This Game Is Too Real
Chapter 182 Power Armor! And the Black Briefcase!

Chapter 182: Chapter 182 Power Armor! And the Black Briefcase!

"...This is Voice of Giant Stone City, interrupting with a news flash: the Black Snake Mercenary Group encountered conflict with local survivors while on a mission in the northern suburbs of Qingquan City. Although Captain Pruitt and his brothers had an absolute advantage both tactically and in equipment, unfortunately, they ran into a bunch of shameless bullies who pick on the weak."

"The mercenaries stationed near the metro station put up a valiant resistance, but in the end, they were overwhelmed by sheer numbers. The entrance to the metro station is now controlled by the yokels from the North Suburb, forcing Captain Pruitt and the remaining men to retreat inside the metro station in search of another way out."

"Our station will continue to monitor the situation near Garden Street Metro Station, let’s pray for Captain Pruitt for three seconds, hoping he can make it back alive."

Pray?

No chance.

For those who lost money, not cursing these fools for three days and nights would be considered showing restraint.

It was just twelve mercenaries after all, their lives were probably not even valuable to themselves. Aside from their employer, no one cared whether they lived or died.

The gamblers of Giant Stone City only cared about their own wallets. They wished those who caused their losses, these harbingers of doom, would all die out there, preferably none returning.

Inside the Twin Tail Rat Tavern, the air was filled with an angry cacophony of swearing and curses, so vile that even the bartender behind the bar couldn’t help clicking his tongue.

These gambling drunks, who would ordinarily never agree on anything, even about something as trivial as how much water was in ’today’s special beer’, were united in their condemnation.

"Damn it, give me my money back!"

"They can’t even beat a bunch of beggars, what a disgrace to the mercenaries of Giant Stone City!"

"I seriously suspect that that old bastard Pruitt is in cahoots with the Central Casino! Think about it, what good is there in North Suburb that’s worth them rushing over in a plane? Renting a plane from the Militia Group isn’t cheap!"

"No matter what their commission was, don’t let me see that idiot in this tavern! I swear, I will spit in his face!"

"The Central Casino has fallen too, actually opening bets for such a boring event! They’d be better off betting on the day after tomorrow’s weather, at least that’s fair!"

People’s joys and sorrows are always disconnected.

While the gamblers of Giant Stone City were cursing the twelve mercenaries of the Black Snake Mercenary Group, wishing they’d all have their guts torn out by the barbarians, Jerry, who was crouching on the ground with his head in his hands, was shivering and praying that the survivors would spare his life in light of his surrender.

Although he had anticipated this end from the moment he became a mercenary, it didn’t mean that he was indifferent to life and death.

If possible, no one wants to die.

In the tunnel.

A dozen players were standing in front of a corpse, arguing so fiercely that their faces were flushed.

"Fuck! Whose kill is this?"

"I stabbed it first!"

"Obviously my strike was more fatal!"

"You guys take the Contribution Points, just give me the silver coins."

"Get lost! We’re all old players with VMs, who the hell still lacks that bit of contribution?"

Watching those survivors bicker, Jerry was shivering, also inexplicably confused, completely not understanding what they were arguing about.

Suddenly, Jerry noticed that those people were looking at him.

"...Wait, there’s still a prisoner here?"

"You think if we finish him off, it’ll count as a kill?"

"The red name is gone, probably useless."

"Yes...and I remember the Resident’s handbook states that attacking a neutral NPC will result in confinement depending on the severity of the incident, and attacking a friendly NPC might even result in permanent expulsion. His map marker is gray, so maybe his bounty is already completed after he became a prisoner?"

"What about the bounty? Who received it?"

"Umm... maybe it’s settled later? It’s always been like that before."

Although Jerry didn’t understand what those people were discussing, the occasional glances towards him indeed made him feel a chill down his spine.

It felt like being a fish on the chopping board.

His life and death depended entirely on a whim of these people.

