Apocalypse: Hero of Potato Fields-Chapter 326 - 323 The Source of the Meat
Inside the base.
Let the soldiers sneak in.
But it proved to be quite difficult to break into the hidden entrance located in the basement of a building.
The soldiers had to use a Light Beam Blade to cut through the floor and then split open the thick metal door.
After entering the door, the team found themselves in a large room with three passenger elevators, a freight elevator, and a ladder going down.
They didn’t plan to use the elevators, so they began to cautiously climb down the ladder.
After climbing about two hundred meters, they arrived at another large room with a massive door.
Then the entire team returned to the Shelter and began to study the information transmitted by the cameras.
Three levels down was a real underground town.
It was small, with only about five thousand people, but it looked like it had been through a war.
There were survivors, but they all hid wherever they could, and armed personnel patrolled the dimly lit streets, arresting anyone they found.
Some places in the town looked more or less fine, with good lighting and security.
But their cameras’ coverage wasn’t enough to see the details of these places.
After making a plan, the team returned to the base and began to cautiously advance.
Potential enemies had already been identified, so the soldiers had to be extra careful and stay focused.
Who knew what kind of traps might be hidden in this underground facility?
Three levels past the entrance were all abandoned, and traces of fierce battles were visible everywhere.
This area was heavily fortified, with even a turret-like security system, but...
It was designed to defend against attacks from outside the facility, not internal threats.
The monitoring center was on the third level but had been completely destroyed. Peter’s subordinates began repairing the equipment and attempting to connect to the underground facility’s system.
Lin Yi assigned him a security team and some equipment, then, with the rest of the team, continued to advance so they could return later for a thorough search.
The team switched their helmets to night-vision mode and infiltrated this town, which was essentially a vast room with a ceiling three hundred meters high.
It really looked like a town, with parks, residential buildings, roads, and even restaurants.
Of course, all these were abandoned.
This reminded Lin Yi of the streets of post-apocalyptic Paris, where everything was destroyed but signs of life still lingered.
"Let me go, you cannibals!" a boy approximately fourteen years old roared.
With Melanie’s help, the team found him hiding in a trash bin.
He had been scavenging in a nearby house and hid upon hearing a large group of people approaching.
"Calm down, we came from the surface," Lin Yi said, retracting his helmet into his protective suit.
"Hahahaha! Is this the best excuse you cannibals could come up with?!"
The boy laughed, "Everyone on the surface is dead! There’s nothing but zombies up there!"
"Let me show you how we deal with these so-called ’zombies’ you speak of."
Lin Yi handed a phone to the boy in the trash bin, which was playing a video of the Battle of Brussels.
"Is this... is this fake, like... deep fake?" the boy asked, a hint of hope in his eyes after watching the video for a few minutes.
"Are you kidding me? Pulling a prank just to trick a kid scavenging in the trash?" Lin Yi looked at the boy as if he were an idiot.
Most of the soldiers had already spread out, monitoring the surroundings.
"What do you want from me then?" the boy replied, handing the phone back.
"Want something to eat?"
Lin Yi produced a chicken leg.
The chicken leg was hot, juicy, and smelled incredibly delicious, fresh from the oven, generously sprinkled with salt and pepper...
Seeing the boy drool.
Sly Lin Yi continued, "Tell me what happened here, and this chicken leg is yours."
"Really?! Okay!" The boy wiped his drool and began to tell his story, but a few minutes in, Lin Yi interrupted him to get to the point.
To cut a long story short, this underground facility was a secret doomsday Shelter of the German Government.
It was originally designed to provide refuge for officials and their families during World War III and any subsequent disasters.
However, too many people knew about this Shelter, so when the apocalypse arrived, almost every civil servant in Germany rushed here.
Fortunately, the base’s security personnel survived the early apocalypse and took control of the facility.
The head of security immediately began preparing to welcome the advanced members of the government and military.
After all, if this wasn’t the apocalypse, what would be?
Soon, civil servants began arriving in droves at this secret base, but none of them had a high enough security clearance to unlock the Shelter, 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶
so the staff refused to let anyone in.
People kept coming until two ministers finally appeared: the Minister of Transport and Digital Infrastructure, and the Minister of Labor and Social Affairs.
Both had sufficient clearance to unseal the base and the authority to allow others in, but by then, there were already too many people.
Despite the staff’s insistence that bringing in such a large group would lead to disaster, both ministers believed it was their duty to save everyone.
They insisted that the military would soon save the nation, so they wouldn’t have to stay below for long anyway.
