NOVEL FROG 034. Strolling Through the Forbidden Zone (Part 2)
- Strolling Through the Forbidden Zone (Part 2)
Yellow sand swirled on the ground, frost and snow connecting the sky.
What originally appeared to be a rugged and wild off-road modified vehicle now seemed as gentle and quiet as a ragdoll cat in the cold wind and sandstorm of the outer world.
Nuo Mi expertly drove the vehicle. There were no traffic rules in the outer world, and one might not encounter a living creature even after driving hundreds of kilometers. Rather than driving cautiously, it was better to rely on the vehicle's performance, step on the gas, and forcefully break through the layers of frost and sand.
Li Aozzi put down some supplies and replaced them with fuel to increase the vehicle's weight, preventing it from being blown away by strong winds.
There was no fear of flipping over; in the outer world, the vehicle was mainly on cold, compacted sand, and with a suspension system, there was little worry about flipping. But based on Li Aozzi's years of experience, if the vehicle doesn't flip, it will likely be lifted by the storm.
Supplies take up space inside the vehicle, so it's better to replace them with fuel to add weight, and the remaining fuel barrels could be traded for other items. Even if not needed, they could be made into incendiary bombs.
In the outer world, unless part of a convoy, it's usually not advisable to use headlights to avoid attracting bandits and mutated beasts.
However, Nuo Mi had good eyesight. People who could drive in the outer world generally had night vision comparable to that of beasts. As a guerrilla of the Rose Army, she had certainly undergone special training.
Additionally, the combination of sandy and icy mud made driving very fuel-intensive.
Li Aozzi had heard a joke from mechanic players: The Four Nations' tanks couldn't move in the muddy terrain of the outer world due to insufficient horsepower, often becoming paralyzed and requiring new armored vehicles for rapid marches in the outer world.
This led to the development of mechs and powered exoskeletons.
Later, due to the inefficiency of humanoid mechs—too little defense area, low efficiency, and prone to flipping over—the chassis was made lower.
But then the head of the humanoid mech became too conspicuous, prone to being shot.
So, the cockpit was moved from the head to the chest, and eventually, the head was replaced with a monitor.
It was found that humanoid feet weren't as effective as air cushions, so the contact area was increased, turning it into a structure like a hovercraft.
The resulting thing was a tank with arms and air cushion feet, dubbed mobile armor.
Though much uglier, it could indeed replace tanks for operations in the outer world.
Later, after some wars broke out among the Four Nations, it was found that this thing could only replace tanks and couldn't solve the infantry's armored vehicle problem. The vehicles still got paralyzed in the snow.
This led to mobile armor charging ahead, but infantry couldn't keep up for cover, causing their armored units to be blown up by enemy anti-tank teams.
Eventually, they started using hovercraft for infantry too.
But the hovercraft's armor was insufficient and got hit by enemy artillery.
So, they stacked cannons and armor on the hovercraft, but the power wasn't enough, so they increased the fuel tank size. The larger fuel tank meant less space for infantry, allowing only four people to drive.
The result was infantry chasing tanks, and tanks chasing mobile armor—a bizarre sight.
Of course, this was just a joke among mechanics, those tech-savvy guys often came up with heavy industry jokes, like whether a robot's child would be fathered by C++ or Java, and calling an 8000-derby online scam a practical application of social engineering—leaving Li Aozzi with the impression that they were all average idiots.
Li Aozzi sat in the passenger seat, his feet on the dashboard, half-squinting, his thoughts drifting.
The outer world was very boring.
The dance of frost and sandstorms, spectacular and magnificent at first glance, became monotonous and dull when one actually wandered through it.
The epic scene of ice and fire praised by poets was a deep-seated suffering for the people of the outer world.
The outer world was devoid of life.
In the back seat, Miss Qiu Ran curiously looked at the scenery outside the car. It was very dark, and she could only see lightning flashing between the red-black clouds.
"So there's no sun outside..."
She said regretfully.
Li Aozzi guessed correctly. Qiu Ran was from Frost, but her background was even poorer than his.
According to her, she had lived and grown up in a remote scrap metal recycling station in the countryside, never having entered the city for over ten years. If it weren't for being diagnosed as an infected person and being relocated to a refuge for treatment, she would never have seen the vast world.
"Of course not, country bumpkin!"
Nuo Mi snorted:
"Hundreds of years ago, the sun's rays were blocked by those red-black cursed clouds. The people of the Four Nations maintained small artificial suns using nuclear fusion technology, generating Walden particles to create barriers made of particle lattices to block the outer world's storms and frost—although I don't understand the technical terms, basically, every town in the Four Nations has a nuclear fusion reactor underneath."
"You don't know Walden?"
Li Aozzi glanced at Nuo Mi: "It was taught in vocational school: Dr. Walden was a nuclear physicist of the old era. His Walden hemisphere technology changed the landscape of warfare. It allowed the miniaturization of nuclear fusion, deployable on armored units, completely altering the warfare landscape."
"Not to mention, there's a small reactor under the refuge that can run on a small amount of uranium fuel rods."
"So verbose! I didn't go to school. Anyway, one day we'll kick the Four Nations' asses! Those reactors will be ours!"
