“…This is the Voice of Boulder City with a breaking news bulletin. While on a mission in the northern suburbs of Qingquan City, the Black Snake Mercenary Group clashed with local survivors. Although Captain Prit and his men held an absolute advantage in both tactics and equipment, unfortunately, they ran into a shameless mob that overwhelmed them with sheer numbers.
“The mercenaries stationed near the subway station put up a heroic resistance, but were ultimately submerged in the sea of people. At present, the entrance to the subway station has fallen under the control of the northern suburban hicks, and Captain Prit and his surviving men have been forced to retreat into the station to look for another way out.
“This station will continue to monitor the situation near Huayuan Street Subway Station. Let us pray for Captain Prit for three seconds, and wish that he comes back alive.”
Pray?
Yeah, right.
For those who had lost money, refraining from cursing those idiots for three days and three nights was already an act of saintly restraint.
They were merely twelve mercenaries; they might not have even cared about their own worthless lives. Aside from the employer who hired them, nobody gave a damn whether they lived or died.
The gamblers of Boulder City cared only about their own coin pouches. They wished those jinxes who made them lose money would all drop dead out there, preferably without a single one returning.
Inside the Two-Tailed Rat Tavern, the room was thick with frantic cursing and swearing. The vicious invectives even made the bartender behind the counter click his tongue.
These hopelessly addicted drunkards had miraculously reached a consensus on the same thing—even though normally they were bored enough to bicker over obvious things like “how many cups of water were mixed into today's discount beer.”
“Fuck, refund our money!”
“Can't even beat a bunch of beggars! What an absolute disgrace to Boulder City mercenaries!”
“I seriously suspect this was a scam cooked up between that old bastard Prit and the Central Casino! Think about it, what good could there possibly be in the northern suburbs? Worth them taking a plane all the way out there?! Chartering a plane from the militia isn't cheap!”
“Who gives a shit what their commission was, just don't let me catch that idiot in this tavern! I swear I'll spit in his face!”
“Central Casino has gone downhill too, actually opening bets on something this ridiculous! They might as well let us bet on the day after tomorrow's weather—at least that'd be fairer!”
People's joys and sorrows are never shared.
While the gamblers of Boulder City were cursing the twelve mercenaries of the Black Snake Mercenary Group, wishing the barbarians would disembowel them all, Jerry, squatting on the ground with his hands clasped behind his head, was trembling and praying that these survivors would spare his life on account of his surrender.
Although the moment he became a mercenary, he had anticipated an end like this, it didn't mean he was ready to cast life and death aside.
If one could live, nobody wanted to die.
In the tunnel.
Over a dozen players stood before a corpse, arguing red in the face.
“Fuck! Who does this kill actually belong to?”
“I stabbed him first!”
“Mine was obviously more fatal!”
“You guys take the contribution points, just give me the silver coins.”
“Get lost! We're all veteran players with VMs here, who the hell is hurting for that tiny bit of contribution?!”
Watching those survivors bicker noisily, Jerry trembled while feeling utterly bewildered, completely unable to comprehend what they were arguing about.
Just then, Jerry suddenly noticed that those people were looking at him.
“…By the way, isn't there still a prisoner here?”
“Hey, if we finish him off, do you think it counts as a kill?”
“His red name is already gone, probably wouldn't count.”
“Yeah… and I remember the Shelter Resident Handbook states that attacking neutral NPCs results in confinement depending on the severity, and attacking friendly NPCs can get you permanently repatriated at worst. His marker on the map is gray now; maybe the bounty completed once he turned into a prisoner?”
“What about the bounty? Did anyone get the bounty reward?”
“Ummm… maybe it settles later? After all, that's how it worked before.”
Although Jerry didn't understand a word of what they were discussing, the glances they kept tossing his way gave him chills.
It felt like being a fish on a chopping block.
Whether he lived or died depended entirely on a single whim of theirs.
Just at that moment, a man wearing a blue exoskeleton walked over from the platform.
Slung across his back was that absurdly overpowered warhammer, though Jerry was certain that the one who had blocked almost all their firepower earlier wasn't him.
At the same time, Jerry clearly felt that the moment this man appeared, the surrounding survivors immediately showed deferential respect, and even their murmuring died down considerably.
Stopping in front of him, the man looked down at him and asked,
“Where is your captain?”
Jerry swallowed hard and glanced toward the nearby vault entrance.
“He already went inside…”
Chu Guang looked to the side.
There was an open iron door with a no-entry sign printed on it. Behind the door lay a straight corridor leading to the vault's main blast door—that iconic, gear-shaped alloy door over ten centimeters thick.
Unlike Shelter 404's sunken entrance, the entrance to Vault 117 was built directly beside the subway tunnel.
