Chapter 361: Teddy Bear Builder

The radicals, on the other hand, would set their sights on the person they could not convince. Either they would keep arguing until one side managed to persuade the other, or the other party would beat them to death. If the radicals won the fight, they would take their opponent back with them to farm and experience nature.

Experiencing nature included taking care of young creatures, planting trees, and breathing in the fragrance of the great outdoors, which came in various forms of animal droppings from different species.

Many players felt that these people were simply a bunch of troublemakers who enjoyed messing with others. They used slogans about protecting nature and redeeming life as an excuse to get under people’s skin.

After searching through the forums, however, Joo Joowon felt that even if the other party belonged to the radical faction, it was not something she would necessarily be unable to accept.

He had been smelling cat poop for years, after all. Although he had never gotten used to it, she could still tolerate this particular quirk.

When all was said and done, back in the day, she had even rushed over the moment Byeol finished using the litter box to examine his droppings and investigate whether his bowel movements were healthy...

Of course, after raising Byeol for a long time, she had gradually lost the nervousness she had felt when she was still a novice cat owner who had only just started cleaning up after her pet.

So, to put it simply, weren’t these people somewhat like animal caretakers?

Joo Joowon remembered that zookeepers observed the animals under their care every day. Examining their droppings was one of the simplest ways to monitor their health.

Although most people would find the idea somewhat disgusting.

Since she could accept it, Joo Joowon decisively placed the recruitment order.

The recruitment interface was vast beyond measure, with practically countless NPCs available for recruitment. As a result, no one competed with Joo Joowon for this particular NPC.

The only NPCs that people competed over in the recruitment interface were those with rare skills. As soon as one of them appeared, someone would immediately snatch it up. As for NPCs in the middle and lower price ranges, there were more than enough of them to go around. If a player was not picky, they could easily buy a whole bunch of them.

This was especially true of the cheapest NPCs. They were almost indistinguishable from the mechanically behaving NPCs found in the game itself. Their only drawback was that they could only be recruited permanently, rather than being hired for just a few days.

In Joo Joowon’s eyes, these NPCs were like people who had signed away their freedom to the game. They had completely become commodities for others to choose from, with no control over their own lives or deaths.

NPCs like Kang Taewoo, on the other hand, were different. They were more like people looking for a secure position within an organization. They would negotiate their working conditions and benefits before agreeing to a lord’s permanent recruitment offer.

So why was there such a difference between them?

Was it because those NPCs were not genuine living beings?

Or was it a punishment for violating the game’s rules?

Or was there some other hidden secret behind it all?

Joo Joowon had always been interested in investigating the circumstances surrounding the game.

Although being dragged into the game meant that players could no longer control their own lives or deaths, that did not mean they should simply go with the flow and give up just because they were at a disadvantage.

What if one day they gained the ability to resist?

However, from the fact that the Age of Apocalypse could casually allow players to decide whether or not to convert their territories into data, Joo Joowon could tell that the game most likely did not care whether players secretly harbored resentment toward it.

Perhaps this was because the game was powerful enough to fear nothing. It was also possible that it had some other trump cards up its sleeve. More likely, when players eventually became strong enough to resist the game, they might discover that the benefits of accepting its rules were actually greater than those of fighting back.

After all, there were plenty of stories in which the hero who slew the dragon eventually became a dragon himself.

Looking at the notification confirming that his recruitment order had been successfully placed, Joo Joowon began wondering when the NPC would arrive.

It had taken Seong Seungmin quite a while to arrive previously. However, he had been in a Risk Zone, which might have been why the journey had taken so long. This time, he had placed his order through the game’s official platform, so the delivery should be faster, right?

While he was still thinking about this, he suddenly sensed a fairly strong fluctuation of Quanta energy. A moment later, a portal bearing the Age of Apocalypse logo appeared right in front of him.

A teddy bear wearing an apron walked out of the portal. Its appearance was exactly the same as the one displayed on the NPC recruitment interface. Its body was covered in neither real animal fur nor the kind of fur found on ordinary stuffed toys. It genuinely looked as though it had stepped straight out of an anime.

"Another territory that’s just getting started?"

As soon as Kang Taewoo stepped out, he immediately sensed that the surrounding Quanta energy was not particularly abundant. He blinked his eyes, which looked just like those of an anime character. They exaggeratedly curved into crescent moons as he looked at Joo Joowon and said, "I’m Kang Taewoo, the builder you recruited. My contract is valid for one month."

If someone saw a creature with this appearance in an anime, they might even find it somewhat cute.

However, encountering one in real life would only make people feel an instinctive sense of horror, much like the uncanny valley effect one experienced when looking at something that seemed human but was not quite right.