Disaster Simulator, global collapse begins.

"The elders of the inner ring, the residents of Night City, the ordinary people of the outer ring, the scavengers of the wasteland..."

"Although we may have different backgrounds and bloodlines, in my opinion, no one's soul is born noble. Living on the same earth, we should pursue a kind of spiritual and metaphysical equality."

Shih Huai-ya was taken aback; the topic seemed to have suddenly veered in a direction she couldn't understand:

"Anyone who can say something like that is either a saint or a madman... You probably haven't said that to anyone else, have you?"

"Of course, I'm not stupid." Chen Jie shrugged. "It's just a preliminary, vague idea. I was just chatting with you close girlfriends."

"I'm sorry I can't help you. I'm really not very knowledgeable. I only took one philosophy class during my school years, and I slept through the whole thing. I only passed by giving the teacher a house at the end of the semester."

“I haven’t taken any elective courses all semester.”

"Then why are you pretending to be so profound?" Swire rolled her eyes at her. "Count me in, let's go together. I can protect you two little weaklings."

No problem.

Regardless of combat power in the storyline, let's take star rating and panel attributes as an example.

Swire is a five-star character (though she is considered the weakest five-star), Melantha is a three-star character, and Karin, because she initially chose a set of ordinary hexagonal attributes, is not even as good as a two-star character, even after the Assassin's Elixir and training.

but……

Chen Jie has cheat codes.

"It's already decided from above. It'll be me, Melantha, and Hoshiguma, with Oni-nee leading the team. Besides, who needs your protection? You can't beat me anyway."

"Your spatial Originium Arts are too overpowered," Swire kindly reminded her. "I think you should use them as little as possible. The more powerful the Originium Arts, the greater the consumption. Who knows if your ability will worsen your condition?"

“I live a regular life every day, and every now and then I use Roman alloy for full-body dialysis. If you hadn’t mentioned it, I would have forgotten that I have Oripathy.”

"It's okay to indulge yourself once in a while."

Swire dialed Melissa's terminal:

"Let's go, before you two leave, I'll treat you to a night market party, have a blast all night, and then have dim sum tomorrow."

……

……

Outside the Sixth Ring, in the former Sargon Empire's territory, lies the southern border of the Terra continent.

Further south lies the unknown realm known as the Scorching Winds and Hot Lands.

Since the Holy Roman Empire encompassed Sargon, those former kings and chieftains moved to the more fertile inner regions, and their ancient glory and traditions have long since crumbled under the onslaught of modern technology.

The Holy Roman Empire has long since fallen apart, and its kings and chieftains have yet to return, continuing to play their power games within the inner city. Only the Black Tower and the high walls stand tall amidst the ceaseless sandstorms, blocking dangers from the unknown and eternally watching over the fate of this land.

Today, a crazy attempt, an experimental accident, has brought a group of uninvited guests to this land.

"Cohen, are you alright?"

Elias Kuz, codename Blitz, is a member of Rainbow Team:

"Cohen?"

He was the first to wake up and tried to wake his teammates.

Rainbow Team's mission this time is to enter Magnet Mountain II and capture a mad scientist named Levi Klitschko.

The four-person team had cleared out the security personnel and met Dr. Levy.

But he has already started the reactor!

"Let me do it." Shuanghua pressed a few acupoints on Cohen's head, then pinched his philtrum.

"Uh……"

Alyssa Cohen, a member of the Ashes team, slowly wakes up.

"This is truly amazing," Blitzkrieg exclaimed.

“What…what happened…” Ash slowly sat up.

"Alexander, she's awake!" Flashpoint alerted the fourth member of the group.

"Well done."

Alexander Senaviev, codenamed Tank, was dressed in a very reassuring manner, wearing a MASKA-1s steel helmet with only a single observation slit across the eyes.

Carrying a DP-28 light machine gun in his hand and a SMIKALANCER "Noisy" launcher on his back, he was the firepower center of the entire squad.

