Chapter 19: Chapter 19: The Lively Player Forum
"Screw you!"
"Compensation? Screw your compensation! I failed yesterday, and you’re giving out compensation today?"
"Are you ssing with ? Why ?!"
"..."
「It was 5:30 PM.」
Lince, who had hastily eaten so instant noodles for lunch, was now at a small noodle shop downstairs, treating himself.
He ordered a bowl of chicken giblet noodles and started scrolling through videos while he waited.
Right then, he was watching a livestream from what looked to be a Player who had failed.
The strear was a young woman who was reasonably good-looking, so her stream had a decent number of viewers.
Riding the wave of hype generated by the True Ga yesterday, her channel was quite lively at the mont.
However, it was clear she had completely lost it.
"Hahaha, she’s tilted! Look, Sister Lin is totally tilted, haha~~~"
"Ah, so satisfying. Who cares if I don’t have ga access? Haha, here’s an unlucky soul who had access but missed out on a ’million’!"
"My condolences! RIP, strear."
"Haha! My condolences
1."
"..."
In the stream, a large number of viewers were enjoying the drama, clearly reveling in her misfortune.
Lince felt a bit of sympathy for the strear, but that was it. After all, she wasn’t the only unlucky one.
"Young man, your chicken giblet noodles are ready."
The noodle shop owner brought the bowl over to Lince’s small table.
"Mm, thanks."
He took the noodles from the owner and went back to scrolling through the livestream while slurping them down.
He had to finish eating quickly. In a little while, he needed to go to a pet shop in Tis Square, about two kiloters away, to pick out a new pet.
At the mont, Lince wasn’t thinking too much about it; he was just scrolling through these videos for so online entertainnt and to gather useful information about the ga.
After quickly finishing his noodles, Lince went to the pet shop, chose two little hamsters, and hurried back to his apartnt.
During this ti, he noticed that everyone, from passersby on the street to the pet shop owner, was talking about the True Ga.
And just a mont ago, he had received a call from Aunt Wang at the neighborhood committee office.
She said that tomorrow morning, the neighborhood committee would be conducting a door-to-door population census registration for all residents of the Riverfront District.
’A population census? At a ti like this?’
Lince was instinctively suspicious.
But after thinking it over, he figured it didn’t matter.
’I’ve been unemployed for a long ti, and I’m a 26-year-old. I’m definitely one of the pri targets for this door-to-door "census."’
’There’s no avoiding it.’
But Lince wasn’t worried in the slightest.
The reason was simple. Shortly after the ga’s exclusive comnt section—now a full-fledged forum—had opened, a pinned notice on the hopage had already put all the Players at ease.
So, Lince felt no sense of crisis at all.
He soon returned ho and imdiately logged back into the exclusive True Ga forum.
There, a conspicuous "Official Ga" post was pinned to the forum’s hopage.
[Notice: Due to the impact of operational publicity, and to protect Player privacy, we are now announcing privacy protection asures for online Players.]
(1. Playing the True Ga online does not rely on any Blue Star Alliance internet services. Power outages or network disconnections will not affect gaplay for those who have installed the ga. Therefore, Players should be aware that no thod can be used to track a Player’s IP address via the network, nor can power or internet outages affect normal gaplay. Please explore the specifics on your own.)
(2. Through their own will alone, Players can ntally control the ga’s presence on their PC. Unless the Player consents, no other person or object can view or search for the ga icon or even its data on the Player’s PC against their will.)
(3. The exclusive online Player forum can be linked to a mobile device. Once linked, no one can view the forum’s existence or its content against the Player’s will.)
This simple post had already lifted the burden for most Players who didn’t want to expose their identities.
「It was now 7:30 PM.」
Most Players had already finished their eight hours of gaplay for the day, so the ga’s forum was quite bustling.
Among the posts, one right below the pinned notice was particularly popular.
It was a recruitnt post from the official Counterasures Bureau.
[The Counterasures Bureau bears no ill will toward Players. For the sake of Blue Star and the Human Alliance, we ask all Players to set aside their personal prejudices against the Human Alliance’s governnt and enthusiastically join the Counterasures Bureau.]
The post detailed the current salary and benefits for Players. For instance, the Eastern Continent’s Counterasures Bureau offered a base monthly salary of 20,000 Human Alliance Coins, an eight-hour workday with two days off per week, and a six-insurance, two-fund benefits package.
Furthermore, different departnts and positions offered varying salary increases.
For example, combat positions paid three tis more than logistics positions.
All in all, while the pay might not have seed high to so, it was still very attractive.
After all, the average base salary in the Human Alliance’s Eastern Continent was only 3,000 to 5,000.
With the base salary and various benefits the Human Alliance Counterasures Bureau was offering, the average person could easily make over 350,000 a year.
It was a joke. That kind of compensation was higher than what many executives at regular companies earned.
So, as soon as the post went up, it generated a lot of buzz on the forum.
"I firmly support the Human Alliance. I’m willing to join the Counterasures Bureau and have already submitted my application."
"I firmly support the Human Alliance. I don’t care about the salary and benefits; I just want to serve the Human Alliance and society."
"I firmly support the Human Alliance and have also submitted my online application to join the Counterasures Bureau. But by the way, since the benefits are so good, will you also be assigning us wives later on?"
"..."
It had to be said that within this thread, quite a few Players chose to trust the Human Alliance and even support the governnt.
However, right below the Human Alliance Counterasures Bureau’s appeal, there was another thread arguing against joining.
[The Human Alliance Counterasures Bureau? Not even a dog would join. Whoever joins is an idiot. You think you can buy our lives with this little bit of money?!!]
The post’s content wasn’t particularly original, nor was it filled with deep-seated hatred.
But the points this Player made were very thought-provoking.
For instance, now that the True Ga was bringing Extraordinary Power into reality, there would surely be many among the Human Alliance’s top brass who would stop at nothing to achieve immortality.
And it wouldn’t just be the Alliance’s leadership; even so big-shot business tycoons would do the sa.
Therefore, the Player actively laid out their viewpoint: why shouldn’t Players bide their ti and wait for a better offer?
At this stage, although the only ga item Players could bring into reality was the Character Card, who could guarantee that other items wouldn’t beco available later?
If you joined the Human Alliance, how would these items be handled?
Would they be considered the Player’s private property or public property? Furthermore, what price would the Human Alliance Counterasures Bureau offer for a Player’s future gains?
So, this Player’s advice was for Players to hold off on making a decision for now. They could wait and see how the ga developed, then sell their services to the highest bidder.
She even stated outright that there were already rumors circulating through various channels that many large financial conglorates within the Human Alliance were willing to pay a high price to recruit Players as their personal "Guests."
And that wasn’t all. The Player also went on to elaborate on the selfishness of human nature, even bluntly asking if people understood the aning of the saying, "Are kings and nobles destined by birth?" in this era of great change.
After reading the last part of the post, Lince could only think, ’Damn.’
’This person was one step away from outright declaring they wanted to start a rebellion!’
Lince made no comnt on this. ’I’ll just be my own model, law-abiding citizen,’ he thought. ’I’m not getting involved in this ss.’
And so, Lince continued to read through the other Players’ discussions on the forum.
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