This Game Is Too Real
Chapter 139: The Impressive Manager

Chapter 139: Chapter 139: The Impressive Manager

[Type 20 "Spine Needle" Gauss Rifle]

[Description: As standard anti-material equipment for orbital airborne troops, the Type 20 "Spine Needle" Gauss rifle adopts a barrel-less design with hollow magnetic guidance. Its standard ammunition is the 9mm caliber, 100g "long nail" tail-stabilized bullet.]

[When firing standard ammunition, the theoretical muzzle velocity can reach 5 Mach, with a muzzle kinetic energy of 144,755 joules. Considering the special operational environment of the orbital airborne troops, the Type 20 "Spine Needle" Gauss rifle is designed to fire conductive materials through a side loading mechanism, even without standard ammunition, such as cut iron nails and steel balls. However, it should be noted that when firing non-standard ammunition, the stability and accuracy of shooting cannot be guaranteed. Please refer to the user manual and use caution.]

144,755 joules of muzzle kinetic energy!

When Chu Guang first saw this number, he thought he had read it wrong.

If he remembered correctly, the single-shot energy of the 20mm caliber M61 Vulcan cannon on an F16 fighter plane was only around 50,000 joules.

A muzzle kinetic energy exceeding 144,000 joules, that’s an order of magnitude higher than an artillery cannon!

Can this thing even still be called a rifle???

But if you only look at the caliber, calling it a rifle isn’t technically wrong.

Chu Guang picked up the fearsomely powerful Gauss rifle from the conveyor belt, held it in his hands, and studied it for a bit, before stripping off the cumbersome magazine.

The bullets stuffed in the magazine were long and more resembled a shuttle than a nail in shape; the pattern on their tails was likely what served as the "stabilizing tail fins," allowing the bullets to maintain a stable trajectory during flight.

Lu Yang and his teammates’ Gauss rifles seemed to use a different technical approach—an enclosed magnet track with a rifled barrel added in the middle.

Chu Guang noticed through drone surveillance that their Gauss rifles required a replacement of the overheated barrel after continuous firing.

Intuition told Chu Guang that the barrel-less design might carry a higher level of technical content, but the costs of maintenance and usage were hard to predict.

"The recoil probably isn’t small... without an exoskeleton or power armor, it might indeed be hard to handle."

"And there’s the ammunition, 10 bullets is too few."

"I wonder if it would work to make a similar shaped bullet out of tungsten steel."

With the production conditions at Outpost Base, expecting the materials to be completely identical was unlikely, but shaping the bullets similarly shouldn’t be a big issue.

Chu Guang planned to save these 10 "original bullets" and use them sparingly for valuable targets. For dealing with ordinary Variants, some imitation ammunition should suffice.

In addition, the optical sights on the rifle were a nice touch, with a max magnification of 12 times.

However, perhaps having used up all his luck on the advanced blind box, 11 standard blind boxes ended up giving him 11 lollipops in a row.

And they were all chocolate-flavored, no less.

Still, Chu Guang was in a good mood, not only did his blood pressure not rise, but he even gave Xia Yan and Little Fish a lollipop each, sharing the joy he felt at that moment.

A cannon and a piece of armor.

This neat more than earning a killing.

It was a fortune!

...

The next day was a rare sunny day.

Despite the cloudless sky, not a single cloud was seen.

But the snowfall last night was heavy, with goose-feather-sized snowflakes falling all night. By dawn, the deepest snow had even exceeded knee-height.

He still hired two nomads for clearing the snow.

After inspecting the training of the security team, Chu Guang found Old Luka.

"I’m giving you a task; the details have been updated on your VM. Go to the brick factory and pick out two sharp survivors as your assistants."

"In a while, our allies will send someone here to register for labor dispatch. After that, you can follow the instructions I left on your VM and set off with them."

Old Luka nodded respectfully.

"Understood, my lord."

Not long after Old Luka left towards the direction of the brick factory,

Chu Guang quickly spotted through a drone in the sky, a large-wheeled off-road vehicle breaking through the snow and driving in from the north.

There were four people in the car.

Except for the driver and the copilot, who were clad in exoskeletons and armed with light weapons, the two passengers in the back weren’t equipped with exoskeletons, merely wearing uniform gray coats, likely civilian officials.

