Chapter 42

Language barrier?

Unable to communicate?

For Chu Guang, this was not a problem at all.

As a tool, one only needed to master a few simple basic phrases to meet the players' needs for game functions.

For example, the simplest buying and selling, which didn't require a complex vocabulary to learn.

What about when players speak in a way he doesn't understand?

Tough luck.

After all, even in a completely realistic immersive virtual reality online game, it's impossible for every NPC to have fully realistic intelligence.

This is very reasonable.

Therefore, Chu Guang did not require Xia Yan to learn Chinese, only to master a few basic words and fixed sentence patterns.

However, what he didn't expect was that even with his requirements set so low, her performance was still unsatisfactory.

"… When a customer comes to the store, you should say 'Hello, I am Xia Yan, the owner of the weapon shop. How can I assist you?' When you hear 'I want to buy something,' point to the menu and say 'Look for yourself.' When you hear 'I want to maintain my gun,' extend your hand and say 'Give it to me?'"

What kind of stuff is this?

Holding the piece of paper, Xia Yan had a worried look on her face and looked at Chu Guang, who was sitting in a chair, for help.

Although every character was annotated with pronunciation, she still couldn't adapt to the strange sounds.

Even though it was very similar to the human language.

Noticing Xia Yan looking at him, Chu Guang moved his gaze from the computer screen and turned to look at her.

"Learned it?"

Xia Yan: "Not yet..."

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

Xia Yan: "…"

For a moment, she suddenly felt that the job of giving birth might be easier, but for some reason, this person had no interest in her at all.

Am I ugly?

Not really.

Frustrated, she pinched the tips of her red hair. Xia Yan was still very confident in her appearance, as the captain had once pursued her for a while.

But she didn't fancy him.

The life of a cannon fodder was too hard, facing the threat of death every day. Her dream was to marry into the inner city of Boulder City and live a life of luxury.

Actually, it's not impossible to think about.

What if one day she received a mission to escort a VIP, and a plot like a heroine saving a hero in a novel happened?

Unfortunately, let alone escorting a VIP, their marginal small team couldn't even handle tasks near the second ring, and could only be sent to the wilderness to open "blind boxes."

As for now...

Her dream life was even less likely.

Who would want a cripple?

Especially one who had been captured by barbarians...

Just as Xia Yan felt sad about her unfortunate fate, a light cough came from beside her.

"Try to control your expression a bit."

"Huh?"

Xia Yan looked puzzled.

Sure enough, she was daydreaming.

Seeing her instinctive reaction, Chu Guang, sitting in the chair, looked speechless.

Sighing, he paused for a moment and said expressionlessly.

"Starting now, I'll test you in two hours."

"If there's still no progress, maybe the neighboring Brown Farm would be more suitable for you. They need slaves there."

"Besides, I can make some money."

...

It was winter, and the Brown Farm didn't need slaves. Instead, they would dispose of a batch of old, injured, or disabled people at the end of the month.

A crippled mercenary, even if given away for free, wouldn't be wanted by anyone.

As for coveting beauty, that was even more ridiculous. Even the local rich could afford replicas with faces so exquisite that even celebrities would envy them, so how much could a soul that was outwardly strong but inwardly weak and crude be worth?

This is the wasteland.

Selling this person was just a casual remark by Chu Guang.

To scare her and give her some motivation.

Even if this person was really too stupid to memorize a few pages of lines, he wouldn't sell her as a slave.

At most, he would kick her out.

Actually, during this time, Chu Guang found this person quite interesting. Talking nicely didn't work, but a little threat made her instantly submit and obediently memorize the lines.

What a struggle.

Chu Guang shook his head and continued surfing the internet. He had just discovered that his Steam account was still usable, and it was a good way to pass the time...

The next morning.

After waking up, Chu Guang opened the player list, unlocked the login permissions for the players in bulk, and led the online players to the surface.

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

"You mean Xia Yan? Her injuries are a bit severe, and she needs to rest for a few days. Last night, I talked to her, and she has agreed to join our cause. Once she recovers, she will be responsible for the weapon maintenance at the outpost."

Of course, Chu Guang didn't mention that she had been memorizing lines until two or three in the morning, and he had to carry her to the next room. She should be sleeping soundly.

After hearing the administrator's response, Fang Chang's eyes lit up.

New information!

The new NPC's name is Xia Yan!

Her identity should be a weapon shop owner or a similar profession!

Silently noting these two points, Fang Chang planned to update his post with this information after logging out today.

Chu Guang, of course, could guess what he was thinking, otherwise he wouldn't have given such detailed information.

Continuing his work as an NPC, Chu Guang led the players to the open area of the sanatorium and gave a brief motivational speech, then announced the dismissal.

After two days of adjustment, the new players had basically adapted to the game's rhythm and didn't need his guidance.

Looking at the rising furnace fire and black smoke outside the construction site, and the players climbing up and down the scaffolding, grunting as they worked, Chu Guang suddenly felt like a farmer raising ducks.

His daily job was to drive the ducks out of the coop, let them wander around outside, and then gather them back into the coop at night, tallying the day's harvest and how much the ducks had gained in weight, and occasionally plucking a few feathers from them.

Of course, this wasn't entirely accurate.

