Chapter 96 Contrast
"Tomorrow is Saturday, what do you think?"
Southeast of the Desolate Stronghold, on the outskirts of the Poison Mist Swamp, when the players who had just finished killing monsters were cleaning up the battlefield, "Give me medicine" suddenly came out.
"Go get the Inner Demon Book again?" said a player who was stuffing materials into his backpack.
"Hey...are we still going?" A player who didn't like exploring new lands objected, "Let's not go yet. Those three dungeons are impossible to defeat right now. It's better for everyone to reach level 2 before going."
"I don't want to go either. It's so annoying to be offline all the time on a rare weekend."
The players who wanted to play the game were not happy and started to support the idea: "How long will it take? The potential value can only increase by one or two points a day. It takes 100 potentials to reach level 2. Now our average potential is not even 70."
"The dungeon is only open two days a week. It would be a shame not to play it. Even if you can't beat it, you can still gain experience first."
"That's right. Without clearing the land, how can we cut down trees in the future? If you don't cut down trees now because it's too difficult, you won't be able to cut down trees in the future."
"So many people have updated their equipment for this siege event, maybe we can win it?"
"Fight, fight! We don't fight for the first kill, the first kill will be given to others!"
Seeing that there were many people willing to fight, he turned to Qin Guan and said, "What do you think, Vanilla? I feel that this week's chances are greater than last week. Last week we had no warriors, and the only wizard was Huahua. This week we have a few more warriors, and Yuyu and Baobao have also successfully changed their jobs. We can at least form three teams to explore the land."
Qin Guan, who had been depressed since the results of the mayoral election came out, nodded reluctantly, turned to look at Miaobishenghua, and said : "Huahua, what do you think?"
Wonderful Writing: "I think you are annoying."
Qin Guan: “???”
"Nothing." Miaobishenghua turned away expressionlessly and said to everyone, "Those who want to play should not play too late tonight. Leave some time for the exploration tomorrow and gather online before noon."
Qin Guan twitched his lips and said, "Wait a minute Huahua, the way you looked at me just now was not right..."
"Ah, what else?" Miaobishenghua said unhappily, "If you didn't get the mayor title, then you didn't get it. How long are you going to be depressed? There are so many game contents that you don't care about. You still have the nerve to call yourself the top UP host of the game channel?"
Qin Guan's tiger body trembled.
This guy is also a character. He didn't show any anger when Miaobishenghua sprayed him in the face. He quickly stood up and said seriously: "I almost missed the big event - brothers, you guys continue to kill monsters, you take the medicine for the leader, Huahua you take care of the materials, I'm going to go shoot new video materials!"
After saying that, he pushed all the materials from several backpacks to Miaobishenghua and ran away...
"Don't forget to notify Xiao Zhou and the others to come and help us open up the wasteland tomorrow morning!" Miaobishenghua shouted from behind.
"Got it!" Qin Guan waved his hand.
I was given medicine with a confused look on my face: "???"
"Damn, I talked to him for so long but it was useless. He just listened when you scolded him a few times?!" Give Me Medicine looked at Miao Bi Sheng Hua in shock.
"What are you talking about with him about the development prospects in the game and the future ideals of the Blood Alliance? Of course it's useless." Miaobishenghua rolled his eyes at me and said, "As adults, be realistic. Nothing is more important than the money prospects in reality! For example, if I lose to Entropy in the game in terms of brainpower, I will definitely just be angry for a while and I won't hold a grudge overnight. But if anyone criticizes the book I wrote, I will scold them so much that they won't even recognize me!"
Give me medicine: "..."
Qin Guan ran all the way back to the desolate stronghold, and first told Xiao Zhou (a studio member with an ID of eight) who had been squatting here for a long time to complete the logging mission, about forming a team to open up the Heart Demon dungeon tomorrow morning, and then entered the teleportation array and was teleported to Westram.
The town of Westram and the surrounding areas within a radius of dozens of miles are all populated, but there are no monsters to kill. After the novelty of the players wears off, no one is willing to come and hang out except for those who are completing brick-moving tasks and those who are just idle.
