Chapter 27: The Bounty Board

With NPCs, you have labor, but to actually *use* that labor, you also need the right tools and building resources.

For example, you have to build “residences” before you can take in these wandering NPCs.

NPCs can eat poorly, dress poorly, and even live poorly... but they must have somewhere to live.

If you don’t even have a place for them to stay, then even if a wandering NPC wants to join your territory, they won’t be able to for certain reasons.

Don’t ask why—the answer is game restrictions. It’s to prevent players from endlessly grinding NPC favorability to hoard a massive number of NPCs.

Never mind whether the game server could even handle so much data if you took in that many NPCs at once—judging by the bizarre things some players do, the first thing to break would probably be this continent itself.

Ever heard of the “Fourth Calamity”?

Although this digitized world is different from the original game in many ways, Su You doesn’t think this restriction will be lifted.

And to build a residence, you need ten planks—that’s a whopping 120 pieces of wood.

Su You suddenly felt her hands shaking just thinking about chopping all that wood...

While lord players *can* gather resources, their efficiency is actually nerfed compared to other roles. And it’s a pretty significant nerf.

That’s because the “proper” way to play is to recruit NPCs—let NPCs chop wood, mine, gather food, and so on...

So, after Su You chops just a couple of trees, her stamina plummets, or after a few more, she’s exhausted... It’s really not her fault; it’s just that this character’s abilities have been deliberately weakened.

She was about to build a bulletin board, which meant that by tomorrow morning at the latest, the first batch of wandering NPCs would spawn.

To ensure a steady development pace (and prevent luck from ruining the game experience), the first batch of NPCs is guaranteed to appear within 12 hours of building the bulletin board. How many NPCs show up, and what their circumstances are, is random.

But right now, Su You can’t build a residence—not even by tomorrow morning—because night is about to fall... Oh, wait, it’s already night.

Maybe it was because building and crafting took so much time, but Su You hadn’t even noticed the hours slipping by. Thanks to the Heartfire in the town center, she hadn’t even realized it had gotten dark.

Su You looked up at the sky, then took the two finished planks out of the workbench.

【Consume 2 planks to build a bulletin board?】

【Building: Bulletin Board. Estimated time: 5 minutes】

...

【Obtained: Roasted Berries x2】

Munching on the sweet and sour roasted berries to restore her hunger meter, Su You browsed through the building list.

Although she couldn’t take in wandering NPCs by building residences just yet, she did have another way to put those NPCs to use.

It just required a little payment, that’s all.

After finishing her two servings of roasted berries, Su You drank a cup of water—the water she’d collected from a nearby stream while gathering berries.

That’s why you always want to set up your territory near a water source. This way, she didn’t have to waste hunger points making berry juice just to stay hydrated.

Not only is it convenient for daily drinking, but it’ll make irrigating farmland much easier later on.

That said, while it’s great to have your *territory* near water, it’s not ideal for a temporary campsite.

That’s because places near water tend to be damp, with moist soil and lower nighttime temperatures. Resting in such an environment carries a high risk of picking up debuffs.

And you can’t just drink the water straight, either—it has to be boiled first, or you risk diarrhea or infection.

But with houses in the territory, and no one sleeping on the ground, there’s no need to worry about dampness or cold.

And thanks to the Heartfire—or more accurately, the Firestone—preparing hot water is no problem at all, since the Heartfire burns 24/7 and doesn’t waste fuel or kindling.

The Heartfire can theoretically burn forever; after all, it’s not just an ordinary flame—it symbolizes the life of the territory itself.

With the Firestone, just a bit of fuel keeps the Heartfire burning for ages.

...

“Finally found it.” Su You’s eyes lit up as she opened the building’s info panel.

Once she confirmed that, despite the name change, this was indeed the old quest board, Su You started synthesizing the materials to craft it.

When the materials were ready, she placed the building next to the bulletin board.

