Did the Dog Dev Cook Up a Big Event?

Twelve deer pelts were the shelter's entire stockpile, three of which Chu Guang had poached from Old Leech's corner by trading with the Yu family. Unable to find fault with the quality of the pelts—both coat and completeness were top-tier—Liszt pondered for a moment before finally nodding with reluctance. "Deal." The two sides exchanged goods. Before leaving, Liszt shook Chu Guang's hand, squeezing out a reasonably pleasant smile. "Farewell, my friend. If we meet again, it'll likely be spring." Chu Guang smiled faintly as well. "We'll be right here. Take care." "You too." Remembering something, Liszt added: "Right, I heard there's a marauder tribe north along the elevated expressway out of the city—the Bloodhand Clan, if I recall, about sixty or seventy people. Settling down here isn't a good idea. Even if they raid north most of the time, it's only a matter of time before they discover you... In short, be careful. Until next time!" Leaving those words behind, Liszt departed with his caravan. Chu Guang watched the caravan vanish into the woods before turning back inside the walls of the outpost base. He knew full well that this wasn't a good place to put down roots. If he had a choice, Chu Guang definitely would have picked a safer, low-profile spot to settle—ideally a blessed haven perfect for farming and mining, with no dangers anywhere around. Unfortunately, this wasn't *Civilization*. You couldn't just hit the top-right corner and restart if you didn't see three luxuries and two ores within three tiles. The shelter had been built two centuries ago; even if he wanted to back out, it was far too late. Back inside the walls, Chu Guang looked at Yu Hu, pulled a white chip from his pocket, and handed it to him. "Thank you. You've been a big help." Seeing Chu Guang take out the chip, Yu Hu's expression changed, and he waved his hands repeatedly. "No, no, what are you doing? I can't take this." As he spoke, something seemed to cross his mind. He rummaged through his pockets for a moment and produced a foil blister pack roughly the size of a thumbnail. "Right, my older brother has recovered. Dad told me to return the leftover medicine to you—" Seeing that the young man adamantly refused to accept the chip, Chu Guang sighed and pocketed it again. "Fine, since you insist, I won't push. But keep the medicine; I'm not short on that." After spending some time persuading the honest lad, Chu Guang watched him vanish into the forest and mused that perhaps he should draw more medicine to sell. According to rumors, did other medium and large shelters tend to do a lot of medicine trade? After all, any shelter of decent size had a dispensary; some were even rumored to have massive pharmaceutical stores. Of course, rumors on the wasteland were best taken with a grain of salt. Even in an era of information explosion, not every piece of news was true, let alone out here. The players had been quite diligent over the past few days, accumulating an average of 5 to 7 reward points daily, which added up to 22 points. Handing off the generator assembly task to the players, Chu Guang turned and headed back to the shelter. When he opened the system and accessed the [Manager's Log] page, a pale blue pop-up appeared before him. [Side Quest Complete.] [Reward: Reward Points +100.] Confronted by this sudden reward, Chu Guang froze for a second. Holy crap. This side quest had dragged on for so long that he only remembered the outpost needed a generator, completely forgetting about the quest reward. "I'm rich!" Chu Guang grew excited. Before he had even fully stepped into the shelter, he spun on his heels and headed back outside. "Gotta go wash my face first!" A high-grade blind box! He couldn't afford to be sloppy with this! ... Roughly 1.7 kilometers north of Ling Lake Wetland Park. A gang of savage-looking men, clad in animal pelts with red and black paint smeared across their faces, were marching south along the ruins of the elevated expressway leaving the city. They held bizarrely shaped pipe rifles in their hands rather than slinging them over their shoulders, moving with menacing momentum as if fully prepared for battle. Mutant rats scurried out of their path, and the occasional puppy-sized mutant cockroach that charged at them was crushed underfoot or had its skull bashed in with a rifle butt. However, this also caused quite a racket. Coupled with a discipline that was practically nonexistent, their jabbering and banter could be heard from far away. Several players hauling stone from the construction site soon spotted them. They immediately dumped their mine carts by the roadside to hide, ducking out of sight themselves. "Who are these guys?" Construction Boy and Bricks