Chapter 109: Settling Refugees

[Mission:

Nomads from the Wilderness

]

[Remarks:

An unidentified group of nomads is coming from the north. Whatever their purpose is, we must be on guard.

]

[Description:

Players within thirty meters of the administrator will automatically trigger this mission, and anyone with weapons can enter the recruitment state by simply following the administrator.

]

[Reward:

1 Silver Coin.

]

...

North of the Wetland Park, a group of ragged refugees stopped in their tracks.

The burly man walked to the front of the crowd, raised his head in a humble or arrogant manner, and looked at Chu Guang, who was standing in front of the north gate. "We don't mean to trespass, we just want to go to the lake to get some water."

From the respectful eyes of others and how they made way for the person, it could be seen that the person who spoke should be their leader.

Chu Guang glanced slightly at the crowd behind the man. There were about 70 or 80 people, including some children and elderly. There were pregnant women, and even infants.

It was unlikely that it was a group of marauders.

They had two cows, a bull, two calves, and eight camels with luggage and supplies.

In terms of weapons, there were only five guns that could be seen, and the rest were bows and arrows, short crossbows, shovels, axes, hoes, and some were even holding wooden sticks.

Behind Chu Guang were nearly fifty players armed with guns. It would only take one charge to break this group of rabbles, and these supplies would undoubtedly become his spoils if he chose to do so.

The question was whether he wanted to or not.

Chu Guang did not order an attack, but watched the group of refugees who had come from afar.

"This is my territory. You can continue to the south along the elevated highway, or leave by heading north."

There was a commotion in the crowd as the man showed a troubled look.

"We need fresh water, if there is no water, our livestock will die of thirst."

"The city has everything you need, and the ground is full of snow. There are Crackleclaw Crab activities on the east and south shores of Linghu Lake now, which is not a good place to get water."

The man in the lead explained, "The water in the city is frozen, and we don't have enough fuel to melt the snow. As for the Crackleclaw Crab, they are not more terrifying than the monsters in the city."

The old man beside the man stepped forward and bowed. He pleaded, "I beg you to have mercy, we will not disturb you."

If everyone was telling the truth, there was no way the world would have ended up like that.

Chu Guang remained indifferent, weighing the pros and cons in his heart.

If this group of people was allowed to camp by the lake, it was difficult to say whether they could be driven away easily.

Perhaps their next step was to cut wood to build camps and even bring over their relatives from far away. In the end, more and more refugees would come here, and those who would be expelled from this place would be him and his players.

This kind of thing was not uncommon in the wasteland, it was even quite common, and it often ended in bloody conflict.

But thinking about it from another angle...

These people were all potential laborers, and they could take jobs that players didn't want to do or were too lazy to do.

And they had rich hunting experience and knowledge of surviving in the wasteland, which may allow his players to learn some interesting stuff.

Overall, the opportunities outweighed the risks.

Chu Guang raised his head and looked at the man in front of him.

"The land you see is my territory. Every tree and even every piece of soil here is ours."

"But I sympathize with your predicament, so I’m giving you two choices now. Either accept our arrangement, obey our laws, and set up camp at the designated location."

"Or... You can leave."

The man glanced at the group of gun-wielding warriors behind Chu Guang and said cautiously, "I need to discuss this with my tribe."

Chu Guang nodded. "I'll give you ten minutes."

In fact, it didn't take ten minutes.

Several ragged refugees gathered together, and after some discussion, the man finally stood in front of Chu Guang again and offered his shotgun in both hands.

𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

"We are willing to accept your arrangement."

Chu Guang didn't expect that the man would actually hand over his weapons on his own initiative.

However, he soon realized it was a reasonable action.

After all, he had said that the region ahead was his territory. So it was reasonable for the man to assume that the ruler here would ask everyone who wanted to enter his territory to surrender their firearms.

But Chu Guang didn’t take away all their weapons. He allowed them to keep their hunting bows and crossbows.

He placed the group a hundred meters outside the east gate of the outpost, and carved out a piece of land the size of a basketball court, allowing them to cut down wood in the area and make their home here.

There was a trench, a wall, and a buffer distance between the two sides, so he was not worried that they would cause any serious problems.

Besides, Little Seven was squatting on the roof, watching everyone intently. He would immediately discover any strange movements.

