The square in front of the sanatorium was packed, a bustling sea of people.
Just like the previous batch, the fresh rookies who had just entered the game rubbed their eyes repeatedly as they stared at the lifelike world before them, practically tempted to kneel and kiss the sand and dirt beneath their feet.
"Th-th-this!"
"Holy crap, it really fucking is virtual reality?! Wait, where's the log-out button? Let me check, fuck, make sure I can actually get back."
"Haha, no need to go through all that trouble. Just grab a brick and smash your head with it, and you'll log out."
"Waaah, can I take a screenshot? This is way too shocking."
"Shocked my dad for a whole year!"
"It's so huge."
A chorus of chattering commotion filled the square, though the veteran players of Wasteland OL had long since gotten used to it and weren't the least bit surprised.
After all, when they first logged on, their reactions had been more or less the same.
With both feet planted on virtual soil and an impossibly real breeze brushing against their faces, the impact on one's worldview and perception was beyond words.
Making his entrance in his role as the manager of Shelter 404, Chu Guang carried a plastic bag and walked up before the newcomers. Signaling for them to quiet down, he handed out beginner packs to each of them one by one.
"Here are five copper coins."
"You can take them to the warehouse to rent tools, go to the granary to purchase food, or trade with other players."
Though the rookies were noisy, they still held considerable respect for the esteemed manager before them, who held the power of life and death over them.
"Lord Manager, are you really an NPC? I mean, are you really an AI? Not played by an actor? Excuse my impudence, but you just look... far too real!"
"The Lord Manager is so handsome! Wanna pair up?"
"NPC, how do I check favorability? Where do I see it? Does this game really not have a player interface?"
"Where's my HP bar? And where's the mana bar?"
"Boo-hoo-hoo, how do you play this game? Someone carry me!"
"What's the point of handing out money? Can I get a beginner sword?"
Heh.
A beginner sword?
Chu Guang was amused, but paid them no mind.
Don't worry, you won't be needing anything like that.
As a conscientious and responsible NPC, Chu Guang did not utter a single word in reply, skillfully finishing the distribution of the beginner rewards.
Confirming that no one had been missed, Chu Guang turned his gaze to Brother Blade, who was rubbing his hands eagerly on the side. With hands clasped behind his back, Chu Guang spoke in a strictly businesslike tone.
"The security of the outpost is in your hands."
Spare the Life Under the Blade cupped his fists excitedly.
"Understood! Lord Manager!"
Before these fresh rookies even had a chance to kneel down and kiss the dirt beneath their feet, they were dragged outside by this pumped-up veteran foreman to dig trenches.
Surely, once the trenches were dug and they looked upon the fruits of their labor, they would gain a much deeper understanding of this game.
Rest assured. That was how every other player had made it through.
Watching the players march en masse toward the northern gate, Chu Guang was suddenly reminded of an RTS game he had played a long, long time ago.
Its translated title was Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim. Because it was so niche and its sequel was a letdown, probably not many people had heard of it.
The gameplay was fascinating. Unlike mainstream RTS games that emphasized micromanagement, the player ruling the kingdom couldn't "directly control every unit."
What did that mean?
Simply put, if a monster appeared in your territory, you couldn't micromanage the heroes of various classes to go slash it down. Instead, you put a bounty on the monster and scattered a handful of gold coins.
The heroes would naturally form teams to go hunt it down, and the hero who killed the monster would receive experience and gold coins. With their quest reward money in hand, they would spend it at the kingdom's taverns, buy weapons and supplies at the item shops, or learn skills and magic.
If it was a monster beyond their abilities, the heroes would also feel fear and run away... unless you raised the monster's bounty. Driven by sufficient profit, even if the enemy was a giant dragon, adventurers clutching scrap metal would valiantly charge forward.
Chu Guang sometimes felt that what he was doing right now was essentially the same thing.
While he couldn't put an HP bar above the marauders' heads, he could sprinkle a handful of silver coins over them.
***
Around the outpost's warehouse, a group of veteran players at Lv 2 and above had gathered.
Since most quests involved gathering supplies, this place had practically become the tacitly accepted quest board.
"Holy shit! Twenty silver and two hundred contribution points per marauder?! And it stacks with the original five-silver capture bounty?!"
"The bonus for a decurion is doubled!"
"Anyone know how many people the Bloodhand Clan actually has??? Waiting online, urgent!"
"Brothers, the chance to get rich overnight is here! Whether you guys charge or not, I'm definitely going! Anyone looking for a team? I'm Strength-type, need Perception and Agility. Let's go wage guerrilla warfare hand in hand! Split the profits evenly!"
"I'm still a thousand contribution points short of citizen status. Grinding would take a whole week, but catching five captives is enough? Holy crap, this reward is insane! As long as they're still breathing, does it count?"
"It doesn't matter even if they're not breathing! Ten silver coins! That takes me a whole day of moving bricks, waaah."
The players went wild when they saw the rewards, at one point even suspecting that the manager had entered the wrong numbers for the bounty.
Little did they know, a certain "NPC" had done this intentionally.
Though the posted bounty looked generous, this quest was impossible to solo. Three- or four-man squads were standard, so once split among everyone, the payout was entirely reasonable.
Based on intel, the Bloodhand Clan had around sixty to seventy people. Factoring in a few decurions, keeping the budget under two thousand silver coins wouldn't be an issue.
Besides, even if it went over budget, who cared?
