"Th-then what if I don’t have the money?" Tang Mo asked weakly, raising her hand.
She was in the wrong, and she knew it. What she’d done was completely out of line, so she didn’t dare speak any louder.
"If you can’t come up with the money, you’ll work for the base until your debt is paid in full."
The captain’s eyes held a hint of sympathy. This wasn’t the first time someone had deliberately led a horde of mutant beasts to the base.
No one could afford the cost of all those bullets. In the end, everyone who lured a mutant beast horde became an Alliance laborer.
Every base had its share of Alliance laborers.
The bases no longer had prisons. Nowadays, a place where you did nothing all day while being fed and housed wasn’t a punishment—it was paradise.
’Who would even dream of it?’
These days, people who broke the rules would temporarily become Alliance laborers. The length of their service was determined by the severity of their transgression.
They were fed the worst, cheapest nutrient solution, yet they were forced to work like beasts of burden.
Their tasks included clearing weeds and trees from the base’s perimeter, hauling mutant beast corpses, and repairing the perimeter walls.
Twelve hours a day, rain or shine. If you worked yourself to death, that was just the end of the line.
The captain made a quick, conservative estimate. For what Tang Mo had done, she’d probably have to work for eighty years to clear her debt.
"How many Crystal Cores?" Tang Mo asked, her voice trembling.
Jingjing, perched on Tang Mo’s shoulder, began to tremble too. Jingjing understood that the man was demanding Crystal Cores.
It could also see Tang Mo’s reaction; the number of Crystal Cores he was demanding was clearly no small amount.
’It’s over. We’re finished.’
These four words were a perfect reflection of what both human and beast were feeling.
"Thirty thousand."
The captain held up three fingers.
Calculating the exact number of bullets wasn’t easy, so their fee was based on the size and strength of the mutant beast horde.
Thirty Basic-level Mutant Beasts and one Intermediate Beast came to this price—fair and square.
"Get changed and report to the Labor Camp with me."
The captain pulled out a wristband and walked toward Tang Mo. Every laborer had to wear one, and it was impossible to remove on your own.
If you failed to return to the Labor Camp on time each night, the wristband would automatically detonate. It was a highly effective way to manage the prisoners.
"Don’t! Wait a second! Uh, sir, hold on!"
Tang Mo started to panic as she watched the captain approach, wristband in hand.
It wasn’t that she couldn’t beat the captain, but she knew she had to take responsibility for what happened.
That was just the kind of person Tang Mo was. If something was her duty, she would see it through to the end.
As for things that weren’t her responsibility? Whether she did them or not depended entirely on her mood.
Tang Mo had no desire to be a "good person." She lived by a single principle: to have a clear conscience.
"I have the money! Sir, I have the money!"
Tang Mo’s words brought the guard captain to a halt.
He eyed the young woman suspiciously. He didn’t believe Tang Mo could possibly come up with thirty thousand Crystal Cores.
There were people in S Base who could produce thirty thousand Crystal Cores on the spot, but not many. You could count them on two hands.
Others might be able to scrape that much together by pooling their entire family’s resources, but this girl before him...
The captain sized up Tang Mo. She was wearing a filthy tracksuit, and her hair and face looked like they hadn’t seen water in days.
No girl from a remotely well-off family would look like this.
While the captain was still lost in thought, Tang Mo had already started pulling Crystal Cores out of her Space.
’It’s only thirty thousand! If I scrape everything together, I might just have enough!’
In reality, there was a much simpler solution to her problem. A single call to either Wen Jianshu or Qin Ling would have resolved it instantly.
But Tang Mo didn’t want to. She refused to be the kind of person who made a mess and expected her family to clean it up.
That was just pathetic.
Tang Mo pulled out bag after bag of Crystal Cores, piling them on the ground.
The Intermediate Crystal Cores had already been removed from these bags; each one now contained exactly 30 Basic Crystal Cores.
"One hundred..."
"Two hundred..."
...
"Seven hundred..."
"Eight hundred..."