Just then, a man wearing a blue exoskeleton with a ridiculously powerful warhammer hanging on his back walked over from the direction of the platform. Jerry was sure that the man who had blocked almost all their firepower just now wasn’t him.

Meanwhile, Jerry clearly felt that when the man appeared, the survivors around showed a respectful attitude, and even the whispers became much quieter.

He stopped in front of him.

The man looked down at him and asked,

"Where’s your captain?"

Jerry swallowed and glanced at the shelter nearby.

"He’s already gone in..."

Chu Guang looked to the side.

There was an iron gate left ajar, adorned with a prohibitory sign, yet behind the gate lay a straight passage leading to the refuge’s main entrance—the iconic gear-shaped alloy giant door several inches thick.

The entrance to Shelter No. 117, unlike the sunken entrance of Shelter No. 404, was built directly alongside the subway tunnel.

Shelters with three-digit serial numbers all belonged to the "full-cycle" category, which could completely physically disconnect from the outside world once their doors were closed. As long as the thermal nuclear fusion reactor’s energy supply remained uninterrupted, the shelter could operate indefinitely without needing any material exchange with the outside.

Theoretically, if the people inside were determined not to come out and had locked the door, nothing anyone did from the outside would make a difference. All those stories of attacks by fire and flood were child’s play compared to this; these civil defense facilities were built to withstand strategic nuclear strikes, and their designers had anticipated every possible scenario, including being hit by a megaton-yield nuclear blast.

However—

Shelter No. 117 had obviously been abandoned for many years; the reactor inside had long ceased operating, and relying on the backup power source to open the door was feasible, but expecting a full cycle was out of the question.

After a moment’s consideration, Chu Guang bent down and looked into the mercenary’s eyes.

"Let him come out."

Jerry moved back an inch nervously.

"It’s no use, nobody’s useful, Captain Pruitt won’t listen to me... He couldn’t care less about our lives."

Chu Guang smirked and took out a long nail, placing it gently in his hand.

That was a Gauss Rifle bullet—albeit a pure steel forged replica.

The moment Jerry saw the bullet, his breath halted for a few seconds.

Chu Guang continued.

"Go tell him."

"If he thinks he can escape from here just by wearing a suit of power armor, I’ll show him what stupidity costs."

"Of course, if he’s scared witless and plans to spend his life with this shelter, I can help him out. For example, use twenty tons of cement to seal this place up completely."

"This is my relic, if I can’t have it, no one can take anything from inside."

"Of course, if he’s a bit smarter and comes rolling out with his hands on his head, and if he explains clearly who your employer is—"

"I’ll spare him a dog’s life."

...

Captain Pruitt surrendered.

When he saw the long nail in Jerry’s hand through the camera, he made a choice between surrender and defence without much effort.

There was no need for hesitation.

In a shelter that had already been abandoned, with a reactor gone cold, and the cold fusion cell plugged into the backup power source barely enough for lighting and operating doors, he had no chance of holding out here.

Not to mention guarding this door until his death.

At most, he would starve or die of thirst inside within a week.

He was just a mercenary paid to do a job, without any ideological awakening of "dying with the mission."

The door to the shelter slowly opened.

Leaving his weapons at the entrance of the buffer room, Pruitt, with his hands on his head, walked out of the shelter’s main entrance under the watchful eyes of the gathered players.

Looking at Chu Guang standing at the doorway, he bowed his head and pleaded in a low voice.

"I surrender... I hope you’ll keep your promise."

"That depends on your honesty," said Chu Guang as he looked at him, "Tell me, who is your employer?"

Pruitt glanced at the survivors around him and swallowed before speaking.

"Sir, we’re just mercenaries paid to do a task and don’t have the privilege of meeting our employer. The middleman who assigns us tasks is called ’White Shark’; he’s the one who gave us the advance payment and the magnetic card for Shelter No. 117..."

White Shark?

Chu Guang looked at him and continued.

"What was your commission?"

