There can't be a Harvest Moon in the RimWorld.

The attack was so vicious and sudden that the poor man died without ever knowing what had happened, remaining in his dying posture with his brains spilling out onto the floor, before perishing in the secret room.

What kind of deep-seated hatred could have led to such a brutal attack? Even if the blow hadn't hit the head, it would have at least torn the body apart. Such an act would only occur if there were an irreconcilable feud.

Normal impulsive killings involve a series of events, including arguments and fights, before the act of violence occurs only after the victim has reached a critical point. However, this type of motive often stems from the inherent fragility of the human body, preventing such direct and decisive actions.

What's even stranger is that this place, being a secret room, is a narrow and hidden place. Even the homeless people who had been robbed multiple times hadn't noticed it. How could someone have easily sneaked in and killed them?

So there's only one possibility...

That was the deceased in this secret room, who was secretly studying this workbench, intending to disassemble it and take it away. Only when a very close friend entered would he not arouse his suspicion.

Then, during this secret meeting, a murderous intent quietly arose. As he focused on completing his work and chatted casually, death suddenly descended behind his unseen eyes...

I looked around the small room. On the south wall, there was a row of wall-mounted stairs for climbing up and down, which connected to a small skylight in the ceiling. This skylight could be pushed open from the middle to the left and right, allowing an adult to enter and exit at will.

The unique geographical conditions of this radar base mean that although the roof of this one-story building is not high, it is still much higher than the average person's line of sight, exceeding the height that can be seen clearly.

Views from high altitudes or nearby cliffs are blocked by radar with a diameter of several hundred meters, creating a perfect blind spot.

I nimbly climbed the steps and pushed hard on the skylight door on the roof. I could clearly feel that the door had been welded shut or blocked from the outside. Even with my arm strength, I couldn't push it open with one hand while in mid-air without any leverage.

This made me even more certain that this was a predictable locked-room murder. The killer not only murdered the victim but also sealed off the only entrance to the locked room, intending to make this poor person disappear from the world forever, becoming an unexplained missing person.

His plan clearly succeeded—with the base's withdrawal and abandonment, everything was swallowed up by the desert sands, until my unexpected discovery after breaking in late at night…

Am I some kind of one-in-a-million Grim Reaper, destined to encounter these kinds of murders wherever I go?

Hmm... It seems like my character traits do include one that's like "Grim Reaper," but it's probably just a coincidence, right?

Staring blankly at a long-dead corpse in such ruins is definitely not a good idea. My nerves are already thick enough that I can't handle such a bizarre scene; leaving as soon as possible is the right choice.

But my target was already on the mysterious workbench in the room, because an incredibly familiar attribute panel was slowly opening in my field of vision.

Item Name: Damaged Forging Table

Item Description: A forging table that has been dismantled and is incomplete, retaining only basic functionality. Fortunately, the core of its eternal furnace remains intact, capable of reaching temperatures of tens of thousands of degrees Celsius with firewood, and performing cold forging of steel. However, due to its missing functions, it can only produce non-mechanical weapons and equipment.

I think I heard something high-tech?

An eternal furnace? Can it burn wood to 10,000 degrees Celsius? Cold-forged steel?

What's the difference between this and climbing Mount Everest by stepping on your right foot with your left?!

This isn't a crafting table... it's a genuine dwarven artifact!

At this point, I roughly guessed that the thing the deceased had secretly researched and that led to his death was this unassuming forging table.

It's hard to imagine what amazing level the fully functional forging platform could have achieved back then, but judging from the remaining so-called "eternal furnace," it was definitely not an ordinary production equipment.

Not everyone is named Fujiwara, so who would install a racing car engine in an AE86?

Those capable of assembling and utilizing the performance of such a furnace must at least possess interstellar technology!

Observation revealed that although the forging table was valuable, the materials were surprisingly lightweight, with a total weight of less than 25 kilograms, which I could lift with one hand. This should also be attributed to the removal of a large number of components—in my judgment, at least the computer control equipment, automatic assembly and forging devices, and molecular material analysis equipment were missing.

