This Game Is Too Real
Chapter 74: Is Being a Carpenter Just a Matter of Having Hands?

Chapter 74: Chapter 74: Is Being a Carpenter Just a Matter of Having Hands?

"Brother Chu—eh, what’s that on your back?"

"Weapons," Chu Guang didn’t want to bother explaining, so he decisively changed the subject, "Are you here to trade for something?"

Yu Hu bobbed his head like pounding garlic, embarrassed to say.

"Yeah, my brother and I bagged a deer and wanted to come here to trade for some stuff to take back. But I don’t understand what they’re saying, and I’m not sure how to go about it... Luckily, you came."

He glanced at the prey, which looked quite substantial.

"No worries, I’ll get you a pass in a bit... forget it, I’ll give it to you now."

With that, Chu Guang took out a small notebook, scribbled a few strokes with a marker, and handed it to Yu Hu.

"Keep this safe, and if anyone stops you, just show it to them."

The paper and pens from the shelter were a bit challenging to forge.

The words on the pass were all written in Chinese, and it also bore his signature, which wasn’t easy for the average person to imitate.

Out of caution, Chu Guang also wrote a numeric code on it, which would make it easier to verify who it was issued to in the future.

When conditions permitted, they’d switch to printed versions with security codes.

Yu Hu didn’t understand what was written, but he carefully pocketed it with a nod.

Then Chu Guang pointed to the old slave, Luka, by his side.

"From now on, he’s in charge of the warehouse. Give him the game, and he’ll help you find someone to deal with it."

Old Luka, though completely baffled, still nodded obediently.

From his experience, there was no need to interject while the master was talking with the guests—he would be informed later if there was something he needed to do.

Otherwise,

it meant there was no need for it.

Yu Hu was meeting this man for the first time and was unaware of his identity, so he nodded back amiably.

"All right."

"I’m about to head to the warehouse myself, so both of you come with me." Not lingering to make small talk at the entrance, Chu Guang led the two men and the caravan to the warehouse.

The reindeer had just been killed, with an arrow through its throat. Chu Guang had a player who served as the warehouse manager weigh it before sending it to the butcher for meat processing.

Brother Omelet was getting more and more adept at this work, and he even took on two apprentices to observe and learn.

Most of the mutant reindeer’s offal wasn’t edible, partly because there were no spices to mask the gamey smell and partly because it was uncertain what it had eaten along the way.

Even though they were herbivores, unlike hyenas that ate carrion, they weren’t domestic animals. Some harmful plants and fungi to humans might linger in their digestive systems.

If you weren’t of the Body Constitution System, there was no reason to take that risk.

Yu Hu and Yu Xiong, the brothers, looked on curiously. Although they had seen butchers at work before, it was their first time seeing the Blue Jackets do it so skillfully.

Skinning, tendon-pulling, meat-cutting, not even blinking—an elegant dance of the knife blades that never touched bone, leaving bones that didn’t have a scrap of meat on them.

Simply brilliant.

"I’m gonna watch and learn. I’ll open up a slaughterhouse by our house on Bet Street. The business will surely be good," Yu Hu excitedly said to his brother.

Yu Xiong shook his head.

"Quit dreaming. If you open one, don’t do it near our house. Next year I’m planning to have a kid; wouldn’t want to scare the little ones, not to mention Little Fish."

Yu Hu scratched his head sheepishly.

"Oh, okay, then I’ll set up across from Old Charlie’s general store. There are more people around there."

Soon, all the edible meat was on the chopping block, and the inedibles were dumped in the plastic bin nearby.

Brother Omelet hung up his butchering knife and packed the meat into a crate to be weighed. He turned to the Manager and said,

"Precisely one hundred kilos, quite a lot."

Chu Guang nodded and instructed him to take two portions of the meat, keeping the tendons, bones, and offcuts, and packing the rest for the Yu brothers into plastic bags they had brought.

"You’ll also take 300 grams of coarse salt to the warehouse."

The salt price at Outpost Base had been adjusted once, and now the price for unrefined coarse salt was 1 Silver Coin for 50 grams, having been slightly reduced.

The price of refined salt was five times that of coarse salt, hence 50 grams cost 5 Silver Coins, which represented a noticeable increase from before. Salt with added buffs was priced 50% above the base rate.

However, whether with or without buffs, the refined salt wasn’t for sale to outsiders, supplied only to players, marking a sort of privilege for them.

If you calculated according to the salt price, the cost Chu Guang had exchanged for the deer hide was approximately equal to 6 Silver Coins.

If calculated based on trading costs, that number was likely less than a third, since most of the coarse salt was acquired by trading smoked meat with merchants from Red River Town, and the average cost for one kilogram of coarse salt was only about three kilograms of smoked meat.

Nevertheless, the Yu brothers were still quite elated, for getting unadulterated salt, not short in weight, was already a fortuitous affair for them.

Especially since Brother Chu gave them an extra generous 50 grams, allowing them to enjoy it for many more days!

A win-win, truly splendid!

With a heart full of gratitude, the brothers thanked Chu Guang, carrying away eighty kilograms of deer meat and 300 grams of coarse salt, walking away happily.

Chu Guang summoned Luka, who had been standing nearby, and instructed him,

"When Blue Jacket residents come to drop off game, there’s no need to weigh it. For a hyena, give 5 Silver Coins, for a reindeer, 12 Silver Coins. Send the game to be processed, smoke the meat, and then store it in the food warehouse reserves."

"If it’s a foreign hunter like the one just now, guide them to the butcher as I did, take two portions of the meat for smoking, keep the tendons, bones, and hide, and give the rest along with 300 grams of coarse salt. Understand?"

Luka, being sensible, didn’t ask what a resident was, just remembered what he had to do, and nodded immediately after understanding.

