As the foreman and worker of the player construction crew, Red Barrel doesn’t get a cut from every MT-1 sold like Mantou does, but he still has quite a bit of money in hand.
He’s been fixing dorms and studios and all sorts of miscellaneous tasks for hundreds of new players, which earns him more than doing daily events, grinding bricks, and dying explosively. This text is hosted at NoveI-Fire.ɴet
He’s realized that fighting his way through never makes money as quickly as contracting business.
On the surface, each frontline rescue mission can earn a few thousand, but if things go wrong, he might have to wait six hours to respawn, during which he can’t do anything.
And it’s not even guaranteed to happen every day, depending purely on luck. Not to mention, dying comes with a chance of losing equipment. Even with official subsidies, the bullets fired cost money, so the net gain isn’t much.
But being a foreman directing newbies to build houses is different. With prosthetic limbs, work is faster than in reality, and this group of players is more diligent than the most hardworking laborer on a construction site, with skills and experience skyrocketing while still maintaining quality.
There’s also smart equipment in Night City specifically for assisting with construction. If he could get a few sets and start a construction company, wouldn’t that just take off?
Most of the money he earned recently was blown on custom outfits.
Men, this is their only hobby.
The youthful, shrunken mini version of the Dangerous Wanderer couldn’t use a nuclear power engine, nor was it eighty or ninety meters tall.
To meet Red Barrel’s demand for detailed restoration, the Wanderer’s size was finally determined to be 2.8 meters, with more joint motors used to ensure normal movement.
The original car battery couldn’t handle it, so he had to swap it for a fixed Chun Er internal combustion engine, which was installed in the chest to achieve visual effects and even spray some fire.
The right arm contains a chain sword made of high-strength fiber and alloy steel, usually concealed in sections within the arm but can be extended and straightened when needed.
The five fingers on both hands can transform, but it doesn’t have plasma weapons and can’t even emit high voltage electricity, just sound and light effects are installed.
Once inside, the pilot’s head isn’t in the Wanderer’s head but at the neck.
Fortunately, prosthetic eyes can connect to external cameras, so after fine calibration, the vision is unobstructed, yet the tall structure means he has to be careful walking in bars.
The final cost wasn’t 8000, which was just for the shell, but ended up totaling over 85,000, nearly as much as three or four heavy MT-1s.
Not only did he exhaust the money in hand, but he also borrowed a lot, had to work to pay off debt.
But the final product made Red Barrel very satisfied, because it was so well restored that he truly felt it could be used in movies.
The mechanics felt a bit peculiar as they completed the project.
Rather than calling it a combat machine, it was more of an art exhibit.
Its combat capability was just too weak.
It couldn’t even run, only walk briskly; the purely mechanical structure made its movements very slow, and to reduce weight, the armor was as thin as paper, likely unable to even stop pistol bullets.
Dragged into a street brawl, a few experienced fighters could dismantle it, totally incompatible with its price of tens of thousands.
In terms of practicality, it’s not even as good as a 20,000 MT-1, reminiscent of the first Power Armor produced by Meta Group fifty years ago.
Not even as good as that.
At least theirs truly had combat capability, equipped with heavy firepower.
If any military enterprise dared to produce such a product, it would be equivalent to immediate unemployment
But... the players seemed very satisfied with their creation.
When Red Barrel entered the cockpit from the back of the mecha to try it out and, with the mechanics following, walked step by step into the bar, the entire place erupted like water in a frying pan.
They surrounded the Dangerous Wanderer, touching it all over, or lifted the mechanics up and tossed them in the air.
"Sea Superman! You guys are gods forever!"
"My Bikini Bottom Justice League!"
"Construction dude, I’m begging you, let me drive it for a bit, I’d sell my ass for it."
"Quick, pose like a few bosses, the one kneeling in the snow, let me take a picture for the memory."
"Red Barrel, you don’t intend to use this to fight ash, do you? That shouldn’t be called Dangerous Wanderer, it should be Safe Ash Fighter, hahaha."
The players were bustling with excitement, but only Red Barrel felt something was off; when he raised his hand to drive away the crowd of gathered players, the slow movements instead gave a sense of the clumsiness of a giant machine.
His voice was transmitted through a loudspeaker.
"Scram, scram, scram! Who cares about your ass, go sell it at Big Bird’s, if your ass is itchy, let the gays there clear your bowels."
It took him quite a while to realize.
Dammit, I can’t even see the skin I bought, didn’t I just waste my money?
What to do about that?
It’s not like I could fork out more cash to buy a drone to hang behind my head for a third-person perspective, right?
That would be too stupid.
Red Barrel surveyed the bar, spotting Nina holding a tray of beers, stuck outside the crowd.
Compared to when they first arrived, the two sisters had already gotten used to this group of sometimes crazy mercenaries.
At least they were really good people, just seemed a bit off.
And there were more and more people lately.
A voice suddenly called out to her.
Hearing someone call her name, Nina paused, then realized that the big hunk of metal in the crowd had approached her side, looking mighty and majestic, likely very expensive.