After Roger finished his explanation, silence gripped the troop carrier—thick, suffocating silence. Then, inevitably, whispers broke out.
His presence kept the noise from rising to chaos, but unease simmered beneath the surface, spreading from one person to the next.
Lin Xinghai, clueless about this new world, leaned in to eavesdrop. Fragments of conversation drifted to him.
He learned that numbered vaults like Refuge No. 83 were considered small shelters—self-sufficient, but weak, with no real combat power. Starshield Refuge, on the other hand, was a medium-sized sanctuary.
Medium shelters weren't just bigger; they had working facilities, stronger defenses, and even garrisoned troops. That's why Starshield could monitor the outside world while smaller refuges stayed blind.
Beyond that, most of what he overheard was just rumor and wild speculation.
Using what little he'd gathered, Lin Xinghai started thinking about his options.
Roger hadn't been exaggerating—they really were just "white pigs" now. Unarmed, untrained, helpless. Whether in Vault 83 or in Starshield, they were little more than cattle waiting to be herded.
So should he accept Roger's invitation? Join the mercenary group?
Mercenaries carried guns; that much was obvious. But Roger's first words echoed in his ears: cannon fodder.
He clenched his jaw. No—if Roger had wanted him as true cannon fodder, he wouldn't have bothered. That B-rank genetic evaluation must have meant something. It had value. Maybe enough to earn him a chance.
Still, he didn't know the scale of that value. How rare was B-rank? What did "training" mean here—did mercenary training chew people up as much as battle itself? He knew too little.
I'll bide my time. Find a way to make him talk. Lin Xinghai set his resolve.
The carrier rumbled to life. Engines growled, metal walls trembling. Slits opened along the sides—firing ports, narrow and long.
Through them, he glimpsed the outside.
Dozens—no, hundreds—of identical personnel carriers were parked in formation. More than ten larger vehicles sat at the center, bristling with armor. Real soldiers, he guessed.
Beyond them sprawled Refuge No. 83. From this angle, it looked like a giant bird's nest, hollowed out and gutted.
But something was wrong.
"Empty…" he murmured.
In the distance, heavy machinery tore through the vault walls, peeling away metal plating to expose bare rock. Not just furniture or tech—everything was being stripped down to the floor itself.
Roger appeared at his side. His voice was casual, but heavy. "In the end times, every scrap counts."
Lin Xinghai fell silent. The outside world was harsher than he had imagined.
…
The convoy lurched forward. A gaping tunnel—no, a road—sloped up toward the surface, wide enough for six lanes of traffic. Science and engineering had carved a highway straight through the solid earth.
In minutes, they reached the surface.
…
The world above could only be described in one word: desolate.
Collapsed buildings stretched in every direction, nothing but gray rubble and ruin. No green, no life. Even the sky sagged with ash, a colorless shroud.
Cold wind whipped through the firing ports. Lin Xinghai shivered. So this is Earth after the Catastrophe…
The others reacted worse. Some sobbed openly, hope draining from their eyes. A few women broke down completely, their cries echoing in the carrier's steel shell.
The convoy didn't move immediately. Instead, the formation set up a perimeter, waiting while engineers hauled out loads of salvaged steel. Only after half an hour did the fleet push onward.
…
Ten minutes later, a sound rose in the distance.
Hoo… hoo… hoo…
At first, it was faint—like an animal's cry. But the closer it came, the more it curdled the air. It wasn't the roar of beasts. It was something worse.
"Zombies?" Lin Xinghai guessed, his scalp prickling.
The noise swelled into a chorus, countless throats crying as one. Judging by volume alone, there had to be hundreds. Maybe more.
Then—gunfire.
Rat-tat-tat-tat!
Machine guns tore the night apart, drowning the roars in thunder. For half a minute, the world shook with fire, then silence fell again.
"Is… is it over?" someone whispered.
Roger smirked. "Oh, it's over. And now, white pigs, comes your first lesson."
Faces turned toward him, unease sharpening into fear.
"What lesson?" someone demanded, voice trembling.
Roger only smiled, offering no answer.
The carriers rolled forward, then stopped. Hatches opened. One by one, the sleepers were herded out.
"Lesson One," Roger announced, pointing ahead, "is this: every one of you is going to touch a zombie corpse."
A heap of bodies lay not far away.
At first glance, they looked almost human—just sickly pale skin, jagged nails, and teeth too sharp. But riddled with bullet holes and drenched in gore, they were a nightmare made flesh.
The sight was too much. People gagged, vomiting on the spot. Women screamed, staggering back, faces chalk-white.
Roger's voice cracked like a whip. "Line up. Touch one corpse each—or stay here with them forever. Your choice."
To many, it sounded like the devil himself had spoken.
Lin Xinghai's stomach turned, but he clenched his fists. Resistance was pointless. For now, they were sheep, and Roger held the knife.
He queued up. The corpse before him lay mostly intact, a neat hole drilled in its forehead. A clean headshot.
But when he looked closer, something caught his eye.
Another wound—smaller, at the back of the skull.
And not just this one. Almost every corpse bore the same wound.
"A finishing blow? But why the back of the head?"
Driven by unease—and duty to complete "Lesson One"—Lin Xinghai reached out and brushed the wound with his fingertips.
Ding!
[Blood Energy detected. Absorb?]