Terra Tinkers Construct is fine.

"return!"

"Come back here, all of you! Don't run away!"

"You bastards! My performance... come back!"

The loudspeaker then realized what was happening, its voice filled with exasperation, but it couldn't stop the crowd trying to survive; instead, it made them burst into laughter.

More footsteps came from above. The workers stopped laughing and hurriedly quickened their pace. Milan, however, silently walked in the opposite direction. The stone pickaxe in his hand disappeared, replaced by a classic round shield and stone axe. He walked alone toward the only entrance.

It was a rather thick gate, with bars, flaps, and a small door that looked like a dog hole, exuding a prison-like, one-sided lockdown, with no intention of letting the people inside out.

But when more thugs rushed down from above, this pass, originally intended to protect the workers, became Milan's strategic advantage in blocking them—or so they probably thought, which is why Milan saw some men carrying spear-like long-handled weapons and others carrying crossbows.

There was even a strange weapon that looked like a revolver, with an exaggerated cylinder and a long barrel.

"boom!"

The weapon fired like a large pistol, but instead of bullets, it fired brightly colored energy particles. One shot caused obvious damage to the iron door, and even cracks appeared at the edges.

"Oh……"

Milan remembered: he had seen this thing in the operator illustrations in his game. The Ursus bear girl named "Absinthe" used this thing—the setting seemed to be "a quick casting unit that stores fixed attack spells, which is widely used in the Ursus military and police."

—The classic case involves the outflow of military equipment and the resale of arms.

Someone pulled out a glass bottle, lit it, and threw it. The bottle smashed against the door, and the spilled liquid burst into flames, blocking Milan's view and the way out. Then another beam of light shot out. The iron gate, which could easily stop ordinary people, seemed quite fragile under the magical attack and was on the verge of collapse.

They seemed to think that this would stop Milan's advance with spears and flames, and then suppress Milan with sorcerers and crossbows waiting in the wings... Thinking of this, Milan twitched the corner of his mouth.

He took a deep breath, planted his feet on the ground, and used his strength to push off from the side, ignoring the raging fire on the ground, and charged forward headfirst!

"Ah!"

The spell bullets and crossbow bolts came flying at once, striking his round shield with muffled thuds: it was clear to the naked eye that the wooden-based traveler's shield offered decent protection against arrows, but it couldn't keep up with the damage from spells—its durability dropped noticeably, but Milan didn't care.

Just as he didn't care about the spears the thugs had set up in the narrow passage.

To be honest, given their limited environment, their strategy and tactics were not inherently flawed.

But the problem is that there's another very simple aspect: they've never thought about this.

That is—power.

The absolute power disparity between the two sides.

Milan charged forward. His equipment permissions prevented the weight he carried from bearing any weight on the ground, but the kinetic energy generated by his actual mass was real and not in vain. The humanoid tank, weighing over sixty tons, strode forward, spears snapping like biscuits. Fire and crossbow bolts were like a joke in the face of the armor's targeted defensive attributes, not even able to polish its surface.

Only the sorcerer using the casting unit posed a slight threat—but no one had time to react. The narrowness of the passage was an objective condition for both sides, and Milan rolled through the entire passage like a dump truck.

Behind him lay a scene of utter desolation.

Chapter 56 Excess

Surprisingly... or rather, predictably, this small industrial workshop with its black market operations didn't actually possess any particularly impressive defensive capabilities.

The standard for "excellent" is not even based on his imagined strength.

Is it because this place is disguised as "legitimacy"?

Or is it because the people behind this think that no one would dare to act so recklessly in the city of Ursus?

In short, if the "black workshop" can be considered an unofficial part of this facility, then the defenses here can only be described as tight on the outside but loose on the inside: the real resistance collapsed after the thugs suppressing the black workshop were dealt with, and the heavy isolation doors and complex building structure were rendered useless.

His goal was clear: to keep moving upwards and figure out the local planning first.

Whether it was the previous overseers or the escaped thugs who spread the news, fear and chaos have already spread among the ordinary workers in the above-ground part of this recycling center; in Milan, you can see ordinary workers in work clothes, who are different from the thugs and infected people, in many places.

Upon seeing the armored figure mentioned in the message, most workers' first reaction was to run; occasionally, for some inexplicable reason, they even mustered the courage to try and grab tools to stop him...

Well, Milan didn't really put in any effort. Instead, they put away their tools, placed the shield in their main hand, and used only their arm strength to shove them against the wall.

"...So, you know what?"

After driving away the workers, Milan saw the thugs, supervisors, and the seemingly important figure they were protecting rushing over again. She sighed and said, "Controlling your strength, stepping on ants without causing any deaths or injuries, is actually quite troublesome."

"?"

They didn't know what this meant at first, but it usually didn't take long to understand it: broken bones are the best teachers, and once they got their hands on a stone axe, the things he usually broke were often more than just bones.

