Affordability Is One of Our Weapons' Virtues

"...An Enterprise expedition has appeared in the northern suburbs?" Chairman's Office, Boulder Military Industries Building. Sitting behind his desk, Ibers listened to his subordinate's report, his face written with astonishment. Unlike people like Melven or Dulong, he had no need to rely on the *Survivor Daily* to learn what was happening in the northern suburbs. Late yesterday, his informants disguised as mercenaries and caravan guards had already tipped him off that a caravan suspected to be from Ideal City had arrived in the north. After a full night of investigation, he could finally confirm that those men were professional Enterprise soldiers. "...Why would Enterprise people show up here?" A flicker of apprehension surfaced in Ibers's eyes. Unlike the nobles of the inner city, his stance toward the Enterprise was to keep them at a respectful distance. Past experience showed that getting recklessly tangled with behemoths like them never led to anything good. Especially since the Enterprise and the Legion had fought a skirmish in the northern suburbs last year, heaven only knew what these people had come for now. Standing beside him, his elderly secretary seemed to be on the same page, murmuring at a deliberate pace: "Could it be related to the *Pioneer* from last year?" "I was thinking the same thing." Rubbing the space between his eyebrows with his index finger, Ibers fell into deep thought for a long while before suddenly speaking: "Either way, we have to find out what they're here to do first." The old secretary asked, "Do we need to report this to the City Lord?" Ibers replied succinctly: "File a routine report." Whether he reported it or not made little difference in truth. He had his own intelligence network, and the wise, august City Lord naturally had his as well. However, as that lord's most faithful servant, he was obligated to pass the news upward the moment he learned of it. Regardless of whether the City Lord already knew. That was simply his duty... *** As word spread of the Enterprise "visiting delegation's" arrival, all of Qingquan City was abuzz. The firm proprietors, factory owners, and inner-city nobles of Boulder City cast impassioned, even envious gazes toward the northern suburbs. Why on earth should those damned country bumpkins earn the Enterprise's favor? Of course, more than envy, what they cared about were the business opportunities latent in the news. A visiting delegation from Ideal City! Even a mere item or two brought here could fetch an unimaginably exorbitant price. The commoners of Boulder City had no purchasing power, but the inner-city nobles were loaded. Their enterprises stretched across Boulder City. They had no shortage of money to spend, only a lack of places to spend it. Whether it was bionic prostheses to enhance physical capabilities or serums that slowed aging, either was enough to drive the entire inner city wild... While Qingquan City was bustling, Xizhou City, a hundred kilometers away, was not quiet either. However, the two bustled in completely different ways... Beside a crudely erected platform, boxes and bundles of supplies were piled into miniature mountains on the storage area. Gazing at the hills of provisions, the construction aid team's foremen and the survivors of Daybreak City wore matching expressions of utter amazement. "One hundred and seventy tons of grain, eighty-one tons of ram horn potatoes, one thousand cotton work uniforms, one thousand pairs of rubber-soled boots, eleven crates of medical gauze and rubbing alcohol..." Clutching the cargo manifest handed over by the trainmaster, Rudy muttered under his breath, shock stamped on his face as he stared in disbelief. The items on the list were the very things they needed most. Especially the work clothes and waterproof footwear. It had rained continuously for days, and the northern construction site sat on low ground, turning into what was practically a flooded pond. Without pumps, the workers had to wade down with iron buckets to drain the water. Ordinary straw sandals, wooden clogs, or shoes bound from bark weren't waterproof in the least, and the rubber waterproof boots were limited in number, leaving many with blistered, rotting feet. Then there was the medical gauze and alcohol—absolute necessities on a work site prone to scrapes and knocks. Without disinfectants and dressing supplies, even a small scratch could turn septic and fester into a major problem. Not to mention food, which was precious at all times in the wasteland. A shortage of other goods could be endured, but an empty stomach made work impossible. Daybreak City had thirty thousand people; two hundred and fifty-one tons of grain, supplemented by the game and fish caught by the shelter residents, would easily cover two weeks of rations! Only after quite a while did he swallow hard and manage: "...Did you stumble across a pre-war stockpile?" Before