Chapter 101: Are You A Glitch Abuser?!

The caravan in Red River Town came earlier than expected.

After hearing the news of the destruction of the Bloodhand Clan, these merchants only took two and a half days to march to the northern suburbs of Clearspring City.

The longer the delay, the colder the weather, and the lower the probability of the captives’ survival. They needed to transport these captives back to Red River Town and then sell them to suitable buyers before they froze to death.

If more than half of them died on the way back, they wouldn’t make much money...

Under the heavy snow, the travel-worn caravan arrived at the gate of the abandoned tire factory.

Signaling the team behind to stop, a man wearing a cotton coat with a semi-automatic rifle strapped to his chest walked out.

Looking up at Chu Guang and Hein standing on the gate, he yelled, "I'm an employee of the Horseshoe Merchants Association, and all the goods you want are here!"

Hein's bodyguard, Wen, was also among them.

However, his status did not allow him to interrupt the man, so he just stood next to the yak carrying supplies and cleared the cylinder of the revolver rifle to pass his time as he was bored out of his mind.

"Wait a minute." Chu Guang gestured, then looked at the player beside him.

Seeing the look in the administrator's eyes, the players who could not wait to skip the cutscene immediately turned the winch and opened the wooden gate.

As the gate opened, a group of marauder captives walked out of the underground cells with their heads bowed dejectedly under the custody of four players.

"Move!"

"Don’t do anything stupid!"

Actually, those marauders didn't dare move too slowly. The players just wanted to shout something for fun.

Due to the language barrier, the captives could not understand what the people in the blue coats were saying. They could only feel from the shaking muzzles that they were probably urging them to move forward.

Many marauder veterans had already guessed their future after looking at the yak caravan at the gate of the camp and the horseshoe-shaped badge. Despair could be seen on their faces.

There were only a few young marauders who were at a loss, not knowing where they would be taken to and how they would end up.

The players holding the rifles talked quietly among themselves.

Some of them died in the battle a few days ago and had just respawned recently.

Makka Pakka muttered, "There are a few prisoners in there I find quite familiar."

Eye Owe Money frowned. "You mean the one who killed you?"

Makka Pakka raised an eyebrow in response, "Who knows? It was so dark at that time and the bullets were flying everywhere. I didn't know if I was even killed by them. Huh! It irritates me just thinking about it. How did I die anyway?!"

Eye Owe Money lowered his voice and growled, “Just stop and admit that you suck at playing this game. It’s not like there are people who don’t like you enough to kill you during the battle. By the way, does this mean there’s no kill cam in this game?"

Makka Pakka pouted at the side. "Fine, I’ll stop thinking about it... Say, do you know where these marauders will be sent to?"

Eye Owe Money explained, "It seems that the administrator’s selling them to Red River Town."

“Red River Town?"

Eye Owe Money continued, "It’s on the official website’s background setting page, haven’t you read it? It’s a town under Clearspring City, probably a few tens of kilometers away. There are many pre-war landfills there. Slaves sold there will be sent into mines to dig until they die."

"Tsk tsk, so miserable..." Makka Pakka swiveled around in thought and suddenly said, "But then again, if I sell myself and then commit suicide. Do you think it is possible to make some money?"

Hearing such a shameless plan, Eye Owe Money was shocked. "Dayum, are you planning to abuse that glitch?"

Although the crimes they committed were enough to hang them on the gallows ten times, Chu Guang still retained their basic human rights, allowing them to keep their clothes and shoes and eat meat of unknown composition in the warehouse. He even bandaged their wounds with a small number of bandages they found.

The reason for doing this was not out of pity.

It was purely for the concern that if too many people died, he wouldn’t be able to earn much.

Their good days had yet to come.

"Thirty?" The man in the lead counted the number of prisoners, looked at Chu Guang, and asked, "Why is there one missing?"

"Maybe he died? I don’t know?"

Chu Guang came down from the gate and casually looked back. He happened to see a player dragging a corpse with a broken leg out of the underground cell.

Seeing that the numbers were right, the man nodded without saying anything. He signaled to the guards behind him to help unload the goods.

If the transaction was completed earlier, they would go home sooner.

...

According to the agreement between Chu Guang and Hein, regardless of whether they were disabled or not, each prisoner would be worth goods equivalent to twenty kilograms of coarse salt.

Since one of the prisoners died, thirty of them were exchanged for six hundred kilograms of coarse salt in the end.

