Mystical Journey

Beneath, Garen was gasping for breath. It was easy for him to throw out so many branches, but for all of them to accurately hit the tiny opening in the air filtration system, it was a demanding yet delicate task which exhausted most of his concentration. It was partly because he also had to pay attention to avoid the rain of bullets while being careful of where he stepped on in his high-speed movements all around the place.

"Luckily, I'm familiar with the super-miniature Mech since the content of my classes included information about it, or else I really wouldn't know how to deal with such a troublesome turtle shell. I can't penetrate it and the impact would be dealt with by the shock absorber device…"

He walked to the side of the only Mech that had not fallen into the lake and gave it a kick. There was no response.

"You, come down."

He looked up at the last Mech and said.

That guy gave a shudder and obediently flew down in front of Garen. He quickly threw away the gun in his hand and raise his hands in submission.

"Take off the Mech coat on this guy," Garen ordered.

"Ye… Yes!"

The last person managed to give a reply while being scared stiff and immediately started to skillfully strip the Mech coat off the person on the ground.

Garen stood watching at the side and casually asked a few questions.

"Just now, I heard that you guys called yourselves Hornets and that this is your turf?"

After sensing that Garen did not have the intention to kill him, this person began to relax for a bit.

"Yes Boss, we, the Hornets are the owners of this site. We owned all the resources like the Rainbow stones and Black sands."

"How many people are there in the Hornets? With Mechs like you guys," Garen asked while observing his actions.

"Around twenty. We are the fifth team and the larger team among the two small teams, and there is only one boss," that person put the Mech coat beside Garen.

The one who had been wearing the Mech coat was a dark-skinned middle-aged woman who lay senseless. When she came into contact with the air, with a slight twitch, her body began to rot and melt like a burning candle. Starting from her skin, she began to melt into a puddle of dark green liquid that flowed towards the Colorful Lake.

Garen already knew that this person had died a while ago. From the moment the lake water entered the air filtration system, both layers of air filtration devices were corroded and the air within had instantly turned poisonous and disgusting. With these people's physiques, they naturally could not stand it for even half a second and were immediately poisoned to death.

"This is your Mech coat…" this person stood at a side with a somewhat subservient attitude and placed the Mech coat in front of Garen.

"Are there any other forces around here? You guys have been living in this place?" Garen asked in a low voice.

"Yes, we are radioactive people whose bodies were contaminated in some parts and have a certain degree of toxicity. We were not allowed to live in any regions except for certain areas that were designated," that person answered hastily. "You are not a radioactive person, so why would you come here? Generally, the regular people are not willing to contact us, even for a little bit."

"Why?" Garen picked up the Mech coat and examined it.

"Because the radiation in radioactive people is contagious. This is a disease that has no cure. A slight inattention and the natural people would get infected as well. All the natural people that are infected will be expelled from the region and then they can join the radioactive people," this person explained in a small voice. "We have no way to live, so we can only hoard the small bit of resources left in between the regions, collect them and exchange them with the natural people's government and merchants for necessities. Food and drinks, things needed in our homes and also water that has no contamination, everything we need."

"Doesn't it rain often?" Garen furrowed his brows. From this person's words, he seemed to have touched on a side that was not exposed in this world.

"That's right, but the pollution on the planet is so serious that even the rain is polluted and poisonous. Without a good filtration system, the water cannot be drunk in any way. Those who drink them will get sick and die off quickly. The natural people's government does not care about us. No medicine, no medical facilities, and even clean water requires for us to trade our lives for it!" when talking about the tragedy of the radiation, this person seemed to have forgotten his fear earlier and spoke with resentment. His tone was full of envy of the natural people and hatred for the government.

"Natural people…radioactive people…" Garen had never noticed any information about this on the Web. It had obviously been censored by the government so that the natural people would not know anything about this dark side of them.

"Are there a lot of radioactive people?" he continued asking.

"A lot," this person answered in a low voice.

"What's your name?" Garen looked at the man carefully.

"I am called Mondeo, sir," this guy took out a small thing from his waist and handed it over. "Sir, this is a map of the Hornets' turf."

Garen took Mondeo's map and lightly pressed the button on this little device.

With a beep, a red light shot out from a small hole in front of this little thing and projected directly a crude map on the ground. The names on top of it were written badly.

The Blackboard region and Polar Region were among them.

The thing that surprised Garen the most was that as compared to other territories, the two regions were like two sesame seeds on top of layered flatbread [1] and completely inconspicuous.

He took a deep breath before he moved his finger to other vast territories outside the regions.

"These territories are all under the influence of radiation?!"

