There was a sudden stir in Exile Town that night.
Hearing the activity outside, Mia cast aside her covers and slid off the bed. She approached the window and peered out into the night.
There weren't any streetlights in Exile Town, and with the glow of the moon, Mia could only make out vague, elongated silhouettes darting across the streets.
"Is it those undead gentlemen, Mia?" Martina, her roommate who couldn't see a thing, propped herself up in bed but didn't rise.
"Yes," Mia replied, leaning forward with her hands clutching the windowsill, squinting as she tried to discern details. "They seem to be cheering about something with great delight."
"That's wonderful." Martina chuckled, resting a hand over her chest. "It's good to hear their voices again."
"It certainly is." Another woman, with vision as poor as Martina's, sat up from her bed too. "Not hearing the sounds they make for several nights in a row was truly unsettling."
While the former thieves loathed the clamor of players, the common folk women from Camore were very much the contrary.
In the Duchy of Shiga's eastern provinces, Taranthan epitomized the fear of the unknown, enigmatic demons, and alluring devils—folktales born of the wastelands that stood adjacent to the eastern populace for more than a thousand years.
Not to mention the terrifying monsters these women had witnessed firsthand being slain by the undead as they traveled along the tricycle caravan to Exile Town…
Although they knew Exile Town was safer than the Camore Weaver District they used to live—where drunks hurled bricks at their houses for laughs, or mysterious men pounded on their doors in the dead of night—if they didn't hear the raucous noise made by the undead that protected them before falling asleep at night, a sense of unease would linger.
Mia felt her way back to her bed and sat down, listening to the renewed chatter of her roommates becoming more spirited. In the dark, a serene smile graced her lips.
She understood the unease of Martina and the others—she felt it too. The life they were granted on arriving in Exile Town far exceeded all of their expectations. It was a reality that felt unreal to every one of them, and they were afraid of waking up and finding out it was all a dream.
Deep down, Mia had a profound fear that lingered. She dreaded the possibility that one morning she might wake up and find herself back in that oppressive, gloomy corner, with the disdainful voices of her family haunting her ears, while the old, worn-out loom that had consumed her spirit, willpower, and determination loomed large over her as if to drag her into a grave…
Each time memories of that particular loom handed down by her mother when she was eight drifted into her mind, Mia would feel restless for quite some time.
Even in her wildest dreams, she would never entertain the thought of returning to her former life.
Her only desire was to cling on to the life she now had—days spent in the small courtyard behind the tailor shop with other women like her, mending and washing clothes worn by the undead, repairing used pouches and backpacks (actually just worn-out player gear and bags recycled, refurbished, and sold at an 80% discount), sweeping the streets around the tailor shop, cleaning the bathrooms in the house they lived in, having three meals a day, being able to take breaks after finishing her tasks, and engaging in leisurely conversations.
There was no longer any need to worry about receiving criticism or beatings for any slight mistake, no longer facing the disdainful glances from family for even eating a small piece of black bread as if she wasn't even deserving of food. Most of all, there was no more sitting before the loom, tearfully working through the night to meet the deadlines…
At night, they could reside in well-ventilated, flea-free rooms, without having to share even a worn-out blanket with anyone else. Each of them had their own bed, mattress, bedsheet, blanket, and pillow.
Mia's favorite was the mattress. It was soft, thick, clean, and devoid of any odor or stains.
When Mr. Anthony first brought the mattresses to them, the women initially wondered if Mr. Anthony had made a mistake. Nobody dared to touch the mattresses as they found it hard to believe that they could be provided with something this good.
It was only after Anthony issued each of the twelve women a bed did they realize it was all real. And, with great joy, they assembled their bed out of the provided planks before gently placing the mattress on top.
Well, these mattresses, which were popular among the female workers, came directly from the factory direct sales via Pinshaoshao. A 10-centimeter-thick single-size mattress of 1.2m x 2m cost under 20 yuan. A complete set, including bedsheets and blankets, could be had for 100 yuan. And because Yang Qiu had made a bulk order of several hundred sets, the factory had even sent free towels, pillowcases, and mosquito nets.
