Chapter 5: The Fourth Calamity

In the Administration Group of the Bull and Horse Club that only consisted of four people...

They were the owner of the chat group, Old White, and the other three admins from the main chat, Night Ten, Gale, and Ample Time.

Night Ten: Did you guys receive the helmet too?

Old White: Yeah... It’s a little creepy though. It was delivered right to my doorstep.

Ample Time: I found it by the door of my garage.

Gale: It was on my desk... I thought one of my coworkers put it there.

Night Ten: Hmph, none of your experiences can compare to mine! My package was delivered to my dorm! All three of my roommates were there but none of them saw how it was delivered! I don’t know if you guys noticed it, but the creepiest thing is that I can see the countdown when I put the helmet on, but no one else can...

The group remained eerily void of messages for some time.

Eventually, Old White broke the silence.

- ... Yeah, that’s definitely creepy.

Ample Time: What kind of company do you think he works at? Not only do they know our addresses, but they can also deliver packages to us without us knowing about it!

Gale: Mhm, this is what I care about the most. We can probably explain the matter of our address with our IP address. After all, it is not impossible to analyze our physical location from an IP address. But the method of delivery... I still can’t figure out what happened! I live in Jinling and I recall Night Ten studies in Jiangcheng City! We’re separated by almost five hundred kilometers, but we received the helmet at almost the same time.

Night Ten: Yeah... I got mine not long after I clicked the link...

Old White: Fuck... Should we call the police?

Ample Time: We didn’t lose anything, so I don’t think the police will take it seriously. Besides, how are you going to explain it to them? Are you going to tell them that you weren’t expecting the delivery? Or will you tell them there’s a problem with the helmet? Don’t forget, you’re the only one who can see anything in the helmet.

Gale: Mhm, this is the biggest problem, it's hard to tell anyone else exactly what this thing is. I tried recording it earlier by shoving my phone into the helmet, but it failed to capture anything.

The way Gale spoke was logical and structured, and the rest came to a conclusion that the man was probably a Science teacher in real life.

Night Ten: How about... we take apart the helmet and have a look inside?

Gale: We can do it, but it’s risky. At least I didn’t find anywhere to start disassembling it. If we force it apart, we can’t guarantee that the helmet will work after we reassemble it.

Ample Time: Yeah, we can't cause problems for Light.

For someone to be able to place the package in his garage without him noticing... He was pretty much convinced by what Light had said. For all he knew, Light’s company might be some secret research group funded by the nation!

In any case, nothing bad happened yet and they hadn’t lost anything. He was really interested in a fully immersive VR game anyway and that countdown had successfully piqued his interest.

Gale: I’ve PMed Brother Light, but he hasn’t gotten back to me yet. The IP address of that official website doesn’t look like a domestic one. Even its domain name doesn’t look like a normal website. Also... I can’t find its registration information.

Night Ten: Is it related to the dark web?!

Gale: No clue.

Old White: Let's wait and see. It’s useless to discuss further. Whatever it is, we’ll get to the bottom of this after the countdown ends!

...

While the players were discussing the helmets, Chu Guang was making his final preparations.

He prepared five kilograms of green wheat and some iron tools.

It took him a lot of effort to move everything from Baker Street to the marsh three kilometers away. Shelter 404 was located under the marsh, its entrance hidden in an inconspicuous nursing home. There was a lot of vegetation in the area, and it was next to a lake. In theory, there should be a lot of wildlife roaming about.

As he approached the marsh, Chu Guang became especially careful. He needed to watch out for any possible danger around him. Thankfully, nothing happened.

While checking the markings he made at the entrance of the nursing home and confirming that no mutants or marauders had sneaked in while he was away, Chu Guang pushed the door open with his sharpened water pipe and cautiously entered.

The entrance of Shelter 404 was located in the innermost elevator of the nursing home, and there was currently only a single button that allowed him to access Level B1.

Heading down, he tossed the sack of wheat onto the corridor between the elevator and the airlock door.

Level B1 was pretty empty at the moment and it was almost 50 meters from the surface. Honestly, it wasn’t the best place to store food, but it was much better than storing it in the nursing home up top where mutated mice and cockroaches might set their sights on it.

After passing through the two airlock doors, Chu Guang walked into the main hall as he stared at Little Seven who was squatting in the corner. "Have you finished the development of the webpage like I specified?”

"It's done."

"What about the players? Did they receive their helmets?"

"They have."

That was fast!

Chu Guang was a little surprised. He left the shelter at six in the morning, and it had only been seven hours since then...

"Is the flow of time really 1:1 between the wasteland and the modern world?”

"Of course it is, but the time here is in the UTC-04:00 timezone on Earth."

𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

China Standard Time in the modern world was UTC+08:00, and the time difference between that and UTC-04:00 was exactly twelve hours. That would mean that it was 1:00 in the morning where he used to live.

Chu Guang sat in front of the computer and logged into the backend of the website. Little Seven had added a forum to the official website according to his instructions, but there was no traffic yet. As such, there were no posts. It was the same for the game database and galleries.

"How can I upload photos here?" Chu Guang said, pointing to the gallery on the screen.

"Just do it?"

"... I mean, how should I take pictures? Or do you have a camera or something?"

They were in such a massive shelter, but Level B1 was so empty it was ridiculous. Even if there weren’t any weapons, there should at least be some basic survival tools, right?

"Uh, no, but I can use my camera to take pictures for you... What do you want me to take a picture of? Do you want a picture of this place?"

Looking at the damn dustbin in the corner, Chu Guang sighed, "What’s the use of taking a picture of this... Forget it, I’ll think of something."

He couldn’t bring mutants into the shelter, but it might be possible to take Little Seven outside. Most mutants weren’t interested in metallic stuff that couldn’t be eaten. With a bit of camouflage, he could leave Little Seven on top of the building to guard the area. The more Chu Guang thought about it, the more he felt like it was a good idea.

With the computer in the lobby, Chu Guang opened his chatting software. He saw that they had sent him a bunch of private messages to ask him which company he was working for and what a fully immersive game represented.

They also asked questions about the gaming helmet and its delivery method.

Chu Guang honestly didn't know how to answer them, and it was impossible to tell them the truth. He could only make them believe they would be transported into the game world and only then would they be willing to appear and work fearlessly and tirelessly for him.

They would be known as the Fourth Natural Disaster.

"Master..."

"What do you want?"

Looking at Chu Guang, who had turned off the computer and got up from his chair, Little Seven, who was squatting in the corner, asked him curiously, "Don't you need to reply to their messages?"

"It's not necessary."

The more he tried to explain, the more flaws he would reveal. He just needed to use excuses like corporate or state secrets to fool them.

As for other people who would connect in the future...

They can go ahead and think whatever they like. Otherwise, what was the purpose of having a brain? Can’t they come up with something on their own?