becoming the captain of the construction aid team, he had been a decurion under Vannus, campaigning across the south and north with the Legion for years. In his memory, stockpiles this abundant were rare even in prosperous survivor settlements. The New Alliance might have been capable of producing these goods eventually, but gathering them in such a short window was impossible. Seeing Rudy's dazed expression, the trainmaster laughed: "What do you mean 'stumbled across'? These were all bought from Boulder City! By the way, pass the word to the warehouse crew for me: another batch of supplies is arriving in three days. They'd better expand the depot so they don't get caught flat-footed." Snapping back to his senses, Rudy nodded immediately and said with gravity: "I'll go tell them right away!" As the goods were moved into storage, news of the shipment quickly spread among the survivors. At lunchtime, several foremen and laborers from the aid team squatted together, bowls in hand, eagerly trading rumors picked up from others. "...I heard! Supplies imported from Boulder City!" "It's not just daily necessities—generators and power distribution equipment too... probably for stringing up an electrical grid!" "That must have cost a ton of chips, right?" "Of course... at least a hundred thousand or more." "A hundred thousand? Try hundreds of thousands!" Hearing that these provisions cost so much, many wore looks of deep emotional awe, momentarily dazed. Especially those survivors who had grown up in Qingquan City. The vagrants had little concept of the purchasing power of chips, but locals knew exactly how much good stuff those chips could fetch. Forget hundreds of thousands; even three digits of chips was an astronomical sum to them, and five digits was beyond anything an ordinary person could dream of amassing. To their knowledge, only the former mayor of Bet Street or Old Brown of Brown Farm could produce such sums. Yet those skinflint tightwads would never spend a chip on anyone else. They clutched every single chip tight in their fists, loath to spend it on outsiders—or even on themselves. For people like that, the grandest ambition in life was to scrape together enough chips to move inside the giant wall, squeeze into high society by hook or by crook, and spend their golden years in luxury and abundance. If all else failed, buying a few buildings on the outskirts of the outer city to live as rentiers was a fine alternative. Willing to produce his own chips and shower them lavishly on common folk like them... Think as they might, there was only that benevolent Administrator... *** Meanwhile, on an abandoned street in the east district of Xizhou City. A group of survivors was methodically lugging luggage out from a collapsed subway station and piling it on an open clearing not far from the entrance. A short distance away stood over thirty container houses and dozens of barracks relocated from the underground tunnels. The construction aid team was responsible not only for Daybreak City, but also Camp 101 in Xizhou City's east district. Now that the Bone Chewer tribe had been eradicated, Xizhou City had regained its past tranquility. The residents of Camp 101 were preparing to return to the surface, restoring the buffer zone outside the shelter's entrance to the "Pioneers." Chu Guang had promised to help the residents of Camp 101 rebuild their home. A week ago, the Alliance's workers had arrived. Two hundred laborers took part in the construction: twenty foremen from Dawn City and one hundred and eighty survivors from Daybreak City. In addition, patrols from the 2nd Corps were assigned to maintain security around the camp. After all, mutant hyenas, rats, roaches, washbasin-sized flies, and bloodsuckers with syringes longer than a human arm—those inexhaustible mutants wouldn't vanish just because the marauders were gone. Especially now that summer had arrived, the mutants roaming the ruins had more than doubled compared to two months ago. Fortunately, a band of enthusiastic little players turned them into cooking ingredients, keeping their numbers from swelling out of control... Thinking of their own future, and taking Chu Guang's advice into account, Camp 101 had ultimately decided to establish the new settlement on the former site of Xizhou University, not far from Shelter 101. The terrain there was relatively flat. Although the buildings were heavily damaged, that was actually an advantage—at least demolishing them wouldn't be too troublesome. On the wasteland, demolishing buildings was far harder than putting them up. Some buildings looked tottering and precarious, as if a shove would bring them down, yet they could take two one-hundred-kilogram aerial bombs and remain intact. Furthermore, in *Wasteland OL*, collapsed structures didn't turn to dust and vanish like in RTS games; more often than not, they sprawled across the ground to form a wall of rubble. Massive concrete debris couldn't