Vaults with three-digit serial numbers were all “closed-cycle” facilities. Once the blast doors shut, they were completely physically severed from the outside world. As long as power from the thermonuclear fusion reactor was uninterrupted, the shelter facilities could continue operating without exchanging any matter with the outside.
Theoretically, if the people inside were determined not to come out and locked the blast doors from within, anything outsiders did would be futile. Fire or flooding was child's play; this was a civil defense facility built to withstand strategic nuclear strikes. Its designers had long anticipated every conceivable scenario, including a megaton-level nuclear blast.
However—
Vault 117 had clearly been abandoned for many years. The reactor inside had long ceased functioning; using the backup power to cycle the doors open and shut was doable, but expecting a closed-cycle life support run was out of the question.
After thinking for two seconds, Chu Guang leaned down and stared into the mercenary's eyes.
“Get him to come out.”
Jerry shrank back an inch in panic.
“It's no use... It won't work no matter who goes. Captain Prit won't listen to me... He doesn't give a damn about whether we live or die.”
Chu Guang gave a faint smile, drew out a spike, and gently set it in Jerry's palm.
It was a projectile for the Gauss rifle—albeit a replica forged from solid steel.
The moment Jerry saw the round, his breath hitched for several seconds.
Chu Guang continued,
“Go tell him this:
“If he hopes to slip away relying on a suit of power armor, I'll show him the price of stupidity.
“Of course, if his courage has failed him and he plans to spend the rest of his life in this vault, I can lend a hand. For instance, sealing this place completely with twenty tons of concrete.
“These are my ruins. If I can't have them, no one walks away with what's inside.
“On the other hand, if he's smart, he'll roll out on his own with his hands on his head, and explain clearly who hired you—
“And I'll spare his miserable life.”
…
Captain Prit surrendered.
When he saw the steel spike in Jerry's hand through the surveillance camera, it took very little effort to choose between surrendering and holding out to the death.
There was no need to hesitate at all.
In an abandoned vault like this, the reactor had long shut down. The cold fusion battery plugged into the backup power supply was barely enough for lighting and cycling the blast door; it couldn't sustain him holding out here.
Let alone guarding this door until old age, in a week at most, he would die of hunger or thirst inside.
He was just a mercenary who did jobs for money; he possessed no lofty resolve to “perish alongside the contract.”
The vault blast door slowly opened.
Leaving his weapons at the entrance of the buffer room, Prit walked out of the vault doors with his hands clasped behind his head under the watchful eyes of the gathered players.
Looking at Chu Guang standing before the entrance, he hung his head and said meekly,
“I surrender... I hope you honor your word.”
“That depends on whether you're honest,” Chu Guang said, eyeing him. “Speak. Who is your employer?”
Prit glanced at the surrounding survivors and swallowed hard.
“Sir, we're just mercenaries selling our lives for coin; we aren't qualified to meet the employer. The middleman who assigned us the job is named ‘White Shark.’ He gave us everything, including the advance payment and the keycard to Vault 117...”
White Shark?
Chu Guang looked at him and pressed on, “What was your assignment?”
Prit: “The employer commissioned us to find a black briefcase, saying it's in Vault 117's Administrator's Office. In addition, the employer mentioned there was a suit of power armor here, supposedly a personal collection of this vault's Administrator. But the middleman told me the employer wasn't sure if it was still here, only mentioning that if we saw it, to bring it along, and he would give us an extra reward.”
Chu Guang smiled faintly. “It seems your employer knows this vault very well.”
Prit swallowed and replied, “I thought so too... I feel like he might be from Vault 117 himself, but I've never seen him. I'm not even sure if he's in Boulder City.”
Chu Guang kept his eyes on him and asked, “Where can this White Shark be found?”
“The Pirate Bay Tavern in Boulder City. He's the owner there, and a lot of mercenaries take jobs through him.” Fearing Chu Guang might be dissatisfied with his answer, Prit, desperate to stay alive, added nervously, “Sir, we really don't know who the employer is... But if you want to talk to White Shark, I can be of service.”
Chu Guang smiled faintly.
“I will find him myself.”
Judging that nothing critical could be squeezed out of this fellow, Chu Guang had him scramble over to the other prisoners, squatting by the wall with hands behind his head alongside the three other captives.
Counting the sniper caught by the Ox and Horse Squad, the Black Snake Mercenary Group had thirteen mercenaries in total, but only four had been taken alive.
The rest had either died in the hail of bullets or had been skewered into sieves by players' bayonets during close-quarters combat before having a chance to surrender.
As for the players, not counting the newbies killed in the initial ambush, casualties reached 17. Relative to their base of 500 players, this number was hardly crippling.
After the battle with the Legion, the outpost wouldn't lack active substance anytime soon; these fallen little players would be back in action in three days.
Chu Guang would deal with the prisoners later.
For now, taking inventory of the spoils was naturally more important.
Just as the Administrator headed toward Vault 117, the players guarding the entrance received quest completion notifications almost simultaneously.
