RoleplayNovel Chapter 106 Stewing Myself in an Iron Pot
Chapter 106 Stewing Myself in an Iron Pot
A temporary defensive line, located 30 meters away from the collapsed rock face, deep within the abandoned city's sewers.
A thin purple mist floated in the air, and the coarse hemp ropes made the ancient wood creak and groan.
Several players from the civil engineering team had rags on their shoulders, leaning forward almost parallel to the ground, their feet desperately searching for a foothold on the rocks covered in sticky moss.
"One, two, go!"
The heavy ancient log slowly moved forward on the rolling log pads below.
This is the front line of the isolation zone, and the concentration of the purple mist has reached a level visible to the naked eye.
Even through the water-soaked linen, the air, carrying a strong acidic smell, could still penetrate through the respiratory tract.
The specific manifestations of physical exhaustion include palpitations, weak legs, and blackouts gradually appearing at the edges of vision.
Due to the tight schedule, players from the first and second closed beta tests also joined the main workforce.
As the whistle blew, Da Niu, the Czech public agent, and Happy Blade, feeling as if they had been granted a pardon, dropped the wooden bar in their hands and stumbled back to the relatively safe ventilation opening at the rear.
Tearing off the wet burlap sack covering their faces, which served as makeshift filters, the three of them collapsed into the mud without any regard for their image, greedily breathing in the air that was barely clean enough.
Blade pulled a cold, hard piece of black bread from his backpack and took a big bite.
"The sensory feedback in this lousy game is torture; even at 20% speed, it's still unbearable."
The blade mumbled indistinctly, "This is like paying money to suffer. This bread is so hard you could use it to smash a green succulent."
The agent sitting next to him picked up a bowl, took a swig of cold water, and swallowed the food stuck in his throat. He wiped the water off his chin and said, "Be content. Even if this thing is hard, it's still better than that damn job in real life."
Blade and Big Bull stopped chewing and turned to look at him.
The agent chuckled self-deprecatingly: "I was just laid off from the company this month."
He stared blankly at the flickering fire: "I've been a backend developer for five years, and all the hair I've lost from staying up all night is gone."
A while ago, the boss created a new large code model, ostensibly to reduce costs and increase efficiency, and asked me to lead the fine-tuning of the business logic for AI.
To keep my job, I worked day and night feeding it the core code I'd written over the past five years, fixing its logical bugs bit by bit.
The agent's voice was full of self-deprecation: "Once that thing got the company's business line working, that bastard called me into his office and said that the company is now fully automated and we don't need to keep so many high-paid programmers anymore. He told me to pack my bags and leave."
The code remained, and so did the perfectly functioning model. I essentially created a perfect workaround—one without the usual benefits of social security or sleep—and essentially turned myself into AI to stay at the company, a true "self-cooking pot."
Only the crackling sound of burning firewood remained in the underground passage.
The agent lived alone outside and didn't dare tell his family about it.
"I told my mom that I'm now taking on commercial orders from home, and that's a legitimate job."
A couple of days ago she called to ask if I was tired from work and if I wanted her to send me some local specialties. What could I say? I could only laugh and tell her that I'd taken on a freelance project and was rushing to meet deadlines every day.
Then I spent day and night playing here, because only here did I feel like I was still somewhat useful.
Both Da Niu and Dao Biao fell silent.
They were not facing a particular unscrupulous boss, but rather the overwhelming force brought about by the upgrading of the entire industry.
The sense of powerlessness that comes from the insignificance of individual efforts in the face of the tide of the times makes the current environment feel even more oppressive.
Happy Brand Blade slammed his fist on the nearby gravel and muttered a curse: "Fuck empowerment, fuck flat management."
In reality, I'm treated like a slave, and I have to be careful even when I ask for leave. If anything goes wrong, it's all the fault of the lower-level staff; if anything goes well, it all ends up in the director's PowerPoint presentation.
Fortunately, the agent didn't remain depressed for long.
He raised his hands, which were blistered and marked with red welts from the rough hemp rope. His eyes held no complaint about the hard labor, but rather a morbid satisfaction.
"But look here."
The agent pointed to the isolation wall behind him, which was only half-built, and said, "Here, no one cares about your education, and no one will use that bullshit about ecological empowerment and cost reduction to manipulate you."
He clenched his fist tightly, feeling the real stinging pain in his palm.
"When you pull the lever, move a rock, or kill a monster, you complete a mission. The emblem on your arm will then gain a real credit point."
The agent's voice rose, carrying a pent-up frustration, "One dollar for every brick you move. This place may be awful, and you might go hungry, but it fucking follows the rules!"
Da Niu slapped his thigh in deep agreement.
"In real life, working like a slave doesn't even bring any reward, but here, as a cyber slave, at least we can see our output! As long as we're willing to put in the effort, no one can cut back on my hard-earned money."
These young people, whose living space is constantly being squeezed in reality, miraculously regained the dignity of earning more through hard work in this ruin full of toxic gas and unknown dangers.
Thirty meters away, in the shadow of a thick load-bearing column.
Lynn leaned quietly against the cold stone wall and listened to the entire conversation.
He didn't make a sound to disturb the players' venting; he simply disappeared into the darkness, his gaze fixed on the flickering fire.
He touched upon the most fundamental driving force of the Fourth Calamity.
As long as the economic settlement system of this outpost maintains this absolute fairness, this group of players will unleash a cohesion and creativity more terrifying than any native tribe.
They would build this city to the heavens for those tangible numbers.
Most importantly, these people won't die.
Lynn closed his eyes, sensing the abundant energy points within his body; his reserves had already surpassed the 80,000 mark.
But at the same time, he was also taking stock of the base's accounts.
Just now, the official team reclaimed the supplies, and he immediately distributed a huge amount of credit points as a reward to Da Niu and Niaoyu Huaxiang.
Fairness inevitably leads to the rapid accumulation of wealth in the hands of a small number of daring and aggressive top players. Five hundred Maple Leaf Coins and one thousand Credits are a cash behemoth capable of destroying everything in this nascent micro-economy.
Once the big players put this money into circulation, they can buy up grain and hire new people on a large scale, causing the prices of meat and bread to skyrocket uncontrollably.
New players who have just entered the game and are still struggling at the bottom will be trapped in an endless cycle of starvation because they can't afford food, and the cheap labor market that the ruined city has worked so hard to build will collapse directly.
A poor gaming experience will inevitably make some players want to quit the game.
We must get this money back.
Lynn opened his eyes and suddenly realized something.
A special creation that had long been unlocked within the system's permissions but had never had a suitable opportunity to be released appeared in his mind at this moment.
To get these players to willingly part with the money they've just saved, you need to create an irresistible spending black hole for them.