What a coincidence, the former number one player in the game, Ou Yan, is the leader among the latter... Qin Guan was teleported to the courtyard of Westham Town Hall. Before he stepped down from the earthen platform, he saw Ou Yan walking out of the white light of the teleportation, carrying a woven bag.
"Boss Ou Yan?" Qin Guan was shocked, and immediately opened the online recording and approached him in a familiar manner, "Boss Ou Yan, are you not staying in Exile Town? What are you doing here? Do you have a new mission?"
Ou Yan glanced at the popular anchor coldly, ignored him, and walked out on his own.
Qin Guan not only clung to him like a follower, but also made moves on the woven bag that Ou Yan was carrying: "Don't be so ruthless, Boss Ou Yan, what is this bag you are carrying? Oh, why does it feel so hard? Air-dried wild boar meat? Did you make it yourself? Why did you bring this thing to Westram? Aren't the things produced by this kind of living profession only accepted in the canteen of the Chamber of Commerce?"
Ou Yan was as indifferent as an NPC, walking forward on his own, completely ignoring Qin Guan's constant chatter...
Among the series of videos made by Qin Guan, there is a series called "Master Specials", which is a special series of videos exclusively for the unique and funny players in "Alien World".
Among the players whose footage he filmed and made into videos, Ou Yan, who is as cold as an NPC, is the most popular one among cloud players. This guy is really good at variety shows. When posting his experience, he is skilled in using facial expressions to act cute, so that people who have never met him always misunderstand that he is a cute girl; but the real person is so cold that all the players said that they have never heard Ou Yan say more than three sentences at a time in the game.
In addition to this cute contrasting personality, European sturgeon also very much conforms to the cloud players' understanding of individuality - he does not form a team, does not participate in team monster hunting, does not participate in large-scale tasks, and refuses all attempts to flatter or to be a bootlicker. He has turned an online game that requires teamwork into a stand-alone game, and he plays it very well. He can post an experience post from time to time and it will be manually pinned to the top of the homepage in minutes.
Qin Guan and his friends had referred to Ouyang's experience posts a lot. Seeing that this guy was willing to move to Westerham, they concluded that this big guy must have some filming material, so they shamelessly pestered him...
This was not the first time that Qin Guan had shamelessly followed Ouyang. He walked out of the town hall in silence, turned through a few alleys, and finally arrived at Martin Street.
It is now 6pm in real time, 11pm in the game.
The market on Martin Street would not be lively until after 2 p.m. (in the other world). At this moment, the whole street was empty, with few pedestrians. Only a few grocery stores, cobblers' shops and bakeries were open.
The silent European sturgeon and Qin Guan, who kept saying "KABAKABA", passed by on the road. The leatherworker apprentice in the leatherwork shop just glanced at them casually, without even a shocked expression... Seeing these skeletons running around the streets every day, and even the mayor being a skeleton, the townspeople no longer have the energy to make a fuss.
Carrying a big bag, Beluga walked straight to a grocery store and pushed the door open.
The grocery store owner who was dozing off behind the counter was startled and quickly sat up straight, staring blankly at the two undead who walked into the store. He neither screamed in fear nor had any intention of soliciting business - there were too many skeletons coming and going in his shop as a tourist attraction, and the merchants on this street had been tormented for several days, it would be impossible for them not to get used to it.
It was obvious that Beluga was not here for "sightseeing". He walked to the counter silently and poured the contents of the woven bag onto the counter.
The bag of European sturgeon is filled with wild boar jerky with less fat and more lean meat. The wild boars were caught using the butcher's trap skills and slaughtered according to requirements. The meat was cut into slices as thick as the palm, spread with salt and air-dried.
If the food products produced by life professions are scanned by identification skills and shown as white items instead of gray garbage, they can be sold to the Chamber of Commerce canteen, and there will be no problem for NPCs to eat them.
The grocery store owner, who had a blank look on his face, finally showed a look of shock this time...
Ouyang pointed at the jerky on the counter and then at the grocery store owner.
