Reversing History

Your next main quest has been determined!

Main Quest: Reversing History

Quest Briefing: Several deranged terrorists are hiding aboard the plane you are traveling on. They will hijack it and then steer it into a skyscraper in a sprawling metropolis.

Quest Objective: Incapacitate all the terrorists! Change the fate of the passengers aboard this plane.

Quest Details: For every passenger who dies, your evaluation will drop by 30%. The quest will fail if more than four passengers die or if the plane successfully crashes into the skyscraper.

For every terrorist aboard the plane you incapacitate, including but not limited to killing, disabling, or subduing them, you will gain 20% completion.

You entered this world in Arrival Mode, so the terrorists' abilities will be enhanced to some degree.

The Main Quest: Reversing History will officially begin in 30 seconds.

***

After this information appeared, time suddenly returned to its normal flow.

Looking over the series of notifications, Fang Linyan felt there was a lot to take in.

"So the things I do while exploring a world are also used to analyze my personality, and that affects the type of missions I get afterward! I'm pretty curious about that. If I went on a killing spree in a world and got judged to be chaotic evil, then this main quest definitely wouldn't be about saving people. So what would it be?"

"Right, it'd definitely involve destruction. Maybe they'd have me hijack another plane and crash it into the White House. It could be a fighter jet, or maybe I'd have to infiltrate a military base, seize control, and fire one of their missiles at it."

After musing for a while, Fang Linyan frowned. This quest was incredibly tricky. Everyone knew that destroying something was easy, while building it back up was extremely difficult. Raising a child took eighteen years. You had to feed and clothe him, take care of his every need, and educate him so he developed the right values. If he was a handful, you'd also have to buy him a house and car and find him a wife. Even half a lifetime wasn't enough.

But killing someone only took a bullet and a few seconds.

The tricky part of this quest wasn't how to subdue the hijackers. It was how to keep the innocent passengers from getting hurt. The terrorists were hijacking the plane to crash it into a building, and there was no way they would escape either. So anyone willing to take part in such an operation had to be an utterly brainwashed, utterly ruthless fanatic—a hardened militant with no regard for his own life!

That meant the terrorists wouldn't act unless they were ready to kill someone to make an example of them, using extreme violence and bloodshed to terrify the passengers into submission.

Fang Linyan then realized that the terrorists might try to deceive the passengers, claiming they only wanted to fly to a country that wouldn't extradite them to the United States. But there was one key person aboard they couldn't fool: the pilot in command.

At first, the terrorists might threaten to kill him, and the pilot might give in for the time being. But once the terrorists revealed their true intentions and ordered him to crash into a skyscraper, the pilot would surely fight to the death.

The logic was simple. If he fought back, there was a chance he might survive against all odds. If he meekly obeyed, he was certain to die. Even a fool would know what to do.

So to ensure their plan went off without a hitch, the terrorists had to include at least one person who could fly the plane. That way, even after hijacking it, they could make sure it crashed into the skyscraper.

So the terrorists' first target would undoubtedly be the cockpit.

Fang Linyan was glad he'd bought a first-class ticket. This was the only route to the cockpit, so if the terrorists made a move, they would have to pass right under his nose.

After piecing together this information, Fang Linyan quickly reached three conclusions.

First, if he wanted the highest possible evaluation, he needed to strike before the terrorists made their move. Otherwise, once they attacked, they might kill someone in a brutal show of force, and any hope of a high evaluation would be out the window.

Second, he should target the terrorist who could fly the plane first. Without a pilot among them, the terrorists would have a hard time achieving their goal.

Third, his own strength was still somewhat lacking. The biggest force on the plane at that moment was the clueless mass of ordinary passengers. If he could make good use of them, they could tip the balance!

At this thought, Fang Linyan took a deep breath and let it out. He stood up, took the bag from the overhead compartment, set it on his lap, unzipped it, and reached inside.

The first-class seats were separate from one another. Even a passing flight attendant could only see Fang Linyan with a canvas backpack on his lap and both hands inside it, apparently rummaging around for something, as if he were secretly doing something strange.

But the flight attendants had seen it all. As long as a passenger didn't ask them to come into the lavatory, it was fine. Fang Linyan's behavior was unusual, but not particularly out of place, so the others merely glanced at him.

What they didn't know was that the seemingly ordinary clock inside the canvas bag had been taken apart into dozens of pieces by Fang Linyan in a matter of seconds. His fingers skimmed over the parts, quickly picking out a dozen with smooth, unblemished surfaces and stuffing them into a side compartment.

Next to suffer the fate of being dismantled was the poor electric shaver.

The decorative art piece that had drawn a few seconds of scrutiny from the security inspector at boarding didn't escape disassembly either.

In the end, he had taken thirty-seven pristine parts from these items and stored them together in the backpack's side compartment.

Needless to say, these were the parts Fang Linyan had crafted himself. Now they were about to prove extremely useful!

Fang Linyan's fingers were already moving so fast they seemed to leave afterimages as he assembled the parts at astonishing speed. Before long, the first weapon he had designed took shape.