"

In just an instant, that old face under the hood rapidly lost all its color, lips turning alternately blue and white.

The Alliance was here...

How could that be?!

In a daze, he saw the gear-shaped door tremble and then roll to one side, pulled by mechanical arms.

The staff member who’d brought the news was shocked by the sight, collapsing to the ground in fright.

As for Alzu, he stood completely still, his expression turning vacant as if he had turned into a fool.

The gear-shaped giant door slowly opened.

A man in powered armor stood in the doorway.

He was lifting his left arm, and his right hand was holding a data cable extracted from that left armature.

The end of the cable looked about to be inserted into a spot on the door but hadn’t quite made contact yet.

Eyeing the old man in the grey robe standing at the door, and the man collapsed beside him, Fang Chang was visibly taken aback, muttering to himself.

"That’s strange..."

He had yet to make a move.

How did the door open by itself?