【Consume 2 planks to build a Bounty Board?】

【Building: Bounty Board. Estimated time: 5 minutes】

**Bounty Board (Quest Board):** A place to post and accept bounty quests; can be merged with the Quest Hall. (Note: When the territory reaches “Intermediate Camp” level, system quests will unlock and refresh. Only the lord can accept system quests, and rewards are provided by the system. Player-posted bounty quests can be accepted by any NPC, and rewards are provided by the player.)

System quests?

What’s that supposed to mean?!

Su You had already found it odd that the quest board had been renamed, but after reading the note, she was even more puzzled.

Before, the quest board only had one function: posting and accepting quests.

The lord would post quests for wandering NPCs or residents to take, and could use this to gather resources. But since they’re quests, there had to be rewards—so it was basically paying for resources.

Later in the game, as the territory developed, it wasn’t just the player who could post quests—any resident could, as long as they could afford the reward.

But now, there were also system quests...

And only the player could accept them...

Su You was very confused, but since the materials and the functions she needed hadn’t changed, she went ahead and built the quest board—well, the Bounty Board, now.

It also took five minutes to build, but driven by curiosity, those five minutes felt especially long to Su You.

With nothing else to do, Su You took out the Tavern Card and wandered around her territory, measuring distances and making gestures.

She was measuring space.

The reason she didn’t place the tavern right away was because of spacing.

In the game, you’d at least have grid lines or auto-alignment to help with building placement, but here, there was nothing like that.

She’d noticed this problem as soon as she placed her first campfire."

"28. Recruitment

But this was just a minor issue. Su You wasn’t a perfectionist—she simply liked to place the right buildings in the right spots, making it easier for her future planning.

Since there was no grid map or similar tool to help, Su You could only arrange things by referencing the positions of other buildings.

Those two wooden crates served as reference points, and so did the newly built bulletin board.

As a building for recruiting NPCs, Su You planned to place the tavern as close to the city gate as possible. That way, whenever she recruited an NPC, she could see them walking in from outside the city as soon as she stepped out of the tavern, instead of having to make a big detour to the gate to greet them.

The same logic applied to the bulletin board.

The bulletin board wasn’t just for refreshing wandering NPCs—it also served to notify NPCs of messages.

There was no communication equipment in this world, no such thing as cell phones or computers. So, if a lord player wanted to convey instructions or information, the bulletin board was the way to do it.

Any NPC who had joined the territory would check the bulletin board at least once a day, no matter the time.

To make sure that even non-resident NPCs could see the latest information about the territory as soon as they entered, pretty much every player built their first bulletin board near the city gate—Su You was no exception.

Once she’d picked the spot, the building card in Su You’s hand shimmered and slowly disappeared. At the same moment, a building suddenly sprang up right in front of her.

Su You: …

Honestly, while she wasn’t startled, she did think this way of appearing was a bit perfunctory—and kind of cheap.

Come on, at least give me some special effects!

Just because it’s free, does it have to be this plain?

Still, complaints aside, Su You didn’t really care much about special effects. What she cared about most right now was what kind of NPCs she’d be able to recruit.

Even though it was already nighttime, she could still see the recruitable NPCs. It’s just that once she confirmed which NPC to recruit, that NPC would only arrive the next morning.

Pushing open the tavern door, Su You found that this so-called tavern was basically just an empty, unfinished room.

Aside from a bar-like counter and a round stool, there was nothing else—not even a window.

Su You: … Figures. You get what you pay for.

She wasn’t sure if all building cards were this bare-bones, but if she’d built the place herself with materials, at the very least there would be a basic set of furniture.

“Oh well… As long as I can recruit, that’s enough…” The tavern was crude, but Su You didn’t plan to actually run it for now. She just needed it for its special NPC recruitment function. As long as it worked, who cared about the decor?

She groped her way to the bar counter—yes, the tavern didn’t even have any lighting.

She could only make out the interior thanks to the firelight from the city core shining through the open door.

But in a way, the lack of furniture was a blessing—at least with nothing in the way, she wouldn’t bump into anything in the dark.

Su You comforted herself with this thought, conveniently forgetting that a tavern was supposed to have a few lanterns inside.

[Tavern] (Level 1)

Unlocked functions: