The people in the mechanical settlement also looked over curiously.
"Who's that?"
"No idea. Judging by the clothes, they're probably not from the Underworld. No one here wears clothes that fancy."
"Could it be that the passage between the Overworld and the Underworld is open again?"
"Hey, look at that deer—it can breathe fire!"
"Whoa, that deer is amazing. If I had one at home, I wouldn't have to worry about the cold anymore."
"With your little tent? That deer would probably burn the whole thing down as soon as it walked in."
"Like yours is much better?"
Amid the chatter of the onlookers, Ye Yun, Clara, Hook, and Rios arrived at a large gate.
At the entrance, a traffic light-like mech was verifying visitor identities.
"Verifying! Verification complete! Clara, welcome home!"
The gate opened.
A three-meter-tall humanoid robot stood before Clara.
"Clara, welcome home."
Clara immediately recognized the robot.
"Mr. Svarog!"
She jumped down from Rios's back and ran to Svarog, showing off the medicine Ye Yun had sold her.
"Mr. Svarog, Clara found medicine! Everyone can be saved!"
Svarog glanced at the medicine and signaled a nearby mech to take it.
"Scanning…
Test result: Safe."
After confirming Clara wasn't hurt, Svarog said,
"Clara, don't go to Rivet Town. It's dangerous—you'll get hurt."
Clara replied cheerfully,
"It's okay, Mr. Svarog! Clara didn't go alone—there were others with me!"
She then introduced her companions.
"Mr. Svarog, they're Clara's good friends~ Brother Ye Yun and Mr. Rios!"
As for Hook, Svarog already knew her—she often came to the mechanical settlement to play with Clara.
Svarog looked at Ye Yun and Rios and scanned them. At once, the lens on his head lit up bright red.
"Warning! Warning! Highly dangerous individual detected! Protecting Clara!"
Svarog quickly shielded Clara behind him.
Clara rushed to explain.
"Mr. Svarog, Brother Ye Yun isn't a bad person! He's the one who sold me the medicine!
Mr. Rios is a good person too—he protected Clara on the way back here!"
Upon hearing this, Svarog deactivated his combat mode.
"Clara's friends: good people."
Ye Yun looked at Svarog thoughtfully, wondering whether he should ask about the Stellaron's secrets like the main character Star did in the original story.
In the original plot, Star and the others could converse normally with Svarog at first after being introduced by Clara.
But once they asked about the Stellaron, Svarog turned hostile.
After some thought, Ye Yun decided to drop the idea.
Beating Svarog wouldn't be hard for him—but why cause trouble for himself?
Fighting was tiring.
Ye Yun waved his hand.
"So you're Svarog? Don't worry, I have no ill intentions.
I just came to bring Clara back and also made a little trade with her."
Svarog looked at Clara, then at Ye Yun.
"Trade? What kind of trade?"
Ye Yun took out the Stellar Jade that Clara had used to buy the medicine.
"This. As long as you have this, you can trade for goods with me."
Svarog scanned the Stellar Jade in Ye Yun's hand.
"Decorative item. No value."
Ye Yun chuckled at Svarog's assessment.
"Maybe it's worthless to you, but to me, it's very valuable.
If you don't believe me, why not give it a try? After all, it's not worth anything to you, right?"
Svarog's internal processors whirred for a moment before he replied,
"Accepted."
He then issued a command to the nearby mechs to collect Stellar Jade.
Five minutes later—
Several mechs returned carrying more than a dozen pieces of Stellar Jade. Clara also brought out some she had collected earlier.
Ye Yun counted them. Not too few, not too many—exactly 50 pieces.
He summoned the exchange scale and placed all 50 pieces of Stellar Jade onto it.
Seconds later, fifty 100-denomination Star Coins appeared in Ye Yun's hand.
Ye Yun handed them to Clara.
Clara took them and examined them curiously.
Ye Yun explained,
"These are Star Coins—the currency I use here. With them, you can shop from me."
