Chapter 42: The Value of Information
"What are you scared of?" the burly man sneered disdainfully. "It’s already the apocalypse. What’s there to be afraid of? Think about it carefully. Those people outnumber us by more than double. If we don’t strike first, then once they react later, we’ll be the ones dying instead. Haven’t you all offended them plenty of times already? With old grudges and new grudges piled together, do you seriously think they’ll spare you just because you spare them?"
Those words caused everyone’s expressions to shift slightly.
Before the apocalypse, they had never committed truly unforgivable crimes like murder or arson.
However, they had certainly done plenty of petty troublemaking and bullying.
Around the nearby area, they were infamous enough to make even ghosts feel annoyed.
Especially among the hot blooded young workers who had recently come to the factory, many secretly hated them to the bone already.
If given the opportunity, those people genuinely might not hesitate to retaliate.
One of the thugs could not help clenching his fists tightly.
"Boss, I’m in!"
"Me too!"
The burly man nodded in satisfaction.
"Good. We’ll kill the troublesome ones first and leave the cowards alive as meat pigs."
Inside a luxurious manor villa.
"Grandpa, has this Ashfall guy gone crazy? He actually exposed the Dead Man Treasure Chest information!"
"Things are not that bad yet," the elderly man replied calmly while staring at the floating light screen.
Although his hair had already turned gray, his spirit remained sharp and energetic.
"How many days has it even been since the apocalypse began? Most people still haven’t mentally adjusted to the new reality at all. Even after learning this information, aside from naturally vicious criminals, the majority still won’t dare kill others. At least not until food shortages start later on. Once famine appears, then these things will gradually become common."
"This Ashfall fellow is quite clever though. By releasing information that doesn’t affect the bigger picture, he’s gaining the goodwill of many players. In the future, if he wants to expand his influence, he’ll naturally possess more advantages than others."
The young man’s eyes flickered slightly after hearing this.
"Grandpa, then should we also..."
The old man raised an eyebrow and glanced at him.
"What information do we even have worth releasing? Right now, our priority is building up strength. There’s no need to focus on such small benefits. Once our people successfully defeat a boss monster, reputation will naturally follow. Why bother helping competitors grow stronger?"
The young man still felt dissatisfied internally, yet he did not dare argue back.
Instead, he changed the subject.
"Grandpa, I’ll go check whether Uncle Han and the others have successfully captured the zombies yet."
"Mhm. Go."
Although team experience points were divided equally among party members, exploiting loopholes like this was not especially difficult for large factions with many people.
They could completely lure and herd zombies into a single location before having everyone leave temporarily.
Then, after waiting several hours, they could send the player who needed experience points over to kill the zombies alone.
That method would allow the designated player to receive nearly full experience rewards.
After all, several hours was more than enough for the system to judge the earlier players as having already exited combat status.
And once players were no longer considered in combat, naturally there would no longer be any need to share the experience rewards.
Once the surrounding area became quiet again and no humans remained nearby, as long as the zombies occupied a sufficiently large area, the system usually would not classify them as being trapped.
Instead, it treated them as monsters in a normal "wandering" state.
This method had been discovered through experiments conducted by the younger gamers within their organization.
It was enough to ensure that the higher ups maintained levels far ahead of everyone else, preventing subordinates from overthrowing them and turning them into stepping stones.
At present, they still had not fully determined exactly how many zombies needed to occupy how much space before the system completely stopped considering them trapped, allowing other people to receive absolutely no shared experience points.
However, with enough repeated comparison experiments, they believed they would obtain the answer very soon.
Inside a certain military base.
A soldier sitting upright while maintaining perfect posture stared at the marketplace with surprise visible in his eyes.
"So something like this is actually possible?"
"General, I remember there’s a prison somewhere near our area. Perhaps we should..." The man standing opposite the soldier hesitated slightly, his gaze flickering.
After pondering for a moment, the general finally spoke.
"If there are still living prisoners inside, control them first. Then send people to the archives room and identify the ones with especially severe crimes. We’ll test the benefits first before making further decisions."
He understood principles such as using harsh measures during chaotic times and extraordinary methods during extraordinary circumstances.
However, slaughtering innocent people indiscriminately would completely violate his beliefs.
Setting aside the topic, the soldier continued speaking.
"Add Ashfall to the observation list. How is the zombie cleanup operation inside the base progressing?"
"Areas A and B have already been fully cleared. Instrument scans indicate a possible boss monster inside Area C, so nobody has acted rashly there yet. Soldiers are still holding the line in Area D, but they currently lack supplies."
"Prioritize supporting Area D first. Afterward, dispatch part of the personnel outside and attempt to search for nearby survivors."
After the apocalypse erupted, the military base had suffered devastating losses because of the dense population and shared dormitory arrangements.
Fortunately, water and electricity had still functioned during the initial outbreak.
Even more fortunately, not every commanding officer had transformed into zombies.
That gave them enough opportunity to reorganize the battlefield.
After expending tremendous effort, they had finally managed to barely stabilize the situation, preventing the entire base from being completely wiped out.
After exiting the item details page, Joo Joowon noticed that rows upon rows of products were emitting gray glows of varying intensity.
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