Chapter 50: The Hardworking Players

How long does it take to pick a hundred kilograms of mushrooms?

Chu Guang was actually not sure. Unless it was necessary, he normally wouldn’t choose fungi as food.

Anyway, turning the focus back on Yaya. When she walked out of the shelter with a downcast face and stepped into the open space in front of the nursing home, she was shocked by the sight in front of her.

"This... Is the map updated?!"

What appeared before her was a scene that she had never seen before!

There was a three-meter-high concrete wall around the nursing home with cement blocks and gravel slag forming a slope on the inside.

The top of the wall had simple covers made of the hoods removed from broken cars and aluminum alloy strips picked up from the wasteland. The entire place had a pretty cyberpunk look.

The wall wasn’t the only thing that was new. There were two new structures in front of the nursing home, one big, and one small.

There were wooden signs hanging on each door, one of them titled Weapon Shop and the other titled Bathhouse.

She hadn't been online for three days, but it felt like a century had passed. The changes in version 0.3 were just too damn big!

Yaya stared at the changes, dumbfounded.

After a while, she found the entrance. As soon as she passed it, she happened to see two players standing nearby, using hammers and nails to fix the sharpened wooden stakes in a row.

"What are you doing?" Yaya approached them and asked curiously.

The two players didn't look up, still busy hammering the stakes energetically.

One of the players there called Bathroom Goer replied, "We’re making fences and obstacles. We got the mission from the woodworking cabin! Unfortunately, they are only hiring two people. You’re too late!

Athlete Foot: "That's right! Building obstacles will gain us five silver coins and fifty contribution points! If someone attacks, we can push the fence to the gate. Even if they break the wooden gate, we can still surround them with the fence before shooting them from far away! It’s very easy to use.”

"By the way, do we have to make such a complicated fence? The mission board only says that we need to lay two wooden stakes horizontally..."

"You don’t know shit! What I’m making is a wooden anti-tank barge that is similar to the obstacles used in the Second World War! If conditions allow, we can wrap it with barbed wire in the future. Not to mention a few trashy marauders, even the green-skinned, muscular strange creatures will be trapped inside and slaughtered like chickens!"

"Keep bragging. It’s just a fence, do you really think that it can block tanks?"

While talking, the two players seemed to quarrel about the practicality of the fortification.

Yaya was utterly confused.

Silver coins?! Is that related to the currency system that received an update recently?

What’s a mission from the Woodworking Cabin anyway? Didn’t we used to check missions on the plastic board in the past?

Yaya thought to herself.

It seems like many things changed in this update...

In any case, I have to quickly finish the punishment task and restore my citizenship; lest I won’t be able to experience this version before the next comes.

After thinking about it, Yaya decided to look for a container to pick up mushrooms before she tried anything else.

Just as she went about finding a plastic bucket, she discovered that the garbage that had piled up back then had already been collected and stored in a wooden shed nearby.

When she approached, she found a player sitting at a wooden table. There was a notepad on the table with a pen lying beside it.

When the player saw Yaya, his eyes widened in shock and he gasped, “Huh? You’re alive?"

Yaya was dazed for a second but eventually managed to eke out a response, "You know me?"

The player continued with a smile on his face, "Of course! How can I not recognize you? Since the beginning of the closed alpha, you’re the only player who died."

Yaya wanted to hit him so badly but felt that she might not be able to win the fight, so she simply shot him an angry look.

"Go away! I want to get a bucket."

"One small bucket costs one copper coin, while one large bucket costs two copper coins."

"Huh?" Yaya's eyes widened in shock. "You want money for that trash?"

Why didn’t he rob a bank instead?

"Miss, I don’t make the rules. All I do is work here!" The player made a helpless expression and played with the oily pen in his hand. "If you have any comments, go speak to the NPC."

"But I just respawned, how can I have money?" Yaya didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "Brother, can you just make an exception? I will return it as soon as I’m done with my mission."

"No, no, I’ll be punished if I don't follow the rules." The player’s head shook like a monkey drum, "Didn’t all the players receive 5 copper coins in this update? It's not expensive anyway, you can just buy one!"

Yaya was stunned.

Huh? Money?! Why didn’t I get any?!

The player was obviously also confused, as he scratched the back of his head.

"Uh... Is it because of the favorability setting?" The player thought of a possibility, "Did you offend the NPC?" The player asked.

Hearing about the dropped favorability, Yaya almost cried.

Damn it! I have already been punished, why do I have to lose my favorability?

At this moment, a voice came from behind, "I'll pay for her."

Yaya turned her head abruptly and saw a shorty holding a stack of thick stack of animal skin coats. She walked to the table before slamming her goods onto it.

"Huff, huff... I made two of them. Please take a look and record it.”

"Okay."

The player opened the notebook in his hand and wrote down a bunch of words on it...

...On the day of..., Tailor Teng Teng completed 2 hyena fur coats.

After becoming a tailor, as long as she completed a certain number of orders every day, in addition to the guaranteed basic salary, she could get a reward of 2 silver coins for every finished coat.

Of course, players could also buy animal skins, fibers, and other materials from the warehouse to make their own coats and sell them to other players or the warehouse.

Her job was basically equivalent to her being self-employed!

The profit of a coat made that way ranged from one to five silver coins. If the quality was particularly good, when everyone had money, there may be players who buy it for a huge price.

