Top Players Have Already Started Assigning Tasks to NPCs

A language barrier? Unable to communicate? To Chu Guang, this was not a problem at all. As a tool person, she only needed to master a few simple set lines to satisfy the players' functional demands in the game. For example, the simplest "buy" and "sell" did not require complicated vocabulary to learn. As for what to do if the players talked smack and she could not understand them? Too bad. After all, even in a fully realistic, immersive virtual reality online game, not every NPC could possibly possess fully genuine intelligence. That was entirely reasonable. Therefore, Chu Guang had not demanded that Xia Yan learn Mandarin, only requiring her to master a few basic words and fixed sentence patterns. However, what he had not expected was that despite lowering his standards so far, this girl's performance was still far from satisfactory. "...To customers who enter the shop, say: 'Hello, I am Xia Yan, the proprietress of the weapon shop. How may I help you?' When hearing 'I want to buy something,' point at the menu and reply: 'Look for yourself.' When hearing 'I want firearm maintenance,' hold out your hand and reply: 'Hand it over'?" What on earth was all this? Clutching the slip of paper in her hand, Xia Yan wore a miserable expression as she looked pleadingly toward Chu Guang, who was sitting in the chair. Although every character had its pronunciation annotated, she still could not adapt to these bizarre sounds. Even though it really did sound quite similar to the Human Alliance language. Noticing Xia Yan watching him, Chu Guang shifted his gaze from the computer monitor and turned his head toward her. "Learned it?" Xia Yan: "Not yet..." Chu Guang: "Then why are you staring at me? Keep memorizing." Xia Yan: "..." For a brief moment, she suddenly felt that the job of having babies might actually be easier, yet for some reason, this man showed zero interest in her. *Am I ugly?* *Not likely.* Gloomily twirling the red tips of her hair, Xia Yan was still very confident in her looks. For example, her squad captain had once pursued her for a while. She just had not cared for him. The life of cannon fodder was too bitter, facing the threat of death every single day. Her dream was to marry into Boulder City's inner city and live the life of a wealthy lady. In fact, when she thought about it, it was not impossible. What if one day they took an escort mission for some big shot, and the novel-like scenario of a beauty saving the hero played out? Unfortunately, let alone escorting big shots, a fringe squad like theirs could not even handle missions along the Second Ring Road; they could only be dispatched out to the middle of nowhere to open "blind boxes." As for now... Her dream life was even more out of reach. Who would want a cripple? And a cripple who had been taken prisoner by savages, no less... Just as Xia Yan was mourning her ill-fated life, a soft cough sounded from the side. "Rein in that expression of yours a little." "Huh?" Xia Yan looked utterly lost. *Daydreaming, sure enough.* Seeing her instinctive reaction, Chu Guang was rendered speechless from his chair. Sighing, he paused for a moment and said deadpan: "The clock starts now. In two hours, I will test you once." "If there is still no progress, perhaps Brown Farm next door would suit you better. They happen to need serfs." "Conveniently, I can make a buck off it too." ... It was winter now; Brown Farm did not need serfs. On the contrary, by the end of the month, they would dispose of a batch of old geezers who could not work or defective goods missing arms and legs. A crippled mercenary would not be wanted even if offered for free. As for lusting after beauty, that was even more absurd. Even the petty landowners on Bet Street could afford clone babes whose delicate looks could make celebrities jealous. How much could an outwardly tough but inwardly crude, savage soul be worth? This was the wasteland. Saying he would sell her was just Chu Guang talking off the cuff. A little scare to give her some motivation. Even if this girl was truly so stupid she could not memorize these few pages of lines, he would not actually sell her off as a slave. At most, he would toss her out of here. In fact, over the time he had interacted with her, Chu Guang had found her rather amusing. Speaking politely to her accomplished nothing, but throw a couple of casual threats her way and she caved instantly, obediently memorizing right there. Why make things so hard on herself? Chu Guang shook his head and went back to surfing the web. Just now, he had discovered that his