Chapter 32

Dead? Someone died?

Lao Bai was utterly bewildered, unable to come to his senses for a moment.

When he finally regained his composure, his first reaction was, "People can actually die in this game?"

To be fair, unless one actively seeks death or makes a grave mistake, it's quite hard to die in this game.

Not only was Lao Bai unable to understand, Chu Guang was also extremely puzzled.

He hadn't expected that the third batch of players would encounter a non-combat accidental casualty so soon, at least half a month earlier than he had anticipated…

The player who died had the ID [Yaya], with a "Perception" gene sequence and a talent for toxin intuition.

Chu Guang remembered sending her out in the morning to gather berries and edible mushrooms, but somehow, she ended up at the mutated leech nest.

Through the player list, Chu Guang could confirm the player's approximate location. When he explored the area and found that her last activity was near the mutated leech nest, he immediately abandoned the idea of recovering her body.

Mutated leech larvae were relatively harmless; their mouthparts had degenerated, making it difficult for them to suck blood. They mostly ate rotten food and were occasionally preyed upon by cockroaches and rats in the wasteland, or caught by diligent players for bait.

However, adult mutated leeches were a different story.

These creatures would swallow their prey whole, and the anesthetic digestive fluid they secreted would relax the prey's muscles within a minute and render them unconscious within a few minutes.

There was no doubt that even the bones were likely gone by now.

Regardless, it was time to log out.

Chu Guang led the players back to the shelter in batches, settled them into their hibernation pods, and then returned to the surface, heading to the active substance extractor.

A layer of dust covered the cylindrical extraction furnace. Since obtaining this device, Chu Guang had never used it because there was no power.

What was frustrating was that while the hibernation pods had wireless charging interfaces compatible with the shelter, this device only had a plug with positive and negative terminals.

Clearly, the designer of this device did not intend for him to steal power from the shelter.

"Xiao Qi."

"What is it, Master?"

"Tell me… how can the synthetic substances generated by this device be injected into the hibernation pods?" Chu Guang asked, stroking his chin.

"It's simple. The active substance storage tanks on the hibernation pods can be removed. You can just pour the active substance into them," Xiao Qi replied.

Chu Guang nodded thoughtfully, then changed the subject suddenly.

"Does that mean… we can also remove the storage tanks from other hibernation pods?"

Xiao Qi paused.

"Uh, I don't know, Master. You're not thinking of stealing…"

"It's borrowing," Chu Guang interrupted, speaking with certainty. "We won't get the generator until the end of the month, and I can't wait until then to revive the dead player."

"Anyway, there are still 70 unopened pods. They're just sitting there, so we might as well use the active substances inside them," Xiao Qi said softly.

"But… what if we run out?"

Chu Guang replied without hesitation, "We'll figure it out when that happens. Let's solve the immediate problem first."

There are always more solutions than problems.

Increasing the death penalty or adding additional penalties for consecutive deaths could make players more cautious.

In the future, with more players, he could create a "newbie village" where players couldn't leave until they reached level 5, to avoid wastage.

Chu Guang still couldn't understand what the player called Yaya was thinking. Even if others were careless, she was at least a Perception-type player.

When he returned to the shelter, he planned to talk to her as a game designer.

However, the key issue wasn't how she died, but that the player was a newbie and had no contribution points to deduct.

In other words, she couldn't afford the death penalty.

This was a bit of a dilemma.

He couldn't just let her owe it, right?

What would the other players think? Wouldn't they all start acting recklessly?

"…It seems I need to set up mandatory labor or punitive tasks to replace the death penalty when players can't pay," he thought.

"Yes, and there should be a drop in favorability, as well as an extended cooldown for consecutive revivals," Xiao Qi added.

There are always more solutions than problems.

Returning to the shelter with Xiao Qi, Chu Guang first summarized the day's work in a computer document.

This was a habit he had developed recently.

With more players, the daily changes in inventory were significant numbers.

As a manager, he had to plan and allocate every resource carefully.

When wood was scarce, he mobilized players to cut trees. When food was low, he organized everyone to go hunting and gathering to ensure construction and production continued without stagnating due to a shortage of any resource.

"Inventory: 84 logs, 500 kg of carbon, 500 kg of calcium carbonate cement, two stacks of mud bricks, and several hardened cement blocks. Consumption: 220 logs, daily cement production almost depleted, additional inventory consumption of 200 kg."

"Approximately."

"Food inventory: 50 kg of smoked meat, 10 kg of smoked fish… and 2 kg of edible roots, and a small amount of raspberries. Consumption: approximately 10 kg of smoked meat. Tonight's stew was pine nut fish soup, so we didn't use the smoked fish from inventory."

"Maybe I should hire a warehouse manager."

He also needed to find a more accurate scale and measuring tools.

Chu Guang spent some time allocating contribution points to each player based on the statistics provided by Xiao Qi.

New players mainly earned contribution points by moving bricks, earning 10 points per hour, with most of them having 90 or 100 points.

Only Teng Teng had 0 points so far.

However, making clothes was a skill, especially with unfamiliar materials, and it would take time to get used to it.

Once she adapted to the tools and materials, her contribution points would likely grow rapidly.

After distributing the players' rewards, Chu Guang opened the system to confirm the daily task rewards.

[Task: Chop down 10 trees, Reward: 1 reward point]

[Task: Kill one mutant, Reward: 3 reward points]

[Task: Collect 1 ton of stone, Reward: 1 reward point]

[Task: Store 10 kg of food, Reward: 1 reward point]

A total of 6 reward points.

Actually, the players had accomplished far more than the daily task requirements, but the easily obtainable reward points were limited to these each day.

Chu Guang calculated the reward points from the previous days, adding today's points, which brought the total to 17 points.

"Let's take a chance!"

After some thought, Chu Guang opened the [Manager Allowance] sub-page and spent 10 points on a medium blind box, and the remaining 7 points on basic blind boxes.

Soon, the wall shook, and as the alloy door opened, the rewards from the blind boxes rolled out on a conveyor belt.

[Nano Healing Needle: Primarily used for non-fatal external injuries, it can enhance tissue repair capabilities in a short time to accelerate wound healing.]

"This must have come from the medium blind box."

The specific effects, side effects, active ingredients, and mechanism of action were not listed, making it a "three-no" product like the previous enhancement needles.

Since Chu Guang wasn't injured, he stored the healing needle in a drawer of his computer desk and then looked at the other rewards.

As expected, five of the seven rewards were lollipops.

One was an orange-flavored lollipop, similar to the chocolate-flavored one, providing a 10-hour attribute boost, but this time increasing constitution rather than strength.

The other two were a 200g chocolate bar and a 230g can of beef.

Emmm…

The chocolate should be edible, but what about the can of beef?

If Chu Guang remembered correctly, canned food was invented during the Franco-Prussian War in 1800. This can might be older than the antiques in museums from his original world…

"Whatever… I'll find a player to test it later."

Chu Guang hesitated for a long time and decided to wait until the players logged in the next day to choose a player with high favorability to share a meal with.

Such a good thing shouldn't be refused.

After confirming the rewards, Chu Guang sat back at his computer, not immediately opening the group chat, but instead opening the official forum to find the player with the ID [Yaya].

He thought it would take some effort, but as soon as he opened the forum, he saw the ID on the homepage, with nearly a hundred replies.

"Wah, wah, wah, wah, it's my fault for being reckless! I shouldn't have taken the risk! Please, dear designer, I didn't mean to, don't ban my device! QAQ"

Ban the device?

That's a bit extreme…

Chu Guang read the title and didn't understand at first, but after reading the entire post, he finally understood what had happened.

This guy…

Was really asking for it.