The condition of the roads in the Wasteland is poor, especially in the urban areas where one can count up to ten uneven ripples on a single road. Some of the wider cracks even exposed the underlying pipes, with differences in width exceeding two meters.

Forget about vehicles; even people and livestock had trouble crossing; they had no choice but to navigate around the ruins of buildings that had deep foundations.

The route coming from the crumbling overpass out of the city was anything but smooth; many pits had been buried by the snow.

Chu Guang watched from above and guessed with Xiao Qi when the car would break down. In the end, Xiao Qi guessed right, and about 1 kilometer from Wetland Park, the off-road vehicle’s front wheel plunged straight into a ditch.

Snow spray was whipped into the sky, but no matter how the tire spun in the pit, it simply couldn’t dig itself out.

The co-driver and driver had no choice but to get out of the car, gripping the hub with both hands, they actually managed to lift the front of the vehicle out of the trench with the brute force of their exoskeletons.

Chu Guang had originally planned on calling over a couple of Strength-type players to help, but seeing this scene immediately dispelled that thought.

"The power of technology is really strong."

When can I get a set for each of my dear players?

Wouldn’t moving bricks be super fast?

After expressing his admiration, Chu Guang watched the group get back in the car and drive towards the North Gate of Wetland Park. He turned off the VM screen, went downstairs, and waited at the north gate.

...

The off-road vehicle couldn’t enter Wetland Park, so the driver and the vehicle waited outside the North Gate, while the other three continued on foot.

The group quickly reached Outpost Base and met with the Manager there, who invited them to the reception room.

"Let me introduce myself first. I am Li De, from the logistics department of the First Pioneer Corps, which is part of the Silver Wing Group. The person behind me is Luo Hua, my colleague from logistics, assigned as the provisional Office head for your camp, responsible for communication and coordination. Another person is Ais, from the security department, mainly in charge of his safety."

"Hello, Mr. Manager." The man named Luo Hua, wearing glasses, looked somewhat refined.

The striking female bodyguard simply nodded at him, without uttering a word or joining the conversation, as if she were the air that didn’t exist.

Chu Guang shook Li De’s extended right hand with a smile as warm as a spring breeze on his face.

"Chu Guang, Manager of the Shelter No. 404. I am honored to have the opportunity to work with you. Please, take a seat."

Handsome faces always tend to be well-received.

Even if facial muscles stiffened from the northern wind, upon seeing Chu Guang’s smile, Li De managed to squeeze out an equally friendly grin.

Communicating with civilized people is so much more comfortable.

It’s okay to be a bit poor, as long as we can communicate.

Throughout his journey, Li De had had his fill of the natives, who were impossible to interact with in the manner of civilized people.

Except for the bodyguards on duty at the door, the three people in the room took their seats one after another.

Li De didn’t beat around the bush, and upon sitting down, he went straight to the point and took out a tablet from the bag he was carrying.

"Let’s begin then. I have provided a list here, which details what we can offer you. We are still paying each laborer 1 CR per hour, 200 people working for 10 hours a day, with a total daily wage expense of 2000 CR... This is our budget."

Chu Guang took the tablet from his hand, his index finger swiping the screen, quickly scanning the list.

Generally, the purchasing power of CRs was quite strong.

Perhaps because the production line was on caterpillar tracks, the list’s prices were closer to the standards of the East Coast natives, even seeming a bit cheaper than those at the Survivor Bases on the East Coast.

CR could wholesale quite a few bulk commodities.

However, when Chu Guang saw the strange trade items towards the end of the list, such as one kilogram of starch, glucose, sucrose, amino acids (including thirty types such as lysine and tryptophan)... he was taken aback.

The goods were being sold by the molecule?

Of course, besides these too technical items, there were normal trade items as well.

For example, rice, wheat, and corn, these agricultural products were 2 CR per kilogram.

Chu Guang remembered that rice only had a 75% starch content; wouldn’t buying rice actually be more expensive than purchasing starch?

Besides that, there were also plant-based meat patties or mince, each kilogram costing just 2 CR, surprisingly the same price as rice and wheat.

