When Sberg came to his senses, he was already standing in an empty corridor.
X-16 had somehow managed to evade everyone without a trace, spiriting him out of the prison and even hauling along the assassin's corpse... Incredibly, they hadn't drawn a single soul's notice the entire way.
After slipping out of the prison, they had entered a subterranean tunnel, walked for an extraordinarily long time, and then ridden an elevator to arrive here.
Not far behind him were the elevator doors. The seamless, concrete-gray floor stretched beneath his feet, flanked by dark gray walls fitted with warm-toned sconces.
The industrial aesthetic lent an air of solemn, minimalist elegance; it looked like a modernist palace gallery.
He had never set foot in such a place before.
X-16, who had stayed glued to his side, was nowhere to be seen. Sberg didn't know whether she had cloaked herself again or departed entirely.
At a total loss, Sberg swallowed hard and muttered nervously under his breath, "What kind of ghost place is this..."
He had assumed no one would answer, only for a cheerful voice to float in from behind him.
"The Inner City."
The sudden voice startled Sberg. Whirling around, he discovered an unfamiliar man standing behind him, smiling at him.
"The—the Inner City?!"
"That's right," the man nodded, his smile widening. "Right in the dead center of the Inner City, in fact—inside the Boulder Building, surrounded by towering skyscrapers."
"...Who are you?"
Sberg stared at the man.
He wanted to know which exalted benefactor had come to his rescue.
If that cloaking expert hadn't slipped into his cell ahead of time, he would undoubtedly be a corpse right now.
The man made no effort to conceal his identity, answering in an easy, lighthearted tone: "Ibers."
"Ibers..."
What a familiar name.
Sberg knitted his brows in thought for a long moment before his eyes bulged nearly out of their sockets, his entire expression contorting.
"Boulder Military Equipment?! You're that—"
"That's right. Chairman and President of Boulder Military Equipment." Savoring the look on his face, Ibers smiled.
Ibers!
The boss of Boulder Military Equipment!
The undisputed second-in-command of Boulder City!
A seismic shock rattled Sberg's heart, and he swallowed hard without realizing it.
Never in his wildest dreams could he have imagined that such a heavyweight would take an interest in him.
For that matter, just how many big shots did that make by now?
"Is it... you who wanted to see me?"
Yet Ibers's reply defied his expectations.
"My curiosity about you ended the second I laid eyes on you. The one who wants to see you is another big shot—a truly important figure."
With that, he walked forward, brushing past Sberg.
"Follow me."
Watching Ibers's back, Sberg felt his thoughts tangle into a hopeless knot of yarn.
It felt like riding a train barreling headlong into thick fog; just as the train was nearing its terminus, the view outside made less and less sense.
What tortured him even more was that he had a mountain of questions, yet had no idea where to start asking—or why he was even standing here.
To unravel the riddle, he swallowed hard and hurried after him.
The two strode forward and soon arrived before a broad set of doors.
The doors slid open on their own.
Ibers led him inside.
Treading gingerly, Sberg glanced around.
The room was spotless. Not a speck of dust could be seen on the mirror-smooth floor, nor was there a single ornament or piece of furniture in sight—it was as desolate as a solitary confinement cell in a prison.
Except it was spacious—exceptionally spacious—far beyond anything that cramped little cell could compare to.
The only light came from a beam of milky-white luminescence cascading down from the dead center of the ceiling; there was no other light source.
All around was pitch black, like a bottomless abyss, obscuring where the room's boundaries even lay.
"...Where is this now?"
Ibers didn't answer. With a flick of his right wrist, he produced a remote control as if by magic and clicked a button.
The light in the center of the room vanished instantly, plunging Sberg into total darkness.
Yet the darkness didn't linger.
The surrounding "walls" gradually illuminated with faint light, resolving into increasingly sharp projections as vibrant colors replaced the stark monochrome room.
Only then did Sberg realize what it was: a panoramic screening room!
The Outer City had something similar where people could watch pre-war films, but tickets were absurdly expensive, far beyond what ordinary folks could afford.
