This Game Is Too Real
Chapter 101 Are You Stuck in a Bug Here?

Chapter 101: Chapter 101 Are You Stuck in a Bug Here?

The Commercial Team from Red River Town had arrived earlier than planned.

Upon hearing the news of the Blood Hand Clan’s demise, these merchants had hurriedly marched and reached the northern outskirts of Qingquan City in just two and a half days.

The longer they delayed, the colder the weather would become, and the probability of the prisoners’ survival would decrease. They needed to transport these prisoners back to Red River Town before they froze to death and sell them to the right buyers.

If more than half died on the return journey, they would hardly make any money from the trip...

Braving the heavy snow that filled the sky, the dust-covered Commercial Team arrived at the gates of the abandoned tire factory.

Signaling for the team behind him to stop, a man wearing a cotton coat and carrying a semi-automatic rifle on his chest stepped forward.

He looked up at Chu Guang and Hain standing on the gate and called out with a loud voice, "I’m an employee of the Horseshoe Iron Business Group, your goods are all here!"

Hain’s bodyguard, named Wen, was also in the Commercial Team.

However, his status did not permit him to interject, so he just stood beside the pack yaks, cleaning the chambers of his revolver to pass the time.

"One moment."

Chu Guang gestured and then turned to the players by his side.

The players, already impatient from waiting for the plot, immediately began cranking the winch and opened the wooden fort gates.

As the gates opened, a group of Looter prisoners, dejectedly walked out from the dungeon, escorted by 4 players.

"Behave yourselves!"

"Don’t dawdle!"

Actually, the Looters weren’t dawdling at all, but the players just felt like they had to shout something, or it would seem like something was missing.

Due to the language barrier, the Looters didn’t understand what the players in Blue Jackets were saying; they could only sense, from the shaking muzzles of their guns, that they were probably being urged to move forward.

Seeing the yaks at the gate and the horseshoe-shaped badges, many of the seasoned Looter veterans had guessed their fate, their faces showing a deathly despair.

Only a few younger Looter teenagers appeared confused, not knowing where they would be taken or what kind of end awaited them.

The players holding rifles whispered among themselves.

Some of them had died in battle just a few days previously but were now alive again.

Makabazi, "There are a few prisoners here that look pretty familiar."

Debt Giant Eye, "Hey, which one took you down?"

Makabazi, "Hell knows, it was so dark, and bullets were whizzing by; I doubt it was the enemy that got me. Damn! It makes me angry just thinking about it. How did I even die?"

Debt Giant Eye, "Come on, you’re just making excuses for being bad at it, and nobody’s blaming you. Friendly fire counts too, you know we check for bullet holes afterward, right?"

Makabazi, "Let’s drop that subject... What do you think will happen to these Looters?"

Debt Giant Eye, "Looks like the Manager intends to sell them to Red River Town."

Makabazi, "Red River Town?"

Debt Giant Eye, "Yeah, it’s in the game’s official setting collection, haven’t you read it? It’s a town under Qingquan City, probably a few dozen kilometers away. There are a lot of pre-war garbage landfills there. The slaves sold there will be sent into the mines to dig until they die."

"Tsk tsk, that’s terrible..." Makabazi’s eyes flickered, and suddenly he got an idea, "But on the other hand, what if I sold myself there and then committed suicide? Couldn’t I take advantage of the situation for free?"

Hearing this rogue plan, Debt Giant Eye was shocked.

"Fuck, are you trying to exploit a bug?"

Although their crimes were heinous enough to be hung ten times over, Chu Guang had still preserved their basic human rights, allowing them to keep their clothes and shoes, eat the unidentifiable meat from the warehouse, and use a small amount of scavenged bandages for simple dressings.

It was not out of pity that he did this.

Purely, he was concerned that too many deaths would affect his income.

The good days for these people were still to come.

"30?" The leading man counted the number of prisoners and asked Chu Guang, "Why is there one missing?"

"Must have frozen to death," Chu Guang casually looked back as he descended from the gate and happened to see a player dragging a corpse with a broken leg out of the dungeon.

Seeing that the numbers matched up, the leading man nodded and, without saying much, simply signaled for the guards behind him to help unload the goods.

The sooner they completed the trade, the sooner they could head home.

...

According to the agreement between Chu Guang and Hain, each prisoner would be exchanged for an equivalent of twenty kilograms of coarse salt, regardless of whether they were disabled or not.

With one of the thirty-one prisoners dead, that counted as thirty, totaling six hundred kilograms of coarse salt.

Here, coarse salt was a specialty of Red River Town and served as a general equivalent in trade between the two parties.

