"An... an orbital elevator?! Are you serious?"
The swaying open-top truck rumbled along the rugged mountain road, its rusted steel plates and railings clanging incessantly with the movement of the axles.
It looked as though it might fall apart at any moment.
Around twenty people were crammed into the truck bed, their eyes filled with astonishment and disbelief all focused on the man with mud-caked boots and a travel pack on his back.
They did not know where he had come from. They only knew that his name was Zhang Ze, a traveling merchant who roamed the wasteland.
The pack on his back was all he owned. It contained some odd little trinkets, along with scraps of junk he had picked up along the road.
That was a common sight.
There were even more traveling merchants in the wasteland than mercenaries. Not everyone did business on the scale of Mr. Lister. Most scraped and saved for the sake of one or two silver coins.
"Of course it's real! Why would I lie to you?"
Pleased by the wide-eyed stares of those country bumpkins, Zhang Ze's face beamed with pride.
Then he pulled a crumpled newspaper from his backpack, shook it hard in front of him to flatten it out, cleared his throat, and began reading the article with great feeling.
"...Year 213. The Wasteland Era has lasted for a full 213 years, and the calendar will soon turn to another new year. If we do not begin making new changes from this very moment, the coming year 214 will see no changes at all. Therefore, we have decided to do something: to light a torch amid these barren ruins, one truly capable of driving away the cold night, and to do so without sacrificing the silent majority."
That had been