Volume 6: Mecha Contest Chapter 299 Penalty for breach of contract
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The hot pot restaurant recommended by Qin Zhao is called "Xinghai Lao", located at the corner of the Chinese Gourmet in the East Fourth District. Ke Lan had seen their advertisement for this restaurant on the Internet. It claimed to have everything from authentic Sichuan hot pot from the old era to alien ingredients with the flavor of Alpha Star - he would not comment on the first half of the advertisement, as the second half, in his opinion, was probably just a gimmick to attract attention.
There are only a few types of meat from the native creatures of Alpha Planet that can be used as food, and these types of meat need to go through dozens of complicated processing steps before they can be served on the table... Of course, the complicated process is not the key point. The key point is that even if they are processed well, their taste is really hard to compliment. In addition, they contain radiation and toxins that cannot be completely removed. Eating too much will affect your health...
To sum it up in one sentence: expensive, unpalatable, and not safe at all - only in the first ten years after the Ark landed on Alpha would people choose these ingredients for curiosity or to show off their wealth... As for now, basically no one would spend more than ten times the money of real meat to eat something that is even more difficult to swallow than cheap synthetic meat.
"Why does this store recommended by Qin Zhao feel unreliable..." With such doubts, Ke Lan pushed open the door of "Xinghai Lao".
Entering from the front door, there is a T-shaped corridor that divides the entire store into two areas. The area on the right is called "Area A", and the ingredients on the menu are mainly synthetic meat, soy protein products and hydroponic vegetables, with a low per capita consumption; while the "S Area" on the left is all real meat and soil-grown plants, and you can even see a lot of expensive alcoholic beverages on the menu.
The box booked by Hound and his crew was the largest box in Area S, called "Box Zero".
When Ke Lan and Zofia walked into the private room, everyone else had already arrived. Except for Qin Zhao who was still a little reserved, Hound and others had already started eating to their heart's content.
"If you don't come soon, all the good stuff will be eaten by us." The Hound shouted to Ke Lan while skillfully scooping the fat beef out of the pot with chopsticks.
"Yeah, these ingredients are limited each week, and basically all of them are here." Leighton puffed out his cheeks and chewed hard, even his voice became unclear.
"This roasted lamb leg is really good." Zhuo Ligetu nodded in agreement. He held a roasted lamb leg that was more than half a meter long in his hand, but compared with his muscular body, the lamb leg looked very small and slender.
"..." Ke Lan wanted to complain a few more words, but at this moment, Sofia suddenly came up, and in front of everyone, she took his arm as if to declare her sovereignty, and took him to the two empty seats at one end of the table.
"It doesn't matter. If this store doesn't have enough ingredients, I can have someone send another batch from the consortium's cold storage." Zofia said.
"Uh... does this restaurant allow diners to bring their own ingredients?" Ke Lan asked in confusion.
"Three hours ago, it was already a property of the Soma Group." Zofia said with a smile.
"..." Ke Lan always felt that she might have picked up the wrong script, such as "The Domineering CEO Falls in Love with Me". The lines and the plot... were exactly the same as those in the female-oriented novels. The only difference was that the genders of the protagonist and the CEO were reversed.
This is probably what the legendary "living off a gigolo" means, right?
"Ke Lan, don't act like you've gotten something for nothing." The Hound waved the chopsticks in his hand. "Whether it's hard rice or soft rice, if it smells good, it's good rice. If you ask me, Miss Soma is such an outstanding woman, she has countless suitors. The fact that you can stand out among so many people is also a manifestation of your ability, right?"
"But the problem is that I didn't pursue her at all--" Ke Lan couldn't help but say in his heart. For someone like him who was solo from the womb... No, to be precise, he should be a top widower who has been alone since he was in the artificial womb. He has no concept of love at all... What's more, in his opinion, Zofia was engaged to him purely to use him as a shield from the beginning, and there was no emotional foundation between at all.
This was the main reason why Ke Lan always felt awkward... He always felt that Sofia chose him more out of the purpose of maximizing benefits rather than the kind of ordinary emotions between opposite sexes.
But what puzzled him was... if it was for maximizing profits, she should have chosen to enter into a business marriage with the princes , instead of a relic hunter like himself with no background.
Although after these explorations, Ke Lan has accumulated a considerable amount of capital, and their fame has gradually spread in the hunter circle, but compared with those behemoths that have been operating for many generations, this achievement is simply insignificant.
Unless Ke Lan exposes her secrets...but the price of doing so would be completely losing her freedom for the rest of her life.
Ke Lan could never understand the train of thought of the male protagonists in those female-oriented novels: Why would a male protagonist with impeccable background, ability and appearance fall in love with a naive female protagonist who has no family background, is not top-notch in appearance, and has no amazing abilities? For a heroine like this, the only commendable qualities are probably her innocence and kindness... However, in the real world, innocence and kindness are perhaps the most worthless things.
While Ke Lan was still thinking about Zofia's purpose, Hound put down his chopsticks, cleared his throat, and said seriously: "Now that everyone is here, and Miss Soma, the shareholder and largest sponsor of our hunting group, is also here, there is one thing I have to say first... This matter is related to Qin Zhao. I think if we don't solve this matter first, I guess the little girl won't have the heart to eat today."
"What's wrong?" Ke Lan was slightly stunned and looked at Qin Zhao who was sitting next to her. Although the steam from the hot pot was rising in the private room, the girl's face was still a little pale, and the tableware in front of her was basically untouched.
"The Polaris Hunting Group has signed internship contracts with all the rookie hunters who entered the tiankeng. You should know this, right?" The Hound said to Ke Lan .
"I know. What's wrong?"
"They were fooled. Those bastards from Polaris buried a lot of traps in the contract. It was only after I read the text of the contract that I realized... This is not an internship contract at all, but a contract to sell one's body!"
There was a hint of anger in Hound's words. He continued, "Generally speaking, in a formal internship contract, if an intern hunter feels that the hunting group is not suitable for him, he can choose to terminate the contract and leave at any time. As long as he does not cause any actual losses to the hunting group and returns the equipment, the hunting group will not make things difficult for him... Even if there are some tricky hunting groups, at most they will only charge a training fee that is not too large."
"But," Hound's voice suddenly rose several degrees, "these scumbags from Polaris not only tricked newcomers into doing high-risk mining operations in S-class ruins, but also set a penalty in the contract. If the trainee hunter terminates the contract before completing five exploration missions, he must pay this penalty to the Polaris Hunting Group."
"But this kind of penalty can't be set too high, right? If it's a sky-high penalty, even if the management department doesn't intervene, the interns won't sign such a contract... They're not stupid..." Ke Lan asked doubtfully.
"That's true, but the cunning thing about Polaris is that the penalty they set varies according to the hunter's qualifications... If it's a pure rookie with no exploration experience, the penalty he needs to pay for canceling the contract is less than 50 credit points. But if this rookie completes even one mining mission, then his qualifications will be added with a record of 'successful exploration of S-level ruins'. In this way, the amount of the penalty will naturally rise."
The hound paused, then continued, "Qin Zhao's exploration record is bound to ours... In other words, she is also considered a member of the group that discovered the core control center of the bottomless pit... If she wants to terminate the contract and switch to our hunting group now, the penalty she needs to pay... is about 87 million credit points."
"So much?" Ke Lan was a little surprised when he heard the number. Although they were not unable to come up with the money, just handing over more than 87 million to the Polaris Hunting Group made them feel uncomfortable no matter how they thought about it.
What's more, this 87 million is just to recruit an intern who has just entered the industry...
