16: Chapter 16 Settlement Trading

Just as Lin Li reached a spot twenty meters from the barbed-wire gate with his cart, three dark gun barrels immediately poked out from above the perimeter wall.

They were crude, makeshift rifles with barrels barely held in place by tape and wire. They looked terrible, but their lethality was absolutely fatal to the players at their current level.

Lin Li stopped and remained calm.

He slowly raised his hands to signal that he meant no harm.

"I am here to trade."

Lin Li's voice carried far through the wind and sand.

"Call your manager out. I have brought absolutely clean food."

Upon hearing the word "food," the guards on the wall grew noticeably restless.

In this wasteland filled with radiation and toxins, clean food was even more precious than bullets.

A few minutes later, accompanied by the harsh sound of grinding gears, the heavy barbed-wire gate cracked open.

A middle-aged man wearing a ragged suit that could still be recognized as a high-end relic from the old era walked out, flanked by two armed guards.

The man's eyes were as sharp as a vulture's. He sized Lin Li up, his gaze finally resting on the metal cart the four players were pushing.

"I've seen you before," the man in the suit narrowed his eyes, his voice raspy. "A few days ago, you were wandering outside the camp like a stray dog and were chased off by our people. What? Did you strike it rich today?"

The four players stood behind Lin Li, not daring to breathe.

"Faction interaction between NPCs! This dialogue is top-tier!"

Flash typed excitedly in the team channel.

Lin Li ignored the man's mockery.

He cursed the man's snobbery inwardly, but on the surface, he sneered and pulled a white, high-energy protein block wrapped in a rag from his coat pocket, tossing it over casually.

"Taste it," Lin Li said with an arrogant tone.

The man in the suit caught it suspiciously, tore off a bit of the outer layer, and sniffed it.

The next second, his pupils constricted sharply, and a Flash of undisguised greed crossed his eyes.

There was no stench of rot. There was no disgusting smell of mutant acid.

There was only the purest, sweet aroma of high-concentration protein.

"Synthetic food of this purity..."

The man in the suit suppressed his shock, swallowed, and his attitude softened visibly.

"Friend, what do you want? If it's water or scrap metal, this piece of food can buy a whole cartload."

"I don't want trash."

Lin Li held up three fingers, his eyes as sharp as knives, like an old fox who had been grinding away in the wasteland for years:

"First, sulfur; second, saltpeter. I want both of these minerals, fifty kilograms each. Not a single gram less."

The man in the suit was stunned.

These two things were not rare in the wasteland and could usually be dug up in volcanic ash deposit zones.

Although collecting them was dangerous, they weren't valuable themselves, being mostly scraps used for refining homemade black powder.

"How much can you offer?" the man in the suit asked tentatively.

Lin Li patted the cart behind him: "There are fifty pieces in the cart, but don't rush. I have a third condition."

He stared fixedly into the man's eyes and said, word by word:

"I also want a batch of primers. At least five hundred rounds, and they must be ready-made primers with stable performance."

Upon hearing the word "primers," the man's expression changed.

Lin Li knew very well that although the Matter Constructor could hand-craft rifled barrels and even produce casings and bullets, it currently couldn't synthesize the extremely sensitive percussion compounds that required high chemical stability.

Without primers, the rifles the players crafted were nothing more than fire pokers!

"Fifty kilograms of ore is no problem. But primers? Those are military supplies!"

The man's face darkened, and he instinctively wanted to lower the price.

"Fifty pieces of food isn't enough. I'll give you two hundred primers at most, plus twenty kilograms of ore!"

"Forget it, then."

Lin Li didn't waste any words and turned to leave, not even bothering to retrieve the sample he had tossed over.

"There's another camp thirty kilometers away. I think those lunatics will be more interested in this food."

"Wait!"

The man in the suit panicked.

Clean food was right in front of him. If he let this fat sheep get away, the big shots in the camp would skin him alive. He gritted his teeth:

"Deal! Fifty kilograms of ore plus five hundred primers! Give me ten minutes to get the goods from the warehouse!"

"Holy crap, is Boss Dawn's bargaining skill this realistic?" Walker exclaimed in the voice chat.

In less than ten minutes, a few laborers walked out carrying two heavy burlap sacks and a heavy, moisture-proof iron box, placing them with a thud next to the cart.

Lin Li stepped forward and untied the sacks to take a look.

Inside were pungent, pale yellow sulfur chunks and grayish-white saltpeter crystals. He then opened the iron box, which contained five hundred neatly arranged brass-colored primer caps.

"Inspection complete."

Lin Li nodded slightly, signaling the players to unload.

Liver Emperor immediately stepped forward and moved the tightly wrapped protein blocks to the other party.

Then, he hoisted the two bags of minerals, which weighed over a hundred pounds in total, and placed them steadily on the cart.

His strength attribute of 8 made this task effortless for him.

The trade was complete.

Lin Li didn't linger for a second and turned to leave with the players.

He understood the rules of the wasteland. If you show off your wealth and don't leave, the trade could turn into a robbery the moment the other party realized what happened.

After leaving the Shangdi Settlement, the team changed direction and headed south.

"Boss, have we gathered all the raw materials for gun-making now?"

Flash pushed the cart, rubbing his hands excitedly.

"Where to next? Back to base to craft guns?"

"South first."

Lin Li's expression turned somewhat complicated. "We're going to a ruined village. I still owe someone a favor."

The players looked at each other and immediately shut their mouths.

Hidden quest incoming!

Over an hour later, the team arrived at a ruined village that had been completely weathered, leaving only broken walls and ruins.

