Chapter 135: This Isn't Hard Labor, It's a Limited Time Event!

Three exoframes were left at the north gate.

As for their captain Lu Yang, he followed Chu Guang into the outpost.

It could be seen that he was very confident in himself and he wasn’t worried about running into any accidents.

Of course, Chu Guang had no intention of making trouble for himself.

Inviting Lu Yang to the reception room of the nursing home, Chu Guang wanted to bring something to entertain him, but when he took out the wine glass, Lu Yang hurriedly waved his hand to stop him.

"I appreciate your kindness! But I'm still on a mission, and I can't drink."

"What about milk?"

"It's really not necessary. Our armor has reserves of fresh water and liquefied food. We can only consume our own rations when out on missions. This is the order that we have received.”

"How about a stool for you to sit on?"

"No need, it will collapse."

"Okay." Chu Guang didn't expect to encounter a well-disciplined army in the wasteland.

Of course, it could also be out of prudence.

Chu Guang didn't insist any longer and put the things away.

"Speaking of which, I'm a little curious about what your SC-500 Crawler Transport Platform looks like... Can you satisfy my curiosity?"

Lu Yang nodded. "Of course."

He reached out and tapped on the helmet. Then the button-sized integrated light at the neckline cast a beam of light on the burning brazier.

Looking closely, the light consisted of many beams as thin as cilia, and soon those cilia swayed gently, interweaving a transparent three-dimensional holographic image above the flame.

"Holographic projection?"

"Yes," Lu Yang nodded with pride on his face, "This is our Pioneer! Isn't it magnificent?"

Four crawlers nearly 20 meters long carried a square platform with a length and width of 50 meters. On the platform were stacked blocks of cuboid modules, spliced ??and stacked like containers. From a distance, it looked like a jagged Rubik's cube.

There were a total of four platforms, which were distributed in the four corners in a matrix, and were connected by pipelines in the middle. It seemed that they could be separated.

It was not so much as a cruiser on land than a four-legged fortress!

"It's really magnificent... Is there a photo? I mean, a proper photo, not this kind of skeleton-like hologram."

Lu Yang was stunned for a moment, then nodded. "Photo? We do have some... I can send it to your VM if you need it."

"Please send me one!"

Although he was confused as to what use Chu Guang wanted the photo for, Lu Yang chose one that was less sensitive and sent it to him.

Hiding the joyful look on his face, Chu Guang coughed lightly, looked at Lu Yang with a serious expression and continued, "Thank you, that's a great help. In addition, I have a general understanding of your demands. To put it simply... You need a hundred laborers to engage in resource collection and material handling, right?"

Lu Yang nodded earnestly. "Yes, it would be better if there were more people! We need a lot of people to collect car wreckage and other metal waste, haul it to our production workshop to be reheated, remelted, and produce the steel and other alloys we need."

"As for the technical problems, you don't have to worry about them, our engineers will take care of everything. Your men only need to do some simple work."

"As compensation, we are willing to provide food and accommodation for each worker, and pay them an hourly wage of 1CR, which is settled on a daily basis."

Chu Guang asked, "What is a CR?"

"... I almost forgot..." Lu Yang patted his head. He took out a 100 CR note from his waist, showed it to Chu Guang, and explained with a smile, "It is a bond issued by Enterprise, which also acts as currency, it’s called Credits, or CR for short. You can use it to buy anything you want at any survivor base on the east coast... As long as they have it."

"Plus, all the caravans from the east coast recognize its value, and you can exchange this note for everything in their hands. A banknote like this is enough for an employee of Enterprise to spend for a week, and it is enough to last two weeks if you spend it wisely."

Chu Guang joked, "So the hourly wage of 1CR is the minimum wage of Enterprise?"

"We don't have a minimum wage, but the payment for manual labor is basically the same. You can get 12CR a day if you work for twelve hours, isn't that enough? We will provide food and lodging for your workers as well..."

"This is River Valley Province, not the east coast. Mhm, do you have any chips?"

Lu Yang looked confused. "... Chips?"

"Yes, the areas around Clearspring City mainly use this kind of plastic chip as currency. All the merchants who come here know about it, so I thought you knew a little..." With that, Chu Guang took out a white chip from his pocket and shook it lightly in front of Lu Yang.

