CHAPTER 75: CHAPTER 23: FARMING MONSTERS FOR LOOT

The same thing, seen by some people as junk, but to another group is a treasure with great use.

Surprised exclamations occasionally come from Brother Ni’s direction.

"Whoa! Fishing line! How can there be such a thing in this place?"

"Whoa! Aluminum alloy door panel!"

"Whoa, a tent!"

Huge piles of scrap metal and household trash form a mountain here. It’s not that homeless people or gangs haven’t rummaged through this place before, but apart from prosthetic firearms or damaged drones and car parts, they don’t care, at most picking up two pieces of clothing that haven’t rotten away.

Dragging those big metal objects back is pointless without the ability to process them, they take up space and have no value. The boss may teach you a lesson if you bring back a broken door panel.

Damn, seems like treating the house as a recycling center.

But for a DIY enthusiast, this place is simply paradise, especially if they could discard the household trash that’s flowing with black water, fungi, and a rotten stench.

Others aren’t so lucky, after all, they have no eye for what’s valuable, only following W for moving and dismantling without seeing anything that hints value.

Wildman flips over a torn mattress again, a stench assaults his nose; only it’s useless for players with their smell sense blocked, just a minor visual irritation.

Because under the mattress lays a rotten corpse in a suit, maggots growing on its yellow flowing rotten flesh, eyeballs falling out of the skull, yet Wildman doesn’t find this too disgusting. Visual shock is even less than the previous nest of cockroaches.

This is the terrifying nature of cognitive barriers.

Players have empathy, but simply killing and transporting bodies does not affect their empathy at all.

Wildman uses the steel bar in his hand to prod at the corpse. Upon moving it, the corpse water flows like a dam, with pieces of rotten muscle dropping along with it.

"Damn, it’s rotted like this, probably can’t be recycled for biomass."

The corpse is missing a hand, and the chest cavity is empty, obviously someone got there first, stripped it of prosthetics, leaving just a pile of rotten flesh.

Wildman, somewhat disappointed, was about to leave when his peripheral vision saw something in the gaps beneath the garbage heap.

A bit suspicious, he quickly moved the corpse aside. The thing was stuck between two broken containers, he leaned his head down to closely scrutinize the gap, then reached in trying to retrieve it. After a while of fumbling around, finally feeling something, Wildman pulled out whatever was stuck in there by sheer force.

"Some good stuff!"

Wildman examines his haul under the sun, a rusted pistol covered in murky corpse water.

Worth it, worth it, this single gun covers the cost of renting two cars, though rusty in places, not sure if it’s functional, it’s a defective product after excessive use.

But once back, perhaps Brother Ni could refurbish it with a new propelling spring and hammer on the workbench, it might become usable again.

"What is that thing?"

Giant also discovers something, but it’s merely a completely rusted prosthetic limb that collapses upon being picked up.

"Damn!"

He watches Brother Ni passing by, carrying a rag torn from the tent.

"What’s with the junk you’re carrying?"

Brother Ni, as if discovering treasure, says, "I had W scan it, it’s made from composite nylon material. Plus, I just found something like fishing line and other materials, maybe we can build a few compound crossbows for everyone back home."

Brother Ni wouldn’t think of charging people for weapons now, the equipment belongs to the BOSS, the materials were scavenged by everyone, the spoils are shared, he might just charge for labor.

Giant pats Brother Ni on the shoulder, "You’re great, brother. Once you make it big, we won’t forget you. Just be careful, I don’t want to hear anything about players falling into the law’s grasp."

Compound crossbows, which are no less powerful than firearms for civilians, are definitely prohibited.

A group of people toiled for more than three hours, just about to fill the second car, when suddenly Potato who was keeping watch outside reported back.

"Monsters spawned, monsters spawned. Three of them! There’re three!"

Everyone was startled, quickly stopping their noisy activities, and stealthily moved in Potato’s direction.

...

Terry, who got out of the car first, glanced at the conspicuous track marks on the ground but thought nothing much of it. Garbage trucks come here to dump trash every day, tire marks are normal.

"Drag people out and deal with them."

After saying this, he looked around again. He remembered that this place was under Eisis’s management but didn’t see anyone around, so he cursed aloud.

"That bastard Eisis hasn’t replied all day. When I get back, the boss will kill him."

His lackey, having parked his motorcycle behind, chuckles, "Hehe, who knows, maybe he found something valuable again and went back to the city for gambling. That idiot has been conned by the Tiger Claw Gang so many times, he’s probably seeing red. Might be stirring up trouble after losing money, getting himself chopped, and now his body’s sent to the morgue."

Regarding their companion’s disappearance, they show not a hint of concern or sympathy.

Be it inside or outside Night City, deaths are commonplace; gang fights occur daily. Don’t believe Stan on the news channel saying thirty or so die from turf wars each day, the real numbers are ten times higher. Ordinary people...

With just the Vortex Gang, the Death Dance Bar sees an average of six deaths a day. Including the whole Watson District already surpasses their reported numbers. This doesn’t count deaths from natural causes or those killed by scavenger gangs, NCPD’s corpse processing team and the city government’s cleanup crew are busy from dawn till dusk every day.