Pruitt replied, "Our employer commissioned us to find a black briefcase, said to be in the Manager’s Office of Shelter No. 117. In addition, the employer mentioned that there was a power armor set here, supposedly a private collection of the shelter’s manager. The middleman told me, though, that the employer wasn’t sure if it was still here, just mentioned that if we saw it, to remember to take it along for an extra reward."

Chu Guang smirked lightly and said, "It seems your employer is quite familiar with this shelter."

Pruitt swallowed again and said, "That’s what I thought too... I feel like he might be someone from Shelter No. 117, but I’ve never seen him, I’m not even sure if he’s in Giant Stone City."

Chu Guang kept his eyes on him and asked further.

"Where can I find that White Shark?"

"At Pirate Bay Tavern in Giant Stone City, he’s the owner there, and a lot of mercenaries pick up jobs there," Pruitt replied, his expression tense as he hoped to please Chu Guang with his answer, "Sir, we really don’t know who the employer is... but if you want to have a word with White Shark, I can be of service to you."

Chu Guang gave a faint smile.

"I will find him myself."

Judging that he wouldn’t get anything crucial out of this guy, Chu Guang let him roll over to the side of the other prisoners, to squat down with their heads in their hands against the wall alongside the other three POWs.

Counting the sniper found by the Bull & Horse team, the Black Snake Mercenary Group had a total of thirteen mercenaries, with only four captured.

The rest were either killed in the crossfire or, before they had a chance to surrender, got turned into sieves by the players’ bayonets in close combat.

As for the players’ side, discounting those newbies who died in the surprise attack, the casualties reached 17. Given the base of 500 players, this number wasn’t enough to cause any major damage.

After the battle with the army, Outpost Base wouldn’t lack for active substances for a while; those fallen little players would be back on their feet in three days.

Chu Guang would deal with these prisoners later.

As for now, of course, counting the spoils of war was more important.

Just as the Manager headed towards Shelter No.117, the players guarding the door received the mission completion notification almost simultaneously.

"Giao! Si Si! Quickly check the VM!" Tail, who was holding a pipe rifle, said excitedly while flailing his arms, "37 Silver! We’ve struck it rich, eh!"

"Eh? I received it too," Si Si, looking at his VM in surprise, said, "Turns out everyone gets a share just for participating, but why do I only have 21 Silver..."

"It’s definitely because Si Si wasn’t as quick to charge as Tail!"

Glancing at a smug Tail, Si Si thoughtfully stroked his chin.

"Hmm, it might actually be because of that."

Elsewhere.

Old White, clad in heavy armor, walked over to the other three members of the Bull & Horse team, and excitedly told his buddies,

"That was freaking awesome! The warhammer was invincible! Once the shield wall was up, it didn’t matter if it was machine guns or rifles; nothing could get through!"

"It’s a weapon from the Manager, after all," Night Ten, carrying a sniper rifle, chuckled and said, "Old White, that armor was worth the buy."

"Hey, it would be nice if it could be bought!"

"Forget it, those game-breaking weapons, even if they were for sale, would be ridiculously expensive," Fang Chang casually responded to Old White and, gazing at his VM thoughtfully, said, "Speaking of which, the mission settled quite quickly. I got 111 Silver on my end."

"Already settled? That was fast... Holy crap! I got 144 Silver!" Night Ten’s eyes nearly popped out at the number displayed on his VM.

Wild Wind tried to analyze, "Maybe it’s because you took out one with your sniper rifle? I got 107 Silver, not much different from Fang Chang."

Fang Chang nodded thoughtfully and said,

"That must be it. Open up the completed missions page, and there is a detailed list explaining the source of each reward. I can see that my rewards are from two parts: one is the bounty mission reward, the other is the battlefield mission reward."

"For example, the sniper we took down earlier, his bounty and Contribution Points were divided equally among us at 25 percent, accounted into the bounty mission. At the same time, being a high-threat target, he also provided us with 50 battlefield points, included in the battlefield mission."

Night Ten’s face showed sudden understanding, "That makes sense... But what about the few elite monsters with red names that were killed later? It’s hard to tell who took them down."

