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Is This Really A Game? - Chapter 182

Published at 29th of May 2023 09:26:43 AM


Chapter 182

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"...This is the Voice of Boulder City. Now we are inserting a piece of news. The Black Snake Mercenary Group clashed with local survivors during their mission in the northern outskirts of Spring City. The equipment still has an absolute advantage, but unfortunately, they ran into a group of shameless people who bully the few with the more."

"The mercenaries stationed near the subway station fought bravely, but they were eventually overwhelmed by the sea of ​​people. At present, the entrance of the subway station has been controlled by the hillbillies in the northern suburbs. Commander Prieter and the rest had to retreat into the subway find another way out of the station."

"This radio station will continue to pay attention to the situation near the Tundra Street subway station. Let us pray for Commander Prieter for three seconds, and hope that he can come back alive."

Pray? Nonexistent. For those who have lost money, it would be a good thing not to scold these idiots for three days and three nights.

It's just twelve mercenaries, and they don't necessarily care about that bad life. No one cares whether they live or die except the boss who hired them.

The gamblers in Boulder City only cared about their own pocketbooks. They wished that all the losers who caused them to lose money would die outside, and it would be best if none of them came back.

The Two-Tail Mouse tavern was filled with shouts and curses, and even the bartender standing behind the bar couldn't help but click his tongue with those vicious curses.

It's rare for these gambling alcoholics to reach a consensus on the same thing. They are usually so bored that they quarrel over such obvious things as "Mixing a few glasses of water with today's special beer".

"Damn, refund the money!"

"You can't even beat a group of beggars, it's really embarrassing to the mercenaries in Boulder City!"

"I seriously suspect that this is a scam that that old bastard Prieter colluded with the Central Casino! Think about it, what good things can there be in the northern suburbs? It's worth their special flight to fly there! It's not cheap to rent a plane from the militia!"

"No matter what their commission is, don't let me see that idiot in the tavern! I swear, I will spit in his face!"

"Central Casino has also fallen, and opened for such a boring thing! They might as well guess the weather the day after tomorrow, at least this is fairer!"

People's joys and sorrows are always different.

While the gamblers in Boulder City were cursing the twelve mercenaries of the Black Snake Mercenary Group, wishing that they would all be gutted by the barbarians, Jerry, who was squatting on the ground with his hands on his head, was trembling I prayed earnestly that these survivors could let themselves die for the sake of their surrender.

Although he had expected such an ending the moment he became a mercenary, it didn't mean that he had put life and death aside.

Nobody wants to die if they can live.

In the tunnel. A dozen or so players were standing in front of a dead body, their faces flushed.

"Hey! Whose head is this?"

"My first stab!"

"Obviously my knife is more deadly!"

"You take it as a contribution points, just give me the silver coins."

"Get out! Everyone is an old player with VM, who the hell still needs little amount of contribution!"

Looking at the chattering and arguing survivors, Jerry couldn't help feeling baffled while trembling, completely unable to understand what they were arguing about.

At this moment, Jerry suddenly noticed that those people looked at him.

"...By the way, is there a prisoner here?"

"You said that if you make him up, will it be counted as a head?"

"The red name is gone, probably useless."

"Yes... and I remember that it was written in the refuge resident manual that attacking a neutral NPC will be sentenced to confinement according to the severity of the plot, and the NPC with the highest friendliness will be sentenced to permanent repatriation. His mark on the map is gray, and he probably became a prisoner. Afterwards, the bounty has been completed?"

"What about the bounty? Who of you received the bounty?"

"Emmm... Maybe it will be settled later? After all, it was like this before."

Although Jerry couldn't understand what those people were discussing at all, the eyes that glanced at him from time to time did make him feel a little creepy.

This feeling is like fish on a chopping board.

His life and death depend entirely on a single thought of these people.

At this moment, a man wearing a blue exoskeleton walked over from the direction of the platform.

He had that insanely powerful warhammer slung across his back, but Jerry was pretty sure it wasn't him who had blocked nearly all of their fire just now.

At the same time, Jerry clearly felt that the moment he appeared here, the surrounding survivors clearly showed respect, and even the whispers were much quieter.

He stopped in front of him.

The man looked down at him and asked.

"Where's your captain?"

Jerry swallowed, and glanced at the nearby shelter.

"He's already in..."

Lucius looked to the side.

There was an open iron door with a sign of no entry printed on it, and behind the door was a straight passage leading to the main entrance of the refuge—the iconic gear with a thickness of more than ten centimeters giant alloy gate.

The entrance of Shelter 117, unlike the sunken entrance of Shelter No. 404, is built directly next to the subway tunnel.

