[Director Liu] was a straightforward person. Not long after Su Shisan had exited, he transferred the payment.
Starting from C-rank, hiring an NPC no longer paid a fixed 5–10 Points per hour; instead, the payment was calculated per Copy.
As for the exact price, it depended on the value of the NPC. The price Su Shisan had negotiated at the time was 500 Points.
At first glance, it sounded like a lot, but considering she had stayed in that Copy for a full 11 days, it averaged out to less than 50 Points per day. That was absolutely
a low price.
The reason she agreed to this price, firstly, was because she really wanted to see a B-rank Copy, so naturally she had to lower her price.
In fact, for low-level Builders like her who wanted to cross into higher-level Copies as NPCs, the price was generally not high. Still, not everyone could seize such a learning opportunity.
Secondly, it was because her role didn’t have much screen time. Her main task was to infect all the children under the players’ noses on the first day, so they could then infect their parents.
After that, she was to cooperate with Director Liu’s plan in the last few days for a citywide cleanup.
The only troublesome part in between was self-protection: she couldn’t be discovered by the players too early or attacked by the Blood Cross. Other than that, she had a lot of freedom.
In fact, Su Shisan hadn’t been idle these past few days; she had already come up with a rough idea for her next Copy.
Speaking of her own Copy, Su Shisan thought for a moment, then opened her Homepage for a glance.
“Thirteenth Supermarket” currently had a Victory Rate (death count over half) of 100%, a Death Rate of 97.6%, and an astounding Usage Count of 123.
Even Su Shisan was shocked. No way—her Copy had only been up for half a month, right? How could it have been used over a hundred times? That was nearly ten times a day on average!
Perhaps noticing her confusion, the System proactively explained:
“Because there are a lot of D-rank players, but not that many D-level Copies, the usage frequency of Copies is very high in the early stages. After all, once a Copy is cleared, it can no longer be used.”
Copies like Su Shisan’s, which lasted for a long time and maintained such a high Death Rate, were actually quite rare.
Generally, after about a month, a Copy’s Death Rate would drop to 60%, then it would gradually be phased out. That’s how hard it is to make a Copy with a proper Guide.
What the?!
Su Shisan knew this whole process, so she asked in confusion, “Then why don’t you just stop letting players know the Copy’s name in advance?”
If players didn’t know the Copy’s name ahead of time, they couldn’t search for strategies in advance, and the Death Rate would naturally rise.
“That won’t do. That would make it too easy for Builders to take shortcuts. We allow the Forum and Guide Group to exist precisely to increase the difficulty for Builders.”
The System refused decisively, then began to recount the game’s history:
“Ten years ago, when the Horror Survival Game first appeared, there wasn’t even a Forum.”
“Then some Builders took shortcuts, putting only a particularly difficult Math Problem in the Copy, and almost always managed to wipe out the whole group.”
Su Shisan:
They really narrowed the road. The predecessors did this, and now the successors have to suffer.
A Math Problem—she had to admit, that was creative. But something seemed off. Su Shisan showed a puzzled expression: “If putting a Math Problem can count as a Copy, then couldn’t we do that now too?”
After all, for a Builder to survive, all they needed was to make one Copy per month.
Whether the Copy could maintain its Death Rate was just a matter of how many Points you earned later; it didn’t affect anything else.
If you had enough questions in the pool, you could even make a Math Problem Copy every day or every hour, winning by sheer quantity.
“There’s also a hidden metric for Builders, but you obviously haven’t triggered it, so I never mentioned it.”
Fearing she’d go astray, the System hurriedly explained, “If a Copy is taken off the shelf within ten days, you’ll get a System warning.”
“Three warnings in a row or ten cumulative warnings, and the Builder loses their Identity and becomes an NPC.”
Usually, the System only explained this after someone received a warning. But since Su Shisan asked, there was nothing to hide.
***
Ten days was a pretty lenient threshold. To have a Copy taken down within the first month, the Death Rate had to be at least 30%.
When a Copy was easy, not everyone would buy a strategy. For the Death Rate to drop that fast, it just meant the Copy’s quality was poor.
Once Su Shisan understood, she stopped asking and looked down at her Points. [Director Liu] had given her 1000 Points—directly doubled, probably thanks to experience from [Sparta].
That was almost as much as a non-wipeout D-level Copy could earn, but Su Shisan felt nothing in particular. After accepting the Points, she checked her total.
She now had 9000 Points in the Store, and her first two Copies were still generating income. Especially the second Copy, which had a particularly high listing frequency.