In any Survivor Base at Qingquan City, it was impossible for meat to be priced the same as something grown in the ground!

Additionally, processed and cooked foods were also on the list.

One portion containing 430g of class C nutrition meal cost 1 CR, which included enough carbohydrates, fibers, proteins, and other mineral nutrients for a meal’s daily intake. But, the water content seemed a bit high, as one portion of 800g class A nutrition meal was priced at 8 CR.

Was this a family bucket for sale?

These were pretty much the food items available for trade. Starting from 10 CR, the list began to include various daily necessities and industrial products.

For instance, one kilogram of sulfur soap, priced exactly at 10 CR, could be cut into 10 pieces with a net weight of 100 grams each, equating to 1 CR per piece.

Then there was salt, where they only sold purified sodium chloride, and each kilogram also required just 10 CR.

Interestingly, their price of salt was both ten times that of grains and meat. Chu Guang couldn’t immediately determine whether this was cheap or expensive.

At his place, salt was sold by the "liang".

Then, starting from the 100 CR range, some good items would appear.

For instance, submachine guns priced at 200 CR, and assault rifles at 300 CR. There were also bulletproof vests for 100 CR and heavy-duty full-body bulletproof armor for 300 CR.

Bullets were extremely cheap, with one CR buying three, equivalent to a pound of rice.

"Why are there no Gauss rifles?"

Chu Guang directly scrolled to the bottom of the list, where he found some production tools that he might use, but not the power armor and Gauss rifles he wanted more.

Li De said with a straight face,

"I’m sorry, Manager sir, our power armor and Gauss rifles are the soldiers’ lifelines; we can’t sell those."

Chu Guang nodded.

"Understood, I was being presumptuous."

Got it.

It looks like it’s not easy for you guys to produce that stuff either, at least not to the point where everyone has one.

In Chu Guang’s memory, although the principle of coil guns was quite simple, in reality, it was a very expensive technology, so costly that the Americans mounted the guns on ships, scammed the military budget, and then dismantled them.

And think about it, how cheap are traditional cannons?

They’re easy to maintain; you fire one shot and it explodes, if the barrel is damaged, just replace it and fire again.

Chu Guang had studied all of the previous night but still couldn’t understand what material was used for the magnetic rails of the Type 20 "Stinger" Gauss rifle, let alone dare to disassemble it and take a look.

He wasn’t foolish.

What if metallic hydrogen was stuffed inside the magnetic rails?

That would blow up directly.

Studying black technology was truly more thrilling than opening a blind box. After thinking it over, Chu Guang still decided not to bother with it. Not to mention that even if he understood it, he might not be able to make it, as he completely lacked the equipment and preconditions.

Every tiny breakthrough was the result of thousands of research topics and tens of thousands of experimental results piling up. And when quantitative change accumulated into qualitative change, focusing on a single mature technology, it contained tens of thousands of those tiny breakthroughs.

So, just open blind boxes.

At least the items from blind boxes could be used immediately.

You need guns and cannons to get grain, grain to have people, and people to develop industry, expand territory, and pick up trash from farther away. Once grain, electricity, and minerals are all readily available and production capacity rises, then it’s time to talk about the tech tree.

Otherwise, it’s useless no matter who comes.

Chu Guang: "There are no issues with the terms, at our place one kilogram of rice requires... um, 10 copper coins. So, converting that, I think a fair exchange rate would be 1 CR for 5 copper coins."

Originally, Chu Guang thought to say 2 CR for 1 silver coin.

But then, he reconsidered and chose a more emotionally intelligent way of saying it.

However, to his surprise, this military supply officer friend was not the least bit grateful and simply shook his head and said,

"Manager sir, I may be quite direct, our captain is a rough person, indeed he doesn’t understand these matters, but do you think I don’t understand either?"

"Let’s not make it so complicated, and besides, exchanging each other’s money back and forth is pointless; we can’t stay here forever. We will pay all the money to you directly at the standard rate of 1 CR per hour. As for how many silver coins you plan to pay your residents, that is an internal issue for you, and we will not interfere."

"As for the issue you brought up about CR not circulating properly, we have already solved it for you. This list in your hands was summarized overnight by our logistics colleagues. I believe the supplies listed are definitely richer than any commercial team you’ve seen here, don’t you think?"