Steam account was actually still usable—just the thing to pass the time... The next morning. Waking up, Chu Guang opened the player list, batch-unlocked login permissions for the players, and led the newly logged-on players to the surface. "Respected Manager, may I ask where that lady from yesterday is?" Standing beside the Manager, Fang Chang asked respectfully. "You mean Xia Yan? Her injuries are somewhat severe; she needs a few days of quiet rest. I spoke with her last night, and she has agreed to join our cause. Once her injuries heal, she will be responsible for weapons maintenance at the outpost." Naturally, Chu Guang did not mention that she had stayed up until two or three in the morning memorizing lines, and in the end, he had been the one to carry her into the adjacent room. Barring any surprises, she was probably sleeping soundly right now. Hearing the Manager's answer, Fang Chang's eyes lit up instantly. New intel! The new NPC's name was Xia Yan! Her role should be weapon shop owner or a similar profession! Silently noting down these two details, Fang Chang intended to update his forum thread with all this intel once he logged off today. Chu Guang could naturally guess what he was thinking; otherwise, he would not have answered in such detail. Continuing his duties as an NPC, Chu Guang brought the players to the clearing in front of the sanatorium, gave a brief pep talk, and then dismissed them. After two days of adjustment, the newly joined players had basically settled into the game's rhythm and did not need him directing them at all. Watching the furnace fires and black smoke slowly rising outside the construction site, as well as the players scurrying up and down the scaffolding, huffing and puffing as they worked, Chu Guang suddenly felt an awful lot like an old farmer raising ducks. Every day, his job was to drive the ducks out of their pens, let them exercise themselves outside, herd them back into their pens when night fell, tally up the day's harvest and how many jin the ducks had gained, and systematically pluck a bit of duck down from them along the way. Of course, putting it that way was not entirely fair. After all, most of the tools they used for work were provided by him, and most of the dried meat they ate came from his hunting. Thinking about it that way, he had still contributed quite a bit of effort. Probably? Standing before the construction site and watching for a while, just as Chu Guang was wondering what to do today, Ye Shi took the initiative to come over. "Respected Manager!" Bowing with a respectful expression, Ye Shi looked eager to get started, speaking up smoothly, "Are we still going hunting today? When do we head out?" Chu Guang paused slightly, then nodded. "...Now." Good grief. These players were surprisingly proactive nowadays—they had even learned to assign work to him? Still, Chu Guang did not say anything. After all, he really had planned to take a stroll outside and hunt some game to bring back for smoking. Taking Ye Shi back down to the shelter, Chu Guang strapped on the tactical belt stripped from the mercenary, holstered the scavenged pistol, and inserted two 5mm pistol magazines as spare ammunition. His primary weapon was still that 9mm pipe rifle of his, alongside the Holy Sword of Physics—a steel pipe that could pry open doors and bash heads alike. Although a submachine gun and shotgun were now available as "close-combat god tiers," these two pieces of gear were not particularly meaningful for hunting. There were no slugs among the shotgun's spare rounds; using buckshot would ruin the pelts. Rather than suppressing prey with close-range firepower, Chu Guang preferred using the quality rifled 9mm pipe rifle to drop prey with a single shot at medium range. Or at least disable its movement, then walk up and finish it off with the steel pipe. This not only conserved precious ammunition, but also kept the prey's pelt far more intact. After all, every additional bullet hole or cut reduced the pelt's quality by ten percent. "Take this with you." Chu Guang handed a pistol and a crossbow to Ye Shi, along with an animal-hide quiver holding fifteen bolts. "Can I use that shotgun?" Ye Shi looked at the pistol, then at the shotgun propped in the corner of the wall, looking at Chu Guang with a pitiful expression. However, Chu Guang had no intention of making concessions, saying deadpan: "We are going hunting, not fighting mutants." "Get familiar with these two weapons first before talking about anything else." ... Chu Guang set out to hunt with Ye Shi. The outpost players worked diligently just like the day before: