Chapter 88: The First Convoy Encounter

To make something sell well, having a shill is indispensable.

Bars have drink plants, real estate offices have house plants, and even performances need atmosphere crew.

What is so wrong with him arranging a straight man to hype up his goods?

At least he did not set up an auction model to jack up the price for you.

Perhaps that was exactly why this game had never bothered with an auction system.

The others got busy with their own tasks, and Lin Mu became the most relaxed one of the lot.

"It should have been done this way long ago, handing everything down to others."

He draped his legs over the control console in front of him, hummed a little tune under his breath, and glanced at the screen from time to time.

What a pleasant life.

Half an hour later.

"Brother Mu, from what we have learned, the demand for bullets is still huge. Even the demand for firearms is very high. It seems there are not many squads with blueprints. Even among those who do have them, they do not equip everyone."

Who knew how many squad captains had been sniped to death by others who then rose to power themselves.

And because they themselves had ascended by such means, they guarded weapons with extreme caution.

Some squads had even lost the person who possessed the blueprint, leaving them without bullets or weapons thereafter.

"Jiang Ying, how are the sales of weapons and ammunition?"

Jiang Ying looked toward the trading hall. "The prices are outrageous. Fifty rounds of ammunition cost twenty copper ingots, plus ten units of wood and five units of general materials. Basically, the exchange rate is about that. Even the cheaper ones are not much cheaper. As for weapons, they are even more expensive than before."

Lin Mu stroked his chin. Were these people really so certain that bullets were useful?

And yet the boxes did indeed contain nothing but bullets. Yellow talismans and cinnabar were still there too, only in smaller quantities.

"List the bullets. Exchange them for yellow paper, cinnabar, and... all kinds of blueprints."

Component blueprints, one for one if possible.

As for whether the exchange would succeed, that was not a big issue.

After thinking it over, Lin Mu continued, "Put these basic supplies on the market as well. Let them be exchanged for the same kind of materials. Set the price a little higher, but not too low."

He had five thousand each of gold, silver, copper, and iron. He had plenty of those.

As for a high price, there was no need to worry.

You had to pay back loan interest one way or another. If you did not, you would simply wait to die.

He now understood this game very well.

"Yes!"

Since Lin Mu had given the order, Jiang Ying simply carried it out.

Soon they reached the second intersection.

Everyone had already prepared themselves, eyes fixed on the monitors, ready to report the location of resource boxes at any time.

Only this time, the boxes appeared in a somewhat bizarre manner.

"Report: resource boxes have been found, but all of them are guarded by vengeful spirits."

Lin Mu looked at the display ahead and sucked in a cold breath.

Damn!

Wasn't this number a little too much?

One resource box actually had ten vengeful spirits guarding it. Wasn't that absurd?

But it did not matter. He would take action.

The silver cube rose up and fired talismans at the spirits in the distance.

One talisman, one spirit. Absolutely effortless.

An hour later.

One wave of resource boxes had been taken into the bag.

Yet Lin Mu was not happy at all.

Where was the promised war? Where was the promised battle?

And this was all there was?

How was he supposed to expand his team? How was he supposed to obtain vehicle cores?

...

"Report, we have turned."

At a crossroads, the entire ground veered sharply to the left and entered a side road.

It did not remain in place as it had before.

Lin Mu hurriedly sat up straight. "Personnel in all directions, pay attention to your bearings. Report immediately if you spot anything."

If something unexpected had happened, it meant there was a special situation.

Was the first refuge finally about to be encountered?

....

"Idiot! So many resource boxes, and we only got ten!" A middle-aged man barely five feet three inches tall wore a dissatisfied expression.

"Captain Watanabe, this really cannot be blamed on us. We simply have too little yellow paper and cinnabar on hand. And at nine in the morning, the game deducted five hundred points' worth of supplies from us right away, so even if we wanted to exchange for more, we could not."

"Report! The ground has changed direction and is not continuing straight ahead. Through the drone feed, there is also a refuge in the distance coming toward us!"

Hearing the voice from the walkie-talkie, Watanabe's eyes lit up.

Since he did not have enough supplies, he would just take them.

Judging from the regional distribution, it was probably a refuge from another country.

"See which country their flag belongs to."

"China!"

Watanabe first froze, then a ferocious smile spread across his face. "Good. That puts my mind at ease. Everyone, prepare for a full battle. Motorized vehicles, be ready to outflank them from both sides at any moment."

China, then he could be even more ruthless.

Watanabe licked his lips. The ones he had killed before were all his own countrymen, and he had not really felt comfortable using excessively cruel methods on them.

But this time, he would let himself run wild.

"I hope they can keep me entertained a little longer, otherwise it would be a shame."

Lin Mu looked at the screen. On it, a tiny black dot was slowly growing larger. At this distance, it was roughly two or three kilometers away.

"Sigh. This camera is far too crappy. I still cannot make it out."

He only knew he had encountered a refuge, but not which country it belonged to.

Forget it. Whichever country it was, it hardly mattered, since they were all going to be eliminated in the end.

"Attention: everyone put away your machine guns. Without my orders, no one is allowed to make a move."

Since they had finally run into an opponent, they would keep everything they could.

What if the other side fled during the fight?

Although that voice had said only death counted as failure, it had not mentioned what counted as success.

Taking precautions was necessary.

Feigning weakness to lure the enemy was, in his view, the most useful method at the moment. After all, no one could resist a weak convoy.

Lin Mu rubbed his hands together. Ideally, they would send a motorized unit over.

This time, he could test exactly what this so-called team war really meant.

When the two teams were one kilometer apart, both sides stopped.

For a moment, both sides were stunned, and Lin Mu was no exception.

"Captain, what now?"

The heavy machine gun had an effective range of fifteen hundred meters, so it could definitely reach the other side.

As for the guns in their hands, they would not actually be able to hit anyone.

After all, the heavy machine gun was controlled by the brain, whereas the firearms were hand-operated.

Lin Mu stroked his chin and said, "Zhang Qian, take two people and circle through the middle twice, then come back. See what weapons they have."

They certainly could not deploy the heavy machine guns now.

Not that they could not be used at all, but because they could not kill the enemy in one stroke.

Because at the very moment the two sides appeared, a panel had popped up.

There was a five-minute countdown on it.

When time ran out, one could choose to flee, but half of the supplies on hand would go to the other side.

"Five minutes? That is not impossible, but it still depends on what happens after this."

He wanted both the supplies and the people.