Excellent Players Had Already Started Finding Work for NPCs

Language barrier?

Unable to communicate?

To Chu Guang, that was no problem at all.

As a tool, all she needed was to master a few simple stock phrases—enough to meet the players' needs for basic game functions.

For example, buying and selling could be learned without needing any complicated vocabulary.

And what if she could not understand the players' crude banter?

Too bad.

After all, even a fully realistic immersive virtual-reality online game could not possibly give every NPC completely lifelike intelligence.

That was perfectly reasonable.

Therefore, Chu Guang did not ask Xia Yan to learn Chinese. He only required her to memorize a few basic words and fixed sentence patterns.

However, to his surprise, even though he had already set the bar low enough, this girl's performance still left much to be desired.

"...When customers enter the store, say, 'Hello, I'm Xia Yan, the owner of the weapon shop. How can I help you?' When you hear, 'I want to buy something,' point at the menu and say, 'Look for yourself.' When you hear, 'I want to maintain my firearm,' hold out your hand and say, 'Hand it over'?"

What the hell was all this?

Clutching the note in her hand, Xia Yan looked utterly distressed as she turned to Chu Guang, who was sitting in a chair, for help.

Though every character had its pronunciation marked beside it, she still could not get used to those strange sounds.

Even though it really did resemble the Human Alliance language.

Noticing Xia Yan staring at him, Chu Guang shifted his gaze away from the computer screen and turned toward her.

"Learned it?"

Xia Yan said, "Not yet..."

Chu Guang said, "Then why are you looking at me? Keep memorizing."

Xia Yan said, "..."

For a moment, she suddenly felt that having children might have been easier. But for some reason, this man had absolutely no interest in her.

Am I that ugly?

No way.

Depressed, Xia Yan pinched the tips of her red hair. She was still quite confident in her looks. For instance, her captain had pursued her for a while.

She just had not been interested in him.

Life as cannon fodder was too miserable. Every day came with the threat of death. Her dream was to marry into Boulder City's inner city and live the life of a wealthy wife from then on.

Come to think of it, it was not entirely impossible.

What if one day she received a mission to escort some important figure, and a beautiful woman saving a hero—just like in novels—happened?

Unfortunately, let alone escorting an important figure, a fringe squad like theirs could not even handle jobs near the Second Ring. They could only be sent out to this godforsaken wilderness to open "blind boxes."

And now...

That dream life was even more out of reach.

Who would want a cripple?

Especially a cripple who had been captured by savages...

Just as Xia Yan was feeling mournful over her ill-fated life, a light cough came from beside her.

"Tone down that expression a little."

"Huh?"

Xia Yan looked completely bewildered.

So she really had been spacing out.

Seeing her instinctive reaction, Chu Guang, still seated in his chair, was speechless.

With a sigh, he paused for a moment before saying expressionlessly, "I'm starting the timer now. I'll test you in two hours."

"If you still haven't made any progress by then, perhaps the Brown Farm next door would suit you better. They happen to need farm slaves."

"Perfect. I can make a little money too."

It was winter now, and Brown Farm did not need farm slaves. On the contrary, at the end of each month, it disposed of a batch of old goods too useless to work, or defective products missing arms or legs.

No one would take a lame mercenary even for free.

As for coveting her beauty, that was even more ridiculous. Even the local tycoons on Bette Street could afford exquisitely featured clone girls beautiful enough to make celebrities jealous. How much could a rough, vulgar soul with nothing but a tough exterior possibly be worth?

This was the wasteland.

Chu Guang had only said he would sell her in passing.

Scare her a little, give her some motivation.

Even if she was really so stupid that she couldn't memorize those few pages of lines, he wasn't about to sell her off as a slave.

At most, he'd throw her out of here.

Actually, after spending some time with her, Chu Guang had found her fairly interesting. Talking things out properly did nothing, but a couple of casual threats made her instantly cave in and obediently start memorizing.

What was the point of making things so difficult for herself?

Chu Guang shook his head and went back online. He had just discovered that his Steam account still worked, so it was perfect for killing time...

