This Game Is Too Real
Chapter 89: Boss, We Have a Great Advantage!

Chapter 89: Chapter 89: Boss, We Have a Great Advantage!

Despite the wind blowing against him on his way back, Hain felt like his body was floating, and the arrow wound on his leg didn’t hurt as much anymore.

Because of the plan, he had spent a day at the camp of those in Blue Jackets, and now it was the afternoon of the second day, and just a few hours ago, he had lunch with that man at his invitation.

The lunch left a deep impression on him, with steamed Crack Claw Crab Leg meat as the main course and mushroom soup plus horned potato mash as the side dishes.

Being able to take down a Crack Claw Crab showed that these people were stronger than he had imagined—they certainly had anti-armor capabilities.

Moreover, the horned potato mash was even sprinkled with soy sauce for added flavor.

Fully armed and well-supplied, the Blood Hand Clan had indeed provoked a formidable opponent, losing two teams to them was not unjust!

Hain was a merchant, and merchants are realistic.

He would always stand with the victors... at least with the side that seemed most likely to win.

In fact, the man called Chu Guang didn’t seem to understand the rules of the Horseshoe Iron Business Group very well when persuading him.

Even if he put on a strong show in front of his boss, he couldn’t escape days with his neck on the line.

Although nominally he was a "salesman" for the firm, in reality, the nature of a salesman was closer to that of a partner.

They operated in the Southern River Province, leveraging their relations with the Horseshoe Iron Business Group to conduct trades, and took a cut from each transaction.

Hain had done some rough calculations.

Even with the loss of two groups of men, the Blood Hand Clan still had fifty to sixty strong laborers, and counting cannon fodder and prisoners, nearly a hundred people.

Even if he could bring back a third, it would make him a legend in the Horseshoe Iron Business Group—and perhaps even the whole of Red River Town.

Those fit for work could be sold to mine owners; those missing limbs could be sent for organ harvesting, sold to Giant Stone City or other large survivor settlements in the Promice Northern Part, all yielding profits of 1000%.

This business deal was certainly a blood jackpot.

As for whether these Blue Jackets could win?

Honestly, he had never considered the possibility of them losing.

These people could work diligently like oxen and hunt fiercely like wolves; even he, who had roamed the wasteland for years, had been outmaneuvered by them.

They had astonishing advantages both tactically and strategically.

Their leader was a man whose depth could not be measured.

These people were truly terrifying!

Hain’s instinct told him that cultivating a good relationship with these people could assure a prosperous future, perhaps even more profitable than working for the trading firm!

...

Following the remnants of the city’s elevated exit northward and circumventing a few collapsed ruins, it wasn’t long before Hain saw the tire factory occupied by the Blood Hand Clan.

The concrete outer walls were spiked with wooden stakes and rebar as obstacles, and the wall was smeared with eerie, inexplicable graffiti.

A headless corpse discarded by the roadside drain was being gnawed on by several fat rats, presumably another unfortunate slave who had failed to please these barbarians.

Hain clicked his tongue in pity, cradling a wooden box and striding towards the fort gate made of wood.

"I’m Hain, open the gate!"

The bandages on his leg had already been removed, and the wound had stopped bleeding; Hain feigned a shout and waved to the sentry on the enclosing wall.

Recognizing Hain’s face, the bald man with crimson paint on his face walked to the rebar winch, flexing his muscular arms to turn it.

Accompanied by creaking noises, the wooden door slowly opened.

Hain didn’t pause for a moment, quickly stepping into the Blood Hand Clan’s stronghold. Under the guidance of a raider sentinel, he arrived in front of Bear’s tent.

He placed the box on the ground and pressed his forehead to the earth.

"Respected Chieftain! Those people are mere barbarians. I’m sorry, I did my best, but they simply cannot be reasoned with."

Bear, sitting languidly in his chair with his chin propped on his fist, looked emotionlessly at the man kneeling before him.

"You didn’t bring my people back."

"Yes... because there were no captives."

"No captives?"

Bear sat up straight in his chair, his already small eyes almost squished into a dot by the tight flesh on his face.

"What do you mean there are no captives?"

He was well aware of what his subordinates were capable of.

