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Is This Really A Game? - Chapter 146

Published at 19th of May 2023 05:55:08 AM


Chapter 146

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No one expected such a thing to happen at the end of the mission.

All hearts are heavy and morale is low.

Except for the three little players who were bewildered, and the guide who didn't know how to react.

Lucius said that he wanted to be alone for a while, and calmly think about how to inform the families of the victims of this cruel fact.

He is not very good at comforting words. If the acting is too exaggerated, it will be embarrassing if it is too much, so it is better not to speak at this time.

Sometimes silence is the best language.

Oliver put his hand on Lucius's shoulder, expressing his understanding.

"I understand your feelings, but it will be dark in two hours, and the situation in the urban area will become very complicated. After I go back, I will ask Howard to contact you... regarding the matter of compensating the families of the victims .”

It was at least twenty kilometers away from here to the Pioneer, and they had to try their best to get back before dark. Although the night is not a fatal danger for them, it is prudent to wait until it is too late.

"Go back first, I'll deal with the aftermath and leave."

"But...is it really okay for you to stay here?" Oliver said with a slightly hesitant expression, and couldn't help but glance at the equipment in the hands of the other three shelter residents.

Iron barrel rifle. The most common weapon in the wasteland.

But it was not so much a weapon as it seemed to him to be no different from a water pipe.

"Don't worry, we are familiar with this area, and have always lived like this."

Seeing that Lucius had said so, Oliver stopped insisting. After giving him a firm look, he took his own people back from a long way.

After they walked away, Lucius issued a mission through the VM to ask the other three small players to recover the bullet casings all over the floor, and then took the body of Brother Red Face on the road.

To be honest, Lucius was not greedy for those two bullet casings.

The main reason is that it is too difficult to act the whole way. He used to be in sales and not in funerals, so he really has no experience in this field.

So let Oliver and the others go first.

On the way back to the shelter, when passing by Beit Street, Lucius remembered the reward, so he took out 5 silver coins and threw them in Moxie's hand.

Looking at the silver coin in his hand, Moxie brows with joy, and quickly nodded his thanks.

"Thank you, my lord!"

At the beginning, everyone on Beit Street hated this kind of metal currency, but since they discovered that it can buy many good things that they couldn't buy before, they gradually began to accept it.

What is the difference whether it is chips or silver coins?

In the winter, there will be no caravans from Boulder City wandering here.

What they need is food, fuel, warm clothing and, ideally, a new set of bedding for the family to make life easier. That's all.

"This is the reward you deserve. If necessary, I will come to you again."

After sending Moxie away, Lucius returned to the shelter and sent the corpse lying in the mortuary to the active substance extractor.

Three days later, another hero will raise.

As for what in case someone remembers his face? Lucius felt that this was not a problem at all. Some people really suspected that it was nothing more than an extra twin brother. Or post an announcement on the official website?

For example, due to a temporarily unresolvable BUG in the expansion pack, players who died in the expansion pack cannot be revived temporarily. Later, the official will issue a limited-edition assault rifle or event reward points to the affected account as compensation?

This is quite reasonable. How can there be no BUG game?

Not to mention the beta testing stage, the game body can only be regarded as a BUG gift.

As long as the compensation and rewards are reasonable, the players can still accept it emotionally. At most, it will be like the withdrawal reaction of not being able to sleep for three days as before.

Lucius was a little annoyed. He actually had a lot of cards in his hand.

However, the problem now is that he doesn't want his little players to cheat on all the rewards as soon as they see it. It's too fake to die like that, and they are purely treating them as fools.

But at the same time, he hopes that the little players can help him earn more pensions. After all, you can earn up to 13CR for three days of work, so it’s not too much to pay four figures for one person’s death, right?

Tsk. It would be nice if there was a way to make it cooler.

Lucius thought that Howard might be calling soon, so he walked towards the barracks of the office.

Coincidentally, just as Lucius was walking in that direction, Dante just came out of the barracks, saw his eyes lit up, and took the initiative to greet him.

"Hey, you're finally back."

"Your section chief is looking for me?"

Dante looked at Lucius in surprise, nodded and said.

"That's right, he told me to call him if I saw you coming back... how did you guess?"

Lucius was about to smile, but remembered that he couldn't laugh, at least he shouldn't, so he held back and sighed softly.

"It's a sad story...Let's talk about it next time we have a drink."

