Chapter 670.2: These Freaks Are Coming Wave By Wave |
As Irene rolled up his sleeve and activated his VM to receive payment, he thought wryly that the man had to be making good money, he didn’t even bother haggling.
After transferring the funds, Old Wine Lamp dragged the carcass behind the stall to store under the shed for later processing.
The shed was already full of game hauled in from the woods beyond the west gate.
Mutant leopard meat wasn’t fancy, similar to mutant hyena, but once salted and dried, it sold well enough to supply expeditions.
Salt was abundant by the sea. The real money came from the hides, far pricier than mutant deer leather. With the market still new, selling them to the New Alliance or exporting to Silvermoon Bay fetched fine profits.
The spiders were valuable too, their silk glands and venom sacs, anyway, since one unlucky intelligence type player had already proven the meat was inedible.
Spiders in the Baiyue Province were much larger and yielded higher-grade materials than those from the River Valley Province.
In all, over a dozen players had died that morning, but economically, it was still worth it.
Well, if they were looking at the big picture.
He had wondered that for ages. Most players started casually, but before long ended up like him, spending 16 hours a day in-game.
If their character didn’t need sleep, and their main body didn’t need food or exercise, he would have moved into Wasteland Online full-time.
It wasn’t addiction, it was immersion. This world felt real, like restarting life without the risk of death.
But thinking deeper, it was… strange. The mysterious game operator, the secretive buyers at the Silver Exchange, the unending demand for in-game currency,
Some unspoken arrangement clearly existed. As long as a beta player did a few missions, they could live comfortably in reality. Play longer, follow the not-too-strict rules, and one could even quit their job. It felt like someone wanted them to stay online, as if being fed to live in this world.
He didn’t mind. He loved the immersion, and real-world desires had faded away.
He just didn’t get it, what did those shadowy big shots want?
Irene smirked. “If someone’s buying, they must have a use for it. Why overthink?”
But Elf Wang’s imagination ran wild. “What if, say, there are only a few tens of thousands of us now, but when the game goes public, millions quit their jobs to grind silver coins? Wouldn’t that wreck society?”
“Eh… or maybe silver coins can buy something that makes people not need jobs. Or makes jobs need fewer people.” Irene snorted lazily.
“What do you mean?”
“Literal meaning. Take Dawn City, for instance, used to rely on manual labor for construction. Now a single mining exoskeleton lets one person do the work of five. That frees up four others. Whether they build furniture, grind dungeons, or stay home on welfare, they’re still better off than before.”
Of course, that only measured productivity, not wealth distribution. Progress in production didn’t guarantee equality. The Bugra Free State was a perfect example of a society that had high technology and a low quality of life.
But one fact was undeniable, if people were paid to play, then their in-game actions produced some real-world value.
Rumors had long circulated on the forums. After every major expansion, the post-event auctions sold mysterious high-tech artifacts. And every time, not long after those auctions ended, the real-world industry or academia would announce new breakthroughs in key technologies.
Soon after, those breakthroughs found their way into mass-produced goods.
He recalled when Wasteland Online had just launched, smartphones barely lasted a day on standby. Then, suddenly, week-long batteries appeared across brands. Then came electric cars, sudden doubling of range, massive growth in energy companies’ valuations.
Elf Wang scratched his head. “You’re saying… silver coins buy mining exosuits in real life?”
Irene shrugged. “Just an example. Maybe it’s something broader, energy, information, materials. Who knows? Maybe someday reality will turn into the Prosperity Era. Work when you feel like it, quit when you don’t, and fly to the moon for fun. You’re worrying no one will work after launch, but maybe the world leaders want us in-game mining virtual rocks!”
Elf Wang snorted. “The Prosperity Era is a game setting, and what’s this about the leader of the world?”
Irene rolled his eyes. “I said ‘if’ you dumb fuck. You’ve got no imagination.”
He frowned, thinking. “Still, if technology really got that advanced, nobody working, must’ve solved nuclear fusion at least…”
But such technology didn’t exist on Earth. It couldn’t appear out of thin air.
Unless… Wasteland Online’s developer was doing it themselves?
Could a single organization really push all of human science forward? Then again… that mysterious company was absurdly powerful.
Not only had they built a fully immersive headset that let people live second lives in dreams, no one even knew the company’s name.
Sometimes Elf Wang wondered if their dear developer Light had been abducted by aliens.
“… Whatever it is,” Irene said finally, “those technologies must cost a fortune. Maybe that’s why silver coins are so valuable.”
He patted Elf Wang’s shoulder and teased, “For a brighter tomorrow, for a real-world Prosperity Era, and for you, Old Man Wang, to one day buy an android maid waifu. Let’s focus on which ruin to raid today, huh?”
That was the real concern. Hunting only paid for ammunition. Real riches came from pre-war ruins.
Smiling, Elf Wang returned from his daydream. “Easy. Someone’ll post a job soon.”
“Someone?” Irene blinked.
“Yeah. I heard from Night Ten, the Expedition Corps is coming to set up a branch here. They left two nights ago, so they should be…”
He glanced upward.
Right on cue, two silver-white airships drifted through the clouds overhead. His eyes lit up.
“Well damn, they’re here! Two of them!”
Irene opened his VM. The grayed-out [Expedition Corps] tab had just reactivated.
Tapping it, a new regional quest appeared in bold.
…
[Mission: Find the Hive of Baiyue Province]
[Issuer: New Alliance Biological Research Institution]
[Description: Analysis of the original Na Fruit strain suggests the possible existence, or past existence, of a Hive in Baiyue Province. The province’s abnormal biological evolution may be connected.]
[Objective: Find it.]
[Rewards: Provide any valuable lead for partial rewards. The player or team that locates the Hive will earn the exclusive title ‘Jungle Conqueror’, 10,000 contribution points, and 1,000,000 silver coins.]
…
For half a minute, Irene just stared blankly, until a shout came from beside him.
“Holy, a million?!” Elf Wang, reading the same quest on his VM, had eyes as round as saucers.
And when he realized the quest had been derived from the very sample they had sold earlier, his face twisted like he’d swallowed a lemon. “Damn it! That bastard Ample Time is too ruthless!”
He remembered clearly they had sold that sample for barely 10,000 silver coins. After gear losses and splitting the money between 10 people, each had pocketed only a few hundred silver coins. Now, the follow-up quest alone was worth a million.
They had been scammed to hell and back.