Chapter 3

The chilling wind of the wasteland seemed to seep into my bones. On the NSCC's tactical monitoring screen, the thermal imaging sensor displayed clusters of restless red dots on the horizon.

Those were the "Rust Brigade," a group of armed thugs entrenched in the ruins of the old city, their heavy firepower even more frenzied than that of the regular army. The system, as always, popped up that nauseating blue box on my retina.

[Redemption Mission Issued: Due to the depletion of survival resources in the surrounding communities, resentment has accumulated. The host must share food with the armed gangs outside the city, showing mercy to the embers of civilization in exchange for a peaceful ceasefire. Mission Time Limit: 45 minutes.]

"Here we go again." I put down the now-cold instant coffee in my hand, my fingertips tapping out a crisp rhythm on the tactical map.

Professor Sarah turned from the observation screen, her white lab coat splattered with the green fluid of some unknown organism, her eyes bloodshot with fanaticism. "Jack, the gene chains of the last batch of live samples have been analyzed. We need more. That 'Rust Brigade' has good physical attributes; simply killing them would be a waste."

"Don't worry, Professor." I looked at Commander Reynolds beside me. "Commander, the mission instructions are clear: we have to 'share the food.'"

Reynolds was sharpening his tactical knife. Hearing this, he glanced at me, a bloodthirsty smile on his face. "You mean… that batch of 'special supplies' just developed from the biochemical agent lab?"

"That's right." I snapped my fingers, and the communication channel immediately connected to the logistics department. "Activate 'Project Gift.' Deploy all fifty tons of high-energy synthetic nutrient paste from the inventory, adding sufficient levels of brain nerve inhibitors and central nervous system current regulation modules to the mixture."

This wasn't just food. Deep within each piece of nutrient paste was a micron-sized precision execution chip. When it enters the human body, the acidic gastric juices dissolve the outer layer, and the released drug quickly acts on the victim's amygdala and hippocampus, forcibly suppressing the instinctive impulses of their physiological structure and replacing them with a highly automated "strategic command execution logic."

This is hardly a peaceful solution; it's clearly a wasteland version of mind control.

Forty hours later, a swaying convoy of armored vehicles appeared on the horizon—the advance team of the Rust Brigade. They didn't launch an attack but instead, waving white flags, tentatively approached our fence.

"Sir, should we just use the railguns to clear the area?" the frontline commander reported. "Their positions are very dense now."

"No need," I said calmly into the microphone. "Open the supply channel and distribute supplies as planned."

Watching the rioters rush towards the supply distribution point, grabbing the viscous, shimmering nutritional paste and devouring it, I could even feel the system's logic trembling with satisfaction in my mind.

[Mission execution detected: Resource sharing level reached 100%] The process of persuasion is in progress... Hostility detected to be waning... Mission assessment: Reconciliation successfully achieved through benevolence. Rewards to be issued immediately...】

The characters on the screen scrolled rapidly, finally settling on a complex structural diagram.

【Reward: Blueprint for Controlled Molecular Printing Technology.】

"Jack, look!" Professor Sarah almost jumped up from her chair, her voice trembling as she looked at the physiological data transmitted back through the surveillance video. "They stopped! They didn't go to rob, but... they went to clear the northern metal scrap yard according to the clearing route we provided!"

On the screen, those formerly bloodthirsty thugs were now mechanically and efficiently executing the instructions to move, sort, and clean. Their movements were as precise as a well-trained industrial robot army; their frenzied rage had been completely suppressed, replaced by extreme obedience.

Commander Reynolds stood behind me, watching those once arrogant desperados on the surveillance footage, crawling wearily through the ruins for a meager share of "blessing" food, and couldn't help but let out a low, malicious laugh.

“This is what they call ‘peace’,” Reno patted my shoulder. “Jack, your methods are more lethal than any nuclear bomb. You not only tamed these beasts, but you also got this alien system to help us clear the wasteland.”

I didn’t reply, my gaze fixed on the blueprint for [Controlled Molecular Printing Technology]. With this thing, we could directly reconstruct any intricate part within the base using simple basic elements. We no longer needed to rely on the remnants of the old world; we could directly mass-produce our own steel civilization through this system.

“Reno,” I turned around and pushed the blueprint directly to the engineering base station, “tell them to speed things up. Since the system likes ‘kindness’ so much, let’s continue sharing. Distribute our ‘special rations’ to all the gangs within a hundred miles.”

“Since they want to do the hard labor, let them completely plow this wasteland.”

In this cursed era, so-called nobility and mercy are just collars we put around the necks of monsters. And the system is the architect who willingly provides the collar design for us.

The task list was refreshed again, and my gaze was now fixed on the distant horizon.