Chapter 109: Our Price Is Unbelievable

This group moved like an arrow, forcibly tearing a path through the zombie horde as they advanced toward Dave’s house. Fortunately, there was no sniper attack from the Dreamers. They reached their destination after a little more than ten minutes. Along that short stretch of just over two hundred meters, Wang Ling and the Dark Fighters had killed at least two hundred zombies—practically one with every step. The density of the horde was astonishing.

After entering Dave’s house, three Dark Fighters remained at the door to hold back the zombies trying to surge inside, while everyone else immediately ran toward the garage. When Dave produced a key and opened the trunk of the car, the objects inside were revealed to everyone.

Wang Ling and Caslow both drew in a startled breath. The trunk was filled with all sorts of things: plant cards, plant seeds, and even miscellaneous items such as a watering can, a pitchfork, gloves, and a record player.

“Welcome to the Item Shop. I’m sure you’ll love these little trinkets... But our prices are unbelievably expensive, so please prepare yourselves mentally,” Dave said enthusiastically.

Caslow reached out to pick up a card, but a curtain of light appeared over the trunk and blocked his hand. Lines of data began displaying themselves across the screen, listing the prices and descriptions of the various items.

“Damn!”

Wang Ling was delighted at first when he saw the information on the screen. At the very top were three miniature-scene cards: the Zen Garden, the Mushroom Garden, and the Aquarium. Beneath them was a card for the Tree of Wisdom. But almost immediately, he felt an urge to beat Dave senseless—an urge he had also experienced when playing the original game.

The reason was simple: the prices of these items were indeed unbelievably expensive!

The Zen Garden cost a full one hundred thousand reward points! The Mushroom Garden and the Aquarium each cost thirty thousand, while the Tree of Wisdom required ten thousand reward points!

During the journey of a little over ten minutes, Wang Ling and his four summoned characters had killed more than two hundred zombies, earning a total of 352 reward points. At that rate, spending an hour slaughtering zombies during a horde attack should yield around 1,500 reward points.

By that calculation, it would take twenty hours to afford the Mushroom Garden and the Aquarium. Purchasing the Zen Garden would require more than sixty hours of nonstop fighting!

There were still more than three days before the main quest ended, which meant that he did have over sixty hours available. But who could hunt zombies without sleep or rest? Even an iron man would grow exhausted from such intense combat, let alone with the threat posed by the enemy Dreamers looming over them. The Zen Garden’s price was simply an impossible goal.

As for the Zen Garden’s function, it could cultivate plants of any kind. As long as a plant was planted inside it, after each completed main-quest world, the garden would produce a card corresponding to that plant.

In other words, if Wang Ling took the Jalapeno card he possessed, transformed it into a plant, and planted it in the garden, then upon returning from the next mission world, he would harvest a new Jalapeno card! Its sole drawback was that the garden could cultivate only one type of plant at a time and produce only one card... That was presumably the imposed limitation.

The Mushroom Garden and the Aquarium were weakened versions of the Zen Garden. The Mushroom Garden could cultivate only nocturnal plants such as the Puff-shroom, while the Aquarium could cultivate only aquatic plants such as the Sea-shroom.

“It’s far too expensive. There’s no way we can afford it!”

With great difficulty, Wang Ling tore his gaze away from the three miniature-scene cards and looked toward the Tree of Wisdom. The tree cost ten thousand reward points, and its description read: “It knows some of the little secrets of this world.” He wondered whether it functioned as it did in the game, offering hints about certain quests.

“Even ten thousand points would be difficult to obtain. Wait—if we pooled everyone’s reward points together, wouldn’t that give us more...?”

Hearing Wang Ling mutter, Caslow sighed and poured cold water on the idea. “Reward points cannot be traded in any world. That restriction is absolute. After all, the hidden shops in each world contain many excellent items. Dream Space would never allow us to exchange for top-tier equipment so easily.”

Wang Ling continued browsing and soon came across several top-tier plant cards: the Cattail, which could launch spines from its tail; the Winter Melon, which could hurl enormous frozen watermelons; and the ultimate weapon capable of firing corn missiles—the Cob Cannon!

At that moment, Dave scratched the frying pan on top of his head, smacked his lips a few times, and revealed a mouthful of rotten teeth as he emphasized once again, “Our prices are unbelievably expensive!”

Wang Ling’s mouth twitched when he heard this. He had already seen that the Cattail and Winter Melon cards each cost ten thousand reward points, while the Cob Cannon cost an astonishing twenty thousand. They truly were unbelievably expensive! Even the slightly less powerful top-tier plants, such as the Gloom-shroom, Spikerock, and Gatling Pea, cost 7,500, 7,500, and 5,000 points respectively—prices far beyond what anyone could bear.

