Chapter 346 Chapter 346 – Hell Gates
After the Cockroaches were created, the city used the metal to produce grips and uniform steel plates.
These new plates would become relevant a couple months later.
Four months after the beginning of Roaching, Roaching was changed.
There were no more places close to the city center without any grips, and every single Roacher, the name of the people working on the city's underside, needed to travel at least 50 meters into the red mist.
Weak Johns with horrible Barriers would need to turn around just when they got to the place where they needed to put their grips.
Because of that, all Initial, Early, and Mid Johns were no longer required to work as Roachers.
Sadly, that also meant that the hours for the Late and Peak Johns increased, but there was nothing they could do about it.
After around ten months, a bit over half the underside of the city was covered in grips.
The Crimson Sea had already been below the city for almost a year by now.
By now, almost all luxury goods from outside the city had been used up.
The price of coffee skyrocketed.
Certain kinds of expensive meat were no longer available.
Salt was getting rationed.
However, the city could survive.
The Inner City produced enough food for everyone, and water wasn't an issue since it rained regularly.
But now, even the people in the Inner City felt the effects.
Many of them were even willing to spend some of their money to expedite the construction of the city's underside.
The governor accepted their proposition and made use of it.
Extractors could now volunteer for Roaching in exchange for competitive pay.
Every hour of Roaching was a thousand credits.
While most of the Extractors were not interested in the offer, quite a few of them actually jumped at the opportunity.
Anatomy and Ghosty's Lab had the most Johns, but they didn't have that many Adolescents.
The Adolescents that the two of them had were divided among younger Extractors with more potential.
Johns, who had been at the peak of their level for many years, only had to work for around maybe three hours per week.
While they still earned a lot, they definitely didn't earn nearly as much as the younger Johns.
Because of that, Roaching became a lucrative alternative.
After the governor had introduced the voluntary Roaching, the speed of the construction had doubled.
Even though everyone needed to travel even further, the remaining parts of the city's underside were completed within another four months.
Now, the entire underside of Crimson City was covered in grips.
That was when the next phase of the construction started.
Huge beams made of steel were placed on the big central support, supporting the metallic plates further away.
Since the city had had over a year to plan for this phase, not many problems happened.
Strengthening the city's underside was finished in barely two months.
Then, it was time for the next phase.
A bridge to the outside world.
Builders hung from the underside of the city's edge and placed the central steel beam.
Yes, steel.
This bridge was of monumental importance, and the city had converted all the metal it had received into steel.
After placing the steel beam, the lower and upper steel plates were fixed to the beam.
For now, the bridge would only be two meters wide since reaching the outside world was important.
Sadly, after about 300 meters, the builders could see that the steel could no longer withstand the insane stress.
The bridge needed more support.
Eventually, the governor himself had to get involved.
A humongous pillar of extremely durably and expensive metal was produced, and the governor jumped into the Crimson Sea with it.
The Crimson Sea wasn't strong enough to endanger the governor in the short term, which meant that the governor could travel through it.
After sinking for a while, he reached the bottom of the Crimson Sea.
The floor was made of exceedingly hard metal of unknown origin, and the governor needed to use almost all of his power to create the small holes needed to fix the huge pillar of metal to the floor.
Eventually, he succeeded, and the pillar was created.
This central support was used to keep the bridge and this part of the city's edge stable.
Construction resumed.
By using more steel beams diagonally going from the pillar to the city, the builders made another 500 meters of bridge.
Then, it became problematic again.
Luckily, they were close enough to the outside world that the builders, who were Veterans and Experts, could safely jump to the outside world.
From there, they resumed the construction, jumping back and forth for materials.
Fortunately, the walls of the huge crater were made of durable metal from the ruins below them, making it easy to create more support for the bridge.
Sadly, the construction needed six months instead of the projected four.
The reason was that one of the supervising builders had mysteriously vanished.
Albert Eibrecht had simply vanished when no one was looking.
Since no one had heard him laughing, it probably meant that he didn't jump into the Crimson Sea.
This meant that something extremely dangerous was lurking in the surroundings.
Because of that, security had been bumped up several notches, and construction only continued under the supervision of a Specialist.
Luckily, no more incidents occurred, and the bridge was finally constructed.
Crimson City had been isolated for almost two years.
Finally, it was connected to the outside world again.
The people from inside the city could finally see the other end of the red mist.
The bridge was 1,200 meters long, and it led through a long corridor surrounded by thick walls of red mist.
Since no one was traveling through it yet, it seemed eerie.
A big gate was placed on the edges of the bridge so that passing caravans could see that Crimson City actually still existed.
Over the years, the caravans would also give names to the gates.
The Hell Gates.
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