Adam Carter stood to the side, wanting to argue, “I’m not a minor,” but while he was searching for the right words, the two people had already wrapped themselves around each other, lips pressed together, tangled up. He realized that no one really cared about him.

So he looked away, turning his gaze elsewhere.

From the right side of the entrance drifted the smell of potato soup—much richer than the potato soup served in the lobby of the residential building, and mixed with a meaty aroma that made people feel happy. A mercenary was hunched over a white plastic soup bowl, eating his breakfast.

The smell made Adam Carter a little hungry; he hadn’t had breakfast.

Further inside, there were similar scenes everywhere. The lively atmosphere crowded the hall. Besides the long tables selling food and alcohol, there were many small stalls selling clothes, backpacks, and gloves. The deeper he went, the fewer stalls there were selling fixed items; instead, each stall had all sorts of strange miscellaneous goods that Adam Carter couldn’t recognize.

“Newly unearthed smartphones from Ruined City 511—just add power and they’ll turn on.” As he was walking, a young man in black with a backpack darted in front of him like a monkey. He was thin and small, with narrow, darting eyes. The moment he blocked Adam Carter, he quickly pulled a black rectangular object from his satchel and waved it in front of Adam Carter: “Want to take a look? I’ll give you a 10% discount and throw in a charging cable. You can play games on it.”

Adam Carter: “Thanks, but no.”

The young man quickly pulled out another white one from his bag: “How about a different model? This color suits you. It’s the latest model—the last fruit phone before the Great Catastrophe. It used to cost ten thousand, now you can have it for a hundred.”

Adam Carter: “Thank you, I don’t need it.”

But the guy kept going, pulling out another item: “Don’t need it? You already have a phone, huh? Need a power bank? You can use this to charge when the base loses power. The high-capacity ones are sold out, this one can only charge twice. I’ll give you a discount, just thirty.”

Adam Carter looked at him and said honestly, “I don’t have any money.”

The young man’s expression froze. He instantly put everything back in his backpack, turned around, lifted his leg, and prepared to leave, muttering under his breath, “What are you doing at the black market with no money?”

“Wait.” Adam Carter called out to him.

He looked back, but his attitude was extremely unenthusiastic: “What is it?”

“I… want to find a job,” Adam Carter said. “Do you know where I should go?”

The young man frowned, turned back, and looked him up and down: “…So you’re looking for work.”

Adam Carter answered truthfully, “Yes.”

“You’ve got pretty good qualifications,” the young man said. “If you get some money, remember to come buy a phone from me. I’ll be at the black market all month.”

Adam Carter: “…”

He asked, “So where should I go?”

“There, over there,” the young man pointed to a corner. “Go down, three levels underground, look for the boss lady.”

Adam Carter was very grateful and smiled at him. “Thank you.”

The young man said, “You look good—find a reliable one, and when you make it big, remember to buy a phone from me!”

Adam Carter: “…Okay.”

Three levels underground.

Damp—that was Adam Carter’s first impression of the place. Mushrooms must like this kind of moisture-laden air, but the pungent fragrance that came with the dampness made him frown.

Looking around, under the dim lights, it was a beehive-like space. The corridors twisted and turned, and along the walls, countless tiny cubicles had been built from makeshift plastic panels. There was no circulating air, and moisture condensed into dense droplets on the plastic. The whole space emitted a faint, tidal buzzing sound; listening closely, it was the effect of many people speaking softly, their voices merging and echoing, occasionally mixed with shrill laughter.

Adam Carter hesitated for a moment, then walked a few steps forward.

He looked at the small cubicles on either side. The one on the left was empty; in the one on the right sat a long-haired woman with her head down. When she heard his footsteps, she looked up at him, then lowered her head again.

Adam Carter kept walking forward and heard voices—first, a woman’s.

“How’s the climate in Basin No. 2?”

“It’s okay,” this time it was a low, soft male voice, a bit nasal, the ending drawn out. Adam Carter suspected his nose was stuffed up. “The weather’s nice, but there are too many earthquakes. We had three earthquakes in a month. The worst time, they were all outside and I was alone in the car—I almost thought they wouldn’t make it back.”

The woman laughed, “If they didn’t come back, you could just drive the car away.”

“The last team I was with, the captain said he’d teach me to drive, but in the end, he was just stringing me along. He said he’d bring me next time, but that was a lie too. I stayed with them for a month and only got three hundred in total. Is that even expensive?”

“Mercenaries—just listen to what they say and let it go,” the woman said. “Haven’t you gotten used to being lied to yet?”

Adam Carter stopped in his tracks.

—He recalled Hosen’s face and those greedy, covetous eyes, and suddenly understood what kind of work was done on the third underground level.

And that line in the base manual—Employment and contractual relationships established through the free market are not protected by base law; consequences are your own responsibility.

He didn’t want to bear those consequences.