Meteor Fall Master in the 'Starry Abyss'
Chapter 203 - 027. Long time no see, comrades, have you eradicated poverty?

Chapter 203: 027. Long time no see, comrades, have you eradicated poverty?

"Get out of the car," Li Aozi said, spotting a familiar building from his memories.

"Hey, this dosage is lethal, isn’t it?" Banam gripped the steering wheel, too scared to let go.

"What are you so scared of? This level of radiation is at most equivalent to getting 10 X-rays. You just need to drink some green tea afterwards and you’ll be fine."

Li Aozi put on a fighting shovel, opened the car door, and with a yank of gravity, dragged the grim-faced Banam out of the car.

It had to be said, mortal teammates were nothing compared to transcendental warriors.

He was starting to miss Du Zexin already; you see, Meibei was good in every way, handsome, strong, smart, loyal, brave, and a civil servant to boot.

Just unlucky.

Banam insisted on wearing a lead groin protector, fearing the radiation would rob him of his fertility. Li Aozi couldn’t be bothered to argue and led him on a wild chase through the forest until they arrived at a residential area.

About 300 to 400 years had passed since the old era, and the steel and concrete houses had naturally decomposed, shedding their artificial embellishments. Spirals of steel stretched out from the crumbling walls; these had accelerated their rusting due to the destruction of Ersha, covering them with a layer of shiny red-black crystals. When the wind blew, they chimed.

The place was eerily quiet, with the occasional vaporized black human silhouette on the walls—a person desperately hugging their child, but still unable to escape their fate, leaving nothing behind but a mottled shadow for later generations.

Yet, on this forbidding ground for humans, Banam saw a variety of wild animals.

"Wow, is that a deer?" he exclaimed, pointing towards a sika deer mother and her fawn feeding in the distance, scarcely believing there was not a single deformity on them; aside from having more spots, they looked no different from creatures hundreds of years ago.

These wild animals were clearly more enchanting than any found in the Outer World. Banam had only heard that some of the old era animals still existed in the private zoos of some clan nobility. Unable to resist, he took out his terminal to take a photo, but the flash scared the mother and fawn, sending them fleeing.

"Huh?"

While Banam’s attempt to take photos fell through, the flash inadvertently illuminated a dark corner of the forest. Li Aozi noticed a distinct metallic reflection and immediately led the disappointed Banam towards it.

The ecology here was too wild, and he had to burn away tangled roots with fire to uncover a stone stele buried within the natural forest. Luckily, the text on it was written with some special quality paint and had not degraded. Li Aozi illuminated his field of vision with fire to read the inscription:

"The unnamed heroes entered here, leaving hope and the future for you."

Banam also recognized it: "This is the language of the old era, Yamiriko."

"You actually understand this?" Li Aozi was surprised; he thought only players came prepared with this language.

"Uh, not really," Banam said, a bit embarrassed as he scratched his head. "I studied it for a while in university to earn some credits."

"Not bad, not bad," Li Aozi patted his shoulder, saying, "A civilization that forgets its history has no future."

Finding this stone stele meant Li Aozi was on the right track. They continued through the forest and soon found a desolate graveyard.

Lonely tombstones stood in the ground, weathered and eroded by Ersha and Frost Snow over the years, having collapsed and decomposed. Bringing nothing into life, taking nothing with them in death, the firefighters who had saved lives during the nuclear leak were laid to rest here, as if even in death they continued to guard this wasteland.

Banam felt a solemn air assault his senses, as if the dead history was coming back to life. Perhaps there had been a heart-shocking funeral here, where people offered white flowers to the fallen soldiers, with bells tolling a reverberating farewell.

Cheep, cheep, chatter—

The call of the Huang Dujuan rose, yet the cemetery was devoid of human presence.

Banam came to his senses, perhaps the excessive radiation had affected his cognitive nerves, causing hallucinations. He fixed his gaze and saw that Li Aozi had already walked to the deepest part of the graveyard, beside an inconspicuous tombstone.

The tombstone, eroded by wind and rain, bore no carvings—only the frail numbers ’1917’ remaining.

"Mr. Leoz—" Banam called out.

The number on the tombstone matched the one in his memory, the very place as Malis had mentioned.

"This is it."

Li Aozi unfolded his entrenching tool, moved the tombstone aside with Gravity, and began to dig at the grave.

"Hey, hey, hey, isn’t this a bit too much... These are the coffins of past heroes."

"No, there are still living people inside."

"Living—" Banam was left speechless.

Alive, in this place?

Not to mention anything else, the amount of radiation here indicated that it was not an area where humans could have survived long-term.

Moreover, these tombstones were erected far too early, at least 400 to 500 years ago—perhaps the Grante Duchy didn’t even exist back then—no, Frost Plated probably didn’t exist either!

Li Aozi dug quickly. To avoid causing extensive damage to the cemetery, he chose to only use his tool for excavation. Accompanied by the clear sound of the entrenching tool hitting a solid substance, he immediately knew he had reached it.

He swiftly cleared away the dirt, jumped out of the pit, and used Gravity to pull out the entire alloy coffin. The sight of the bronze-colored coffin caused Banam’s face to change drastically as something came to his mind.

"My god, were resources from the old era so abundant?" he asked incredulously, stretching out his hand to touch the alloy plate. The smooth touch made Banam even more certain of his thought:

"This is Neijin! An extremely valuable aerospace material, its strength is 200 times that of titanium alloy, but its density is only one-third of iron! So much Neijin, it’s worth at least 1.8 billion Derby!"

1.8 billion Derby, that’s more than the Grante Duchy’s military expense for ten years.

And that was the most conservative estimate because, in reality, no country could produce Neijin. They all relied on the reserves left by their ancestors.

A vessel crafted from Neijin could easily accelerate to Mach 5 without worrying about overheating or disintegration. On the battlefield, it could easily take on a hundred enemies—it was no problem at all. No air-to-air missile in the world could penetrate this material.

If paired with the most skilled pilot, who could deliver a nuclear warhead accurately to any city—such an act could indeed be described as divine.

This thing was a national treasure.

If Li Aozi’s fiancée was made of Neijin, not only would Banam believe it, but he would also have no objections to this ’beauty’ being nearly 500 years old. She wasn’t aging gracelessly; she was full of charm!