This screening room was clearly far more extravagant; he had heard the one in the Outer City had only a single curved screen.
Yet here...
From the walls to the floor, from above their heads to the very air around them, every inch of space filled with increasingly bright particles of light, as though whisking them away to another time and dimension.
Buildings and streets sprang up.
Then the perspective broadened, sketching the towering silhouette of the Great Barrier.
A surging sea of people began to flood the streets, their outlines sharpening as deafening roars drew closer.
Sberg snapped to attention in sudden realization: what was being projected here was the Outer City of Boulder City—specifically, the thoroughfare running from the Great Barrier gate straight toward the Inner City!
Figures fashioned from light and shadow marched toward him.
Shoulder to shoulder, arms linked, they formed an endless human torrent. Righteous fury burned in their chests as they chanted in unison, their ragged yet resolute strides carrying them toward a line of waiting soldiers clad in exoskeletons and power armor.
They seemed blind to his presence.
Their gazes passed right through him, piercing his chest like sharp daggers aimed directly at the Inner City behind him.
Sberg swallowed hard, a ripple of terror suddenly surfacing in his dazed eyes.
It wasn't because of their unvarnished wrath; he had stood beside them through everything, and he knew well that not an ounce of that anger was directed at him.
Only a true coward feared the fury of ordinary people.
What truly terrified Sberg was that in the middle of that vast throng, he saw himself lying on a pristine white sheet—and though the face was smeared with blood, it was unmistakably his own corpse!
I...
Am I already dead?
Sberg touched his face in a daze, trying to grasp a shred of reality from this illusory world.
The tidal roar grew distinct.
The faces drew nearer.
He recognized one familiar face after another. He remembered their names, and though he couldn't name most of them, every single one would have answered had he called out, "Comrade!"
Right now, they were roaring:
"Shoot, then!"
"Cowards!"
"Look us in the eye!"
Tearing his gaze from the vivid illusion, Sberg looked at Ibers in sheer panic.
"...Did you fake my death?"
No wonder they hadn't let him say goodbye to his fellow workers!
These people had fabricated his death!
But why?
Ibers burst out laughing.
"Hahaha! Why would I do something like that? And when you say 'you,' which of us do you mean? Me, whom you've met for the first time? That lord you've never laid eyes on? Or... some total stranger holding a Black Card?"
Blank confusion covered Sberg's face.
Reining in his laughter, Ibers said softly, "What you're seeing didn't actually happen. It's merely a 'possibility'—one of countless hypotheses calculated by a computer... Of course, it almost did happen. It was perhaps only a single second away.
"I'll provisionally call it 'Ending A.'"
Sberg stared blankly at Ibers.
From the start, he hadn't understood a single thing this man was saying.
"What do you mean?"
Unfazed by his confusion, Ibers continued nonchalantly, "Aren't you a storyteller? Put that gift of yours to work. If I hadn't intervened and X-16 hadn't slipped into your cell ahead of time, you would have died in prison during a struggle with an assassin—and died an agonizing, gruesome death. That was entirely probable, seeing as that hitman wanted you dead yet didn't want you to die too quickly. It must have taken quite some effort for those fools to independently track down such a twisted creature.
"And then, upon seeing your mangled corpse, the enraged workers would seize the prison and hoist your body high into the air. Every laborer in the settlement would become a comrade... In truth, you've already taken over a sizable chunk of ground—the prison, for instance. The warden there had no intention of resisting you; in fact, he would silently stand with you."
Sberg's Adam's apple bobbed.
"And then?"
He wanted to know what came next.
"And then, what happened countless times before would happen once again." Ibers tilted his chin up and casually pressed the play button.
The imagery in the room resumed.
Once the crowd crossed the cordon line, the militia's chiliarch gave the order to open fire. The bravest marched at the very front and died first. Those behind began to flee, while the hesitant were trapped between corpses and cowards; innocent people collapsed as well.
