Corporate Players

His eyes were bloodshot, as if he wanted to eat someone alive.

They were incredibly fast, each one almost as quick as Bolt, and soon they had crawled beneath the Stone Wall.

They milled around beneath it, seemingly trying to figure out how to attack.

Before long, they started climbing up through the gaps between the stones.

It seemed that even a Stone Wall more than six meters high wasn't all that safe.

Gao Linzhi looked at the crabs, then at the villagers.

He noticed that the villagers didn't seem worried.

"Throw the slowing potions!"

"Deploy the wire nets!" Zheng Dong ordered.

The villagers first pulled small porcelain bottles from their clothes, then threw them down at the crabs.

The bottles shattered, releasing clouds of gray smoke.

The crabs immediately began to stagger, their movements slowing.

The villagers then took out a stack of wire nets.

Each net had a rope attached. Working in pairs, they threw them straight at the crabs.

Each corner of the nets was weighted with a heavy lead block.

Once a crab was caught, it instinctively struggled. As it did, its claws got caught in the mesh.

The more it struggled, the tighter the net became, until it could no longer move.

One after another, the crabs fell from the wall.

Soon, all twenty-odd crabs had been trapped.

Seeing this, the villagers couldn't help cheering.

"Haha, we can auction off the rights to kill them again and make a little extra cash."

"Yeah. Tonight, I'm going to the tavern to drink and listen to storytellers."

"You're going to listen to stories? You're obviously going to watch the dancers."

The villagers joked as they grabbed the ropes and hauled the crabs, tangled in the nets and unable to move, up to the wallhead, piling them together.

Suddenly, Gao Linzhi noticed a warning exclamation mark appear on the Minimap. It had to be the game's danger alert.

He scanned the area and spotted one of the crabs that had been hauled up. It was clever.

Hidden among the pile of crabs, it was quietly snipping at the wire with its pincers. It was about to cut through.

The tiny eyes on its two eyestalks were fixed on the villagers, who were laughing and chatting.

Clearly, the moment it got free, it would launch a vicious attack.

Without saying a word, Gao Linzhi swung his saber at the joint of one of the crab's pincers.

"Clang!" Sparks flew, and a white mark appeared on the pincer.

Gao Linzhi had missed.

"Hey, what are you doing?" a villager exclaimed.

"You can't just attack whatever you want! If you want to kill a monster we caught, you have to pay for the kill rights first!" another villager shouted.

At that moment, Zheng Dong noticed that something was wrong with the crab, too.

"Shut up! He's saving your lives!" As he spoke, Zheng Dong grabbed a steel spear and drove it viciously into the crab that was trying to sneak free.

Gao Linzhi clearly saw a red glint appear at the spearhead. It pierced the crab's hard shell, then twisted viciously inside.

The Crab Demon immediately went limp, though it was still wriggling. It was clearly not dead.

Zheng Dong then lifted the wire net. One section of the wire had already been cut through by the crab.

A little longer, and it would have crawled out and maimed a villager.

"Sorry, I was wrong about you, brother." The villagers closest to the crab were shaken. They immediately apologized to Gao Linzhi.

Just then, a dark-complexioned villager said mockingly, "Hmph, he just wanted to steal the monster while he had the chance, so he could level up and get points."

"Otherwise, why didn't he call out to us? Why did he have to act on his own?"

The others immediately looked at Gao Linzhi with suspicion, seeming to agree with the dark-complexioned villager.

Gao Linzhi looked at him, silently making a note of it.

"Shut up, Zheng Laoliu! If he'd only called out, the crab might have escaped and hurt someone!" Zheng Dong was an honest man and immediately scolded the dark-complexioned villager.

Only then did Zheng Laoliu fall silent, though he still gave Gao Linzhi a somewhat malicious look.

Gao Linzhi was taken aback. This guy had no grudge against him, yet he was trying to drive a wedge between him and the villagers.

Had the Corporate Players paid him off?

That was the only explanation he could think of.

After all, he hadn't married into anyone's family. There was no reason for someone to slap him down out of nowhere.

Zheng Dong explained to him again:

"We generally don't kill these monsters. We leave that to Descenders like you."

"When you kill them, you get experience, and they can drop equipment, materials, and even Gold Coins." At that, Zheng Dong sighed enviously. "You're the chosen ones."

"You can have this crab for free."

As he spoke, he pulled the crab aside and set it in an empty spot on the wallhead.

Gao Linzhi didn't hesitate. He raised his saber and started slashing at the crab.

"Clang!"

He hacked at it more than ten times, unleashing a flurry of Chaotic Gale Saber Technique with a series of thuds, before finally killing it.

That was exhausting.

He really needed to spend money on upgrades.

Zheng Dong and the villagers all nodded at him and gave him a thumbs-up.

"Not bad. Plenty of newbies wouldn't even dare kill a chicken."

But Gao Linzhi still wasn't satisfied.

His efficiency was too low.

This wasn't like an ordinary game. To hurt a monster, he had to hit its weak point and break through its defense first.

His earlier blows against the crab shell had dealt no damage at all.

[You killed a level-four monster and gained 40 experience points.]

A lump of white meat and a piece of armor appeared on the crab.

[Crab Meat (White): Delicious meat, weighing 5 kilograms. Can be used as food.]

[Crab Shell (White): Basic material for crafting White Armor.]

Gao Linzhi was considering how to improve himself quickly.

After all, his current situation was quite dangerous.

In the real world, Xu Corporation might arrest everyone connected to Brother Li's death, regardless of the evidence.

In the game, the Corporate Players would also search for Rogue Players' real identities and expose their gaming credentials.

The Rogue Players were all taciturn to hide their real identities. After all, the more you said, the more likely you were to slip up.

Zheng Dong had the villagers collect the materials.

Just then, once the monsters had been caught, the Rogue Players who had just vanished in a hurry suddenly reappeared.

They gathered around and came up to the wallhead to look at the crabs.

They examined them and asked the price. Zheng Dong told them each kill right cost 70 copper coins.

They could only take the experience, not the drops. If they wanted the drops, they had to pay extra.

One after another, they grimaced, shook their heads, and left.

"After working hard all day, I can only afford to kill twenty monsters. If I weren't afraid of getting caught alone, I'd be better off hunting them myself," one Rogue Player grumbled.

"Just hang in there. Once we've developed, the company will have to make concessions. Then our good days will come!" another Rogue Player consoled him.

"Exactly. Unless they've given up on making money, they'll have to deal with us. If they keep treating us like dogs, we'll become wandering heroes, strike without warning, and keep them running ragged!" someone said eagerly.