As a result, this underground town, originally designed to accommodate 3,500 people, ended up housing 11,204 residents.
Most of the security personnel also moved down into the town, though many attempted to rescue their own families.
Initially, everything was fine.
The residents here were just happy to be safe.
But then problems began to arise.
The first major issue was determining who would take charge; both ministers had their own followers, as well as their own ambitions, with tensions mounting daily.
They had equal status and power within the base, yet disagreed on everything.
It wasn’t long before issues began appearing in the Shelter’s food supplies and infrastructure.
This underground town even had its own water filtration system, but its capacity was far from sufficient.
The town’s food was quickly running out.
People began debating whether it was necessary to "waste" food and medicine on those patients who were said to be dying anyway.
The solutions to these problems seemed obvious, however... the two ministers would make decisions together, and then the political intrigue began.
They took turns accusing each other of letting everyone starve and not allowing them to bathe, meanwhile, the food and water supplies were dropping to dangerously low levels.
The water purification system finally became overwhelmed, completely ceased functioning, triggering full-blown panic.
Of course, they later fixed it, but this incident made people realize the harsh reality of their current situation.
By the time the residents finally realized everything wasn’t as rosy as those bureaucrats claimed, it was too late, public unrest erupted and quickly escalated into chaos.
The two ministers didn’t try to calm the people down, instead, they blamed each other for everything.
This led to a real civil war, the fires of which raged until the General responsible for the base’s security finally intervened.
Both ministers and all others guilty were brought before a special tribunal and publicly executed.
The General shocked everyone by leading his men outside to clear a meat storage facility.
Unfortunately, the facility only had meat, which greatly displeased the vegetarians.
Things calmed for a while, but only a month later, the situation there suddenly worsened even further.
All troublemakers were arrested, and afterward... no one ever saw them again.
Over time, the Guards began arresting people for even the slightest infraction.
A group of brave citizens decided to try and find out where everyone was being taken, only to uncover a horrifying secret.
All along, they hadn’t been eating some delicious meat sourced from an abandoned factory, but the meat of civil war victims... and those who later disappeared.
Rebellion broke out once more.
Many, many people were killed, and the warehouse was looted clean.
From then on, the town was split into two opposing camps: those who hunted and ate others, and those who opposed it.
"That is to say, this place ain’t worth shit,"
Lin Yi concluded, handing the drumstick to the boy.
"You mean you’re not going to help us?!" the boy gasped.
"Why should I help?" Lin Yi replied, looking at the boy as if he were an idiot.
"But..." the boy began to stammer, but was cut off.
"Why should I risk the lives of my men if I’m not getting anything in return?"
Lin Yi sighed wearily, "I had thought there would be engineers and scientists here, maybe even valuable resources...
But it’s just a bunch of civilians, and the worst part is, they’re all idiots."
"We’re not..." the boy started to protest, then fell silent.
Things had gotten this bad because of them, after all.
They let it all happen... perhaps they really were idiots...
"You can tell the others, the exit is open now, you can leave whenever you want."
"But there are zombies up there!" the boy shouted in fear, having seen the security camera footage.
They had all seen it! Zombies were real-life man-eating monsters, and there were millions of them!
"If I were you, I would be more worried about the people up there, not the zombies."
"I... yeah, you’re right... thank you for the food," the boy replied.
Lin Yi nodded, and the boy ran off.
He would tell the adults, and they would decide what to do.
"Boss, aren’t you going to take over this town?"
"Why would I do that? You want me to kill them because that General and his men want to survive?"
"No, just curious. We’ve searched this area, and you’re right, there’s nothing special down there—just some reactor fuel, a bit of food, and a few guns."
"Yeah, just as I expected."
Lin Yi said, activating his helmet, "How’s it going, Peter?"
"I see a patrol team hunting people in the town; should I take them out?"
He really wanted to shoot those Cannibals...
"No need, let’s leave, there’s nothing valuable here. This whole thing was a waste of time."
"Not entirely, boss. My people have connected to the main server here and are downloading data.
For example... the location of a hidden nuclear missile base, with access codes and everything."
"Download all the interesting data, then leave. There’s another military base to check out."
The team returned to the upper level, and after all the data was downloaded, they left the underground town.
Just as he was about to leave, Lin Yi suddenly felt a bit sorry for these people.
So he conjured up dozens of bags of food, five First Level Nail-Headed Hammers, five First Level Crossbows, and several Vaccine Bracelets.
He dropped them at the exit, then headed towards the next town, called Brilon.