Casualties were catastrophic, blood staining the streets scarlet. Children wept over the corpses of their parents, only to be dragged away as young union members. Those cowards were genuinely terrified; they would rather kill an innocent by mistake than let a single suspect slip away. After all, the seeds of hatred were invisible, and once gunfire erupted, it could never be silenced.
The nobles soon outlawed the Workers' Union. The heavy gates between the Inner and Outer Cities crashed shut. Massive contingents of mercenaries were mobilized—or bought off—to form search squads that swept into the industrial zone to hunt down union members. Yet the words 'fellow worker' weren't stamped on anyone's forehead, making them far harder to identify than flesh-eating marauders. Innumerable harrowing tragedies ensued.
Some who hadn't taken a dime joined the hunt voluntarily, using vigilantism to settle old scores, conduct legalized robbery, or simply indulge desires long suppressed by order. Everything normally forbidden was now tacitly permitted by the nobility, because compared to a few rabid dogs, they feared the intangible ghost far more.
The first to die proved to be the lucky ones—they fell bravely and honorably. The cowards who fled were left to regret why they hadn't chosen a swift death back then.
By that point, living was the true hell...
When it was all over, the Outer City gates would swing open once more. New survivors would flood in to replace the former residents. The blood-soaked streets would have long been washed clean, and depending on the situation, the Inner City gates would reopen. No wastelander cared about a settlement's past, just as they rarely gave thought to the future.
After twenty or thirty years of silence, everything would return to square one, as though nothing had ever happened.
After all, most people on the wasteland had a lifespan of merely twenty or thirty years; only nobles might live a bit longer, though usually not by much.
Having witnessed the aftermath of Ending A, Sberg's lips trembled.
He could not accept that this was their ending.
Even less could he stomach that such cycles had repeated themselves countless times before.
No one had ever told him it would end like this!
He had to stop them!
There had to be... there had to be a better way!
"...You're lucky. Thanks to my intervention, your comrades only suspect you're dead. While the blood loss was certainly enough to be fatal, they haven't seen your corpse.
"The warden is trying to talk them into calming down, and that murderer who listened to your storytelling is yelling about fighting the noble lords to the death. But your fellow workers don't really trust either of them—both have their own agendas, after all. Right now, your folks are still bickering over whether to push the button that ruins everything and tear this entire mess down to the bedrock."
Savoring the shifting expressions across Sberg's face, Ibers suddenly remarked, "Tell me, is there a possibility that the assassin was actually sent by the Alliance's Administrator?"
"Absolutely not!" Sberg replied without hesitation, his eyes burning with unwavering conviction, like a blazing torch.
Without disputing his judgment, Ibers unhurriedly continued, "Mhm. In our simulations, that probability wasn't zero. After all, it would take very little on his part to eliminate Boulder City, this 'nuisance,' wouldn't it? Frankly, I found it strange that such a possibility existed too.
"Based on my observations, that man isn't incapable of petty schemes, but he isn't fond of them. His true forte lies in open stratagems and head-on confrontations. By all rights, a figure of his stature would disdain using assassination. There must be something we don't understand that interfered with our 'probability.'"
Sberg stared at him and said earnestly, "Machines aren't omnipotent. Maybe whatever machine you use to calculate probability broke down."
Assembly lines jammed sometimes. Even when no one sabotaged them, machines broke down on their own every now and then.
Ibers gave a sudden chuckle.
"You're right; that possibility certainly exists. And there's another angle: the one behind it wasn't Chu Guang, but someone else. Boulder City isn't the only survivor settlement on the wasteland, after all, and without boasting, quite a few parties covet the treasures in our hands."
The Legion, Enterprise, the Academy... even the Great Rift Valley itself.
The reason all the former members of the Post-War Reconstruction Committee abided by an ancient pledge wasn't because of any lofty moral standards, but because something endorsed the oath, turning it into a binding pact.
Of course, after so many years, how much deterrence that thing still possessed was hard to say. Perhaps the old masters simply couldn't be bothered to pay attention to roaches scraping out a living on the wasteland, convinced down to their bones that an 'order' salvaged from the garbage heap of history could never achieve anything grand... But that was another matter entirely.
