Chapter 94:

Two days passed in the blink of an eye. On the third day, which was a rest day, the little players managed to log in during the morning hours. They all gathered between the outer ruins and inner city district of the large crevice outside Kadman City, forming a full 60-person team this time. Everyone gathered together still had an impressive presence! Especially those veteran players who had entered the game earlier, most of them had a full set of veteran armor and matching weapons. Their uniformly styled equipment made them exude an “elite vibe” when standing together. The second and third batches of players lagged a bit in this regard. Apart from the thirteen buddies under Joy Stick who scored decent equipment by sacrificing themselves in one go, the others were still wearing the follower’s garb or recruit battle armor provided by the Kadman Civilian Self-Defense Force and the Survivor’s Camp. It couldn’t be called bare-bones equipment, but it could only provide the most basic protection. But there was still good news. Yesterday, Joy Stick, under the pretext of leading a training session, brought a massive team of nearly thirty people to the gangster’s den in the sewers. After four hours of steady pushing, he had managed to clear out that place which had become a nest of ghouls. Apart from still failing to find the legendary gangster’s treasure trove, the other gains were not bad. The battle against more than 30 ghouls not only allowed the third batch of little players’ characters to basically reach levels 4-5 and complete their standard job advancement, but also brought them an unexpected windfall. That criminal den not only had a few boxes of scattered coins but also a batch of firearms secretly hoarded by the underground gang. The quality varied, mostly consisting of soldier-issued rifles and hunter’s firearms that had flowed into Kadman City during the Ten-Year War, but it was enough to arm the little players and provide them with sufficient ammunition. With two guns per person and some left over, Joy Stick handed the extras to Maxim in exchange for a batch of masterwork recruit-level weapons. This was just in time before the team dungeon test began, allowing the third batch of new players to be armed to a level suitable for combat. Although everyone knew this was a sword and magic otherworld where bullets might not be more powerful than blades, these little players born under the red flag stubbornly believed these pew-pew guns would give them more of a sense of security. After all, who would run up and fight dangerous monsters blade-to-blade when you could snipe them from a distance? “Ah, my great axe is already ravenous!” Decked out in a full set of masterwork veteran armor and carrying the shining “Vault Guard Mick” series twin-bladed greataxe on his back, the athlete Khaki Tony Tai followed behind his “boss” Precipitation Niuniu, pounding his fists as he said to his good buddy Path of Mud and Oil: “When we enter the dungeon, you need to protect me and use your heavy shield to create an environment for me to deal damage. Let’s coordinate better this time and go crazy killing everything.” “You guys should take it easy.” The one walking in front, Precipitation Niuniu, shook his head and said: “This is a team dungeon, so the monsters will definitely be formidable. Last night, Brother Stick explained the strategy very clearly in the group chat. Our task is to distract and stall, don’t just charge out of the defense line to hack away.” “I’m just talking big, Boss. You’re making me look like a fool by being so serious.” Khaki complained, then said in a low voice: “Those punks from the neighboring dorm keep coming over to loaf around on our computers and hang out on the forums. You can tell they all want to play. Why don’t you ask the admin when they’ll issue new slots, Boss? Us athletes need to stand out too. We can’t fall behind Brother Meow and Brother Stick’s teams, right? Look, Even Brother Pigeon and the others have started forming teams. We can’t be left behind either. Sister Pomegranate can be the big sis, you can be the grand marshal, and we’ll be able to make our mark too.” “How do you want me to ask about that?” Niuniu sighed and said: “Brother Stick has repeatedly emphasized that this game needs to progress through the storyline quickly to unlock more testing slots. And if we can’t get through this dungeon, we’ll all be left homeless. So let’s just focus on fighting well.” “Hey Boss, where did you get this hunting crossbow? Looks really powerful.” Path of Mud and Oil had sharp eyes. He noticed the red hunting crossbow hanging on Niuniu’s weapon belt, different from the ones the players were using. This thing looked intricate and complex, like some kind of self-cocking black tech device. “Heh, it’s a reward from doing an NPC’s personal quest yesterday.” Niuniu grinned and openly shared the information: “Those Witch Hunters are actually quite generous and magnanimous. As long as they acknowledge you, you can trigger quests like this. Big Sis told me to raise my favorable impression with important NPCs to get the ‘Warrior’ title. I guess what she meant was doing these NPCs’ personal quests. There are real benefits, but of course, there are also major risks.” Saying this, Niuniu touched the new scar on his neck and sighed: “I spent two days following three elite Witch Hunters in the underground tombs of Morland Village, killing more than eighty ghouls. The stench was truly disgusting, enough to make one numb.” “Why didn’t you tell us about this sooner?” The two followers immediately became displeased, arguing: “If we had known, we wouldn’t have messed around with Brother Stick in the sewers. Apart from gaining a level, we basically didn’t get any real benefits. The equipment dropped there is useless to