The staple served for lunch consisted of palm-sized pieces of white bread, crispy, charred corn kernels, and tender wolf meat simmered with soybeans.
It wasn't just Liu Jiuyue, the envoy, who received such hospitality; the eight thralls hauling the carts and the two guards had all shared in the good fortune.
The guards were one thing—after all, they were servants of the same standing as him—but allowing thralls to sit and eat at a table was something Liu Jiuyue had never expected.
Still, since they weren't dining in the same room, he kept his thoughts to himself.
Pressing his hands together, he thanked the master who had bestowed the food upon them, then eagerly reached out and grabbed the white bread from the plate.
Unlike the cold, hard green wheat cakes, this bread was somehow remarkably soft and fluffy, though he had no idea what ingredients or methods had been used to make it. Just holding it in his hand made his heart flutter, and he quickly brought it to his mouth and took a bite.
*So fragrant!*
His eyes nearly popped out of his head. Before even swallowing the bite, he hurriedly grabbed a spoon, scooped up a mouthful of the stewed meat and beans, and shoved it into his mouth.
Tender, savory, and thoroughly infused with flavor, it practically melted on his tongue. His taste buds gave it an instant, glowing endorsement!
Without taking the time to savor it properly, he wolfed it down like a starving ghost reborn, completely forgetting everything his boss had instructed him before departure.
Wolf meat was usually sour, but stewed so thoroughly with soybeans, it tasted surprisingly aromatic. As for the corn, the preparation was nothing short of miraculous—had they deep-fried it in oil?
This was simply too extravagant!
There was an endless supply of white bread, and by the time Liu Jiuyue ate his fourth piece, he felt like he couldn't stuff down another bite.
Taking a sip of hot water, he forced down the food caught in his throat, then looked across the table at Guo Niu with the wide-eyed expression of an utter provincial.
"What is this?"
Guo Niu, being an honest man, answered plainly.
"Mantou, salt-and-pepper corn, and braised meat stewed with soybeans."
Liu Jiuyue looked entirely blank.
Three terms he had never heard before, all appearing at once. Unable to hide the envy in his eyes any longer, he blurted out, "Do you eat this every day?"
Guo Niu shook his head. "Depends on what's at the market."
The outpost had no cafeteria; all the cooking was done by the vault residents.
Though the noon market wasn't as bustling as the evening one, plenty of people still set up large pots to cook all manner of curious delicacies.
The Administrator had set a lunch budget of three silver coins per person, so Guo Niu had taken the money to the market to shop.
The vault residents doing business by the north gate had been exceptionally enthusiastic, jostling with one another to pull him toward their stalls, even offering bulk discounts.
Though Guo Niu didn't understand why buying in bulk earned a discount, saving money for the Administrator was always a good thing. In the end, the meal had cost only seventy percent of the total budget—an exceptional bargain.
"A market?"
After hearing Guo Niu's explanation, Liu Jiuyue's expression grew even more bewildered.
It sounded downright bizarre.
An ordinary small settlement of survivors would never have such a thing as a market.
After all, trade was a product of prosperity. If over half the people in a place were slaves with no private property, who would buy whatever was displayed at a market? They might not even own the flesh on their own bones, let alone anything worth exploiting.
He had heard that Bet Street used to have a general store run by the old mayor's people, allowing local scavengers to trade for daily necessities. In this region, that had been considered an act of great charity. But that family had already been driven off with gunfire by these barbarians, and who knew whether any such thing as a "shop" still existed there.
Liu Jiuyue had never been there himself; he had only heard that a bunch of begging scavengers lived in the area. Occasionally they wandered near the farm to pick through scraps, but they were usually driven away unless they carried chips. The farm owner hadn't wanted conflict with his neighbors, so he typically allowed them to trade for a bit of green wheat before sending them off.
"Thank you for your hospitality." Wiping his mouth with his sleeve, Liu Jiuyue spent a moment holding back a burp, then stood and spoke respectfully.
Guo Niu shook his head and earnestly corrected him. "This is all thanks to the master's generosity. You should thank him, not me."
Liu Jiuyue glanced at him with an envious look.
How strange.
He had actually seen loyalty on the face of a thrall!
Even stranger, though, was that he found himself having to curry favor with the man...
Exiting the dining room, Liu Jiuyue rounded up the thralls he had brought and hitched up the two-headed oxen tied outside the door.
He cracked his whip, seemingly eager to vent his pent-up frustration onto these people.
"Move it, lazy dogs! Time to hit the road!"
The thralls dared not disobey him, much less the pipe rifles slung across the backs of the envoy and his two guards. They swiftly untied the ropes from the two-headed oxen and set out under Master Liu's harsh urging.
Yet a whip alone could never suppress people's simple yearning for a better life. Seizing a moment when Liu Jiuyue and the two guards weren't looking, several thralls began whispering among themselves.
