CHAPTER 293: CHAPTER 94: LIVE BROADCAST TUTORIAL ON LEARNING TO PERFORM SURGERY_3

The stock price has been plummeting, just one step away from delisting.

As for the players?

They’ve already been killed in three-digit numbers by the Trauma Team. There’s a gap in combat power between gang thugs and these elite corporate squads, but the six-hour respawn time makes their frequent deaths bearable.

Plus, the thrilling street races and intense adversaries are a rush for them, even if several activities fail and the injured are whisked away by the Trauma Team. It’s all good.

After all, there’s no death penalty! The fights are exhilarating!

What’s happening has left Lin Miao quietly startled, leading Gloria to shuttle daily between the office and the hospital.

But for him, it wasn’t all bad. At least the plunging stock prices allowed Lin Miao, who was prepared earlier, to make money through short selling. Then he bottomed up and got a bunch of ERO shares. The next step is to prevent Gloria from being investigated.

The most troublesome part is worrying about being linked with the mercenaries.

But the good thing about players is their clean records, and they leave no evidence behind, making it nearly impossible to be caught.

Hundreds of mercenaries and Wanderers enter and exit Night City every day, and they all look different. If Gloria really could command so many people to die for her for nothing, would she still be working at a small medical company?

Are you even thinking?

Aside from the two medical companies, there’s been some abnormal activity over at the NCPD.

"Chief... our bounty fund has run out."

Listening to the accountant reporting financial issues, Kest, the Santo Domingo NCPD branch chief, cringed like he couldn’t comprehend what he just heard.

"Bounty fund? Running out?"

These two terms shouldn’t even be placed together.

He then grumbled dissatisfied, "How much have they taken recently? Do they really expect me to add more money?"

The bounty fund comes from the citizens of Night City who place money into the bounty system, along with the old American tradition of trading scalps for rewards, which has evolved into government-issued bounty orders.

But in Night City, those who want this money can’t get it, and those who can get it don’t want it. Thus, most of the time, the money placed by citizens ends up in the hands of NCPD employees, with only government money used for payouts.

Now telling Kest the fund is running short?

What a joke?

The accountant, helpless, could only put the recent financial report in front of the chief for him to see.

Kest looked at the data on it with his mouth wide open, shocked enough to sit up straight.

"Have that many people come to claim bounties in Santo Domingo recently?"

He immediately suspected that it was the work of the people below.

The accountant said, "Indeed, I’ve gone down to investigate, and the completion rate reported on the bounty system has been high recently. I don’t know the specific reason either."

Facing this situation, the chief thought of a great solution.

"Then find a way to delay the bounty payments, make the process non-compliant or require identity assessment for the wanted individuals. If the Wanderers are not registered in Night City’s citizen system, just drag it out until they don’t want to claim anymore."

Anyway, this is an old trick, and Kest is quite adept at it.

The accountant didn’t say anything, thinking it was the right approach.

Why would anyone randomly seek a bounty? Can’t they just be regular citizens?

Why do they have to bother the bosses?

Knock, knock, knock!

Just as the two were fretting over how to fill the bounty money gap, a knock came on the chief’s office door.

They tidied up the documents on the table, and then the chief said,

"Come in."

The door opened, and the person who entered was Chief Hayden, who had been in contact with the players, with a document in hand.

"Chief, this is a proposal from Horizon Corporation; they said they need to discuss something with you."

The NCPD is a private enterprise. They are a security company established by major multinational corporations to reach mutual compromise and only handle security work in Night City. The chief is basically equivalent to a regional manager, and each region is self-financed. In Santo Domingo, where law enforcement has been delegated to the Sixth Street Gang, this NCPD is naturally dirt poor.

In reality, they can’t handle much outside of the city center.

But this also means small companies often approach NCPD for business cooperation in equipment, security, etc., so it’s not unusual for a company to come knocking.

When the chief opened the proposal, he was stunned.

Bounty System Contracting Project.

The content was straightforward. A company called Horizon Office wanted to contract out the bounty work to NCPD at a price of 500,000 euros a year.

500,000 a year... this figure was about the bounty amount NCPD received last year. Once they get this bounty right, all bounty money and issues in Santo Domingo would be handed over to this company.

For the NCPD that just ran out of bounty money, this was like a pillow for the sleepy, water for the thirsty.

Though it is a bit odd for a company to be interested in bounties, that’s not something Kest has to worry about.

The problem with outsourcing is the transfer of responsibility; if anything happens, it’s the external contractor who takes the blame. He just needs to delegate all responsibility.

Being a private enterprise in Night City, they have no sense of social responsibility, or even corporate responsibility, focusing entirely on their own interests.

500,000 euros a year, and it’s cash—naturally a big win for the chief, who couldn’t even find a reason to reject it.

"I want a face-to-face meeting with Mr. Lin; set it up."