Teng Teng intended to wait for her skills to become more proficient before saving more money to buy a piece of land. She wanted to open a clothing store at the entrance of the nursing home!

After all, it was more profitable to open a shop herself than to work for an NPC.

"Teng Teng..." After recovering, Yaya grabbed Teng Teng's arm with tears in her eyes.

Who would have thought that after she respawned, the only one who offered a helping hand was actually Teng Teng who had quarreled with her.

Feeling embarrassed by her gaze, Teng Teng blushed and took back her hands.

"... Don't look at me that way, it's just a copper coin, and it's not much money. You can pay me back in the future!"

"Sorry, I was wrong before, you are really a kind person!"

"... Well, I didn't keep that in mind. Anyway, please work hard. I have to leave now to make clothes..."

After leaving a copper coin on the table, Teng Teng held the animal skins piled up in wooden baskets and turned around to leave. However, Yaya grabbed them and said enthusiastically, "Let me help you!"

"No need, you can focus on doing your own thing. I’ll handle this myself."

Teng Teng felt very troubled and stretched her hands out to grab those animal skin, but due to her lack of height, Yaya quickly dodged.

Raising the wooden basket in her hand, the excited Yaya chuckled, "How can I let you do this yourself? You’re so small and I can’t let you hold so many things on your own! Where is your workstation? I’ll send your stuff over!"

"..."

The more she spoke, the more Teng Teng felt like punching her in the face.

Teng Teng's face darkened, and her shoulders trembled lightly as she clenched her fists.

...

In the woodworking cabin.

Mosquito, who was sitting on the stool with a stalk of grass in his mouth, skillfully fixed two pieces of wood with tools while sandwiching the aluminum alloy flakes others picked up from outside.

After stringing a bowstring tanned from the tendons of the mutant hyena, a simple wooden bow was completed.

"Done."

Another order was completed and he received two silver coins.

Mosquito hung the wooden bow on a shelf aside, waiting for other players to take their pick.

Strictly speaking, the simple processes he used were far from enough to make a real hunting bow. He heard that to make a good hunting bow, even the density of wood used in the bow handle had strict requirements.

That being said, for players who didn't have guns, the bow he created was pretty good. As long as they were within thirty steps, there was no problem killing a mutant hyena... Of course, the premise was that they were able to hit it.

Whatever it was, Mosquito couldn’t hit shit even if he tried himself!

"20 wooden bows that can shoot through the skull of a mutant hyena within 20 meters... I’m afraid that I will only be able to complete this order the day after tomorrow...” Mosquito murmured and glanced at the bottles and jars he had placed on the corner of the table.

One of them contained the saltpeter he extracted from the soil. The bottle next to it was gypsum powder containing calcium sulfate, and the bucket of black lumps under the shelf held charcoal.

Originally, he planned to create black powder as soon as possible. However, the rewards given by the Administrator’s mission were just too good to pass up!

As long as he made five wooden bows a day, he would get a guaranteed salary and could get a commission of two silver coins for each bow.

"Forget it, let me make money first..."

It was not good to always do chemical experiments in the woodworking cabin.

He had plans to save some money, buy a piece of land, buy some cement and bricks, and build a small place to sell the weapons he designed!

Making weapons was much more interesting than carpentry!

The next second, the door of the woodworking cabin was pushed open. Ample Time, who had just bought a bow not too long ago, sauntered in with purposeful strides.

"I need 20 more arrows!"

"You already ran out?!" Looking at Ample Time covered in blood, Mosquito was stunned and grumbled, "Did you forget that those arrows can be reused?"

𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

"I know, but are you sure these arrows can still be used?" Ample Time placed his quiver on the table with a depressed light in his eyes.

A pile of broken arrows fell out of the quiver.

Dragging another stool over, Ample Time sat beside Mosquito before sighing and grumbling, “They are of really bad quality!”

Mosquito picked up the quiver, drew an arrow, and took a look before he stroked his chin and said, "Mhm... After a rational analysis, I think it should be to our advantage to leave the arrow in the body of your prey. However, if things are as you say... The losses are pretty high if you go hunting and have to change a new set of arrows every time. I’ll think of how to make some improvements!”

No matter what, those arrows were made of sharpened metal sheets fixed to a wooden shaft with turpentine. It was true that they weren’t of great quality.

"I’m counting on you!"

"Don’t worry about it. It’s my job anyway."

Mosquito counted 20 arrows from the shelf beside him and handed them to Ample Time.

The price of an arrow was two copper coins, and twenty arrows would cost four silver coins.

Ample Time took them out from his pocket without hesitation and lined them up on the table in a lavish fashion. Those were what he got in exchange for the prey he just brought in anyway.

"Thanks, mate."

"You're welcome, I wish you a happy hunt." Mosquito smiled and waved at Ample Time, who walked out the door. "By the way, do you want to try my new weapon? I promise it'll be very useful."

Ample Time, who had just walked to the door, almost tripped over the door frame after hearing what he said.

"Ahem, I do! However, I’ll test it out next time!"

He didn’t want to risk his life to test Mosquito’s weapon.

Thinking of the Hellfire designed by Mosquito not too long ago, Ample Time didn’t dare to look back. He ran away with his quiver in hand.

Mosquito touched his nose and looked puzzled. "Did he really need to be that scared of my new weapon?!”

He originally planned to install a bayonet on his Hellfire 0.1...