Coarse salt was a specialty of Red River Town, and it was also the general equivalent of the transaction between both parties.

It was useless for Chu Guang to ask for so much coarse salt, so in addition to 2 hundred kilograms of coarse salt, the remaining amount was replaced by some specialties of Red River Town.

This included thirty revolver rifles, eight boxes of handmade copper bullets with a total of more than four thousand rounds, a large number of copper ingots, zinc ingots, chromium ingots, and strong oxidants such as potassium permanganate.

The former was to meet the defense needs of the outpost, while the latter was the raw material that would drive the industrial development.

In addition, there were some hardware parts that were used in processing machinery, as well as some mechanical parts such as gears and transmission shafts, which were mainly prepared for Xia Yan.

Although several metallurgical professional players could also make it by hand, the problem of steelmaking had not been solved yet, and the strength of the material was always a problem.

The quality of the hand-grinding tools was not always great. It was only fine to use them in the early stages. In actual use, the wear and tear rate was surprisingly high, and they even needed to be replaced every few days. So much so that Chu Guang wondered several times whether Xia Yan had been slacking off during work.

Although the industrial capacity of Red River Town was not as good as that of Boulder Town, there was no problem in producing some processing tools, and the quality was not that bad.

Chu Guang bought a few more sets this time, and it shouldn’t be a problem to last until the spring of the coming year.

In order to transport these goods, the Horseshoe Merchants Association mobilized a total of ten mutant yaks and also hired 8 gunmen with revolver rifles as escorts.

Watching them unload the goods, Chu Guang glanced at Hein next to him and said, "Speaking of which, that person said he was an employee of the Horseshoe Merchants Association. Are they your colleagues?"

Hein explained with a grin. "Although we are all employees of the Horseshoe Merchants Association, employees like me may be slightly different from the employees you understand. Simply put, our relationship with the association is more like cooperation than employment. The caravan guards and the yaks you see are the property of the association, only the goods are purchased by us employees."

Chu Guang suddenly thought of something. "Purchased from the association?"

Hein glanced at Chu Guang in surprise, as if he did not expect him to know this. He nodded and said. "Yes, our goods are purchased uniformly from the association, and the sellers are basically the customers of the association... Except this time. We will check every transaction, deduct the cost of purchasing and hiring guards, and we also need to give 60% of the profit to the association."

That sounded a little like the franchise system.

Purchasing, logistics, and even customer relations all belong to the headquarters, and dealers like Hein were like franchisees.

Even if they made a loss, the Horseshoe Merchants Association would not have to take any risk, and the loss was entirely on the franchisee's side.

If the business makes a profit, the association will take 60% of all profits.

Actually... Even if they made a loss, the association would still make money.

After all, all franchisees got their goods from the association, and it was certainly impossible for the association to sell them to the franchisees at the cost price, there must be some profit added to the cost already.

Chu Guang couldn't help but sigh with emotion.

Those indigenous people were much better at exploiting people.

Compared to them, I’m so kind!

However, I can learn from this trading model. For example, it can be applied to the trading system in the future.

...

"Goodbye, my friend, I hope we can trade again in Spring next year!"

The delivery of the goods was finally completed, and Hein brought his bodyguards to the caravan and took off his hat to Chu Guang.

Chu Guang smiled faintly and waved his hand. "Have a safe trip."

Hein said with a hearty smile. "Hahaha, thank you! Then we shall leave now. I wish you and your shelter the best of luck."

Then the group set off.

At this moment, Chu Guang noticed that the female mercenary next to Hein suddenly turned her head and shot him a look of embarrassment.

Their line of sight happened to meet each other. But the female mercenary was not embarrassed. She gave him an air kiss and mouthed, "we will see you again".

Then she went with the caravan and disappeared in the vast snow and fog.

Chu Guang was taken aback for a moment, frowned, and thought for a long time. However, he still couldn’t remember her name, and was even more confused about her past behavior.

Was she called Wendy?

Or Helen?

After all, he only heard the merchant say it once. Who would pay attention to the name of a mercenary next to a merchant?

Forget it, I should not waste time thinking about such inconsequential issues.

Chu Guang shook his head and signaled the players to load the supplies that had been exchanged using the slaves onto the cart and prepare to drag them back to the warehouse in the outpost.

However, although Chu Guang himself didn't care, he couldn't hold back the enthusiastic gossip of the players around him. Especially when they saw the last blown kiss, a group of players felt their imaginations going wild.

