Chapter 71: Crino Prairie 15
At noon, Moira Lynch finally saw the familiar gray gate again.
Pushing the gate open and walking in, she found the environment inside was completely different from the outside. Small, shallow puddles were everywhere, and looking up, she saw lush, green trees all around.
"Patience, what are these trees?"
[Cloud Mulberry Tree. Slightly bitter in taste and inedible, but it is the favorite food of the Cloud-Mulberry Silk Beastman.]
Moira Lynch clutched her heart in excitement upon hearing this. Cloud Mulberry Trees, Cloud-Mulberry Silk Beastmen.
’Is my luck really this good?’
She had just been saying that she wanted a four-piece bedding set made by the Cloud-Mulberry Silk Beastmen.
She walked deeper inside. The Cloud Mulberry Trees she saw along the way were all exceptionally well-cared-for. Every leaf was large, vibrant, and so clean it looked as if it had been meticulously wiped down.
After passing through the grove of Cloud Mulberry Trees, she finally saw rows of neatly built houses.
Moira Lynch looked around but saw no sign of other players or Beastkin.
’Are they all inside their houses?’
With this thought, Moira Lynch couldn’t help but quicken her pace. As she walked, she suddenly heard an extremely loud noise.
It was somewhat sharp and grating; listening to it for too long made her head ache and her ears ring.
Moira Lynch covered her ears, wondering, ’Isn’t this the territory of the Cloud-Mulberry Silk Beastmen? Even if you want to repel invaders, you’d install this kind of sonic weapon outside. What’s the point of putting it inside their own home?’
As she approached one of the buildings, she found a huge plaza inside. The scene before her made Moira Lynch’s eyes widen in disbelief.
On the massive plaza stood many square, shelf-like grid structures.
Each compartment was large enough to easily accommodate a grown adult.
Moira Lynch looked up. The grids were stacked together, reaching a height of about twenty stories.
Of course, that wasn’t the most important part. The most important part was that each compartment held a white cocoon, and the sharp, grating noises she had heard earlier were coming from them.
Below these racks, players with tanks strapped to their backs were bustling about, holding shower head-like devices and continuously spraying different liquids onto the white cocoons.
When the liquids hit the white cocoons, their original white color would change, and the sounds emanating from within would also diminish.
’This is...’
’Don’t tell me the Cloud-Mulberry Silk Beastmen are inside these cocoons.’
A storm of shock crashed through Moira Lynch’s mind, but her face remained impassive. She tried her best to stay calm, scanning her surroundings for any sign of the Cloud-Mulberry Silk Beastmen.
Just then, the sound of flapping wings came from above her.
Looking up, she saw a tiny creature about twenty centimeters tall flying toward her. It had big eyes, a small mouth, two antennae on its head, and two pairs of transparent wings on its back.
Seeing this, Moira Lynch was just about to introduce herself and list her skills and accomplishments. After all, she really didn’t want to end up stuck here like the other players, enduring a baptism of ear-splitting noise.
They all had dazed expressions, as if they had lost their hearing, their hands numbly repeating the same motions.
The mere thought was horrifying.
She did not want to become like that.
However, before she could speak, the tiny person in front of her interrupted.
"You’re the one Ms. Panther introduced, right? I know about you. By the way, what took you so long? We’ve been waiting for you for a while."
The tiny person’s mouth turned up in a slight pout, as if complaining, "We have a bit of a backlog here. But Ms. Panther said you have a strong work ability, comparable to an S-rank Recycler."
Moira Lynch followed the tiny person. Hearing her say there was a lot of stuff piled up, her happiness was plain to see. The more, the better! She wasn’t afraid of having too much, only too little.
"Even a lot is no problem. You yourself said I have a strong work ability. I’m not afraid of any amount of stuff," Moira Lynch said with full confidence.
"Really? That’s great! We’ve hired Recyclers a few times before, but they were either too inefficient or charged too much. We hope you don’t disappoint us."
When the other players saw Moira Lynch arrive, they thought another sucker had shown up and felt a secret sense of glee.
But as it turned out, this person didn’t come over to work with them. Instead, she was led away by a tiny little Beastkin.
Moreover, the tiny Beastkin’s attitude toward her seemed quite good—at least not as fierce as how they were treated.
’This is so unfair!’
’These Beastkin actually play favorites! We’re all human, so why is there such a huge difference in treatment!’
If Moira Lynch were here, she would have told them that mastering a foreign language is very important.
The crowd watched Moira Lynch leave, and no matter how resentful they felt, there was nothing they could do. After all, they had struggled so hard to get this far and couldn’t let all their previous efforts go to waste.
Meanwhile, Moira Lynch followed the tiny person, twisting and turning until they arrived in front of a warehouse.
"You can go in. I’ll wait for you out here."
"Can I ask what’s inside?" Moira Lynch asked curiously.
The tiny person tilted her head. "What else could it be? Defective products from our production line, of course, and some slow-moving items that didn’t sell well."
Walking into the warehouse, Moira Lynch found that the environment inside was much worse than before.
It wasn’t that it was dirty, but that everything was placed in a complete mess.
At the other Beastkin locations she’d visited, the unwanted items were at least stacked neatly. It wasn’t like this. There wasn’t much dust, but with one pile here and another there, the organizing principle was clearly ’do whatever you want’.
"Is this cardboard?"
Moira Lynch casually picked up something nearby. It was a thin sheet, light and airy in her hand, not much heavier than a mattress of a similar size.
[Ultra-thin Mattress. As thin as paper, but lying on it causes no discomfort. Once all the rage across the galaxy, now outdated.]
’This should be pretty useful for surviving in the wild. I’ll take it.’
Besides that, the warehouse was indeed filled with all sorts of defective products.
But even if they were genuinely defective, they were still good in Moira Lynch’s eyes. After all, it was all free. What more could she ask for?
Besides, the flaws in these so-called "defective" products were either misprinted patterns or incorrect dye jobs. In short, they didn’t affect their usability at all.
In fact, Moira Lynch found quite a few treasures among these items. For example, there was waterproof and fireproof fabric that had also once been all the rage across the galaxy, but became obsolete after better products appeared.
There were also bottles of spray in various colors.
At first, she thought it was leftover spray paint from a renovation project, but after reading the instructions, she realized the sprays were used to change the color of clothes.
Tired of your clothes’ color? Just give it a quick spritz with the spray, change the color, and your old clothes instantly become new.