be carted off whole; it had to be broken down into small pieces before transport. That was precisely why both Dawn City and Daybreak City had been built in suburbs with low structural density. According to the planned blueprints, Phase I of Camp 101 covered thirty mu, radiating outward with the old Xizhou University library as its center. Once all three phases were complete, the camp would essentially encompass the core grounds of the former university, spanning an astonishing five hundred mu. Though Mayor Horne of the camp had protested with an exasperated smile that they had no need for so much land, Chu Guang had generously painted this grand vision nonetheless. No need? He knew full well that a little village of only two to three hundred people couldn't use that much ground. But he and Horne were looking at entirely different horizons. To Chu Guang, this place was the Alliance's future "national university," a sanctuary for academic exchange and technological research. A mere five hundred mu? He even felt it was too cramped! Still, one had to eat one bite at a time. For now, three to five hundred students was about the limit of what Camp 101 could accommodate. The thirty mu allocated for Phase I was more than enough; two five-story academic buildings would suffice. After nearly a week of construction, the brand-new camp was taking shape. Though there was no sign of the academic halls yet, neat, rectangular barracks already stood upon the clearing. The space here was vastly more generous than the underground tunnels; they no longer had to cram dwellings cheek by jowl, and every barrack had ample room outside the door for private space. Children laughed and chased each other through the grounds. Work was humming on the nearby construction site, where a concrete structure of unknown purpose was already halfway built. To keep mutants out, coils of barbed wire were strung around the camp's perimeter wall, reinforced with steel rebar driven deep into the dirt. Standing at the entrance of the new camp, Pai's eyes widened in amazement, her mouth dropping open so wide it looked ready to swallow an egg. She had barely been away from home for two weeks, yet everyone had already moved up from underground! This was way too fast! "Pai?" Looking at the young girl by the gates, Tris smiled warmly. "You're back?" Hearing the "gatekeeper's" voice, Pai quickly snapped out of her daze, puffing out her chest with a proud grin. "Yup! Mission accomplished!" Despite her smug expression, her big eyes couldn't resist darting around in curiosity. "So, is this our new home?" Tris nodded with a smile. "Yes. We originally planned on taking two months to relocate aboveground, but progress has gone smoother than anticipated. Thanks to those kind folks, we accomplished all this in just one week." And most of all, they had to thank them for vanquishing those bloodthirsty marauders. No one enjoyed being cooped up underground, enduring the damp, the darkness, and unpalatable rations. To him, nothing brought greater joy than watching the children run under the open sunlight. At that point, Tris noticed the thirty young people behind Pai and asked with a smile: "You must be the students from the New Alliance?" Xia Yan, walking at the front, nodded and answered crisply: "Yes. The Administrator instructed us to report to a teacher named Alvin... can you tell us where he is?" Though she spoke the words, she looked nothing like a student at the moment, dressed completely like a wasteland mercenary. Over her shirt was a durable leather jacket, her pockets bulged with ammunition magazines, and slung across her back was an LD-47 assault rifle. Tris didn't mind. Used to dealing with wastelanders, he felt no surprise at all, maintaining his gentle smile. "Alvin is still underground sorting through files in the archive; it'll probably be a few days before he comes up. He's Pai's teacher—I expect Pai can lead you to him." Pai nodded enthusiastically, tossing a reassuring glance back at Xia Yan and Xiao Yu. "Mm! Leave it to me! I need to head underground anyway!" She hadn't forgotten her promise to Chu Guang to talk with Shelter 101's Administrator about borrowing VMs. Tris smiled and nodded. "Then I leave it in your capable hands. "Before you head underground, though, why don't you unpack your luggage first? "We've prepared dormitories for you, right next to the camp's school... Please, follow me." *** Work on Camp 101 had begun less than two weeks ago, and while it was habitable, conditions were still somewhat austere. Even so, the local residents had prepared two-person rooms in the barracks as quarters for the students from the New Alliance. Their relationship was in its honeymoon phase; the New Alliance hadn't been stingy with aid, and naturally the locals spared no effort to accommodate them within their means. While Boss Xia and her companions were busy unpacking, Chu Guang was far from idle back in Dawn City. First came