Chapter 117: Safe Base-Exclusive Defense Turret
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 117: Safe Base-Exclusive Defense Turret
Somehow, I ended up setting up a broadcasting system out of nowhere. But looking at it from a long-term perspective, it was definitely content that Paradise needed, so I put some effort into making it. As for our first streamer, Lee Yu-ri, since it was her actual profession, she seemed to be doing her job faithfully.
Well, from her perspective, she got a house, food, and plenty of donations, so it wasn't a losing deal. She wasn't likely to throw away her "Resident" benefits and go somewhere else.
Besides, she really wanted to live in Trimage.
Trimage.
That is to say, the Resident base had plenty of community facilities.
Starting with a swimming pool, the sauna had been turned into a bathhouse where people could soak and warm their bodies, and there was an indoor golf range, walking trails, and more.
With zombies crawling everywhere outside, inside you could enjoy all the abundance of the old world right from the comfort of home.
For meals, the cafeteria was just across the street, so you could grab a bite and walk back as a light stroll.
During a Zombie Rush, food was distributed in advance, so you only had to manage inside for five days.
And I had obtained the Manual Subspace.
This would also be extremely useful during the Zombie Rush or when I went to raid the Yongsan US Military Base.
Well, that was that.
Now, I had to use the remaining eight days to prepare for the next Zombie Rush.
First on the to-do list was installing the "Safe Base-Exclusive Defense Turret (★)" I had obtained from completing a quest a while ago.
Honestly, no matter what kind of crazy shit happened right now, even if a Zombie Rush came, the zombies wouldn't be able to breach my Safe Base-Exclusive Outer Wall.
How the hell were they supposed to break through a bunker?
Even if they pounded on it for a hundred days, any lost durability could be repaired with a simple click using Coins. I had already upgraded everything, even though it meant enduring a seriously painful hemorrhage of Coins to do so.
But that was that. It was still better to install the defense turrets just in case an external enemy—other than zombies—decided to attack.
Like when I wasn't around, or when I was too lazy to go out and deal with them myself.
The walls would reliably block enemy attacks, but if they made a racket outside, it would restrict the Membership members from coming in, and it just wouldn't look good aesthetically.
Installation was easy.
Just like before, all I had to do was attach the small model of the defense turret to the outer wall where I wanted it installed.
[Safe Base-Exclusive Defense Turret (★)]
The basic defense turret was nothing special.
It looked like a machine gun attached to the wall, capable of rotating 180 degrees.
Through the settings, I could choose how it would fire.
Fully automatic, or semi-automatic.
Naturally, I set it to semi-automatic.
"If shooting costs Coins, there's no way in hell I'm letting it spray wildly."
It was a defensive weapon meant for emergencies.
If it fired constantly at every little thing, my Coins would drain like water.
[Cost required to upgrade Safe Base-Exclusive Defense Turret: 300 Coins]
The upgrade cost was quite expensive.
If a Level 2 upgrade cost 300 Coins, how much would Level 3 be?
Curious, I went ahead and upgraded it.
– Damage dealt increases by +2.
The defense turret's damage increased.
This was a decent, standard option.
Later on, when high-level zombies with high stats appeared, it would be hard to damage them with ordinary firearms anyway.
Enhanced weapons were a necessity.
[Cost required to upgrade Safe Base-Exclusive Defense Turret: 500 Coins]
"Oof."
Level 3 was 500 Coins.
Combining the two upgrades made it 800 Coins.
I got the first defense turret from a quest, but since I didn't know how much it would cost to buy another one, adding that in would mean it cost well over 1,000 Coins just to upgrade a single turret to Level 3.
– Can be converted into a flamethrower. Exclusive flamethrower gas can be purchased from a Visiting Black Market Merchant (3★ or higher).
"Oh..."
Rather than feeling angry that a mere option upgrade devoured 500 Coins, I actually found myself quite liking it.
Well, upgrades didn't always have to be strictly practical.
A flamethrower.
Wasn't that a pretty romantic weapon in a zombie apocalypse?
Of course, the firepower would have to back it up, but a flamethrower that cost a whopping 500 Coins to unlock had to be something special.
[Cost required to upgrade Safe Base-Exclusive Defense Turret: 1,000 Coins]
Level 4 was 1,000 Coins.
Since I was already at it, I decided to unlock it.
I had enough leeway now to spend 1,000 Coins without sweating it.
Besides, adding features would only boost the defense turret's performance.
– 50% chance to fire an additional attack without consuming ammunition (fuel).
Did that mean one bullet would fire two shots?
