Su Shu had come purely for the money, so as soon as she heard there was money involved, she immediately turned around: “How much money?”
The Village Chief chuckled: “1 copper each.”
There were three types of currency materials in *Dream of the Martial World*: gold, silver, and copper. The exchange rate was 100 coppers to 1 silver, and 10 silver to 1 gold.
300 gophers meant 3 silver.
Su Shu said: “10 copper each.”
Village Chief: “2 copper! If you won’t do it, forget it!”
Su Shu: “9 copper.”
Village Chief: “5 copper! No more than that!”
Su Shu: “8 copper.”
Village Chief: “6 copper! I’ll go find someone else!”
Su Shu: “7 copper.”
Village Chief: “…”
Village Chief: “Deal!”
Carrying the wooden stick and the rope, Su Shu ambled leisurely toward the wheat field in the northwest corner of the village, while cursing continually echoed behind her from the Village Chief—
“Young people nowadays, why aren’t they willing to take even a tiny loss?!”
Identifying directions was no difficult task for Su Shu. She glanced at the position of the sun and walked toward the northwest corner.
In fact, the game provided direction guidance for novices, but Su Shu felt that since she treated this game as a money-making job, identifying directions was a basic skill she still needed to master.
Su Shu was not the only newcomer who had accepted the gopher whacking quest. By the time she reached the wheat field, there were already many people wandering around randomly inside it.
It was just that Su Shu, like the other newcomers, searched in the wheat field for a long time without spotting any sign of a gopher.
Su Shu stuffed the tools given by the Village Chief into her backpack and opened the forum on the quest panel.
The novice guide mentioned that if players were in a quest waiting period, they could enter the forum from the character interface to communicate.
Su Shu typed the keyword “gopher whacking” into the forum, and instantly more than 113,000 search results popped up.
Su Shu clicked into the feature thread with the most replies—
*Let me tell the novices just how insanely absurd novice village gopher whacking is!*
Su Shu quickly skimmed through it once and summarized three key points: First, the time gophers appeared was consistent with real gophers, occurring at night in game time; second, the agility of the gophers was quite high, making it difficult to catch even one based on a newcomer’s initial attributes, so catching rats basically relied on pouncing; third, the number of gophers requested by the Village Chief was not a fixed amount, but assigned based on face value. Fourth, the quest rewards were determined by the length of time the player took to complete it.
In other words, the better a player’s face looked, the fewer gophers they got, the shorter the time to complete the commission, and the better the character rewards.
For instance, the number one beauty in the entire server directly passed this commission just by relying on her face, and even obtained an orange weapon in the novice village.
Meanwhile, the person with the highest number of gophers replying in the thread had two hundred and thirty, which took a week to catch. Because it took too long, the Village Chief was dissatisfied when the quest was completed, and even assigned the player to repair the village granary as extra work.
Su Shu, who bore a commission of three hundred gophers: “…” Fuck!
She closed the thread and, while there was still time, clicked open the Novice Q&A in the forum to read—
This game was full of traps right from registration, so she needed to look at the experience of predecessors to avoid landmines properly.
When Su Shu finished browsing the popular threads and returned to the game, even though time passed much faster in the game than in reality, there was still some time before nightfall when the gophers appeared.
Su Shu opened her character panel to check her character attributes.
Name: Huai Shuo
Level: 1
Class: Unclassed
Intelligence: 7 Magic Attack: 21 Magic Defense: 18
Strength: 7 Physical Attack: 21 Physical Defense: 18
Energy: 5 Max Mana: 100
Constitution: 8 Max Health: 240
Agility: 4 Magic Evasion: 12 Physical Evasion: 12
Good and Evil Value: 0
Luck: -10
Su Shu: “…”
She reasonably suspected that this negative luck value was based on her face.
As night fell, the gophers in the wheat field finally woke up and began moving.
All at once, the entire wheat field was bustling with people, and sounds of “Ouch” and “Oh my” rose and fell continuously—
There was no other reason than that everyone was a newcomer without skills; catching gophers could only rely on pouncing, couldn’t it?
Furthermore, new players kept pouring in, throwing themselves forward one after another to pounce around.
However, it was a novice quest after all. Although the gophers’ evasion movements were fast, their spawn rate was also very fast, so if players used their whole bodies to pounce, they could always pin down a few unlucky ones after several attempts.
Su Shu looked at the 300 gophers on her quest commission, then lowered her head to look at her own chest, feeling that if she went to pounce, her chest would probably be pounced flat by the time she finished the quest.