us, it’s all for the newcomers.” “Shh shh shh, Murphy is here, the event is about to start. Hurry and find a spot to stand!” Niuniu saw from afar that war horses were galloping, accompanied by 120 militiamen from the Kadman Civilian Self-Defense Force rushing over, so he knew the event was about to start. He quickly took his two followers and stood at the edge of the crowd. But when he turned around, he was stunned to see Lumina carrying a guitar case: “Are you hiding a machine gun in that guitar case?” Meow King furiously slammed his staff on the ground and said to the brothers beside him: “It seems the NPC manpower is the key. Each one that dies reduces their numbers, so we’ll have to take over, but we can’t suffer too many losses either. Three days is not enough time for revival. Once the player group suffers too much damage, the NPC team wipe is only a matter of time. We really have to risk it all this time.” “This is all the dev team’s fault, isn’t it?” Led More Than Three to Five Pecks said unhappily: “If they had just opened more slots earlier, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Not to mention anything else, if there were 500 players here...” “Then we’d start fighting amongst ourselves!” Beside him, the frail-looking but actually quite wild Electronic Succubus Old Tune sneered: “At a university, even a student union meeting with a few dozen people can turn into an argument, let alone a bunch of random people playing a game together. Who the hell would listen to you? Who would admit to being unskilled in a game? To be honest, if Brother Stick hadn’t led us into real combat situations and won a few times, would you have obediently listened to him in a situation like this? Let me tell you, their arrangement makes sense. Less people is better! Unity is prized, quality over quantity.” “You’re right! I’d rather go with ten reliable buddies to fight a hundred vampires than form a team with a hundred idiots to do a dungeon.” Day One No Fap said in a low voice: “This is the best MMORPG gaming environment I’ve ever seen. We’re really like brothers and sisters. Don’t let a large-scale recruitment bring in some low-quality idiots to ruin things. I’ll be the first to object! If you ask me, Meow King, why doesn’t your crappy company just shut down? Let’s switch our focus to specializing in this game.” “Yeah, brother.” Don’t Need Hands to Show Off also chimed in to Meow King: “Didn’t I discuss this with you when we were soaking our feet together before? You believe my professional eye, I told you this game is definitely profitable! Even without trading game currency, there’s money to be made.” He secretly pointed to Fatal Orchid Huahua walking at the front of the girls’ team, crossing the large crevice at the edge of the city wall, and said to Meow King: “See that masterwork Witch Hunter kite shield and matching spiked hammer behind Sister Huahua, familiar? That’s what I bought with your personal reputation points from the Witch Hunters. I turned a profit of that much just yesterday. Those girls are really rich. I deliberately raised the price but they didn’t bargain at all. In the end, I even gave them a partial refund, as a gesture of good faith to leave a good impression for these big clients.” He gestured with his fingers, making Meow King’s eyes twitch violently. He scolded in a low voice: “Who the hell told you to do off-market equipment trading? What if the admin catches us and bans our accounts?” “Who would report a consensual transaction?” Seeing his bookish but actually quite wild old buddy give a subtle smile, he struck a pose like a crafty tactician and said softly: “This market objectively exists. We have the ability to obtain what the clients need. It’s simply a commercial activity, not breaking any game rules. I’ve read through the player handbook on the forums several times. “Don’t worry, if the official rules don’t explicitly prohibit it, then it’s permitted. And in a 100% immersive game, can’t players engage in economic activities to mimic reality? If there were too many restrictions, it wouldn’t be considered 100% realistic anymore. I’ve calculated it! As long as we operate well, the profits will definitely surpass your crappy company. The situation in your industry isn’t good these days. If you dropped a brick on the street, you’d probably hit eight programmers out of every ten people. What’s the point of struggling in that red ocean market? Also, remember that project you took from Little Brother Ba recently that made you lose money, right? Take my advice and switch careers, brother. You can make money now and enjoy the thrill of making your way in an otherworldly game. Why not do it? Of course, the prerequisite is that our team must consistently remain at the T1 level and strive for excellence in all aspects, only then can we access the truly good stuff in the game. This way, we can differentiate ourselves from Brother Stick’s team too. He’s clearly going for the large guild army route, while we’ll be a small-scale mercenary group!” “But where are there so many buyers?” Meow King’s business instincts were immediately piqued. He secretly calculated the profit margins and was a bit tempted, but still hesitant. Then Don’t Need Hands to Show Off next to him scoffed and said: “Given the currently extremely high quality of players in this game, apart from the student crowd, who doesn’t have some money? Even the student crowd like Brother Pigeon, they’re just broke now since they’re students from prestigious universities, but they’ll have money in the future. And after large-scale testing begins, it’s only a matter of time before wealthy big spenders join in. Just set your heart at ease and trust me. Let’s try it for two months first. If we lose money, it’ll be on me! I’ll cover the losses, how’s that?”