He then sent Clara the same product catalog he had previously shown to Natasha.
Clara's phone dinged shortly after, and when she opened her comms app, the first message was from Ye Yun.
She tapped it open—and got a shock!
Everything in the catalog was incredibly cheap!
She had 5,000 Star Coins in her hands—she could buy 500 bottles of the wound medicine!
Or even 50 tons of food!
Clara couldn't help but feel Ye Yun had sent the wrong prices.
"Brother Ye Yun, did you send the wrong thing? These prices are too low!"
Ye Yun took a look at her phone.
"Nope. That's the right one."
Clara was completely stunned.
Is this for real?! Just a few Stellar Jades can buy that much food?
And the ones she had used earlier were just a tiny portion—she had thrown away most of the Stellar Jade she found!
What had she done?!
Panicked, Clara was about to dash off to collect more Stellar Jade from places she had visited before, but Svarog stopped her.
"Clara, complete the transaction first. Verify this individual's claims."
Clara reluctantly held back and completed the trade.
"Brother Ye Yun, can you convert all of this into rice for Clara?"
Ye Yun took the 5,000 Star Coins from Clara and summoned a bubble containing bags of rice, slapping the coins onto it.
The coins and bubble vanished together.
Then the rice bags inside the bubble gradually expanded and landed on the ground—500 neatly stacked bags of rice appeared in the small plaza.
Svarog walked up and opened one of the bags.
"Scanning! Scan complete. High-quality rice."
Clara beamed with joy upon hearing the result.
"That's wonderful! Everyone's saved now!"
Hook stared at the mountain of rice, completely stunned.
"Whoa! If Hook had this much rice, she could eat for soooo many days!"
After verifying the goods, Svarog quickly dispatched a few mechs to store the rice properly.
This rice could extend the survival time of the entire Underworld.
Ye Yun, meanwhile, checked his task progress:
***
That night.
Ye Yun, Hook, and Rios were all resting at Clara's house.
Clara's home was quite decent—a small two-story building.
Ye Yun cooked a few stir-fried dishes, and after eating with the two little ones, he went to sleep.
On the other hand, Svarog was still busy.
He had issued a mission to the vagrants in the Mechanical Settlement to collect Stellar Jades.
These people could use the Stellar Jades to exchange for supplies from him.
At first, the vagrants didn't believe it. After all, Stellar Jades were just pretty-looking things with no practical value. How could they possibly be exchanged for precious food?
Until someone actually succeeded in making a trade.
In the settlement's tent district, a vagrant walked away from Svarog carrying a heavy bag of rice on his back.
"No way! You can actually trade them for supplies?"
In an instant, the entire settlement was in an uproar.
My god! You could actually trade Stellar Jades for supplies from Lord Svarog!
The vagrants swarmed out into the wilds to search for Stellar Jades.
Everyone rushed to be first, afraid they'd miss out if they were late.
"Don't touch that! I found it first!"
"What do you mean it's yours? If it's in my hand, it's mine!"
"Hey! You wanna fight?"
"Bring it on! You think I'm scared?"
The vagrants quickly descended into chaos.
It proved once again: in the face of absolute benefit, people lose control of their actions.
The situation escalated from shouting matches to bloody brawls.
There were even casualties.
Stellar Jades had become a symbol of hope for the vagrants in the Mechanical Settlement.
And if someone tried to take away their hope of survival—they wouldn't let them live either.
When Svarog learned of this, he immediately dispatched mechanized soldiers to maintain order.
Any who fought were violently suppressed.
Only then did the vagrants quiet down.
The commotion was so loud it woke Ye Yun, Hook, and Clara from their sleep. They now sat in the living room, eating instant noodles.
Ye Yun slurped a bite of noodles and glanced at Svarog standing outside.
"Svarog, what's up? You've been staring off into space."
Svarog looked at Ye Yun.
"It's nothing. I just don't understand why these people would fight over Stellar Jades. They could get supplies just by making a proper effort."