whispered, staring nervously at the distant gang. "Ten men, and they've got three dogs on leashes... I don't think they're friendly." "Same here... They look like marauders." Edge Slacker watched just as tensely, gripping the knife in his pocket. Though that hardly offered much security. "Damn, a siege event actually spawned?! Did the dog dev buy a house on the forums??" "Rational analysis... he definitely heard you say that." "The dev is my lord and father!" "Shh, both of you shut up," Big Eye in Debt hissed, glancing at his two teammates. "Brick, go report it." "Damn it, why me?" "I'm Intelligence-type! Who the hell could I outrun? Be careful. Strength-types aren't bad at distance running." "Then why not Slacker?" "What the hell good is a Perception-type going to do! Stop arguing and hurry up. Did you forget there's a reward for reporting valuable intel?" Hearing there was a reward, Construction Boy and Bricks finally moved. With his heart pounding fiercely, he ducked behind a billboard frame, detouring a full two hundred meters until the gang disappeared from sight before breaking into a sprint toward the forest. When he arrived at the outpost base, newcomers were chopping wood, veteran players were returning with game on their shoulders, and someone was AFK at their stall by the market entrance while contemplating what to make for lunch. It was utterly leisurely. Paying no heed to his racing heart, Construction Boy and Bricks rushed to the gate and screamed at the top of his lungs: "Marauders! Marauders are attacking!" Hearing his shout, everyone near the wall looked completely baffled, having no idea what was going on. "What? What marauders?" "Where's the Administrator! Quick, go report to him!" Supporting his hands on his knees, the boy gasped out in bursts. "I'm right here." Walking out of the door with water still clinging to his eyebrows, Chu Guang looked at the player before him with a solemn expression. "You said marauders?" "Yeah! There's a squad of them, ten people to be exact! They're heading toward us along the northern expressway. Everyone has a gun, and they've got three dogs with them!" Chu Guang's expression changed slightly. Forgetting all about the gacha draw, he immediately ordered the players beside him: "Call all residents near the outpost base back! Move!" "Yes, sir!" Several players excitedly dashed off, showing not the slightest hint of worry, but rather visible excitement. A siege! Who knew the dev would cook up such a big event for them! Little did they know that a certain "dev" had a much bigger headache right now than any of them. Striding briskly to the weapon shop, Chu Guang scooped up the dozing proprietress and slung her over his shoulder, using his left hand to grab her two crutches. "Ah! Wh-what are you doing in broad daylight—" Startled out of her slumber by the sudden movement, Xia Yan's face flushed crimson as she struggled a few times, but Chu Guang ignored her completely. "Shut up." Carrying her to the first floor of the sanatorium beside the elevator, Chu Guang set her down, returned the crutches as she steadied herself against the wall, and fixed his gaze on her bewildered face. "If the fighting reaches the gate, get into the elevator and wait. When I come, I'll take you down. If I don't come, don't make a sound. Stay quiet and hide." The elevator leading underground required the Administrator's authorization to operate. Chu Guang had temporarily locked it; after all, it was the escape route he kept for himself. Xia Yan nodded vigorously. She wasn't particularly panicked—at least, not as panicked as when dealing with him. "Understood... Wait, fighting reaches here? Who's attacking?" "Marauders—" Before the word could settle, a sharp gunshot cracked in the distance, followed shortly by two more distant cracks. From the sound, they were about two to three hundred meters away. Chu Guang's expression hardened, his blood beginning to pump faster. The marauders! They were here! ... Outside the north gate. Fanning out into a skirmish line, the marauders leveled their guns, shouting raucously as they advanced toward the north gate, taking shots at fleeing survivors. Their weapons were a mixed bag—revolver rifles scavenged from merchants, semi-automatics looted from mercenaries, or handmade pipe rifles they had cobbled together themselves. Regardless of the weapon, scoring a hit across more than two hundred meters in forested terrain was no easy feat. And indeed, after several shots, not a single person dropped. The few survivors near the wall dashed back inside the gate, leaving only a few wooden stalls shattered near the entrance. Yet victory in battle did not depend on how many enemies were killed in the fighting, but on forcing the other side to abandon