Prey Town, whose walls were nowhere near as high as Star Dragon Ridge Outpost, looked rather shabby.
The Star Dragon Ridge Outpost, serving as the frontier defense force of the Rand Kingdom, was tasked with roles such as sentry duty and signaling enemy attacks with smoke. Its defenses could not be breached, as that was a strict requirement.
In contrast, as a small town built by a human lord, the walls of Prey Town were only slightly taller than earthen walls, merely tall enough for three people stacked up, topped with some spears with barbs to prevent climbing.
At the town gate, four people were stopped.
"Four people," Lind said as he pulled out a Gold Badge and handed it to the guard. The entrance fee was one of the main sources of revenue for Prey Town. Though there was nothing much to eat or drink in Prey Town, its safety was a significant draw. Many people would go out and search for various valuable things to bring back for trading, all for the chance to reside within the town.
According to Lind's understanding, this town had a few dozen soldiers. Although they were not, like himself, from the Rand Kingdom's First Legion of regular infantry, their equipment was not much different.
This place was more like "Newbie Village" than Star Dragon Ridge, indeed safer.
Lind did not believe that just a few dozen soldiers could withstand the Calamity. He had witnessed a host-sized army of dozens get devoured by undead creatures reminiscent of zombies, advancing one after the other as effortlessly as a wildfire consumes wild grass, unstoppable.
If this world were indeed a game, then perhaps only players could stand against it.
However, every game is destined to have protagonists, not just one. If one could find such a person, it would be akin to "getting onto the right path," aligning oneself with most players.
The seemingly invincible players, however, are tragically limited to being mere Foot Soldiers. They can choose whom to follow, whom to kill, possessing only the power of choice but never the privilege of being chosen.
The guard then stepped aside, allowing Lind and his companions into the city.
Not everyone could afford the exorbitant cost of residing within Prey Town. There were also some small settlements unwilling to be subject to authority, hiding in relatively safer places, only coming to Prey Town for trading when exchanging resources. Lind, coming to Prey Town for material trade, was not alone in this.
He had been here before and was quite familiar with the place.
The sun was also gradually setting below the horizon.
"Let's go, let's first turn these wolf skins into Gold Badges," Lind said.
Lind sneered inwardly. Clearly, the mayor of Prey Town had the same idea as his own; controlling the currency meant controlling the resources. Nowhere else within a hundred miles likely recognized anything but Gold Badges.
His only advantage compared to them was that he had intercepted a fixed consumer group—the players.
…
"This piece of wolf skin is horribly slashed up. If a noble lady wanted to make a fur wrap, she would definitely not choose it," Old Chelli said while holding the wolf skin and speaking to Lind.
Old Chelli, who managed the market trade in Prey Town, was the only one who could handle purchasing over twenty wolf skins because he worked for Lord Ronin of Prey Town.
"But no noble lady would use the stinking, ugly wolf skin for a wrap," Lind thought to himself. "They would use sable or even leopard fur, if those noble ladies could still enjoy their beautiful and lavish lives…"
But he did not voice his thoughts, aware that one must be cautious in words and deeds on someone else's territory.
"Old Chelli, perhaps a higher price, as we put quite an effort into this," Lind suggested.
In his estimation, this batch of wolf skins should fetch over 1000 Gold Badges.
The purchasing power of a Gold Badge was quite unstable, but it could often be exchanged for a small bag of grain as big as half a fist.
If exchanged entirely for food, they wouldn't have to worry about provisions for the entire winter.
But, true to Old Chelli's style, he would likely press the final selling price of the wolf skins to under 200 Gold Badges, confident in doing so because of the backing of Prey Town's Lord, whose influence was greater than Lind's.
"800 Gold Badges," Old Chelli said without even looking up, seemingly quite fond of the battered wolf skins.
"Hmm?" Lind was instantly alert.
Could it be that the old Ceseli's brain had been devoured by a calamity-monstrosity?
It was said those creatures had a mixed taste, not distinguishing between meat and plants.
The cunning and rubbish-filled mind of old Ceseli might, to some calamity-beasts, resemble stinky blue cheese and canned herring, exuding a deadly allure.
Old Ceseli lowered his voice and said, "But you have to buy everything you need from me."
"Of course, I can," Lind agreed immediately.
Giving him 200 Gold Badges to buy supplies outside had very limited purchasing power.
But with 800 Gold Badges, unless the prices shamelessly tripled, Lind would buy much more.
He had already planned to stock up in Prey Town.
Lind selected some beans, longing for a hot bean stew during the cold winter.
If the wolf intestines could barely rejuvenate the small vegetable garden, he might try planting some seeds.
In addition, there was enough food to last them a month. It wasn't the coldest time yet, January was when you couldn't normally go outside, so they needed ample food supplies.
And a bag of salt.
Before the apocalypse, the price of salt had already been exorbitantly high, and now it had multiplied, but they couldn't go without salt; just buying salt cost him 150 Gold Badges, enough to support ten people for a while.
The price of goods was quite normal; there was no obvious price increase, which made Lind feel even more that something was wrong with old Ceseli.
"I also want some Fire Tongue Herb," said Lind.
10 Gold Badges, bought him a large bundle.
This was a red weed that had begun to grow wildly after the Calamity and tasted similar to chili peppers. When ground into powder and stored for sprinkling a bit on meat each time it was grilled, it could bring some joy to a bland palate.
The only problem was that grinding these chili herbs was excruciatingly painful, some might cry for days, and in severe cases, known as chili poisoning, it would turn the whole body's skin red, but Lind stated he had no problem at all.
He had Undead.
Do not treat the Undead as humans, use them as you please.
With the old crops dead, more adaptive new plants had emerged. The world might not yet be bad enough to be completely destroyed; what was probably destroyed was just human society.
Thus, Lind's freshly obtained 800 Gold Badges were spent in an instant, leaving only 300 Gold Badges, but he still didn't plan to stop there.
Keep buying!
With players present, the development of Star Dragon Ridge was guaranteed to surpass Prey Town; not spending all the money would be a loss.
Reading Lind's intentions, old Ceseli became even more convinced of his inner speculation and then said, "Perhaps, you might want to take a look at this, although it's quite expensive…"
It was a thumb-sized crystal bottle, containing a half-full azure liquid that seemed to have stolen a strand of moonlight from the night sky and encapsulated it.
Magic Potion!
Lind's heart twitched slightly; he admitted he was drawn to it.