Once the order was given, the survivors quickly dismantled their shanties and set out in a grand procession toward the brickworks to the northwest.
Although they had just come from that direction and were now being sent right back, not a single person had any complaints about the esteemed Administrator's arrangements.
Coming out of the marauders' dungeon alive was already a blessing in itself, let alone having warm clothes to wear and food to fill their bellies.
Fang Chang and Fleeting White Horse, who were surveying the ground at the brick kiln, stared blankly at the massive procession. Halting their work, they walked up to the Administrator and asked, "Respected Administrator, might I ask who these people are...?"
Without hesitation, Chu Guang replied, "These are survivors we rescued. To repay our lifesaving grace, they are willing to assist in our construction!"
Joy immediately surfaced on the faces of Fang Chang and Fleeting White Horse.
The other players had all gone off to do beginner quests, leaving them worried about having no one to do the heavy labor. This workforce arrived right when they needed it most.
"Then how much do we need to pay them in wages?"
In truth, there was no need to pay them wages.
However, since the players had asked of their own accord, Chu Guang considered the realism of the setting, pondered for a moment, and said, "One silver coin per person per day. This expense will be deducted directly from your account. You only need to ensure they don't starve or freeze to death.
"In addition, pay attention to construction safety. I do not wish to see worker casualties due to harsh working conditions. That will not only harm our regional reputation, but also delay production.
"If any casualties occur, a casualty compensation of one hundred silver coins will be deducted for each."
Naturally, this casualty compensation would never actually be paid to the NPCs; it was merely a constraint built into the game mechanics.
Besides, the natives didn't care for these metal pieces anyway. To them, trinkets with zero recycling value were nowhere near as practical as a piece of meat.
As he spoke, Chu Guang transmitted the pre-edited quest through his VM to Fleeting White Horse.
Although it was somewhat far from the outpost, that did not interfere with peer-to-peer data transmission between two VM devices.
Once the quest to hire NPC workers was triggered, the Cow and Horse Brickworks would automatically deduct twenty-three silver coins from its account every day as "wages" for these hired hands.
Compared to the players' wages of at least ten silver coins a day, hiring these NPCs for labor was extraordinarily cheap.
After crunching the numbers together, Fang Chang and Fleeting White Horse readily agreed with delight.
Of course, to prevent these players from being even less humane than himself, Chu Guang added another line right after:
"The minimum food ration per person per day is one jin of green wheat. Naturally, this is only the minimum nutritional requirement. If you want them to work harder, you can purchase more meat and fish, or even head into the ruins of the city to hunt some game for them."
You could feed the NPCs!
Holy crap.
This game didn't just have management elements; it had raising and nurturing mechanics too!
Fang Chang and Fleeting White Horse's eyes lit up, and they immediately promised in earnest:
"Rest assured, Administrator! We'll definitely feed these workers until they're plump and healthy!"
"That's right! Even if I have to starve myself, I won't let them go hungry!"
Uhhh...
There was really no need to be that dramatic.
In fact, eating too much was counterproductive to work; the outpost already had a prime example of that walking around.
Still, Chu Guang said nothing.
Exploration was part of the fun of gaming.
These players would naturally work out a suitable balance on their own. He only needed to steer the overarching direction.
Micromanaging everyone's life was neither realistic nor necessary.
...
The twenty-three survivors settled in at the brickworks, their status transitioning from vagrants to brickmakers of the outpost.
They set up camp remarkably fast. In less than an hour, they had replicated the shanties they had built in front of the South Gate over here.
Though crude in appearance, keeping out the wind and rain was no problem at all.
For survivors of the wasteland, quickly erecting a shelter capable of sheltering them from wind and rain was practically a mandatory survival skill.
The players, on the other hand, were rather clumsy at it.
Even Scavenger, who called himself "Scavenger Lv99," had never actually scavenged trash in real life—at most, he took out the garbage downstairs.
Seeing that the survivors had finished building their shanties, Chu Guang sought out Zhao Shu and a survivor from outside Qingquan City, issued each of them an NPC-exclusive VM, and appointed the pair as foremen responsible for communicating with the players.
