Chapter 44: The Mad Scientist
Joo Joowon immediately realized something.
This person was not merely a little dangerous.
He was extremely dangerous.
Most ordinary people trading supplies usually wanted flour, rice, or other food capable of lasting long periods.
Otherwise, they requested medicine.
Although sugar could also provide energy to the human body, when it appeared in the hands of someone capable of manufacturing homemade explosives, it naturally became impossible not to overthink things.
Sugar was not only a medical resource but also an important energy source.
Under certain circumstances, its importance could even surpass salt itself.
Moreover, sugar possessed another function most ordinary people completely overlooked.
It could be used to manufacture ammunition.
In the hands of someone highly skilled with crafting and engineering, although turning sugar into explosives or grenades required fairly complicated processes, it was absolutely not impossible.
And once successfully created, in a country where firearms were heavily restricted, possessing such weapons would practically be equivalent to activating god mode.
Although Joo Joowon vaguely guessed why TheMadScientist wanted sugar, he simply did not possess enough sugar available for trade.
After all, most ordinary households stockpiled rice, salt, tissues, and medicine.
Very few people deliberately stored large quantities of sugar.
Besides, most working adults could barely be bothered cooking meals for themselves in the first place, much less preparing desserts or dishes requiring sugar.
Even after clearing the entire third floor, Joo Joowon had only found a single jar of honey.
He had not seen even the slightest trace of white sugar.
Because of that, he could only reply helplessly.
[ Ashfall: Do you need anything else? ]
TheMadScientist was not surprised after seeing Joo Joowon’s response.
Sugar had always been considered an important strategic military resource during wartime.
Anyone who understood its true uses would never casually trade it away during dangerous times.
Because of that, he had merely been testing his luck anyway.
At the end of the day, the apocalypse had only just begun.
Most people were still tightly guarding their supplies and had no intention of trading important resources away yet.
He simply wanted to leave an impression on people.
That way, whenever someone eventually decided to trade sugar, they would immediately think of him first.
[ TheMadScientist: Yes yes, Boss! One piece of information in exchange for one upgraded Molotov. Boss, what do you think? ]
Anyone who understood how stock markets worked knew exactly how valuable information could be.
Those experts who treated ordinary retail investors like crops ready for harvesting relied entirely on obtaining information ahead of everyone else.
Even if they could not directly manipulate the stock market, they could still follow behind the major players and profit tremendously.
TheMadScientist never dreamed of becoming someone feasting on meat at the top.
However, drinking a little soup behind the winners still seemed possible for him.
TheMadScientist understood his own limits clearly.
Although his hands on abilities were excellent, even the most skilled housewife could not cook without rice.
Before the apocalypse, he had merely been an ordinary law abiding citizen.
Even though online police frequently called him because he purchased certain suspicious materials online, and the local officers already recognized him well enough to occasionally visit his house and confiscate things, the actual amount of raw materials he stockpiled remained fairly limited.
Buying too much of certain items easily attracted unwanted attention from cyber police.
His hobbies were merely somewhat unusual.
He had absolutely no desire to end up sitting inside a prison cell.
Especially after carelessly exposing himself during early online purchases and getting monitored, obtaining materials afterward became even more difficult.
He also lacked any close friends he could scam or exploit for resources.
Everything had to be purchased personally.
Many of his materials were slowly accumulated little by little over long periods of time.
Who could have expected the apocalypse to suddenly descend?
Before the apocalypse, he had only been an ordinary person without any particularly outstanding talents.
Because of that, if he failed to build up advantages during the early stages, then later he would still end up becoming nothing more than a labor slave.
And this time, there would not even be laws protecting him anymore.
Unfortunately, most people would rather trade away valuable physical resources than reveal information capable of widening the gap between themselves and ordinary players.
As for major factions, it was even more impossible for them to reveal such secrets.
Although the apocalypse represented a new wave of reshuffling power structures, there was one thing beyond doubt.
The major forces established during the beginning of the apocalypse were usually groups that had already known each other before the apocalypse even began.
Large organizations could use human lives to forcefully pile up useful information through experiments and sacrifices.
Yet many of those secrets would not even be fully shared among their own internal members.
So why would they possibly reveal them to an outsider?
However, Ashfall’s purchasing behavior allowed TheMadScientist to glimpse a sliver of hope.
Regardless of his reasons for publicly releasing those guides, at the very least it proved Ashfall did not intend to completely monopolize information.
That meant the possibility of trading information still existed.
Even so, all of this remained merely his personal speculation.
Because of that, he could not help feeling nervous while staring at the chat window.
Looking at the message TheMadScientist sent over, Joo Joowon’s eyes revealed a trace of understanding.
After all, generally speaking, if an arms dealer dared release good products onto the market, then it usually meant they possessed even better weapons hidden away.
However, judging from TheMadScientist’s current behavior, he did not seem like someone who possessed anything superior to upgraded Molotov cocktails.
The logic behind it was very simple.
If TheMadScientist truly belonged to a larger faction, then he would never sell these things publicly.
Supplying his own people alone would probably already leave him lacking enough inventory.
At present, major organizations were far more interested in hoarding supplies than trading them.
After all, the marketplace would only remain open for one week.
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