[... Recently, the spore concentration in the air over Clearspring City has continued to rise. According to analysis from the New Alliance Biological Research Institution, the Tide is expected to come within two weeks.]

[The New Alliance Central Command has now designated parts of Clearspring City as temporary strategic preparation zones. Residents of Boulder Town and Dawn City are advised to ensure their personal safety and avoid activity in these areas whenever possible. Do not linger unnecessarily outside the settlements or within city ruins for extended periods.]

[However, there’s no need to panic, especially for our new friends. The annual Tide has long been a recurring event for Clearspring City. Though the assault may seem overwhelming, victory will surely belong to us, the united survivors of the New Alliance!]

[The Survivor’s Daily will continue to bring you the latest front-line updates!]

...

Boulder Town, Pirate’s Bay Tavern

The tavern was lively as ever, roaring laughter and the clinking of mugs filled the air like the heat from a burning forge.

At the bar, an old-style radio with a small holographic display played the news broadcast. A drunken man burped and sighed sentimentally. “Ah, that brings back memories.”

A drinker beside him turned curiously. “Memories of what?”

“Of House’s old broadcasts,” the man chuckled, then cleared his throat and mimicked an exaggerated voice. “My dearest listeners! The Tide is upon us! Outside the Great Wall, those country bumpkins and beggars stare longingly at our comfortable lives. Of course, we won’t open the gates. We’ll sit by the fireplace and watch them, watch them starve and howl, roll in the mud with the Crunchers. And our brave young men, under the militia’s wise command, suffer hardly any casualties. A few might die, but they didn’t have a single chip in their pockets anyway, hardly real citizens of Boulder Town.”

His imitation was so absurdly accurate that everyone burst into laughter.

“Ha! House?!”

“I almost forgot about that bastard!”

Life had gotten better day by day.

But sometimes they still remembered the darker days, and the people who had vanished from their world.

Some things only became clear when one looked back.

They didn’t even need commentary anymore. Just repeating House’s words was enough to make everyone laugh knowingly.

“So where’d that guy end up anyway?”

“I heard he went to Red River Town at first, but the mine owners there never listened to broadcasts. So he drifted to Garbage City. Turns out he did have an audience there, but they thought he’d been exiled by the New Alliance. The locals were so scared they wouldn’t even let him in the door.”

“Hahaha! I doubt the administrator would’ve bothered with him. If he had, House wouldn’t have made it out of here alive.”

“I heard later he went to the Bugra Free State. They don’t care who you are, as long as you can talk, you can keep doing your old job.”

After the great upheaval, plenty of inner-city nobles and businessmen who had served them fled north, to that convenient place where money could buy anything.

Take that bootlicker Vega, for example. Word was he was doing fine. He used to look like a lackey. Now he strutted around like a respectable man.

He was like a mudfish, slipping from the murky water into the swamp, and somehow living better than ever.

But no one in the New Alliance envied him.

For most of them, they’d had enough of a winner-takes-all type of mentality. Whoever wanted that could have it.

They didn’t envy the victors, nor pity the losers. They just walked their path.

The tavern door chimed, followed by wet boot prints on the wooden floor. A gust of cold air came in as Joey, the Militia commander, strode toward them. “Don’t go dumping all the blame on the militia,” he said bluntly. “We’ve done our part, even if I admit we didn’t do much before.”

Everyone turned toward the voice.

Seeing Joey, the drunk who’d been doing the impression of House grinned. “Joey! Come on, you know we’re not talking about you! You’re one of the good ones. How’ve you been lately?”

He even pulled out a chair for him.

Joey sat down easily, took the hot towel the bartender handed him, and wiped his face.

The air had been awful lately. Even though survivors here were used to that moldy stench, the grime still clung to their skin and hair.

Handing the towel back with a word of thanks, Joey ordered a mug of hot honey wine and said casually,

“... Same as before. We’re mainly handling defense. The New Alliance isn’t making things hard for us. As long as we hold part of the Tide near the Great Wall, they’ll launch an offensive from the north of the third ring and put pressure on the enemy.”

