Let MapleStory experience the Fourth Calamity

Chapter 131 Establishing a Free Market

In the chat group 【Did you go on an adventure today?】, long text messages scrolled rapidly.

Da Niu, being rather lazy, said, "Brothers, we're rich! This plot of land can yield at least 300 jin of cabbage! It's just that it's too hard to get a cart; if we had to carry it all back to the southern part of the ruined city in sacks, our stamina simply wouldn't be enough!"

Happy Brand Blade: "Also looking for a cart, rental fee negotiable. Fifty kilograms of vegetables, it takes more than half an hour to make a trip."

Climbing Snail: "Everyone, don't rush off yet. I have a plan. Our team has five vehicles. We'll buy your packed cabbages right here."

GM's purchase price is 15 Maple Leaf Coins per truckload, but we'll buy it for 12. The difference will be factored into logistics and shipping costs.

There was a brief pause in the group chat.

The big bull was rather lazy: "What is this game? Cabbage futures?"

Since Lynn took 70% of the profits from the land, they had to make up for it elsewhere.

The little snail quickly recognized reality and, with the help of a few carts from the guild, transformed itself directly from a "bankrupt farmer" into a "logistics contractor".

Little snail: "This is called resource integration. You save time running errands and can immediately go and acquire a piece of land, maximizing efficiency. I don't go to the land; I run errands for you, and everyone makes money."

This is a simple calculation.

For frontline players, the benefits of staying in the field and continuing to work far outweigh those of acting as porters.

Before long, the group chat was filled with reports of coordinates and short phrases like "confirm transaction".

This operation turned a simple harvesting effort into a large-scale commodity resale.

But putting this theory into practice is far more difficult than typing on a keyboard.

The little snail's logistics team encountered trouble as soon as they left Archer Village.

All five carts were fully loaded, their wheels sinking deep into the mud of the wilderness.

The vehicle is quite heavy, and the players responsible for pushing it lose stamina very quickly, requiring a change of personnel every half hour.

The most fatal factor was the drastic change in the environment.

At three o'clock in the morning, the temperature on the road dropped sharply.

"Holy crap, the cabbage looks like it's going to freeze!"

The player leading the way, nicknamed "Happy Blade," warned in the team chat, "This game's mechanics are too meticulous about details. There's no insulation for the vegetables after they're removed from the soil. If they spoil, I wonder if the GM's estimated purchase price will be affected!"

This unexpected mechanism disrupted everyone's plans.

Those casual players who had initially refused the snail's acquisition offer and insisted on carrying sacks or dragging broken planks to the ruins themselves were now all in trouble.

They were moving too slowly, and the cabbages on their backs were showing signs of freezing in the low temperature.

The few casual users who were just mocking the snail's heartlessness in the group chat stopped the convoy halfway through the journey.

"Hey—Snail Bro, I still have fifty pounds left. How about I sell it to you for a rock-bottom price of 8 Maple Leaf Coins? It'll turn into mush if it freezes any longer!"

"No, we won't accept it."

The little snail decisively refused; taking over at this point would be like throwing money away.

He quickly issued instructions in the channel: "Big Goose, take out all the dust covers and wrap them around the carriage to minimize heat loss."

"Don't worry about your energy levels, everyone! Team one, team two, take turns running frequently, get moving!"

This is a race and a game against the game's weather mechanics.

The farmers could only watch helplessly as their hard-earned harvest, which they had worked through the night, turned into waste in the cold wind.

Thanks to their excellent organization, the snail team managed to preserve the freshness of most of the goods and pushed the convoy into the southern gate of the abandoned city before it completely froze.

As dawn broke, the harvesting operation came to an end.

The snail's fleet successfully delivered the goods to the official recycling point before they rotted in their hands.

Many people looked at the Maple Leaf Coins in their hands and experienced the first wave of sudden wealth in the game.

However, as time went on, an unpleasant scene unfolded in front of the official purchasing point.

The official price for receiving goods is still 15 Maple Leaf Coins, but a large number of casual players who brought back truckloads of cabbages turned around and left when they arrived at the delivery point.

Don't go and turn in the quest!

A few hoarders in the crowd whispered to their companions, "Are you guys stupid? You accepted the official harvesting mission, and now these cabbages are already in our carts and backpacks."

"If we abandon the mission, at worst we'll lose some reputation points or forgo the 15-coin reward. Then this truckload of vegetables will become our private property, won't it?"