resistance entirely. These marauders understood this well. They had perfected the art of terror. Dense gunfire and the resulting suppressing fire had an almost devastating effect on the morale of non-professional fighters. In a survivor outpost of thirty people, no more than a third—at best half—could actually fight. There was no need to shoot the fleeing survivors dead on the spot. These rats would scatter in panic, carrying the plague called fear back to their nest, utterly shattering their will to resist. In the small survivor communities they typically raided, less than a tenth of the survivors actually died in the firefight. Perhaps these people would muster some courage, hiding behind cover to return a few token shots, but before long, their morale would crumble, and they would flee out other gates. When that happened, the elderly, children, and women would be left behind, and the able-bodied youths attempting to run could never outrun the hounds they had brought along. The fate of such survivor outposts was almost always the same. Either slaughtered to the last person. Or enslaved! "Hahaha! Look at those cowards running like rats the moment the guns go off!" A burly man with bare arms held a 9mm pipe rifle, firing as he laughed uproariously, the red glow reflecting off his savage face. As a decurion of the Bloodhand Clan, his name was Badger, a title personally bestowed by the chieftain. The nine men under his command were mostly his kin or trusted confidants. Lineages within marauder tribes were typically chaotic. They produced nothing, idolized violence, and lived on pillaging and extortion; thus, the traditional concept of family did not exist, let alone husbands and wives or spouses. In the Bloodhand Clan, for example, when a child was born, strong male infants were accepted as clan members, while the rest were relegated to slaves—either forced into hard labor or used as breeding tools. As a result, half-siblings sharing the same father or mother were commonplace. These kin often moved in packs like jackals, and the fiercest among them would be appointed decurion by the chieftain. Their kin would also share in the glory, becoming veteran marauders or elites who enjoyed greater rights in dividing the spoils. "Heh heh, bluecoats too? Looks like we'll have fun inside!" A tall, skinny man gave a cackling response, racking his shotgun and continuing to fire at the barricades along the wall. "Standard rules: kill the old and young, chop the men's trigger fingers off, and tie them up." "Boss, what about the women?" "First one through the door gets first pick. We're only staying two hours. Whoever's still alive after two hours gets dragged back." "Awoooo!" Fifty meters! The enemy still hadn't returned fire! A cruel grin curled Badger's lips. He knew what these survivors were thinking. They were simply waiting for them to emerge from the woods to return fire from behind cover. Without a doubt, those people were already gripping their guns, lying in wait behind the parapets on the wall. However... Would he be stupid enough to let his men just charge in? "Bring some fire! Let's get this party started!" "On it!" The marauder in the lead crouched low and lit a Molotov cocktail in his hand. Under cover fire from his teammates, he took a running leap and hurled it forward. The flames traced an arc through the air, landing dead-center on the parapets atop the three-meter wall. Sparks burst in all directions, and the rusted breastworks quickly caught fire, scorching under the blazing heat. Then came a second bottle, followed by a third. The fire across the wall soon linked into a sheet of flame, leaving scarcely any room to stand. Yet to the marauders' surprise, the expected screams never came, nor did anyone tumble from behind the barricades. It was as if... No one had been behind those barricades to begin with? Badger knitted his brows, a vague sense of unease stirring in his chest. Could these people have abandoned resistance altogether? No way, right? They should have at least returned some token shots... That brief trace of confusion soon turned to contempt. Yet just as he was about to order his underlings forward to blast the wooden gate with explosives, a sharp whistle suddenly pierced the forest. Like a signal to attack! Almost simultaneously, dense gunfire rained down from both flanks. Whizzing, cracking bullets grazed his scalp, startling Badger into an immediate dive behind a reasonably thick tree stump. Accuracy? Nonexistent. But humans were made of flesh and bone; no matter how tough someone was, a hail of random gunfire could still end them. He roared at the top of his lungs: "Take cover, all of you!" "Disperse and fall back a hundred meters to regroup!!" "Move, move, move!!!"