Chu Guang had no use for so much coarse salt, so aside from two hundred kilograms of it, the remaining four hundred kilograms were exchanged for some of Red River Town’s specialties.

This included thirty revolving rifles, eight boxes of handmade bullets totaling over four thousand, which were rolled in copper casings, and a large quantity of copper, zinc, chrome ingots, and strong oxidizers like potassium permanganate.

The former satisfied the defense needs of the Outpost Base, while the latter drove the industrial development of the Outpost Base, providing raw materials.

Besides that, there were miscellaneous hardware pieces that would be used in processing machinery, as well as some gears and drive shafts of the like, primarily for the proprietress of the weapon shop.

Although a few player-specialists in metallurgy could forge by hand, the issue with steelmaking was unsolved, and the material strength remained a significant problem.

The quality of knives they ground by hand was, to put it mildly, unspeakable; they were passable for temporary use, but surprisingly wore out quickly in actual use, so much so that they often needed replacing every few days.

It made Chu Guang wonder several times whether Xia Yan was deliberately making them that way out of laziness.

Although the industrial capabilities of Red River Town couldn’t compare with those of Giant Stone City, making some processing tools was not a problem, and their quality was pretty decent.

This time Chu Guang intentionally purchased a few more sets, which should be fine to use until the coming spring.

To transport these goods, the Horseshoe Iron Business Group had mobilized ten mutated yaks and also provided eight gunmen armed with revolving rifles as guards.

Watching the people unloading the goods, Chu Guang glanced at Hain next to him and said,

"Speaking of which, that person claimed to be an employee of the Horseshoe Iron Business Group. Are they your colleagues?"

Hain let out a chuckle and explained,

"Although we both work for the Horseshoe Iron Business Group, someone like me is slightly different from the employees you have in mind. To put it simply, our relationship with the business group is more akin to a partnership than employment. The caravan guards and yaks you see belong to the business group, while the goods were purchased with our own money."

Chu Guang’s interest was piqued.

"Purchased from the business group?"

Hain looked surprised at Chu Guang, as if he hadn’t expected him to know that, and nodded in confirmation,

"Yes, our goods are all purchased through a centralized procurement from the business group, and the sellers are mostly customers of the business group... apart from this time. We reconcile every transaction, deducting the cost of the goods and payment for the guards. From the profit, we then have to give sixty percent back to the business group."

This sounded somewhat like a franchise system.

The goods, logistics, and even customer relations all belonged to the "headquarters," and the merchants like Hain acted like franchisees.

In this way, even if a sale incurred a loss, the Horseshoe Iron Business Group wouldn’t bear any risk, and the loss was entirely the franchisee’s own.

However, if a profit was made, the business group would take sixty percent of the earnings.

No, even in the event of a loss, from the business group’s perspective, it was still a profit.

After all, all the "franchisees" purchased their goods from the business group, which certainly wouldn’t sell the products to the franchisees at cost price; a certain portion of the profit was retained by the group.

Contemplating this, an involuntary sentiment arose within Chu Guang,

"The natives are the real experts at harvesting leeks.

Compared to them, I’m plainly too kind!"

However, this trading model was something he might consider adopting in the future.

For instance, in a trading system.

...

"Goodbye, my friend, I hope we can trade happily with you again next spring!"

The delivery of goods finally finished, Hain stood with his two bodyguards beside the Commercial Team, tipping his hat in respect to Chu Guang.

Chu Guang smiled faintly, waving his hand.

"Fair winds to you."

Hain laughed heartily in response.

"Hahaha, looks like we’ll have to walk against the wind for a while! We’re heading off first, good luck to you all!"

The group began their journey.

It was then that Chu Guang noticed the female Mercenary beside Hain suddenly turned her head and gave him a look full of silent accusation.

Their eyes met, but the Mercenary wasn’t embarrassed, she even boldly blew him a kiss through the air and mouthed ’We’ll meet again,’

Then, she disappeared into the vast snowy mist along with the Commercial Team.

Chu Guang was slightly startled, furrowed his brows, and thought for a good while but couldn’t remember her name; even more, he was completely puzzled by her final action.

Was it... Wendy?

Or was it Helen?

After all, he had only heard that Merchant named Hain mention her once—who would pay attention to the name of a Mercenary by a Merchant’s side?

Forget it, no point in pondering such trivial matters.

Chu Guang shook his head, signaled the players to load the materials they had exchanged for the slaves onto the carts, preparing to haul them back to the Outpost Base’s warehouse.