"What's your name?"

The man answered with a deep voice. "Iron Axe, sir."

"Iron Axe?"

"Yes, sir, that's what my tribesmen call me. When I was six years old, I used an axe to chop a marauder's head."

Chu Guang's brows twitched a few times. "Your name is very unique, but it is not convenient for us to communicate with each other, and it is also prone to cause misunderstanding. How about this, from now on, I’ll call you Wu, and you can keep Iron Axe as your first name. Your full name will be Iron Axe Wu.”

Although it was still very convoluted, it was not a big problem to use it as a name.

Those nomads were not literate, and they were not as well-educated as the survivors who formed a settlement. If Chu Guang gave the man a name that was too literary, he might not understand what it meant.

"Thank you for the name, I will be Iron Axe Wu in the future!" This burly man had no opinion on the name given to him by the man in front of him. In fact, he even felt a little honored.

In their tribe's tradition, only the older generations could give names to the younger generation.

Now that he and his group were seeking shelter from other people, the surname given by the leader of this group of people to him undoubtedly meant a kind of acceptance and protection.

At least, he thought it was a good thing for them!

Seeing Iron Axe Wu nodding, Chu Guang continued. "Our law is very simple. Fighting, stealing, killing, coercion, intimidation, and all actions that threaten others are prohibited. You are free to go to the lake to fetch water, but you must not interfere with those who fish there. Except for the trees near your camp, you are not allowed to cut down more trees without my permission. If you need wood, go further out to get it.”

“In addition, useful parts and metals collected from scavenging, as well as prey or other useful things, can be exchanged for other stuff in our warehouse."

"But remember, you can only send people to send trading materials to our warehouse from six to seven o’clock in the evening, and you are not allowed to cross our gate at will."

"I will ask my man to send the other terms of staying here to you. Speaking of which, can anyone in your tribe read?"

Iron Axe Wu nodded quickly. "Several elders in our tribe can read a little bit, and I can read a little bit too."

"Very good," Chu Guang nodded, looking at the burly man, "You should learn more when you have time, it's good for you."

...

After arranging the refugees who came from other places, Chu Guang dismissed the players, giving each of them a silver coin and letting them go play with themselves.

These refugees were also very honest and didn't cause trouble for Chu Guang. After demarcating the boundary, they chopped down trees with axes and concentrated on setting up their camp.

Regarding the standards of their camp, Chu Guang did not make very strict requirements, but only emphasized the aspects of hygiene and security.

That was, no one was allowed to defecate anywhere they liked so they wouldn’t start a bacteria breeding ground. All excrement needed to be centrally contained and transported to designated locations for dumping.

For the survivors who lived in the brick kilns, Chu Guang had the same requirements.

In addition, the wall of the camp must not be higher than two meters. If they wanted to build a house in the future, the building must not be higher than the east wall of the outpost.

However, those rules were actually a bit redundant for these refugees.

Let alone walls and toilets, they were already very satisfied if they could sleep in a place where their children would be shielded from the cold.

Both sides spent the first night peacefully.

Early the next morning, the group of refugees emerged from the makeshift shacks to continue their work.

The men took the initiative to bring their buckets to the lake to fetch water, dig wells with shovels, cut down trees with axes, and continued to build shacks with the collected materials.

Women and old men stayed on the premises, tending to livestock, or mending clothes, repairing damaged tools, and setting up cauldrons for lunch.

The players watched curiously for a long time, and finally could not hold back their curiosity, and took the initiative to communicate with those native people.

At first, the natives were still a little scared, but gradually they found out that those strange blue coats had no malicious intentions and slowly they became less worried.

Although the two sides did not understand each other, they could still understand each other's intentions after making a few gestures with their hands. For example, a gesture such as pointing to an item they wished to trade and something of their own... Even a monkey could understand.

Speaking of which, there was an interesting anecdote.

Combining the posts and comments on the official website, Chu Guang discovered a very interesting phenomenon in the process of secret observation.

Those players were actually very smart.

After discovering that Wasteland Online indeed had its own unique language, they mastered the two most basic nouns "I" and "You" very early on.

Then there were words that were used very frequently such as "Hyena", "Air-dried Meat", "Wood", "Prey", and "Fish" that often appeared in tasks, and it was not difficult to learn.