"The food just now was amazing."
"Yeah. Even in a bumper year, we never ate that well..."
"This place is practically paradise!"
"Say, wasn't that guy... Guoba?"
"Looked like him."
"Unbelievable, it really was him! I almost didn't recognize him!"
"Do you think if we ran away to join him..."
"Shh! Don't let the guys with the guns hear you! Don't say I didn't warn you—the last kid who bragged about running off with a caravan got hung by the gate for three days and three nights! By the time they took him down, half his body was chewed away!"
The thralls went quiet as cicadas in winter, not daring to utter another word.
Watching the tribute caravan disappear into the edge of the woods, Chu Guang stood by the third-floor window of the sanatorium and spoke with an envious sigh.
"If only they'd sent me a few more cattle."
Xia Yan, who had dropped by to bum a meal, teased him, "Is that what you call eating from the bowl while eyeing the pot?"
She had picked up the phrase from Chu Guang, who said it was used to describe someone insatiably greedy. While she didn't think it was an entirely fair description of the Administrator, it felt surprisingly fitting right now.
"Of course not," Chu Guang retorted, looking back at her in annoyance. "I didn't teach you that phrase so you could use it on me."
Xia Yan rolled her eyes playfully and returned her attention to the popcorn cupped in her hands.
Though Chu Guang always called it junk food, she didn't agree in the slightest. With just a sprinkle of white sugar on top, the flavor was nothing short of heavenly!
Silver coins were truly wonderful!
She was already busy calculating how to spend tomorrow's wages.
***
It was just past midday.
At the Huayuan Street Subway Station entrance, roughly four kilometers from the Wetland Park, a pungent stench of gunpowder hung over the street, stubborn against even the howling north wind.
A cheerful band of players was busily repeating yesterday's routine—pulling monsters, focusing fire, tallying the spoils—working with fiery enthusiasm and having a grand old time.
Except for two who weren't having fun at all.
One was Brother Mole, and the other was Mosquito.
These two "contractors," one big and one small, had already sunk over four hundred silver coins into clearing the corridor from the subway entrance to the blast doors of Vault 117—enough to buy two LD-47 rifles!
If they couldn't clear the quest today, it would be hard to say whether the twelve-hundred-silver reward was even worth the time and cost.
"Maybe we should take a page from Old Brother Fang Chang and his crew," Mosquito grumbled dejectedly, looking at Mole beside him. "I chatted with Old Bai yesterday. When they cleared the greenhouse ruins, they didn't rely on throwing waves of people at it. Sure, they burned through some ammo, but all told, their costs weren't much higher than ours."
Brother Mole shook his head.
"Brother Mosquito, you've got it all wrong. You thought they were sharing gameplay tips, but they were just humblebragging. Elite tactics? Have you seen their squad's loadout? An exoskeleton identical to the Administrator's, the server's strongest mechanical compound bow, a cybernetic arm that maxes out an Intelligence-type's damage output, and... the highest Perception on the whole server."
"With an all-around monster squad like that, what tactics are you going to discuss with them? A single one of them puts out the damage of three ordinary players, and as long as they stay alive, it's pure profit. If we tried copying their playstyle, we'd be grinding this quest until next month. Take it from me: when you lack the gear, you make up for it with human waves. There are no shortcuts!"
*I get the logic.*
*But damn it all, I'm still jealous!*
With a face full of envy and bitterness, Mosquito couldn't help shouting, "Fuck! Those goddamn lucky bastards!"
Brother Mole nodded in fervent agreement.
"Right? Now you see why game balance matters, don't you?"
That cybernetic arm's damage was utterly absurd—thrown projectiles turned into artillery shells in his hands. Had the game designers spared a single thought for Strength-type players? And that mechanical compound bow hit harder than a rifle, pierced armor, launched explosives, and used dirt-cheap ammo. Leaving it unnerfed was downright criminal!
Of course, if completing the Vault 117 quest rewarded him with gear of the same tier or better, he would take back every word.
Whatever the case, if good RNG didn't fall on him, the system was rigged!
Zhang Hai, who had been responsible for pulling the monsters earlier, finally finished verifying his kill count and happened to overhear their conversation as he walked up.
Though he didn't understand a thing they were talking about, he chimed in excitedly with a gaming meme anyway.
"Mass Assault Right is the absolute GOAT!"
"Get outta here! What's a newbie butting in for? Have you even figured out your own sequence yet?" Mosquito, consumed by envy, wasn't in the mood for chatter and shoved a handful of coins into his hand. "Take it! Keep the change!"
Zhang Hai counted them, saw that not a single copper was missing, and grinned cheekily.
"Thanks, Boss! May you make a fortune!"
Hearing the words *make a fortune*, Mosquito's eyelid twitched violently.
*A fortune?*
If this went on any longer, he wouldn't be making a fortune—he'd be going bankrupt!