“Giao! Sisi! Look at your VM!” Clasping her pipe rifle, Tail shook her arms excitedly. “37 silver! We're rich!”
“Huh? I got it too,” Sisi said, looking at her VM with surprise. “Turns out everyone who participated gets a cut. But why did I only get 21 silver...”
“It must be because Sisi didn't charge as fast as Tail!”
Glancing at the smug Tail, Sisi rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “Hmm, maybe... that actually might be why.”
On the other side.
Lao Bai, clad in heavy armor, walked over to the other three members of the Ox and Horse Squad and said excitedly to his buddies,
“That was awesome! That hammer is ridiculously overpowered! Once the shield wall is up, neither machine guns nor rifles can penetrate it!”
“It's the Administrator's weapon, after all,” Ye Shi, carrying a sniper rifle on his back, chuckled. “Lao Bai, this armor of yours was totally worth the purchase.”
“Sigh, if only we could buy that hammer!”
“Keep dreaming. A game-breaking weapon like that, even if it were available, would probably cost an absurd fortune,” Fang Chang replied offhandedly to Lao Bai before looking down at his VM, lost in thought. “By the way, this quest settled pretty fast. I actually got 111 silver.”
“Already settled? That quick?... Holy shit! Why do I have 144 silver?!” Looking at the numbers flashing on his VM, Ye Shi's eyes widened.
Kuang Feng tried analyzing it: “Maybe because you took one out with the sniper rifle? I got 107 silver, pretty close to Fang Chang.”
Fang Chang nodded thoughtfully.
“That should be it. If you open the settlement breakdown on the completed quest page, it explains the source of every reward in detail. The rewards I see are split into two parts: one is the bounty quest reward, and the other is the battlefield quest reward.
“For example, the sniper we took down earlier had his bounty and contribution points split evenly at 25 percent each into the bounty quest. At the same time, as a high-threat target, that sniper gave us 50 battlefield points, which went into the battlefield quest.”
A look of understanding crossed Ye Shi's face. “So that's how it is... But what about the few red-named elite mobs killed later? It'd be hard to tell who got the kill.”
Fang Chang: “Right, so the red-named elites killed during the team fight all went into the battlefield quest's total pool, divided by battlefield score. For instance, look at your bounty quest reward—it's the same as ours, but your battlefield score is slightly higher, so your payout is slightly higher.”
The battlefield quest's total payout encompassed many factors, calculated primarily based on loot and battle difficulty. Although *Wasteland OL* didn't disclose the exact formula, players could clearly feel the differences.
For example, at the most basic level, defensive battles gave higher contribution point returns than offensive battles, while offensive battles offered higher silver coin returns than defensive ones. Fighting the Legion paid better than fighting marauders, and fighting humans yielded more than fighting mutants.
Lao Bai said in pleasant surprise, “I got 171 silver... Awesome! Tanking in front with the shield earlier actually gave me 50 battlefield points!”
Listening to the Ox and Horse Squad's discussion, the surrounding players looked on with envy.
Most of them received around 50 silver, with rare individuals reaching 70 or even 80 silver—those were top players from Tier 2 or even Tier 1.
Staring at the VM on his arm, Mosquito couldn't help cursing,
“Son of a bitch! I got 111 silver! What a rip-off!”
And 100 silver of that was contributed by the prisoner!
Standing beside him, Brother Mole said calmly, “Normal. After all, aside from picking up that one kill, we didn't really contribute much... But the good news is, I received a popup for quest completion.”
The quest he meant was obviously not the shared bounty quest, but the mission to clear the passage between the subway station and Vault 117.
Hearing Brother Mole say this, Mosquito, who had been grumbling moments ago, instantly perked up. “Holy shit! Big bro, you rock! The reward came through already?!”
“It's in. As agreed, forty-sixty. I'll transfer your cut now.”
With that, Brother Mole tapped his VM screen twice with his index finger, generously transferring 480 silver of the freshly received 1,200 silver coins to Mosquito.
As for the expenses, the two had already split them earlier.
Looking at the 480 silver credited to his account, Mosquito beamed from ear to ear, unable to wipe the grin off his face.
“Sweet! Hahaha, we're rich!”
Seeing everyone around celebrating, Zhang Hai, clutching his backside to staunch the bleeding, couldn't resist leaning over to ask, “Stupid question: do you get rewards without a VM? How do I check where the rewards are?”
Mosquito gave him a side-eye.
“Rewards my ass! Do you even have DPS, man?!”
Brother Mole chuckled as well.
“Forget about it, bro. You didn't even accept the quest, where would you get rewards? This quest wasn't meant for rookies anyway; just consider it leeching some free EXP.”
Zhang Hai: “Damn it, I'm shaking with rage! Don't rookies have human rights?!”