If the other survivors had any concerns, they were to report them to the players immediately. Under special circumstances, they could use the "quest system" to seek assistance from the players.
However, the quest rewards for different NPCs were capped by fixed tiers, preventing them from throwing money around at the players at whim.
This was similar to other MMORPGs.
The highest reward tier Chu Guang set for the two foremen was only two silver coins, with a cooldown allowing them to issue a quest once every seventy-two hours. The lowest tier was five copper coins, with a twenty-four-hour cooldown.
If they faced daily difficulties—such as a leaking roof or a need for fuel—they could post a quest from the lowest tier. If someone fell sick or was injured, they could post a quest using the highest reward tier.
Naturally, Chu Guang did not tell the NPCs the name "quest system" or its true meaning. He merely explained in abstract terms how to use these functions prudently to seek reasonable aid from those "omnipotent" bluecoats.
Just like with other NPCs, every time a quest was issued or a conversation was held with players, a log was left in the VM.
At regular intervals, Chu Guang would have Luka come over to harvest this data with a VM, bring it back to the outpost for archiving, and review it with the assistance of the AI.
Using this data alone, Chu Guang could easily track every exchange and interaction between the players and the natives, and conveniently check whether any NPC had issued quests that were "out of character or inconsistent with their status."
If any did, Chu Guang would eliminate that "bug."
"Newly introduced rules are bound to have loopholes. It's great that we have few people during the closed beta, so we can do trial and error at our own pace."
Watching the retreating figures, Chu Guang stroked his chin in thought.
"...By the time we hit the beta phase, we should have a relatively polished NPC-player interaction system in place."
Mhm.
As expected of me!
Having settled everything here properly, Chu Guang left in high satisfaction.
...
6:00 PM, Wasteland time.
As soon as Fleeting White Horse logged off, he rushed to the forum and created a post:
"Extra! Extra! The Cow and Horse Brickworks officially opens for business tomorrow! Grand opening promotional deal: all orders placed tomorrow get ten percent off! Players looking to build a house, what are you waiting for? Hurry and place your orders!"
Right at this moment, it was 6:00 AM back in reality.
Normally, forums would be quiet at this hour, but the official website of Wasteland OL was quite the opposite; this was typically when traffic peaked.
Scrambled Eggs with Tomatoes: "What's your daily production capacity?"
Fleeting White Horse: "Not much, not much. Right now, one to two thousand bricks a day is no problem. We'll strive to hit ten thousand a day before the end of the month! (Grin)"
Scrambled Eggs with Tomatoes: "Awesome!!"
Lightning King Professor Yang: "Boss, give me a ton!"
Gale Force 8: "We don't sell our bricks by the ton. They have standard dimensions and are sold by the piece: one silver coin for one hundred standard bricks."
Ye Shi: "Confirmed: Brother Gale is such an honest guy. Why are you bullshitting with Professor Yang? He doesn't even have closed beta access! (Funny)"
Proud Grandpa What Can You Do: "Lol, one silver coin for a hundred bricks? Please, pick up a pen and do the math. Building a house takes at least hundreds of millions of bricks, doesn't it? Case in point, my family's two-story villa took five hundred million bricks. So building a house costs millions of silver coins? I hear you only get single-digit silver coins per quest? Heh, this game of yours is certainly realistic."
Elaina: "Big bro, is your house called the Forbidden City? Do you need an admission ticket to go home? (Funny)"
Spare the Life Under the Blade: "Hahaha, to be pedantic, the Forbidden City didn't use that many—only around eighty million bricks. Though those were fine mud-mortar bricks and their dimensions were much larger."
Elaina: "I was just throwing it out there. (Funny)"
A bathroom with an interior floor area of 2.5 by 2 meters, assuming a height of 3 meters, had a wall surface area of at most 27 square meters. With an 18-centimeter wall requiring 96 bricks per square meter, 2,600 bricks were more than enough.
Even if most players chose to pool their resources and build a larger, taller row house together, the per capita requirement would not exceed 5,000 bricks.
At one silver coin per hundred bricks, that came to 50 silver coins per person—a very reasonable price.
Demand might drive prices up later, but fluctuations were capped within 100 percent. Unless the NPC warehouse managing commodity prices adjusted the baseline, it would rise to two silver coins at most.