After all, most of the tools they used were provided by him, and the dried meat they ate was mostly hunted by him.

Thinking about it, he had put in a lot of effort.

Probably?

Standing in front of the construction site for a while, just as Chu Guang was pondering what to do today, Ye Shi had already come over on his own initiative.

"Respected Administrator!" He bowed respectfully, looking eager and very familiarly asked, "Are we going hunting today? When are we leaving?"

Chu Guang was slightly taken aback but nodded.

"… Now."

Good grief.

Now these players were quite proactive, already learning to arrange their own tasks?

But Chu Guang didn't say anything.

After all, he had indeed planned to go for a stroll and hunt some game to smoke.

Taking Ye Shi back to the shelter, Chu Guang put on the tactical belt he had stripped from a mercenary, inserted the pistol he had found, and then added two 5mm pistol magazines as backup.

His main weapon was still his 9mm iron-barrel rifle and the physics holy sword—a steel pipe that could pry doors and bash people.

Although he now had a submachine gun and a shotgun, these "close combat wonders" weren't very useful for hunting.

The shotgun's shells didn't have buckshot, and using shot would damage the fur.

Compared to using close combat firepower to suppress the prey, Chu Guang preferred to use his 9mm iron-barrel rifle with rifling to kill the prey at medium range.

Or at least incapacitate it, then approach and finish it off with the steel pipe.

This not only saved precious ammunition but also kept the fur intact.

After all, each additional bullet hole or cut would reduce the fur's quality by ten percent.

"Take this."

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

"Can I use the shotgun?"

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

However, Chu Guang had no intention of giving in and said expressionlessly.

"We're going hunting, not fighting mutants."

"Get familiar with these two weapons first."

...

Chu Guang and Ye Shi set out to hunt.

The players at the outpost were as diligent as they were yesterday, carrying bricks, mixing cement, and plastering, with no one idle.

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

Especially the players building the walls.

The construction of the outpost's wall was visibly progressing.

Not just the construction site.

Fang Chang and Lao Bai, who were experimenting with primitive steelmaking, made new progress after obtaining tongs and a hammer.

They dismantled the rusted car frames, engine hoods, suspensions, and even the engine blocks from the cars in the parking lot—these two-hundred-year-old rusted scraps, which had no complete structure, were like a natural open-pit mine for them.

Smashing the brittle rust and throwing it into the furnace, using charcoal as a reducing agent, and a manual bellows to blow air, they finally succeeded in smelting the scrap into hot iron.

"Awesome!!!"

"Success!"

Lao Bai and Fang Chang clenched their fists in excitement.

They had been waiting for this moment for three whole days!

The iron water produced by this method, when cooled, became high-carbon pig iron. 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 chromium, nickel, and other metals to make alloys, that was still too difficult for them. Proper steelmaking still required specialized equipment, at least an electric furnace.

Actually, even just being able to smelt iron from industrial waste was a significant achievement for them, with their rudimentary production facilities!

"What should we forge?" Lao Bai asked Fang Chang excitedly, "An axe? A knife? Or something else?"

Fang Chang, equally delighted, thought for a few seconds and said,

"Let's make a big pot first!"

"Every day eating stew, I'm about to be sick of it!"

Although yesterday's mashed potatoes were good, according to Brother Fried Egg, the soy sauce was running low, and today would likely be another bowl of pine nut fish soup.

That stuff wasn't fresh at all; one bite and your mouth was full of catfish flavor.

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

The two quickly agreed and began using the leftover yellow clay from brick-making to figure out how to make a mold for the iron pot.

On the other side, in front of the carpentry shed.

Brother Mosquito, sitting on a small stool at the door, was intently working on his craft.

He was holding a trash can he had found somewhere, using a wooden board to seal the top, and then inserting a stainless steel pipe to make a simple spray bottle.

But he wasn't satisfied with a simple sprinkler.

Brother Mosquito sealed the connection with pine resin, installed a wooden handle on the outside of the trash can, and used a plastic bottle as a pressure pump, connecting it to the back of the trash can with a flexible hose in an S-shape.

"Perfect!"

Brother Mosquito looked at his creation with a delighted expression.

A manual pressure spray flamethrower!

As long as he filled the can with wood tar and inserted a cotton wick in the front pipe, within a five-meter radius, this thing could theoretically become a nightmare for anyone or any mutant—

Of course, as long as he didn't set himself on fire.

In a high EQ sense, the design was somewhat cyberpunk, but Brother Mosquito thought it was fine and could be improved later.

Let's call it "Inferno 0.1" for now!

Just as he was thinking about where to test it, Brother Mosquito looked up and saw Wildwind, carrying a plastic bucket, walking toward him.

This guy had gone fishing early in the morning and was usually only seen around the sanatorium in the afternoon. It was unusual for him to return before ten o'clock today.

"Hey, so early today?" Brother Mosquito greeted Wildwind with a smile, "Didn't the trap break again?"

"It's not about the trap," Wildwind threw the plastic bucket on the ground, "Look what I found."

"Found what—?" Seeing the contents of the bucket, Brother Mosquito was stunned.

It was some white stones.

Mixed with some yellow and light brown impurities.

His stiff expression instantly turned to joy.

"Bird droppings!?"