Chapter 99.1: It's Tough Being Mayor

Chapter 99.1: It's Tough Being Mayor

Ou Huang logged out at noon and only logged back in at 4 p.m., after the event was over.Geett the latest novels at novelhall.com

He had gone offline at Weisshem and remained there when he logged in.

Weisshem's streetscape in the morning didn't appeal to Ou Huang at all, and he didn't step off the spawn point after logging in and teleported straight to Exile Town.

After stepping off Exile Town's teleportation point at the Crossroads, Ou Huang opened his character panel and took a look at his stats.

ID: Ou Huang

Race: Undead

Gender: Male

Level: 2

Potential Value: 124

Ou Huang silently closed the interface.

Although he played the game as if he were a hermit in seclusion, Ou Huang also had a competitive spirit. At this current stage of the game, his Potential value easily outperformed his fellows. After all, most of the game's players were in the 70-80 Potential value range.

But... when it came to the Potential value rankings, Ou Huang couldn't even squeeze into the top three.

The number one player in the game, Ji Tang, had a Potential value of 168 and stood out as the undisputed pinnacle.

There was no point in being envious since Ji Tang was known to be a former special forces soldier with an undisclosed military designation—even though Ji Tang had never openly admitted this, it didn't stop players from slapping him with a "Soldier King" nickname.

What was truly frustrating was that the second and third in the Potential value rankings couldn't be considered standard players. The two elderly gentlemen, whose IDs were Old Geng and Master Liu, had Potential values of 141 and 130, respectively.

Whenever players went to the merchant association canteen for quests or to trade in materials, they couldn't help but feel a strange mix of sadness and resentment, seeing the stats of those two. Also, they were rather indignant that these two old men had achieved such high scores without farming monsters or completing quests, but it was also awkward to accuse these obviously non-gamer elders of exploiting the system.

The days of these two when they logged in revolved around the merchant association canteen. They cooked for all the town's NPCs and collected materials from players in exchange for gear.

But ask any player if they were willing to sacrifice their game experience and swap with them, and the answer would be a definite no.

In any case, these two elders didn't compete with players for monsters or quests; they simply used numerical cheats...

Ou Huang had no intention of competing with these two canteen elders and was always cordial when he saw them. With half a bag of grasshoppers in his backpack, he entered the merchant association canteen. Master Liu saw him and warmly greeted Ou Huang, "You're here, young brother. What are you bringing this time?"

Players were only responsible for pre-meal preparations, while the washing and cleaning were handled by NPCs. Teacher Yu Chi, who had a kid, hurriedly logged out to prepare dinner after exchanging greetings with Liu Meng.

Liu Meng also didn't stay idle. After tidying up, she got ready to teleport to Weisshem and accept the cooking quests over there.

"Do you want to go together, Boss Ou Huang?" Just before parting ways, Liu Meng politely invited.

Ou Huang shook his head and instead made his way to the Butcher's Workshop. He still preferred to operate alone. Playing with others was just too troublesome.

With the players gone, the three tool players of the merchant association canteen huddled together and had a discreet conversation.

"Xiao Zhao, what's going on at the research institute? Can't they assign you a helper?" Old Geng asked.

"I'm afraid that's impossible," Zhao Zhenzhen replied. "My helmet already took a great effort by Director Lu to procure. There's a severe shortage of helmets in the institute right now, especially with the number of patients in line for clinical stimulation."

"That's indeed troubling..." Old Geng mused. "How about this. I see the young lady Liu Meng online quite a lot. She's simple-minded and enjoys cooking. Perhaps you can consider using her."

Master Liu shook his head. "That doesn't seem too appropriate, Brother Geng. Youngsters nowadays are smart. The more likely they are exposed to too many such situations, the more likely they are to catch on to the issues. We also can't seek out that young lady in the real world and ask her to sign a confidentiality agreement, right?"

"Why can't we? After graduating, college students still have to find jobs. Wouldn't it be settled with special recruitment?" Old Geng waved his bone claw in a worked-up fashion.

Zhao Zhenzhen didn't really know how to respond. "Uncle Geng, there are regulations in our department..."

"What regulations," grumbled Old Geng. "Back in our day, we didn't have so many rules."

"Aiya, Brother Geng, times have changed," Master Liu quickly tried to defuse the situation. "The young people today are quite different from those in the past. They are sharp and quick-witted. Anyway, besides these players, we can consider using the natives. The town there has lots of natives, so we can explore developing them—"

"We can't even understand each other's language, so how are we even going to develop natives?"

Master Liu chuckled and gave Zhao Zhenzhen a wry wink. "Brother Geng might not understand, but you would surely get it, right, Xiao Zhao?"

Zhao Zhenzhen didn't really know how to respond once more.

Master Liu had quite a bit of wit about him—players could hire NPCs, and Ji Tang, who had gotten the position of mayor, definitely had a way of communicating with NPCs; it was just that their motives for interacting with NPCs would be entirely different from the players, and there was a need for confidentiality.

A frowning Old Geng eyed Zhao Zhenzhen and Old Liu for a moment and understood that these two had already figured out a means to resolve this issue, just that they hadn't informed him.

Old Geng also didn't wish to trouble Zhao Zhenzhen, so he pointed a finger at Liu and jokingly grumbled, "Good job, Old Liu. You didn't tell me anything and just left me worrying here!"

Master Liu shook his head and chuckled.

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