Sensing Mosquito's pain, Brother Mole patted his shoulder with deep sympathy and sighed.
"Hang in there. Victory is right around the corner. I've got a hunch this quest will be just as lucrative as the greenhouse ruins. We'll definitely make it all back then!"
Mosquito looked up at the sky and let out a long, weary sigh.
"I hope so."
In truth, Mole's words weren't purely hollow comfort; victory really was in sight.
They had slain sixty-seven gnawers in this round, far fewer than yesterday. Meanwhile, Zhang Hai, the Agility-type newbie, had spent more than twice as long pulling monsters from below, a clear sign that the density of mutants was no longer as high as in previous days.
By Mole's estimate, if things went well, two more waves at most ought to wrap up the quest.
Since it was lunchtime, the participating players took a brief break, ducking into an abandoned storefront along the road to boil a pot of water using charcoal they had brought and branches they had scavenged.
Newbies needed to save up for gear, so most were reluctant to spend on pricey rations, carrying mostly green wheat cakes or baked ram horn potato patties.
While this sort of dry food offered little nutrition and tasted mediocre, it was undeniably convenient. Whether simmered into a porridge in the pot or gnawed straight from the hand, it filled the belly.
An empty stomach inflicted a hypoglycemia debuff that hampered damage output, so the players planned to finish their dry rations before launching the next assault.
Yet at this very moment, neither Brother Mole nor Mosquito realized that on the highway just one street over from Huayuan Street Subway Station, a band of heavily armed mercenaries was quietly slipping into the area.
There were not many of them—only eight—and while their gear wasn't top-tier, it was leagues ahead of the scattered stragglers roaming the wasteland. Not only did they carry automatic weapons, but two of them also bore thigh-thick rocket launchers on their backs, packing considerable firepower.
Clearly, their employer had spared no expense. Learning from the previous failure, they had hired a stronger mercenary outfit and even bought round-trip air tickets to the northern suburbs for the team.
Their mission was straightforward.
Reach Huayuan Street Subway Station, clear out the mutants below, enter Vault 117, and return to the extraction point with the items inside.
Under favorable circumstances, they should have completed the mission two days ago. Yet nobody had expected another group to have their eyes on Vault 117 as well.
Those people appeared to hail from a newly risen survivor faction in the northern suburbs of Qingquan City. According to the loudmouthed host on Boulder City Radio, they had not only wiped out the Bloodhand Clan but also eliminated the mutants on 76th Street, and had recently even hooked up with the Enterprise as it passed through the northern suburbs.
Though the gear of those people looked flimsy and their own side held a clear advantage, no one dared let their guard down.
Especially yesterday, when the scout sent to establish a sniper perch in a high-rise had sent back word: he had spotted a target suspected of being an Awakened.
An Awakened!
As the captain of these twelve men, Prit felt that matters were likely not as simple as they seemed.
Instead of acting immediately, they had occupied a half-collapsed building along the street, set up their radio, and established a temporary command post to contact the scout who had arrived ahead of them.
"Karl, is that Awakened from yesterday still there?"
After a brief pause, the scout's voice came through the comm channel.
"No... I suspect he hasn't fully awakened, but the signs are already showing."
Prit's tone turned grave. "What kind of ability?"
"Likely related to Intuition or Mental," Karl answered.
Intuition or Mental.
Prit's brows furrowed deeply.
A so-called awakening was essentially a mutation of certain bodily traits, manifesting as abilities beyond ordinary humans.
Many triggers could lead to awakening, the most common being gene-enhancement serums or a survival instinct ignited in a life-or-death crisis, causing unexpressed genetic sequences to turn dominant.
Compared to cybernetic augmentation, which carried "manageable risks," awakening was undoubtedly a thorn-strewn path. While it granted immense power, it never came without a price.
Yet undeniably, Awakened were difficult to deal with—especially the Mental and Intuition types. Many of their abilities were absurdly potent and nearly impossible to guard against.
Just like the energy weapon branch of firearms!
"Those people are prepping for a second wave. I'd say they've nearly cleared out the mutants under the subway station... Boss, when do we strike?"
Prit replied calmly, "Don't rush. Wait until they lure the mutants out."
Luring mutants out of the subway station to concentrate fire might have been a clever idea, but those people clearly failed to realize how much noise they were making and how massive an opening they left behind their backs.
Prit's plan was crystal clear.
There was no need to clash head-on with those survivors. They only had to wait quietly for the mutants to swarm out, then strike just as the survivors charged in swinging their melee weapons.
Even if there was an Awakened, so what?
Swallowing up the survivors and mutants while they were tangled together would be as effortless as eating a sandwich cookie.
At the thought, a faint smile spread across Prit's face.
He would teach these survivors a lesson.
He would show them what it meant when the mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind!
Chapter 179