...
"We ran tens of thousands of possibilities. Not just Ending A, which you just saw, but this one... let's call it Ending B." Ibers clicked the remote control. The scene shifted, placing them outside the tavern.
Time seemed to rewind to the beginning of the month, right when Sberg had first been arrested.
Sberg watched as Alec and Kent led guards toward the crowd outside the tavern. The moment the two sides clashed, violent conflict erupted.
They were like burning powder kegs—every single one of them.
Two hundred people lunged aggressively at barely a dozen guards.
Kent was beaten to death on the spot. Alec fled without a word. Phyllis fired his gun... and Sberg himself seemed to be the unlucky bastard yet again, a bullet blowing his brains out.
However, casualties this time were contained within a limited scope.
The gunshots from the tavern echoed across only a few streets. The workers knew that several brave young men had died that day and mourned their deaths. Even Weijia shed a few hypocritical tears, but that was the extent of it.
People died in this city every day; their deaths were no different from anyone else's. Later, Mr. House announced on the radio that they were thugs who had killed a loyal young man named Kent, and over time, some began to believe it.
Boulder City weathered the surface crisis. Just as marauders ate people to survive the winter, the city devoured people as well—only with the knife and fork of civilized men. The notice of death was postponed for a time, but the bomb hadn't been defused; instead, it was buried deeper, alongside many more.
No one knew when the next crisis would strike, but it would surely be fiercer than this one, and it would arrive without fail.
The reckoning would come eventually.
"Was there... any difference this time?" Sberg swallowed hard.
He couldn't say whether this counted as a "good ending."
He had died.
The comrades who had united first had sacrificed themselves.
Yet because of their deaths, the vast majority of the people in the city had lived... at least the innocent hadn't needed to die.
This settlement wasn't composed solely of rat-folk like them slaving away at cheap labor; on the bustling streets were plenty of well-dressed gentlemen and gentle-hearted young women. Most of them held no Black Cards and had never oppressed anyone; they, too, had suffered life's hardships, quietly enduring as they lived ordinary lives in a corner of the wasteland that was marginally less twisted.
Sberg didn't love those innocent people; after all, they had never loved him. He was willing to die for the Administrator because he felt that wouldn't be a bad way to go, but those glamorous folks weren't worthy of such a sacrifice.
Yet if he were asked to slaughter them, he couldn't do that either. Humans weren't rational creatures to begin with, and those who remained lucid at all times were a rare few.
"You might not believe it, but this branching Ending B and the 'Ending A that nearly became reality' differ by only one tiny divergence."
"...What divergence?"
"A clever little spark of inspiration on your part—which happened to save your own skin."
Watching the bewildered Sberg, Ibers smiled faintly and continued in the melodic cadence of a bard: "A drunken Boer unbuckles his belt, but instead of humiliating Stephen and his family, he snaps his Black Card in two, turning around to unite all those Stephen had bullied. In the 'possibility' corresponding to Ending B, you wrote an entirely different story. You didn't mention the Workers' Union. Instead, you described in vivid detail how Stephen's wife and daughter plunged into an abyss of 'pleasure,' and how agonizingly despairing Stephen felt... Awakening brought Boer not just the power of vengeance, but the adulation of young women.
"Your fellow workers, in fact, would much rather read a story like that."
Sberg blushed. He had indeed contemplated writing it that way.
After all, snow had been approaching, yet Master Weijia fobbed them off with IOUs, and on the way home, Kent had humiliated him once again.
He was a coward, true, but a coward wasn't made of wood. Having suffered grievances, he needed an outlet for his emotions.
Yet he had never imagined that between Ending A, which cost over a hundred thousand lives, and Ending B, which claimed only a few dozen, lay nothing more than a few sheets of scrap newsprint.
"Just that?!"
"That's right, just that. And... you actually did write a little of it, didn't you? You just stopped your pen in the end. Our simulations aren't baseless fabrications; they require samples to project."
