Chapter 668.2: MEGALOOT |
Her older sister, Frost Snow, tugged her sleeve gently and chided in a whisper, “Frost Night, don’t ask about the Shelter folks’ personal matters, you’ll make trouble for them.”
“I was just curious…” Pouting but obedient, Frost Night turned her attention back to the giant starfish, as big as a basin. “Is this really edible?”
“Of course! We had our constitution types taste-test it first! Once it’s thawed, just slice it here, see? Dip it in soy sauce, and it’s delicious! Or make soup out of it!”
“Big Sis…”
Seeing her sister’s pleading eyes, Frost Snow sighed helplessly and took out her wallet. “Alright… one, please.”
“Coming right up! I’ll pack it for you!” The vendor wrapped it expertly and handed it over. “That’ll be 26 silver coins.”
Not cheap, but for Dawn City residents, who faced little survival pressure, it was a fair indulgence.
No jobs in the city paid less than 1,000 silver a month anymore, and Frost Snow herself worked comfortably at the Merchants’ Guild.
She counted out 26 silver coins, paid, and smiled as Frost Night hugged the starfish in delight. “Don’t play with food, alright? Keep it safe, I’ll make soup when we get home.”
They had just started toward the next stall when a shout rose from nearby.
“Boss! Why’s there a sock in this fish’s stomach?”
The player holding a shoe looked puzzled, scratching his head before tossing it in a trash bin. “Uh… Maybe it belonged to another fish?”
“Fish wearing socks?!” gasped the onlookers.
Before the vendor could answer, an old man carrying a plastic bag chimed in cheerfully, “Sure! I just saw a stall over there gut a fish and find a pair of pants inside!”
The crowd burst into laughter and disbelief.
Cradling her starfish, Frost Night’s eyes sparkled. “The fish in the sea… are amazing!”
Expression twisting, Frost Snow gently tugged her sister away. “Let’s… go see the other stalls.”
A moment ago, she’d thought 26 silver coins was expensive. Now it didn’t seem so bad.
The market near the airship station sold more than seafood, there were also all kinds of salvaged goods hauled up from the seabed, and random relics scavenged from the ruins of Old Shilong City.
Though most traces of civilization in the Baiyue Province had long been erased, some odd remnants survived by chance, fossils of the old world, preserving fragments of its story.
Some had scientific value, others, collectible worth. The New Alliance’s survey teams and Camp 101 researchers had already taken the best of them, leaving the rest for players to hawk in the open market.
Ordinary wastelanders weren’t interested in such junk worthless scrap sold by weight at recycling stations.
But to others who were academics, collectors, or the eccentric rich, they were treasures.
Archaeologists from the Academy and New Alliance often bought such pieces for study. To them, even trash varied by origin, and seabed salvage were prizes sought after.
Given that the Heavenly Court Space Station had fallen in the Southern Sea, some of these fragments might even contain parts of it. A discovery like that could easily make a research paper.
Experts weren’t the only ones excited, half-informed collectors crowded the stalls, making them busier than the seafood vendors. Every time a scrap sold for an absurd price, the crowd gasped in disbelief, it felt like an antique market!
At one corner of the market, a tall, thin man in a blue coat, clearly a Shelter resident, was picking through junk on a small stall. His scholarly glasses and air of refinement drew a following of opportunists hoping to copy his buys.
He ignored them and rummaged quietly, until he frowned, picking up a horseshoe-shaped piece of plastic.
“This piece… where did you find it?” he asked the vendor.
Speaking fluent Federation language, the player grinned. “Near the harbor. Can’t remember exactly where. Maybe it’s treasure from that space station wreck, the Heavenly Court, right? Looks like part of a spacecraft hull ring, so I brought it up.”
At the mention of the Heavenly Court, the crowd’s eyes gleamed.
The researcher rubbed his chin thoughtfully, then asked, “Interesting… how much?”
“You look like a cultured man! I’ll give you a deal, 1,000 silver.”
He hesitated briefly, then gritted his teeth and paid, buying what was, in truth, a toilet seat.
The crowd’s eyes turned green.
A thousand silver coins, for a piece of junk! NPC money was too easy to earn!
Moments later, when the researcher walked away, other NPC collectors went wild, swarming the stall in a frenzy.
Junk from the Heavenly Court wreckage? Real or not, they didn’t care. Within minutes, every scrap was sold. The grinning stall owner pocketed his fortune, enough to buy a hundred round-trip airship tickets.
Watching from afar, Jiang Xuezhou glanced sidelong at Night Ten, muttering, “That was obviously a toilet seat.”
Night Ten coughed. “Huh? It’s not really cheating… it’s more like a clever hustle. And it’s not like we planned it. Not all Shelter residents are model citizens, you know.”
Not far away, the researcher discreetly removed the blue coat and handed it back to its rightful owner, the vendor. The two were clearly in on it together.
Jiang Xuezhou rolled her eyes and walked off. After circling the market, she still hadn’t found anything worthwhile.
“How is it possible to find nothing at all?” she muttered.
Night Ten blinked. “Nothing?”
“I mean, nothing with actual research value! How did you people manage to avoid bringing back even one useful artifact? Your luck is unbelievable!”
Realizing what she meant, Night Ten laughed. “Well, duh. All the real research material was already taken by the survey teams. You’re just wasting time looking here.”
Right, wasn’t Yin Fang a D-class Prospector when he left the Academy for the New Alliance? Should that weird fellow be considered her senior? They’re both strange people anyway…
Jiang Xuezhou froze, then turned red with embarrassment. “Why didn’t you say so earlier?!”
Night Ten looked innocent. “You didn’t ask! I thought you were here to buy souvenirs! How would I know you were here to look for things of value?”
She glared at him, stomped her foot, and stormed off.
There was no point staying, too many scams here anyway.
Meanwhile, back in his lab, Yin Fang, the very person Night Ten was thinking about, sneezed without warning. “Achoo! …Who’s talking about me?”
Rubbing his nose, he shrugged it off and turned back to the metallic shard lying on his instrument table, a palm-sized fragment gleaming with a polished, silvery luster.
It hadn’t been polished by hand. Rather, it was found that way, pristine under the sea.
Preliminary spectral analysis suggested it was a metal-ceramic composite, a material used in spacecraft, combining extreme heat resistance and hardness with steel-like toughness and impact resilience.
If he could decode its structure, he might recover at least C-grade materials technology! And the treasures from the Southern Sea didn’t stop there, the airship’s cargo bay still held crates of samples waiting to be studied.
Yin Fang’s eyes burned with excitement as he muttered, “This time, I’ve really struck gold!”