After all, if it got any more expensive, everyone would just turn to building houses out of wood, which would defeat the purpose.
Brother Proud Grandpa was the same as ever: just like his handle, arrogant and untamed, acting smug before vanishing without a trace, ignoring anyone who tagged him.
Since he was the forum mascot, nobody took it to heart and smoothly moved on with the discussion.
Scavenger Lv99: "Boss Bai, I'm a newbie. If I don't have money, can I get it on credit?"
Fleeting White Horse: "No can do, bro. We're just wage workers too; the lion's share of equity belongs to the shelter collective. But it doesn't matter if you're broke—feel free to drop by the brickworks to hang out. We suddenly got a bunch of NPCs over here, and it's pretty fun."
Ye Shi: "True that! If you hunt game and give it to them, not only will they thank you, but they'll immediately set up a big cauldron to stew the meat, then offer you the best leg meat and the first bowl of broth. These NPCs feel truly alive. Man, I've played so many games, but this is the only one where NPC interactions feel so natural, and the attention to detail is unmatched!"
Scavenger Lv99: "Holy shit? It's that dope? Wait, are the NPCs over there the ones we rescued from the marauders?"
Fang Chang: "Yes."
Construction Boy and Bricks: "Badass!! The plot actually ties together!"
Mole on the Run from the Canyon: "I'm crying tears of envy! We're still running quests for NPCs, while you guys are already ordering NPCs around!"
Who Will Smell My Athlete's Foot: "Rigged! I don't care, our steel mill needs some too! Otherwise, it's totally rigged! (Crazy)"
WC Really Has Mosquitoes: "Rigged! Goblin Technology needs NPCs too!"
Ye Shi: "Shoo, shoo! What the hell do you need NPCs for, human bombs? Do yourself a favor and act like a decent human being."
Fang Chang: "Cough, it's actually not as exaggerated as you think. Most of these NPCs can't be interacted with—they only say things like 'Thank you,' 'Yes,' 'As you command,' and 'Brickmaker.' I observed them carefully: only NPCs equipped with VM devices can truly be interacted with. The rest don't seem very bright."
Mole on the Run from the Canyon: "Yeah, that matches what I thought. It does make more sense that way. If every NPC could be interacted with, the game's servers would be ridiculously overpowered."
Right now player numbers were low, and there was only the Cow and Horse Brickworks.
Later on, when player numbers swelled, even a 1:10 ratio of NPCs to players would be enough to blow the server up.
Gale Force 8: "...I think the virtual reality technology alone is already crazy enough."
Mole on the Run from the Canyon: "Setting that aside, have you guys tried talking to the interactive NPCs? Did you trigger any special dialogue? Or hidden quests or something?"
Fang Chang: "...Hidden quests?"
Mole on the Run from the Canyon: "Yeah! Normally, NPCs with rich dialogue text lines have hidden quests to offer, right? Isn't that how it's always written in VRMMO novels? Haven't you guys even tried?"
Fang Chang stayed silent for a long while before replying with a post: "...Uh, of course I tried, but there didn't seem to be any sign of triggering a quest? They're just brickmakers. The quest the Administrator gave us was just to have them build the kiln."
Mole on the Run from the Canyon: "Sigh, you guys lack imagination! In an MMORPG like this, forget a foreman—even an unassuming hen clucking at the beginner village entrance might be a hidden boss if her clucks sound different from the rest! Whatever, no point explaining it all to you. When I log on in a bit, I'll go test it myself."
Fang Chang: "...Fair warning, don't mess around. Disrupting production at our brickworks would be a huge problem!"
Mole on the Run from the Canyon: "Heh heh, definitely won't, definitely won't. I'll just chat with him for a bit! I promise not to touch your NPCs!"
Tail: "Ooh, sounds fun! Count Tail in!"
Sisi: "Ooh, let's go!"
...
Ever since the day he was thrown into the dungeon by the marauders, Zhao Shu had never imagined he would walk out alive.
Truth be told, his current life felt like a dream.
Comfortable bedding, a warm brazier, plenty of food, and only needing to work sixteen hours a day—the rest of the time was all theirs.