Compared to the Shangdi Settlement with its armed walls, this place was as crude as a rat hole.

However, before they could even approach the sewer manhole cover hidden in the center of the ruins...

Lin Li, who was walking in front, suddenly stopped in his tracks.

A thick, pungent scent of blood drifted on the wind.

This scent was mixed with the stench of rotting organs and a certain musky odor.

Lin Li's heart sank, and a sense of foreboding instantly gripped his throat.

"Alert!"

Lin Li roared, pulled the halberd from his back, and charged toward the center of the ruins like a sprinting cheetah!

The four players were startled by the sudden turn of events and quickly raised their heavy crossbows and drew their weapons to follow.

"Clang!"

Lin Li kicked open the heavy manhole cover used for camouflage.

There was no challenge from anyone.

Lin Li's eyes were slightly red. Without even touching the ladder, he leaped down from the three-meter-high opening!

"Thud!"

His feet landed with a dull thud, as if stepping into some viscous liquid.

In the dim underground space, Lin Li saw the scene before him, illuminated by the faint light filtering in from above.

A slaughterhouse.

This place had become a complete slaughterhouse.

The ragged tents that had once served as windbreaks were torn to shreds, and dark red blood splatters were everywhere. Dozens of mangled corpses were discarded in the corners like broken ragdolls.

Some corpses had been smashed into pulp by huge blunt objects; others had been torn in half by some monster with terrifying bite force, their intestines and organs spilling all over the floor.

Lin Li took two trembling steps forward, and faint whispers began to echo in his ears.

In the corner that had once belonged to the little girl, she was nowhere to be seen, leaving only a shocking pool of blood.

"Ugh—!"

Flash, who had followed him down, landed and saw the carnage. His stomach churned, and he immediately leaned against the wall and vomited violently.

It wasn't just Flash; even the usually calm Liver Emperor and Ming Shen were pale, their hands trembling uncontrollably as they gripped their weapons.

"This... this is too damn realistic..."

Walker's teeth chattered, unable to even form a complete sentence.

"The cross-sections of the severed limbs, the texture of the organs... the dev team is definitely twisted! You couldn't make a scene like this without having killed a few people!"

The players usually enjoyed killing monsters in the game, but when such a realistic and tragic scene of human slaughter was presented to them without reservation, the intense visual and psychological impact instantly shattered their psychological defenses.

Just as the players were shocked by the game's graphic nature.

Ming Shen's gaze fell on Lin Li ahead.

He was suddenly stunned.

He saw that this NPC officer, who was usually cold, expressionless, and treated the players like pack animals, was currently kneeling in the pool of blood.

Ming Shen could clearly see the veins on the back of Lin Li's right hand, which was gripping the halberd, bulging to the limit, his knuckles turning white from excessive force.

"Liver... Walker..."

Ming Shen swallowed, his voice trembling in the voice chat.

"Look at Boss Dawn... this emotional rendering... the tension in his body language..."

"Is the AI of this NPC a bit too realistic? Why do I feel like... he wants to kill someone right now?"

Lin Li slowly stood up.

He was silent for a moment, then slammed his halberd heavily into the blood-soaked floor.

He lifted his head. In those eyes that had originally been pitch-black, there was now only absolute coldness and suffocating murderous intent.

"Not mutant beasts, not wandering raiders."

Lin Li scanned the huge slash marks on the surrounding walls and the extremely large footprints on the ground, his voice as raspy as two rusted iron plates rubbing against each other.

"It's Greenskins."

...

Meanwhile.

Nearly a hundred kilometers away, deep within the Spine Mountains.

At the entrance of an extremely secret, bottomless underground military industrial ruin.

"Beep—beep—beep—"

A highly technological electronic scanning sound echoed through the vast underground cavern.

Five figures were standing by an underground river, refilling their water bags.

These five people were four men and one woman.

They were completely different from the scavengers on the wasteland who wore rags and looked like beggars.

They were all wearing extremely high-quality gray rigid carapace armor!

Their helmets were equipped with low-light night vision goggles and holographic tactical visors, and in their hands were well-maintained high-energy thermal rifles!

"Captain, the radiation level of the water source is within the safe range. It's potable."

A man carrying a heavy communication radio looked at the tactical terminal on his wrist and reported.

The one called Captain was the only woman.

She took off her helmet, revealing neat, short blonde hair and a scar running across her left cheek. Her eyes were cold, exuding the sharpness of a veteran who had survived a hundred battles.

"Fill the water bags. We cannot stay here long."

The female captain glanced at the auspex in her hand, which was flashing red frantically. Her brows were furrowed, and her expression was extremely grave.

"The radiation wasteland on the other side of the Spine Mountains is in big trouble."

She pointed at the dense red dots on the detector screen that were spreading outward like a tide, her voice filled with deep concern.

"The Greenskin spore colonies have experienced explosive growth. This is definitely not a normal tribal conflict. There is only one possibility for a gathering of this scale..."

The female captain looked up at the dark red sky outside the cavern.

"An extremely powerful Orc Warlord has been born. A war that will sweep through the entire region is coming."

"According to the auspex's projected route..."

A team member next to her swallowed. "Their vanguard has already crossed the eastern edge of the Spine Mountains and is advancing toward the scattered human scavenger camps."

The female captain put her helmet back on and pulled down her tactical visor, leaving only a cold voice echoing in the cavern:

"Pick up the pace. We return to Coastal City to report."

"This wasteland is about to become a meat grinder."

"What about those wasteland rats?"

"Let them pray for their own survival."