Star Iron, building an empire starting with game development

"Vroom!" A heavily armored Humvee with thick armor plates mounted on its body ran up and stopped at this spot.

"Da da da..." In addition to the driver and the machine gunner on the roof, three people carrying standard firearms got out of the vehicle.

"The target's body contained 7.92mm warheads, and quite a few of them; it's estimated to be a full-strength squad," a man said after examining the monster's corpse.

“Here.” A woman beckoned, and then another man walked over.

"This means... the positioning and quantity are not right," the man said after glancing at the eggshells on the ground.

"Also, be careful of booby traps made up of at least thirty hand grenades."

“Facing a Tier 1 mutated creature, the machine gun is enough, but one person wouldn’t have that much ammunition. However, the marks on the ground and the positioning don’t seem to indicate that there are many people,” the man said.

"Could it have been cleaned?" another person asked.

“There are no signs of cleaning here, including within a 30-meter radius,” the man replied, shaking his head.

"Hey! Time!" the machine gunner on top of the Humvee suddenly shouted.

“Indeed, it’s almost sunset, and if we don’t go back soon, we won’t be able to leave.” The three looked at each other and then went back to the car.

"Vroom!" The Hummer roared away from the area.

"Swish, swish, swish..." As the car drove away and the sun slowly set, a dim sky began to envelop the land. Strange sounds began to rise.

"Swish, swish, swish..." Countless enormous insects crawled out from the ground. After discovering the corpse of the mutated creature, these maggot-like insects opened their mouths full of fangs and crawled towards the corpse...

"Boom boom boom—!!!" Nearly a hundred explosions rang out in this area...

…………

Unknown areas

"Screech~" The Hummer stopped in front of a heavily camouflaged mountain gate. Then, the heavy armored gate slowly opened, and the Hummer drove in before the gate closed...

"Click~" Several mechanical devices secured the vehicle, and then the vehicle began to descend until it arrived at a vast underground city.

"Snap!" Several beams of light shone on the Hummer, and more than a dozen men and women carrying various tools appeared around it. After everyone got out of the car, they began to give the vehicle a special cleaning.

"Ike, how are you?" a man asked as the group returned.

“This is what we found at the target location, but there wasn’t enough time to identify the specific problems,” Ike replied, shaking his head, and then showed the object in his hand.

"7.92mm rounds? But the propellant seems off." The man said, picking up the eggshell from Ike's hand.

“Let’s study it slowly. In this damn world, we have time to study these things, but not time to explore further places,” Ike grumbled.

"Who!" a voice suddenly rang out, followed by the sounds of bolts being pulled.

"Hey~ I surrender~" A beautiful girl stepped out from the back of the car, which was pointed at by a large number of gun barrels and automatic weapons.

“Ike?” The man looked at Ike.

"Damn it, we didn't find her!" Ike and the others raised their guns and aimed them at the girl.

With a snap of her fingers, the space froze completely. The girl walked up to the man, clicked her tongue in displeasure at the tall man before slowly floating up and placing her hand on the man's temple...

"Hmm... Oh... I see..." The girl nodded and shook her head from time to time, seemingly having discovered something. But soon, she withdrew her hand and smiled as she retreated into the shadows.

"Phew~" The world continues to function normally, and everyone's memories are still of the girl they just discovered, but for some reason, that girl is now gone.

“Base Commander.” Ike looked at the man.

"...Let's just pretend we didn't see it." After saying that, the man left with his men.

…………

Unknown mountain summit

"Whoosh~ Chirp chirp—" A pitch-black tentacle suddenly stretched out and grabbed a mutated creature. No matter how much the creature screamed and trembled violently, it was no use. It dragged the creature directly into the shadow of the star.

"System, what's wrong with this world?" Xing looked at the strange and wonderful sights in the night sky.

"Don't overthink it. This world is fake. It's questionable whether those people are even still alive," the system replied.

"A soul?" Xing asked.

"It's a kind of virtual projection, but I don't know why it looks so much like a real human," the system said.

"Virtual projection, huh?" Xing wondered to herself.

"There's a computer array about ten kilometers long at the core of this planet. Those virtual humans are created by that thing," the system said.

"What happened in this world?" Xing became interested.

"Nuclear war." The system's response was very concise.

"Nuclear war? I see." Xing nodded to indicate that she understood.

"Nuclear energy works the same way. After the war, humanity on this planet slowly disappeared over the next five hundred years, until it was completely wiped out a thousand years ago. And those mutated creatures were born because of nuclear radiation and have been passed down from generation to generation," the system said.

"Radiation? No wonder those cars looked so strange. I thought they were some kind of disguise. God knows how they were moving." Xing thought of those cars.

"No, those vehicles are also virtual projections," the system said.

"Wow~ Okay, then what's the point of me coming to this world? To collect corpses? But it's been almost two thousand years, are there still any human bones left to collect?" Xing said, puzzled.

"I don't know... After all, you came to this world according to your own consciousness. Perhaps some remnant human consciousness in this world sent something out, which you received, and then you came to this world unconsciously," the system said.

"Tsk~ Can we still find any remnants of humanity in this world, like energy entities or consciousness entities?" Xing asked unhappily.

"There's nothing left, and it completely dissipated before you even came into this world. It's estimated that it vanished after its last bit of consciousness energy dissipated. Exploration is underway, and the classification of civilizations is expected to be completed in one day," the system said.

"The remnants of civilization..." Xing sighed, and then the sky suddenly began to shake violently.

"What's going on?" Xing asked, puzzled.

"The computer is running out of power; the virtual world is about to collapse," the system said.

"Why is it suddenly running low?" Xing asked.

"I checked, and it wasn't enough to support the operation of a planet a hundred years ago. It's only the existence of those collective human consciousnesses that has kept the computer running until now," the system said.

"And I calculated that the computer should have been completely shut down a year ago."

"Okay, I understand." Xing stood up, watching the fake world gradually collapse and the exposed ruins, and walked in a certain direction. "The system said."

"Please, system, help me categorize and organize the things in this world that belong to human civilization, and then... let me take them with me," Xing said.