Chapter 250.2: You Get A Server Announcement For Growing Corn?!

Just as the newbies were working in the field, Boulder Town, on the edge of the third ring, received a group of special guests.

"Is this Boulder Town?"

"This wall is built like a dam..."

"Holy cow... How much concrete did it take to build this wall?"

"Don’t know..."

The concrete wall was as tall as 20 stories.

Counting the steel structure inside, the consumption of cement and steel was probably astronomical.

On the way down from the elevated road, Old White, Night Ten, and Gale couldn’t tear their eyes off the wall.

Since Ample Time had been shocked once before, he remained pretty calm. He said with a light cough, "Guys, act normally."

Night Ten swallowed and looked away from the giant wall. "I think I'm acting very normal. It’s just that this wall isn’t normal at all!"

Gale, who was standing beside him, also nodded. "Yeah, he’s right."

Since those people had the technology to build this huge wall, there was no reason that they would be forced back to live inside the wall by some mutants.

That didn't make any sense.

Unless... They didn’t build the wall and it was created by someone else instead...

"These hillbillies." Seeing how ignorant these people were, the mercenary walking beside the caravan laughed in a low voice.

But then he was glared at by the mercenary leader. "Shut your mouth!"

Seeing that it was his boss, the mercenary immediately closed his mouth and did not dare to speak again.

Withdrawing his gaze from his subordinates, the mercenary leader glanced in the direction of the players. Noticing that they hadn't seemed to have heard the mockery, he was a little relieved.

He knew that those people were really powerful.

Whether it was the man with the bow on his back or the man with the machine gun on his back, they were terrifying monsters!

Although it sounded a bit ridiculous, his intuition told him that those two people might be ability users! Moreover, he didn't want to provoke a force that could keep a Deathclaw as a pet.

𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

They were going to arrive at their destination soon. It wouldn’t be good for them to stir up trouble.

Once they got off the elevated highway, the Wind From Afar Hotel and the slum directly across the street were just a short distance away.

Just as the group walked towards the gate, many people were also looking at them, especially the goods that were carried on the backs of the two-headed oxen.

When the few children sitting at the gate of the slum saw them, they whispered a few words to each other after seemingly realizing something. They quickly ran back to the slum.

After a while, several men with tattoos on their faces emerged.

Seeing these people, Xu Shun calmly put his hand on his waist, Ample Time and Old White exchanged glances, and put their hands on the weapons in unison.

Not only did Ample Time and Old White not look afraid, but their eyes seemed to shine with excitement.

Did we just trigger a plot?

Hurry up and let us see the cutscene!

Reading the tense atmosphere in the air, Shu Yu's heart was already in his throat.

However, thinking that he was representing Shelter 404, he still tried his best not to show a nervous expression.

"Tommy, where did you get so many good things again?" The bald-headed man with a dagger tattooed on his face walking in the front cast a playful look at the mercenary leader.

The mercenary leader’s face was tense, and he tried his best to respond expressionlessly. "It's not mine. But I advise you not to think about touching these things unless you want to get into unnecessary trouble."

"Really? Who is your employer?"

Before the mercenary leader could answer, a voice came out from the caravan. "Liszt."

Walking out of the caravan, Qian Lai continued to look at the bald head with a dagger tattooed on his face. "Any problems?"

Hearing Liszt's name, the bald-headed man’s expression changed slightly, and his playful expression faded a little. "Of course. We don’t have a problem. Actually, I just wanted to ask... With so many herbs, do you need someone to help sell them? We can help."

Qian Lai said impatiently, "100 chips per kilogram. If you can buy them all, I can give you a 10% discount."

It would probably cost tens of thousands of chips to buy them all.

But...

If we can get this batch of goods and refine it into psychoid drinks, it may not be a problem to double or even triple that money.

The bald-headed man had a troubled expression on his face, and he said in a serious voice. "... This... I have to ask my boss."

Qian Lai said succinctly, "I can wait until 8:00 o'clock tonight, you know how to contact me."

