Acetic acid, acetone, and methanol still had quite a wide range of uses.
If the refuge's outpost wanted to truly initiate industrialization, these chemical materials were indispensable.
Although there wasn't any immediate use for them, Chu Guang still rewarded the player [WC There are mosquitoes] with 1000 Contribution Points, and publicly recognized his "outstanding contribution in successfully preparing acetic acid, acetone, and methanol using wood as raw material."
Was this considered a Worldwide Announcement in a web novel about gaming?
Watching [WC There are mosquitoes] filled with pride while the other players looked on with envy, Chu Guang felt it was necessary to keep up this fine tradition.
Yes.
Not just in the game.
It needed to be announced on the official website too!
In the future, a Hall of Fame could be established, recording "On such a year, such a month, and such a day, a certain player achieved a certain milestone."
Such achievements could be solving a developmental problem or clearing a high-difficulty instance.
As a poor ruler, a cheap sense of honor was the only cost-effective reward he could offer the players.
After the event, Chu Guang, along with Night Ten and Garbage-kun, continued to explore north along the overpass outside Linghu Wetland Park.
They searched for traces of prey and valuable exploration targets.
Qingquan City's industrial clusters were mainly concentrated in the southeastern corner of the city, spreading out in a fan shape along the third and second ring roads.
The northern area where Linghu Wetland Park was located was mainly residential zones, with many unfinished buildings visible along the roads leaving the city.
Aside from well-developed public facilities like education, medical care, and transportation, no large-scale industrial clusters had formed in this area. Only some light industrial workshops were sparsely situated in the suburbs far from residential areas, neighboring garbage incineration plants.
Now, many of them were covered by forests.
Upon the advent of the nuclear war, Qingquan City's North Suburb, due to its large population base and extremely low strategic value, had hardly been directly hit by strategic weapons.
However, the massive number of refugees brought another kind of disaster here after the complete collapse of order.
Supermarkets, convenience stores, vegetable markets, and malls were quickly looted clean, followed by hospitals, schools, office buildings, and even every fridge and storage cabinet within residences.
No refuge would risk their safety to open gates and take them in, and besides, it was not possible, while the completely paralyzed transportation made it very hard for these people to leave.
Even two hundred years later, today, bullet holes in walls and shattered glass still bore witness to the tragedies that had happened here.
Some display windows, shelves, and even trash cans still held skeletons that hadn't completely decomposed.
"Damn... this is too tragic."
Watching a large and a small skeleton curled up together, Garbage-kun couldn't bear to look and closed the lid of the open trash bin.
Night Ten's reaction was comparatively calm; after all, this was not his first time venturing out with Chu Guang, and he had long been accustomed to the situation here, even acting like an old player commenting on it.
"To be fair, the game's scenery design is pretty spot-on... like it's really the world after the apocalypse."
"This indeed is the world after the apocalypse."
Chu Guang commented casually, carefully observing the situation inside the shop window, and made a mark on a paper map.
This should have been a clothing store.
But few clothes remained on the shelves, and the only two tattered pieces hanging there were covered in dark mold.
Clearly, scavengers had visited here long ago.
And not just once.
"…I think we're wasting our time," sighed Night Ten, "Clearly, everything here has been scavenged."
"There's always something useful to find… like this thing." Chu Guang found an unopened sewing kit from behind an almost shattered cabinet and tossed it to Night Ten.
The needle should be made of an alloy, and the thread probably synthetic silk. The unopened package meant no oxidation, it could be used not just two hundred years later, but even another two hundred after that.
These small tools were exactly what the outpost was most in need of.
Teng Teng would be interested in it.
With nothing left to search, the group was ready to leave the shop.
However, just at that moment, a shrill scream came from the distance, followed by two gunshots.
By the sound of it, they were 5mm bullets.
Chu Guang became instantly alert, took down the iron pipe rifle from his back, crouched, and hid in the shadow at the base of the wall, carefully looking toward the source of the sound.
At the street corner under a crooked billboard, a man in a gray coat lay on the ground having been shot, moving backwards with a look of horror.
Blood seeped out from his back, staining the ground.
"...Scavenger?"
Before long, another figure rounded the corner.
A gunman wearing a beast skin coat, biting a cigarette stub, holding a makeshift iron pipe rifle in his hand, walked towards the man lying on the ground, begging for mercy.
Behind him was another person and a dog.
The comrade also held a rifle of similar design, with a firefighter's axe hanging at his waist and a dog on a leash on the other side.
Chu Guang's pupils contracted slightly.
It took less than a second for him to quickly determine the identity of the two men.
Looters!
"What's happening outside?" Night Ten came up from behind, keeping his voice low.
He thought he was being quiet, but his skulking skills were still far from perfect.
"Shh!"
Just as Chu Guang managed to make a silencing gesture, the mutated hyena, its neck strapped with an iron chain, instantly turned its head and barked twice in their direction.
Chu Guang's expression changed instantly.
Fuck!
Had this beast pumped all its skill points into Perception?!
