Chapter 74 – Blasphemous Micro-Transaction System
The bike got to the destination Crystal pinpointed. It was a pile of the metallic junks that the city had thrown away. Rusty car frame, bent pipes, wrecked outdated mechs, and tank parts scattered around in this area.
A new instruction came to Mia, "Park the bike there. From here on, move north toward the city on foot."
"Will someone steal our bike? I think someone is living in this place and use this junkyard as their hideout."
"No sane person will live there, Misha. Scorpions, snakes, zombies, and eggs will jump in there the moment they see a bonfire. You can use that as your temporary hiding spot after you rescued Brim."
"Okay!"
Mia rechecked the exoskeleton on his body one last time before he started running north.
"Misha, try to avoid the monsters if you can. Don't attract too much attention."
Mia's feet stopped, and he leaped backward the moment he heard more instruction.
"Crystal, if you said that later by a second, I would have jumped into another scorpion's nest."
"… Don't be reckless."
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= One Hour Later =
After walking in a strange pattern, Mia avoided all burrowed scorpions and underground snakes that were hiding in this area.
He looked back at the trail he made and recalled an old memory, thinking of a map he used to have from the outpost base. This area was also marked as a dangerous zone in that map, yet Mia trekked through it unharmed.
As Mia left the danger zone, he could see the defensive wall of a city.
'It's been a while. I'm back, guys.'
This was the city where the bus took him when he had first started the game. The underground facility where Mia had been captured the other day located in a different military base, so he did not worry about encountering those facility's soldiers here.
However, Mia worried if he might come across other lifestyle players in the city in his real look. Moreover, he could not disguise himself as a human anymore.
Also, turning himself into Misha was a bad idea. As Mia required powers to fight the guards inside, he had to be in this form. Moreover, there might be other alpha testers, the MWG men from the real world, in this city.
'Once I go back, I should grind my polymorph skill. Heck, do I even want to continue playing this game? I want to quit this game already.'
As Mia's sixth sense sharpened during his peak concentration, he had a tingling feeling that he had to quit this game as soon as possible, or something crazy might happen in this game soon.
Shaking away his useless thought, Mia got close to the backdoor entrance of the city. This door was reserved for the dumpster trucks to carry out unrecyclable wastes outside of the town.
A bit further to the west, they dug a pit and dumped all the waste there. From Crystal's introduction about this area, the hole was a nest of giant fire ants, which Mia should not get close.
*Mew* (I sense fire food.)
*Nom-Nom Mew* (Let's go west and hunt some fire food.)
"Not now, Tama."
*Nom-Nom Mrrr* (It's fire food.)
Mia ignored Tama's glutton tantrum and heightened his sense again. Upon trying to scout the perimeter and trying to bust inside the city, vague presences of five soldiers who were guarding the door alarmed Mia.
'Tama, how about human's blood as an appetizer.'
*Mew!* (Yay! Let's go. Let's go!)
"Haiz."
Sometimes, Mia questioned about Tama's stomach size. She ate more than he did, yet she was never full. Mia wondered where all the food went.
Mia used the night environment as his cover. As it was already 11 PM, he did not have a problem sneaking in the shadow.
Soon, Mia got close to the five sentry guards.
"On the count to three, Tama. I'll rush into the middle of the five, and we're killing them without a sound."
*Mrrr* (Sounds complicated. I don't get it.)
"Think of this as fast food. It's a challenge that you have to hunt and eat fast, or you'll get no food."
*Mew!* (Challenge accepted! Go! Go! Jump in the middle, I'll kill all of them!)
Mia snickered and counted.
"One, two, three!"
With the assistance of the exoskeleton, Mia leaped into the middle of the five guards.
The lazy and unprepared guards looked at Mia in shocked.
Tama's tentacles did the job as always. Four orange arms extended from Mia's back and penetrated the hearts of four soldiers at once.
The distance that each tentacle could extend astonished Mia as each of them was at least five to seven meters long.
"Zap!"
The index finger of Mia tapped the forehead of the remaining guard, and the electric current from the finger entered the soldier's brain, cooking the soft brain tissues into fried tofu.
Four tentacles pulled four dead bodies closer to Mia. Tama shrunk her arms and sucked the four dried within ten seconds.
Without a guard, Mia got inside the city undetected. As he entered from the backdoor entrance, he found himself inside an industry area.
Piles of miscellaneous trash, plastic bags, and rotten waste were packed into a cube, waiting to be transferred to the ant pit.
Fortunately, no sane person wanted to stroll in a garbage disposal center. Only a couple of workers skipped their duties and smoked in this area.
Mia jumped at the back of a worker, snapped his neck, and stole his uniform.
"I'm inside, Crystal."
"We see you. Actually, you don't need that uniform. Beyond that garbage zone, you can walk around with that exoskeleton through the area."
"Won't they call the cops or the military for this? They will see my tail and my horns."
"Most humans have never seen a dragonewt, so they will think that you're a cosplayer. Well, cosplaying is still popular in the entertainment industry, so you'll be fine."
"Cosplaying!? Do you think I'm still cosplaying with guns and exoskeleton on me?"
"Plastic guns are very realistic these days. As long as you don't run around, nobody will think that you're a real dragonewt with real weapons. Also, hide Tama's tentacles, and don't go into a secluded area. You don't want to provoke gangsters in there, or you'll be in big trouble."
"…"
"Next, Brim should be locked up within the military compound at the center of this city. Get over there before the daybreak, so we can bust him out before dawn."
Listened to Crystal's absurd infiltration plan, Mia glanced at his quest menu. He had about less than 25 hours remaining to get Brim out of prison.
'Fine, I'll stroll into the city like this. I hope nobody in the real world will recognize me. Wait, my name is still red! Won't they notice this!?'
Mia glanced at the character name above his head. The name [Mia] was highlighted in red as he had thought.
He did not have the confidence that Crystal's plan would pass with this red name flashing.
As Mia doubted about his name color, he went through the system menu and setting if he could hide this indicator.
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'Can I turn it on?'
Mia tapped on the options menu, trying to change it to [On].
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Mia almost vomited blood. This game still had that nasty pay-to-win VIP system!?
In ancient times, many game companies created mobile games with a money-grubbing system called [VIP System]. Players had to participate in a micro-transaction or had to buy currency in-game to obtain this VIP privilege.
The privilege in each game varied. Some gave advantageous benefits to the paying players, some gave the players a couple of perks to keep the game balanced, and even some greedy games turned VIP players into overpowered gamers in an instant.
This horrid system milked many players dried for centuries, yet this game still inherited this blasphemous system.
'To think that there is still micro-transaction around in this day of age.'
Mia explored his game menu, and he found the [Shop] option. He was surprised that it was there as he did not see it when he first arrived in this game world.
'Did MWG ninja-patched the game? Since when has this game updated?'
As Mia opened the [Shop] option, the in-game currency pricing list displayed on the screen.
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Mia gazed at the price of diamonds, and he was speechless.
A million MWD could only buy one diamond!
And the lowest-priced item in the shop cost 100 diamond. Furthermore, the 100 diamonds items were simple things like a healing potion or a food lunchbox!
'This is a rip-off! Do you think all the players here are that rich!? Oh wait, we have billionaire parents. Heck, that's still expensive!'
Then, his eyes got to the LUCK-Diamond exchange rate. It was one LUC for 100 diamond!
"Ugh! What the hell!?"