Chapter 62

Chapter 62

“My stamina, my stamina, it’s low.”
As Ming Hu walked toward the central plaza, he looked at his character window and muttered to himself.
“Will the ex-exclusives cover it…?”
Items that are used exclusively for, by, for, or only when switching jobs are called job-specific items. Ming Hu was thinking of using a Transition Exclusive to change classes, but his current stats were so low compared to the required stats for the new class that he wasn’t sure if it would cover it or not.
“There are bonus stats.”
Ming Hu dismissed the thought and started walking again, thinking that he would somehow be able to meet the required stats since he had bonus stats.
Dada dada dada!
That was the moment.
“..?”
A great number of footsteps sounded in the distance. Ming Hu turned his head and looked behind him. The guards were running in an orderly formation.
“Guards out? What’s going on?
The fact that a guard was called out, not just a few guards, meant something was definitely going on, and it wasn’t the kind of guard that would normally be called out, so it had to be something big.
Dada dada dada…
The guard soon passed Ming Hu and disappeared from view. Ming Hu thought about the back of the guard as they disappeared from view.
“If you go over there, it’s the main square.
Follow the path the guards ran down, and at the end of it is the central square.
“What’s going on in Central Square?
Of course, it’s possible that the guards weren’t dispatched from the central square. But after thinking that the guards wouldn’t use the crowded central plaza to get there, Minghu was convinced that something had happened to the central plaza.
‘Is it the PK? I hope not…’
Suddenly, a PK piqued my curiosity, but I quickly shook my head. The Guard’s asses weren’t light enough to be called out for a simple PK.
Poof! Bam!
Soon, Ming Hu arrives near the central square and realizes that the sounds he hears indicate that it is the central square where the guards have been called out and that something has definitely happened.
-Get off me, asshole.
-kill…
-All jobs…
As he got closer, he heard the sound of horses. Following the sound of the horses, Ming Hu soon arrived at the central plaza and was speechless at the sight of it.
“Son of a bitch!”
“Kill it!”
The central plaza was chaos. Hordes of players were PKing on two sides. One side had nothing in common with the other, but one did: the guild mark in the shape of a gold bar floating above their heads.
“Get them all in!”
The captain of the guard ordered his guards. The guards quickly began to subdue the users.
‘They say the guards that protect the city catch demons, and I’m going to catch one.
The guards were really strong.
“Yuck!”
“What the hell!”
“Ack, shit!”
Some users resisted the guards, but to no avail. The guards quickly calmed the chaos in the central plaza, and Ming Hu watched the subdued guards and the subdued users.
“…huh?
Just then, Ming Hu saw a strange sight.
“Ugh! Thank you.”
“Ew, no, see you later.”
Two players attacked each other. They were clearly from the same guild, judging by the markings on their heads. Ming Hu didn’t understand why they were attacking each other, but they weren’t the only ones.
“Ugh! Ugh! Billion! One left!”
“Yikes! Me too! See you later!”
Users wearing guild marks in the shape of gold bars were attacking each other. This was completely different behavior than before the guards arrived.
“Oh, no, not because of confinement?
Ming Hu could only think of one system as he watched the scene. If you were caught by the guards causing chaos or disturbance, you would be thrown in jail. The length of time varied depending on the severity of the offense, but with the heavy-handed guards out in force, if he got caught this time, he’d be spending quite a bit of time in jail.
“Arrest them all!”
After a while, the situation ended. Ming Hu could only watch in admiration as the guards surrounded the users and quickly disappeared. The central plaza, which had been chaos, returned to its normal state not long after the guards were called in.
“Item for sale! See it!”
“140 Knights looking for a good weapon.”
The central plaza was still the central plaza, albeit a bit deserted with many users gone. It wasn’t quite as busy as before, but there were still quite a few users buying and selling items.
“Oh, I need to buy temp.”
Ming Hu’s brow furrowed as he remembered his own purpose for purchasing the class-exclusive templates. Most of the temples for career changes are sold by users who specialize in business. Originally, the central plaza was the place where many of them were located, but due to the events just now, it was hard to see them.
“You know…?”
Ming Hu looked around. Most of the players seemed to have stopped by for a while, but there might be some who were selling ex-exclusive templates. Ming Hu began to walk in search of the ex-exclusives. That’s when it happened.
“Ugh.”
Next to Myung-Hoo, a user sighed and shook his head.
“Can I ask you…?
Curious about how things had come to this, Ming Hu approached the user and spoke to him.
“Hey…”
“What?”
“See what just happened? Do you know what happened?”
“Oh. Yeah. I’ve seen it from the beginning…”
At Minghu’s words, the user began to explain what had happened so far.
