Chapter 84: Chapter 81: A Recent Old Acquaintance

Ceres retrieved his grodaw container from where he last dropped it, checking inside to make sure they were all safe. They squealed happily at him when he opened the lid, causing him to smile slightly. “Well, they look alright.”

“Can we tag along, pretty please? I want to ask Ceres some more questions about the surface! I never get a chance to talk to the other surface-dweller!” The young guard was mesmerized by the fighting skills of Ceres and obviously had him as an idol in his heart from now on.

He had never met such a strong surface-dweller before! Usually, they were all weak and disabled when they first came.

“Mercer! You’re still on guard duty! What if another monster wave comes in or the next grodaw farmer attracts them?! Remember who you’re fighting for!” Captain Kai berated them.

“Yes sir...” The three guards dejectedly returned to their posts, while Ceres followed Captain Kai and Oswa towards the town gate.

The old rusted metallic town gate looked like what Ceres saw in the Gladius: a large hangar bay-style door except that it was extremely heavy and dilapidated. It covered the entire tunnel, effectively blocking off any possible intrusions from wildlife.

Unlike the Gladius, there was no smaller door carved out for humans to enter, instead the entire gate had to be opened slightly to allow them to squeeze through the gap.

Oswa, Captain Kai and Ceres shuffled through the minuscule gap, while Ceres wondered what happened if the mechanism holding the gate open gave way.

Wouldn’t they be squashed immediately? He immediately started moving forward a little faster, holding his grodaw container in front of him.

He vowed that if he talked to the town chief, he would probably raise it as a possible security hazard. The gate looked like it was more than a century old and Ceres was very well aware of the eventual failure of all complex mechanisms and electronics.

As they made it out from the gap, they came to the edge of a cliff, allowing a sight of despair to greet Ceres’s eyes. It was the subterranean town, though it was nothing like the luxurious and glamorous inner zones that he used to go to in the city of Athen. No, this was far worse. Even worse than what he saw in the outer zones.

The cavern was not large, the floor area maybe only being about five kilometres across in diameter, while a sprawling shanty town coated the floor and each other as it stretched out. No sign of planning was evident, the pre-fab ‘houses’ and shelters made up of loose rock all jumbled up into each other like a fallen set of bricks.

In the centre of the town, there was a large rock statue close to 10 meters high visible in the very middle of the town square.

It looked like a humanoid rock golem with a tail, but Ceres felt a sort of familiarity with it, as though he had seen it somewhere before. The town seemed to be built around it with it being the centre.

“Welcome to our town.” Captain Kai smiled grimly. “It’s probably not much to you since you’re from the surface, but it’s all we got down here.”

A distinct lack of human noises and conversations permeated the air, as though the entire town had fallen under a great tragedy. Instead, the whirring sound of power generators and water pumps echoed continuously.

Broken pieces of long-forgotten machinery were scattered in the streets, and abandoned houses were the norm in the town. Ceres noted a few unrecognizable glyphs marked into the floor and surrounding rocks.

“This place looks more like a human ruin,” Ceres thought to himself aloud, as Captain Kai led him and Oswa down a path from the cliff towards the centre of the town. “Is this still the planet Athen?”

“Yes, it is, but you’re right about it being a ruin. We simply don’t have the parts needed to fix it.” Oswa explained.

“Then where are we exactly with respect to New Saint?”

“New Saint? What’s that?”

“You know, the largest city on Athen?” Ceres was dumbfounded that the people down here did not know about New Saint. Wasn’t New Saint the only major city on the planet?

Sure, there were smaller ones like Rockhold and other outposts - maybe even the research town in the Abela Forest, but the spaceport for the planet only ferries down to New Saint.

As they walked, he noticed a few humans simply living in their open house, not doing anything at all. They lay on the floor, their eyes staring at the ceiling, seemingly waiting for something. Some of them even had chains on the floor, binding them down.

Most of them were older adults, where Ceres gauged their age to be about a hundred and fifty years and above, though with the level of technology he had seen in the town, most likely their lifespan was not as long either. Ceres reckoned the life expectancy of the town could be as low as half, which meant they were more around the ages of sixty to seventy.

All of them too had either missing limbs or deformed body parts, rendering them incapable of normal labour.