Looking at the flushed, flabbergasted Sberg, Ibers chuckled and softly recited, as if reading a poem: "...'Boer was an Awakened with strength to spare; of course he could do this, and no one could stop him.'"
Hearing someone else recite what he had written made Sberg flush crimson right to his ears—hearing it aloud was an entirely different beast from reading it himself.
He gave a violent cough, cutting off Ibers's recitation.
"Enough! I get it! Stop reciting!"
Ibers gave a harmless laugh and teased, "Unfortunately, my machine couldn't calculate exactly how you would write it, offering only an abstract description... I'm actually rather curious about that unwritten story. Why not pen it down when you find some spare time?"
Blushing furiously, Sberg said, "Enough. Whatever the case, it's just a trashy, sensationalist story... I don't believe it has that kind of influence."
Noticing the incredulity in his eyes, Ibers said softly, "Indeed, just a trashy novel. Remarkable, isn't it? Even if it's merely the tale of 'Boer the Awakened,' to fellow workers laying eyes on something like a 'book' for the first time, his words and deeds became practically the guiding doctrine of their actions.
"Most of their minds were blank slates to begin with. Whatever House said, they believed instantly; the moment they found House lying, they stopped believing him instantly. Plain, simple right and wrong is what fills most people's heads day to day—much like a single-core CPU... Ah, you probably don't realize what a remarkable, or rather sinister, thing you've done. While this isn't solely your 'credit,' future generations will likely judge you objectively."
"Enough! I don't care about any of that! Why did you bring me here to watch these things anyway... Neither Ending A nor Ending B actually happened, did they?" Sberg stared at the madman before him and said nervously, "Weren't you going to take me to see someone? Hurry up and bring him! Once I see him, I'm going back to my friends. They must be worried sick!"
He suddenly felt a chill of fear toward the man before him. Was this guy really human? Or was he like X-16, just something that looked human? Otherwise, at a critical juncture like this, how could he still be smiling?
Sberg had never heard of the "uncanny valley," but he could feel a very real sense of dissonance, and it was growing stronger by the second.
Ibers looked at the tense Sberg, smiled, and said pleasantly, "Mhm, of course. That big shot will be here shortly. Though he's always late—a habit he's kept for quite some time. Don't expect him to suddenly become punctual."
Pausing, he continued, "As for why I brought you here, that was his wish as well. You might not relate to how he feels... In short, after watching so many reruns of the same movie, he's grown rather sick of it."
Moreover, this time was different from the past.
According to the simulation results, once they entered "Ending A," the Outer City gates would never open again after slamming shut.
Just as a human body had limits to its self-healing capacity, Boulder City's capacity for self-repair had a threshold.
Once it crossed that threshold, the settlement would enter a downward spiral. Such situations usually weren't spontaneous; they were caused by external forces disrupting the norm.
By all rights, that lord shouldn't have intervened. Boulder City had its own historical mission, and fulfilling that mission was an honorable endeavor.
All things move from life to death and from death to life; that is the natural state of things. The rise and fall of civilizations is an unavoidable fate; an Era of Prosperity must inevitably be followed by a Wasteland Era. It was only a matter of time.
Yet in the end, that lord was still too "merciful," pressing pause a mere second before the powder keg exploded. It had spared these folks cheaply.
A faint smile curled at the corners of Ibers's mouth.
Suddenly remembering something, he added, "...Ah, well, the game is over. You lost. I have an important meeting to attend, so I can't stay here with you."
Glancing at his wristwatch, Ibers casually tossed the remote control to Sberg, smiling as the latter scrambled to catch it.
"Have fun with it. Before he arrives, you can watch to your heart's content. Who knows? Maybe the happy ending of your dreams is hidden in there.
"Though in those endings, you and your friends aren't the main characters."
This screening room held countless "future possibilities" corresponding to different choices, calculated by the computer.
As well as all that had transpired here over the years gone by...
All of it was precious "raw material."
Looking at the stunned Sberg, Ibers asked in a teasing tone, "...By the way, does a laborer like me, who's worked without pay for a century and a half and never received a cent in wages, count as a worker?"
