Chapter 86 A Crazy Temptation
My brother always says that the laws and morals of various countries are just for those in power to control those below and make them obey. Those below who disobey should be punished as a matter of course, while those in power have plenty of ways to circumvent these so-called laws and regulations and act recklessly.
If you foolishly follow the rules, you will always remain at the bottom, trampled on by everyone. Only by daring to resist the constraints of these rules and climbing up by any means necessary can you break free from the disadvantage of being born into a disadvantaged position and turn your life around... and other such fallacies.
Furthermore, he himself doesn't care at all how terrifying and cruel his behavior is to most people who live by the rules, and he has no empathy for hurting others for his own benefit.
But it was precisely these 'twisted ideas' that ensured that, apart from his relatively poor living conditions when he was young, his living conditions improved as his older brother grew up, and he did not end up on the streets or experience a life of poverty, hardship, and despair.
Even if life isn't always smooth sailing, I haven't experienced anything truly despairing. At most, I've encountered some embarrassing and shameful experiences that I wish I could erase from my memory.
Until his brother went missing, the world was ravaged by gene-based drugs, frequent wars, and the widespread adoption of AI. Everywhere there were self-driving cars, unmanned vending machines, and other intelligent and automated technologies that could accomplish anything, taking away the jobs of many ordinary people...
In short, it can be said that as long as you upgrade your car to one star, unless you come from a middle-class or higher family, many people's living space in reality is not even as good as it is in this game.
In addition to the daily dungeons and roadside treasure chests, aside from the fact that meat and vegetables depend on the luck of the dungeons, there are enough other living supplies and fuel for the game vehicles. As long as the body has enough nutrition, meat and vegetables are not a necessity that needs to be eaten every day...
Therefore, in addition to the vehicle upgrades introduced by the game organizers, survivors can obtain better treatment than in reality by leveling up their stars, except for those survivors who were captured due to their good family background and the feeling of loneliness.
Many people might actually prefer the in-game experience, right? Why do the game organizers treat survivors so well? Do viewers watching the live stream enjoy seeing this?
Various doubts arose in her mind, but she couldn't tell Hagiwara and the others directly. Thinking about these things, Kazesei Mori simply used another reason to express her concerns: "I previously thought it was about upgrading the level of the game vehicle."
This will increase the interior space of the car. The game blueprints also show various first-level expansion functions. After that, there will definitely be second-level, third-level, etc., until the highest level of the car is reached.
Why can star upgrades also expand the interior space? And if each star upgrade doubles the space in each area of the car like this one, what happens when we collect level 2 or even higher expansion blueprints?
With the expansion from star upgrades and car upgrades combined, the space inside this car might be ridiculously large. Aren't the game organizers known for being stingy and making the most of resources? How can they be treating survivors so well?
.
"Before that, take a look at the new game announcements. Since you got in the car, new game announcements have appeared in your side view. Perhaps the game announcements have explanations and answers about this." Hagiwara already understood what the so-called star upgrades meant by improving the vehicle's basic performance.
The game developer's attitude was simple and clear, but...
It's because of Feng Jiang's special ability that this kind of 'playstyle', which should have appeared later, has been discovered now, making it seem so out of place.
For example, the game developers only announced the vehicle upgrade rules and updated the racing rules after the vehicle "Wind Sauce" was upgraded to level 5, giving survivors the opportunity to hurt, plunder, or even kill each other and acquire each other's vehicles to upgrade their star rating.
Therefore, the area of the expansion space of a Tier 5 vehicle must be quite large. If the interior space is doubled in this case, even without increasing the vehicle's weight, just the area after doubling the expansion space of these folded interior spaces nine times...
It's estimated that it could be as big as a large farm, and if the expansion space after each vehicle upgrade is large, the area gained after star upgrades might be even larger.
However, since it's just a car in a game, as long as ordinary people with moral conscience meet general standards and know that the game will end one day and that no matter how high the vehicle is upgraded, it cannot be brought back to reality, they would not do anything antisocial or inhumane because of it.
Unless the game organizers are unusually 'generous' and allow survivors to return to reality with their own vehicles after the game ends, having a vehicle that occupies only one parking space in reality but has a large interior expansion space is enough to drive many people crazy.
Especially in a relatively impoverished country like the one I came from, where ordinary people can only live in tiny apartments barely larger than pigeon coops, if they heard about such a 'good thing,' many people would probably go crazy and be capable of doing the most cruel things.
Just as Hagiwara was thinking about these things, Kazesei-no-Mori opened the game announcement section and started checking the latest game announcements.
