Trash in the Apocalypse

Chapter 267: Auction House Plugin

The next morning, everyone who entered the new marketplace became surprised.

A new announcement was posted at the information desk which introduces the Auction House Plugin.

In the past few days, something new was happening almost every day and those changes were making everyone's lives easier.

The newly built building was officially named as the Black Haven Guild Hall. It still retains its former functions of acting as a privately owned marketplace that sells all kinds of unique goods.

The second floor that used to be empty became designated as the place where the Auction House and other future facilities would be placed. The first and third floors still remained as the marketplace and the crafting area, but the staff that uses the second floor as their sleeping quarters had to move away.

Thankfully, they have no problems with the changes and accepted appreciation gifts from Bernard. Considering that you can claim any house to your liking, moving away also doesn't really feel that bad.

The information desk became crowded with the onrushing people wanting to get into the middle of things.

Since its early in the morning, people habitually go and search for new profitable quests on the mission panel. This caused an influx of people when the news of the auction house was released.

The customer representative at the information desk explained.

"Yes, you need a named account card to get the plugin. The plugin would be embedded to the chip on the account card and you could access the online Auction House just like how you check your balance. There are two price levels, the free version, and the premium version. The plugin costs 100CP monthly for the premium version.

"The only difference between the two was the display delay when someone placed an item for sale and the ability to hide their name. Free users could only see the item once the Auction House received the item for sale, while premium users could see those items the moment they were registered."

"Then give me the premium. I might as well try it even if it's just a month."

"Okay, please hand over your account card." The man handed his card and she inserted it into the pre-programmed card machine.

Beside the receptionist were two card machines with differing functions. There's one for basic information edit and input, another for citizenship status, and the newly built Plugin Installer. Next to those machines were piles of heavy-duty powerbanks that had Evo's energy stored.

Evo spared some time to solved the issue in regards to the required energy for information editing, and power banks were the best option he could think of. The item already functions with charging and transferring energy, and the work he needed to do became more straightforward. He edited the item and added the energy conversion code as usual.

Berry and Cherry continued working hard at their work. Ever since they started working as a receptionist for Black Haven, they received fewer harassments from the other gender. The two were beautiful twins and both were nineteen years old.

Berry had a long black hair that reaches up to her waist, while Cherry also had a black one, but only reached up to her shoulders. The two were the main attraction for the information desk and the cause for idlers to pester them to chat with them.

They lived at the uptown district of Cardona and locked themselves on their villa. When the town was cleared by Elites and small groups of scavengers, they decided to relocate to Binangonan.

Since they were newcomers, they know no one and had no money to buy food. They weren't even courageous nor powerful enough to hunt carriers. They joined numerous small factions and would always be predated by survivors with evil intentions. 

Men regularly approached them in hopes of spending a night with them. They even got used to people giving them weird looks from time to time.

Nowhere was safe, not the National Police, nor the Frontier.

Not until they bumped into a smiling old man who quickly grabbed their hands and pleaded as if he met the most beautiful pair of flowers in this muddy place.

"My name is Bernard, Black Haven's HR Manager. You two are perfect for the job I have in mind. Would you like to work for Black Haven? "

The twin sisters' initial reaction was to decline the weird old man upon hearing the mention of the strongest faction in town.

He must be scamming them right? Black Haven only accepts strong people!

Fortunately, they grabbed to that small glimmer of possibility that the old man wouldn't sell them to become playthings of rich men. Which brought them to their stable and peaceful job.

Time passed and most of the people had already installed the auction house plugin. The auction house plugin was still in its trial phase and changes could be made depending on the situation.

The auction house plugin was a stock program copied from MMO games on the internet. It had several tabs consisting of food, ores, tools, armor, weapons, mob-drops, service, and miscellaneous.

It is also directly connected to the information available on the card and would provide the name when bidding. You could also not bid on an item if you don't have enough balance on your card. After a successful bid, the credit would be frozen, for security reasons.

Currently, everyone was fascinated to scour the auction house for useful and cheap items. Most of the items displayed on the auction house were Tier 1 Weapons with several Tier 2 Weapons available.

There are also five energy fruits that were laid out on the miscellaneous section, together with a bunch of energy stones and varying essence stones. All of the miscellaneous item only had three hours of waiting time and were priced at 1,000CP as their base price.

This was Evo's move to satisfy and make the people on the auction house, He wants it to be known as the best place when chancing upon treasured goods.

Paolo Canlas closed the Auction House hologram, then started slowly tapping his desk He turned to his secretary and asked: "How much CP do we have?"

"The last time I checked, it was around 15,000CP."

"Why is it so low?" Paolo asked in puzzlement. They have been the most active in reclaiming the towns and had a large group of scavenger working for them. Even if they weren't extremely rich, they should at least have more than 50,000CP!

"We are rationing food to our people, so we don't need to pay them wages. However, they still keep 50% of what they loot for themselves while only 50% goes to us. Most of our expenses came from food and arming the people. The refined swords that Black Haven sells were at least triple the price for bone swords. We can't afford to arm everyone with the iron sword, so we're still using the brittle swords for the grunts." the secretary explained.

Paolo Canlas slumped back to his chair with a troubled expression and sighed deeply. He continued tapping the table, then muttered, "It's impossible now. We can't take back the town considering where things are headed. The people are getting used to this new world and Black Haven keeps getting stronger." he formed a fist with his hand, then smashed the table. "Why is the government not sending help here, goddamnit! Don't they know that they need to regain the people's trust?!"

Upon hearing the anger in Paolo's voice, the secretary sneakily took a step backward and made his presence smaller.

Binangonan suddenly became frenzied with the appearance of the auction house. Small factions who only ever got their hands on T1 Weapons decided to bid on them. The Frontier and the National Police weren't interested in the weapons but rather paid special attention to the miscellaneous items on display. 

Together with the demand and influx of courageous survivors who are willing to travel the lands and fight carriers, the price of weapons steadily increased and hovered around 300CP to 500CP. The base price was made from bones while the ceiling price was crafted with a mix of iron, which was sturdier and stronger.

The energy stones and essence stones on the other hand were currently priceless.

Outsiders could only obtain energy stones from two ways, can be bought by the top bidder from the marketplace, and as a reward for the top agent for the day. Their scarcity labeled them as the most sought after item that could permanently increase energy.

The people recognized that this is one of those days that Black Haven had a surplus of the energy fruit and was willing to sell them. Although many people wanted to join the bidding war, two names popped up and exchanged positions as the bidders. The National Police's procurement officer, Andok, and the Frontier's Quartermaster, Crisanto.

The prices kept increasing and each one of the energy fruits was being bid at 2,000CP. Normally, the lucky top agent who receives the reward energy fruit would sell the item for 1,500CP.

The previous and past top agents felt frustrated watching the fruit's price climb higher.