Frostflower, who had awakened the ashes, asked her:

"Are you alright, Cohen?"

"Where is this place... what happened?" Looking at the endless desert wasteland around him, Ash was a little confused about the situation.

"That's a good question." The chariot nodded.

Shuanghua looked up at the sky: "...After Levi activated the equipment, the entire laboratory was engulfed by a violent shockwave."

"Where...where is this?" Ash pressed. "Where are we now?!"

"I don't know," Shuanghua shook her head.

"The target activated an unidentified experimental device, and the shockwave pushed us all away."

"The scene I saw after waking up was exactly as you saw. There was no signal, and I couldn't contact Ella or Twin Moons. The compass was also malfunctioning."

"The only thing I'm sure of is that we're definitely not in the original mission area right now."

"Although this description is not very accurate, it's like we were instantly... teleported... to some place along with the control room."

Ash exclaimed in surprise, "What?"

The tank scratched its head, though the heavy helmet made it feel like it was only scratching an itch through a boot:

"She's right. It's like we were suddenly launched to the moon by a rocket, and that's no joke."

"..."

……

PS: Operation Originium Dust includes over 400 words of original dialogue from the game's storyline, all free.

When I encounter content that overlaps with the original plot or describes a new setting, I will write more free words. You can always trust Ah Xie; he will not copy and paste to cheat people out of their money.

Such a conscientious author is rare, so—give me some votes!

Chapter 140 Pharmaceutical Company ( ) Private Armed Forces ( )

The four members of Rainbow Squad carefully observed their surroundings. The structure, which could be called a house, had several huge cracks. When Ash woke up, the first thing everyone noticed was the desolate desert around them.

Using the analogy of a chariot, which is like being launched like a rocket, then this house is like the house that absorbed the first wave of impact from the sky, crashing into the desert for the four people.

They analyzed that their target, Levi Klitschko, had also been involved. The good news was that the mercenaries' supplies from Magnet Mountain Base 2 were also thrown over along with the houses.

At least for the time being, we won't have to worry about ammunition.

The bad news is...

Water, food, and medical supplies were extremely scarce, communications were cut off, and no one knew where they were. It was all bad news except for good news.

They were also attacked by an unknown creature.

A giant stone crab, almost the size of a small car!

With the immense power of an industrial machine, the Blitzkrieg's shield was pierced in one strike. Unlike its massive size, it was not agile and its surface was hard, making it difficult for ordinary bullets to damage it.

Ultimately, under Ash's tactical command, the group worked together, and the tank used incendiary grenades to kill the Crab the moment it tore through the wall.

The wall had completely collapsed, and this place could no longer even be considered a shelter, so the four of them had to move.

……

The Sixth Ring Road, high walls.

The four Rhodes Island members handed their electronic passes to the guards, and the gate opened for them quickly. It was always like this: it was easy for people inside to get out, but for people outside to get in, they had to go through complicated checks or even begging.

"I really can't imagine what kind of precious medicinal herbs could be produced on this barren desert."

The rare albino lizardman operator, codenamed Ranger, shook his head.

He is a long-time employee of Rhodes Island, having started out here at Sargon. He was once a member of the "Forest Rangers," and in his youth, he was a war god wielding a sword, nicknamed the Scimitar of the Scarlet Valley.

Unfortunately, time is a cruel mistress.

He's getting old, which is probably why he's only a two-star operator in the game.

Putting aside star rating, in terms of combat strength based solely on the storyline, according to the elite operator Blaze from Chapter 6, Ranger's archery skills are absolutely top-notch, making him a highly skilled operator with both experience and ability.

He was chosen to lead the mission because he was from this area and was most familiar with Sargon.

Franka looked at the information on her personal terminal:

"According to the intelligence we at Blacksteel have, those Sargon chieftains have indeed been organizing caravans to transport goods and sell that precious organic compound to the inner ring."

Franka, a member of the Volpo tribe, has straight, medium-length brown hair, a full figure, and golden eyes that always sparkle with a unique light. She is clearly the kind of person who has many ideas and loves to have fun.