After browsing for a while longer, Caslow, his eyes bloodshot and blazing with greed, pulled Wang Ling aside and whispered, “Do you think we could get these things if we killed Dave?”

Wang Ling pondered briefly before shaking his head. “Dave appears to be no more than an ordinary person. With a Dreamer’s strength, killing him should be easy... But if killing him allowed us to obtain everything in the trunk, that would make things far too simple. I doubt the powers above would leave such a huge loophole for us to exploit. The most likely outcome is that the hidden shop would close after his death, leaving us unable to purchase any of the items.”

The two of them could only feel helpless, much like ordinary people facing the exorbitant housing prices of the real world...

They returned to the trunk and examined the items displayed on the light screen. Ignoring the terrifyingly expensive goods, they discovered several things that were relatively useful.

Gardening Gloves: price—1,000 reward points. E-rank blue equipment. Glove-type armor. Defense: 1. Possesses one ability: increases the success rate of grappling techniques by five percent. Glove-type armor was rare to begin with, and anything that increased the success rate of grappling techniques was undoubtedly extremely practical. If not for the stated restriction that each person could purchase only one pair, buying a large batch to sell on the free market of Dream Space would certainly earn a considerable number of currency points.

Pitchfork: price—200 reward points. Special item. Can instantly kill any non-Boss, non-Elite zombie while ignoring its defenses. Can be used three times. It can also be used against Bosses, Elite zombies, and Dreamers; defenses are ignored, and ten points of life are forcibly deducted.

There were also low-level seeds for combat plants such as the Peashooter, Puff-shroom, Kernel-pult, Cabbage-pult, Sea-shroom, Spikeweed, Tangle Kelp, and Scaredy-shroom. Their prices ranged from twenty-five to one hundred reward points, which was fairly reasonable.

Among the shop’s wares, Wang Ling also discovered an extremely precious item called the Imitater. It could duplicate any weapon or piece of equipment rated E-rank or D-rank, except for Rainbow Dream equipment. Its price was just as unbelievably high: thirty thousand points.

Wang Ling possessed a little over three hundred reward points. He spent two hundred on a pitchfork and another hundred on a Spikeweed seed, then smiled bitterly at Caslow. “Let’s go back. There’s no point in looking anymore. The reward points we earn from killing zombies aren’t enough to buy the high-level goods. Aside from the Gardening Gloves we’ve already decided on, we might as well spend them on plant seeds to help with the defense.”

“Oh, right. Dave, what if the car is left here and the zombies destroy it? Why don’t we drive it back to the courtyard of our base?”

“No. This is my car, and it can only stay in my garage!” Dave refused flatly. He then said to Wang Ling, “Don’t worry. My car is very sturdy. No one... no one can force it open or destroy it!”

As he spoke, he locked the trunk. The flesh on Caslow’s face twitched, and he nearly attacked Dave and killed him. However, he was afraid that the hidden shop might close as a result, leaving him worse off than before, so he could only suppress the impulse. Nevertheless, he secretly made up his mind: if they succeeded in completing the main quest this time, he would kill this fellow before leaving on the final day, just to test the theory!

Their return to the house base proceeded much like their journey there. Caslow carried Dave on his back, the three Dark Fighters opened a path ahead, and Wang Ling watched their flank. This time, however, when they had just reached the halfway point, a huge and brutally loud gunshot suddenly rang out.

“Bang!”

Accompanied by the earth-shaking report and the smell of gunpowder drifting from the darkness, a spray of blood exploded from the chest of the Thug Strongman. A terrible wound the size of a fist had been blasted open by the shot. The bullet tore through his heart, burst out through his back, and struck a zombie behind him, blowing it into pieces as well.

The shot possessed such tremendous power that even the Barrett sniper rifle, famed for its devastating force in the real world, would have been hard-pressed to match it!

The Thug Strongman was, after all, a powerful Dark Fighter who had undergone mutation. Even with his chest blown open, he did not die instantly and still retained a trace of vitality. As blood streamed from his chest like a little creek, he let out an enraged roar, seized a zombie beside him, and hurled it toward the direction from which the bullet had come.

The Hippie Fat Man immediately activated his Cannonball attack. He lowered his head and charged forward at full speed, but he was not running toward the enemy hidden in the darkness. He was heading toward the house base.

With the enemy wielding such a powerful firearm in the darkness, fighting outside was clearly unwise.

Yet the deafening gunshot rang out again. A bullet entered the Fat Man’s back from behind. The tremendous impact, combined with the momentum of his forward charge while using Cannonball, caused him to spurt blood from his mouth and pitch forward onto the ground.

A sinister voice drifted through the darkness.

“Since you’ve come out, why rush back? Why not stay and play with me for a while?”

As those chilling words echoed, a man with a centipede-shaped scar across his face stepped out of the darkness...

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