carrying bricks, mixing cement, plastering—not a single person idle. Thanks to the thirty tools the Manager had traded back from Brown Farm, the players' work efficiency had vastly improved. Especially the players building the wall. The perimeter wall construction site of the outpost was progressing at a pace visible to the naked eye. Not just the construction site. Fang Chang and Old Bai, who were experimenting with crude steelmaking, also made new progress after obtaining tongs and forging hammers. From the cars in the parking lot, they tore off chassis, hoods, suspensions, and even engine blocks that had rusted into crumbly scrap... These discarded pieces, which had weathered two hundred years of wind and rain with no intact structure remaining, were natural open-pit ore deposits to them. Smashing the brittle rust into fragments and tossing it into the furnace, still using charcoal as the reducing agent and a manual bellows for draft, this time they finally succeeded in smelting the trash into glowing molten iron. "Awesome!!!" "It worked!" Old Bai and Fang Chang clenched their fists in excitement. They had waited a full three days for this moment! The molten iron smelted through this method would become high-carbon pig iron upon cooling. By repeatedly heating and cooling it to reduce the carbon content to between 1.5% and 2%, they could obtain basic steel. As for adding metals like chromium and nickel to create alloys, that was still a bit too difficult for them. Proper steelmaking still required specialized equipment, at least an electric furnace. In fact, let alone refining steel, just being able to melt molten iron out of industrial trash with their rudimentary production facilities was already quite a remarkable feat! "What should we forge?" Old Bai asked Fang Chang excitedly. "Axes? Knives? Or something else?" Fang Chang looked equally thrilled. After pondering for a few seconds, he said: "Let's make a big wok first!" "Eating stew every single day, I'm about to throw up!" Although yesterday's mashed potatoes were not bad, according to Brother Scrambled Eggs, the soy sauce was almost gone. Barring any surprises, today would be fresh fish soup with pine nuts again. That stuff was not fresh in the slightest—one mouthful and your mouth was full of the muddy taste of catfish. "Haha, great idea! With an iron wok, we can stir-fry!" The two hit it off immediately and quickly reached a consensus, using what little yellow clay remained from brickmaking to figure out how to make a mold for casting an iron wok. On the other side, in front of the carpentry cabin: Brother Mosquito, sitting on a small stool by the door, was absorbed in his handiwork. He was cradling a trash can scavenged from who knows where, had sealed the opening with wooden boards, and had driven a stainless steel pipe into it, creating a simple sprayer. That was not all. He was clearly not satisfied with a mere gravity-fed sprinkler. Brother Mosquito then sealed the joints with pine resin, attached a wooden carrying handle to the trash can's exterior, made a pressurizer similar to a spray bottle out of a plastic bottle, and connected a flexible hose bent into an S-shape to the rear of the trash can. "Perfection!" With his work complete, Brother Mosquito looked at the contraption in his hands, a delighted smile spreading across his face. A manually pressurized flamethrower! As long as wood tar was poured into the can and a cotton wick was inserted into the pipe tip as an igniter, within a five-meter kill radius, this thing could theoretically become a nightmare for any human or mutant— Provided, of course, that he did not set himself ablaze first. To put it diplomatically, the design philosophy was somewhat cyberpunk, but Brother Mosquito felt it was no big deal; he could always improve it later. For now, let's call it "Hellfire 0.1"! Just as he was wondering where to test it out, Brother Mosquito looked up and suddenly saw Gale Force 8 walking toward him, carrying a plastic bucket. That guy had gone out fishing early in the morning. Normally, he would not be seen around the sanatorium until the afternoon. To see him back before ten o'clock today was quite unusual. "Yo, back so early today?" Mosquito looked at the approaching Gale and teased with a smile. "Didn't break the traps again, did you?" "Nothing to do with traps." Gale dropped the plastic bucket onto the ground. "Look what I found." "Found wha—" Seeing what was inside the bucket, Mosquito froze. They were white stones. Mottled with yellow and pale brown impurities. The stiffness on his face instantly melted into sheer ecstasy. "Guano stone?!"