"Sell, sell to me? These are for sale?" The grocery store owner was stunned and tried to interpret the meaning of the skeleton's gesture.
Of course, the sturgeon didn't understand the local language, so he repeated the action again.
The grocer swallowed.
In the past few days, the new lord's people would set up stalls on Martin Street every time the market started to sell good goods at incredibly low prices. He also bought a lot. Although he had never traded directly with these undead who couldn't even speak human language, he didn't have the courage to drive away the two undead who seemed to have the intention of peacefully trading...
So... the grocery store owner gritted his teeth and bent down to check the dried meat.
The air-dried wild boar meat was cleaned very well, and the salt applied on the surface was quite generous (the rock sugar and salt in the Chamber of Commerce cafeteria were very cheap). It was much better than the wild animal jerky sold by hunters at the market.
The grocery store owner perked up and immediately weighed and counted the dried meat. He counted out more than a hundred copper coins and put them on the counter.
Without any further ado, Ouyou put all the copper coins used by the NPCs into his pocket and turned away.
Qin Guan, with a forehead full of question marks, quickly followed out: "Boss Ou Yan, why are you exchanging white-lettered items that can be sold for copper coins for money used by NPCs? They are all gray-lettered garbage and cannot be used——"
Before he could finish his words, Ou Yan turned around and walked into the clothing store next door.
When the owner of the clothing store saw the two undeads coming in, the numb expression on her face was similar to that of the grocery store owner... The number of players visiting her store was no less than that of the grocery store next door.
Ou Yan looked around at the ready-made clothes hanging on the wall, selected a round-neck pullover and a pair of canvas trousers with two large pockets, took them down, walked up to the proprietress, and showed the NPC copper coins that were displayed as gray garbage under the player's identification technique.
Qin Guan was shocked on the spot: "What the hell?! This is also possible??"
The lady boss was also shocked...
Because the new lord's people sold off a lot of cheap fabrics, the business of the clothing store was very difficult. They had not been open for the past few days. The proprietress hesitated for a moment, then bravely took away the eighty copper coins tremblingly...
If this batch of "dried wild boar meat" made by the butcher skills practiced by Ouyou is sold to the Chamber of Commerce cafeteria, it can be obtained by more than 20 game coins, which can be used to buy three sets of the uniform T-shirts and shorts worn by players.
If I sell them to these civilian NPCs and buy ready-made clothes, two sets won’t be enough.
Overall, it’s not very cost-effective…
However - you can choose the style of the ready-made clothes you get from civilian NPCs!
You can buy long sleeves and long pants!
Beluga took off his equipment and his already tattered "newbie suit" right there in the store, put on a long-sleeved pullover and canvas trousers, and then put on his equipment.
Anyway, skeletons have no gender distinction, and players don't need to feel ashamed in the game...
Ou Yan, who had distanced himself from the other players in his dress, glanced coldly at Qin Guan, whose arms and legs were exposed, and left silently.
Qin Guan: “…”
The new novice set I just changed into suddenly doesn't seem so good anymore...
Then... Qin Guan immediately ran to the teleportation point and logged off.
Boss Ou Yan's operation was really good, especially the last look of contempt was very clever. Qin Guan was inspired at this moment and had to quickly cut out the video and post it - his face had already been hurt by the contempt, he couldn't lose money (number of views) anymore!
The two men left Martin Street one after the other. After a while, the owner of the clothing store ran out and went to the grocery store next door to talk to her old neighbor about her experience of trading with the dead...
The new lord's people (Mia and Ben) have been purchasing vegetables and flour at the market for several days, but the people who come out to trade are all humans. This is the first time they have traded with the undead.
Boss Beluga's restless and independent heart and his courage to try new ideas opened the door to a new world for these townspeople - these undead who don't speak the same language can actually be reasonable, abide by the order, and trade fairly!
It was 9:30 AM on Saturday, November 2, Earth time, which was 6 PM in the game.
Without waiting for the sky to get dark, Beluga, who was squatting in the butcher's workshop in Life Lane practicing disassembling wild beast bones, packed up his personal belongings, hurriedly closed the door and left, running towards the teleportation point on the cross street.