Nuo Mi impatiently patted the steering wheel:
"If it weren't for the blockade of the Four Nations, even without the sun, humans wouldn't be unable to survive."
Qiu Ran curiously asked: "Isn't there no energy material in the outer world? Without the sun, how can people survive?"
"Then how do you think the White Fang gang and those settlements survive?"
Nuo Mi retorted.
"Um... I don't know." Qiu Ran leaned against the window, continuing to watch the distant scenery.
"Well, it's not that the outer world has no resources at all."
Li Aozzi thought for a moment and said:
"But having resources doesn't mean having the ability to develop them—oil has always existed underground, but it wasn't discovered until long after entering the industrial age. In fact, the outer world is much larger than the territories of the Four Nations; 70% of the planet's area belongs to the outer world."
He took some time to explain to Qiu Ran:
Due to the sun's rays being absorbed and blocked by the red-black cursed clouds, the earth couldn't absorb and reflect the sun's heat, leading to a general temperature lower than the high-altitude clouds.
The temperature difference between the earth and the sky created desperate winds, which carried away surface moisture. Without the vital sunlight, plants died, causing the soil to lose its windbreak and sand-fixing foundation, leading to rapid erosion.
Despite the heavy snowfall, the cold temperatures prevented melting, and even if you dug through the sand, the deeper layers were just cold ground.
They had long been frozen solid by the cold, and only diamond drill bits could dig and construct.
But even if artificial rivers and reservoirs were dug, without sunlight and warmth, how could you cultivate aquatic ecosystems? How could you farm the land? How could you feed people?
Without a population, there can't be enough labor to develop industry. Without industry, you can't extract underground resources.
Only a very few areas with developed geothermal energy, leeward locations, and places where soil erosion is controlled, such as areas near mountains and valleys, or around volcanoes, could have large populations.
"But the Four Nations are different. After the war that ended all wars in the old era, they found that apart from war, everything else had ended. Small countries perished, and the Four Nations became the absolute giants of the blue planet."
Li Aozzi changed the topic:
"According to the history of the Four Nations: Before the cursed clouds enveloped the sky, they already had a lot of nuclear power plants, ocean resources, and wind power plants. Their industrial facilities were complete, agricultural resources abundant, and their military strength was the best in the world. Even with fewer people, relying on nuclear energy naturally attracted a large influx of people."
To prevent another world war over energy, the Four Nations calmed down this time.
They controlled the bulk of energy through the GTB, the Global Trade Bank formed by the Four Nations.
People from the Four Nations could easily get energy loans from the GTB to develop immigrant cities outside. They raised artificial suns and hemispherical barriers.
But other small countries and autonomous city-states of the outer world would find it "a bit" difficult.
The bank could use various excuses to block small countries' energy loan applications, forcing them to buy overpriced oil, natural gas, electricity, and iron from the Four Nations.
Li Aozzi mentioned his previous life country's—Arlanca Kingdom.
Arlanca was a vassal state of the Red Arrow Empire. The two countries shared language and economy, but the people were different, a result of cultural and economic colonization by the Red Arrow Empire.
The small country of Arlanca, sitting on uranium mines, had to sell them to the neighboring Red Arrow Empire at a low price of 200 Derbies per ton in exchange for political, defense, and electricity support—the Empire could have just taken it, but they gave a little money. It really made him cry.
Li Aozzi didn't contradict this, as the Arlanca Kingdom was indeed the luckiest small country, backed by the Red Arrow Empire. They had resources and just had to flatter the emperor to gain wealth.
Arlanca, with its bootlicking stance, had become a dominant force among the surrounding small countries.
Meanwhile, Tianhuan's slogan was "Leave the land, not the people," which was somewhat inappropriate for children. Li Aozzi didn't dare say more.
With the capital provided by the GTB, the population grew, the economy developed, and various enterprises, factories, and services were created, improving people's living standards, further promoting population growth.
However, the increased population also brought pressure on employment, survival, and the environment.
To develop and transfer these contradictions, the focus turned to the vast outer world.
Thus, the people of the Four Nations, who were unaffected by the cold wind and sandstorms, explored outside. With sunlight and energy, they built factories, established farms, and excavated the outer world's mineral resources, causing more severe damage to the mountains and soil.
The destruction of minerals greatly contributed to the geological damage. In the relentless mechanical construction, the already eroded land became even weaker.
The outer world people could only watch their homeland being blown away by the wind.
Li Aozzi described this in a light-hearted tone.
Under the brilliance of each hemispherical city lay the buried corpses of the outer world people.
But the Four Nations weren't completely heartless and only knew how to plunder.
"Damn it!"
Nuo Mi suddenly cursed, stomping on the brakes three times and stopping the car steadily. Li Aozzi immediately pulled up his face mask and jumped out of the vehicle.
As soon as he opened the car door, even with the mask, a strange, pungent smell hit his face.
Li Aozzi frowned, holding the car door, his mind racing.
"What happened..." Qiu Ran groggily got out of the car, shielding her eyes, peeking ahead.
Facing the scene in front of them, they hardly dared to breathe.
Over 800 meters away, they saw a steaming lake, with a faint orange glow shimmering between the red-black and pale sky.