Fang Chang replied, "Exactly. So the few red-named elite monsters killed in the group fight were included in the total earnings of the battlefield mission and split according to battlefield points. For instance, look at your bounty mission reward; it’s the same as ours. But you have slightly more battlefield points than us; thus, you have a bit more earnings."

The total earnings from the battlefield mission included various factors, mainly calculated based on the spoils of war and the difficulty of the battle. Although Wasteland OL did not disclose the specific calculations for battlefield earnings, players could still distinctly sense the differences.

For instance, the simplest one: defensive battles yield higher Contribution Points than offensive battles, while offensive battles yield higher Silver coin rewards than defensive ones. Fighting against an army gives higher returns than fighting against Looters, and fighting players gives higher returns than fighting Variants.

Old White said with a face full of surprise, "I got 171 Silver... Niubi! Just for standing in front with the shield up, they even gave me an extra 50 battlefield points!"

Hearing Bull & Horse team’s discussion, the surrounding players all wore envious expressions.

The vast majority of them only got 50 Silver, with only a few reaching 70 or even 80 Silver; those were T2 and T1 tier top players.

Looking at the VM on his arm, Mosquito couldn’t help but swear,

"MMP! I got 111 Silver! What kind of rip-off is this!"

Out of that, 100 Silver was from capturing prisoners!

Standing beside him, Mole commented calmly, "Normal, after all, apart from picking up a head, we indeed didn’t have much participation... but the good news is, I just received a pop-up for mission completion."

Obviously, the mission being referred to here was not the common bounty mission that everyone had, but the task of clearing the path from the Garden Street Metro Station to Shelter No.117.

Hearing Mole’s words, Mosquito’s eyes immediately lit up, "Wow! Bro, you’re awesome! Is the reward already credited!?"

"It is. Like we agreed, you get forty percent, I get sixty. I’ll transfer it to you now."

Saying this, Mole tapped twice on his VM with his index finger and generously transferred 480 out of the freshly acquired 1200 Silver coins to Mosquito.

As for the costs, the two had already shared them earlier.

Looking at the credited 480 Silver, Mosquito’s face lit up with joy, and he couldn’t close his mouth with excitement,

"Awesome! Hahaha, I’m rich!"

Observing the cheerful folks around, Zhang Hai, who was holding his bleeding buttocks, couldn’t help but come over and ask, "Excuse my ignorance, are there rewards for those without a VM? Where can I see the rewards?"

Mosquito gave him a sidelong glance.

"Dream on, do you even have DPS?"

Mole also chuckled and said.

"Don’t even think about it, bro, we didn’t even get the mission, so there’s no freakin’ reward. This mission isn’t meant for newbies anyway, just think of it as tagging along for some experience."

Zhang Hai: "Damn, it’s so cold it’s shaking my soul! Do newbies have no rights or what?"

Patting his shoulder, Mole spoke earnestly, "Be content, man. We all started this way, and back in our day, we had to earn Contribution Points by hauling bricks and chopping wood. Take my advice, save up and buy yourself a VM ASAP."

Zhang Hai: "%￥#@!"

While the players at the entrance to the shelter were still making a ruckus, Chu Guang had already passed through the open Alloy Giant Door, taking a Wrench and another guard with him into the interior of Shelter No.117.

Stepping on the concrete floor tiles, the soles of their shoes made a grating sound.

Judging by the thick layer of dust on the ground, it had been years since anyone had visited this place.

Although the chance of running into danger was slim, just to be safe, Chu Guang still held his warhammer at the ready. Up to now, he hadn’t encountered any energy weapons; damage in the wasteland was commonly kinetic-based, and the nitrogen shield was almost absolutely effective against small mass flying props.

Picking up a flyer for Shelter No.117 from the ground, Chu Guang flipped it over to the back, where there was a schematic drawing of the shelter’s structure.

"Shelter No.117 only has three floors..."

And it’s much smaller than Shelter No. 404!