Were it 20 years ago, a low-quality set like this, excluding the bed, couldn't even be obtainable for several hundred yuan, let alone in this world. And this went to show how industrial development and increased productivity were closely related to the lives of ordinary people.
Of course, while Yang Qiu was a gentleman, his care for these female workers only extended to providing basic necessities, nothing more.
Even so, this alone made the women from the Camore Weaver District feel anxious about losing such luxuries to the point where they wouldn't be able to sleep in peace if they didn't hear the din of players that protected them… Yang Qiu never would have imagined this.
The women still had to work during the day. The Merchant Association canteen had contacted the tailor shop, which had the most manpower, hoping that the female workers could plant scallions, garlic, leeks, and mung bean sprouts in the empty space behind Life Lane. Anthony had already agreed. So, after chatting for a bit, the women in the room gradually fell silent.
As Mia lay down and closed her eyes, there was a sudden knocking on their door.
"Mia, are you sleeping?" Anthony's familiar voice came from outside, though sounding somewhat impatient.
Mia instantly became wide awake and quickly jumped out of bed, running barefoot to open the door. "Coming, Anthony. I haven't slept yet."
As the door opened, moonlight streamed into the house.
Standing outside, next to Anthony, who held a lantern with a look of annoyance, was… Mr. Lord, dressed in mage robes and had a slight smile on his face.
"Pardon the late disturbance. You must be Mia?" The man who had changed Mia's fate, Black Mage Yang, politely nodded to the barefoot Mia as he spoke.
Mia was slightly taken aback and panicked for a moment before remembering to lift the hems of her skirt and curtsy. "Y-yes, I am, Mr. Yang."
Yang Qiu sized up the lady in front of him…
Sparse, disheveled eyebrows, elongated eyes, rough skin, with a large blue birthmark on her face. Overall, she looked much older than her age.
Her looks weren't anything to write home about, and her figure wasn't particularly striking either. Standing at a little over 160 centimeters, her bone structure was prominent, but she lacked flesh. Her wrist bones, protruding from the shirt cuffs, were thick, and the back of her hand was full of veins.
Her only two redeeming qualities were that she was young, and her eyesight had recovered relatively better than most—despite only a few days of decent meals, she could already navigate through the darkness without knocking into anything.
"You'll do." Yang Qiu nodded in approval. "Mia, are you willing to give your all for the future of Exile Town?"
Mia hardly hesitated and immediately nodded with determination. "I am willing, Mr. Lord."
———
During her morning class, Tang Jia checked the player forum in secret. When she saw an update announcement post from the administrator, her breathing got heavy.
———
Release of Exclusive Class Quests for Combat Professions.
After intense deliberation, Assassin Instructor Hal Maxwell, Ranger Instructor Tuttle Joe, Treasure Hunter Finley, Knight Instructor Jerome, and Weapons Master Instructor Charlie Rex have decided to oversee an exclusive class quest for players of the above-mentioned classes: [Journey of the Brave].
Players of the aforementioned classes who wish to participate are to interact with their respective class instructors on the 28th between 12:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m. and enter the expedition queue by 3:00 p.m.
Class instructors will lead the expedition, personally acting as team captains, guiding the expedition east, with the Rhine Kingdom as the destination.
1: During the quest period, players participating in the quest will automatically gain 30 points of territory prestige for every hour spent online.
2: Throughout the quest, class instructors will issue impromptu quests at random, with territory prestige, copper coins, basic equipment, and more as rewards.
Introduction of Civilian NPC Mia-related quests
1: Civilian NPC Mia will accompany the expedition.
2: During the quest, players must ensure Mia's safety at all times. If Mia unfortunately meets an end during the quest, all participating players will incur a 300-point territory prestige deduction.
3: Mia will issue impromptu quests at random, with territory prestige, copper coins, basic equipment, and more as rewards.
———
Tang Jia immediately checked the time and realized there was still over half an hour of class to go. However, she felt really restless as if she was sitting on pins and needles…
The moment class ended, Tang Jia deviated from her usual habit of rushing into the cafeteria and instead hurried back to her dormitory. She didn't even bother with lunch and immediately put on her headset to log in.