However, even though Chu Guang wasn’t bothered, his fellow players couldn’t suppress their gossiping fervor, especially after witnessing that blown kiss; they instantly had wild thoughts deep as the Mariana Trench.

"Damn! That look definitely has a story!"

"I saw it! That flying kiss!"

"Do you think the Manager might have something going on with that woman?"

"Come on, they were only together for a few days."

"A few days is quite some time, you know!"

"Damn, what about the weapon shop’s proprietress?"

"Big news! The Manager’s unspeakable million-word short story with the Commercial Team’s female Mercenary!"

"Tsk, tsk, not simple at all! Definitely an untold story behind that!"

"Got it, we’ll have Brother Mole do a drawing once we’re back!"

Tsk.

These people, really...

They think of the thigh at the sight of an arm.

Chu Guang’s eyebrow twitched, but in the end, he restrained the urge to retort and maintained the dignity a NPC should have.

Coughing, he commanded in an authoritative tone to the players who stopped to gossip and forgot the task at hand.

"Hurry up!"

"While the snow at noon isn’t as heavy as before, we need to haul all the goods back!"

Under Chu Guang’s urging, players finally stopped dawdling and quickly loaded the packaged goods onto the wooden carts.

Even so, they chatted non-stop from beginning to end.

Everything was finally packed, and the group was ready to hit the road.

Looking back at the gate, [The Work Site Youth and Brick]took a step forward to inquire to Chu Guang.

"Respected Manager, what should we do with this outpost? Do you still want us to guard it?"

There was nothing left in the outpost, and he was wondering if they could collect their rewards ahead of time if it was no longer needed.

Chu Guang thought for a few seconds and then gave an order.

"Burn down the gate."

"Leave the rest for the Variants."

The outpost was too far from the players’ respawn point, and it didn’t have any strategic value in terms of location; there was no point in keeping it.

Besides, just standing inside, Chu Guang felt his SAN value dropping.

He really couldn’t understand how the Looters could settle down here with a clear conscience.

[The Work Site Youth and Brick]nodded excitedly in agreement.

"Yes!"

Destroying things was much more fun than chopping trees!

...

Chu Guang trusted the players’ looting abilities.

They would dig three feet into the ground if need be, not letting go of anything, even going so far as to haul away the entire cupboard if they felt like it.

The entire Blood Hand Clan’s outpost was left almost bare, with nothing usable remaining.

Those things left behind were either inconvenient to carry or simply had no value to be recycled.

Take, for instance, the dried meats in the warehouse.

Clearly, a significant portion of these meats did not come from normal prey.

After being dried, it was hard to distinguish which meats were from animals and which were from their own kind based on appearance alone.

Out of a sense of mental cleanliness, Chu Guang simply abandoned them all.

Some were thrown to the Looter prisoners in the dungeons as feed for a while, and the rest just hung from the beams in the tire factory’s warehouse.

They might as well feed the rats and the cockroaches.

As for tubers like horned potatoes and the plump grains, as well as a vegetable resembling cabbage, Chu Guang had these transported back and stored.

These were all good stuff.

Especially those vegetables, totaling three to four thousand kilograms, when mixed with grains and meat, they would last for a long time and also balance the clones’ nutrition.

Without a doubt, these foods were likely raided by the Looters from Brown’s Farm during the autumn harvest.

Apart from the food, there were also things like Hyena hide, deer hide, Wild boar hide, and even Bear hide—totaling about 230 pieces.

It was impossible that all these hides came from Bet Street.

Bet Street only had about a hundred households; even if they drained all the bone marrow from Old Leech, they might not have been able to assemble these tributes.

Chu Guang speculated that a significant portion of them must have come from tributes by other Survivor Settlements nearby.

These ill-gotten goods which the Looters had laboriously collected throughout the entire autumn had barely been enjoyed before they changed hands to their new masters.

Naturally, Chu Guang had no intention of returning them back.

The rules of the Wasteland.

What you find, you keep.

The gates burst into raging flames, and the sparks carried away by the North wind kept drifting towards the main building.

Looking at the fire before him and recalling the contents of those two diaries, Chu Guang felt a complex emotion stirring in his heart.

Pulling out the "Silver Snake" revolver holstered at his waist, he fired a shot into the sky.

"Bang—!"

The gunshot echoed along the snow-covered streets, drowning in the blizzard, serving as a prayer for the souls who died here.

Brushing off the dissipating smoke from the gun’s barrel.

Chu Guang reholstered the Silver Snake into Teng Teng’s crafted gun holster, turned to the waiting players, and took the lead.

"Let’s go home!"

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