The nights in Exile Town during the two days of the weekend will become full of dangers, which greatly affects Ouyang's gaming experience... He has no interest in teaming up to open up dungeons. Before his second transformation and before he has enough strength to go solo in the wild, he just wants to play life skills alone in peace.
The safe area for activities around the Desolate Stronghold is not large. The first few times that Ouyou went there alone to practice the butcher skills, he died. It took him a long time to retrieve the dropped equipment.
When he arrived at the teleportation array, Ouyou chose to teleport to Westram without much hesitation. Players complained that there were no monsters spawning in Westram, but he didn't mind. As long as he could find a place to practice life skills, it would be fine.
Westram was as full of life as ever, and it was completely different worlds compared to Exile Town. When Beluga came out of the town hall compound, two human children NPCs who were squatting and playing on the side of the road looked at him curiously.
Previously, the townspeople were afraid that the skeletons running around the streets would harm their children, so they kept their children at home. But after a week or so of living together, they confirmed that the aggressiveness of these undead spirits was less than that of drunk adult men, and children began playing in the streets of the town again.
Ouyou stopped, looked around, and confirmed that there were no players around... He took out a small bag of rock sugar from his waist bag and threw it to the two child NPCs.
The two dirty and barefoot children happily took the rock candy, shouted "Thank you, Mr. Dead" happily, and ran away happily.
Ouyang stood there and waited for a while, but he didn't see the two child NPCs or anyone else coming to give him tasks, so he shook his head regretfully.
It’s difficult to trigger the hidden task!
He ran through the streets and alleys to the town gate. The two militiamen sitting on duty saw the sturgeon leaving the town, their faces changed, but they did not come out to stop him. They just watched the sturgeon leave in silence.
The former sheriff of Westham, the captain of the militia and some militiamen are still being held in the former militia headquarters, waiting anxiously for the undead to deliver two half-full meals every day to sustain their lives.
Some militiamen who were released after being identified as less dangerous by Hal, the thief leader, were called out by Rex before they had been idle at home for two days. They joined the security team led by Ben and continued to work and do their old jobs without even changing their uniforms.
There is certainly no security problem in Westham now - there are undead wandering around the town every night, and any thief who dares to go out and commit a crime in the middle of the night would be wasting his talent - pulling these people out and arranging them to work is just to prevent them from being idle and becoming a security threat to the town.
Jimmy, who was so frightened when he saw the undead and handed over the town gate, was also one of the re-employed militiamen.
The humiliation and fear during detention, the life after release, and the anxiety during those two days of unemployment at home made Jimmy, a young man who had never left Westham, become much more taciturn; when he got a job again and walked out of the house and saw the closed red light district, Jimmy felt even more complicated.
He did not like this street, even though its existence had once benefited him - from childhood to adulthood, he had seen too many times that people from the same neighborhood had wasted their money, caused quarrels, and even led to family breakdown in order to spend a night of love on this street.
Even his father, who had lived a mediocre life, once brought the family's living expenses to this street after drinking a little, and squandered it all in one night, causing their family to have to eat boiled potatoes for almost two months before they could recover.
This dirty street that Jimmy had hoped would disappear in his dreams was actually closed by the undead who had given him nightmares for almost a week. Jimmy didn't know whether he should curse the damn fate that made his hometown fall into the hands of the evil black magician, or be grateful to fate for helping his hometown get rid of this shameful abscess...
Looking at the back of the dead soul walking further and further away in the sunset, Jimmy hesitated for a long time before he mustered up the courage and stretched out his hand to push his partner: "I have to go and take a look, you watch first."
Without waiting for his companions' consent, Jimmy rushed out of the duty post, ran out of the town gate, and followed the undead from a distance.
The undead walked along the town road for about four or five hundred meters and turned down a small road.
Jimmy knew that the path led to a small village, and his heart tightened, so he quickly quickened his pace.
Sometimes there are more undead in the town, sometimes fewer; the townspeople, who have to be submissive in order to survive, have also wondered where these undead go when they are not in the town.
