Chapter 10: The Marketplace Opens
After all, the human body functioned as a whole.
Improving one aspect would inevitably affect many other aspects as well, rather than only increasing a single isolated attribute.
This realization gave him quite a headache.
Agility improved reaction speed, increasing his chances of survival during sudden emergencies.
As for Mental Power, he still could not tell what it did for now.
However, based on his past gaming experience, unless someone planned to specialize entirely in close combat, Mental Power was definitely not a stat that could be ignored.
Physique affected bodily recovery ability.
Strength influenced both speed and the ease of killing monsters.
Looking at it this way, every attribute seemed extremely important.
Yet leveling up only appeared to provide a single attribute point each time, which was nowhere near enough to distribute properly.
Joo Joowon finally realized just how important equipment truly was.
Even a piece of beginner gear could directly increase one attribute point.
Better equipment would definitely provide even larger bonuses.
Compared to assigning attribute points himself, equipment actually seemed far more effective at increasing combat power.
Moreover, the difficulty of obtaining equipment did not appear especially high.
At the very least, the drop rate for beginner equipment was not low.
With enough luck, killing ten zombies might even directly complete a three piece beginner set.
Joo Joowon removed his protective clothing and glanced at his phone.
The internet had not disappeared yet.
Inside the apartment owner group chat, some people seemed to have formed alliances to hunt zombies together.
Joo Joowon had no intention of participating in such groups.
He closed his phone and went to the kitchen to boil a pot of dumplings.
Before the dumplings were fully cooked, every surviving human on Gaia suddenly heard a sharp ding sound ring out inside their minds.
[ Ding! ]
[ Congratulations to all surviving players for enduring the first day of the apocalypse~ ]
[ After fifteen hours of adjustment time, you have surely adapted to this new world already. As a beginner benefit, the Marketplace function will now open for a limited period of seven days. ]
[ The Marketplace will open for thirty minutes each day. No transaction fees will be charged temporarily. ]
[ Players must first set a personal nickname before listing items for trade. ]
Beside Joo Joowon’s personal status panel, a new Marketplace tab appeared.
After tapping it, the personal panel quickly transformed into the Marketplace interface.
At the moment, the screen was completely blank except for a countdown timer.
Below the timer was an option displaying the words.
[ Please enter a nickname. ]
After thinking for a moment, Joo Joowon truly did not want to use his brain for this, so he casually tried entering a string of numbers.
Unexpectedly, someone had already taken it.
He did not want to keep testing numbers one by one, so he simply type "Ashfall."
[ Confirm creation of nickname: Ashfall? ]
"Confirm."
While scooping the dumplings out of the pot, Joo Joowon continued poking around the interface with his thoughts.
Touching the countdown displayed text showing how many seconds remained before the trading market opened.
Touching anywhere else caused ripples to spread outward like water as though the interface was simulating the surface of a lake.
Pressing harder even created splashes.
To the apocalypse game, humanity was probably no different from ants.
But human emotions always needed some kind of outlet.
Just like how some people crushed instant noodles when they were in a bad mood, Joo Joowon kept poking the interface as if he were personally beating up the apocalypse game with a stick.
After persistently poking at it for half an hour, a pop up window suddenly appeared.
[ Customer Service: Hello player Ashfall. Is there something you need help with? ]
Joo Joowon froze for a moment.
This game actually had customer service?!
The unexpected situation nearly caused Joo Joowon to choke on the gyoza he had not swallowed yet.
After recovering, he hurriedly asked, "Do you have a map showing nearby places where equipment is easy to obtain?"
[ I am customer service, not a game guide. ]
Joo Joowon curled his lips.
Whether there were dates on the tree or not, you still had to hit it three times with a pole just in case.
He immediately continued, "Is there a beginner gift pack? Beginner benefits? Beginner guidance?"
[ Dear player, there are none~ ]
"What about the user agreement and privacy policy? Send them to me so I can read them."
[ There are none, dear player~ ]
"What is the base drop rate for Level 1 Zombies?"
[ In order to avoid ruining the game experience, please explore on your own. ]
"Is there an inventory system? How do I obtain it?"
[ This service does not exist, dear player~ ]
"Is there a beginner village? How do I get there? Where is the safe zone?"
[ In order to avoid ruining the game experience, please explore on your own. ]
"Are there main storyline quests? Where can I change classes?"
[ In order to avoid ruining the game experience, please explore on your own. ]
"Then tell me all the information you are allowed to reveal."
[ In order to avoid ruining the game experience, please explore on your own. ]
After throwing out a whole string of questions, Joo Joowon was left speechless.
What was the difference between this customer service existing and not existing at all?
It could not answer anything useful.
It had probably been created purely to annoy people.
Joo Joowon immediately lost interest and was completely defeated by the other side’s endless nonsense.
He weakly continued asking, "How many players have managed to contact customer service?"
[ There are currently 16,534 players connected to customer service. ]
Joo Joowon had originally thought he would receive another useless reply, so he froze for a moment.
He had not expected there to actually be so many people as bored as himself.
Thinking about it, that made sense.
Humanity had plenty of strange behaviors.
Out of billions of people, only a little over ten thousand showing up was probably because many people had already turned into zombies when the apocalypse game descended.
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