Dante looked bewildered, he didn't understand why he had to wait to chat while drinking, and he didn't understand why Lucius, who was always gentle and refined, had such a heavy expression.

However, he was just asking casually, since he took the liberty, he didn't ask any more.

"Okay……"

Lucius nodded and walked towards the office.

Ace, who was maintaining her weapon, looked up at him, without saying a word, skillfully turned on the holographic communication system on the table, and sent a contact request to the Pioneer.

This bodyguard usually speaks very little, or even basically nothing.

Lucius admired her character very much, and it would be great if Boss Sumeria could learn from her. Whether it is the attitude of doing things or the professionalism.

Dark green light beams interweave in the air, forming a three-dimensional net.

After a short wait, Howard's bust appeared in the holographic image.

After staring at Lucius for two seconds, the head of the logistics department cleared his throat and said when he saw that Lucius had no intention of opening the chatterbox.

"I have heard what happened from the captain. I am very sorry for the death of that young man. Of course, mere regret is not enough to express our apologies. If you have no objections, let's talk about the pension."

Really.

Lucius knew it in his heart, but he didn't express it on his face. With a slight nod of his head, he said.

"Okay."

Guessing that the old fox would not take the initiative to make an "Quote", Howard didn't waste time waiting and continued to speak.

"You are not employees of the company. We cannot pay pensions to your people according to the company's standards and employee levels. The compensation plan after our research is... 1000CR, which is equivalent to 1000 hours of hourly wages."

Lucius stared at him.

"I can't accept it. In your eyes, is a human life only worth 1000 CR?"

A ton of starch is too much!

Red Face Boxer is our good partner! Need to add money!

Howard also stared at Lucius, and was not fooled by the idea of ​​changing the concept secretly.

"I know that a human life is far more than this price. Life cannot be measured by money, but we also have to consider realistic factors... What's more, his death was not caused by us, am I right?"

Huh? Lucius was a little surprised. He didn't expect this guy to be smart.

It can be seen that before answering the call, the chief of the logistics department should have done a lot of homework, at least ask their captain to understand the whole process of the operation.

Strictly speaking, Brother Red Face didn't die because of their mistakes, but because his luck was too dark and he stepped on a thunder when he rummaged through boxes and trash.

Howard's hint in his words is obvious, it can even be said that it is not a hint, it is completely explicit - the deceased did not die because of us, but he died in an action related to us after all, we are willing to do it out of Morality pays a compensation, but don't take it too far.

Of course Lucius was very clear in his heart, but to expect him to give up just like that would be to underestimate his professionalism.

Nodding his head, Lucius decided to retreat.

"Yes, it is undeniable that we are all responsible for what happened, and I have no intention of putting all the responsibility on you. To be honest, it is a rare and noble act that you are willing to give compensation to the families of the victims. But please understand, from my standpoint, I naturally have to find a way to help our people win more."

Howard: "Understood, so your answer is?"

Lucius: "I accept your compensation. In addition, I will give his widow a pension of 2,000 silver coins in my own name. This money is enough for her not to worry about material things for a period of time."

Howard's brows were slightly relaxed. Before making this phone call, he had prepared himself for a long time, but he did not expect the communication to go smoothly.

To be honest. He was quite surprised.

This old fox didn't take the opportunity to rip them off, which was really unexpected to him, so that the manuscript he had typed in his mind was completely useless.

What a waste.

"It seems we have reached a consensus."

"Yes, there was agreement on pensions."

Hearing "Yes", Howard still had a smile on his face, but when he heard the attributive in the second half of the sentence, his blood pressure instantly soared.

Staring at Lucius's holographic image, he said aggressively while searching for blood pressure lowering medicine in his pocket.

"What do you mean? Are you trying to tell me that every resident of the refuge is the collective wealth of the refuge, and we have to compensate you for a sum of money in addition to his personal loss?"

Huh? Can it be interpreted like this?

Lucius, who hadn't considered this level at all, was surprised and couldn't help admiring him secretly. He silently wrote down this excuse and planned to use it again when he had a chance.

It took a second to sort out his emotions, and he stared at Howard in the holographic image neither humble nor overbearing, and said righteously.

"What do you mean by that? Is money the only thing in your mind and mine? "

What else! Howard resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

"Don't go around in circles, just say it, what do you want?"

Lucius said with a serious face.