The next morning.

After waking up, Chu Guang opened the player list, unlocked the players' login permissions in bulk, and led the newly logged-in players to the surface.

"Respected Administrator, may I ask where the lady from yesterday is?" Standing beside the Administrator, Fang Chang asked respectfully.

"You mean Xia Yan? Her injuries are fairly serious, so she needs a few days of rest. I spoke with her last night, and she has agreed to join our cause. Once she recovers, she'll be responsible for maintaining the outpost's weapons."

Of course, Chu Guang didn't mention that she had studied until two or three in the morning, and he had ultimately carried her into the room next door himself. Unless something unexpected happened, she was probably still sleeping soundly.

The moment Fang Chang heard the Administrator's answer, his eyes lit up.

New intel!

The new NPC's name was Xia Yan!

She was probably a weapons shop owner or had some similar occupation!

After silently noting down those two details, Fang Chang planned to update his forum post with all this information once he logged off today.

Naturally, Chu Guang could guess what he was thinking. Otherwise, he wouldn't have told him so much.

Continuing to fulfill his duties as an NPC, Chu Guang led the players to the open space outside the sanatorium for a brief motivational speech before dismissing them.

After two days of adjustment, the newly arrived players had basically adapted to the pace of the game. They didn't need him to direct them at all.

Looking at the furnace fires and black smoke gradually rising beyond the construction site, as well as the players climbing up and down the scaffolding, huffing and puffing as they worked, Chu Guang suddenly felt like an old farmer raising ducks.

Every day, his job was to drive the ducks out of their pen and let them wander around on their own. Once night fell, he would gather them up and herd them back into the pen, then count the day's gains and see how many pounds fatter the ducks had gotten, while plucking a little duck down from them according to plan.

Of course, that wasn't entirely accurate.

After all, most of the tools they used for work had been provided by him, and most of the jerky they ate had been obtained through his own hunting.

Come to think of it, he had put in quite a bit of effort too.

Probably?

Chu Guang stood before the construction site and watched for a while. Just as he was wondering what to do today, Ye Shi came looking for him on his own.

"Respected Administrator!" Ye Shi gave a respectful salute, his face eager as he skillfully took the initiative to ask, "Are we going hunting again today? When do we leave?"

Chu Guang paused slightly, then nodded.

"...Now."

Well, damn.

These players had become awfully proactive. They had even learned to assign work to him now?

Still, Chu Guang didn't say anything.

After all, he really had been planning to head out for a stroll and bring back some game to smoke.

Bringing Ye Shi back to the shelter, Chu Guang put on the tactical belt stripped from the mercenary, holstered the pistol he had picked up, and inserted two 5mm pistol magazines as spare ammunition.

His primary weapon was still his 9mm iron-pipe rifle, along with the holy sword of physics—a steel pipe that could pry open doors and smash people's heads.

Although he now had two "close-combat divine weapons" to choose from—a submachine gun and a shotgun—neither was particularly useful for hunting.

There were no slugs among the shotgun's spare shells, and using buckshot would ruin the pelts.

Rather than suppressing prey with close-range firepower, Chu Guang preferred using his high-quality rifled 9mm iron-pipe rifle to kill prey with a single shot at medium range.

Or at least cripple it, then walk over and finish it off with the steel pipe.

Not only would that save precious ammunition, it would also preserve the animal's hide more intact.

After all, every additional bullet hole or cut reduced a hide's quality by ten percent.

"Take these with you."

Chu Guang handed Ye Shi a pistol and a crossbow, along with a hide quiver containing fifteen bolts.

"Can I use that shotgun?"

Ye Shi looked at the pistol, then at the shotgun leaning against the wall, and gazed pitifully at Chu Guang.

However, Chu Guang had no intention of yielding. With a blank expression, he said, "We're going hunting, not hunting mutants."

"Get familiar with those two weapons first before we talk about anything else."

Chu Guang set off with Ye Shi to hunt.

The players at the outpost worked as diligently as they had yesterday—those hauling bricks hauled bricks, those mixing cement mixed cement, and those plastering plastered. Not a single one of them was idle.