On top of that, the highly capable bluecoats would occasionally hunt a beast or two to give them a taste of meat.
Honestly, every time Zhao Shu received game from the shelter residents, he felt overwhelmed by the favor.
They had witnessed firsthand how ruthless these people could be.
Even the marauders were as meek as little chicks before them, not daring to breathe too loudly. It was the first time Zhao Shu had ever seen those ferocious devils wear such terrified expressions.
In his understanding, marauders were already creatures at the top of the food chain.
"Hey, what's your name?"
Hearing a shelter resident address him, Zhao Shu immediately stopped in his tracks, practicedly glanced at the VM strapped to his left arm, and read out in halting pronunciation: "Hello, my name is Zhao Shu. I am the foreman here. How may I help you?"
These strange syllables were taught to them by Old Luka a few days ago. Learning the pronunciation of each phonetic sound wasn't difficult, but stringing them together felt awkward on the tongue.
Upon hearing him speak, the surrounding shelter residents immediately grew excited.
"He can talk!"
"You really can interact with him!"
"Bro, can you shout 'Oligie'? Please, I'm begging you."
"Piss off! Don't listen to him, bro. Do you have any troubles you can't talk about? Tell us, we'll definitely solve them for you!"
Zhao Shu wore a look of utter bewilderment.
His VM had no reaction; it neither told him what these people were saying nor told him how to respond.
Following the Administrator's orders, he remained silent, but the shelter residents relentlessly crowded around him, babbling non-stop.
Zhao Shu began to panic.
He feared that ignoring these people might anger them and perhaps bring fatal disaster upon himself.
After all, this was an era where human life was thinner than paper.
He did not believe his own life was more precious than those standing before him.
Just then, Zhao Shu suddenly recalled another instruction the Administrator had given him before leaving:
If the shelter residents crowded around him and refused to leave, press the gray circular button in the upper right corner of the screen and read aloud the line of phonetic script displayed on it.
Not daring to hesitate, Zhao Shu did so at once.
Swallowing hard, he said with a stiff expression, "My fellow workers are starving. We need a fish. Could you give us a hand?"
Hearing those words, the players gathered around went wild with excitement, practically cheering out loud.
"Ohhhh! It worked!"
"Was the keyword 'quest'? Hmm, next time let's try other phrasing to see if it triggers something similar."
"The quest asks for a fish, right? On it!"
"It's showing on my VM! Let me take—dammit! Why is the reward only five copper coins?"
"Maybe part of it is affinity? Does trading a fish for five coppers count as a loss? Have any of you sold fish before?"
"Who cares! I took the quest! Any fish works, right? Let's go swipe one from the anglers by the lake!"
"Go, go, go!"
Zhao Shu had no idea what the words he had spoken meant, nor did he understand the players' replies, but before long, a fish was presented to him.
And it wasn't small either—it was as long as a person's arm, its powerful tail thrashing back and forth, splashing water everywhere.
Zhao Shu swallowed hard once more.
This time, from craving.
Even so, he did not forget the Administrator's instructions. Hurriedly, he tapped the green checkmark on the VM and read out the line displayed on the screen:
"On behalf of my fellow workers, I thank you. Have a pleasant day, generous gentleman, this fish has been a great help!"
"We have no further troubles that require your assistance, or perhaps you can return tomorrow?"
Hearing that line, the surrounding players left with looks of disappointment.
That evening.
Cradling a bowl of steaming fish soup as he ate with his fellow workers, Zhao Shu thought long and hard, yet still couldn't understand what he had said back then that made those bluecoats look so crestfallen.
Still, he didn't dare ask questions.
Those bluecoats were all big shots.
The only person capable of keeping them in check was the esteemed Administrator, who always carried a hammer on his back.
The Administrator had warned them repeatedly, strictly forbidding them from revealing any clues regarding the quest system, and forbidding any discussion of the matter with the shelter residents.
How could Zhao Shu dare disobey that lord's command? He swore that even in death, he wouldn't breathe a single word.
In any case, the fish soup tasted wonderful. Simmered with a few pine nuts and a pinch of salt, it was downright delicious.
Finishing this bowl of fish soup, everyone felt all the more energized to work!
Chapter 104