Sberg froze.
This exceeded the bounds of his knowledge. Among everyone he knew, no such exception existed, nor could anyone live for a century and a half, leaving him momentarily at a loss for words.
Wait... a century and a half?!
Sberg stared at the man in astonishment, as if dawning on something.
Yet Ibers gave him no time to think. Seemingly certain Sberg could never know the answer, he merely chuckled loudly and vanished from the room...
...
Dawn City.
In the Administrator's office of the Alliance Building, Cheng Yan grimly reported the brewing unrest in Boulder City to Chu Guang.
This disturbance was clearly the aftermath of the arrest made half a month ago.
And just as Chu Guang had predicted, once the fuse was stuck into the powder keg, someone with itchy fingers was bound to light it, whether intentionally or not.
"That day, Sberg returned to his cell as usual. Then sounds of fighting came from inside. The workers and guards rushed over immediately, but in the cell, they only found a pool of blood—a great deal of blood... Our embassy staff commissioned your residents to secure photographs."
Chu Guang stared at the photo on his VM screen, his brow furrowing deeply. He looked up abruptly and asked, "No corpse?"
"Far from having no corpse... Boulder City refuses to admit he's dead at all. First they claimed he broke out of prison, then changed their story to say he was transferred. They have bigger trouble on their hands and don't have the bandwidth to handle this petty affair, even as it continues to fester," Cheng Yan said with a sigh. "And after hearing about what happened to Sberg, over ninety percent of the workers in all of Boulder City have joined the Workers' Union. They want to march on the Inner City together to demand an explanation."
Chu Guang frowned. "What are their demands?"
Cheng Yan continued, "If Sberg is dead, they want to see his body. If he's alive, the Inner City must hand him over."
A simple demand, and not unreasonable.
However, the Inner City nobles were currently frantically occupied with something else, so it was only natural that they turned a deaf ear to such modest wishes.
"So is he dead or not?"
"I lean toward believing he's dead... With that amount of blood, I wouldn't believe he survived either." Cheng Yan offered his assessment prudently.
In his view, the Inner City nobles were truly not clever. Even an inexperienced diplomat like himself knew that one should handle things cleanly and decisively.
If they had simply made someone disappear without a trace, there might not have been such a massive backlash; instead, they had to go and do something completely contradictory.
They didn't want to leave a body, yet made it a bloody spectacle, only to regret later what they had or hadn't done. In the end, their arrogance ruined everyone.
Of course, what the ultimate outcome would be wasn't for an outsider like him to decide, nor was what he saw necessarily the whole picture.
The Alliance could not dictate how far things would escalate. Only Sberg's friends—the comrades of the Workers' Union—had the right to decide what they would do next.
Chu Guang closed his eyes and pondered for a moment.
He had actually wanted that newspaper reader to live; otherwise, he wouldn't have invited him to visit the Alliance. The story of Boer the Awakened was born in Boulder City, but it did not belong to that small settlement alone; across the wasteland were many tiny yet important survivors just like him who needed encouragement.
Still, business was business; this was ultimately Boulder City's internal affair.
Suddenly, Chu Guang opened his eyes. "I've actually been puzzled by one thing all along."
Cheng Yan asked, "What is it?"
"Boulder City's City Lord," Chu Guang mused for a second. "At first, I thought he simply didn't care about us. I didn't expect that it went beyond him simply not caring about us."
Cheng Yan frowned, trying to grasp the Administrator's words.
Suddenly, something clicked, and his eyes widened. "Do you think it's possible... this whole affair actually involves the City Lord?"
There were many nobles in Boulder City, but only one City Lord. Whenever he was mentioned, even the most arrogant nobles showed a degree of respect.
In theory, there existed an "omnipotent" figure in this settlement.
"I don't know," Chu Guang shook his head. "I'm just as puzzled as you are... Frankly speaking, up to this point, our plans have gone smoothly—in fact, a little too smoothly. Several times I've been tempted to hit the brakes."
Cheng Yan asked in a low voice, "Then... what do you think we should do now?"
