Chapter 10: So Many Have Died? Is It Really That Difficult?
By the time he finished dealing with the last box, it was already eight o’clock. Lin Mu gazed at the pitch-black road ahead and decided not to travel any further tonight.
Ding~
He didn’t have to think to know—a resource box had been successfully recovered. But soon he’d be going to sleep, and if it kept ringing like this, that wouldn’t do at all. He consulted the system panel and discovered he could simply turn off the sound on the player.
With that sorted, it was time to get down to business.
He opened the workbench and glanced at the required materials—iron ingots would suffice. Two new items soon appeared before him.
…
Ten minutes later, Lin Mu was cradling a bowl of noodles.
Slurp~~
“Mmm, that’s the taste—authentic braised beef noodles.”
He casually tossed more sticks into the stove; the remaining burn time was now twelve hours, and he couldn’t add any more. On the stove sat the kettle he’d just made, boiling water inside.
Whooo~~~
The water boiled again. He took the kettle off and poured half a cup of hot water into the metal mug on the ground. In weather like this, one had to drink something warm.
“What a shame—if only I had some tea leaves.”
Besides the boiling water, three pieces of snake meat were roasting on the stove—he had plans for them.
He then opened the regional channel, eyes going straight to the number atop the screen—97,954!
Lin Mu’s eyes widened. What was going on? Hadn’t fewer than 800 people died since the afternoon? How had it suddenly jumped to 2,000?
He hurried to check the chat messages below.
“Someone please help me! A beast ate one of my legs!!”
“I nearly died of fright—a giant python sprang out of a box I opened. Thank heavens I ran fast, or I’d be finished.”
“Wang Ziwen, it’s me, Shudao Mountain—come find me quick.”
“Have you all opened your boxes? After I got a wolf from mine, I haven’t dared open any more. We’re all from Huaguo, can someone help?”
“There’s so much stuff in those boxes you don’t want, and now you want us to rescue you? How thick-skinned can you be!”
“…”
Lin Mu read the messages as he ate his noodles. Most people, after encountering danger, chose to escape and hoped for rescue from others.
Seeking benefit and avoiding harm—who could blame them?
Still, some were a bit much. There were also those who pressed on, but the results weren’t great—many lost their lives, and quite a few were left maimed.
A tiny minority were like Lin Mu, choosing to meet hardship head-on. Hard or not, Lin Mu honestly couldn’t tell; he hadn’t felt much of anything.
He glanced at the thermometer.
Outside: minus 13 degrees.
Inside: plus 24 degrees.
Wasn’t that just fine? He couldn’t understand why everyone kept complaining about the cold. If you’re cold, just use some materials.
He closed the chat and opened the trading center.
At night, the trading center was clearly much busier than during the day. Perhaps there were fewer goods in daylight, but now the interface even had handy pagination at the bottom. There were also categories: materials, food, miscellany, and blueprints—far more convenient.
There were tens of thousands of trade items. Not that it mattered—he was after blueprints.
He filtered for blueprints, and the list instantly shrank. The hand crossbow was still there, but much cheaper than earlier. Lin Mu skipped it; it was useless to him.
The rest of the blueprints were few and expensive, giving him pause. He could gather materials easily, but that didn’t mean he was a sucker.
He shook his head and glanced at the snake meat on the stove—five more minutes until it was done.
He closed the interface and looked into the distance. Beyond the reach of his lights, everything was shrouded in darkness.
“Thank goodness my parents had me late. Otherwise, how would I survive here?”
He was grateful for the freedom—no ties to anyone. He’d just seen many people searching for their parents or children in the chat, and the thought of those scenes filled him with sorrow.
Five minutes passed in a flash.
He put away the three pieces of snake meat.
Then he opened the trading center and accessed the listing function.
Lin Mu rubbed his chin. “What price should I set? I just want stuff others don’t need—how about 1g?”
He listed one piece of snake meat, with a quantity of 100.
As for the trade items…
Damn! Why isn’t there an option for plastic bottles?
There was a search function, but nothing came up when he tried.
No choice but to close the listing and ask the game panel.
“I want to trade for plastic bottles, instant noodle cups or bags, unwanted clothes—anything people don’t want. But there’s no option for that. This game wasn’t made with care at all—how can you not have these features?”
He would have liked to exchange 1g of meat for someone’s good stuff, but no one would go for that.
[…]
[…]
[…]
The interface—was this an admin, or customer service?—fell into a long silence.
Lin Mu waited patiently. He had to settle this tonight. Otherwise, how could he maximize the value of his waste-recycling ability? He alone couldn’t generate much trash, but the garbage from this region—let alone the entire world…
Though, world trading wasn’t unlocked yet.
Just as Lin Mu was growing impatient, the game panel finally responded.
[Due to the unique nature of your vehicle ability, a new trade category—Garbage—has been added to your trading center. You may customize the contents of Garbage, and others will see your requested items.]
Problem solved, but Lin Mu was still annoyed—what a waste of time! That delay had cost him half an hour.
“This was clearly your mistake. You wasted half an hour of my time—shouldn’t there be some compensation?”
[…]
[…]
Lin Mu’s mouth twitched—maybe he’d pushed too far, and now they’d run off again?
But reading this, he couldn’t help but wonder—could this really be just a game? A real death game, with actual people answering questions behind the panel? Otherwise, why would they need to think?
This time, the reply came quickly—under two minutes.
[We sincerely apologize for your poor gaming experience. Please select one of the following as compensation:]
[Option 1: Vehicle Core x1]
[Option 2: Vehicle Upgrade Card x1]
[Option 3: Replace with a Class B Vehicle]
Lin Mu looked at the three options—good, but not great; not great, but not bad either. Still, free stuff is free stuff.
Replacing the vehicle was out of the question—useless for him, since his waste-recycling ability was far too important.
As for the other two…