Everything about Shelter 100’s design was meant to serve the rebuilding of the surface. For that reason, the entire shelter had been built around an exaggerated open-shaft structure and a dome that simulated day and night, while the vast majority of residents lived in tenement-style housing blocks.

Now it had become the nest of the Ghostface Bugs.

Fortunately, those insects hadn’t formed a hive-like society and weren’t commanded by a singular Mother Body.

Otherwise, the New Alliance players would probably have been eaten by tens of thousands of Ghostface Bugs the moment they entered.

They didn’t immediately begin a full search of Shelter 100.

First, Darkest reorganized the hundred reinforcements Spring Water Commander had called down from the surface. He had Kakarot take 60 men to set up light machine guns along the edge of the central shaft, while he himself led 20 strength and constitution type players in K-10 Iron Wall exoskeletons into the sealed elevator shaft.

Riding atop the four-legged robot, Bell stuck close to him, watching as the players tossed cables down into the shaft and began rappelling in.

Darkest jumped when it suddenly moved a leg into the shaft, only to realize it hadn’t fallen. It clung firmly to the wall instead.

The four legs’ feet seemed coated with some special adhesive material, allowing it to climb up and down the vertical shaft with ease.

“Your mount’s got some tricks,” Darkest said, surprised, reaching out to test if it could hold him too.

Bell swayed its body lightly, dodging his hand as if it had eyes in the back of its head.

“No need to try. I can’t carry you. Better watch your own footing, the farther down you go, the more little cuties you’ll find.”

Darkest instinctively shone his flashlight downward. Thankfully, the vertical walls showed no sign of Ghostface Bugs.

Breathing easier, he glared at the little guy riding the spider-bot, then slid down the rope deeper into the shaft, tense against whatever hid in the dark.

At last they reached B40.

Darkest knocked hard on the door. The alloy gate groaned and, under the administrator control, began to slide open.

The moment it cracked, the sound of beating wings burst out.

“Chchchch...”

“Shit!”

Startled, Darkest kicked back on the rope, rifle swinging up to unleash a burst of fire.

A dozen Ghostface Bugs died instantly, though a few slipped through into the shaft.

To avoid ricochets, the other players immediately drew knives and batons to fight the creatures in close quarters.

Truth be told, these insects were ferociously aggressive, their abdominal stingers like nail-guns.

But against the turtle-shell defense of K-10 Iron Wall exoskeletons, their stingers were useless.

“They’re not actually that tough, just goddamn disgusting,” grumbled one of the strength type players, ripping a bug from his helmet and smashing it against the wall into green pulp.

Another player wiped goo from his knife and chuckled, “Yeah. our captain’s sanity value’s just about gone.”

“Hahaha.”

“Shut it and get to work.” Rolling his eyes, Darkest signaled forward, then led his squad of ten into the corridor beyond.

The hallway was littered with molted shells, black droppings, scattered papers, overturned desks, and shredded clothes.

He gestured for them to push forward, then tapped his helmet. “B40 warehouse is ours... Ten Punch, you take the rest down to B51 and recover the files.” 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

Ten Punch Man’s voice came back over comms. “Roger!”

The 20 split into two groups. 10 stayed with Darkest, while the others followed Ten Punch Man further down the shaft.

Their target were the black boxes stored on B40.

Bell, still perched on its four-legged mount, crawled into the corridor too, clattering across the ceiling.

Darkest ignored it, firing at swooping bugs while sweeping corners.

Many lights in the warehouse were broken, casting the corridor in flickering gloom like the set of a horror film.

And with the main passage nearly blocked by barricades and carcasses, they had no choice but to detour through what looked like residential areas.

Stepping over a toppled cabinet, Darkest noticed a teddy bear split in half on the floor. Its stuffing was gone, and bullet holes in the wall suggested its owner had been riddled with holes and then fed to the bugs.

One player clicked his tongue.

“Fierce fight here.”

Others muttered softly.

“Over the black boxes?”

“Doesn’t look like it...”

Darkest agreed.

If it were about the black boxes, the fighting wouldn’t have spread 200 meters from the warehouse, nor required sweeping room by room.

It looked less like a battle for something, more like a purge.

Looking at all the open doors, he asked the tour guide hanging overhead in its spider-bot, “Why did you design the Shelter like a hollow shaft? Wouldn’t a solid structure save more space?”

Bell replied slowly, “Shelter 100 was always meant to serve the rebuilding of society. It shouldn’t be a shelter at all. From the day it was designed, its fate was sealed, to be discarded.”

“What’s that got to do with it?” asked Darkest.

Bell gave a shrill chuckle. “Everything. The vast shaft was meant for its collapse. When the rebuilding plan reached the mid-stage, Tree would blow the dome, dropping the superstructure into the funnel, creating an opening upward.”

“Thus, the Shelter would become a casting well, swallowing all the junk above.”

Darkest stared at Bell in shock. “A casting well?”

Pride tinged Bell’s tone. “Yes. A well for forging everything. A vertical production base. Raw materials would fall like a waterfall, transformed into what we needed by the time they hit bottom, then hoisted to the surface by elevator. And in the final stage? We’d use it to build a starship the size of the shaft itself, to chase the Ideal Colony Ship and colonize farther worlds.”

Darkest’s jaws dropped. “You even planned that.”

Bell teased, “Of course. Tree can plan 1,000 years ahead. Too bad most couldn’t keep up.”

“...”

A player muttered in disbelief, “And I thought this was just for nuclear engineers.”

Bell laughed. “Nuclear engineers? Sure. But what fusion reactor needs 30,000 staff? Shelter 100 had experts from every field, and their descendants.”

Instinctively, Darkest asked, “Where are they now?”

For some reason Bell fell silent, then quickly changed the subject.

Darkest didn’t press further. With Shelter 100’s control already transferred, he wasn’t worried.

Just then Ten Punch Man’s broken voice came over their channel.

“Administrator’s VM recovered... damn, there’re hundreds of bugs here. How long do you need?”

Darkest checked the map on his VM. The warehouse entrance lay just ahead, with 30 to 40 bugs on surveillance feed.

“We’re almost there.”

“Need backup?” asked Ten Punch Man.

Darkest glanced around. “No. These bugs can’t hurt us. The real hassle here is the damn obstacles, they are worse than the bugs.”

“All right. Be careful. We’ve copied the VM data to the Shelter server. We still got time. We’re heading to B100 to check that side quest.”

Control of Shelter 100 had passed to the administrator before they even entered, which was why they could stay linked to the outside.

By uploading VM data to the shelter servers, all information, including admin logs, were synced.

Yet what puzzled Darkest was why Shelter 100’s Administrator, supposedly an AI, had a VM at all.

And why, if the administrator lived on the server, its logs weren’t present, but instead saved to offline storage.

The whole thing was very strange.