Beside Su Shu, a girl who originally thought pouncing was not graceful enough, resolutely joined the pouncing army after attempting to spear them with a tree branch a few times to no avail.
After pouncing a few times, her harvest was presumably quite bountiful. Looking at Su Shu squatting nearby, her gaze was filled with sympathy.
The pitied Su Shu was holding the oil lamp provided by the system, squatting motionless on the spot, secretly observing the movements in the wheat field.
Perhaps the designers had anticipated from the beginning that newcomers catching gophers would cause irreversible damage to the wheat field, so every time the gophers spawned, the damaged wheat field would also slowly regenerate along with them.
Su Shu shook her hand, and lamp oil carrying sparks fell onto the wheat, curling up the golden-yellow wheat leaves with the heat.
Su Shu stood up with satisfaction.
She poked the tired girl next to her and asked, “I have a way to solve the gophers quickly, do you want to try it with me?”
The exhausted girl looked at her suspiciously: “What way?”
Su Shu said: “A once-and-for-all way.”
The girl’s eyes lit up: “Really?”
Su Shu smiled sweetly: “Really.”
Su Shu’s smile was too gentle, causing a chill to run down the back of the girl’s neck as she hugged her pack tightly: “No way!”
Su Shu: “…”
Perhaps feeling a bit embarrassed about refusing Su Shu, the girl changed the subject: “I have eight left before I can submit the quest, how many do you have left?”
Su Shu looked at her commission log with a progress of zero and said euphemistically: “A bit much.”
The girl had probably also read that gopher-whacking experience thread. Looking at Su Shu’s face, she couldn’t help but sympathize: “I also think you might have a bit much.”
Su Shu: “…”
The girl asked curiously: “Exactly how many?”
Su Shu: “300.”
Girl: “…”
After a long silence, the girl finally spoke up: “Shall we add each other as friends?”
[System Prompt] Qing Qing Liu Se Xin requests to add you as a friend.
Su Shu clicked accept.
[System Prompt] Player Huai Shuo achieved the achievement “Adding a stranger player as a friend”, Achievement Points: 1. Reward obtained: Intelligence +1, Strength +1.
Su Shu opened her control panel and found that her attack and defense had both increased proportionally.
Qing Qing Liu Se Xin said: “Let’s add each other as friends, and when you complete the commission, let me know.”
Su Shu was a bit surprised that a girl met by chance cared so much about her: “Okay.”
Qing Qing Liu Se Xin continued: “The forum said the last unlucky person who exceeded the time limit for too long washed all the pigsties in the whole village. I think you will definitely be even more miserable than him.”
Su Shu: “…”
Qing Qing Liu Se Xin: “Let’s add each other as friends, and remember to tell me what the punishment for overtime completion is, okay~”
Su Shu: “…”
Su Shu turned around and walked away.
Qing Qing Liu Se Xin was still shouting behind her: “Be sure to remember!”
Su Shu: “…”
Because there were many players, the wheat field in the Novice Village was very large. Su Shu walked toward the northwest corner for about seven or eight minutes, and when she reached the wheat field near the boundary forest of the Novice Village, there was basically no one left.
However, the number and frequency of gophers appearing were not much different from the wheat field in front.
This place was close to the forest, and there were thick fallen leaves by the road. Carrying the oil lamp, Su Shu stepped onto them, making crunching sounds.
Combined with the rustling made by unknown animals in the woods, it sounded somewhat creepy in the quiet night.
And Su Shu, amid these scary sound effects, curled her lips into a smile—
The backpack provided by the system could hold anything. Su Shu squatted down and swiftly stowed dry leaves from the roadside into her pack, then transported them next to the wheat field downwind—
She repeated this cycle several times until three tenths of an acre at the edge of the wheat field was covered with thick dry leaves, at which point Su Shu finally stopped.
She caught her breath and pulled up the scarecrow used to drive away birds in the field with one hand.
Holographic games were indeed realistic; even the scarecrow was tied together with waterproof oilcloth.
Su Shu blinked, using the lamp oil to light the scarecrow on fire—
Then, using the scarecrow as tinder, she lit the piles of dry leaves one by one—
The wind in the open wheat field was somewhat strong. The burning piles of dry leaves sent the fire spreading along the direction of the wind, igniting the wheat field in just a short moment—
While the wheat field was burning, those gophers, rushing forward one after another into the back, did not know how to seek advantage and avoid harm like real gophers. Instead, they continued to leap outward without noticing anything—
In an instant, they were roasted into dead gophers by the tongues of fire.
Taking advantage of the opportunity, Su Shu used the tree branches she had gathered while picking up fallen leaves to string them together.