The murderer back then was probably a novice, with very limited knowledge of the forging platform, which is why he made such a mistake of buying the box and returning the pearl. In his haste to kill the researcher, he failed to understand its secrets, and therefore, in his haste after the murder, he only took the seemingly high-tech components, leaving behind the most precious Eternal Forge.

Wood goes in, flames of 10,000 degrees Celsius come out. This is not just a gem of thermodynamics, it's a black hole of the law of conservation of energy!

Besides the forging table, the secret room contained some scrap metal parts and tools, as well as some stainless steel pots and pans, presumably used by the deceased researcher. I packed all of these up and made them my spoils.

Out of humanitarian concern, as I was preparing to collect the remains of the deceased who had been physically injured (literally), an old notebook suddenly fell out from the rotting clothes!

I looked through it and found it was too dark here; I couldn't even read the huge characters. I had to take it back to a well-lit place to look at it again.

I picked up the notebook, brushed off the dust, and casually tucked it into my clothes. After finishing my work, I shouldered my 86... oh no, my forging table, and left the secret room.

Just as I walked out of the secret room with my things, preparing to rejoin the wild horses, a hideous ghost face appeared without warning around the corner!

I was taken aback and instinctively brandished my 86, unleashing my ultimate demon-slaying technique at the ghost face...

"Holy crap! What is that?! The Great Mighty Heavenly Dragon!"

Chapter 293 That Lord

"When you open your eyes, you will find yourself in a completely unfamiliar place."

"At this moment, what you're thinking about is the unfamiliar ceiling and the unfamiliar sleeping mat."

"You desperately want to remember what happened, but your head is throbbing so badly that you can't recall anything at all."

"Next, you will recall that last night, in a building rubble, you tried to test the hardness of steel with your head."

"Unfortunately, you lost, but fortunately, you were rescued by a kind bar owner."

"Next, you plan to do everything in your power to repay this kindness, stay here and work like a slave, becoming a member of the bar..."

The unfamiliar man opened his eyes, still seemingly reeling from the impact, unable to fully regain his senses. But when he turned around, he found a suspicious person wearing a very familiar stone mask, whispering mantras in his ear that sounded like a demon's brainwashing incantation…

The stranger was so frightened that he stumbled and rolled half a circle on the ground before leaning against the wall. He touched his head and immediately smeared his own blood on his palm. He then angrily pointed at me and shouted.

"Don't think I'll fall for your lies! You're the one who hit me! It was you!"

"Tch...did it fail...?"

Disappointed, I removed my mask, revealing an innocent smile. "Don't get me wrong, it wasn't me who attacked you yesterday!"

"Really?" The stranger looked at me with a skeptical expression.

Of course it wasn't me, it was me from yesterday who attacked you...

Yesterday's incident was rather embarrassing to recall. I never imagined that such a stranger would appear in the ruins of the valley at the same time, and even approach me stealthily, wearing this exaggerated and distorted stone mask on his head.

In this situation, it's perfectly reasonable for me to just pick up the Type 86 and counterattack, right?

"You've told me everything! You were the one who attacked me!"

The stranger roared angrily.

Tsk, did you accidentally voice your true feelings? It's true that it's easy to talk to yourself when you're alone for a long time.

"You can't blame me entirely for this. Your suspicious appearance yesterday was just asking for a beating..."

The stranger was taken aback for a moment, then immediately retorted, "Silent Valley is a necessary stop on my trade route. I stay here every time. I only went to check it out when I heard strange noises coming from the ruins in the middle of the night. How was I supposed to know that someone would do something so sabotaging?"

The strange noise he mentioned must have been from my violently smashing down the wall of the secret room. He came to investigate after hearing the noise, only to be knocked unconscious by me?

"That's your fault for walking so quietly. A true gentleman always acts openly and honestly; he would never sneak around like that!" I immediately pointed out his mistake. No matter what, I couldn't lose in terms of momentum!

The stranger rolled his eyes: "You're the one who walks silently! I listened for ages and didn't hear a sound or see a single light before I went in to investigate!"