When Ceres walked past each of them, he somehow could visualize their body as a dark black hole that swallowed any light that tried to emerge from the same body. The lack of emotion stemming from the humans that stared blankly around scared him.

As they walked past their tenth house, Ceres finally couldn’t hold it in any longer.

“Are those prisoners? Why are you keeping them in these kinds of houses?” Ceres asked Captain Kai.

“They are not prisoners, they are the townspeople. They have chosen to fast till the expedition returns. We don’t have enough food to feed everyone right now.” Captain Kai explained.

Ceres had never encountered such widespread levels of fasting. Were the resources in this town so terribly low to the point of forcing their own elders to starve?

“Talk to others in the town, especially the town chief before you make any assumptions. Nobody in the town really wants this. Maybe you can help us.” Captain Kai said with a hint of sadness, a deep pit of navy blue.

Ceres kept his suspicions under control, knowing that the sadness Captain Kai was feeling now is genuine. Furthermore, he was in a foreign town, it was no place for him to immediately question the actions and culture without getting the full picture.

They finally reached the centre of the town, where there was an open town square that could have held a marketplace. However, Ceres had the inkling that this town didn’t have any form of currency or trading at all.

He instead got the feeling that the town was like a single entity simply trying to do everything it can to survive the hostile environment.

The view of the town square was dominated by the large golem. At the base of the large golem, a simple bartering market was set up, though there were only a few stalls.

Not many other townspeople were around, their standardized protective suits ragged and dirty to the point where Ceres would have mistaken them for beggars if it was not the normal fashion in this town.

“Thanks for all the help, Ceres. This is my stop, pass me the container.” Oswa motioned towards Ceres, who took off the grodaw container and passed it to him.

“Go with Captain Kai to talk to the town chief, I’ll stay around town for a month or so. It’s too dangerous now for us to return to the grodaw farm. Don’t worry about them, they are pretty self-sustaining, and they’ll be fine without the cleaning. I doubt any Chosen will try to nab them too.” Oswa headed to one of the empty stalls and began unloading the grodaws. A sign on the stall lit up, with a few town citizens quickly rushing over to queue up.

Ceres nodded, he and Captain Kai parting ways with Oswa towards another building on the opposite. The building looked fairly normal for a pre-fab building, being a simple rectangular two-storey building with the number ‘13’ plastered largely on its wall.

The ‘white’ colour of the building had long disappeared, and there was hardly a door at the entrance either. It looked more like a doomsday bunker. “Bunker 13…” Ceres mumbled to himself, reading the title label on the entrance.

Through the entrance, Ceres could see three young girls working frantically in a small little office as they used ancient computers and terminals to input data.

Ceres was shocked to still see old mechanical keyboards being used by them, as though he had been thrown back an entire millennium. When the two of them entered, one of the girls stopped what she was doing and ran up to Captain Kai.

“Good work, Kai! And no thanks to you, newcomer. I must note you were the original reason why the attack happened in the first place. Maybe don’t do that in the future?” The girl condescendingly stared at Ceres, who could not find a valid counterargument against that.

“Hey, cut him some slack, Rebecca, he had no choice when escorting Oswa! It’s not his fault that the wildlife has been getting more aggressive recently. What was he supposed to do, delay the shipment of grodaws? I’m going up to see the Chief now, is he awake?” Captain Kai rebuked her.

“Yes, he’s expecting you, go ahead.” Rebecca pointed towards the staircase at the back of the office that led to the second storey.

She stared daggers into Ceres as he walked past her towards the staircase. Ceres felt some sort of green flashes from her, but when he looked at her a bit longer, the green was gone.

“Is the whole town like that?” Ceres asked Captain Kai as they walked up the staircase.

“We don’t usually meet surface dwellers this far down. You’re probably the first one in four years to come to our town.”

“Oh, is he still alive?” Ceres got curious. If he met the surface dweller, he could try to figure out how long he had been knocked out.

“Of course, I’m still alive!” A voice echoed from the top of the staircase, which made Ceres excited. Finally, some answers!

Captain Kai opened the door to reveal a scruffy-looking man wearing combat armour, except he was in a wheelchair and only had an arm left.

