novelraw Chapter 22 You're also called Gaia
Chapter 22 You're also called Gaia
In the empty hibernation hall, only Chen Huai's footsteps echoed.
Before me were hibernation pods arranged like a honeycomb, with only a simple line of numbers above the doors. The heavy-looking metal doors were tightly closed, giving no indication of any intention to force them open.
Is anyone there?
Chen Huai knocked on the door closest to him, his voice sounding somewhat abrupt in the silence.
no respond.
He tried placing his hand on the sensor area next to the door and silently said "turn on".
Not moving at all...
He then groped around the door crack and the control panel next to it, trying to find a physical switch or interface, but to no avail.
"Again."
He walked to the next door, repeating the actions of knocking and trying to open it.
The result remained the same...
The third door, the fourth door... He walked down the passage.
"Depend on!"
After failing to reach the tenth door again, Chen Huai couldn't help but curse under his breath.
"Where's the promised management authority?! I can't even open a door, what kind of manager am I? The place is big, but am I here to manage the air? To manage these lights that are on?"
He felt like he had been tricked by that so-called authority.
This one floor alone is already quite large, not to mention the entire underground city, yet he couldn't even enter the most basic room.
He glanced back at the long corridor behind him, then continued walking down with a sense of helplessness.
He stood at the other end of the corridor, looking at the last room, number 101, but he still couldn't see a door that could be opened.
101 rooms.
He wasn't necessarily interested in opening these doors or curious about what treasures were hidden inside; he was just concerned about whether anyone was still inside.
Has it been dormant for hundreds of years? Or has it long since turned to dust? He has no way of knowing.
The heavy sense of the unknown weighed on my heart, making me more irritable than when facing strange beasts.
Chen Huai stood in the corridor when his stomach suddenly growled at an inopportune moment. The intense battle and the long journey had taken a toll on his physical strength.
"never mind."
He shook his head, forcibly dispelling those unsolvable thoughts, and decided to find something to eat first.
He turned and left the suffocatingly quiet dormant area, returning to the more bustling planting and processing area.
"Environmental parameters: Temperature 22.3℃, Humidity 45%, Oxygen content 22.1%, Hazardous substance concentration: Not detected..."
……
After a bunch of self-check information finished...
"Welcome, Administrator. I am the core control system for Dungeon No. 57, responsible for maintaining the basic operation of the dungeon and executing preset commands. You may call me—"
Gaia.
Upon hearing this, Chen Huai was stunned.
He was certainly familiar with the name... but how could it be here?!
The company's ultimate AI project, Gaia, the one he'd complained about so many times!? The Gaia that created this game world and indirectly trapped him here!?
"Wait a minute?! You're also called Gaia?!"
Countless thoughts flashed through his mind in an instant. Was this pure coincidence? Or did Gaia automatically use its name in the game world it created, or perhaps... some kind of terrifying connection?
At this moment, Chen Huai had a whole host of questions he wanted to ask: about this wasteland, about the war three hundred years ago, and about this underground city that had been lost for reasons unknown...
But perhaps out of desperation, he asked the question that was least likely to have an answer, yet it was the only question he hoped for at that moment.
"Gaia, why was I transported here? How can I return to my original world?"
"Beep... Problem cannot be identified."
"Phew... Just as I expected."
Chen Huai let out a long breath. This Gaia was clearly not the same as that Gaia. This was just a product of pre-war technology in the game industry, and it was completely different from the company's Gaia.
However, with a try-it-out attitude, he continued to ask a few more questions related to reality.
"Do you know this is a game world?"
"Beep... Problem cannot be identified."
Do you know about Earth?
"drop……"
"Reality……"
"drop……"
Chen Huai's series of questions seemed to sink without a trace, only receiving Gaia's monotonous refusal to respond.
As a seasoned game planner who has been immersed in the game industry for many years, he certainly knew what was going on in front of him.
The underlying code of the game world has limitations, and games with a high degree of freedom generally have similar limitations.
To maintain immersion in the game world, any elements that might break the immersion must be eliminated.
Just like in a traditional fantasy RPG, you can never ask an elven priest about the principles of nuclear weapons.
This is simply a rule from a higher dimension.
The NPC dialogue tree doesn't include the real world branch at all. Although some game designers occasionally trigger this situation for players and then arrange a special Easter egg, Gaia doesn't seem to have any intention of giving players or NPCs a chance to discuss this topic.
Since the way back was uncertain, he could only look forward, but fortunately, he hadn't had much hope for it anyway.
"Gaia, is anyone in the hibernation zone? And what's with the countdown?"
He keenly recalled that Gaia's self-check information seemed to have mentioned the hibernation zone.
"In accordance with the Supreme Federal Directive S-1024, in order to prepare for the extreme post-war environment and the critical talent pool needed for reconstruction, the Civilization Seed Project was established in all fifty-seven underground cities."
"Dungeon No. 57 has sealed away top experts and elite warriors from various fields. They have voluntarily entered a deep hibernation state. After the administrator opens the dungeon, according to your first-level management authority, the 101 warriors on the first floor will be awakened. The countdown is 69 hours and 32 minutes."
Warriors from three hundred years ago...
Chen Huai was startled; this explanation was not unexpected.
When he discovered the hibernation pods but couldn't open them, he vaguely guessed this possibility—these were remnants of life preserved by the pre-war civilization for the aftermath of the apocalypse.
But why was it an external wake-up? He remembered the game's setting was clearly...
Wait a minute!
When the game's setting was mentioned, Chen Huai realized a problem.
When Lao Lei told her that the dungeons had already opened, he thought he had traveled to the wrong time and arrived in the game world two hundred years in the future, where he would have to wander alone in the wasteland.
But with the opening of this lost city, it seems that's not the case.
101 warriors...
Thinking of this, Chen Huai quickly opened the game forum.
For the past few days, he has maintained the habit of posting messages on the forum every night, but after only half a day of not logging on, the entire forum has completely changed.
The first thing that caught Chen Huai's eye was a brand new animated poster at the top of the forum interface:
Dungeon: Home Reboot's first closed beta test!
The poster's background is a lush primeval forest, with sunlight filtering through the gaps in the huge leaves, creating dappled light and shadow.
Deep in the forest, a huge, rusty metal hatch covered in vines can be vaguely seen, exuding a profound sense of history and mystery.
The hatch was half-open, letting in a warm yellow light.
A figure wearing a gray-blue hoodie stood there, one hand on the edge of the hatch, head slightly turned, as if preparing to step into that unknown light.
Chen Huai's gaze was fixed on that figure's back.
Although the poster was artistically rendered and the lighting cleverly blurred the details, that gray-blue hoodie...
It looks so familiar!
Those were the clothes he wore before he time-traveled!
The background on the poster is clearly the scene when he first entered the dungeon!