Trash in the Apocalypse

Chapter 247: Information is Gold

A man wearing floral shirts and everyday shorts were surrounded by people. Celebre Antazo was an info broker. He mainly trades information about profitable missions but also works a side gig about general information. He had a few competitors but thanks to his fast and accurate information, most ballers still choose him.

Most of the agents don't want to waste time searching the mission hologram tv for viable quests, so they pay for his services to search for them ahead of time. His recurring customers formed a habit of giving him a designated difficulty and profit margin before going to the mission desk to accept the job. 

There's not much time in a single day and Celebre's services were welcomed by the top agents. They don't mind the small fee that they were paying him.

After receiving a piece of competent information from Celebre, the agent ran towards the mission desk and accepted the task recommended to him. On the way out, he handed six essence shards to Celebre.

Celebre smiled as he sent his customer away. When the man was no longer in sight, the cultivated smile he had disappeared and turn into a frown. He etched the face of that stingy man into his mind and placed him on the cheapskate's list that he have.

"Essence shard again? Haa... some people started paying with these instead of CP. Forget it, I can still trade these at the marketplace for 10CP each."

Most people still can't find any use for the essence crystals except for absorbing them for XP. It's being used as gifts for noncombatants or family members that don't like to fight. Of course, these shards were only given to people who have already leveled up to prevent people from generating weak skills.

It's already about nine in the morning and the number of people browsing the mission board was dwindling. Most of the agents either accept quests around six or seven in the morning or around noon. No one would stay around this time since everyone was busy doing their missions.

Celebre went forward and crowded together with the people lining up to use the mission board. Currently, there were five 55" LED TV's that allows one to browse the various missions available. Thanks to the wide screens, five people from different groups can use one TV at the same time.

Due to the time, there are only three TV's being used. Celebre went and operated one without delay. He's a soloist. A person who doesn't work for a faction or a group. Even pre-apocalypse, he mainly works alone and connects people and businesses together. A freelance lead specialist.

He tapped the widescreen TV with his Black Haven card and the missioned panel opened up. A loading screen appeared showing a list of the available missions.

There were three types of missions commonly found in the selection; one-time missions, repeatable missions, and advertisement missions.

One-time missions were missions that can only be accepted once and would only appear once on the board. It would disappear on the board after they got accepted regardless if it got completed or not. Repeatable missions allow multiple agents to accept the job and submit it as many times as they can. These two missions were mixed together in the mission board and were easily identified by the tags one and infinite before the mission titles.

The last one, the advertisement missions, are missions with much stricter requirements but have higher rewards. These missions were placed at the top of the search results on every page.

In the first place, people who place this kind of mission on the board need to have money or is in a tough spot. People would not play around and waste their money like this since there are a lot of things worth spending money on.

As the search results loaded in, he instantly saw a new mission on the advertisement section of the results page. The mission was titled "The Collector's Gold." He quickly opened the mission and examined its details.

Even though he was focused, he was still able to hear the chattering around him.

"Oh, we can sell those useless golds? I have a few here and they're rotting at a corner in my inventory."

"Yeah, this guy must be addicted to this gold. He's buying them at double the market value! Since its a useless gold priced at 10CP each, it suddenly became 20CP! This is easy money! He's buying until all of his deposits last. What a rich guy! This person must be powerful to earn so much money. If I were just at least a bit accomplished like him... Hey guys, why are you running?"

Celebre finished reading the mission description but didn't move from his spot. Those people who ran first before thinking were probably already profiting from this. Unfortunately for him, he's someone who leveled up through consuming essence shards. He had no experience in fighting and isn't planning to do so. That's the only reason why he would leave like this while earning scraps instead of hundreds or thousands of CP a day.

The people were already adapting to this world. Even the changes to the environment and the way they lived had changed. Most people already have a grasp of what items are important and what items are useless. If an item can help you survive or can make you stronger, it is deemed as important and has a high tag price in the market. If the item is common and can be found anywhere, it would, of course, have a low price.

Besides decorations, no one has found any uses for the gold that they looted from the dungeon mobs. It was natural that it was priced lower than a full set of bones from a regular carrier priced around 30-50CP.

While feeling unfortunate for losing out on such a good venture, he heard the delightful exclamations of those people who earned quick money and became more dejected. He also heard that the mission seems to have a large deposit since it wasn't closed even after more than fifty gold were traded-in.

A glint of inspiration appeared in his eyes. Celebre accepted the mission via tapping the mission title with his Black Haven card. He then wasted no time and ran out of the compound. He searched for an empty space in the center of the town plaza then started shouting, "Buying Ophir's Gold 12CP per piece! 13CP if you sell in bulk!"

Celebre shouted repeatedly. He ignored the dozens of eyes staring at him in confusion. It was time for hunting and the plaza only had small stalls at this time of the day.

After shouting several times, a curious person approached him. Celebre smiled upon seeing the other person. It was one of his patrons who regularly purchase his services.

"This is new? What's going on?" the man said.

"Good morning brother Tiu. I happened to chance on a rare mission and it doesn't need any fighting, so I accepted it," he replied animatedly, then added. "A collector was buying Ophir's gold at a higher rate than the market price. I just took it upon myself to save him the trouble by becoming his little servant."

Brother Tiu smiled. "So you're basically running an errand? Hahaha, let this brother help you. Here, I gathered 12 pieces. Just buy them at the market price, no need to calculate prices with me."

Celebre bowed gratefully. "Thank you Brother Tiu, I'll reserve the most profitable mission for you the next time you see me."

He then paid 120CP for the 12 Ophir's gold and bade farewell with Brother Tiu. Afterward, he continued shouting wanting to attract as many people as he can.

Most of the people that survive until now weren't idiots. At first, they thought that Celebre was up to something and just watched him. However, after learning that the man just got lucky and accepted a rare mission, the surrounding people loosened up.

More and more people gathered around him and traded their "useless" gold with him. He runs out of CP after buying 69 Ophir's gold. He poured all of his money into this and it better be worth it. He barely had 1000CP in his account card since the daily expenses were getting more expensive. Food has risen from 10-20CP to 50-100CP. And those things were even sold in portions!

"I'm sorry everyone, I'm already out of CP. If you guys are still interested, I'll try to talk with the collector and ask if he needs more. Please wait here for me, okay?"

After Celebre apologized to the crowd, he hurriedly ran towards the mission desk to submit the gold. The female receptionist smiled at him and took his card to transfer the mission reward.

"Thank you!" Celebre uttered in rough breaths. If his calculations were right, he earned around 500CP in just a few minutes. Without wasting any time, he ran towards the widescreen TV's to accept the mission.

He became elated after seeing that the mission was still there. He accepted the collector's mission and ran out to share the happy news to everyone waiting for him.

He successfully completed the mission before the people get suspicious of what was happening. The next time he went out, the people already learned about the advertisement mission and refused to sell to him. Left with no choice, he camped around the teleport portal and bought Ophir's gold from unsuspecting survivors who haven't heard of the news.

When competitors entered the scene and the price of each gold rose to 15CP each, he stopped buying them. He was not sure until when the mission would last and he can't risk losing all his earnings.

In less than an hour, he managed to earn 2000CP. He couldn't believe the money registered in the hologram of his card.

"Could it be... Am I born to be a merchant?" Celebre thought.