To sum up in one sentence, you can’t bamboozle me.

Pay whatever hourly wage you wish to your people; after all, this is what we are offering.

The items are sold to you at cost price, which is already quite generous.

Chu Guang, with years of sales experience, of course understood the implied meaning and showed an embarrassed smile on his face.

"That works too."

Originally, he still wanted to say that his people (players) had a minimum hourly wage of 1 silver coin, which would correspond to 2 CR. But he didn’t expect the other party to be so shrewd, not even wanting his money.

Seeing that Chu Guang expressed affirmative attitude, Li De looked at him cautiously and said,

"So may I assume that we have reached consensus?"

Yesterday, Lu Yang bragged to him that the manager of Shelter No. 404 was a very straightforward person, and they reached consensus in less than ten minutes.

Now it seemed, it wasn’t that this guy was straightforward, but that their captain was too straightforward...

"We’ve reached half an agreement," Chu Guang nodded and continued, "Your team leader promised me that you would provide food and lodging for our people. Considering the distance of 10 kilometers between us, our people simply can’t afford to waste so much time on the road every day. And then there’s the matter of eating, which is also a big issue."

When Li De heard the earlier statement, "We’ve reached half an agreement," he was fumbling for his blood pressure medication in his pocket, but it was the latter half of the statement that finally put his nerves at ease.

That was a reasonable demand.

"Rest assured on that account, we have already built a temporary camp for your workers. Although it’s not as comfortable as the shelter, there is no issue with keeping out the wind and keeping warm. As for meals, also rest assured, we will provide a mobile kitchen for you, supplying three meals a day at the standard of 1CR per meal."

Chu Guang nodded thoughtfully.

"1CR per meal, so that would be 3CR a day, right?"

Li De was slightly taken aback and nodded cautiously.

"Uh, yes, sir."

Chu Guang’s face broke into a smile.

"At the standard of 3CR per person per day, you could just transfer the money directly to us. We’ll make bulk purchases and prepare our own food. That way you wouldn’t need to set up any mobile kitchen. Just some cooking utensils would suffice, what do you think?"

Li De was dumbfounded.

Is that possible???

However, he did not immediately give his opinion; instead, he silently calculated the costs in his mind.

Deploying a mobile kitchen in the workers’ camp would incur actual daily costs of at least 1000CR, not to mention the hassle if anyone got food poisoning.

They had encountered similar issues when cooperating with the locals before.

Paying out at the standard of 3CR per person per day for 200 people would be 600CR, they would cut costs by 40 percent and also avoid any risks.

Li De nodded decisively in agreement.

"Deal!"

Chu Guang also promptly extended his right hand.

"Agreed!"

...

After reaching a consensus, both parties quickly drafted a contract in black and white, signed their respective names, and used their fingerprints to substitute for a company seal.

At this moment, Li De finally understood his team leader’s appraisal of this manager as "straightforward."

Indeed.

His efficiency was impressive.

He was truly wasted here...

Luo Hua, who had taken on the role of office head, stayed behind, while Li De set off under the escort of Ais to the pick-up point at the entrance of Wetland Park.

She would later return to Outpost Base, and together with Luo Hua, they would use the materials they brought to build a simple cabin as an office space.

"The conditions here are really primitive... they’re still using the primitive way of steel production," Luo Hua couldn’t help but remark as he looked at the large chimney to the south.

Ais seemed indifferent to these facilities and simply fell silent for a while before speaking.

"That man is very powerful."

"Powerful?"

"Mhm, an Awakener, probably at the first stage."

"Which one?" Luo Hua looked up curiously, noticing that there were still quite a few residents of the refuge around.

These people also looked at them curiously, not knowing what to make of it.

"The one who was talking to you guys earlier."

"You mean their manager?" Luo Hua asked in surprise, "But I thought you had to —"

"Go through countless life and death trials, at least once at Hell’s Gate."

Ais’s face remained expressionless, but her pupils held a hint of caution, as she unusually added an extra comment.

It seems the team leader’s appraisal was correct.

"That man is powerful."

-

(Sorry, I’m a bit late, I just fell asleep on the desk ... QAQ)

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