"I understand."

Chu Guang nodded, satisfied.

But just then, he suddenly remembered something and pulled out two coins from his pocket, one silver and one yellow.

"These are Silver Coins and Copper Coins, remember them well. I’ll teach you some simple daily language later so you can communicate with the people here. It’s fine if you don’t understand. Just do what you need to do and say what you need to say, got it?"

Luka studied them for a moment and nodded vigorously.

"Got it!"

"Good. Basically, that’s all for your job. Stand here and watch for now to get familiar with the work environment. I’ll come back to teach you the rest later."

Luka stood obediently at his post, next to the part-time warehouse manager player, which made the latter feel rather uncomfortable for a while.

Chu Guang was very satisfied with his attitude.

This new NPC wasn’t bad at all, truly you get what you pay for—the ones bought with chips were definitely stronger than those who came for free.

Xia Yan, on the other hand, was not worth mentioning. The guy could fall asleep carrying books, and as soon as the work was completed, he started slacking off. Without a whip to spur him on, he wouldn’t budge an inch, yet he’s quite popular on the Forum.

Up to now, Chu Guang still couldn’t figure out what was so special about this guy, other than his chest...

At this very moment, Xia someone-or-other who was sitting at the entrance of the weapon shop, nodding off, sneezed without warning.

Sniffling, she lifted her head, which was red from pressure, and looked around bewildered like a sleepy groundhog, stretching her neck.

Upon noticing the shop was as quiet as ever with no business and no one checking in, Xia Yan breathed a sigh of relief, wrapped herself in her fur coat again, and went back to her dozing.

Perhaps because reviving her former career was hopeless, with life looking grey and uncertain, she admitted she had been a bit too relaxed recently, even losing her basic vigilance.

But let’s be clear, although this place wasn’t as bustling as Giant Stone City, this deer fur coat was quite warm, made not only from top-notch deer skin but also hand-stitched.

If you were in Giant Stone City, it would probably cost quite a few chips.

Chips...

Alcohol... Chocolate...

Thinking about it, she couldn’t help but drool.

...

Carpentry hut.

When Chu Guang found "WC There are mosquitoes," he saw him standing in front of a wooden box half the height of a person, busily engaged in something.

"What are you doing?" Chu Guang asked.

Hearing the voice behind him, Brother Mosquito put down his tools and clapped his hands, turned around, and enthusiastically said to the Manager.

"Respected Manager, I am designing a new kind of weapon!"

"...A new kind of weapon?" Chu Guang echoed, puzzled.

"Yes! After the last Battle, I realized we urgently need a support weapon that can deliver massive firepower to the enemy’s position in a matter of seconds!"

Saying this excitedly, Mosquito then pointed to the honeycomb-shaped wooden box in front of him.

"’Blizzard 0.1’! That’s what it’s designed for!"

Is this thing a cluster rocket?

But there was nothing inside; it seemed the most crucial "rockets" hadn’t been made yet.

He stared blankly at this device for a while before Chu Guang managed to squeeze out a question.

"...I remember you already made it to 0.2 last time, why did it go back to 0.1?"

"Cough, that was Hellfire, not from the same series."

Mosquito’s expression turned slightly awkward, but his excitement quickly took over again, "Please hear me out! Even though it seems primitive, I guarantee it’s truly, truly useful!

According to my design, it can launch all 50 rockets carrying Black Powder, acetone, and wood tar within 10 seconds, covering a battlefield up to 100 meters away!"

Covering a battlefield 100 meters away wasn’t bad.

Let’s not even talk about the range and accuracy.

I was just worried about a burst barrel covering even a negative 100-meter radius.

"Rockets? Are you sure about that?" Chu Guang inquired.

"Eh, sure! Although the propellant is Black Powder, it should work roughly the same?" Mosquito said, his gaze drifting away unnaturally as he chuckled.

"According to my design, each rocket’s propulsion unit is about 1kg, and with the addition of a flame retardant, theoretically, the working time could be extended to 6-8 seconds, theoretically generating 3.5-5 kilograms of thrust, theoretically there should be no problem in carrying 1-1.5 kilograms of warhead!"

"For these 1-kilogram warheads, I intend to load them with wood tar, vaporized acetone from wood distillation, and Black Powder so that they can burn after exploding!"

Chu Guang’s eyelids were twitching.

My God.

This was using explosives to shoot explosives.

If they shot out, all was well, but what if they didn’t?

That would be utterly disastrous!

Chu Guang cleared his throat cautiously and reminded him, "If we’re talking about street combat... that power might not be enough, and it seems pretty dangerous. I would suggest you try to make nitrocellulose instead; it might pack a bigger punch."

Black Powder only had an explosive velocity of 600, Smokeless Gunpowder could reach 2000, and didn’t leave any residues.

I heard that the famous "Katyusha" BM-13 series rockets initially used Smokeless Gunpowder as the propellant, and later they mixed viscous nitroglycerin as a plasticizer with nitrocellulose to make a double-based solid rocket propellant.

Black Powder...

Just enough for making bombs.

It’s a little hard on it to make something like this.

"That’s true," Brother Mosquito stroked his chin and murmured, "Tsk, it’d be great if we could get a gas cylinder."

Chu Guang had a feeling this guy was thinking of something dangerous, but it was hard to say whether there were gas cylinders in this era; maybe he didn’t need to worry too much.

"Let’s not talk about that for now... I need you to make three single beds for me."

"Okay, and is it urgent?"

After thinking, Chu Guang said, "Could you get at least one done by tonight?"

Brother Mosquito stroked his chin and said, "Shouldn’t be a problem."

Developing weapons took some time.

But carpentry?

Just need hands to do it, right?

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