That's right, sir!" Mondeo nodded. "The natural people's regions are only small areas that radioactive people yearn for. There is no need to worry about the food we eat and the clothes we wear. There's no need to worry about fighting with dangerous mutated life forms and no need to rob territory and food by killing people. A place where every radioactive people aspires to live in. Some people have calculated that even if there were radioactive people dying every day, our number will still be more than ten times that of the natural people. And with the pollution getting worse, every day, there will be natural people being driven out for various reasons to become radioactive people."

At this moment, Garen truly understood the extent to which the Mother Planet Federation had decayed.

Radioactive people… this huge group of people was completely covered up by the government. The region had even established a perfect blockade system so that the people could continue to live on in ignorance.

"Has there been any radioactive people that have entered the region?" Garen asked.

"Not that I have heard of," Mondeo shook his head. "But sir, you must be a natural person, right? If you have a Watch Terminal, then after coming to the radiation belt, you will need to go through radiation checkup. There may also be a memory sweep."

"Radiation checkup? Memory sweep…?" Garen knew what these two meant, especially the checkup for radiation. The Cold radiation in his body must not be detected. And the memory sweep… This technology was used to enter the memory and let other people take a look layer by layer and make changes to them!

The natural people did not know the details, thinking that only the recent part of the memory would be eliminated, but as a student in Blackboard Academy, Garen knew better. This technology was a method that completely discarded human rights laws!

For a time, his face under the protective clothing turned gloomy.

"Once the fact that you have been to the radiation belt is identified, you will be ordered to go through a memory sweep, which is the rule," Mondeo continued. "Rumor has it that there was once a region's big shot's nephew who came out to the radiation belt, and when he went back, he was still ordered to go through the memory sweep. Although the big shot was furious, he could not do anything about it and a lot of his family's secrets were leaked out."

"Is there a lot of this radiation belt between the domains? Does it only exist in between the Polar Region and Blackboard Region?"

Garen pondered for a bit and asked again.

"No, it's like this everywhere. Our team has one that came from another radiation belt. Every region separates the area where they conduct their activities, and outside their activity area is entirely radiation belt. No natural person is willing to approach the radiation belt because they may never be able to go back," Mondeo sighed.

Garen carefully sorted out all the relevant information he had received in the past.

Mother Planet's huge environment and their borders rearranged themselves in his mind.

On the huge blue planet, on the pieces of continents, the regions were like gems dotted in the earth, small and precious, while outside, the periphery was all the radiation belt that was caused by pollution from the technology era.

The Academies Union was the most powerful force; they controlled everything, maintained order and blocked everything from the outside, but there was also a civil war raging inside. They should be the mastermind that sustained the current relationship between the natural people and the radioactive people.

"Alright let's stop talking about all these," Garen diverted the conversation. "How many Colorful Lakes are here?"

"Colorful Lake… there's only one that has reached this Flaming light level. We have to send people to patrol every day and it's our team's turn today," Mondeo quickly answered. He guessed that Garen should be a natural person that had been expelled today and did not know the importance of resources.

"Sir, if it's necessary, you'd better collect some Rainbow stones as resources to exchange for food and water. Food and water are very precious in the radiation belt."

"Thanks for the reminder," Garen nodded. The Rainbow stones were common items inside the region, and he would have never thought that in the radiation belt, it had become one of the precious and important resources needed for survival. If he had not come out, he would have never have known that the Mother Planet was in such a bad state.

"Aside from the billions of people on Mother Planet, how many people are living in the radiation belt? This number is a big unknown…" he pondered with a heavy heart.

"Alright, you can go now," Garen waved his hand, indicating that Mondeo could leave now. This guy was quite smart. In the beginning, he was still so scared that he wanted to escape but now he was very cooperative with no indication of doing anything else.

Mondeo looked as though he was granted amnesty and quickly ran far away. After some distance, he turned to look back and saw that Garen did not have any intention to kill him. Only then did he fly up and rush away.

Garen watched until he was completely out of sight before picking up a piece of the Mech parts on the ground.

"An outdated technology… It's an equipment with materials from at least fifty or sixty years ago." he touched the production label on one of the parts: Polar ——13329760.

Looking back at the Colorful Lake, so far, he had only found small white stones which could not even compare to the batches that other people had brought over for him to absorb.

He had understood completely now. The white stones he had absorbed previously must have been accumulated by a lot of radioactive people.

"This is far less efficient than getting accumulated and absorbed all at once. Forget it, it's better to go back. Luckily, the Watch Terminal was frozen by my Cold Energy radiation and its functions were suspended."

He looked around and his gaze settled on the large Colorful Lake.

"But, since I have come, I can't just go back empty-handed. This Colorful Lake…"

TL note:

[1] Raws stated Shaobing (烧饼), translated to layered flatbread.