He sat behind a large metal table, straining his eyes as he peered at the monitor. The office was lightly decorated, with a few metal stools around. It seemed like the place served as the major meeting place for the town leaders.

No prosthetics were present as replacements, but the man was working hard at the computer with his one hand, deftly typing on the first holographic keyboard Ceres had seen in this town. As he turned to face Ceres, the widest scowl appeared on his face, his only eye glinting with a hint of anger.

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“The biggest question is, why are you alive, Ceres?”

Ceres was taken by surprise. “Instructor X...?”

His brain raced as he recognized the face that ‘tortured’ him during the training camp before the main competition, but it was slightly different – it looked like he aged a decade. How did the instructor lose his limbs and why was he even in this town?

“Don’t worry, we have all the time in the world to talk.” Instructor X motioned towards Captain Kai to leave, leaving the two of them alone in the personal office. “Take a seat.”

Ceres sat on one of the metal stools, still astonished. How long must he have been in the vat for the instructor to be like this? Was this a prank? Is this some sort of simulation testing that’s part of the Thorn Chamber?

“Err, I would like to speak to the town chief, not you…” Ceres started to look around the room, unsure if he was in a VR game.

“Huh? Are you stupid? I’m the town chief around here in case you didn’t know, answer my first question!” The instructor retorted, shocking Ceres back into the usual submissive state he had back in the Thorn Chamber. Six months of hellish training would do that to anyone.

“Why I am alive? I don’t know, I was never dead, or at least I don’t think I was dead.” Ceres scratched his head in confusion.

“Bullshit, you died at Seras General Hospital, five years ago right after you lost to Chad. It was all over the news! You and the entire shit that resulted from it caused THIS!” The instructor mockingly gestured towards his body with his only remaining arm.

Ceres remained silent, trying to process what he just heard. If what the instructor was saying is true, he’s been declared dead for five years, right after the fight with Chad. “Wait, what? I lost to Chad?! I clearly won at the end! Don’t bullshit me? Is this a test?!”

“Really?” The instructor asked incredulously. “That’s the only thing you have to ask me after 5 YEARS, despite seeing me in this state? No ‘How are you feeling?’, or ‘What happened to you?’?”

Ceres was still trapped in utter confusion. He pinched his thighs again, noting the very very real pain of it. He tried a few hand motions generalized for all VR pods but was not able to find an exit menu.

“Are you done horsing around and ignoring me?” The instructor grumbled as he watched Ceres fumble.

“Look, I’ll be honest, it felt like just a week ago for me, and you seem to be doing pretty well for yourself, being the town chief and all,” Ceres replied, his eyes still scanning the room for any hints that it was virtual. Maybe a new type of psychedelic? A nerval virus injection?

“I’M STILL CRIPPLED HERE!” The instructor banged the table in anger. “If I lost just my legs, that’s fine, I could probably cobble a prosthetic together easily here. But even my remaining arm has lost its strength and precision! If it wasn’t for your shitty planet-wide antics I would have been off-world with my mercenary crew years ago!”

“Now I’m stuck here in a shitty cave with a shitty future in a shitty wheelchair with a shitty student who only cares about himself, FUCK!” The instructor roared, causing Ceres to flinch instinctively, a habit stemming from the training camp.

From Ceres’s point of view, it has barely been a week since he met the instructor. The realization that this was reality and five years have passed still has yet to hit Ceres.

Wait, why was he even afraid of the instructor now? Wasn’t he much stronger than him now?

“Okay, if what you say is true, then I’m no longer your student, I’m a full-grown adult now. How about we handle this amicably without getting angry? You answer one of my questions, I’ll answer one of yours.” Ceres tried to negotiate.

“Oh, you think you’re better than some crippled old man now huh? You think you can take advantage of this town to go on your journey again. Well, let’s make the debts clear here: One, you damaged my barrier by attracting a fucking horde of mawsies. Two, you damaged my weapons...”

“Improved them.”

“…perform illegal modifications on my weapons. Three, you are an ungrateful brat. So how about this? I ask the questions, you answer unless you want to lose your only chance at seeing the surface ever again. And if I get some good information along the way, I’ll answer some of your questions. Maybe this will teach you what the consequences of your dumb actions are.” The instructor scowled.