"I'm wondering—if I hadn't started the Jade-for-supplies program, would this chaos have happened at all?"
Ye Yun took a sip of the noodle soup.
"You weren't wrong. The problem was your method."
"If it were me, I'd go with a work-for-supplies model."
"That way, you can manage them efficiently and build infrastructure."
"Like housing. Look at this settlement—those people are still living in tents."
Svarog processed Ye Yun's words at high speed.
"I understand."
Ye Yun nodded in satisfaction.
"Exactly. There's no rush to trade supplies. You can even have your mech soldiers gather materials."
"When you want to trade, just have Clara contact me. You know what a phone is, right?"
Svarog nodded.
"It's in the database."
Ye Yun finished his noodles and tossed the cup into the trash, giving Svarog a pat.
"I'm heading back to rest. You keep doing your thing."
With that, Ye Yun went back to sleep with Hook and Clara.
Svarog thought for a moment and decided to adopt Ye Yun's method.
This approach was indeed well-suited for the Mechanical Settlement. It allowed for efficient management of the vagrants and improvement of infrastructure and equipment.
So—
Svarog immediately issued a new order: shut down the supply exchange points and replace them with work-for-compensation stations.
The vagrants who hadn't yet traded their Stellar Jades were devastated when they heard the news.
"What?! We can't trade Stellar Jades anymore?"
"Man, you guys sure move fast. Usually you're dragging your feet, but when it comes to grabbing supplies you're full of energy!"
"Damn! Someone must've pissed off Lord Svarog! Otherwise, why would he stop the trades? Look, there's still plenty of supplies over there!"
They looked at the supply depot in the distance—it was packed full.
Someone tried asking by stopping a "Stoplight" robot.
"There's still supplies here! Why can't we trade?"
The Stoplight stopped and looked at the person in its way.
"New order: trading stopped. Now it's work-for-supplies. Come here tomorrow for job assignments. Complete the work, and you'll receive goods."
With that, the Stoplight waddled off to move supplies.
The vagrants, seeing there was no way to trade, had no choice but to return to their tents, dejected.
***
In Boulder Town.
Natasha was treating March 7th, Dan Heng, Xing, and Bronya.
Soon, she concluded that they had simply passed out from a knockout drug. They would be fine after some rest.
So Natasha arranged for them to rest in a room.
After closing the door, she looked at Sampo, who was waiting nearby.
"All right. Tell me who these people really are."
Sambo yawned.
"They're from the Underworld, of course. I found them by a mine heap. You know me—Sampo the kindhearted. I couldn't just leave them there!"
Natasha said nothing, just stared at Sampo with a look that clearly said, "Keep lying, I dare you."
Under her gaze, Sampo could only confess the group's real identities.
When Natasha learned who they were, she immediately frowned—especially at Bronya's identity: successor to the Supreme Guardian!
If this wasn't handled properly, the entire Underworld could be in grave danger.
Stelle, March 7th, and Dan Heng weren't too big of a problem. They were fugitives from the Overworld, but the Silvermane Guards wouldn't come all the way down here for them.
Besides, there were plenty of wanted people in the Underworld, all under Wildfire's watchful eye.
"I understand. You go back. I'll take care of them."
Sampo bowed.
"Thanks, Boss Lady. Sampo's off, then."
After Sampo left, Natasha called in a few nurses.
"Take good care of these four. Nothing must happen to them."
The nurses nodded and got to work while Natasha returned to her office.
Unlike this morning, there was now a large burlap sack in the corner.
Natasha walked over and opened it—it was full of Stellar Jades.
She picked one up and checked her records.
[Current Stellar Jade Count: 1,365]
These were all that Wildfire had managed to gather so far.
After the order was given earlier today, the whole team had gone out searching. Every corner of their territory was turned upside down.
Just then, Seele walked in with a small pouch in hand.
"Natasha, I'm back. These are the Stellar Jades I found in Rivet Town."