If they had encountered those terribly fierce foes, they might have fought to the death. But a fight with the Blue Jackets... even if they couldn’t win, there was hardly a chance of a bloody standoff.

Trading 20 points for a captive was not a loss; after resting and recuperating for a while, they’d gather forces and take back control.

As for those maimed by missing limbs, he had let this slave trader here deal with them outright. The Blood Hand Clan does not keep idlers and had no extra food to sustain them.

He even suspected that this man was lying, negotiating in his name but delivering the captives elsewhere.

Hain was very sensitive to the atmosphere.

Even though he couldn’t see Bear’s expression, he guessed what the muscle-brained fool was thinking. He quickly conjured a look of grief, producing the story he had prepared earlier.

"Those people are the scum of the earth, rats, maggots in blue coats! They have no sense of morality or ethics; every cell in their body spells cunning."

"They pretended to accept the surrender of your men but after your people laid down their weapons, they brutally hanged them at the entrance!"

Saying this, Hain opened the box in his hands, which contained phalanges strung into a necklace.

Bear’s eyes instantly narrowed to a point, and his right fist slammed down on the armrest of his chair.

"I want to chop the limbs off those rats and throw them into a dungeon to feed the cockroaches!"

Crude roars echoed within the tent, causing the flames in the brazier to flicker. A raider old soldier beside tightened his grip on the knife and axe at his waist, watching Hain’s expression flicker.

Waiting only for the Chieftain’s command, they were ready to rush forward and chop the discourteous offender into mince meat to relieve the great Chieftain’s anger.

Feeling Bear’s fury,

Hain dared not even take a breath as he continued his tearful accusations.

"Respected Chieftain, you don’t know what I went through there! I went to their camp with peaceful intentions and even willingly handed over my weapons to their sentries. But no sooner had I met their leader than he ordered me thrown into prison."

"They had no intention or plan to negotiate! He gave me this wooden box, mocked me, saying all the people you wanted are here, and told me... to burn them for you!"

"Although they didn’t hang me right there, presumably because they were afraid I would reveal their secrets, they insisted on keeping me locked up and unable to leave. Fearing more dreams in a long night, and that I might be silenced by dawn, I used the chips hidden in my shoe soles to bribe the guard, managing to escape their camp with the box under the cover of night."

"However, those people reacted swiftly, realizing that I had disappeared and dispatching hunters to pursue me. I dared not flee north, so I took a roundabout way to the eastern gate, but before I entered the city area, I was still shot with an arrow."

"Fortunately, the arrow did not hit any vital organs; I hid your subordinates’ relics in a garbage bin and then crawled into some ruins myself. I had barely entered when they started searching the area! Thankfully, they didn’t notice me, and I stayed hidden in the ruins until dawn when they finally left."

"Once I was sure there was no danger, I didn’t dare delay for a moment and immediately brought the box back to report to you!"

Weeping and sniffling, Hain continued, and Bear sitting in the chair, finally seemed to shift his anger away from him.

His eyes firmly locked onto Hain, Bear asked in a deep voice,

"You say they are worried you will expose them? What secrets do they have?"

Hain continued quickly.

"Those people are not actually residents of the refuge, just scavengers who wandered in from somewhere. They took over a refuge hidden in Wetland Park by deception, stole the blue jackets, pretended to be residents of the refuge, and used this to deceive the wandering wasteland customers."

"They are not as strong as they appear, just a bunch of bullies who are tough on the weak and soft on the strong. They only number around thirty, and the rest are captives from the original refuge. Their favorite activity is to light a bonfire in the middle of the camp at night and then bring out the captives who are good-looking to party...You know what I mean."

"So if you plan to make a move on them, it’s best to do it deep in the night."

With eyebrows lowered, Hain skillfully recounted the story someone had told him.

"That’s when their defenses are the slackest, many people even without their clothes... That’s when I took the chance to escape."

Captives.

From the refuge.

A greedy look surfaced on Bear’s face.

The clone offered by Bet Street had long been broken by his play, now probably torn apart into parts by his men.

Moreover, those toys that show no emotional fluctuations, neither scream nor cry, couldn’t pique his interest at all.

If there is no screaming, how could he demonstrate his bravery?

But those who come out of the refuge are different, they are top-notch goods wherever they are.

"Guns? How many do they have?" Bear immediately followed up with the question he cared about most.

