System: My Doomsday Train-Chapter 610 - 296: "Is this reasonable?" (Requesting monthly votes)_4
"I really want to know how you got involved. Give me a reasonable explanation."
"It’s hard to be reasonable..."
The middle-aged man looked exasperated: "The fact that I could obtain such intelligence is irrational in itself. How could the path be reasonable? I accidentally joined a group chat, and its name was ’Kasha Civilization 239 War Zone Strategic Intelligence Daily Bulletin’."
"And then..."
"Someone posted the coordinates for the hidden wormhole."
"Though I was quickly kicked out of the group chat, I secretly memorized the coordinates. My child fell seriously ill and requires a large amount of iron ore, so I took the risk to do this job."
"..."
Chen Mang remained expressionless and silent for a long time before softly asking, "Is this reasonable?"
"Not very reasonable, but it did happen."
"So you activated the strategic hidden wormhole set by ’Kasha Civilization’ to come here and prepare to mine this star?"
"Yes."
"To create such a wormhole requires 73.3 trillion units of iron ore. Even if ’Kasha Civilization’ has ways to reduce the manufacturing cost, to build a wormhole that far, the price would definitely not be less than a trillion units of iron ore."
"You used a trillion units of iron ore to manufacture a strategic wormhole just to mine such a small star?"
"Have you calculated how much loss you’re incurring?"
The middle-aged man spoke quietly, not daring to raise his head: "What’s lost belongs to the public. I’m the one gaining."
"Are there any legal provisions in the ’Kasha Civilization Federation’?"
"Yes."
"Familiar with them?"
"Familiar. Doing our line of work, we must be well-versed in the legal provisions."
"Under the legal provisions, how would one be judged for privately acquiring strategic information from the Kasha Civilization and activating a hidden wormhole?"
"Extermination of the entire race."
"Great, you were willing to sacrifice all your people from your civilization to save your child?"
The middle-aged man took a deep breath and earnestly looked at Chen Mang: "Before coming here, I calculated the risks of this venture."
"The main fault of this intelligence leak lies with the leadership of the Kasha Civilization’s 239 War Zone."
"If the incident is exposed,"
"My civilization is sure to be exterminated, but everyone in that group is also bound to die!"
"So I’m gambling that they’ll help cover for me. Even if I activated a hidden wormhole, they’ll patch up the hole, letting the matter go unnoticed as long as I don’t go around blabbing, the issue won’t be exposed."
"After all, hidden wormholes have a chance of naturally dissipating, and their weekly inspections primarily focus on this."
"One less wormhole."
"Won’t catch the upper echelons’ attention, perfectly within reasonable loss limits."
"I couldn’t just watch my child die in front of me, for this, I’m willing to gamble everything."
"..."
Chen Mang walked back to the tea table, sat down, lit a cigarette, leaned back in the chair, his knuckles tapping rhythmically on the armrest while remaining silent.
The entire chain is relatively rational.
This also explains why such an inconspicuous mining star in the universe would prompt someone to create a wormhole specifically for extraction.
The cost of manufacturing a wormhole is not cheap.
This is entirely a losing trade.
Losing public money, gaining personal profit.
That makes it reasonable.
The middle-aged man’s logic essentially holds up, the leadership of the ’Kasha Civilization’s 239 War Zone’ would indeed most likely cover for the man, to avoid compromising their own career prospects.
Death is unlikely; after all, the Kasha Civilization has a scarce population, they’re not likely to execute this batch over this lapse.
But hopes of advancement would certainly be slim.
For these people, the math isn’t hard.
The public won’t hurt from losing one wormhole, but they would surely miss out on promotion opportunities.
However.
To truly keep this matter from being known, thoroughly closing the man’s mouth is necessary; given how fast he ran, otherwise he should already be hunted by now.
It’s pitiful.
If it were possible to give him the iron ore used to manufacture this hidden wormhole, that would be more beneficial.
What strategic wormhole.
It’s better to use all the resources to support him, allowing him to charge into the Insect Race Civilization and cause a massive upheaval!
...
"Quite daring."
Chen Mang leaned back in the chair, looked at the middle-aged man sitting opposite with a smile on his lips, and said softly: "It’s just that the strategic hidden wormhole is one-way, how do you plan to get back?"
"The ore mined from this star surely won’t be enough for you to return home."
"I..."
The middle-aged man looked at Chen Mang and replied quietly: "At the time, the strategic hidden wormhole coordinates posted in the group weren’t singular, but a series..."
"Thirteen in total."
"I memorized them all. Next to the coordinates of the wormhole we traveled via, there’s another one-time, one-way wormhole leading back to the ’Kasha Civilization Federation,’ and I plan for us to activate this strategic hidden wormhole to return home."
"..."
Chen Mang remained expressionless and silent for a long time before softly saying, "Good."
To and fro.
Billions of units of iron ore consumed just like that.
He can upgrade a Seven-color Level component to Level 50, requiring only 4.5 billion units of iron ore.
A trillion units of iron ore would be enough for him to upgrade all components to Level 200 uniformly.
The massive resources to manufacture the two strategic hidden wormholes have been casually expended by this guy, like scooping iron pellets with a golden spoon from aqua regia. What difference does it make?
If he were the leader of the Kasha Civilization,
He’d have a murderous intent.
Not killing would be hard to assuage his fury.
"That’s what I think..."
The middle-aged man cautiously explained: "From the moment we activated the first strategic hidden wormhole, if the leadership of the 239 War Zone reported it, we’d be dead on return, but even if we don’t return, we’d die here from energy depletion anyway."