The shelters with three-digit serial numbers are all "Full-circulation" shelters, and the door can be completely cut off from the outside world when the door is closed. As long as the energy source of the thermonuclear fusion reactor is continuous, the shelter facility can continue to operate without any material exchange with the outside world.

Theoretically, if the people inside are determined not to come out and lock the door directly, no matter what the people outside do, it will be useless. All fire attacks and flooding are child's play. This is a civil defense facility built to resist strategic nuclear strikes. Its designers have long considered all possible situations including "Suffering a megaton nuclear strike".

But--

Shelter No. 117 has obviously been abandoned for many years, and the reactor inside has long ceased to operate. It is okay to open the door with the backup power supply, and it is not necessary to even think about a complete cycle.

After thinking for two seconds, Lucius bent down and stared into the mercenary's eyes.

"Let him out."

Jerry moved back an inch nervously.

"It's useless, it's useless for anyone to go, Commander Prieter won't listen to me...he doesn't care about our life or death at all."

Lucius smiled faintly, took out a long nail, and gently placed it in his hand.

It was a bullet from a Gauss rifle—although it was an imitation model forged from pure steel.

The moment he saw the bullet, Jerry's breathing obviously stopped for a few seconds.

Lucius continued.

"Go tell him. If he's counting on getting out of here with a suit of power armor, I'll show him the price of stupidity."

"Of course, if he is scared out of his wits and plans to live with this shelter for the rest of his life, I can help him. For example, seal the place completely with twenty tons of cement."

"This is my relic, I can't get it, no one can take the contents away."

"Of course, if he's smarter, puts his head in his hands and rolls out by himself, and explains clearly who your employer is—"

"I'll spare him a dog's life."

...

Commander Prieter surrendered.

When he saw the spike in Jerry's hand clearly through the camera, he made a choice between surrender and defense without much effort.

There is no need to hesitate at all.

In this abandoned shelter, the reactor had already been turned off, and the cold fusion battery plugged into the backup power supply was barely enough for lighting and opening and closing the gate, which was not enough for him to stick to it here.

Not to mention guarding this door until old age dies.

For a week at most, he would die of starvation or thirst inside.

He is just a mercenary who takes money to do things, and he doesn't have the ideological consciousness of "living and dying with the entrustment".

The door of the shelter opened slowly.

Leaving the weapon at the door of the buffer room, Prieter, who held his head in his hands, walked out of the door of the refuge under the watchful eyes of a crowd of players.

Looking at Lucius standing at the door, he lowered his head and said in a low voice.

"I surrender... I hope you will keep your promise."

"It depends on whether you are honest or not," Lucius looked at him and continued, "Tell me, who is your employer?"

Prieter glanced at the survivors around him, swallowed and said.

"My lord, we are just mercenaries who sell our lives for money, but we are not qualified to meet our employers. The middleman who sent us the mission is called 'White Shark', including the advance payment and the magnetic card of shelter 117, he gave us all ..."

White Shark?

Lucius looked at him and continued.

"What is the content of your commission?"

Prieter: "The employer commissioned us to find a black suitcase, which he said was in the office of the manager of Shelter 117. In addition, the employer also mentioned that there is a power armor here, which is said to be the private collection of the manager of this shelter. But the middleman told me that the employer is not sure if it is still here, and only mentioned that if I see it, remember to take it with me, and he will give us extra rewards."

Lucius smiled lightly and said, "It seems that your employer is very familiar with the situation of this shelter."

Prieter swallowed and said, "I think so too... I think he might be someone from Shelter 117, but I haven't seen him, and I'm not even sure if he's in Boulder City."

Lucius looked at him and continued to ask.

"Where can I find that White Shark?"

"The Pirate's Cove Tavern in Boulder City, he is the boss there, and many mercenaries are there to pick up jobs." Worried that Lucius would be dissatisfied with his answer, Prieter, who wanted to live, continued nervously, " My lord, we really don't know who the employer is...but if you want to talk to White Shark, I can help you."

Lucius smiled lightly.

"Of course I will find him."

Guessing that he couldn't ask anything crucial from this guy's mouth, Lucius let him roll to the side of the other prisoners, and squatted against the wall with the other three prisoners.

Including the sniper found by The Cowboy Team, there were a total of thirteen mercenaries in the Black Snake Mercenary Group, and only four were captured.

The others were either killed by random gunshots, or they were stabbed into funnels by the players with bayonets in hand-to-hand combat before they had time to surrender.

As for the players, the casualties reached 17 people, not counting the newcomers who died in the sneak attack. Compared to the base of 500 players, this number is not too bad.

After the battle of the legion, the outpost base will not be short of active substances for a short time, and these little players who died in battle will become heroes again three days later.

Lucius will deal with these captives later. As for now, of course it is more important to count the spoils.