Oh, I almost forgot. I didn't have a torch because I could see clearly in the dark, and my footsteps were almost silent thanks to the upgrade from the colonist system. Even on snow and sand, I only left very faint tracks; there was really no sound...

"Haha, it's not a big deal, don't worry about it! I knocked you out, but you startled me too, so we're even, okay?" I started using my superb social skills to defuse the conflict.

"...What kind of evenness is this?" The stranger didn't seem to want to argue. After his emotions gradually calmed down, he tried to stand up and walk outside, looking at the bright sunshine in the sky.

"It's already noon! How long have I been unconscious?"

The stranger was speaking in shock when he suddenly discovered something even more shocking.

"Uh-huh?!!!"

He turned around, his mouth agape in a daze, and shouted in astonishment, "When did such a building appear in the Riegomi Desert?!"

…………

"So you're a traveling merchant from a nearby town?"

I took out a plate of dried dates from the house, and put a piece of smoked salmon on it. I pushed it in front of the stranger, to serve him, the first guest of the desert tavern.

The stranger, who looked to be around forty years old, introduced himself as Burnett, a resident of a nearby settlement called Tenpine Village, and currently the merchant in charge of this wild road.

But the information I saw was quite peculiar...

Character Name: Martine Burnett

Faction: Tesienia Foreign Alliance, Ten Pine Manor

Male, biological age 41 years and 22 days

Childhood: Street Child from the Lower World

Adult: Postman

Characteristics: Sedentary, Agile, Sloppy

This is... the character panel?

The stranger was still rambling on about his experiences and expressing his condemnation of me, while the colonial system had already laid bare his entire background to me like a census taker.

"...Are you listening? I've walked this road for so long and I've never seen this house before... Hmm, this fish tastes good... Where are you from?"

I pointed mysteriously to the sky and remained silent.

"From space? You're from space too?" Burnett raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Are you a space exile? Or a special task force from some faction?"

Before I could speak, Burnett touched his receding hairline, trying to smooth his bangs to cover it up. "With such strength... you must have quite a few artificial mechanical parts on your body, right? Are you an agent of StarCraft?"

Seeing that I remained silent with a mysterious expression, Burnett chuckled self-deprecatingly. "Need to keep it a secret? Don't worry, I'm just an ordinary planetary resident. I probably won't have the chance to go into space in my lifetime, so I will definitely not threaten your safety. It's completely unnecessary for you to keep it a secret from me."

I love customers like this; he perfectly met my expectations. From the moment he sat down until now, I haven't uttered a single word, yet this middle-aged man has already revealed countless crucial pieces of information to me, perfectly fulfilling his role as an NPC introducing the story's background!

I can guess that his talkativeness is largely due to his long-term solitary business dealings. Being alone for so long, once you encounter someone like him, you can't help but want to exchange a few more words.

And I also took this opportunity to learn that this is truly a wild planet, inhabited by various interstellar forces, and home to many natives and inhabitants, a lonely corner abandoned by civilization.

But I had already made up my mind to maintain the mystery and try to get information out of him, so I didn't answer him directly. Instead, I mysteriously pointed to the sky and said, "I'm sorry, it's not that I don't want to tell you my identity. It's just that the lord absolutely forbids me from revealing the information."

"That sir? You mean your superior? They're so far away, even surveillance equipment couldn't possibly know," Burnett said incredulously.

I shook my head: "That sir knows everything. He has already told me that you were a homeless child in the city when you were young, and later became a postman in the desert..."

"I talked in my sleep last night? How did you know?"

"I also know that you don't like to take showers when you're alone..."

Burnett spat out his food, yelling, "You...how did you know! You were spying on me!"

"...Me, spy on you? Do you even deserve that?" I looked at him disdainfully.

Burnett thought about it and also felt that it was unlikely.

"...Okay, that's unlikely. Is that person you're talking about really that powerful? What's his name?"

I stood casually behind the bar, fiddling with the stone mask in my hand, and whispered, "Since you want to know, I might as well tell you secretly..."