Riding the wind, the speed at which the wheat field was burned clean was much faster than Su Shu had anticipated.
Without the cover of the wheat field, in Su Shu’s eyes, the movements of even those living gophers were not fast—
So, taking advantage of the window where the wheat field was burned clean and had not yet had time to regrow, Su Shu speared the little fellows one by one and strung them all up—
When the 300 gopher commission was completed, the wheat field ruined by Su Shu didn’t even have a single sprout popping up.
The Village Chief had said these gophers could be sold for money. Su Shu separately strung the 300 gophers together using the rope given by the Village Chief. When all 300 were stuffed into her pack, seeing that there were still empty slots in her pack, she began stringing more until the pack could fit no more. Only then did Su Shu let out a long breath, turn around, and walk toward the Village Chief’s house.
—The gophers roasted by the fire emitted a faint aroma, making Su Shu feel a bit regretful that she didn’t have seasonings on her.
Su Shu thought to herself, wondering if the general store had seasonings for sale; she should go check when passing by later.
Feeling a bit bored on the road, Su Shu remembered the request from Qing Qing Liu Se Xin earlier and prepared to send her a message.
There were two ways to send messages in the game: one was going to the safe zone to find the courier station and using the free delivery at the courier station, and the other was using a fairy to deliver the message.
Delivering messages via fairy cost money, 5 coppers per time.
Although Su Shu was a poor person, she had automatically picked up quite a few copper coins while stringing gophers earlier, which was enough to send a message. But adhering to the principle of not wasting, she stubbornly walked to the courier station at the village entrance before sending the message to Qing Qing Liu Se Xin.
Then she went to the Village Chief’s house, preparing to submit the quest.
Late at night, the Village Chief was still standing at the entrance of his house, surrounded by players submitting quests.
Fortunately, this kind of main storyline NPC was special; players did not need to queue up and could submit quests directly.
When the Village Chief saw Su Shu, his face lit up with smiles: “Hero, is there any problem with the quest?”
Su Shu raised her eyebrows; this NPC had a good memory, actually remembering her.
Without waiting for Su Shu to answer, the Village Chief continued: “Little girl Huai Shuo… if you change the price of the gophers to 1 copper each, how about I reduce the requirement by 50 for you?”
Su Shu: “…”
So this NPC not only remembered her, but also remembered to bargain with her?
The Village Chief said: “I know it’s not easy for you newcomers, and it’s not easy for me either… How about this, I won’t take advantage of you either. It’ll count as completing the quest with 200 gophers, as long as you give them to me for free!”
Su Shu: “…”
Was this Village Chief’s character setting a skinflint leech?
Su Shu was too lazy to pay attention to him, presenting the 300 strung-up gophers in her pack right before the Village Chief: “300 gophers, not one more, not one less.”
At the same time, the system witnessed her dead gophers, and the commission progress number changed from 0/300 to 300/300.
She could submit the quest directly.
The Village Chief was stunned.
The surrounding players were also stunned.
Although other players could not hear the conversation between Su Shu and the Village Chief, they could see when she pulled things out.
300 gophers made a very long string. Although the manner of death for a portion was not pretty enough, the vast majority were killed in one hit, looking much better than those gophers that were crushed to death and ended up torn into pieces—
Su Shu’s gophers even carried a bit of scorched aroma after being roasted by oil.
Su Shu shook the string of gophers in front of the Village Chief: “300 gophers, do you want to count them?”
The Village Chief gave a forced smile: “No need, no need…”
[System Prompt] Player Huai Shuo completed the commission “Whack Gophers”, obtaining EXP 3000, Copper Coins 3000.
[System Prompt] Player Huai Shuo reached Level 5, Intelligence +8, Strength +8, Energy +8, Constitution +12, Agility +4.
Su Shu only felt her body lighten. Opening her control panel to take a look, sure enough, all her stats had increased.
Intelligence: 15 Magic Attack: 45 Magic Defense: 33
Strength: 20 Physical Attack: 20 Physical Defense: 33
Energy: 16 Max Mana: 320
Constitution: 20 Max Health: 600
Agility: 8 Magic Evasion: 24 Physical Evasion: 24
At the same time, the game broadcasted server-wide—
[Server Announcement] Player Huai Shuo completed the 300 gophers quest within 25 minutes, rewarded with the out-of-print title [Gopher Daddy] and Skill Points * 5.
[System Prompt] Player Huai Shuo obtained the out-of-print title “Gopher Daddy” and Skill Points * 5.
All at once, the whole server was in an uproar—