Just as the manager was walking in the direction of Shelter 117, the players guarding the door received a notification that the task was completed almost at the same time.

"F*ck! Si! Look at VM!" Holding the iron barrel rifle, Tail said excitedly, shaking her arms, "37 silver! We are rich!"

"Huh? I received it too," Sisi looked at the VM with a look of surprise, "It turns out that as long as you participate, you can get a share, but why do I only have 21 silver..."

"It must be because Sisi is not as fast as Tail!"

Glancing at the triumphant Tail, Sisi stroked her chin thoughtfully.

"Well, maybe...it might be because of this."

The other side.

Bunny, who was wearing heavy armor, walked towards the other three members of the cowboy team, and said excitedly to his good friends.

"It's so cool! That hammer is invincible! Once the shield wall is opened, no matter whether it is a machine gun or a rifle, no bullets can penetrate it!"

"After all, it's Master Manager's weapon." Walker, who was carrying a sniper rifle, said with a smile, "Bunny's armor is worth buying."

"Hey, if only I could buy it!"

"Don't even think about it, even if you can buy 80% of that kind of weapon that breaks the balance, it's ridiculously expensive," Tomorrow casually replied to Bunny, staring at VM, and said thoughtfully, "Speaking of which, the settlement of this mission is still very expensive." Very quickly, I actually have 111 silver here."

"It's already been settled? So fast... Damn! My side is 144 silver!" Seeing the number that jumped out of the VM, Walker's eyes stared straight.

Gale tried to analyze: "Maybe it's because you killed one with a sniper rifle? I'm 107 silver, which is about the same as Tomorrow."

Tomorrow nodded thoughtfully and said.

"It should be. You click on the settlement list of the completed task page, which details the source of each task reward. The reward I can see here has two parts, one is the task reward, and the other is It’s a battlefield mission reward.”

"For example, for the sniper we killed before, the bounty and contribution points are 25% of each person, which is included in the bounty task. At the same time, the sniper is a high-threat target, and he also provided us with 50 battlefield points, included in battlefield missions."

A look of surprise appeared on Walker's face: "So that's how it is... But what about the few red-named elite monsters that were killed later? It's hard to tell who killed them."

Tomorrow: "Yes, so the several red-named elite monsters killed in the team battle are all included in the total income of the battlefield mission, and divided according to the battlefield score. It's the same, but the battle score is slightly higher than ours, so the income is also a little higher than ours."

The total income of battlefield missions includes many kinds, mainly calculated according to the spoils of war and the difficulty of the battle. Although "Wasteland OL" does not disclose the specific battlefield income calculation formula, players can still clearly feel the difference.

For example, the most basic thing is that the contribution point income of defensive wars is higher than that of offensive wars, and the silver coin income of offensive wars is higher than that of defensive wars. The benefits of fighting legions are higher than those of marauders, and the benefits of fighting humans are higher than those of alien species.

Bunny said with surprise on his face: "I'm 171 silver... awesome! Just now I was in the front to open the shield, and it actually added 50 battle points to me!"

Listening to the discussion of the cowboy teams, the surrounding players all looked envious.

The vast majority of them are 50 silver, and few can reach 70 or even 80 silver, and they are all high-level players in the T2 or even T1 echelon.

Looking at the VM on his arm, Mosquito couldn't help cursing.

"MMP! I'm 111 silver! It's a scam!"

Among them, 100 silver was contributed by the captives!

Mole standing next to him said calmly: "It's normal, after all, we really don't have much participation except for picking up a head... But the good news is that I received a pop-up window to complete the task."

The task mentioned here obviously does not refer to the reward task that everyone has, but the task of opening the passage from the subway station to shelter 117.

Hearing Mole's words, Mosquito, who was still complaining before,'s eyes lit up in an instant: "F*ck! My brother is awesome! The reward has already arrived!?"

"It's in the account. According to the agreement, you will be four and I will be six. I will share it with you now."

As he said that, Mole stretched out his index finger and tapped twice on the VM, and generously transferred 480 silver coins from the 1200 silver coins he just got to Mosquito.

As for the cost, the two had shared it before.

Seeing the 480 silver in the account, Mosquito was so happy that he couldn't close his mouth.

"Cool! Hahaha, I'm getting rich!"

Looking at the people around him being happy, Martin, who was holding his butt to stop the bleeding, couldn't help but lean over and ask, "Is there any reward if you don't have a VM? How do you know where the reward is?"

Mosquito gave him a sideways look.

"What a fart, do you have DPS!"

Mole also chuckled.

"Don't think about it brother, you haven't received the mission yet, and there is a woolen reward. This mission was not done by a newcomer, so you should just follow along and get a wave of experience."

Martin: "Sigh! Newbies don't have human rights!"