Because of her figure, she has nicknames such as Fat Fox and F. Lanka.

Currently, Blacksteel International has reached several agreements with Rhodes Island, including arranging for infected members to go to Rhodes Island for treatment, in exchange for medical expenses in the form of sending Blacksteel Operations Operators to provide professional security services to Rhodes Island.

Making employees work for their own medical expenses is indeed very costly!

Another operator, Liskarm, who also came from Blacksteel, continued:

"Unfortunately, the composition of this organic compound is too complex, somewhat like traditional Chinese medicine in Yan country. Moreover, it has undergone complex processing procedures, so we cannot directly analyze it with instruments."

Unlike Franka, this Waifan girl was not infected. Instead, after her partner Franka was diagnosed with Oripathy, she volunteered to go with Franka as a special envoy to Rhodes Island.

On one hand, Razer felt that Franka needed someone she knew well to accompany her, so that someone could help her with anything. On the other hand, she was used to fighting alongside Franka and believed that Franka felt the same way.

However, Franka rejected all of these ideas. She also applied to her superiors to withdraw Razer's application for her posting: "Finally, no one was watching me anymore. But on my second day at Rhodes Island, I saw my (former) partner going through the onboarding process in the HR department. How would that feel?"

It is said that many operators witnessed this scene that day: two Black Steel operators pushed each other as they walked out of the personnel department office, each saying that they would appeal to the other's superior.

Although they often argue, the two always show unparalleled teamwork when fighting.

Therefore, they have a kind of "saying one thing but doing another" feeling, and are popularly known as the "Black Steel Crosstalk Group".

Sure enough, the two started arguing again, and the long and tedious journey was made more bearable by their back-and-forth banter.

Compared to them, the last member of the team, Hei, was quite taciturn.

She joined Rhodes Island as Miss Ceylon's personal bodyguard.

However, Ceylon is now in Elder Kal'tsit's research institute, a place within the second ring road that is even safer than her personal guards...

It seems she doesn't need bodyguards, and she can't even get into the second ring. She can only work for Rhodes Island to earn money—I heard that Miss and Kal'tsit's research requires a lot of money.

However, I don't dislike working for Rhodes Island.

Listening to the crosstalk, Hei silently started the flying car, and the four-person team left the high wall and headed deeper into the wasteland.

……

This land suffers from many hardships, and among them, lack of money is a particularly severe one.

Rhodes Island has been operating at a loss since its inception.

The large land-based ship serving as the headquarters is about the size of a mobile city-state. This ancient behemoth, which devours money, is burning through Lungmen dollars every day during its operation and maintenance.

(There are currently two financial systems within Night City: one is the credit points in personal terminals, and the other is Lungmen currency issued by Lungmen Bank.)

(It is understood that the latter initially arose from black market transactions. Credit point transactions would generate records, while offline currency transactions could effectively avoid the Guard Bureau's investigation. The exchange rate between credit points and LMD has remained stable at around 1:6.)

In order to find a cure for those infected, and to find a way for them to coexist peacefully with ordinary people...

Talking about ideals always comes at a cost.

No matter how noble and idealistic the good deed, it still comes down to money, that vulgar and lowly word.

Rhodes Island is running out of money.

A ship needs money to travel around, a large number of employees need money, charitable medical care needs money, opening offices in various places needs money, purchasing advanced military weapons needs money, researching mineral diseases needs money, hiring natural disaster messengers needs money...

Since its inception, it has been using the small treasury of an old lynx named Kal'tsit.

Compared to her research abilities, Kal'tsit Elders are far inferior in terms of making money and building and developing their own power.

Over the years, she has accumulated a small fortune and sold some patented technologies. Her wealth is unimaginable for ordinary people.

However, this substantial investment of wealth is merely a drop in the ocean compared to building a massive, continental enterprise.

There's a movie called "Dying to Survive," which shows why pirated generic drugs are so much cheaper than the genuine ones.