Thanks to the thirty tools the administrator had traded back from Brown Farm, the players' work efficiency had greatly improved.

Especially for the players laying bricks.

The outpost's wall construction site was advancing at a visible pace.

And it wasn't just the construction site.

After obtaining fire tongs and blacksmithing hammers, Fang Chang and Old White, who had been experimenting with crude steelmaking methods, also made new progress.

They dismantled rusted car frames, hoods, suspensions, even engine casings from the cars in the parking lot... After two centuries of wind and rain, these scraps no longer retained any complete structure, but to them, they were natural open-air ore deposits.

They smashed up the brittle rust and tossed it into the furnace, still using charcoal as a reducing agent and a hand-powered bellows for airflow. This time, they finally succeeded in smelting the junk into blazing molten iron.

"Fuck yeah!!!"

"It worked!"

Old White and Fang Chang clenched their fists in excitement.

They had waited a full three days for this moment!

The molten iron produced this way would become high-carbon pig iron after cooling. By repeatedly heating and cooling it to reduce the carbon content to between 2% and 1.5%, they could obtain the most basic steel.

As for adding metals like chromium and nickel to make alloys, that was still far too difficult for them. Proper steelmaking required professional equipment—at the very least, an electric furnace.

Really, forget making steel. For them, with their pitifully crude production facilities, being able to boil molten iron out of industrial waste was already an incredible achievement!

"What should we forge?" Old White asked Fang Chang excitedly. "Axes? Knives? Or something else?"

Fang Chang wore the same delighted expression. After thinking for a few seconds, he said, "Let's make a big pot first!"

"I'm fucking sick of stew every damn day!"

Yesterday's mashed potatoes had been pretty good, but Brother Scrambled Eggs had said they were running low on soy sauce. Unless something unexpected happened, today's meal would probably be pine nut fresh fish soup again.

That stuff wasn't fresh at all. One mouthful and the taste of catfish filled your whole mouth.

"Haha, good idea! With an iron wok, we can stir-fry food!"

The two immediately hit it off and quickly reached an agreement. Using some leftover yellow clay from brickmaking, they began figuring out how to make a mold for casting an iron wok.

Meanwhile, in front of the carpentry hut.

Brother Mosquito sat on a small stool by the doorway, engrossed in the handiwork in his hands.

He held a trash can he had picked up from who knew where, sealed its opening with wooden boards, then hammered a stainless steel pipe into it, turning it into a simple sprayer.

But he wasn't done yet.

He was clearly not satisfied with a mere tilt-type sprinkler.

Brother Mosquito then sealed the joints with pine resin, fitted the trash can's exterior with a wooden handle for carrying, made a pressure booster resembling one from a spray bottle out of plastic bottles, and connected an S-shaped hose to the back of the can.

"Perfect!"

Having completed his work, Brother Mosquito looked at the thing in his hands with delight spreading across his face.

A manually pressurized flamethrower!

As long as he filled the can with wood tar and inserted an ignitable cotton wick into the pipe at the front, then within a five-meter kill radius, this thing could theoretically become the nightmare of any person or mutant—

Of course, that was assuming he didn't set himself on fire too.

Put tactfully, the design concept of this thing was a little cyberpunk, but Brother Mosquito didn't think that was a problem. He could improve it later.

For now, he would call it "Hellfire 0.1"!

Just as he was considering where to test it, Brother Mosquito looked up and suddenly spotted Gale walking toward him with a plastic bucket in hand.

This guy had gone fishing early in the morning. Usually, he couldn't be seen near the sanatorium until the afternoon. It was strange that he had returned before ten today.

"Yo, back so early today?" Mosquito teased Gale with a grin. "Don't tell me you broke your trap again."

"It has nothing to do with the trap." Gale tossed the plastic bucket onto the ground. "Look what I found."

"What did you—" Mosquito froze when he saw what was inside the bucket.

They were some white stones.

Mixed among them were yellow and light brown impurities.

The stiffness on his face instantly turned into wild joy.

"Phosphate rock!?"