Chu Guang thought for a moment and said, "I have a feeling something big is going to happen. Have the embassy staff evacuate first. Just bring the hibernation pods and necessary documents. I'll arrange for staff from the Refugee Home and some vault residents to meet them at the Great Barrier gate."
Boulder City was a decent "starter village," and those diplomatic personnel were valuable talents honed through experience; they couldn't be lost pointlessly.
Once lives were lost, the situation would escalate further, making it even harder to wrap things up.
Cheng Yan nodded and said solemnly, "I'll see to it right away!"
Watching Cheng Yan's departure, Chu Guang was about to call Luka to tell him to start rolling out their contingency plans.
Right then, however, a knock sounded at the door that Minister Cheng had just closed. This time, the one who entered was Old Charlie, president of the Guild of Merchants.
Seeing his grave expression, Chu Guang cut straight to the chase: "What is it?"
"President Melvin of Boulder City Bank wants to meet with you," Old Charlie reported faithfully.
Melvin?
Chu Guang wasn't surprised that the man wanted to see him.
He wagered the Boulder City Bank was on the brink of collapse, and after turning it over, its only remaining recourse was to beg him.
Chu Guang was suddenly curious about how Mr. Melvin intended to explain the bank runs that had been plaguing Boulder City lately, as well as City Hall's seizure of export goods.
"When does he want to meet?"
Old Charlie replied respectfully, "He's already downstairs!"
...
At the main gates of Boulder City, past winters were desolate and blanketed in snow, but this winter was an anomaly—as bustling as a holiday festival.
From the entrance of the Far Wind Hotel all the way to the checkpoint at the main gate of the Great Barrier, the road was packed wall-to-wall with crowded stalls.
Merchants leading two-headed oxen came and went, mingling with mercenaries in bizarre garb and travelers alike. These wastelanders were like hyenas roaming the ruins, each sniffing the stench of rotting flesh hanging in the air and scrambling to bite off a share...
"...Grain, sausages, and jerky being hot commodities I get, but why is soap so popular?" Passing a stall, Ye Shi saw the bold characters written on the sign and couldn't help muttering under his breath.
Barter accepted only grain, sausages, dried meat, and soap.
For cash, only silver coins, Cr, and dinars were accepted.
Some stalls went even further, simply pasting chips onto a wooden board with a big red X drawn over them to indicate they wouldn't take that garbage.
This wasn't inside Boulder City, and most of the traveling merchants weren't locals anyway, so naturally no one policed how they operated.
Walking beside him, Kuang Feng glanced at a neighboring stall and remarked casually, "Ultra-long shelf life, compact size, easy to carry, stable demand, solves hygiene issues, and can wash anything. In times of consumer goods scarcity, cheap, versatile soap is in far higher demand than specialized niche products like shampoo or body wash, and it's much easier to price. After all... in extreme circumstances, fragrance, brand premium, and user experience fetch zero markup."
Ye Shi scratched his head. "Makes sense."
If a person went too long without washing, they smelled worse than livestock. That wasn't just a matter of hygiene or SAN points; on the wasteland, giving off a scent was dangerous.
Experienced hunters tracked prey by scent, while seasoned merchants avoided peril simply by catching the whiff of rot on marauders.
"Woah, Uncle Kuang Feng knows so much!"
Jiu Jiu nodded enthusiastically with a look of enlightened wonder, which made Ye Shi beside her burst into uncontrollable laughter.
"Bwahahaha! Uncle Kuang Feng!"
Shooting the siblings an embarrassed glare, Kuang Feng clamped his mouth shut. Seeing this, Lao Bai laughed and patted his shoulder.
"It's fine, brother. Let these two youngsters have their fun. In ten or twenty years, we'll all be old geezers."
Realizing her slip of the tongue, Jiu Jiu rolled her eyes mischievously and said playfully, "No worries! What happens in the game stays in the game—game avatars don't age, so in ten years you'll still be dashing young hunks!"