"I have seriously reflected on the reason for today's accident. The reason why such a thing happened is not because your people failed to protect us, but because we failed to protect our own people."

“If we could have provided him with a body armor and a helmet, he wouldn’t have been killed on the spot. If we could have provided him with a submachine gun or a shotgun, today’s tragedy would not even have happened. If— "

Howard couldn't help but interrupted him.

"If we can provide you with a few sets of power armor, you can help us find the fuel rods without us even doing it, right? Is that what you want to say?"

Lucius actually wanted to say "Yes". But he knew that it was useless to say such words, and it was meaningless except for a blank look.

Some things are out of the question, like those power armors, and those modular production units that just plug in and go.

But something... Still can fight for it.

"That's so embarrassing, it's too much trouble for you. And it's better to teach people to fishing than to give them a fish." Lucius continued without blushing, "Our requirements are not high. In order to avoid similar tragedies from happening again, I implore you can send an engineer to support our construction. For example, help us build a production line to produce steel, cement, helmets, armor and weapons."

"You call this not demanding?" Howard glared at him, his eyes almost protruding, "What do you think we are, jugglers?"

It is much more difficult to build a production line for the production of rifles than it is to produce a single rifle.

Depending on the type of process, product quality, degree of automation, and expected production capacity, the cost and time required to build this production line are also very different.

Moreover, it does not make much sense to establish a single production line out of the industrial system. The parts on the production line are worn out all the time. If these replaceable standardized parts cannot be produced, it is better to use the money to buy the product directly.

"Don't say any more."

Interrupting Lucius who was still about to say something, Howard pinched the center of his eyebrows, paused for a while, and then continued.

"You are very lucky... I happen to have a 'Magnetic Confinement Plasma CNC Machining Machine Tool' here. That thing is interesting, with high precision, easy to use, and relatively easy to maintain. We bought it from the last city Antiques. But we have more advanced production tools, and we don’t really need that thing, so it has been thrown in the warehouse for ashes.”

Lucius's eyes lit up: "How much!"

Howard smiled and said, "I can give it to you for free, do you want it?"

Lucius: "...Is that thing bad?"

Howard glanced at him unexpectedly, and said with a smile, "That's right, and it's the kind that's paralyzed in every sense. Even we have to work hard to fix it."

Hearing this sentence, Lucius finally understood what this guy wanted to do.

But he had no choice but to bite the bullet and ask.

"How much?"

"100,000."

Lucius: "..."

MMP!

100,000?!

200 people work 10 hours a day, plus a total of 600 daily meal subsidies, nearly 1,000 CR commission, and have to work for 27 consecutive days to earn this money!

What is the concept of 27 days?

Whether this group of people will stay here for 27 days is still unknown!

"...Your inflation is really ruthless."

"How come? This is already a very conscientious price. If you don't believe me, you can ask the caravan from the enterprise to see if they can offer a cheaper price than us."

Seeing the devastated expression on Lucius's face, Howard couldn't help but smiled smugly, but quickly coughed lightly to restrain the untimely expression.

"Well, do it well, I will send you the instructions for using that thing in a while. Of course, if you can't afford it, you don't have to force it. The assault rifles and body armor we produce can also give you the ability to protect yourself. And I bet the quality will be much better than what you make yourself."

"By the way, the pension will come back later... I almost forgot such an important thing because you strayed too far from the topic."

After leaving this sentence, Howard happily ended the communication.

From his expression at the last second, Lucius could feel the pride in this guy's heart.

This feeling must be very cool.

Lucius tried to introduce his position. It's not only cool to find out, it's really cool.

"Do you still need to use the phone?" Asked Ace, who was waiting aside, seeing that he hadn't moved for a long time.

"No."

Hearing that there is no need for it, Ace reached out and turned off the holographic communication device without procrastinating.

The dark green light beam disappeared from the barracks.

His gaze swept across Lucius's face inadvertently, and Ace was taken aback for a moment, with an imperceptible trace of surprise floating on his expressionless face.

She clearly remembered that this person had a deflated expression just a second ago, but at this moment, there was no trace of deflated expression.

Instead…… There seems to be a flash of excitement?

Ace felt that he must have read it wrong.

After all, no matter what, they only lost one partner, and the compensation didn't seem to meet expectations. She could not imagine that he had any reason to be happy.

But Howard from the logistics department is really stingy enough.

One hundred thousand CR...

Have to work for a long time.





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