Was it a bad thing for players to have money?
Obviously not!
What inside this shelter didn't belong to him anyway?
The forty new rookies who had just joined were more than enough to fill the vacancies in basic labor at the outpost.
Meanwhile, the veterans with a deeper grasp of the game could take their cash to buy guns and land, driving domestic demand and unlocking new gameplay styles.
Chu Guang felt that having devised this model, he might be even more of a genius than the first-generation manager who had "packaged this world as a game."
Downright perfect!
At that moment, someone finally noticed the level requirement at the bottom of the quest notice.
"Fuck! The quest has a level requirement? I'm only Lv 1, what do I do?"
"Strength-types, go chop trees. Perception and Agility, find a team to leach from... Wait, it seems to only say you need Lv 2 to accept the quest. It doesn't restrict Lv 2s from teaming up with other levels?"
"Big boss! Carry me!"
"What's your sequence?"
"Intelligence!"
"Get lost."
"Fuck!"
Luka, the newly appointed warehouse keeper, sat on a chair in front of the door, guarding the ledger resting on the wooden table and turning a deaf ear to the chattering commotion outside.
Yesterday evening, his new master had explained his duties to him.
Starting today, he no longer had to do farm work. He only needed to carry the items brought by these bluecoat residents into the warehouse, record them in the ledger with a few relatively simple symbols, and then hand out their "compensation."
It was a strange sort of metal coin.
Luka didn't understand what value it possessed; he had never heard of any survivor settlement using such things for commerce.
Yet these bluecoats treated the coins like priceless treasures upon receiving them, so it was probably something very important to them.
Luka didn't care to ponder such questions.
Long years of experience had taught him that knowing too much was seldom a good thing.
Seeing Chu Guang approaching, he immediately pushed himself to his feet on trembling legs, clenching his right fist against the left side of his chest in a respectful salute.
"Master, what are your orders?"
Ignoring the curious glances from surrounding players, Chu Guang set the wooden basket in his hand down on the table.
"I have a few items here. Sell them for me. Follow the usual rule I told you: if someone comes to buy, just gesture for them to pay according to the price on the label."
Chu Guang had spent all six reward points he earned yesterday on opening blind boxes. Perhaps his luck had been exhausted the last time, as this round yielded six lollipops in a row.
Fortunately, two of them provided stat bonuses, so it wasn't a total loss.
Thinking his drawer was getting too full, Chu Guang had grabbed a couple of handfuls and brought them over to the warehouse.
Each normal lollipop was priced at one silver coin, and those with buffs cost double.
At such a steep price, people might not buy them, but having them sit around was pointless anyway; he might as well use them to decorate the shop shelves.
"Yes, Master."
Old Luka arranged the contents of the wooden basket onto the shelves to the side, then affixed the labels Chu Guang had written.
Just then, Chu Guang suddenly recalled something and asked, "By the way, did Brown Farm produce sugarcane among its crops?"
"Sugarcane?" Old Luka looked completely blank, as if he had never heard of it.
Chu Guang explained, "A crop that produces sugar."
Hearing the word sugar, Old Luka finally understood and replied:
"Master, I stayed at Brown Farm for twenty years and never heard of a crop called sugarcane... But I do know a bit about the sugar you mentioned. The farm grew a crop called red beet. Pulled from the ground, it looks a lot like a radish. You can press red sugary juice from it, and after boiling it down, you can scoop up small granules from the bottom. That should be the sugar you spoke of."
Growing sugar beets to make sugar?
Chu Guang nodded thoughtfully. "Does that stuff sell well?"
"Whether it sells well... I'm not sure. But merchants coming from both the south and north would buy a little, though never too much. I hear it's not worth as much as salt."
In a place that produced sugar, sugar was naturally less valuable than salt.
On the wasteland, the cost of transporting a commodity could often far exceed the cost of producing it, which was hardly breaking news.
Sugar was a good thing, though.
Not only was it edible, but it could also be used to brew alcohol and even make weapons.
When spring arrived next year, he had to figure out a way to procure some seeds.
Chu Guang immediately thought of Boulder City.
In this region, that was the place most likely to have what he needed.
"Master, do you have any other orders?"
"None. Carry on with your work."
"Yes, Master."
Old Luka watched Chu Guang leave before returning to his chair and sitting down.
At that moment, quite a few players took an interest in the new items on the shelves and crowded over.
Luka felt terribly nervous inside, terrified someone might steal something.
However, these players were very well-mannered. They simply clustered around, discussing excitedly, without anyone reaching out to touch anything.
"These lollipops grant stat boosts?! For real?!"
"Chocolate flavor increases Strength by ten percent... lasts ten hours. Holy crap, if you're a Strength-type player, wouldn't you be over the moon?"
"Strawberry flavor is Perception, apple flavor is Intelligence... Right now there are only these three stat-boosting ones, and they cost twice as much as the others!"
"What? Only double the price? Then buying it is a total steal! Here, two silver coins. Old-timer, give me one!"
"I want one too!"
"Fuck! Why is the only one left the Intelligence booster! Whatever, whatever, I'll buy it and give it to Tengteng."
Before long, the only three stat-boosting lollipops on the shelf were snapped up, leaving only twelve regular ones that nobody cared about.
"...They really sold?"
Staring at the six silver coins on the table, Old Luka muttered under his breath.
He didn't understand it, but he was profoundly shaken.
Chapter 77