What Hagiwara could think of, Matsuda could think of as well, so he wanted to see if there was any such content in the game announcement. However, when he stood behind Kazesei-no-Mori and saw the announcement, his face immediately darkened.
[Announcement: Congratulations to Wind Star Guardian for becoming the first survivor in this region to upgrade their vehicle rank, and for receiving a Silver Treasure Chest '1']
[Announcement: Congratulations to Wind Star Guardian for becoming the first survivor in this region to upgrade their vehicle, and for receiving a Gold Chest '1' as a reward]
[Tip: Upgrading a vehicle unlocks the ability to summon it to the real world. Survivors can summon their upgraded vehicles to the real world to regroup and use them. The vehicles will automatically be legalized in the real world according to the laws of each country. When the survivor returns to the game, the vehicles will automatically return to the game.]
[Note: A 1-star vehicle can be summoned to the real world once, a 2-star vehicle twice, a 3-star vehicle three times, and so on, until upgraded to a 9-star vehicle, which can then be summoned to the real world an unlimited number of times. After the game ends, you can permanently own the vehicle and bring it back to the real world for use.]
"Hmph! As expected, the game developers have gone to great lengths to entice people to go crazy in order to encourage them to upgrade their vehicles by any means necessary!" Matsuda's voice was clearly very angry and full of sarcasm.
“After all, aside from the small number of people in the upper class, only a few can resist the temptation of having a vast space of their own. With a vast space of their own, people can do many more things.” Hagiwara said, looking at Kaze-chan.
Thinking of the occasional uncertainty she expressed about her future during our conversation, and the fact that 2025 would be anything but friendly to ordinary people, I added, "Besides, according to what Feng Jiang said..."
In the next 25 years, most people will experience greater life pressure.
Large-scale unemployment, difficulty in finding employment, massive layoffs, and widespread replacement of workers in all industries, except for civil servants, by various unmanned technologies.
In this situation, if one has a space that belongs solely to oneself, requiring only the area of a parking space, and can collect more water and soil to return to farming, one can at least ensure a comfortable life.
.
"If the area is large enough, or if the game expands the interior space later on by adding planting or breeding areas, how many people could refuse?" Matsuda thought of the laundry room and other spaces that could be expanded inside the car when he heard Hagi say this, and thought that this possibility was not small.
Feng Xingshou watched as the two of them quickly deduced the various tropes of road trip game novels, which would gradually become popular in the next 20 years, even though he wasn't sure if the game itself would follow the same formula.
She still interjected, "In recent years, the road trip games popular in Western countries and the road trip novels popular in my country do indeed have similar gameplay, which will reward players with small rewards such as planting pots and breeding boxes in the early stages."
Then, as you level up, these small rewards gradually transform into large planting pots... and so on, until they upgrade to various levels of plantations and farms. It's uncertain whether the game will actually work this way, but if it does, people will definitely find it hard to resist the temptation.
"It's become popular in recent years?" This was the first time Hagiwara had heard Kaze mention this, and some doubts arose in his mind: "When did it start? Do you know why it became popular?"
"Hmm! I don't remember the exact year, but I heard other readers explain it to me when I was reading the novel. They said that a couple of years ago, a creator uploaded a road driving upgrade game to one of the largest public gaming websites in the United States."
The website allowed people to download the game for free. Its simple and easy-to-play settings, generous rewards, fast vehicle upgrades, and interesting storyline quickly attracted a group of players.
Later, the game spread to my country and became quite popular, which inspired many writers to write novels similar to the game. I remember that when readers were introducing the game to the public, it was a year after the side effects of Silver Bullet were exposed.
That is, 20 years. The first two years she wrote can be an exact year and month or a vague number of years in Chinese, so it is difficult to determine the specific year. It could be 2018.
"It could also be some year within 10 years from 20 years ago. By the way, what happened to this?" After finishing his answer, Kazesei-no-Kami remembered to ask Hagiwara why he asked that.
Hagiwara didn't try to hide anything and answered directly, "It's just that it seems too coincidental that such an obscure game could be made into a game, that related novels were popular, and that such a game actually appeared this year."
“Maybe it’s not a coincidence!” Matsuda remained skeptical: “A small game suddenly becomes popular in countries all over the world, and a similar game really appears a few years later. The idea that it’s a coincidence is something that even a child wouldn’t believe.”
"So you think the game's organizers might have already arrived on our planet when they were promoting the game?" Feng Xingshou was startled by their words: "Then they only started running the game this year."
They must have gathered comprehensive data on our planet and are certain that we are technologically superior to theirs, which is why they dare to so recklessly capture people to be their 'players,' right?"
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com