The Fourth Calamity

Workhorse Admin Discussion Group.

This was a small group with only four members.

The owner was Fleeting Time, and the members were three workhorses from the neighboring group—in other words, the dog admins: Waking Up Dozens of Times a Night, Level 8 Gale, and Long Days Ahead.

Ye Shi: Did you all get the helmets???

Old White: Got mine... This thing's pretty creepy. It was dropped right at my front door.

Fang Chang: I found mine by my garage door...

Gale: Mine was on my desk... I thought it belonged to one of my coworkers.

Ye Shi: None of yours were as creepy as mine. The package was delivered straight to my dorm! All three of my roommates were there, and none of them saw how it got in! And the creepiest part—I don't know if you noticed—is that when you put on the helmet, you can see a countdown, but nobody else can see anything.

The group fell eerily silent for a while.

The first to break the silence was Fleeting Time, the group owner.

Old White: ...Now that you mention it, it really is kind of creepy.

Fang Chang: What kind of game company is this? Not only do they know our addresses, but they can get packages into our hands without anyone noticing?

Gale: Yeah, that's what bothers me most too. The addresses are one thing. If they used the IP addresses from when we clicked the link, it would theoretically be possible to figure out where we were in real life. But the delivery... I can't make sense of it. I'm in Jinling, and Ye Shi, if I remember right, is studying in Jiangcheng. We're five hundred kilometers apart, yet we discovered the helmets at almost the same time.

Ye Shi: Yeah... and it was shortly after we clicked the link.

Old White: Fuck, should we call the police?

Fang Chang: There's been no property loss, so the police probably can't do much. Besides, what would you even tell them? That a package was delivered wrong? That there's something wrong with the helmet? Other than the owner, nobody can see anything when they put it on.

Gale: Yeah, that's the biggest problem. It's hard to explain what this thing even is to anyone else. I tried putting my phone inside the helmet while wearing it, but even though I could see things clearly, the phone couldn't capture anything.

Gale was a teacher in real life, probably a science teacher. He spoke in a rather organized way, and Fang Chang and Old White both agreed with him.

Ye Shi: How about... we take the helmets apart and see what's inside?

Gale: We could, but there's a risk. At least, I haven't found anywhere that can be taken apart. If we force it open, there's no guarantee we'll be able to put the helmet back together.

Fang Chang: True. We can't screw over Brother Guang either.

Since someone had been able to place the helmet right outside his garage without anyone noticing, he was starting to believe what that guy with the ID Guang had said.

Maybe this company was some mysterious research institution backed by a government agency?

Whatever it was, they had suffered no losses so far. Besides, he himself was quite interested in fully immersive VR games.

That countdown had successfully piqued his interest.

Gale: I messaged Brother Guang privately on QQ, but he hasn't replied yet. The official website's URL doesn't look like a domestic site. It doesn't even really look like a normal website domain. I can't find any registration information for it.

Ye Shi: The dark web?!

Gale: No idea.

Old White: Let's leave it at that for now. There's no point discussing it. Anyway, after three days, we'll know exactly what's going on with these helmets!

While the players were discussing things, Chu Guang, far out in the wasteland, was still busy making his final preparations.

Five kilograms of green wheat and a few iron tools.

Chu Guang had gone through considerable effort to move those things from Bette Street to Wetland Park three kilometers away without attracting attention.

Vault 404 was hidden beneath this park, with its entrance inside an unremarkable sanatorium.

There was abundant vegetation here, and it was close to a lake. In theory, plenty of wild animals should have been active in this area.

Once he approached the place, Chu Guang became extremely cautious, staying alert for any potential danger nearby.

Fortunately, nothing unexpected happened.

After checking the markings he had made at the sanatorium entrance and confirming that no mutants or raiders had slipped inside while he was away, Chu Guang used the pointed water pipe in his hand to push open the door and carefully entered.

The entrance to Vault 404 was the elevator at the very back of the sanatorium lobby. It was also the only elevator whose panel bore the label for Basement Level 1.

Chu Guang first went down and tossed the food into the corridor between the elevator base and the airlock door outside the buffer room.

It was an open area roughly forty or fifty meters below the surface.

Honestly, it wasn't a good place to store food, but it was still better than leaving it in the sanatorium for passing rats or mutant cockroaches to notice.

He passed through the buffer room's two airlock doors.

Entering the lobby, Chu Guang looked at Xiao Qi squatting in the corner and said,

"Has the official website's forum function been developed?"

"It's already done."

"What about the players? Have they received their helmets?"

"They've already received them."

That fast?

Chu Guang was slightly surprised.

He remembered leaving the vault at six in the morning. It was only around one in the afternoon now, meaning just seven hours had passed.

"Does time in the wasteland really flow at a one-to-one ratio with time in modern society?"

"Of course. But the time here corresponds to Earth's UTC-4 time zone."

China in the real world was in UTC+8, a difference of roughly twelve hours from UTC-4. That meant it was currently one in the morning in eastern China.

Chu Guang sat down in front of the computer and logged into the official website's backend.

Following his instructions, Xiao Qi had added a forum function to the official website, but with no traffic yet, there naturally was not a single post.

The database and bestiary were the same.

"How do I upload photos from here?" Chu Guang asked, pointing at the gallery on the screen.

"You can upload them directly."

"...What I mean is, how do I take pictures? Or do you have something like a camera?"

It was absurd that such a huge vault had absolutely nothing on the entire B1 level.

Forget leaving him weapons—even some basic survival tools should have been prepared, right?

"Uh, there probably isn't a camera, but my lens can take photos for you... What kind would you like? Right here?"

Looking at the wastebasket-like robot in the corner, Chu Guang sighed.

"What use would taking pictures here be... Forget it. I'll figure something out myself."

He couldn't exactly capture mutants and bring them here.

But sending Xiao Qi outside was worth considering.

Most mutants weren't interested in metal lumps they couldn't eat. With a little camouflage, Xiao Qi could be placed on a rooftop as an observation post. It would be the perfect guard system!

The more Chu Guang thought about it, the more reliable it seemed.

After logging into QQ through the computer in the resident hall,

Chu Guang found that all four players had sent him private messages, asking what company he worked for, what a fully immersive game meant, and what exactly was going on with the game helmets.

Honestly, Chu Guang had no idea how to answer those questions, nor could he tell them the truth about this world.

He could only make them believe this was a game world.

Only then could they descend as the "Fourth Calamity," fearless and tireless, becoming his most powerful tools.

"Master."

"What is it?"

Seeing Chu Guang turn off the computer and rise from his chair, Xiao Qi, squatting in the corner, asked curiously.

"Aren't you going to reply to their messages?"

"There's no need."

The more he explained, the more flaws he would reveal. Better to brush them off with "corporate secret" or "state secret."

As for everything else?

They could figure it out themselves.

What else were their brains for?

Wasn't that what they were for—filling in the blanks?