Chapter 56: So This Was the Game’s Drop Mechanism All Along! |
Peter had used methods like this countless times before to force those high-and-mighty noble young ladies into submission.
Originally, he had assumed this time would be no different from the past.
But he never could have imagined that this time he had encountered someone this stubborn.
Yet while Peter’s mind was still in turmoil, a figure suddenly entered his field of vision.
The moment he saw who it was, his pupils contracted sharply.
Vivian had returned!
She actually dared to come back!
And Peter noticed that the thing in Vivian’s hand was no longer the parasol from before, but a blood-red scythe.
“So, old man, have you figured out how you want to die yet?”
Seeing the indifferent look in her eyes, Peter felt as though he had fallen into an icy abyss, a chill rapidly spreading through his entire body.
Peter had met many people over the years.
He had also seen plenty of people who committed evil deeds. In their eyes, he had seen fear and madness, but he had never seen someone remain this indifferent after doing something like that.
Even the coldest-blooded person would show emotional fluctuations after what had just happened.
But Peter saw nothing from Vivian.
He even felt that, in Vivian’s eyes, other people were probably no different from ants on the roadside, unworthy of even a second glance from her.
Had he known Vivian was this kind of person, Peter would never have dared provoke her.
“Damn it, Vivian, you actually dared to come back!”
“Do you even know what consequences your actions will bring?!”
However, just as Peter was thinking this, the furious voice of the Enforcement Officer came from nearby.
Looking at the scene around him, although Cormac was terrified inside, he still forced himself to remain calm.
“How dare you! Do you even know who I am?!”
Cormac had another identity as well—he was the younger brother-in-law of the Silvermoon City Enforcement Bureau Chief. He had obtained his position as an Enforcement Officer through connections, and with the Bureau Chief backing him as family—
He had long since become used to acting lawlessly throughout Silvermoon City.
After all, with those connections in place, even if something really happened, his brother-in-law would cover for him.
Never in his dreams had he imagined he would encounter a reckless fool like Vivian this time.
Great. He had arrived perfectly fine, but now it looked like he probably would not be leaving alive.
Cormac knew very clearly that the only thing he could do now was use his identity to intimidate Vivian.
“My brother-in-law is the Director of the Silvermoon City Enforcement Bureau! If you kill me, my sister and brother-in-law will never let you go!”
“If you release me, I can pretend none of this ever happened!”
“I guarantee nobody will trouble you again in the future!”
Meanwhile, on Jiang Chen’s side—
Hearing Cormac’s words, Jiang Chen frowned.
Then, as though he had suddenly understood something, his tightly furrowed brows abruptly relaxed.
“So that’s how it is!”
At this moment, Jiang Chen had an epiphany!
Right—this was how it was supposed to work!
Ever since he started playing this game, Jiang Chen had discovered a huge issue with it.
That issue was the equipment drop rate.
It was absurdly low!
In other games, if you killed wild monsters, they would at least drop some trash equipment or something.
But in this game?
Forget equipment—even Silver Coins and Copper Coins rarely dropped.
Previously, regardless of whether he killed human-type monsters or monster-type enemies, nothing ever dropped.
Jiang Chen had been wondering what the reason was.
But after hearing what Cormac said, Jiang Chen finally understood everything.
“In the end, it’s all because of the game’s mechanics.”
“As a game that perfectly recreates reality, its biggest issue is the refresh mechanism for dead NPCs.”
“NPCs that die in this game don’t respawn. But that creates a problem—some players might start attacking any NPC they see.”
“If this game were like other games where every NPC dropped loot, then there would definitely be more and more players running around slaughtering everything.”
At that point, if not a single NPC remained on the map, then what would even be left to play?
So the game developers had adopted an extremely clever solution—
They directly removed NPC drop rewards.
And on top of that, there was also a wanted system for killing NPCs indiscriminately.
After this entire setup, the end result was basically this:
If you killed meaningless NPCs, not only would you gain nothing, but you would actually suffer losses instead.
Naturally, very few players would be willing to do something so unrewarding.
However, it was also impossible for every NPC in the game to drop absolutely nothing, otherwise the setting itself would become problematic.
“So NPCs that can drop loot should be like this one in front of me.”
“They’ll proactively tell players about their identity or faction background and things like that.”
To Jiang Chen, this hint felt similar to certain games where monsters with loot drops had a small backpack icon beneath their names.
A clear indication that killing them would yield rewards.
This was also an effective way to prevent players from randomly massacring NPCs.
And compared to directly slapping an icon onto enemies, the way this game conveyed the information was obviously far more ingenious.
Convinced he had seen through everything, Jiang Chen no longer hesitated.
“Since you’re loot-dropping monsters, then please go ahead and die.”
The moment the words fell, Vivian swung the blood-red scythe and charged straight toward them.
And after seeing Vivian still choose to attack even after learning Cormac’s identity, all of their expressions changed drastically.
“Madman! You’re a complete madman!”
Did she even hear how absurd her own words sounded?
How could dying possibly be considered “troublesome”?
Clearly, none of them wanted to “trouble” Vivian.
Unfortunately for them, Vivian was obviously not going to grant their wishes.
After casually dodging the few rushed spells they desperately cast, Vivian easily finished them off.
Against enemies already reduced to critical condition, the scythe form was practically instant death upon contact.
There was no possibility of them turning the situation around.
After dealing with them, Vivian walked over and crouched down, her gaze landing on the ring in Cormac’s hand.
She removed the ring.
【Spatial Ring (Exquisite)】
【A precious Spatial Ring, gifted to Cormac by Kovit for his birthday. Perhaps there may be some unexpected surprises inside.】
Seeing this description, Jiang Chen’s eyes immediately lit up.
“I knew my guess was right.”
Jiang Chen immediately began checking the contents inside the Spatial Ring.
The more he looked, the brighter his eyes became.
There were a total of three hundred Gold Coins, along with two ordinary-quality magic items—a necklace and a longsword.
“Damn, this haul’s actually pretty good.”
As he spoke, Jiang Chen shifted his gaze toward the other corpses.
Very soon, he removed another Spatial Ring from Peter’s hand, also of Exquisite quality.
However, compared to Cormac, Peter was clearly far wealthier.
Just the Gold Coins alone totaled two thousand. On top of that, Jiang Chen stripped off every single piece of gold jewelry from his body without leaving anything behind.
“This guy was loaded.”
As he spoke, Jiang Chen suddenly noticed another item inside the ring—
A pair of gray leather women’s shoes.