Chapter 18: No Shortage of Buyers

"Getting up early in the morning is damn exhausting~" Liu Kongkong dragged himself out of bed, yawning and humming some odd little tune as he boiled instant noodles for himself. It was the third day since Hunt Heaven launched, and many players had already gotten used to pulling all-nighters grinding mobs and leveling up. But for Liu Kongkong, there wasn't much to do inside anyway — the shop was closed after all. Sure, movement permissions had been unlocked, but with this face and the ID floating above his head, he couldn't exactly wander around freely.

All the other NPCs stood dutifully at their shop entrances or fixed positions. If he started strolling around aimlessly, he'd probably be surrounded three layers deep in no time. Without the shop manager, he could've spent the night crafting equipment, but now that the automation was handling things, he figured he'd take it easy.

"Haven't had a proper breakfast at this hour in ages."

With that, Liu Kongkong slurped a mouthful of noodles.

"Delicious!"

After finishing breakfast, he checked his phone — time to clock in again.

Ever since taking on this NPC role, his internal clock had actually normalized. He glanced out the window at the bright morning sunshine and felt his mood lift a little.

He climbed into the Game Pod, logged into the game, casually moved the weapons and equipment the shop manager had crafted overnight into storage, then symbolically set a few pieces out on display in the shop.

Open for business!

The moment the shop door swung open, Liu Kongkong knew it was going to be another busy day.

There weren't many people quietly waiting in line outside — because everyone behind them was fighting. Some were trying to squeeze in and buy a weapon during a lull, but before they could even send a trade request, someone grabbed them by the hair and dragged them away.

Ah, to be young. They'd been at it all night and were still going. Liu Kongkong kept collecting money and handing out goods, which only made the brawlers outside even more frantic!

After fighting through the night, some players had lost all their equipment and weapons to drops, and those who hadn't lost anything had gear with zero durability left. They'd all been counting on coming first thing in the morning to buy new equipment — except both sides had the same idea, and neither managed to get any.

"At this rate, burning money on each other is the least of our problems — the real issue is how much it's slowing down our progress." Compared to yesterday, today's fighting seemed even more intense. Ye Weinuan and Night's Gentle Chill stood in the respawn area. It had been half an hour since they'd logged on, but too many players outside had their eyes on the two of them — they couldn't get out at all.

Night's Gentle Chill understood the situation clearly. At this rate, if nothing changed, he'd be stuck idling at the respawn point for days: "Wait a little longer. We're not the only ones who want this war to stop. Knowing Big Dumb Duck's personality, if we go to him to negotiate now, we won't get anything out of it. Better to wait for him to come to us."

And sure enough, that's exactly what happened.

Big Dumb Duck had already been knocked back to Level 1 at this point, with not a single point of EXP to his name.

The people he'd brought along were being hunted down by a mob. He'd originally thought having unified IDs would make it easy to find and manage his people — but that had turned into his biggest problem. Passersby could take one look at the IDs and immediately know who they belonged to, and his newly recruited members were locked in brutal combat with Night's Gentle Chill's crew.

Watching random players come and go, leveling up and completing quests without a care, Big Dumb Duck gritted his teeth. He'd originally planned to crush Night's Gentle Chill and the others, to make them understand who called the shots in Starter Village No. 0113 — but the other side turned out to be a tough nut to crack.

Fine. He'd let them off for now. Once everyone gathered later and the guild got off the ground, he'd settle the score then.

Reluctant as he was, Big Dumb Duck swallowed his pride for the bigger picture and reached out to Night's Gentle Chill.

"When the snipe and the clam fight, the fisherman wins. We've been at this for a full day and night — there's no point continuing."

"I'm open to a ceasefire, but we need to sort out some ground rules first." Night's Gentle Chill smiled when he received the message. The fact that the other side had sent it made everything worthwhile — after all, if he'd given up earlier, he'd have gotten nothing and would've been pushed around at every turn.

The two quickly worked out a division of bosses and wild monsters. As for the ten-eyed spider, both sides tacitly avoided mentioning it — neither was willing to give up those rewards, so both were quietly planning to send people after it on the side.

"By the way, should we divide up the weapons and equipment too?" Over the past few days, the two sides had clashed plenty over buying gear. Since they were already sitting down to talk things through, they figured they might as well settle everything they could.

Night's Gentle Chill thought it over.

"I'd like to agree, but that's hard to control."

The Starter Village wasn't just the two of them — even if they reached an agreement, they couldn't stop random players from buying first. Declare war on the entire Starter Village? Easier said than done. Even if they cooperated right now, that wasn't something they could pull off.

"Alright, let's leave it at that then. Equipment and potions — highest bidder wins." As long as it didn't interfere with his leveling, Big Dumb Duck didn't care. When it came to finances, he was confident Night's Gentle Chill was no match for him.

And with just those few words, the first large-scale war between players in Starter Village No. 0113 came to an end. What followed was a frantic shopping spree — nearly all the equipment both sides had was worn out from the fighting.

The main issue was that the Starter Village had no humanoid monsters. According to the official strategy guides, only humanoid wild monsters dropped weapons and equipment. Crafting professions like blacksmithing and tailoring — life-skill classes — couldn't be learned until after leaving the Starter Village. So within the Starter Village, the only options were buying from NPCs or taking down bosses.

"Master Liu, what do you still have in stock?" The first place Night's Gentle Chill and Big Dumb Duck headed was the blacksmith shop. Unlike the other stores, this blacksmith's business was booming — and the weapons he sold were genuinely top-notch, no complaints there.

"You came late — this is all that's left." Liu Kongkong had noticed the two of them early on. Seeing them arrive together, he knew they'd made peace. He casually pulled out 28 stone weapons: mostly longswords, followed by bows, with daggers and staves being relatively fewer. This was a distribution Liu Kongkong had crafted based on the ratio of player classes he'd observed over the past two days.

"I'll take them all." Both spoke in unison, simultaneously sending trade requests. Fifty copper coins each — a fair price. Trading with an NPC meant no one could gouge you.

Liu Kongkong split the weapons into two batches and handed them over. Now came the main event.

Before the two could leave, Liu Kongkong quickly retrieved ten stone weapons from storage. Unlike the previous batch, these were all weapons enhanced to +5.

"Holy shit? So the premium weapon that guy had yesterday came from you?" The familiar +5 left Night's Gentle Chill momentarily stunned — he'd originally assumed Lonely as a Song had gotten it from some quest.

The price was fair too: 30 silver coins each, the same as the [Skull-Cracker Hammer]. They'd already bought a lot of in-game currency for the fighting, so both sides snapped them up immediately.

The shop manager had crafted 800 weapons through the entire previous night, and they'd all sold out within two or three hours that morning. At 50 copper coins each, that came to 4 gold coins — plus the 3 gold coins from the enhanced weapons.

He checked the exchange rate. Compared to yesterday's 1:1.6, it had dipped slightly — today it was 1:1.5.

There were definitely a lot of players. Looking at the rate, Liu Kongkong could tell without even thinking that these two had bought a massive amount of in-game currency — but it barely moved the price. And since yesterday, quite a few sellers had started listing one or two gold coins at a time, which actually made it convenient for him to sell. He casually listed 7 gold coins on the trading exchange, leaving only a few dozen copper coins in his inventory.

Liu Kongkong wasn't in a hurry — there was still the afternoon. As long as he earned enough in the afternoon to cover what he owed the Village Chief, that was all that mattered.

He turned and headed back into the shop.

"Alright, time to start working on my new product."

Liu Kongkong laid out various types of weapons, then brought out the iron ore that Lonely as a Song had delivered yesterday.

He set it solemnly on the crafting table.