According to the flyer, the shelter’s reasonable capacity was between 100 and 200 people, while Shelter No. 404, just the B2 floor’s BCD sections alone, had a total of 600 rooms.

However, Chu Guang could clearly feel that life in this shelter should be much better than in Shelter No. 404.

The individual rooms here had an average area of more than 10 square meters each, some even had private bathrooms. Compared to those pigeonhole-like rooms in Shelter No. 404, this was a massive upgrade.

To live in here, you gotta spend a pretty penny, that’s for sure!

Right across from the main door of the shelter was the equipment room, with a layout similar to Shelter No. 404 and rows of tall cabinets.

Upon opening a cabinet, Chu Guang discovered that besides protective gear and gas masks, there were also plenty of police equipment inside.

However, most of these police equipment were mainly batons, shields, anti-riot forks, stun guns, and bulletproof vests. There were no automatic weapons or pre-war police pistols, and he certainly didn’t see his own "Light Cavalry" Type 5 police exoskeleton.

Chu Guang checked the quality of the equipment.

Besides the batteries of the stun guns being dead and no longer usable, the bulletproof vests and shields were of excellent quality, as were the batons and anti-riot forks—they didn’t look like they had been around for more than two hundred years at all.

"A bulletproof vest could sell for 200 silver coins, I reckon that’s fair... For the shield, well, let’s make it cheaper, 100 silver coins sounds good." Looking at the equipment in the room, Chu Guang stroked his chin, musing.

As for the batons and anti-riot forks...

It wasn’t much use selling them to players; better to leave them to the NPCs as tools for maintaining security.

Since there was no power armor discovered in the equipment room, Chu Guang left a guard to watch over it and went to the buffer room with another.

After passing through the two gates of the buffer room, they officially entered the interior of the shelter.

The reactor here had been shut down, leaving only the emergency power supply plugged with cold fusion batteries to sustain the bare minimum operation of the shelter. Facilities like fridges and water purifiers were long dead, and even lights would only turn on when someone approached.

"Sir, the air quality here seems a bit off..." Wrench, following beside Chu Guang, cautiously said, "How about letting me handle the exploration from here on?"

"Don’t worry; I know what I’m doing."

Chu Guang tapped his VM strapped to his arm, which showed the oxygen content was still within safe limits. Although there was a slight presence of ozone in the air, the concentration was very low, and it wouldn’t be an issue, not for his 14-point Constitution, let alone a normal adult standing here.

Wrench didn’t say anything more, just faithfully moved to the front of Chu Guang.

Instead of taking the elevator, they reached the B3 floor—the deepest part of Shelter No.117—through the safety passage next to the elevator.

Chu Guang noticeably felt that the dust here was much thicker than on the first floor.

The two made their way through the corridor and successfully arrived at the entrance to the Manager’s Office.

The door was shut tight.

Chu Guang felt around the door for a while, then, with a thought, he took out a magnetic card and stuck it on.

The signal light on the door lit up, and the alloy door panel slid open to one side, retracting into the wall.

Looking at the decor inside the office, and the power armor displayed along the wall, a hint of envy appeared on Chu Guang’s face.

"MMP, why are the other Managers so freakin’ loaded? I have to build my damn office myself, and that’s not fair at all!"

The understated decor held a low-key extravagance, and the display cabinet had the Manager’s personal collection of books and decorative items.

But those weren’t the main attraction.

The main attraction was the streamlined armor-clad, deep blue-painted power armor, as well as the black box leaning against the office desk!

That should be the briefcase Doctor Principle had mentioned!

But rather than calling it a briefcase, Chu Guang thought the term suitcase was more apt. The thing wasn’t small; lying down, it was as tall as his own lower leg.

In addition to that, behind the office desk, there sat a skeleton wearing a blue coat. The skeleton’s left elbow was propped on the chair’s armrest, with the VM slid down to the joint of his forearm.

The moment his eyes met the VM device, a line of pale blue text popped up in Chu Guang’s field of vision—

[Mission Complete!]

Search the lightnovelworld.cc website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.