Even if she only earned 120 Points each time, it added up to a considerable sum.
And judging by the current Death Rate, it seemed it could stay on the shelf for quite a while.
Besides Points, [Director Liu] had even given Su Shisan a Copy Level Upgrade Card, which could be used before building a Copy to upgrade it by one rank.
For example, she could currently only build D-rank or lower Copies, but with this card, she could build a C-rank Copy.
It sounded useful, but most Builders considered it a useless card. With their abilities, building a Copy for their own rank was already tough enough; building one for a higher rank was a waste of time.
But [Director Liu] felt Su Shisan was different. With her progress, she might actually need such a card.
After all, if she succeeded in building a higher-level Copy, it would make leveling up as a Builder much easier.
Normally, a D-rank Builder had to create three D-level Copies before they could take the C-rank Builder assessment.
But if she built a C-rank Copy in advance, she’d only need to make one more D-level Copy to qualify for the assessment.
Looking at the upgrade card in her hand, Su Shisan had an idea.
But building a Copy could wait; now was her rest time. Bored, she decided to check the Forum for any interesting Forum Posts.
After all, three players had managed to clear her Copy. Going through each Copy’s replay to see who cleared it would take too long; maybe she’d find their traces in the Forum.
Just as Su Shisan expected, a quick search yielded something useful.
“‘Thirteenth Supermarket’ Clear Strategy”
[NPC is also d No.0: I’ll just say one thing—pretend to be an NPC. I disguised myself as a Red-Clothed Employee, and no one bothered me at all. Hahahahahaha, some innate skills are just that OP, don’t bother being jealous. Invincibility is so~ so lonely~]
@Unlimited Good Novels, only at Jinjiang Literature City
[No.1: There’s really a skill like that? Is this balanced?]
[No.2: I just clicked in all excited, wanted to see who was so amazing as to make a strategy for this hellish Copy. Turns out it’s just a cheater.]
[No.3: This guy is a legend!]
[No.4: ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ]
[No.5: Damn you, Horror Survival Game, can’t you balance things properly? Did you tell your dad that this skill is fair?]
[No.6: With a skill like that, doesn’t the OP clear every time?]
[(……
[NPC is also d No.24 replying to No.6: Not really, but the specifics involve skill secrets, so I won’t say more.]
[No.25: Oh my god, I’m never calling you grandma again, you never treated me like your real granddaughter [crying hard]]
[No.26 replying to NPC is also d No.24:
Don’t explain, explaining is covering up, covering up means it’s true.]
……]
[No.54: I scrolled all the way down and there’s still no other way to clear this damn Copy. Is there really no more reliable method?]
[No.55 replying to No.54: This thread got derailed by the OP right from the start. If you want a strategy, don’t look here, check the proper thread next door, someone already opened a new one.]
[No.56 replying to No.56: OK OK]
Su Shisan didn’t immediately go look at the other thread, but instead asked the System, “Can I know the specifics of the OP’s innate skill?”
If what the OP said was true, and their skill really did have obvious drawbacks, she could tweak the Copy to target that point.
But if they were lying, and the skill let them become an NPC at will, then Su Shisan would have to overhaul all her NPCs.
“No, that’s the player’s privacy,” the System said impartially, then added, “Besides, I don’t know. Other people’s data isn’t in my database.”
Su Shisan wasn’t surprised by this answer, but she deliberately looked a little disappointed, then asked carefully, “Then can I ask if there’s an item in the players’ Store that lets them become an NPC?”
This question was actually a bit out of bounds. Otherwise, Builders wouldn’t be forbidden from viewing the players’ Store at all.
But since the System had already refused her once, refusing again would seem heartless.
Remembering how good Su Shisan usually was to it, the System deliberately wobbled its body and answered, “You’ll have to discover that for yourself.”
So, that meant yes. Su Shisan quickly understood and smiled. Since players had related items for sale, she felt she really ought to make Polluters more dangerous.
It made sense, too. If surrendering to It meant no danger—just gaining an absolute faith—then what ordinary person would resist?
***
In this world, Evil Gods were billions of times stronger than ordinary people. If there wasn’t a massive resistance, small groups of rebels would be wiped out quickly, and the world-building wouldn’t hold up.
So Polluters had to be dangerous, and it had to be a danger where death was certain.
Designing this wasn’t hard. Aside from a few powerful Polluters, the rest were just unlucky ordinary people.
The Evil God wouldn’t care about them; most of them would end up as sacrifices, offering their Souls to It.
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