Ah, yes, of course.

For some people, there is neither the need nor the opportunity to understand the meaning of these words.

The higher you go... perhaps because the people who work here often don't need to work, the more comfortable the work environment becomes; and of course, the composition of the people you encounter here also becomes more homogeneous.

Milan knocked on doors one by one, and almost all of them were ruddy-faced, well-dressed men, a stark contrast to the regular workers; when Milan broke down the door, their first reaction was not even fear, but astonishment, absurdity, and furious anger.

"Do you know whose property this is?!"

This was the sentence Milan heard most often, and it even reminded him of familiar memories from before he traveled through time: He remembered seeing a joke that said, "There are always some people who have been in leadership positions for too long, who are used to giving orders, and even think that the laws of nature and physics must give way to their commands."

"For example, requiring people to wear metal jewelry into the MRI machine."

"Some people think that if one pregnant woman gives birth in ten months, then ten pregnant women can give birth in one month."

...That's quite hard to understand.

"Oh."

"This is another workshop group, this is the material receiving area, this is the warehouse..."

“Huo Yue = Yi I Yi 1 Ling ^ Qi Ba Shi (7) 罒 Wu, there is also a safe... Is this person crazy, keeping a safe at work.”

He searched the office quickly because things were different now than when he first arrived. No matter how many bribes or favors were recorded, they were meaningless to him—looking at them would only give him high blood pressure and nothing else.

Compared to that, genuine Ursus gold coins and banknotes, along with a relatively detailed factory layout map, are more valuable.

"Don't even mention it, they're all familiar faces."

Milan opened the wall directly next to the warehouse door, which was practically useless, glanced at the warehouse, and smirked: Well, there are recycled metal materials and ordinary materials, as well as some things that are not so ordinary but familiar at first glance - Originium device cores, incandescent alloys, industrial gels, Originium electronic units and crystal components.

They even have synthetic jade and purified Originium... They don't have refined strategic materials like pure Originium, mostly because they lack the relevant technology, or perhaps because they wouldn't keep it even if they came across it. At most, they store some Originium crystal shells and cores after they've been stripped, solidified, and crystallized, waiting to sell them to facilities that can perform further processing every now and then.

But now, all these things belong to Mi: various items that were categorized and placed were constantly stuffed into his inventory, stacked in the grid according to category, quickly filling the mountain of supplies in reality into his small space grid.

"...Tsk."

Milan smacked his lips.

If there's anything enjoyable about this operation, besides the self-satisfaction of punishing evil, it's definitely the chest-opening part after defeating monsters; but if there's anything frustrating about this part...

"My inventory can't hold all the loot I've collected" is definitely one of them.

—If I remember correctly, I should have an extra inventory in my modpack…

By the way, which mod does the "Craftsman's Storage Bag" belong to?

After sorting through the spoils again, Milan didn't linger and quickly returned to the dark workshop at the bottom, a place filled with an atmosphere of despair. Before leaving, he stuffed two Originium stones into the entrance to block it. The thugs who had returned to cause trouble scattered when they saw him—these things could stop ordinary people, but they were naturally meaningless to him.

He quickly dismantled the entrance; and inside the workshop, the faces of the workers who had previously fled reappeared.

They looked as if they had waited a long time and finally mustered the courage to return and check their remaining belongings. Just as they were packing up, they saw Milan return. When they discovered movement outside the blocked door, they were filled with unease and fear, and a panicked commotion ensued.

Upon recognizing the familiar armor from Milan, they fell silent in bewilderment.

Milan entered the room and, without offering any further reassurance, calmly said, "The area above has been basically cleaned up. Apart from unsuspecting ordinary workers, there shouldn't be any new thugs anytime soon."

“If you want to search for anything… here’s a map, and the weapons they dropped earlier are outside the door. You have fifteen minutes to move around freely.”

"I'm giving you the choice. I don't care whether you run away or do something else, but if you're willing to come with me... I'll leave with my men in fifteen minutes."

"Now, make your choice, infected."

Chapter 57: The Survivor

fifteen minutes.

Milan stood quietly in the center of the workshop and waited for fifteen minutes.

He gave them time to choose, and he also gave himself time to observe—to be honest, it wasn't that he looked down on the so-called gang thugs and the efficiency of the Ursus police response...

Well, to be honest, he looked down on this group's efficiency, and at the same time, he looked down on their strength.

But that's not important. What's important is that, as he expected, some people, driven by a sense of侥幸 (a sense of luck or chance), made a different choice under the influence of fear, impulse, or other emotions... perhaps to escape, perhaps out of greed, or perhaps something else entirely.

Who knows.

In short, most people returned to the passage he was guarding before the countdown ended, and some even advised him to leave early—fearing that those who escaped would call for reinforcements, ruining this hard-won hope.

