Chapter 134: Players in Underground Activities
At the west gate of Innadri, a burly bald man dressed in high-end waiter's attire stood on the side of the road, looking up at the noisy crowd in the mule and horse market square outside the city gate.
As the sky gradually darkened, villagers who were rushing to leave the city and citizens who were rushing to enter the city were queuing up to pass through the city gate. Such a bustling voice could not drown out the crying coming from the other side.
A respectable man with a servant on horseback, who seemed to be returning from hunting at a manor outside the city, looked in the direction of the mule and horse market and raised his chin to the soldiers guarding the city: "What's going on over there?"
The gate soldier glanced at the carriage driven by the servant of this respectable man, saw the noble family crest on the carriage, and bowed respectfully: "It is the city defense army exiling the disobedient soldiers, sir."
" Oh?" The respectable man raised his eyebrows, stopped the horse, and looked towards the Mule and Horse Market Square again with interest.
A few seconds later, the soldier at the gate heard the respectable man mutter "Forget it, it's not necessary", flicked his whip, and rode into the city.
The common people who were crowded in and out of the city consciously made way for this respectable gentleman who was obviously of noble status.
Ben watched the scene quietly, then turned and headed into the city.
Ben was also a Rhine native and had worked for his previous master in Westerham for several years. Naturally, he understood why the noble lord said "forget it" with regret - the young soldiers dismissed by the city defense army could be recruited as ready-made security guards by spending a little money.
However, these soldiers were subjected to the severe punishment of "exile" by the Bartles family, so the cost of recruiting them became high... They were just some civilians with fighting power and relatively clean backgrounds (from good families), so why bother to offend the Bartles family?
The West City Gate was a little far from Plant Avenue, and Ben walked briskly for half an hour before returning to No. 063 Plant Avenue.
Hearing the news brought back by Ban, Zhao Zhenzhen couldn't help but smile: "This is really... without manpower and labor, the enemy is giving it to us."
The young boy Brooke laughed out loud, and Ben, the fierce-looking former brothel thug, couldn't help but grin.
Even the soldiers who had "served their sentences" there could clearly see how short-staffed Westram was, not to mention Brook and Ben who were "within the system".
"Let's hurry up and finish the mission here, and then go back to help." Zhao Zhenzhen looked at Brooke, "Xiaobu, have you heard from your companions?"
The young Brooke was excited when he mentioned this, and nodded vigorously, "Got it! The people the owner of the Oak Bar saw last week were my companions. I heard that they took a mission and went out of town. I asked the people on Bar Street to help me keep an eye on their whereabouts. As long as they return to that street, someone will come to tell me."
"Very good." Zhao Zhenzhen nodded with a smile, and then said, "The lady Vivian you asked to help this time is a good person. You can do her work when the time is right."
"Okay, Sister Zhao, leave it to me!" Brooke patted his chest.
Zhao Zhenzhen likes motivated young people, and gave Brooke a thumbs up in appreciation...
The three of them were sitting here having a secret conversation when suddenly a cracking sound of bones colliding was heard from the "makeup artist's preparation room" next door.
"Hey, why is there no one here?" Soon, a player walked out of the preparation room. His two dark skeleton eyes swept over the three people who were sitting and talking, and naturally skipped over the two human NPCs. His gaze stopped on Zhao Zhenzhen, "Sister Zhao, where are the others?"
"What time is it now? Of course I'm going to make some extra money with Vivian." Zhao Zhenzhen said.
"I'm late again?" Miaobishenghua's eyes widened. "Why is that? I want to go too. Can't I wait until everyone is there before leaving?"
"You, try to cure your procrastination." Zhao Zhenzhen glared at Miaobishenghua in a reproachful manner and said to Ban, "Ban, you have to work harder."
"Okay." Ben quickly stood up, went into the utility room, and pulled out a cart.
"Thank you, Sister Zhao!" Miaobishenghua picked up the robe he had just put on and jumped into the cart with a giggle. He lay down skillfully and pulled the tarpaulin over himself.
Players with makeup skill points can help middle-class women put on makeup during the day. One makeup is equal to 50 points of Undead Chamber of Commerce reputation, which is very profitable...
It's dark in the "game" and the photo studio is closed, but the players still have to go online. It's impossible for them to stop playing the game when it's dark in the "game", so Zhao Zhenzhen came up with another way - let Vivian take the players out and put makeup on the citizens who spend the night.
This kind of makeup does not bring any reputation rewards, but you can earn "NPC" currency; this money cannot be used to purchase equipment and supplies produced by the "system", but it can be used to buy things from the "NPC"...it's a win-win situation for everyone.
The team that did all the hard work sent away the late Miaobishenghua. Zhao Zhenzhen looked at the time, told Brooke to watch the store, then put on her cloak and went out alone.