Ceres cursed internally, knowing that the instructor was his only lifeline in terms of information and backing. He sat in silence, contemplating the gravity of what was just said.

Did five years really go past? Who put him in the vat for five years? Where were his friends? Were they back at the outer zones?

“I got to get back to New Saint from….wherever the hell this Bunker 13 town is,” Ceres mumbled to himself. He needed to see his friends and his hometown of Zone 17.

If he angered the ‘town chief’ who knows where the next nearest subterranean town is?

He needed supplies and directions as well if he wanted to make the journey back to the surface, Ceres didn’t want to end up burrowing through a wall to find himself gorging on a raw grodaw again!

Ceres could not also ask the others in town, seeing as they knew nothing about the surface.

“Well? Are you taking it or leaving it? Based on your past records I much rather you leave.” The instructor urged.

“Okay, you win.” Ceres sighed with exasperation, slouching. “What do you want to know?” Perhaps some of his questions could be already been answered by the instructor.

“I heard you ate a grodaw raw and saw you personally stab a hundred mawsie in a row without barely taking a break. What the hell happened to your body? How are you this strong? Did you go through some kind of training arc? Who did this to you?”

“I woke up in a green vat in some underground research lab at a higher level than this town. Any ideas on what it could be?” Ceres shrugged. He did not mention the black goo yet, as he was actually slightly unsure how the Instructor would look at him.

Thinking back, he should have not even tried to activate the black goo in front of all the captain and guards. “I have to keep it secret for a while until I know I can trust them,” Ceres thought to himself.

“Do my crippled ass really look like I’ve seen a green vat before? How did you get here?” The instructor snorted before continuing on with the questioning.

“I fought a few Athen Defenders and a group of enforcers called ‘Keepers’. They were raiding the research lab and killing all the soldiers inside. One of the soldiers mentioned something about the rebellion or something. Do you know anything about the rebellion?” At the mention of this by Ceres, the instructor suddenly jumped up in his seat.

Ceres was taken aback by the reaction. Did the instructor have ties to the rebellion? What was the purpose of the rebellion? Ceres did not recall hearing about rebels at all during his life in New Saint.

“Fuck me,” the instructor cursed as he hastily used his computer terminal to project a holographic map of the underground. It was extremely detailed, with each layer clearly labelled and pinned with extra comments and information regarding the wildlife and resources found there. The instructor reached out with his hand and circled two areas.

“Okay, so here’s the town and here’s where Oswa’s grodaw farm is. Where did you fight?”

Ceres stared intently at the map, trying to picture his path. Using his finger to point as he recalled how he fell, he finally landed at an unmapped part. “Should be around here, plus minus 10 kilometres. I’m not sure, I didn’t keep track of how far I was walking.”

“Who else have you told this to?”

“You’re the first.”

“Did they chase you down here?”

“No, they retreated back upwards while I ran through another tunnel.”

The instructor slumped back in his chair, thinking deeply over the information that Ceres just gave him.

Ceres was curious as to why the instructor was so agitated about the enforcers. “Are you working for the rebellion down here? What’s the rebellion even for?”

“Fuck the rebellion, you think I care about some shitty ass planet and its backwater policies or some planetary unification shit under the goddamn Consortium?!” The instructor snapped at Ceres. “All I care about is not being anywhere near a troubling event unless the pay is good, and let me tell you, you’re a walking calamity. In fact, I internally despise myself for letting you into the town in the first place.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh right, you were ‘dead’ at the time. Look, the first time I met you, you raised a city-wide riot with your ‘death’. This meeting right now is only the second time, and you nearly depleted my barrier’s energy!”

“Wait, city-wide riot? What the hell happened?”

“I don’t know much of what happened on the ground myself, all I remember was that I was about to leave the Thorn Chamber back to my ship one day when I was suddenly apprehended by the enforcers. I learnt that Cardenia was the one who had genetically modified you and therefore killed you due to illegal enhancements that had gone wrong during the fight. Due to my position as the main instructor, I was naturally arrested as one of the main defendants!”

“Cardenia? Isn’t she the owner of Athen? How could the enforcers arrest her? They’ll have to get through the Dynasty of Hawthorn first, the Five Families are nothing compared to them.”

“Idiot, the owner of the planet now isn’t Cardenia, it’s Oliver Athen!”

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