Aunt Kaster Was Amazing

~

"...Have we met somewhere before?"

Green Skin, who had rushed over after hearing the news, stared at Cheng Tian squatting Asian-style, his face full of scrutiny.

"Who are you?"

Cheng Tian, who was fiddling with the Crystal Wingman, merely glanced at him before replying.

Let alone the fact that Green Skin was wearing a hood now, even without it, Cheng Tian's expression and tone would not have changed in the slightest—

Because Cheng Tian simply did not remember what Green Skin looked like!

Wasn't he just blue-skinned? Cheng Tian had only been on Space Island for a short while, yet he had already seen all sorts of dubious otherworldly races, even several human-scale Avatars. Someone like Green Skin, with an ordinary human face, simply was not distinctive enough to him.

Green Skin, meanwhile, was testing the waters. He did not actually know who Cheng Tian was.

From the fact that Green Skin had been able to produce five Whiteboard weapons from entirely different dungeons in one go, there were two likely explanations for his background.

One, he was an experienced player who had already cleared several fixed Chosen Trials. Two, he had a community, guild, or team backing him.

Green Skin was the latter. One of the jobs assigned to him by his team was to stake out several special dungeons in the Mission Hall, including Demon World Village. This Novice Guidance mission, which theoretically could only be accepted once by each player, was one he had snatched up.

Yes, Green Skin had only selectively told Cheng Tian and the others part of the truth back then. He had prepared those five Whiteboard Cold Weapons with full knowledge of the Demon World Village blueprint.

The reward for being a novice guide was completely unimportant. What truly mattered was connections—the Novice Players who could leave Demon World Village alive. Every additional survivor meant one more possible Acquisition Channel for future Demon World Village-related items.

Cast a wide net, catch more fish.

Green Skin's team could afford that level of investment.

Of course, Green Skin himself was mostly just following orders. Knowing what a Shit Pit Demon World Village was for novices, he had not held out much hope to begin with. Besides, the five Whiteboards had been paid for by the team, so he had no qualms about throwing them away.

Yet a few hours ago, he unexpectedly received a spatial notification that a contract had been fulfilled.

The contract's second party was "One-Ear," the college student whose ear Green Skin had shot through as an example to intimidate the others. According to the contract, once the other party completed the Novice Trial, the borrowed equipment would automatically return to the first party—Green Skin himself.

When Green Skin saw the weapon return, he could scarcely believe it, because that meant One-Ear had truly cleared the Ultimate Novice Shit Pit known as the Demon World Village trial!

As for the Whiteboard War Hammer, Baseball Bat, and the rest, the players listed as the second party on those contracts had all died in the dungeon. The instant they died, those borrowed Whiteboard weapons became Ownerless Items, naturally releasing them from their original contracts.

Green Skin could also use the contract results to indirectly confirm the deaths of those second parties.

One-Ear had survived. Green Skin's shock was easy to imagine, so he immediately used the Player ID recorded in the contract to send a space call, asking to meet at the plaza. He intended to pay for every detail of One-Ear's experiences in Demon World Village.

Yet, both unexpectedly and predictably, One-Ear ignored him completely. After seeing the call, he immediately blocked Green Skin.

Among people his age, One-Ear was indeed someone who knew when to yield and when to stand firm. Even after having his ear shot through, he had suppressed his anger and asked Green Skin to borrow a weapon, but that did not mean he did not hold grudges.

After seeing Green Skin's message, One-Ear not only blocked him, but also added something to his future Must-Eat List with tremendous personal initiative—

Given the chance, he would definitely tear off Green Skin's ear too!

One-Ear blocking him greatly surprised Green Skin, but it also made him even more curious about what had happened in Demon World Village and how many people had survived.

So the moment he heard that someone was selling Knight Armor, a Demon World Village specialty, in the market district, he rushed over at top speed.

Green Skin's appearance was his fixed persona in Chosen Space, much like creating a fixed face in an online game. Most players, however, spent a little money to change their appearance every time they entered Space Island. Height, race, gender, looks—any of those could be changed at will. Without an exact Player ID, Green Skin had no way of figuring out Cheng Tian's true appearance.

He clearly suspected Cheng Tian was One-Ear, but he had no proof.

Naturally, the many middlemen present were not merely interested in the armor. Like Green Skin, they were even more interested in this novice who had crawled out alive from that Shit Pit.

Unfortunately, Cheng Tian seemed to have sensed something. After playing with the newly acquired Four-piece Set to his heart's content, he packed up his stall and slipped away, ignoring the wails of the crowd.

Cheng Tian felt that the Knight Armor's current market value had already exceeded its inherent worth. Rather than selling it for money right away, he might as well hold onto it, first confirm his next mission, then set trade terms according to his needs for the next sucker.

That was also what he had inferred from Old Fan's reaction—he had clearly been getting utterly screwed over, yet still insisted on making the trade.

East District, Mission Area.

If Cheng Tian had not known beforehand that this was the Mission Hall where players gathered, he would have thought it was a train station in some major Chinese city.

Besides the players, many NPCs who were clearly staff members bustled about. Cheng Tian picked one who looked especially pleasant—a staff member who resembled some Aunt Kaster (don't search it)—and asked her for information. She enthusiastically gave him a whole series of answers.

During roughly the last ten days of every month, every Chosen Player had to complete a fixed monthly dungeon mission called a "Chosen Trial."

In principle, Chosen Trials were random blueprint missions. However, as the number of completed Chosen Trials increased and the player's own rank rose, they would receive more useful information before future Chosen Trials. They might even be informed of the Dungeon Blueprint in advance, giving them more opportunities to prepare thoroughly.

Under normal circumstances, Chosen Trials did not have an especially harsh Elimination Mechanism. Taking Cheng Tian's Novice Trial as an example, if their group stubbornly refused to advance the main quest and simply hid for eight hours until the main quest time limit expired, causing the mission to fail, an Evacuation Mission would then appear.

The Evacuation Mission mode was basically comparable to the final stage of each Left 4 Dead chapter. In most cases, players had to reach a fixed Evacuation Point within the time limit, then face an unknown number of attacking enemies there and hold out until the time ran out, at which point they would be teleported away by the space.

Of course, they could forget about the original rewards. Pure novices might receive a few hundred coins as a consolation prize, encouragement that surviving as a newcomer was already pretty impressive. Veterans, on the other hand, could just wait for their pay and benefits to be docked~

So what would happen if they still failed to complete the Evacuation Mission?

Faced with Cheng Tian's question, Aunt Kaster, as a staff member, merely smiled and said,

"I don't know. It's just that no one has ever seen them again."