setting up new production lines for ammunition, weapons, and accessories. Although this was mainly overseen by staff in the industrial zone and officials from the Ministry of Industry, introducing the commando team's logistics personnel to them and organizing work still took time. Once those matters were settled, Chu Guang took Yun Song to the shooting range to demonstrate the Alliance's weaponry. This included the LD-series assault rifles, the 20mm Light Lance, the 37mm Heavy Lance, 60mm mortars, and more. As well as the portable, versatile RPG launcher! The RPG in particular was a standout. Though it struggled against heavy vehicles and lacked auto-tracking or laser guidance—relying strictly on visual aiming—it was more than adequate against light and medium armor or vehicles at short to medium ranges! Swap in fragmenting high-explosive warheads, and it was devastating against unarmored light infantry! After test-firing a few rounds, Yun Song gleefully placed an order on the spot for one hundred and twenty launchers, five hundred armor-piercing rounds, and seven hundred high-explosive rockets! Although the penetration of chemical shaped charges was vastly inferior to plasma rounds or railguns, they didn't constantly run into adversaries worthy of plasma ordnance. And just as Chu Guang said, sheer quantity was a quality of its own. With these weapons, a company of his light infantry could transform into an "anti-tank company" in an instant! With the aid of exoskeletons, carrying a few extra rockets was no trouble at all! Of course, what prompted Yun Song to place the order so readily was that these weapons were priced in silver coins, and his logistics officer had negotiated a favorable rate using the trade goods they'd brought along. As a result, he didn't feel the slightest pang of regret as he went on his shopping spree. Watching wisps of blue smoke curl from the launch tube and looking at the target blown to splinters in the distance, Yun Song wore a delighted grin. "Are you sure it's fine selling these to us for a hundred silver coins each? Isn't that too cheap?" It was the first time Chu Guang had ever met someone complaining that his prices were too low. He couldn't help smiling. "Being cheap is one of our weapons' virtues." Seeing his friend finally appreciate the charm of Goblin Technology, Chu Guang was genuinely pleased for him. The massive stockpile of weapons left over from the northern expedition was finally being digested by someone. Then again, clad in sleek, high-tech power armor with an antique rocket launcher perched on his shoulder, the combination looked thoroughly bizarre no matter how one sliced it. Looking at the tube resting on Yun Song's shoulder, Chu Guang remarked with a touch of regret: "A pity we don't have uranium or plutonium... otherwise we could whip up some higher-yield tactical nuclear rockets." Power armor paired with a man-portable nuclear launcher. Now *that* would look far more fitting! The fellow hefting the launcher wasn't preoccupied with aesthetics, however. Compared to the mismatch in art style, he cared far more about practical utility. Evidently, this weapon suited his taste down to the ground. "Haha, no need for that! Against ordinary threats, conventional firepower is plenty," Yun Song said with a laugh, looking at Chu Guang. "Thanks, brother! I really like your weapons!" "You're welcome. We gained quite a bit ourselves," Chu Guang replied with a smile. Just the Miner I exoskeletons equipped with metallic hydrogen batteries—retailing at 4,000 CR each—he had purchased a full one hundred suits. On top of that were two hundred one-kilogram blocks of metallic hydrogen batteries; whether used for power storage or as explosives, that stuff was phenomenally effective. To purchase these goods, Chu Guang had spent less than one million silver coins in total. And given their intrinsic value, even if they were simply resold in Boulder City, they would easily fetch well over one million chips! Beyond this "conventional" gear, there was a whole host of items that were far harder to come by. For instance, bionic kidneys manufactured in Ideal City. Back in Boulder City, just one of these could sell for five hundred thousand chips! Yet Chu Guang had negotiated a price with Heding for merely two hundred and seventy thousand silver coins apiece, purchasing five units directly under the shelter's official account. Though he had little personal need for them, flipping them as trade goods to traveling merchants coming to the northern suburbs from Boulder City was an exceptional deal. In addition to the merchandise from Ideal City, there were the trophies the soldiers had seized along the way. Honestly, Chu Guang hadn't held out much hope for that plunder at first. After all, conditions in the eastern provinces were hardly better than in River Valley Province; what could they possibly have of value? Reality, however, caught him completely off guard...