Big cities like Innadri generally do not enforce curfews unless there are unexpected events or during special periods, but at night, there are still few people on the streets - 90% of the streets in the city have no street lights, and it is pitch dark when it gets dark, so citizens naturally prefer to stay at home.
Zhao Zhenzhen walked out of Plant Avenue in the thick night, turned into the nearby civilian area, walked along the low-rise single-story shanty houses for about ten minutes, and arrived near the Free Market on St. Joseph Street.
St. Joseph Street is one of the few areas in the city with street lights except for the wealthy areas. At night, the whole street is bustling - the red-light district is full of clubs, the free market where prostitutes, small vendors, gangsters, mercenaries, and vagrants gather, and the hotel-concentrated blocks have some of the flavor of Chinese city nightlife in the 1990s.
Zhao Zhenzhen stopped outside the free market, where the street lights could not reach. She looked around to see that there was no one around, bent down, lifted a wooden manhole cover, and jumped in nimbly.
The Innadri territory is covered with water networks, but the abundant water resources are accompanied by widespread flood disasters. Except for Westram, which is located close to the Sorenson Mountains and has a higher terrain, other territories are inevitably hit by floods every few years.
In Zhao Zhenzhen's opinion, the greatest achievement of the Bartles family in their more than 100 years of rule over Innadella is probably the relatively complete underground drainage system beneath the city's main streets - especially the sewers under St. Joseph Street, the lowest point in the city. If there were no flood risks, it could be converted into a subway tunnel.
However... in the eyes of Earthling Zhao Zhenzhen, the St. Joseph Avenue sewer is an achievement of the rulers and worthy of being written about. However, it has no "reputation" among local citizens. It is even very taboo. Even homeless people are unwilling to choose to live here.
The reason is very simple. There are too many weird things in this world...
Zhao Zhenzhen climbed up the iron ladder on the side and entered the tunnel-like sewer. After walking along the passage for people to pass for a while, she saw unusually dense bubbles emerging from the dark sewage, and there was also the faint sound of a large wild beast roaring and snoring.
Zhao Zhenzhen turned her head to look at the strange waters, and without saying a word...she ran away.
The undead's nimble body was very powerful. In just a few seconds, Zhao Zhenzhen ran a hundred meters away and turned into another curved sewer with ease.
The dull snoring lasted for about ten seconds before gradually returning to silence.
On the other side, Zhao Zhenzhen walked out of the curved curve and walked a few dozen meters before coming to a platform that looked like a subway platform.
This should be a platform for workers who repair the pipeline to place their equipment and rest. There are a lot of messy things piled on it, as well as a few piles of bones covered with T-shirts or fish scales...
Zhao Zhenzhen looked at the number of piles of bones, muttered "Has the work started yet?", then crossed the platform and continued to go deeper.
In the sewer less than fifty meters away from the platform, Zhao Zhenzhen found her target - players without makeup skills.
A dozen players were divided into two groups, holding weapons, and confronting the dark black dirt with strange shapes on the wall of a pipe.
Seeing Zhao Zhenzhen, some players raised their hands and greeted her: "Sister Zhao is here!"
"Yeah." Zhao Zhenzhen nodded and walked over quickly. "What are you doing?"
The phantom spirit standing behind the crowd holding a thick wooden staff raised his voice and said excitedly: "We have found the ghost thing that always makes trouble for us, Sister Zhao, it is the thing that comes and goes without a trace and always tries to push us into dirty water!"
"Oh?!" Zhao Zhenzhen looked at the two groups of players surrounding the wall in surprise. She paused for a moment and pointed at the dirt on the wall and said, "Wait, isn't that the thing?"
"That's it, there's no mistake!" Sang Yeluo, the warrior girl, was standing in the front row wearing Qin Guan's top-level equipment. She nodded earnestly and said, "Several of us have seen this piece of dirt. It sometimes appears and sometimes disappears. We thought it was a texture error in the game. Later we found out that when there is this dirt on the wall, nothing will When the dirt is not there, there will always be something messing up when we spawn monsters!"
Zhao Zhenzhen: “…”
"I just don't know how to kill this damn thing." Yang Ying, who was also standing in the front row, picked up a knife and chopped at the wall a few times in frustration. "Look, Sister Zhao, chopping it is useless! So annoying!"
As a semi-professional player, Yang Ying's equipment is certainly not comparable to Qin Guan's and Youzhi Orange Cat's, but it has also been upgraded. The weapon in his hand is no longer a blank steel knife, but an excellent broadsword with a sharp enchantment bought from the Undead Chamber of Commerce.
The few cuts she made on the wall left some obvious white marks on the dirt, but in the time it took her to speak, the white marks turned back into dark black right under everyone's eyes.
Zhao Zhenzhen: “…”
The materialist fighter Zhao Zhenzhen swallowed involuntarily.
Sometimes, not knowing that this world is real and treating everything that happens here as a game is actually a good thing...