Patting his shoulder, Brother Mole said earnestly, “Be content. Everyone started like this. Back in our day, we had to move bricks and chop trees just to scrape together contribution points. Take my advice, save up your contribution and buy a VM ASAP.”
Zhang Hai: “%¥#@!”
While the players bickered noisily outside the vault entrance, Chu Guang had already passed through the open alloy blast door, stepping inside Vault 117 accompanied by Wrench and another guard.
Their soles crunched against the concrete floor tiles.
From the thick layer of dust on the ground, no one had set foot here for years.
Although the likelihood of danger was slim, just to be safe, Chu Guang kept the warhammer firmly in his grip. Up until now, he hadn't encountered energy weapons; the common forms of damage in the wasteland were primarily kinetic, and the nitrogen shield's interception capability against small-mass projectiles was practically absolute.
Picking up a Vault 117 promotional pamphlet from the ground, Chu Guang flipped to the back, where a schematic of the vault's structure was printed.
“Vault 117 only has three floors...”
And the area was considerably smaller than Shelter 404!
According to the pamphlet's promotional copy, the reasonable sheltering capacity was between 100 and 200 people. Shelter 404, by comparison, had a total of 600 rooms across Sections B, C, and D of Floor B2 alone.
However, Chu Guang could clearly sense that living conditions in this vault would have been substantially better than in Shelter 404.
The individual rooms here had an average area of over ten square meters, and some even had private bathrooms. Compared to the pigeon-coop-like rooms of Shelter 404, it was far superior.
Living here must have cost quite a fortune!
Directly facing the vault's entrance was the prep room. Its layout resembled Shelter 404's, lined with a large number of lockers.
Opening the lockers, Chu Guang found that in addition to protective suits and gas masks, there was plenty of police equipment inside.
However, this police equipment mainly consisted of batons, shields, riot forks, stun guns, and body armor; there were no automatic weapons or pre-war police handguns, let alone a Light Cavalry Type 5 police exoskeleton like the one he wore.
Chu Guang inspected the quality of the gear.
Aside from the stun guns whose batteries were dead and unusable, the body armor and shields were in superb condition, as were the batons and riot forks. It was impossible to tell that these items were over two centuries old.
“Selling the body armor for 200 silver coins should be reasonable. As for the shields... make it cheaper, 100 silver coins each,” Chu Guang mused, rubbing his chin as he looked over the equipment in the prep room.
As for the batons and riot forks...
Selling them to players didn't make much sense; better to leave them for NPCs to maintain public order.
No power armor was found in the prep room. Chu Guang left one guard to keep watch here and took the other toward the buffer room.
Passing through the two blast gates of the buffer room brought them formally into the vault's interior.
The reactor here had shut down, leaving only the cold fusion battery plugged into the backup power supply to keep the vault running at minimum capacity. Facilities like refrigerators and water purifiers had long ceased working, and even the lighting only switched on when someone approached.
“Sir, I feel the air here is a bit foul...” Wrench, following beside Chu Guang, cautioned. “How about letting me handle the rest of the exploration?”
“Don't worry, I know what I'm doing.”
Chu Guang tapped his finger against the VM on his arm; the oxygen level displayed was still well within safe margins. Although a small amount of ozone was detected, the concentration was extremely low. Forget his 14 points of Constitution—even a normal adult standing here wouldn't come to any harm.
Wrench said no more, simply walking loyally ahead of Chu Guang.
Bypassing the elevator, they took the adjacent fire stairs down to Floor B3—the deepest level of Vault 117.
Chu Guang could distinctly tell that the dust here was far thicker than on the first floor.
Traversing the corridor, the two arrived before the door to the Administrator's Office.
The door here was tightly shut.
Chu Guang felt around the door for a moment, had a thought, and pulled out the keycard to tap it against the sensor.
The indicator light on the door lit up, and the alloy door panel slid aside, retracting into the wall.
Looking at the office's décor and the suit of power armor mounted against the wall, a trace of envy rose across Chu Guang's face.
“Son of a bitch, why are other administrators so loaded while I have to build my own damn office? This makes no sense at all!”
The minimalist décor exuded an understated luxury. The display cabinets were lined with the previous administrator's collections, including books and decorative pieces.
However, none of those were the main attraction.
The main attraction was that suit of deep-blue power armor with a streamlined armored shell, along with the black case resting beside the desk!
That should be the briefcase Dr. Principle mentioned!
Though rather than calling it a briefcase, Chu Guang felt “suitcase” was a more fitting description. The thing was not small at all; laid on its side, it was as tall as his calf.
Aside from that, behind the desk sat a skeleton dressed in a blue jacket. The skeleton's left elbow rested on the chair's armrest, its VM having slipped down from the forearm to the wrist joint.
The instant Chu Guang's gaze met that VM, a faint blue popup surfaced within his vision—
[Quest Complete!]
Chapter 182