The drunk man placed a hand on his shoulder. “If things get tough, don’t carry it alone. Tell us, we can fight too.”

Everyone else nodded silently in agreement.

Joey froze for a second, then laughed. “Hahaha, right. What’ll you fight with, beer bottles? Leave the professional work to the professionals.”

The man laughed as well, though his smile was uneasy. For two centuries, the inner-city nobles had always been the ones sending people to face the Tides. This year would be their first time facing it alone, and it just had to be one of the fiercest Tides after a mild winter.

“Do you have enough manpower?”

Joey smirked. “We’re never short on people. Especially now, we’ve got some... useful fellows this year.”

“Useful fellows?”

“The slum rats. Those crooks who used to trade with marauders.”

At that, people in the tavern remembered the crackdown earlier that year.

Those gangs had been idiots. The New Alliance had long disliked them but saw it as Boulder Town’s problem.

Now that Boulder Town had joined the New Alliance, the filthy slums under the Great Wall became their problem. And instead of keeping their heads down, those fools had the nerve to target shelter residents.

Rumor had it the administrator was personally in Boulder Town when it happened. Upon hearing the news, he simply raised his hand and a dozen tanks straight from the frontlines turned around and surrounded the slums. Suspected gang members were dragged off for interrogation. Those who resisted were executed on the spot.

No one knew the exact number of deaths, but at least 5,000 of them were captured alive.

After that day, the slums went silent. The orphanages and welfare homes of Boulder Town overflowed with the rescued children.

“... I heard the administrator reorganized them into a Punishment Barracks,” Joey said after sipping his honey wine. “They went through three months of military training near Bluestone County.”

He set the mug down and smiled grimly. “Time for them to pay their debt.”

...

Near Bluestone Geopark

A fenced compound sat beside what was once the park, now a mined-out pit.

Unlike the marauders who toiled endlessly in the mines, the people here weren’t worked to death. Their crimes weren’t that severe.

They only labored 10 hours a day.

The rest of the time, they underwent brutal military drills, using wooden sticks as rifles, practicing bayonet charges and marksmanship, crawling through snow under machine-gun fire and shell blasts, hardening themselves for the coming Tide.

Some died during training. Some perished in the mines. But those were few.

Even with the inhuman regimen, the wastelanders’ endurance was astonishing. Over 5,000 of them survived.

In just three months, the swaggering thugs were unrecognizable. Even the ones who had been obese had visible necks.

Only after losing their freedom and dignity did they understand what those things truly meant, and that, in essence, was the purpose of the camp.

The Punishment Barracks’ education might not have turned them into civilized men, but it had burned discipline into their bodies.

As usual, after a long day’s training, an officer from the New Alliance’s First Corps, assembled 100 or so inmates in the mess hall and announced their next mission that would take place in two weeks.

It wasn’t unexpected, but when they learned they would be sent to the battlefield as cannon fodder, fear flashed across their faces.

The officer was unmoved as he continued flatly. “This year’s Tide is unlike any other. Many of you will die, perhaps most of you.”

One inmate swallowed hard and asked, “What if we survive?”

The officer glanced at him, understood the question, and replied evenly. “If you survive, you’ll earn the right to be human again. As for whether you become citizens of the New Alliance, that depends on your performance.”

“However, the administrator has promised. After the Tide, regardless of whether you earn citizenship, you will not return here. You’ll go south as supervised settlers, to help reclaim new lands and build new settlements.”

“If your performance is exemplary, you might even become full residents.”

Hearing that, some prisoners brightened immediately. The south, for all its dangers, was still better than the godforsaken place they had been sent to. Wasn’t there even a Singularity City down there?

Anything was better than being dumped into the wasteland to die, or worked to death in the mines.

But others knew what the Brocade River Province was like. It was likely the next war zone, and frowned in worry.

Watching them murmur among themselves, the officer said coldly, “This isn’t a negotiation. You have two choices. Live and die like marauders in the mines, or pick up what remains of your dignity, and die as men.”

The hall fell silent.

At last, one prisoner stepped forward and raised his hand. “I’ll go.”

“Name?”

The officer looked at him. The man hesitated, then lowered his head. “... Dagger.”