After failing to get what they wanted, those people returned to the slums.

Staring at their backs, Shu Yu asked Qian Lai, "Who are they?"

"They’re from the Dagger Gang. They often tattoo daggers on their faces or their arms. But don't worry about them, you don't have to deal with these people."

Qian Lai then looked at the mercenary leader called Tommy and urged, "Let's go. If we stay here for too long, other flies will fly over."

The group started moving again and went to line up at the city gate for inspection.

Seeing the goods on the backs of the oxen, the face of the guard in charge of the inspection showed a surprised expression. "Another shipment? Where did you get it?"

He remembered the man in front of him. He seemed to be the same guy who he had seen a week ago.

Qian Lai lied casually, "The plantation in the south. The survivors there have a lot of stock."

The guard obviously didn't believe him, but he didn't carry on asking. Instead, as if he wanted to hint at something, he said ambiguously, "I'm afraid you will have to pay a lot of taxes for this."

"Of course, we are law-abiding citizens." With a friendly smile on his face, Qian Lai secretly stuffed a bag of chips into their hands just like the last time he came.

The guard who received the money opened the bag and glanced at it, smiling knowingly. He took out two chips from the inside, stuffed them into his pocket, and then walked towards the table at the gate. "It's all vegetables."

The officer in charge of registration glanced at the bag of chips on the table and made two ticks on the notebook. "Let them in."

Shu Yu gave Qian Lai a slightly surprised look.

Is that it?

Noticing his gaze, Qian Lai smiled and said softly. "There is no need to pay taxes on food, which will save money... So you see, it also costs us money."

Shu Yu asked, "Is there no need to check after paying them?"

Qian Lai thought for a while. "Not necessarily, it depends on the situation and the person. If you want to send in contraband, I'm afraid it's still a bit difficult."

Shu Yu nodded thoughtfully.

Although it was not that he hadn't done business, he always felt that the situation in Boulder Town was more complicated than that in his hometown...

After paying the tax, the group entered the city smoothly.

According to the contract, the mercenaries sent them to the warehouse district and then got their pay from Qian Lai.

The warehouse rented by Liszt was not far from the gate of the warehouse district. There was still some space in it, and it was more than enough to store a ton of goods.

After the few people unloaded the goods together, Qian Lai asked the guard with a bandage on his arm to return the two-headed oxen to the shed at the entrance of the warehouse district. Then he looked at Shu Yu and the others who were traveling with him, and said with a smile, "If you don't want to rent a warehouse, you can also store your goods with us. You don’t have much stuff anyway."

Shu Yu shook his head and declined. "Thank you, but we've decided to rent an office."

Qian Lai asked politely, "Are you in such a hurry? Boulder Town is a huge place. You can take a few days to look around first and then pick a better place."

Shu Yu shook his head. "Our administrator has instructed me to find a place near the warehouse."

The warehouse district of Boulder Town was very close to the city gate. There was a trading station across the street, and a market where the locals buy things a little further away. So the traffic here was relatively convenient.

They just needed an office in Boulder Town to assist people and players from the outpost. There was no need to rent a place in a particularly busy place. It could even just be a small area, and the monthly rent should be kept below 1,000 chips as much as possible.

In the future, when conditions were met, they would buy a whole building.

This was what the administrator said before he set off.

Qian Lai didn't say anything else, but still enthusiastically led them out of the warehouse district and found a place where they could rent a house.

There were a lot of vacant houses here, and the rent was not expensive. For a 120 square meter office, they only needed to pay 800 chips a month, and on average, they only needed 20 chips a day.

If they added another 200 chips, the landlord said they could rent the two empty rooms above the office.

If they wanted to buy it, such a house would not only cost nearly 300,000 chips. They would also have to pay 50 chips per month for management fees and property taxes.

Looking at the subtitles on the VM, Night Ten looked at Ample Time beside him in confusion. "1,666 chips per square meter. Is this considered cheap or expensive?"