"Wow, you can even do that? Back in the day when we played MapleStory, you probably hoarded Maggie's Hero's Sword too, right?"

This is a classic example of player-robber logic.

In their eyes, as long as the quest items are in their inventory, and as long as they don't turn in the quest and exploit a bug, they've made a profit.

"Yeah, haven't you noticed the temperature has dropped drastically? This game is clearly going to be a winter survival scenario. In the days to come, food will definitely be the hardest currency!"

"Let's intercept these mission supplies, keep them, exchange them for other items, and then sell them to the NPCs. One cartload can be worth at least 20 coins!"

Driven by this greed, a large amount of agricultural products that should have been sold to Lynn were intercepted by the players.

This isn't the first time the trouble has happened.

At this time, the South Square had become so congested that it resembled a chaotic, primitive market.

A large number of players who have completed their transactions and those with unsold inventory are crowding here, with money to burn and goods they can't sell.

Da Niu, being rather lazy, stood on a rusty iron barrel, holding a piece of bloody bone spur, and shouted: "Fire Poison Eye Beast forelimb bone spur! Top-grade material for sharpening weapons!"

"Change to a full set of leather armor, or pay extra for a shield! I'm sick of eating cabbages!"

Immediately, someone chimed in, "How about I trade you a hundred pounds of iron ore for your bone spurs? They're freshly dug out from the subway underground, still warm!"

"What would I need iron ore for? I can't make steel myself!" Da Niu rolled his eyes.

Not far away, at the foot of the workshop wall, a goose was arguing heatedly with a life skills player.

"You call this sulfur ore?"

The goose pointed at the grayish stones in the other person's basket, and was furious. "There's so much talcum and mud mixed in there, the purity is probably less than 20%."

Throwing this industrial waste into the furnace will cause it to explode in no time. Five Maple Leaf coins, not a single one more.

"You're talking nonsense! I've been digging for three hours! Ten coins, not a penny less!" This player was equally adamant.

Arguments like this are common in the square.

Because there is no unified standard of value measurement, the buyers and sellers rely entirely on wrangling.

What's worse is that the physical collision volume is a real, tangible entity.

The crowds of people trading, the haphazardly parked carts, and the mountains of various basic materials completely blocked the road leading to the blast furnace and the mission hall.

The currency in hand couldn't be spent, and the high-level materials in the backpack couldn't be exchanged for the urgently needed supplies.

This frustration of being dragged down by terrible logistics and primitive trading methods quickly sparked huge discontent among the group.

The little snail exited the game, logged directly into the official forum, and typed a petition titled "Hoping for the early launch of the free market system."

"This game doesn't even have a fixed trading hub, which seriously affects the development pace. I strongly suggest that the developers designate an area in the abandoned city."

Since the respawn point is set here, this will be our main base. We need a place where we can spread out rags and set up a stall.

The number of comments below increased rapidly.

Iron Pot Stew (8th Floor): "Without a centralized trading area, the flow of materials is stagnant. My purification experiments are stuck on raw materials and can't continue. If this continues, the industrial progress in the southern district will be slowed down by half."

Others chimed in, saying that having scattered materials and not being able to find each other made it feel like playing a single-player game.

A game world, an abandoned city.

Lynn leaned back in the wooden chair in the study of his private residence, browsing forum posts via neural connections.

Last night's rush to harvest generated a massive amount of Maple Leaf Coins.

Lynn had considered that if he didn't find a way to channel this huge sum of money, the camp's internal economic system would soon collapse due to inflation.

The players themselves have already handed over the knives.

Next to the entrance to the sewers of the ruined capital, there was a wide, paved plaza.

Once the snow and gravel are cleared away, the trading area is ready to go.

No new buildings are needed; everything relies on the existing topography.

Lynn designated the square and named it the "Abandoned City Free Market," which could be considered a way of making up for the regret in his childhood that there was no free market in the abandoned city.

The rules of the free market are very simple.

Anyone who sets up a stall in the square must pay the GM a daily fee of 2 Maple Leaf Coins for the space.

As for logistics associations that want to set up permanent tents, they have to pay high monthly rent.

Earning 2 Maple Leaf Coins a day might feel a bit painful for the average player who grinds for in-game currency, but it's perfectly affordable.

It's like a gentle, blunt knife, silently scraping the money that's been given out back into the lord's pocket, bit by bit.