Tang Jia had only logged in and gathered with her companions when Yang Ying's one-liner, "Quick, call Qingyue on," made her turn and start running back to the respawn point.
By the time the dispirited Unceasing Entropy was dragged over by Tang Jia, Exile Town, despite it being night, was bustling like a marketplace.
The tricycles that had been used during the previous expedition quest were rolled out from storage once more, neatly lined up in front of the container platform. Players who had formed teams with friends were queuing up to interact with their respective class instructors, receiving quests, obtaining tricycles, organizing their team's supplies, and loading their own tricycles.
While this was said to be a class quest, the advanced NPCs didn't really care about casual players who hadn't yet advanced jobs or others sneaking into the expedition team. Players who had missed the previous expedition were being incredibly proactive, and even those who would have issues playing during working hours were eagerly logging in early and slipping their "remains" to reliable friends to bring along…
Cardboard boxes filled with supplies were loaded onto the tricycle carts, then secured with ropes and covered by a waterproof tarpaulin.
Besides Rex, the other advanced NPCs mounted… tricycles and signaled for the expedition team to set off.
Upon seeing this bunch of NPCs, clad in medieval attire and wielding cold weaponry, get on bikes, all players, Ji Tang included, were dumbfounded.
"This is totally not how I imagined going into battle alongside NPCs would look like! Even if they aren't using beast mounts, shouldn't there at least be horses?!"
"The heck?! These guys are even riding all-terrain bikes!"
"Seriously? Why do I think that these look like cheap counterfeits?"
Tuttle disdainfully glanced at the astonished undead behind and muttered to Finley, "These country bumpkins coming out of the boonies are acting so surprised at the sight of some slightly better bikes. Wouldn't they just fall apart from shock if they were to see electric or steam-powered cars in the city?"
Finley roared with laughter. "That's likely. Who knows how many years it has been since these undead last saw a human city. Maybe, to them, these sort of outdated tricycles are the most impressive means of transportation."
In contrast to his two companions' relaxed manners, Hal, beside them, was rather displeased. "That bastard Yang actually wants us to ride bikes ourselves. Couldn't he have just fed those uglies less and saved some money to get a steam-powered car?"
Finley reached out and tapped Hal's shoulder lightly, then used a furtive glance to indicate that Hal shouldn't run his mouth off so recklessly.
Hal couldn't be bothered looking back at the ugly women Yang had requested them to bring along and snorted in annoyance. "Let's go!"
Taking the lead, Hal surged ahead, and his like-minded comrades, Tuttle, Finley, and Jerome, followed suit.
Rex, who was using a tricycle just like the players, with Mia and some supplies in the back of his cart, gazed at the departing Hal for a moment. He then put his feet on the pedal and moved off.
Mia, clutching a large bundle, and her head wrapped in a towel, looked down and didn't say a thing.
Her hearing was much sharper ever since her eyesight started to worsen. She caught everything that Hal and the others had said.
"Come on, let's go!" Seeing the NPCs move off, players stopped complaining and started pedaling.
With a bunch of "advanced NPCs" leading the way, Yang Qiu hadn't come to see the players off this time.
As the tricycle expedition team passed through the streets in a grand manner, Yang Qiu stood calmly at the Crossroads, observing from a distance.
Unlike Yang Qiu's calm demeanor, Black-robed Inspector Lowell, standing beside him, couldn't contain the look of worry on his face.
After watching the bizarre caravan disappear from his line of sight, Lowell could no longer hold back and asked, "Yang, are you really okay with this? Letting these undead… be brought out by this bunch of notorious thugs?"
Lowell had spent quite some time in Exile Town. Although the language barrier meant that he couldn't communicate with the undead, he had still gotten a sense of what the former bandits and Rex were like.
Rex was a young man of integrity. All it took was a conversation or two to discern his pure and straightforward nature. When meeting players for the first time, he had been the only instructor who would advise the "undead" players against choosing the warrior profession.
In comparison, Hal and the others were rather shifty. This bunch had long been used to being bandits, and even if Yang had been educating for quite some time, the scoundrelly air they had couldn't be completely eradicated.