The anti-counterfeiting lacquer paint printed on the chip has not faded even after two centuries, as if it was integrated with the material itself.

Lu Yang looked a little troubled. "It's a pity that we're not merchants... Frankly speaking, we're going to the west to carry out a very important mission, which will affect the fate of everyone on this planet. For the sake of the future of civilization, can you be more accommodating? From what I understand, River Valley Province is also within the business scope of Enterprise, and I can use my credit score to assure you that these banknotes will work!"

"For the future of civilization was a slogan people chanted a century ago. It's already the 211th year of the Wasteland Era, but nothing has changed." Putting away the chip in his hand, Chu Guang looked at Lu Yang and continued, "You should have something to trade, right? Have you all been living on the air all this way? Whether it's food, weapons, or production tools and methods, we all need it here. There is no point in giving me paper like this. God knows when your caravans from the east coast will come to us. And what is the use of it even if it can be used here? Even if 100 CR can buy a set of exoframe on the east coast, it may not be able to buy a cow here."

Even in a civilized society with convenient logistics, the purchasing power of different currencies in different regions would be different. There was no need to mention a wasteland where civilization was broken.

A caravan traveled thousands of kilometers, just to trade their goods for a pile of paper that couldn’t be spent locally...

Damn it, we’re businessmen here!

At the very least, we need to get stuff of equal value!

Lu Yang coughed lightly and said, "...No matter where it is, it is impossible to buy an exoframe with 100 CR, even one that is close to being scrapped. But I understand what you mean. What you need is food, weapons and production tools, right?"

"Exactly!" Chu Guang looked at him with ardent eyes and continued, "If you want to hire my people, you have to pay them silver coins and copper coins. If you want silver coins, you can exchange them with the things you have."

Lu Yang nodded. "Understood, this is a reasonable request. But I'm not good at this. I'll ask someone from the logistics department to come over and talk to you about the transaction. He will arrive here tomorrow morning. In addition, if it's convenient, I hope we will be able to set up an office to facilitate our timely communication. The scale of this office will not be very large, and we will only need to staff it with two people. What do you think?”

Chu Guang nodded happily. "This is exactly what I want as well."

Lu Yang finally showed a smile on his face.

Communicating with civilized people was always more satisfying than communicating with ignorant natives. Although the content of the negotiation would be a bit troublesome, he could leave the trouble to the people in the logistics department.

The Pioneer had no shortage of food and fresh water, and could produce daily necessities by itself. What was lacking was only materials and electricity. With labor provided by the shelter, the problem of gathering resources has been solved, and now there was one last problem left.

"... About the guide."

Chu Guang looked at him and said, "No problem, my guys know this place well. The only thing we need to know is what you’re looking for.”

Lu Yang quickly explained, "Controllable fusion fuel rods. Of course, I'm not talking about the fusion cells for exoframes, tanks or small workshops, but the fusion rods with helium-3 reserves of more than 5 kilograms and output power between 100MW and 1GW. Only that can power the Pioneer. The fuel rod is a bit special, but our guys can recognize it."

"Then do you know where to find it?" Chu Guang frowned.

Lu Yang nodded confidently. “Of course, according to our analysis of pre-war map data, there was a carbon dioxide collection station located near the fifth-ring in the northern suburbs of Clearspring City. Public facilities like this were common in densely populated cities, and its main function was to use electricity during low-peak hours to absorb carbon dioxide accumulated in urban agglomerations, maintaining the so-called carbon balance."

"The fuel rod model of the backup generators in the carbon dioxide collection station is similar to ours, but the troublesome thing is that they were usually not marked on the civilian map, were merged with some high-rise buildings such as office buildings and apartments, and were usually located between the 20th and 30th floor. So we can only speculate its approximate location based on limited information."

Hearing this, Chu Guang couldn't help but interrupt, "Are you sure it hasn't been taken away by others?"

"We're not sure, so we need a local guide to cooperate with our marines to find the ones that haven't been taken away."

After a moment's pause, Lu Yang offered his conditions, "If you're lucky enough to find it, we just want the controlled fusion fuel rods, as for the other by-products, like long-chain alkanes, alkenes, or things like ketones and lipids, you're free to take them. It doesn't matter if you use them as firewood, or make them into something else."

I wouldn't be so wasteful as to use them as firewood.