Lao Bai was amused by her quick wit and chuckled, "Hahaha! If our Ye Shi had half your emotional intelligence, that'd be something! Wait, I almost forgot—you two are the actual family."
Still gloating a second earlier, Ye Shi instantly protested, "Damn it, what do you mean I don't have emotional intelligence?!"
Kuang Feng gave a cough. "Let's just pretend you do."
Ye Shi: "Fuck! What do you mean 'pretend'?!"
Lao Bai: "Hahaha!"
The group made their noisy way toward the Boulder City gates, bantering back and forth, not looking like wastelanders in the least.
This time was different from usual, however. With Jiu Jiu along as a tagalong joining the fun, the three buddies were somewhat restrained in their teasing, too embarrassed to call each other "father" and "son," keeping their conversation comparatively civil and mild.
Lately, the dog admins of the Niuma group had spent virtually all their time around Boulder City.
Fang Chang had somehow acquired a massive pile of chips and, working with that "Boulder City traitor" Fred, bought out several factories supplying Boulder Military Equipment in succession.
The Niuma Group didn't just poach equipment—they poached both the workers and the machinery together.
Especially for skilled engineers and master technicians, they not only paid settling-in allowances for the individual, but also arranged relocation for the entire family.
Such generous terms not only moved the poached employees to tears, but even made the boss helping swing the shovel envious.
And up to this point, all the Niuma Group had paid out was a heap of rapidly depreciating chips and a modest sum of silver coins.
Indeed. Even though chips were losing value by the day, they were still the official currency; purchases inside Boulder City still required chips.
Transactions for capital goods were still settled in chips, and their prices had barely risen. Buyers could even negotiate "discounts."
This was one of the classic symptoms of an overheating economy: while commodity prices soared, the capital goods used to produce them entered a stagflation cycle ahead of schedule.
The unscrupulous merchants of Boulder City were often exceedingly generous, eager to offer steep discounts—even slashing prices to the bone—to sell off prime assets. In exchange, however, they would drop hints to the buyer, requesting an additional "tip" paid in Cr or silver coins.
As for stingy misers who would only pay in chips, no one in the local merchant circles gave them the time of day. Nobody was a fool, after all; smart people knew what real money looked like.
Compared to wastelanders who played dumb to take advantage, Alliance buyers proved far more generous in dealing with such matters. Consequently, the visitors Boulder City's profiteers loved most were those from the Alliance.
Having finally squeezed their way to the entrance of Boulder City, Lao Bai pulled out his chips, ready to pay the entry tax, only to be shoved back by a militia guard at the gate.
Lao Bai frowned slightly and asked the man, "What's this about?"
The man said impassively, "There's rioting in the city. No one gets in today. If you insist on going in, I won't stop you, but there's no telling when you'll be able to come out."
Pausing, he added a pointed warning: "If something happens to you inside, don't say we didn't warn you."
Ye Shi's brows shot up.
What a joke. He got a fresh life every three days! Was he someone who feared trouble?
Yet the moment he lifted his foot to stride in, Lao Bai and Kuang Feng grabbed him from both sides and dragged him a good dozen meters away.
"Holy shit! You guys are chickening out already?!"
Looking at the wide-eyed Ye Shi, Kuang Feng said calmly, "Calm down... If my guess is right, something major is going down inside Boulder City."
Lao Bai also nodded seriously. "Yeah, Fang Chang mentioned this in the group chat before. Worst-case scenario might have unfolded... We definitely need to go in, but at least we should find out what's happening first."
Kuang Feng: "Check the official forum?"
Lao Bai glanced around. "Let's split up. Ask the nearby NPCs too... there might be intel other players haven't uncovered yet."
Watching the two confer, Ye Shi blinked. "Wait, what did that dog Fang Chang say? Why didn't I know about this?"
Kuang Feng rolled his eyes. "Go read the chat history in the subgroup yourself!"
Standing obediently beside her older brother, Jiu Jiu said nothing, quietly eavesdropping as a sparkle of excitement danced in her eyes.
Holy crap! Is something huge about to go down?
Chapter 538