Many housewives, including Jimmy's wife, would consciously or unconsciously pay attention to familiar faces among the vegetable farmers when selling vegetables.
Everyone was afraid that these undead were only safe and harmless in the town, and would regain their ferocity when they reached less populated areas outside the town...but no one dared to speak out their fears, as they kept them deep in their hearts.
It is very difficult for ordinary people to move their families to other places. Not to mention the risks on the road, even if the whole family escapes safely to another town, it is still very difficult to find a place to live and a job to make a living before the whole family goes hungry.
The undead soul that left the town alone did not continue walking towards the village. It stopped when passing a harvested wheat field.
Jimmy thought he had been discovered and hurriedly hid in the nearby bushes.
Fortunately, the ghost did not notice him, but squatted down at the edge of the field, staring at the wheat field with only stubble left out of curiosity.
Jimmy quietly wiped the sweat off his forehead, and lay down in the bushes, staring at the undead nervously, trying to guess its purpose.
After a while, the undead walked down the ridge of the field, took off his backpack, pulled out a woven bag and held it in his hand, bent down, and searched among the wheat stubble...
Because the distance was quite far, Jimmy didn't understand what it was doing at first. After staring at it for a long time, he finally saw what it was stuffing into the woven bag...it seemed to be grasshoppers.
Jimmy rubbed his eyes and looked again carefully.
...He was not mistaken. The undead who strangely left the town alone at dusk was indeed catching grasshoppers.
He was very focused and serious in catching them, and he could catch at least one every two attempts.
Grab from one end of the wheat field to the other, and then grab from the other end to this end.
Tireless, never bored, quick in movement, brisk in manner...
Jimmy endured the bites of mosquitoes and lay in the bushes for more than half an hour, watching. It took more than half an hour to catch the ghost.
There were not so many grasshoppers in this wheat field, but it still refused to give up and walked into another wheat field...
Jimmy quietly emerged from the bushes and headed back to town.
It was almost time to change shifts, and he had to go home.
The image of the undead concentrating on catching grasshoppers in the wheat field at sunset will probably take root in Jimmy's mind for a long, long time.
When casual players who had no interest in weekend activities fled Exile Town one after another... Hal, Tetar, and Rex suddenly appeared in the town hall of Exile Town.
The light of the teleportation array hidden under the ground faded, and what appeared in front of Hal, who was gritting his teeth, Tattle, who was doubting his life, and Rex, whose mouth was twitching, was... Yang's projection clone.
"Thank you for your hard work." Yang's projection nodded to the three people, with a hateful friendly smile, and said, "The three of you will stay here before dawn. I will take you back when the sun rises. You will have to work hard for the next three nights."
"Ha, ha..." Tattle wanted to sneer, but he couldn't. His face twisted as he said, "They spared no expense to let us use the teleportation array... So, Pansy's inspiration was correct, and those strange phenomena that appeared in Exile Town half a month ago were indeed related to us?"
Yang Qiu’s projection smiled but said nothing.
“As expected—!” Hal roared, “No wonder those bastard undeads threatened me with such nonsense! It’s really your fault!!”
Rex, who was not sure whether to laugh or cry, also said: "Isn't this too much, Yang? Our spiritual realm is not a tool for people to have fun."
"Calm down, friends." Yang Qiu's projection said patiently, "Invading another's spiritual realm is more dangerous than entering the tenth level of the demon world. I certainly won't deliberately let our undead friends put themselves in danger."
"In fact, I just borrowed the negative part of your soul memories and merged it into the 'Realm of the Void', so that the most distorted side of your spirit can be briefly materialized in the material plane, constructing a temporary alienated spiritual realm that will not involve you..."
"We can use your inner demons to train our undead friends, so that they can understand the true meaning of the way of the strong. You can also take this opportunity to face your own fears and sharpen your mind. This is obviously a win-win situation. Why get angry?"
"For the love of the gods please stop!" Tuttle put his head in his hands in shame.
"You are a devil! In fact, you are no longer a human being. There must be a devil living inside your body!" Hal was furious.
