Chapter 57: October Town
Chapter 57: Chapter 57: October Town
[Severely Damaged Construction Robot (Green)]
[Description: A construction robot that is unusable due to an excessive degree of damage. It might be possible to repair it using the relevant blueprints and parts.]
[Repair using parts without a blueprint?]
[Yes]
[Assessment Type: Item Repair]
[Assessing repair risk...]
[Item to be repaired: [Severely Damaged Construction Robot (Green)]]
[Assessment: 100% probability of obtaining a Green-quality item. Risk: 0%]
.....
[Repair Successful]
[You have obtained [Construction Robot (Green)]]
He had successfully obtained his fifth construction robot. Aside from the one responsible for expanding his space, the other four could all be put to work.
Ye Yun immediately had them start producing [Restorative Protective Vests (Green)]. It wasn’t that he couldn’t produce other things, but that this particular item had the highest economic benefit.
Over the past two days, Ye Yun had also been purchasing various blueprints from the exchange.
There were blueprints for armor and weapons, but overall, none of them were as profitable as the protective vests.
A small portion of these blueprints, like the one for the .32 pistol, had manufacturing costs that even exceeded their selling price, making them completely worthless to produce.
Even for the rest, where the cost was lower than the selling price, they didn’t make much money, so there was no point in crafting them.
......
「October Town.」
Though it was called a town, it was more like a settlement for a motley crew of characters.
Aside from a few local residents of October Town, most of the people living here were just transients passing through.
Its name came from an old calendar found in the town. Legend had it that when the calendar was discovered, it was open to the page for October.
October Town wasn’t established after the Great Cataclysm; it was rebuilt from existing ruins.
Although it had been patched up over many years, signs of decay were still visible everywhere.
Most of the houses were dilapidated. The mottled marks on the walls bore witness to the erosion of time, while mysterious black stains and traces left by weapons attested to the cruelty of the wasteland.
However, despite the harsh environment, the town’s low radiation levels and a deep well left over from before the Great Cataclysm had unsurprisingly turned October Town into a major supply hub in the wasteland, attracting all sorts of people.
The two brothers, Xisuo and Simon, slowly rode their modified motorcycle into October Town.
The roar of the engine echoed through the empty streets, immediately drawing wary glances from those nearby.
The brothers were not surprised by these overtly scrutinizing looks.
In the wasteland, vigilance was a survival instinct.
Xisuo and Simon were long used to this. As new faces, they would have been more worried if people weren’t wary of them; it might have meant this was some kind of trap town.
Still, to avoid unnecessary trouble and misunderstandings, Simon slowly reduced their speed.
Although most settlements didn’t mind residents and outsiders using vehicles within their limits, the layouts of these settlements were often chaotic, and they certainly didn’t have traffic rules or stoplights.
As a result, going too fast could easily lead to an accident.
So, while you wouldn’t get a ticket for speeding within a settlement, you were very likely to get a bullet.
This wasn’t the brothers’ first time in October Town, so they navigated the streets with ease and quickly found the town’s shop.
Xisuo opened the motorcycle’s storage compartment and took out a somewhat yellowed, transparent plastic drum.
He placed the plastic drum on the counter.
The shop owner was a middle-aged man, his face etched with the hardships of the wasteland. He sized up the two brothers with somewhat murky eyes.
"What do you need?"
"Water, food, or weapons? If you’re looking for women, that’s next door."
Xisuo had no intention of exchanging pleasantries.
"Thirty liters of water. Low contamination."
The owner said nonchalantly,
"0.02% contamination, one Silver Coin for ten liters."
"0.01% contamination, two Silver Coins for ten liters."
"And just so you know, we only accept pure Silver Coins minted by the major factions. We don’t take any of that privately minted crap from the smaller settlements."
Hearing the price, Xisuo had no intention of haggling.
Purified drinking water was indeed not cheap.
He pulled out six Silver Coins, each about the size of a fingernail.
The front of the coins depicted a two-handed longsword piercing through three gears of different sizes. The back was inscribed with the name of the Steel Brotherhood.
Clearly, these six were official Silver Coins issued by the Steel Brotherhood.
The owner glanced at the insignia, then swiped his hand, and the six Silver Coins vanished.
Then, he pulled his hand to the side, and a yellow hose appeared, seemingly out of nowhere.
Xisuo had already opened the lid of the plastic drum. The owner put the hose inside and then turned the faucet on the other end.
A minute later, the 30-liter drum was completely full.
Xisuo didn’t rush to put the lid on. Instead, he took out a portable radiation meter.
Seeing the number displayed on the meter, a look of displeasure flashed across his face.
"Shopkeep, did you give me the wrong water?"
He turned the meter around to face the middle-aged owner.
The owner looked at the 0.018% reading on the screen, his expression unchanging.
"0.018%. Round it down, and isn’t that just 0.01%?"
Hearing the owner’s remark, Xisuo narrowed his eyes.
It was clear the man was trying to scam him.
Although it was all water, the 0.01% variety was twice as expensive as the 0.02%.
Consuming highly irradiated food and water for a long time would cause the radiation levels in one’s body to rise rapidly.
After all, since things like food and water were consumed daily, radiation could accumulate quickly in the body if one wasn’t careful.
Seeing Xisuo’s clenched fist, Simon quickly stepped forward and grabbed his older brother’s hand.
"Bro, let it go."
It wasn’t that Simon was a coward. In his perception, three people were slowly approaching them inside the seemingly empty shop.
Although they were both espers, they wouldn’t flinch at facing four or five ordinary people.
But no one who could open a shop in a place like this was ever simple.
This middle-aged owner was likely just some stooge working for someone else. Killing him would be pointless.
If they made a move on these people, it was questionable whether the two of them would even be able to leave October Town.
Besides, Simon hadn’t forgotten that aside from replenishing their drinking water, their main reason for coming here was to find someone on behalf of Ye Yun.
Looking at his younger brother, who was constantly signaling him with his eyes, Xisuo finally suppressed the urge to fight.
He snorted coldly, put the lid on the drum, and placed it back on the motorcycle.