“The first time, a vendor named Golking was trading, and he got into a fight with another vendor, and he immediately summoned his guild, Goldbar, and he and his guildmates, who arrived shortly after, killed the vendor, and if it had ended there, it wouldn’t have gotten this far, but then he taunted the players who were watching, and he said, ‘If you don’t want to be like this, play quietly. ‘ As soon as he said that, things got pretty heated, and then one of the players jumped on him, and it started to escalate, and eventually security was called in and it was sorted out, and it’s just my opinion, but I think this was a Goldbar operation.”
“Operation?”
“Yeah, I don’t know if you saw, but the Goldbar Guild turned on each other and died when the guards came, and the guards took the few remaining Goldbar Guild members and most of the merchants away, and now that the guards are out, you’ll be locked up for at least five days, and if you die, you’ll only be out for a few hours.”
The user trailed off. That was enough for Ming Hu to understand what the user meant. This incident had definitely taken away most of the businessmen. There was a lot of money to be made in this time of no competition.
“That could be… but from what you’re saying, it sounds like the Goldbar Guild has a very bad reputation.”
“Yes, of course!”
Before I could finish my sentence, the user exclaimed, “Of course!” and began to unravel the story of the gold bar.
“Goldbar is such an asshole, they’re the reason items are going for over a million dollars now.”
“What?”
Ming Hu was a little surprised by the user’s comment; he thought it was simply supply and demand, but it didn’t seem to be the case.
“No matter how much demand there is and the supply can’t keep up. It’s not going to go over $1 million. The only reason it’s going over $1 million now is because of manipulation.”
“Manipulation?”
“Yes. They’ve controlled the supply to drive up the price. The number of items they have is huge. They never release them. They just keep buying more and more of what’s available.”
After listening to the user, Ming Hu realized that something was wrong.
“But… isn’t that too risky? There will be items made by users who are blacksmiths, and there will be items that come from hunting, and it would cost more money to buy all of them and manipulate them…”
As Ming Hu said, if the provider was a gold bar, that would be a big problem, but the provider was not a gold bar. Anyone could be a provider.
“Even if you say that the items are made by players who are blacksmiths… It’s not that we don’t have people who can make magic-grade items, but it’s time, and most of them donate it to the empire for quests, and it’s not just Goldbar that’s manipulated, there are a few other guilds that have allied with Goldbar to do this, and…”
The user glanced around, stammered, and opened his mouth to speak in a low voice that only Minghu could hear.
“This is a rumor, so I’m not sure… but I’m told that the main purpose of the Gold Bar is not to manipulate the price.”
“…?”
Ming Hu couldn’t help but shake his head at the user’s words. It was the user in front of him who had said that the Gold Bar had joined forces with other guilds to manipulate the market. What was he talking about?
“The main purpose of the gold bar is… . is rumored to be to make it harder for users to get items.”
“Yes?”
“It’s rumored that the heads of Goldbar and the allied guilds that are manipulating the market are tycoons… They have a lot of capital and have created guilds with the intention of making rapid progress while at the same time controlling the items that will be supplied to users, thus widening the gap.”
“Oh.”
When Ming Hu heard that, he thought it was ridiculous, but as he thought about it, he realized that it might be true.
“Sometimes I feel like the real world system is a bad thing, and if we had infinite gear sales like the old online RPG games, this wouldn’t have happened.”
“Yeah…”
Ming Hu thought as he responded to the user’s complaint.
‘Even if it’s real. but it’s a game made to be enjoyed.
No matter how real it seems, it’s still a game designed to be played. You’re not the victim, but you feel a little bad.
“If only someone had a constant supply of items… It would solve the problem.”
“…!
In response to the user’s next words, Ming Hu looked at the user and said.
“Will it be solved if someone keeps supplying the item? From what you’re saying, they’re going to use a lot of capital to keep suppressing supply.”
At Ming Hu’s words, the user smiled bitterly.
“Haha. I’m just saying, the only way to fix this situation is to either undercapitalize them or sell them to regular users at a low price, but I can’t undercapitalize them. If we sell them to regular users at a lower price, they’ll either fight us, or they’ll pose as regular users and buy them all.”
“…I see.”
Ming Hu smiled when he heard the user’s words.
“Thanks for the details, have fun!”
“Yes! Have fun!”
Ming Hu thanked the user and started to walk away to purchase the ex-exclusive item. That’s when it happened.
“It’s an ex-only temp! It has agility, stamina, and intellect!”
As soon as he started walking, he heard a familiar voice, and the content of the voice stopped him in his tracks. Ming Hu turned around and saw a user shouting that he was selling ex-exclusive items. It was the same user who had been explaining things to him.
“You said it was dark under the bridge.
Ming Hu turned and walked back to the user.