Patting him on the shoulder, Mole said earnestly: "Be content, everyone came here like this, not to mention that we had to move bricks and cut down trees to praise contributions. Listen to my advice, hurry up and save contributions to buy a VM."

Martin: "%¥#@!"

The players at the door of the shelter were still making noise. Lucius had already passed through the open giant alloy door, took a wrench and another guard, and stepped into the interior of shelter 117.

Stepping on the concrete floor tiles, the soles of the shoes creaked.

Judging from the thick layer of dust on the ground, no one has visited here for many years.

Although the possibility of encountering danger is very small, just in case, Lucius still held the war hammer in his hand. So far, he has not encountered an energy weapon. The common damage in the wasteland is mainly kinetic energy, and the nitrogen shield is almost absolute in intercepting small-mass projectiles.

Picking up a leaflet of Shelter 117 from the ground, Lucius turned to the back, where a schematic diagram of the shelter's structure was drawn.

"Shelter 117 has only three floors..."

And the area is much smaller than Shelter 404!

According to the propaganda on the leaflet, the reasonable number of shelters here is between 100 and 200 people, and shelter No. 404 has a total of 600 rooms in the three BCD divisions on the B2 floor alone.

However, Lucius clearly felt that life in this shelter should be much better than that of Shelter 404.

The individual single rooms here have an average area of ​​more than 10 square meters, and some even have private bathrooms, which are much better than the pigeon cage-like rooms in Shelter 404.

If you want to live here, you will have to spend a lot of money!

Opposite the door of the shelter is the maintenance room. The layout here is similar to that of Shelter 404, with a large number of cabinets lined up.

Lucius opened the closet and found that in addition to protective clothing and gas masks, there were also a lot of police equipment.

However, most of these police equipment are mainly batons, shields, riot forks, stun guns, and body armor. I did not see automatic weapons or pre-war police pistols, let alone this set of "Light cavalry" police exoskeletons.

Lucius checked the quality of this equipment.

In addition to the broken battery of the stun gun, which is no longer usable, the quality of the body armor and shield is very good, and the batons and anti-riot forks are not far behind. It is not obvious that these things have a history of more than 200 years.

"200 silver coins for body armor should be more reasonable. For shields... it's cheaper, just sell for 100 silver coins." Looking at the equipment in the maintenance room, Lucius touched his chin and pondered.

As for batons and riot forks...

It doesn't make much sense to sell it to players, it's better to leave it to NPC as a tool to maintain law and order.

No power armor was found in the maintenance room. Lucius left a guard to watch, and led the other to the buffer room.

After passing through the two gates of the buffer room, he formally entered the interior of the shelter.

The reactor here has been shut down, leaving only the backup power supply with the cold fusion battery plugged in, which makes the shelter barely maintain the operation of the minimum power. Facilities such as refrigerators and water purifiers have long been unable to be activated, and even lighting can only be activated when people approach.

"My lord, I feel that the air condition here is a bit bad..." Wrench who was following Lucius said cautiously, "How about leaving the rest of the exploration to me."

"Don't worry, I know what's going on."

Lucius tapped the VM worn on his arm with his index finger, and the oxygen content displayed on it was still at a safe value. Although a small amount of ozone appeared in the air, the concentration was very low. Not to mention his 14-point physique, even a normal adult would be fine standing here.

Wrench didn't say anything more, but walked faithfully in front of Lucius.

Instead of taking the elevator, go through the safe passage next to the elevator to the B3 floor, the deepest part of Shelter 117.

Lucius clearly felt that the dust here was more than a little bit thicker than the first layer.

The two people who walked through the corridor successfully reached the door of the manager's office.

The door here is tightly shut.

Lucius reached out and groped on the door for a while, and with a move in his heart, he took out the magnetic card and stuck it on.

The signal light on the door was on, and the alloy door panel was opened to one side, and it was retracted into the wall.

Looking at the decoration in the office and the power armor displayed by the wall, Lucius had a hint of envy on his face.

"Damn it, why are other managers so rich, but my shelter is so poor!"

There is a low-key luxury in the simple decoration. On the display cabinets are the collections of the manager during his lifetime, including books and some decorations.

However, these are not the point.

The focus is on the power armor with a streamlined armor shell, dark blue paint, and the black box next to the desk!

That should be the suitcase that Dr. Principle mentioned!

However, rather than a suitcase, Lucius thinks it is more appropriate to describe it as a suitcase. The size of this thing is not small, it is as high as your own calf when placed horizontally.

In addition, behind the desk, there is a skeleton wearing a blue coat. The skeleton's left elbow rested on the armrest of the chair, and VM had slipped from his forearm to the knuckle.

The moment he met the VM device, a line of light blue pop-up windows appeared in Lucius's field of vision——

【 Mission completed! 】

.............

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