Yang Qiu merely smiled.
It is precisely because this bunch aren't good people that I can feel at ease letting them bring these calamities out for a stroll. In terms of causing trouble, Hal and the others are nothing compared to them.
Those were words Yang Qiu absolutely couldn't say out loud.
Bringing Mia, a healthy civilian, along wasn't just because a person who had truly experienced hardship was needed to step forward, but it was also to add an extra layer of insurance—preventing this bunch of players from being too unrestrained. This, Yang Qiu couldn't say as well.
So, when Yang Qiu finally spoke, his words were, "We must believe in others, revered inspector. I firmly believe that they can complete the journey smoothly and return unscathed."
Lowell: "…"
Right now, this black-robed inspector felt conflicted.
When Rex, the only honest young man he viewed favorably, explained the purpose of this activity at the Town Hall, Lowell's first instinct was to stop what sounded like an utterly absurd undertaking.
Letting a notorious group like the Sorensen Mountain Bandits lead the undead to the southeast border of the Rhine Kingdom to rescue destitute people in dire straits?! That sounded like a complete joke!
However, Black Mage Yang, whose line of thought was radically different from most, agreed to this.
Lowell, an inspector of the faith, found himself torn between whether to closely monitor and supervise this utterly bewildering agenda that had been set in motion. However, he was also worried that this was a scheme concocted by Yang to lure him away before secretly engaging in some dangerous matters that he couldn't even imagine…
Conflicted by these two options, Lowell felt that compared to the former bandits and undead heading to the borders of another country, monitoring Yang, who posed a greater danger to the Duchy of Shiga, was more important.
Oh well, the Goddess of Prosperity can only bless her own believers, Lowell consoled himself silently, ignoring Yang Qiu's ramblings as he made his way back to the Town Hall on his own.
Yang Qiu didn't mind at all that the black-robed inspector looked at him as if he were a loony. As soon as Lowell left, he continued to observe the players via the imprint matrix.
The players embarking on the quest would need to travel for at least a day and a night. On the way, they would encounter nothing but wasteland and monsters. For the time being, they wouldn't cause trouble for others and could be temporarily disregarded.
At this moment, Yang Qiu's focus was the super-casual players who had no interest in this expedition quest.
There were quite a few players in this category… over 40, including the former top player of the game, Ou Huang.
Ou Huang was obsessed with leveling up his Butcher class skills. After switching to this particular lifestyle class, he would carry traps provided by Manan and use the trap techniques imparted by the former, camping outside town to catch small animals like squirrels and rabbits as practice. After that, he would enthusiastically sell the fur to the tailor shop and the meat to the Merchant Association canteen, and seemed to really take delight in this play style…
In the past, Yang Qiu really despised this type of "unproductive" player. But now, he had started to warm up to this sort of "gaming god" level of idle player. At the very least, his "output" was quite substantial.
Other than Ou Huang, there was also a group of casual players with Once Your Teacher as their leader.
This group of players didn't like camping out at the combat class work sites but were enjoying questing at the lifestyle class work sites.
This was especially so for the player with the ID "Once Your Teacher," collectively referred to as Teacher Yu Chi. Although she wasn't too productive in large-scale event quests, she would teleport to Desolate Outpost right on schedule each day to accept cooking quests from the zombie general to prepare meals for the suffering male civilian NPCs there. Once done, she would teleport back and head to the Merchant Association canteen to do assistance quests. She clearly wasn't using a "tool player" account, but she was actually very active in assisting. Yang Qiu couldn't help but like this sort of player.
Besides that, there was also the bunch from Eight At Once's studio, as well as players who turned the game into a part-time job. Besides consistently completing the lumbering quests assigned by Yang Qiu via the zombie general, these individuals also took on job advancements to become gatherers and apothecaries. Even though these unpolished rune skills limited them to gathering and refining basic materials and potions, this also lightened Yang Qiu's load considerably.
At present, Yang Qiu was even more eager than these gold-farming players themselves to raise their lifestyle class skills. Once these players go through their second job advancement, he could entrust them with producing magical elixirs.
All is going well.