In a flash, the two looters turned their heads toward them, reacting extremely swiftly, lifting their rifles to fire.
Pop, pop!
Two consecutive gunshots rang out, and Chu Guang quickly ducked his head back, but he soon realized he had been overly concerned.
That homemade DIY rifle probably had no rifling.
At the distance of a street away, the shots simply went wide, and as expected, the bullets didn't even come close to the door beside him, all falling on the concrete road.
"An exchange of fire?! What's going on?! Did we run into Mutants?!" Garbage-kun, hiding inside the shop, was not at all panicked; in fact, he rubbed his hands together with excitement.
Night Ten was the same, pulling out a javelin at the first opportunity.
"Don't panic, everyone, let me take a look—"
"What's there to look at?!"
Seeing that neither of the two fellows knew fear, Chu Guang felt his nose almost go crooked with irritation. He freed a hand and pressed down on Night Ten's head, pushing him back.
"It's Looters! Two people, both armed, and with a dog! Retreat through the back door, we'll meet up in front of the bus stop, three hundred meters to the direct south—"
"Respected Manager, sir, why should we retreat? They're only two people and a beast, we don't have fewer people than they do!" Garbage-kun clenched his fists tightly, "We can fight too!"
"That's right! We can fight!"
Night Ten, also excited, picked up the crossbow that the Manager had just discarded, and declared with high morale, "We only have one gun, but we also have Molotov Cocktails… and this two-meter-tall Lizard, I don't believe it can't beat a dog."
Hearing this, Chu Guang, who had been tense, suddenly snapped back to reality.
Yeah.
Why run?
It was normal for him to hide when he used to be out alone, with his life hanging by a thread in the wilderness, encountering such ruthless bandits.
Now armed with guns and people, there was no damn reason to run!
Especially since there were only two of them on the other side.
Chu Guang was quick to react, making his decision on the spot, and racking the bolt to chamber a round.
Screw them!
"You, take the Molotov Cocktails and go over there." Chu Guang tossed the Molotov Cocktails and matches to Night Ten and pointed toward the diagonal corner of the street.
"Listen for my command. When you hear my gun, light it and throw!"
The enemies didn't know how many people were on Chu Guang's side. Seeing someone rushing out would definitely provoke a chase.
Night Ten was stunned upon receiving the Molotov Cocktails.
"How am I supposed to get over there?"
"Run over, what else? You want me to carry you? Don't worry, their guns don't have rifling; they won't hit you." Saying this, Chu Guang pushed him forward.
Night Ten staggered to the doorway.
His heart racing, but considering this could be an opportunity to show off in front of Manager, he clenched his teeth and steeled himself to go.
Damn it.
All in!
Afraid of what in the Game?
As expected, just as Chu Guang had anticipated, when the Looters saw Night Ten rushing out of the shop, they immediately started yapping and shot at him twice.
"Haha, my little treasure, where are you running off to?"
"Give up, you can't escape. Surrender now, and you can still save your life!"
Night Ten couldn't understand what these people were saying, only feeling bullets whiz past his scalp.
He did not dare to stop for even a moment, nor did he dare to raise his head, charging headlong into a shop on the other side of the street.
The Looters exchanged glances, grinned wickedly, and advanced with guns ready, one after the other, releasing the dog chain.
No gun on him.
He must be a Scavenger picking through trash nearby.
Crushing a Scavenger was as insignificant to them as stepping on a cockroach.
Hidden inside the shop, Chu Guang remained motionless, quietly waiting for the right moment.
As the barking grew closer, he suddenly lunged out halfway, aimed at the charging mutated hyena, and pulled the trigger.
Bang!
The 9mm bullet burst forth, at less than five meters away there was no chance to dodge, and it pierced through the beast's flank—
Though Chu Guang had aimed for its head.
The hyena didn't even have time to cry out before it collapsed to the ground and rolled two meters, motionless.
The Looter who had rushed closer was momentarily stunned, clearly not expecting the opponent to also have a gun.
By the time he regained his senses, his longstanding companion was already dead, and his expression twisted in rage.
"I'm going to skin you alive!"
"Jon, keep your cool! There's more than one person on their side—"
Before he could finish his words, a Molotov Cocktail was thrown his way, striking and shattering on the wrecked vehicle behind them.
The flames shot up along with the spread of glass shards.
Seeing that the other side had Molotov Cocktails as well, the Looters scrambled to evade, contemplating retreat. But with the fire blocking their escape, they found themselves trapped, unable to advance or retreat.
That's when one of the Looters caught a glimpse of a horrifying figure under the eaves of the shops on the street corner out of the corner of his eye.
It was a lizard with dark green skin.
Or rather, a humanoid lizard.
"A monster—"
Swish—!
A whooshing sound cut short his words as a javelin hurled directly at him pierced through his chest, pinning him against the burning wreckage behind him.
Until the last moment of his life, he couldn't understand why a creature that looked like a Variant was mingling with Scavengers.
He had heard of people taming mutated hyenas as pets, and even of those who kept bears and horses, but it was his first time hearing that someone could tame something like this.
That was too absurd!