When some old players heard NPCs talking, they could guess what the NPCs wanted to express.

As for difficult verbs, adjectives, and more advanced and obscure grammar that were rarely used in daily communication, interested players on the official website had not reached a unified consensus on their meaning.

In fact, it was a very long process to completely master a foreign language. This was not something that an expert could do by just writing a few papers.

In particular, systematic mastery usually required two civilizations to reach a consensus on some objective things, behaviors, and even more profound philosophical concepts in the long-term contact and communication.

The more developed a civilization was on the material and spiritual levels, the wider the vocabulary and the more flexible and diverse the grammar.

Their language even contained many nouns, verbs, and adjectives that were not understood by lower-level civilizations, and it was naturally more difficult to decipher.

However, if it was just daily communication, it was not as difficult as imagined.

Maybe in a few years, there would be players who could talk to the natives without the help of translation tools... If someone was really that bored in real life and decided to learn a new language in a game...

Chu Guang had not yet decided whether to help them or not, so he decided to observe them for a while before making a decision.

After understanding their intentions, these refugees also took out the goods they wanted to trade.

They had dried meat, which included hyena meat from hunting, beef, and camel meat from slaughtering livestock.

In addition, they also had the furs of various animals, as well as some leather goods such as slings and scabbards that they made themselves.

However, what surprised the players the most was that these natives actually had treasures like milk and camel fur!

Unlocking two recipes at the same time was a very exciting thing for players.

"Brothers! You can get fur from these people! And milk and camel milk!"

"Three kilograms of shofar potatoes can be exchanged for one kilogram of dried hyena meat!"

"One kilogram of shofar potatoes is only three silver coins... What the hell?! That is to say, three silver coins can be exchanged for one kilogram of dried hyena meat! If you buy it in the NPC warehouse, you can only buy six hundred grams for the same amount!"

"Exchange hyena meat my ass! Aren't you tired of eating it? Hmmm, I haven't eaten camel meat in real life. Let me go to the warehouse to exchange some stuff first, then I'll try to get two pieces of camel meat!"

"This pot of camel milk is so little... And it is a little smelly. Is it really drinkable?"

"The alpha 0.5 version is awesome! The development team is awesome!"

"These natives also sell leather and iron products! But... They’re not of the best quality..."

The natives looked at these blue-coated people with a bewildered expression.

Although they couldn't understand what they were saying, they could feel that they were very excited.

If that was the case, maybe they could increase the price a little...

It shouldn't be a problem, right?

...

Players quickly brought the news to the official website.

After waiting for a while, Ample Time, who never disappointed Chu Guang, wrote a strategy post.

It was the most cost-effective to exchange coarse salt for air-dried meat as a hundred grams of coarse salt could be exchanged for one kilogram of air-dried hyena meat.

The former only cost two silver coins in the NPC's warehouse, while the latter cost five silver coins in the NPC's warehouse!

However, this method could only help them to get more materials, and it was not realistic to use it to make more money.

First of all, the buying prices and selling prices of the goods in the NPC warehouse were different, and the difference between the buying price and the selling price of the same material could even reach 1:10.

The exchanged air-dried meat could only be either eaten by the player themselves or sold to other players at a low price. It was impossible to dump a large number at the warehouses to make a fortune.

It was actually impossible to sell to other players. Once the news spread, there would be no information difference, and it was naturally impossible to make money that way.

Who would want to be ripped off?

Another unrealistic reason was that the prices in the game were subject to changes due to supply and demand.

Not long after Ample Time's post was posted, the bug was fixed by an invisible big hand.

Later, when another player took a hundred grams of coarse salt and wanted to buy meat from those natives who came from afar, the other party refused.

Those native refugees were no longer short of salt, and they also needed to stock some food. As for camel milk and milk, they still needed to keep some to feed the babies in the tribe, at least they wouldn’t be trading in large quantities for the time being.

All that could be traded were furs, leather goods, and some gadgets that didn't have any attribute bonuses, but were slightly good-looking.

Players didn't have many silver coins in their pockets. They were not rich enough to squander their money at will. Besides, the leather goods and clothes made by those native people were not as beautiful as those made by Teng Teng's Hut.

The most important thing for

Skins

without attributes was naturally the appearance! As a consequence, the trading boom that had just heated up came to an abrupt end for the time being.