But Milan remained silent, waiting like a rock for the full fifteen minutes.

When the time was up, he said no more, turned around and walked into the tunnel he had dug, gesturing for the others to go ahead; the tunnel dug out from the filling layer naturally did not have convenient wall lamps for lighting, only torches placed on the ground at intervals, flickering and emitting a dim light.

The workers ahead were constantly filled with fear, unable to see the light of the way forward or the direction they had come from. Milan walked at the very back, like a ghost that erased all traces of its actions, causing the bright torches to disappear wherever it passed and the light that enveloped it to dim abruptly.

The path he had walked on... the passage disappeared, and the hollowed-out wall sprang back to life wherever his hand touched, as if it had never been dug up at all.

"..."

Those who wanted to say something on this road fell silent, as Milan seemed to be silently driving them away; finally, when the first person stepped out of the rustling filling material, the sensation underfoot changed abruptly, becoming a solid metal surface, and even the sound of stepping on it became a hollow thud.

"Dang~"

They then realized that after traveling through a dreamlike one-way passage, they had escaped that hellish place.

And where we are now... it still looks remote and desolate, with only darkness in the distance, and only torches, the same ones we saw in the previous passage, radiating a warm light.

The expressions on the faces of the rescued infected people changed several times before finally revealing a dazed look of relief at surviving a disaster.

"Alright, this is the splicing area at the edge of the third block. In the splicing state, it is basically a remote location where no one will come to patrol."

They were still moved by the fresh, crisp air they had been missing for so long... or rather, for them, who had been in that harsh environment for so long, even the air in the underground area of ​​the mobile block, where dust and the smell of engine oil were quite strong, was still considered fresh.

At this moment, Milan finally came out of the passage. He turned around and casually smeared the last piece of pre-reserved filler on the wall, perfectly sealing the first gap in the passage, without even leaving any gaps in the surface paint.

Is this considered a straight wife? - Ni Mio Sashiki - Fin-Matsuji directly cut off the possibility of the first trace tracking.

He clapped his hands, drawing everyone's attention back to himself, and said, "Let's take a break. I've prepared food and water. You can all calm down here and listen to me for a few minutes."

As he spoke, Milan casually waved his hand, and several torches were placed on the ground and railings around him, illuminating the originally dim surroundings considerably; the others could not see his expression beneath his mask, but could only see him magically wave his hand again, and a furry white cube appeared out of thin air on the ground in front of him...

And, the mildly fragrant roasted potatoes, the fresh and bright carrots, and the bottled water all appeared on the cube.

"I really don't know how to thank you enough!"

"Thank you... thank you... I can't even remember the last time I had a proper meal."

"May the late emperor bless you! I thought, we all thought we would rot and die in that place..."

—Come on, if your warmongering former emperor finds out, I'll be the first one he won't let off the hook.

Milan rolled his eyes silently.

At this moment, simple food and water were better than any delicacy, and more clearly expressed Milan's goodwill than anything else, no matter how unapproachable he seemed or how cold his tone was—actions speak louder than words; immediately, some people couldn't hold back any longer, their gratitude overflowing, and were about to say something when Milan waved them off.

Soon, the crowd began to gulp down their food... along with suppressed sobs and sounds of sorrow mixed in with the large mouthfuls of food.

Milan remained silent.

Only when they had almost finished eating and the atmosphere had gradually calmed down did he speak up, saying, "You should all be able to calm down now, so please listen to what I have to say."

"The message is simple: I am neither a robber nor a philanthropist; I rescued you because I need people to work for me, but I respect voluntariness, so this is your last chance to choose."

"This is the splicing area of ​​the third block."

He clapped his hands, pointed to a direction where the steel structure road on the ground led, and said, “Those who want to go, there’s a road over there leading to the surface. I can give you a map and torches; you should know better than me what being an infected person means in Ursus… But even so, hiding in the shadows with your tail between your legs doesn’t necessarily mean you have no chance of survival.”

“But follow my words.”

At this point, Milan changed the subject.

"What I'm about to do will be far more serious than you can imagine, perhaps even more serious than the environment you just escaped from."

"Choose now, we all have limited time."

The group ate their fill.

After serving as a "dining table" and "hand towel," the furry cubes were put away, and in their place were torches stuck in the ground, illuminating everyone and making their expressions momentarily dazed.

As Milan said: Only when you're full can you have room to think calmly.

However, the consequences of having a full stomach are not limited to rational thinking... there's also the feeling of being too full to handle.

"Sir...Sir, look at us, the old, weak, sick, and disabled..."

A burly man who had picked up the thugs' weapons earlier wiped his mouth, his eyes gleaming, and said, "You did save us, that's true, but there are so many of us, do you think it would be better to... um..."

Those who were still thinking suddenly looked up, and many even showed expressions of disbelief.