Seeing the leader’s interest, Hain was excited and quickly said,

"At most thirty! Half of those were even seized from your men! And their ammunition reserves are low, more than half of them still use bows and arrows, spears."

"You see, this leg wound was caused by their arrows!"

Hearing about bows and arrows,

Bear’s expression scorned even more.

Those primitive things are scavengers’ weapons, unless it’s the few "Awakeners" with special abilities or mutants with extremely developed muscles, most people would prefer improvised guns made from black powder if given a choice, rather than fight with spears and bows.

Bear himself was two meters tall, all muscle, and when four people arm-wrestled him together, they couldn’t even move his arm. Ordinary people can’t even walk if they wear an armor weighing around twenty to thirty kilograms, but his own armor weighed a hundred kilograms, with the breastplate alone making up fifty kilograms of homogeneous steel!

Let alone crossbows and spears, even ordinary bullets hitting it felt like tickling, at most leaving some scratches.

In his view, crushing those scavengers was no different from crushing a nest of ants.

"My lord, I think we should consider this carefully," the horse-faced man standing beside him nodded and continued in a deep voice.

"Badger and Bear possess considerable strength, and their tribes are brave and skilled in combat. However, both of them have fallen to those scavengers consecutively, and I always feel that there’s something fishy about it."

Hearing this statement, Hain got anxious and was about to speak. However, he saw Bear wave his hand and directly interrupted the horse-faced man,

"Badger is brave but lacks strategy, Bear has strategy but lacks courage, those two are not elite. They’re just a bunch of scavengers. I will lead the team personally, concentrate all manpower, and crushing them will be more than easy."

Bear did not want to drag it out.

The longer it drags on, the heavier the snow and the colder the weather, the harder it becomes to fight.

Moreover, if all those refuge captives were played to death by the scavengers, what’s left for him to enjoy?

Hain sighed in relief.

To make the bear hesitate no longer, he decided to drop another bombshell.

"Boss, you don’t have to worry too much, we actually have a big advantage!"

"When I entered the Wetland Park, I discovered they were setting up camp by the river to the northwest, building brick kilns, probably planning to strengthen their shelters before the snow gets heavy, which clearly exposes their inner fears and weaknesses!"

"You just need to take advantage of the night and charge directly at their brick factory, they will definitely be thrown into chaos! Then we can pursue their fleeing soldiers and break into their camp, where all the wealth and supplies will be yours to take."

Saying this, Hain had a look of anger on his face.

"And I can also take a vicious revenge to settle this score with them!"

"Brick kilns?" The bear touched his chin interestedly, "How many people are there?"

"At least a dozen! Sixty percent are men captured from the refuge, and the other forty percent are their own people!"

The bear was overjoyed, slapping the armrest of his chair.

"Great!"

Although he couldn’t completely trust this slave trader, the existence of the brick kilns was something easy to verify with just one look.

With that said, the bear immediately turned to the horse-faced man and commanded.

"Send one of your underlings to find a high point overlooking the direction of Wetland Park. If you see campfires by the river and smoke rising, come back immediately and report to me!"

The horse-faced man nodded in acknowledgement.

"Yes!"

...

Meanwhile, by the river at the northwest side of Wetland Park, Fang Chang and a few others had set up a shelter using a plastic tarp and wooden sticks on an open space.

This type of shelter was so draughty from all sides that actually living in it would guarantee arthritis, but they were reluctant to use better materials.

After all, they had to place barrels of black powder and wood tar inside soon...

"I don’t think the Manager really expected us to produce any bricks."

As Night Ten dug out a kiln hole with a shovel by the riverbank, he complained, "Otherwise, why would he assign us such a peculiar task?"

Old White was a real doer and didn’t talk much while working.

"Stop blabbering and finish your work... in a while, it will be almost time for the task."

"Damn..."

"By the way, Wild Wind, don’t you have classes during the day?"

"Sent the PPT to the teaching assistant."

"Awesome!"

The first exclusive task the Bull Horse Brick Factory received was not to produce a certain number of bricks nor to build a kiln with a certain daily output, but to set traps within the camp.

Does this sound like something a life-profession player should be doing??

Well.

Though they weren’t exactly life-profession players to begin with.