I wasn't sure how that would work with a flamethrower, but if it meant dealing 200% damage with a single unit of fuel, it seemed like a pretty decent option.
Though, to be honest, I didn't know if it was truly worth 1,000 Coins.
For now, I stopped upgrading here.
The next upgrade was 3,000 Coins, so I decided to hold off until a moment came when I truly needed to fortify the base like a fortress. It seemed better to use those Coins to buy more defense turrets instead.
Coincidentally, today was the day the Visiting Black Market Merchant arrived.
Since he came three days a week anyway, he was practically around half the time, but the Visiting Black Market Merchant was also the type of guy who was never there when you actually needed him.
"How much for a defense turret?"
"A Safe Base-Exclusive Defense Turret is 500 Coins each."
"...Fuck. That's expensive as hell."
Still, the saving grace was that the defense turret's range was wider than expected.
Once installed, the turret's range would be displayed, so I just had to keep that overlay on and place them without too much overlap.
Even so, because the outer wall I had built was so massive, I still needed a lot of defense turrets.
For starters, I needed about twenty just for the residential area where my mansion was located.
It was only because the range of each turret was incredibly wide that twenty was enough; otherwise, I would have gone completely broke trying to cover the area.
And I also had to stock up on ammunition in advance.
"Exclusive defense turret ammunition is 5 Coins per round."
"No bulk discount?"
"It is 4,500 Coins for 1,000 rounds."
"Not bad."
One defense turret held 100 rounds.
"You can also purchase additional magazines. You can equip one additional magazine per level, and the cost is 100 Coins."
"You fucking merchant bastards."
They certainly knew how to run a business.
But since I didn't particularly need them right now, I didn't buy any extra magazines.
Since I had twenty turrets, I bought 2,000 rounds and filled them up.
Just buying the defense turrets and ammunition cost me 20,000 Coins.
Although I already had over 100,000 Coins accumulated from Membership fees and food sales, it was still a pretty painful expenditure.
Even if I didn't skimp on things that were absolutely necessary.
That wasn't the end of it.
I also installed them at the cafeteria, the food store, the Resident quarters, the Level 3 Membership residential area, and even the currently vacant commercial district (planned).
Of course, I didn't enable the firing settings.
I just installed them.
Because bullets literally equaled Coins.
Besides, just looking up from below a high wall and seeing a gun barrel pointed at you is enough to make anyone feel psychological pressure.
That was all I needed.
If anyone realized the pressure was just a bluff and tried to act up, a few shots would set them straight.
That would be more than enough.
"Whew... Seriously, why are there so many things to spend Coins on?"
No matter how much I earned, the places to spend them only seemed to multiply.
I suppose that was the charm of a zombie apocalypse.
A world where words like 'safety' and 'complacency' didn't belong.
A world where you had to keep moving constantly and always think about tomorrow.
Still, the base had been upgraded another level today.
I'd take comfort in that.
After spending nearly 50,000 Coins in total, I took a stroll around Seoul Forest Paradise to admire the newly installed defense turrets. When I returned, Oh Yoon-seop came to find me.
"Leader, I found a small faction."
"Oh!"
It was time to clear Faction Quest 2.
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The first small faction I had cleared was the multiplex.
The second was Dong Seoul Terminal.
Aside from those, I had also smashed places like the Seongsu Station Delivery Faction and the orphanage, but because the criteria for a small faction was 200 or more people, not many of them counted.
The small faction Oh Yoon-seop had found this time was in a place I knew very well.
"Konkuk University Station? There was a small faction over there?"
"The area near the station entrance is where a drug faction has set up a production branch and is operating, but this other faction is using Konkuk University as their base."
"Ah."
The place I had visited was right in front of Konkuk University Station.
An area packed with commercial businesses.
But while Konkuk University Station was famous for its bars, the name itself came from the fact that Konkuk University was located there.
It was a massive university town.
If they had established a faction there, it was highly likely they had a significant number of people.
"I guess people really do manage to gather and live in Demonic Lairs."
In any standard zombie apocalypse game, these were places that should have turned into absolute Demonic Lairs.
Subway stations, multiplexes, universities.
But because there were so many people, and because a skill system called 'Modes' had been introduced, it seemed things weren't entirely in the zombies' favor.
Of course, the zombie apocalypse wouldn't just back down and let humans off that easily, which was probably why events like the Zombie Rush were programmed in.
I'd find out once I got there.
The people holding down a base in a place that should have been a Demonic Lair.
It would be one of two things.
Either they were heavily armed with high-quality weapons like a drug cartel...
Or they had plenty of combat personnel with skills powerful enough to match those weapons.