Feeling refreshed, Yang Qiu disengaged from the imprint matrix and prepared to return to Earth to browse Pinshaoshao. The two tool NPCs in the Merchant Association canteen wanted to grow vegetables in town, so Yang Qiu needed to source seeds and affordable fertilizers.
His real-world finances were so tight that he had to stoop to using Pinshaoshao. But, regardless, once Rex returned, he would be financially secure once more—this time, the cargo loaded onto the tricycle carts was more than when they previously went to fetch the Camore citizens. Most of it was for Rex to sell in the Rhine Kingdom!
Behind the backs of Hal and the others, Yang Qiu had also privately informed Rex that… in the event Hal and the gang got carried away and weren't returning, those mountain bikes they rode could also be sold.
While he didn't want Hal and the gang to meet their end at the hands of players, if they insisted their heads to outsiders, Yang Qiu couldn't care less.
As the tricycle expedition team continued its journey through the wastelands of Taranthan, in the small village along the eastern border of the Rhine Kingdom, where Yang Qiu had sold clothes, a cavalry unit was leaving.
Over two months of camping out had caused this cavalry unit of the Radiant Sun Church's inquisition thoroughly disheartened, but this wasn't the first time such an occurrence had transpired.
The evil and increasingly powerful black mage, who had grown strong enough to unnerve even the cardinals of the inquisition, had already "surprised" them far too many times over the years.
Having been camped out in this remote village for so long, the unit's commander realized it was necessary for his men to relax for a bit. Otherwise, it wouldn't just be the grunts who couldn't handle it; he himself was finding it quite trying.
Upon leaving the village, the commander wasted no time sending his scouts in the direction of the largest city on the southeastern border.
After traveling for half a day, a group of 300 knights and 600 squires arrived at the city of Indahl, on the Rhine Kingdom's southeastern border. The commander announced the units' deactivation, and the knights were to lead their squires for some rest and relaxation, leaving only a few officers to accompany the commander to the local Radiant Sun Church establishment.
The Rhine Kingdom was a peculiar country. Despite being overlooked by the Radiant Sun Church during the Age of Discovery and having only a minuscule number of people eligible to operate sailing ships to trade with the Outer Continent, neither the royal family nor the common folk reacted too strongly to the building of Radiant Sun Churches in this city.
The reason was simple. It was because they "offered too much"—among all the faiths in the continent of Navalon, the Radiant Sun Church was truly the wealthiest.
While the Goddess of Prosperity's knights of the Holy Legion deigned to act as enforcers for local nobles for a pittance, the Radiant Sun Church was wealthy enough to self-fund a continent-wide chase of the Nightmare Butcher. Such was the contrast…
Inside the church, a priest in a white robe with embroidered golden edges received the commander of the knights. After exchanging pleasantries, he lowered his voice and asked anxiously, "What's really going on? Was there not a single hint received regarding the origin of those wares?"
The wares being referred to were a set of bone china utensils discovered in a village about a hundred miles from the small village where Yang Qiu had first shown himself.
When Yang Qiu initially bought this set of bone china utensils for a substantial sum of money—59.9 yuan—in a supermarket in Anshi, he later discovered that the exact same set on Pinshaoshao was only 19.9 yuan, causing him no small amount of frustration…
In any case, what really caught the attention of the knight unit wasn't the old clothes Yang Qiu sold to the steward Barff but, rather, this set of bone china tableware.
The rural nobles who purchased this set of tableware at the cost of a few gold coins dared not hoard it and instead presented it to the castellan of the area the next day. The castellan, pleased with the gift, held an afternoon tea party to show off the fine craftsmanship, and through this, word spread to the Radiant Sun Church…
"Not one bit," the commander of the cavalry unit grimly stated. "We intentionally avoided the village of that rural noble and only placed spies along several main roads… but that bastard is just too vigilant. He hasn't shown himself at all."
He paused for a moment before further expressing his frustration, "As for those wares, we don't even have a lead! We shouldn't have let news about those wares circulate within the city in the first place. Otherwise, that scoundrel wouldn't have disappeared so quickly. He would certainly have come out to sell these things again!"