Task

Chapter 44: The Mission

The impact of this room was far greater than the one outside. The stone platform and chopping board were piled high with chunks of meat, a sea of vivid red, impossible to tell which animal or which part they had once belonged to. The thick, cloying stench of blood was, for someone with a keen sense of smell, no different from breathing air that had solidified—a suffocating pressure that shot straight to the crown of the head.

Xu Huo walked in without changing expression. He rummaged through the heaps of meat for a moment and actually pulled out a piece with a number branded into it—though the skin had been stripped away, the digits seemed to have grown into the muscle tissue itself, clear and visible.

"Bang!" The sound of a door being thrown open came from outside, followed by the skin stripper Karl's voice. "Five-day trial period. Meet my standards, and you can stay and work!"

"And the pay..."

"Pay during a trial period?" Karl roared irritably. "Clean this place up. If I come back in three hours and see a single cockroach, you're all out!"

With that, another door slammed, followed by the sound of a car engine fading away from the factory. After a moment, someone in the workshop spoke up: "Yang Can was taken away by the skin stripper. Is he going to be okay?"

"The skin stripper's just going fishing. Yang Can should be fine for now." Another voice replied. "They'll be gone for three hours. This is our chance."

"Qin An is right." A female voice said. "We'll split up as planned."

"I'll go with Qin An to find the Collection Room. Xian Dazhi, you and Zou Weichang stay here and clean up. We'll be back within an hour at the latest. We can't let the skin stripper find an excuse to kick us out."

"Fine, fine, whatever you say." A fourth voice said impatiently. "Just go already."

Two sets of footsteps left the workshop. With two people remaining, the one who had spoken first said, "We'd better get to work."

"They're the fools, and you're the fool too? You're actually going to clean?" The impatient voice said. "They go looking for the collection, and we're stuck with the grunt work."

"There's no helping it. Peng Fengnian said the skin stripper's collection is definitely hidden somewhere hard to find. Our traits aren't suited for that kind of job."

"He talks like it's no trouble at all. This broken-down factory is only so big. What's so hard about finding a cellar or a secret room? Anyone could find it."

"But Peng Fengnian said this instance has almost zero survivors. It can't be that easy, right?"

The other man snorted coldly, and footsteps moved from the front of the workshop toward the back.

"Zou Weichang, where are you going?"

"The Pigsty." Zou Weichang let out a strange laugh. "Maybe we'll get lucky and run into a few piglets that have been wearing their skin for less than six hours."

"Peng Fengnian said that's impossible. The piglets are specially supplied. The skin stripper must have been raising them for a long time..."

"It's always 'Peng Fengnian says.' Use your brain for once."

"Hey!" The moving footsteps paused. "There are a few other rooms over here. Want to take a look first?"

Zou Weichang ignored Xian Dazhi and walked straight into the Pigsty. Xian Dazhi hurried after him.

The workshop fell silent. Xu Huo stood in the room, not rushing to go out.

These job applicants were different from him. They were all ticket-holding players who had already discussed their strategy before coming.

The known individuals were Qin An, Zou Weichang, Xian Dazhi, Yang Can, and Peng Fengnian.

Among them, Yang Can had been taken fishing by the skin stripper. Zou Weichang and Xian Dazhi were in the Pigsty. Qin An and another female player had gone ahead to find the skin stripper's Collection Room.

It was hard to say if the female player was named Peng Fengnian, nor could it be ruled out that some players hadn't entered the Good Taste Fresh Meat Supply Factory.

From their conversation, the instance mission for ticket-holding players should be the same as his: steal the skin stripper's treasured collection, rescue the three children, or complete the work given by the skin stripper—choose any one of the three.

Three missions. On the surface, the third seemed the least risky, but that wasn't actually the case.

The skin stripper most likely knew that the people applying for the job were players. He only let them work for some reason, which was why he resented the applicants. The filthy workshop outside seemed deliberately left that way.

Under these circumstances, it was almost impossible for players to complete the work he gave them. Getting kicked out and failing to clear the instance would be considered lucky. Most players probably ended up as a pile of minced meat in the slaughter room.

As for the second mission, it should involve rescuing the three children. Leaving the instance or clearing it to get a Return Ticket only worked for a single person. The prerequisite for completing the mission was being able to take the three children away, or at least free them from the pigskin. Without special items, it was nearly impossible for players to complete this mission, unless the skin stripper let them go voluntarily.

The most feasible mission was the first one. That was why these players had almost directly abandoned the other two.

His brow furrowed slightly. Xu Huo packed a few rats into a sack, used Cleaning Agent to wash the bloodstains off his shoes, then climbed out the window and returned to the outside of the Pigsty.

Inside the Pigsty, the simple-looking Xian Dazhi felt the belly of a piglet and shook his head at Zou Weichang. "The lines are almost invisible. Even if we take them out, they'll only live the rest of their lives as pigs."

Zou Weichang wasn't surprised. He lit a cigarette, blowing smoke rings with a dazed expression. "I figured as much before we came."

Xian Dazhi said pityingly, "They're just a few years old. Poor little things."

"What's there to pity? It's fate. You can only blame their bad luck." Zou Weichang crushed out his cigarette and turned to walk back to the workshop. "But we're not much better off. We might even die before them."

Xian Dazhi followed him, but suddenly a large pig in the Pigsty pressed its front hooves against the railing, biting Zou Weichang's sleeve and pulling hard.

"Is this pig crazy?" Zou Weichang kicked it away, not treating it like a person at all.

I am a person! I am a player!

Sima Xiao Er was kicked to the ground, screaming with all his might, but the sound that came out was a loud, clear pig's squeal. He stared at the two men with fury, scrambled up, and tried to charge again, only to be kicked back before he could get close.

"They can still be saved!" Xian Dazhi quickly stopped him.

Zou Weichang shook off his hand. "So what? Even if we save them, can they run out? This is a game world. Players can't even guarantee their own safety. Ordinary people going out there is a death sentence!"

"Don't drag me into your overflowing sympathy. If the skin stripper finds out we secretly let them go, we're all fucking dead!"

Xian Dazhi had no rebuttal. He turned his head away, refusing to look at the pigs in the Pigsty.

"Being a pig might let them live a few more days." Zou Weichang turned and left.

"Oink! Oink!" Sima Xiao Er stood at the railing, squealing desperately, but the two men still walked away without looking back. He staggered backward, his eyes filled with more despair than the others.

At that moment, Xu Huo jumped into the Pigsty and knocked on the railing. "Red Hair?"

Sima Xiao Er scrambled to his feet and charged at the other person.

Xu Huo pressed down on his pig head. "Don't want to get out anymore?"

"Hmph?" Sima Xiao Er looked at him with confusion but also anger.

"What those two said just now makes sense—even if we get out, we won't survive. Too many people missing will draw attention."

Xu Huo cut the two stitches under his belly and asked, "Did you get the game notification?"