Chapter 486

Episode 486. The game economy is cold.

Of course, before exploring the trading market, there was something else that needed to be done first.

“Commander, exploring the trading market is all well and good, but…”

“Huh?”

“The other mercenary commanders you hired during the second siege battle, you still haven’t paid them their fees yet.”

“Oh right, I almost forgot.”

I almost ended up getting my head chopped off by angry mercenary users for skipping out on their fees while exploring the trading market.

In a hurry, I started pulling out resources and diligently sending out the fees to the mercenary users who participated in the recent war.

—————————————–

[Tanhoizer Mercenary Network Official Chat Room]

[Notice: Payment of fees in progress, if you haven’t received yours, DM me (Icarus) separately]

-[Wow, they’re paying fast]

-[Sweet, huh?]

-[They have over 20 million resources, so they should have plenty left after paying us]

-[Upper chat, actually, just barely over 20 million, so it’s probably just enough to pay us]

-[Got it ^^]

-[I haven’t received mine yet]

-[They just started paying, of course, more people haven’t received it yet, just wait, dude]

-[Yeah]

-[If we don’t get the resources by next week, Icarus might go bankrupt lol]

-[Just a week’s exemption is meaningless, since the outposts, bases, forward bases, and resource mining fleets provide resources anyway]

-[Even considering that, that guy alone runs four mercenary groups]

-[Well, that’s his problem to deal with]

—————————————–

‘Wow, people are so nosy about others’ business.’

Although in the process, I strangely felt like I was getting the kind of deep, curious attention you’d expect at a neighborhood senior center.

If I paid any more attention to it, I felt like things would get really weird.

Whether the mercenary users were like that or not, I decided to just ‘let it be!’

“Now, it’s time for the fun exploration of the trading market.”

“Wow~”

My immediate major concern was exploring the trading market.

And through that, I decided to do my best to embark on a journey to get a proper big-freaking-armor-ship.

==========

The problem was, as soon as I opened the trading market and searched through the ‘large ships’ category for pure tank-style ships…

—————————————–

[Trading Market ‘Large Ships’, ‘Pure Tank’ Search Results]

-[Warsaw-Class Battleship, Sale Price: 98,510 gold (negotiable)]

-[Antonius-Class Battleship, Sale Price: 100,115 gold]

-[King Edward-Class Battleship, Sale Price: 100,009 gold]

-[Rodney-Class Battleship, Sale Price: 90,156 gold]

-[Helgoland-Class Battleship, Sale Price: 99,853 gold]

-[Bayern-Class Battleship, Sale Price: 92,566 gold]

—————————————–

“Hmm, Commander?”

“…”

“Even so, buying at those prices doesn’t seem right.”

“I think so too.”

The price of ships equivalent to the now-extinct Bayern-Class is at least over 90,000 gold per ship.

Compared to when I first peeked at cruisers and battleships in the trading market, the prices have nearly tripled.

I couldn’t help but tilt my head, wondering if this was right.

Of course, as these kinds of search windows often do, they might show ‘the most expensive ones first.’

So, I steadily scrolled through the search window and flipped through the pages, while also checking the gallery to see if the current situation made sense.

What I really needed was something like a ‘Dreadnought’ or a ‘Shield Generator Ship’ that could withstand fleet-level bombardment for a long time.

I had no interest in battleships similar to or below the Bayern-Class, or general battleships.

But after about 20 minutes of this verification process…

—————————————–

Title: Why are the auction market prices like this?

Author: ㅇㅇ

Content: [Picture of Dreadnoughts and Shield Generator Ships priced at a minimum of 150,000 gold.jpg]

Is this for real?

Back in the day, even the highest prices were around 100,000.

Why the hell are prices going up even more?

They know users don’t have gold, why are they doing this?

Comments:

-[Resellers, lololol]

-[Look at these insane prices, damn]

-[Last time, the 8th rank sold his outpost for 150,000 gold, and now buying one Dreadnought would wipe that out]

-[They should sell at a reasonable price, what the hell is this;;]

-[Evan though]

—————————————–

The complaints about the ‘ridiculously high’ prices in the auction market were not just one or two.

According to the screenshot in the post, the minimum price for a ‘Dreadnought’-class ship, which I need for fleet-level tanking, is over 150,000, and so on.

Posts lamenting the severe level of price inflation are popping up everywhere.

No, it’s not just something I notice when I look for it.

It’s getting worse and worse, and other users also seem to think it’s a serious problem.

But as some users started to explain the reasons behind this market situation…

—————————————–

Title: The current market prices are completely wrecked, and here’s why

Author: Visible Transparent Hand

Content: [Image of the amount of ‘Gold’ distributed in the recent event.jpg]

Long story short,

There was a time when the gold held by users suddenly dropped drastically due to hoarding and other reasons.

Because of that, the value of gold plummeted, and the market froze.

Users stopped using gold and started bartering instead.

So, the admins tried to normalize the gold situation by distributing gold through events.

The problem is, the gold ended up being evenly distributed among all users.

This caused a temporary explosion of gold in the market.

Literally, inflation hit.

As a result, everyone started spending gold like crazy, and the popular battleship-class ships took a direct hit.

Those who have them are raising prices to earn more gold.

And users are rushing to buy them while they’re still cheap, driving prices even higher, and so on.

I’m not an economics major, so I don’t know the details.

Anyway, this crazy combination of factors has led to the current price chaos.

Now, there are only two options:

Either the admins retrieve the gold to control inflation,

Or users and sellers engage in a fierce standoff until prices drop, lol.

Comments:

– [Whatever it is, it’s a mess?]

– [If it’s the former, it’s not exactly a mess, right?]

– [Bro, my head hurts, can you summarize in 3 lines?]

– [I have nothing to say to someone who can’t understand this.] (Author)

– [What a manly response;;]

– [Since the admins won’t intervene, some will keep inflating the bubble while others hold out.]

– [Is the market bubble going to burst?]

– [Woo, I don’t understand this economy stuff, bro.]

—————————————–

“The situation seems complicated in many ways.”

“Ughhh.”

‘Please don’t talk to me about such complex, political, and economic matters.’

As I read the post, I felt strongly that it was hard to understand, but also sensed something unusual.

At this point, I decided to abandon my original plan and just go for an economic(?) evasion tank instead.

‘No matter how I look at it, there’s talk about the bubble bursting for large ships, and you want me to spend money on that? No way.’

Of course, it might seem quite pathetic to be looking for an evasion tank after singing “Evasion tanks are useless!”

But since I never actually said that out loud and only thought it in my head…

No one objected to my search for SSS-grade mobile destroyers.

However, there was one problem: I couldn’t be the only one thinking this…

—————————————–

Title: Where did all the evasion tank destroyers go in the market?

Author: ㅇㅇ

Content: [Image of the search results for ‘evasion tank’ destroyers and small ships in the market, all empty or in progress.jpg]

Damn,

Where did my precious evasion tanks go?

Comments:

– [The prices for pure tanks are skyrocketing.]

– [The supply of evasion tank destroyers, which have a performance ceiling, dried up instantly.]

– [Wait, is this for real? Damn.] (Author)

– [For destroyers, they’re expensive, but not as crazy as battleship-class pure tanks, which are over 3 times more expensive than before.]

– [But that’s old news, and now they’re starting to sell for over twice the price due to low supply.]

– [Ah, these damn bastards.]

—————————————–

‘Damn it.’

I couldn’t help but lament as I realized the supply was already gone.