Ample Time thought for a while and explained after some calculation, "It's cheap based on the rental to sales ratio, but it's a bit expensive based on prices and income. I remember that in the textile factory in the nearby industrial area, they seem to offer a daily salary of 3 to 4 chips and two meals of nutritional cream."

Based on that rate, the monthly salary they offered was only 90 to 120 chips, which was not even enough to buy a rifle.

In the case of child labor, most factories would only give 1 chip a day, and some would simply just give them a meal. Their pay would either be settled weekly, or with the goods produced.

Since the smallest unit was 1 chip, it was not even possible to calculate the hourly wages of the locals.

Relatively speaking, the salary of engineers would be higher, and their salary was basically more than 10 times that of ordinary workers. If the workplace was outside the city or even nearby other survivors' settlements, the pay was more likely to be doubled.

Some technicians with rare skills could even earn triple digit daily wages.

However, those rare beings would usually not go outside the city at all. They would usually live in high-end apartments close to the inner city, and some would even move into the inner city with a good environment.

As for mercenaries?

Most of them would only earn what they spend that day so there was no point in discussing their income.

When haggling over the rent, Shu Yu gave full play to his bargaining skills and cut the rent to 900 a month.

This price even touched the landlord's bottom line, but sadly the house here was not as good as those in the bustling street, and it was really not easy to rent out, so the landlord could only be patient with the people in front of him.

Night Ten counted for a long time, then suddenly raised his head. "Damn it. I should've saved all my chips!"

Old White gave him a strange look. "Why do you want to save that stuff?"

"Buy a house of course!" Night Ten said with bright eyes, "When the new map is fully opened, other players will eventually come here, right? We can rent it to them! Isn't it much better than exchanging silver coins?"

I can rent it to Teng Teng for 10,000 silver coins a month!

Rich woman Teng Teng can definitely afford it!

Gale was speechless. "..."

Ample Time said helplessly, "Do you even have more than 10 chips?!"

Night Ten scratched his head and mumbled, "Uh, no."

Old White sighed and explained slowly, "What's the use of buying a house here? It's so far from the resurrection point. It's much better to build one by ourselves next to the base."

"But then again, there should be weapon shops in Boulder Town, right?" Gale, who was standing on the street, glanced left and right, "Have you checked the price of equipment?"

"A Drone X-2 assault rifle that looks like the G9 assault rifle costs 150 chips, and the iron-barreled rifle is even cheaper; it almost feels like it's sold by weight."

Gale then asked, "What about bionic prosthetics?"

Ample Time was dazed slightly. "This... I didn't see it. I went to several weapon stores and still didn't see it, but there are some that sell exoskeletons."

Hearing this sentence, the faces of the three people instantly lit up. "Seriously, exoskeletons?!"

"Are you sure?"

"Hurry up, take us there quickly!"

"What's the use of going there? Do you have the money to buy it?"

Looking at his teammates with ardent eyes, Ample Time sighed helplessly. "... Forget it, you'll know when you get there."

Night Ten had already picked up the bag from the ground and carried them on his back. "I'll bring these with us too! Maybe we can sell it for some money!" He said with a smile.

Ample Time was speechless. "It's someone else's chips even if you sell it..."

Night Ten: "It's okay! We agreed before we set off that half of the chips sold are ours!"

Ample Time was stunned.

There was actually an agreement like that?!

But looking at the appearance of his three teammates, it didn't look like it was a joke.

Seeing these country bumpkins pick up the bag from the ground, the landlord who was negotiating the price thought they didn't plan to rent it. He immediately panicked and hurriedly shouted. "Okay, okay! You can have it for 800! But you have to pay three months' rent upfront, and one month's deposit! This is already the lowest price. You will not find anything cheaper than this!"

Not wanting to miss the opportunity, Shu Yu said immediately. "Deal!"

Qian Lai, who was standing beside him, looked at the man in front of him, slightly stunned.

My goodness

This guy actually got two floors for free...

Maybe this guy is a talented businessman.