Chu Guang felt that he would not do something as dumb as that.

High-quality industrial raw materials like that could be sold even if they temporarily couldn't use it. Survivor strongholds with industrial capabilities like Boulder Town should be happy to buy them.

Chu Guang remembered that Luca once said that every year, a caravan from Boulder Town would arrive on Brown Farm to buy the oils and resins produced by the Camu Tree.

Looking at Lu Yang, Chu Guang nodded. "No problem."

"I'm glad we have reached an agreement, that's all," Lu Yang showed a pleasant smile on his face and stretched out his right hand, "I'm looking forward to working with you!"

Holding his outstretched right hand and shaking it, Chu Guang had the same smile on his face. "Me too!"

...

Looking at their captain who came out of the wall, the nervous marines standing at the north gate finally breathed a sigh of relief.

The curious glances around them made them feel uncomfortable.

Haven't these hillbillies ever seen an exoframe?

Fortunately, they were still restrained and did not try anything dumb.

"It's getting late, let's head back!" Stopping beside his teammates, Lu Yang looked at Chu Guang and said with a smile, "Tomorrow our guys will come!"

Chu Guang nodded. "Then I won't send you off."

Lu Yang took his subordinates and prepared to leave.

However, at this moment, his teammate's voice came from the communication channel.

"Captain, there are explosions and gunfire to the east... I don't have a good view here, but it looks like there is a fire fight..."

Lu Yang was slightly taken aback and asked Chu Guang, "Are you guys at war?”

Chu Guang said calmly, guessing that one of the other party's teammates who was staying outside, probably discovered the fight in the east.

"You mean the east? If that counts as a war, our people are indeed fighting mutant humans."

"Mutant human?" Lu Yang's expression changed slightly, "There are also mutant humans here?"

"Where not? Those green-skinned guys are everywhere," Chu Guang smiled. "Of course, I'm not sure if the mutant human in the River Valley Province is the same as the mutant human on your east coast. I heard that those with deep green skin and light green skin are not the same kind."

"No matter which kind they are, they are a bunch of disgusting dudes! This group of dog-like beasts are like tumors that can't be killed no matter what. They are the cancer of civilization!" Lu Yang gritted his teeth and growled, with an expression of hatred and disgust on his face, making Chu Guang wonder if there was a story behind his comment.

The next second, Chu Guang looked at him and asked, "Then are you willing to help us solve this trouble? For the future of civilization."

Lu Yang hesitated for a moment and said. "This... This isn’t good, right? Our order does not allow us to intervene in the disputes of the locals."

If they intervened in the disputes of the locals, troubles would follow one after another. He was too experienced in matters like that.

It was okay to not help in local disputes... But why the hell didn’t you say when you asked me for help earlier?!

"But mutant humans can't be considered human," Chu Guang said patiently without giving up, "If you are helping us, you will make things easier for yourself.”

"What do you mean..." Lu Yang frowned.

"Think about it, if we have to deal with the harassment of mutant humans, how can we do our best to help you? I promise you, as long as you solve the trouble of mutant humans for us, the number of laborers we can lend you will be doubled... That's 200 people. Does a reasonable transaction violate your order?"

200 workers...

It seems that version 0.7 has to be pushed forward...

Chu Guang pondered silently.

Since there's a new map, I can release it as a new expansion of the game and more players into the game. Of course, this will not be a labor dispatch in name, but a limited-time event! Wahaha!

There are limited-time activities in the testing stage, and you can get rewards without paying. Is there anything better?!

Chu Guang was almost moved by how great his ideas were.

Lu Yang, who was facing him, was stunned.

Two hundred people?!

Are there two hundred people in this survivor colony?!

If the village outside was also included, there might be. However, what he needed were able-bodied laborers, not the old and weak and definitely not the women and children.

However, it was also possible that there were still people who hadn’t come to the surface...

After weighing the pros and cons in his heart, Lu Yang finally nodded reluctantly. "I hope you will keep your word."

The more people who helped, the faster they would progress. If he could, he didn't want to waste too much time, they were already going slow enough on the way into the River Valley Province!

"Of course, I am the most trustworthy person!" Chu Guang smiled brightly in response.

He knew that from the moment the man in front of him lowered his head, the group of mutant humans who stayed on 76th Street were as good as dead.