Chapter 10: Doomsday Merchant

Fang Heng opened his personal survival radio and used it to send a message to nearby players.

"Offering 20 survival points for the location of a Doomsday Merchant camp. Private message me if you know."

A few scattered messages popped up.

"WTF? 20 survival points? Is this big shot that rich?"

"So what? Anyone can brag. I have a hundred points."

"Bro, you aren't just spending all day killing zombies for fun, are you?"

"What are you fronting for? If you actually have 20 survival points, I'll cut my head off and let you use it as a ball."

"Looking for a bottle of water for 2 survival points."

"Are you dreaming?"

"No water? That's fine. There's a small stream in the forest; just drink from it."

"..."

The topic quickly went completely off the rails.

Fang Heng saw the players' feedback and was left speechless.

Just as he was about to turn off the radio, a private message from a player appeared in his inbox.

"Bro, I know the location of the Doomsday Merchant, but you have to pay the points first."

Fang Heng glanced at the player's ID—Lu Yu.

He immediately transferred 20 survival points through the system.

When Lu Yu received the survival points from Fang Heng, he was initially taken aback.

There was actually a player this powerful, one who could fork over 20 points in the early game without even blinking?

Lu Yu’s heart stirred, and he quickly reasoned that the other party must be part of an organized team.

"You're a straightforward guy, brother. The Doomsday Merchant's coordinates are (21232, 29123). It's very safe there; I just went."

Fang Heng observed the map. The coordinates for the Doomsday Merchant camp marked by the other party were pitch black. By his estimation, it wasn't very far; it would only take about half an hour to get there.

Go check it out first.

Fang Heng moved toward the Doomsday Merchant camp, blending in with a group of zombies.

A dozen zombie clones gathered together were more than enough to achieve a crushing effect against ordinary threats.

If they encountered regular zombies, they would be turned into a sieve by wooden spears in a few strikes.

Whenever ordinary players encountered them along the way, they would mistake them for a small zombie horde and run away from a distance, not daring to cause trouble.

After walking for nearly half an hour and crossing a hillside, Fang Heng stopped.

He saw it!

The Doomsday Merchant's camp!

In the zombie apocalypse game, players were not the only survivors; there were a small number of native NPCs, and some of them stayed in the Doomsday Merchant camps.

Players could talk and interact with them. If one were lucky enough, they might even be able to trick an NPC mercenary into coming back as a bodyguard.

Besides that, players could accept quests from the Doomsday Merchant and exchange survival points for supplies.

Fang Heng ordered his zombie clones to stand by in place and stepped into the camp alone.

After all, the zombie clones were still zombies, and due to system restrictions, they might be attacked by the camp if they got too close.

Inside the camp, a bearded NPC greeted the newcomer, Fang Heng, enthusiastically.

"Hey, survivor. It's your lucky day to meet me in this apocalypse."

"You are the eighteenth survivor I've seen here, so you don't get any rewards."

"This is my newly established camp. Pretty nice, right? I can guarantee your safety here, but it costs 500 survival points per night. That's very cheap."

Fang Heng ignored the bearded NPC's opening lines and nodded. "Do you have any quests for me to do?"

"You've come at just the right time. We just established this gathering point, and there are many things we need help with. Take a look and see which quest suits you."

Fang Heng opened the quest menu.

Rows of quest requirements refreshed.

Fang Heng's gaze was immediately drawn to the first quest.

Clear out the zombies in the logging camp.

Difficulty: SSS.

Description: Clear out all surviving zombies at the target location.

Reward: Survival points: 4000.

(Note: As the game world time progresses, the difficulty and rewards of this quest will gradually decrease.)

It was actually an SSS-level quest?!

In his memory, the previous owner of this body had played the game for two years, and the highest difficulty level he had ever seen was S.

Not to mention whether he had the ability to complete it, Fang Heng had never even had the chance to grab an S-level quest before!

New servers are great; nobody is even doing SSS-level quests!

Fang Heng looked down to re-examine the quest requirements.

Kill zombies?

Ha! Just what I needed!

Fang Heng felt confident. This SSS quest was mainly about killing zombies, which was perfectly suited to him. He could earn survival points and, incidentally, farm some evolution crystal fragments.

"I'll take this quest."

"Oh? A very challenging quest!"

"There is a logging camp by the river with many zombies gathered inside. Leaving them alone might pose a threat to my camp. I need you to completely clear out the zombies in the logging camp."

"Are you sure you want to accept this quest? You have three days to complete it."

"Yes."

"Very well. Look, this is our first time meeting. To ensure you can complete it, you need to give me a deposit. I think 167 survival points is about right. You should agree to that, right?"

"Don't worry, the deposit will be fully refunded after the quest is completed."

167 points was exactly all the points Fang Heng had left.

Fang Heng knew this was one of the game's settings.

Hidden Rating.

The Main God had an initial hidden rating for every player.

Every time a quest was completed, the Main God would re-evaluate the player's overall performance and update the hidden rating.

If a player accepted a quest with a difficulty higher than their hidden rating, the Doomsday Merchant would demand a deposit.

The greater the gap between the quest difficulty and the player's hidden rating, the higher the deposit, but it would never exceed all the survival points the player had on them.

Once a quest failed, the deposit would not be refunded.

"Deal."

[Prompt: You have deducted 167 survival points.]

[Prompt: You have accepted the quest from the Doomsday Merchant, Vettel: Completely clear out the zombie horde entrenched in the logging camp.]

[Prompt: In the apocalypse, one person's strength is too small. You can try to seek help from other survivors to complete the quest together.]

"Good luck. Also, a word of advice: the zombies there are quite troublesome. It's not something you can easily solve alone. You should find some help; don't die in there."

"Thanks."

Fang Heng left the Doomsday Merchant camp without looking back.

Find help?

No, he planned to solo it!

In the early stages, players couldn't even get enough to eat. On one hand, they had to rush to collect supplies to survive, and on the other, they had to find ways to reinforce the shelters provided by the system. They had no time to kill zombies.

Even if he found help, how much could they contribute to clearing the camp?

A player's combat power in the early game was very low.

Fang Heng was different from ordinary players.

Not only did he have the spare capacity to kill zombies, but he was also very eager to kill them to obtain evolution crystal fragments.

While deep in thought, Fang Heng left the survival camp. He happened to notice two survivors walking toward the Doomsday Merchant's location together.

Both sides glanced at each other, tacitly said nothing, and brushed past.

Five minutes later, an exclamation erupted in the survival camp.

"What the hell! The SSS quest was taken."

"Is he crazy?"

"Maybe it's a newbie who doesn't know any better and just accepted the quest."

"That makes sense."

Lu Yu nodded, but he felt a bit uneasy.

Could the person who took the quest be the big shot who spent 20 survival points earlier to buy the camp location from him?

No way. No matter how strong they are, there's no way they can clear out the zombies in that area.

Thinking of the scene he had seen earlier, Lu Yu felt his scalp tingle.