"Holy shit! You saw what I saw? There’s definitely a story waiting to be written just from that gaze alone!"

"I saw it! That blow kiss!"

"Do you think something happened between the administrator and that woman?"

"It can’t be. They only stayed together for a few days in total."

"A few days is more than enough..."

"Damn it, then what about the Weapon Shop Owner?"

"Big news! The one million-word unspeakable story about the administrator and the female caravan mercenary!"

"Tsk tsk, it's not that simple! It's definitely not that simple! It sounds like a smut!"

"Understood, we should let Brother Mole draw us some pictures when we get back!"

Tsk... These fools are really lewd...

Chu Guang's eyebrows twitched, but he finally restrained the urge to complain and kept the calmness an NPC should have.

After a cough, he used a commanding tone to urge the players who stopped to gossip to get back to their work.

"Hurry up!"

"We need to drag all the goods back before the snow becomes heavier!"

At Chu Guang's urging, the players finally stopped delaying and quickly packed goods on the wooden carts.

Even though they were still chattering, they never stopped from beginning to end.

After finally packing their things, the group was ready to go on the road.

Looking at the gate behind him, Construction Boy who was on duty took a step forward and asked Chu Guang for instructions.

"Dear administrator, what should we do with this stronghold? Do we still need to keep up our guard?"

There was nothing in the stronghold, and he wondered if he could get the award for the mission in advance if he no longer needed to act as a guard.

Chu Guang thought for a few seconds, then ordered.

"Burn it, and leave the rest for mutants."

This stronghold was too far away from the players' resurrection point, and there was no strategic value in terms of location; it was not necessary to keep it.

Moreover, just standing inside, Chu Guang felt that his moral value was decreasing.

He really couldn't figure out how these marauders lived here with peace of mind.

Construction Boy nodded excitedly and said. "Yes, administrator!"

Destroying and burning stuff down was much more interesting than cutting down trees!

...

Chu Guang trusted the players' ability to scavenge.

They even dug three feet into the ground. Not to mention the chips hidden in the cabinet, they brought the whole damn cabinet back!

There was almost nothing left in the Bloodhand Clan’s stronghold.

And those leftovers were either inconvenient to take away, or they had no value in recycling.

For example, the air-dried meat in the warehouse.

Obviously, a considerable part of that meat was not taken from normal prey.

After air-drying, it was difficult to distinguish between the appearance of the animal meat and human meat.

Out of mental mysophobia, Chu Guang didn't want any of them.

Part of it had been thrown to feed the marauder captives in the underground cells, and the rest was just hanging on the suspension beams of the warehouse.

Those mice and cockroaches could have everything after the members of Shelter 404 left.

As for potatoes such as shofar potatoes, full grains, and vegetables that looked very similar to Chinese cabbage, Chu Guang had asked his players to transport everything back.

Those were actually good shit.

Especially those vegetables, which added up to 3 to 4 thousand kilograms, could be mixed with grains and meat to be eaten for a long time, and they could also balance out the nutrition of the clones.

Not surprisingly, these grains were probably obtained by the marauders from Brown Farm.

In addition to food, there were some furs such as hyena skins, deer skins, wild boar skins, and even bear skins, which were around two hundred and thirty pieces.

It was unlikely that all of these furs came from Baker Street.

There were only a hundred households on Baker Street. Even if the old leech exploited people down to their bones, he may not be able to collect these tributes.

Chu Guang speculated that a considerable part of them must have been contributed by other nearby survivors' settlements.

These marauders had been busy looting throughout the fall, but before they had time to enjoy them, they all fell into the hands of Chu Guang.

And Chu Guang naturally didn't plan to return them.

After all, the rule on the wasteland was ‘Finders Keepers’.

A raging fire was soon ignited at the gate of the camp, and sparks that were blown by the north wind were slowly moving in the direction of the main building.

Looking at the fire in front of him and thinking of the contents of the diaries, Chu Guang felt a little bit of emotion in his heart.

Pulling out the Silver Snake revolver on his waist, he fired a shot into the sky.

Bang!

The gunshot echoed on the snow-covered street, drowning in the wind and snow, signaling the ending of the dead souls who died here.

Waving off the white smoke floating on the barrel, Chu Guang inserted the revolver back into the gun holster made by Teng Teng, turned to look at the waiting players, and walked in front of them.

"Let’s go home!”