Awoo-baa, awoo-baa~

Zuo Cheng'an did not answer directly. Instead, he pointed at the black sheep in the pen and asked, "Can I take a closer look?"

Wang Guangfei did not mind. "If you can catch it, look all you want. However you like."

Without the right technique, these sheep would not obey at all.

He had personally herded them back from outside, so he knew better than anyone just how formidable they were.

It was no exaggeration to say they were about as strong as that bear!

If his constitution had not been decent, a light butt from a sheep would have shattered his internal organs and killed him!

Even now, two of his ribs were still broken and had not healed. Every breath sent waves of dull pain through the fractures.

If these sheep had not seemed to be neutral creatures that would not readily attack players, he would have gone to meet his maker when he found the flock out in the wild.

Fortunately, he had herded cattle as a child, so handling these sheep came fairly easily to him.

Zuo Cheng'an climbed into the sheep pen and slowly approached the black sheep.

But the stranger's arrival unsettled the flock. They began trotting around the pen, and a few even tried to jump out.

They were like one big, restless mass of popping candy.

Seeing this, Wang Guangfei frowned, feeling a twinge of regret. He did not want his entire morning's efforts to go to waste, so he promptly got up to stop him.

At the same time, he asked Zuo Cheng'an again, "What exactly did you come here for? Your task has nothing to do with catching sheep, if I remember correctly?"

He all but had "get out" written on his face.

Meanwhile, Zuo Cheng'an finally caught hold of the wool on the black sheep's back,

and, exerting both arms, pinned it firmly to the ground.

The black sheep flailed its four hooves in vain, bleating pitifully, "Awoo-baa~ Awoo-baa~"

What a strange bleat, Zuo Cheng'an thought.

The black sheep was not weak, either. In numerical terms, its strength was probably around seven or eight points.

Unless a newcomer had invested enough points in strength, they would not be able to hold it down at all.

But after he pinned the black sheep down, the game gave no notification.

Could the key to the task not be on the black sheep?

"What are you looking for?" Watching Zuo Cheng'an's movements, Wang Guangfei seemed to remember something, and his gaze grew increasingly strange.

The viewers could not see the game tasks, only the players' actions, so they, too, were wondering what Zuo Cheng'an was looking for.

[Huh? I remember the black sheep had a bell around its neck when the flock was out in the wild. Why is it gone now?]

[Right, I remember saying how pretty that little bell was. I wanted to take a screenshot and buy one just like it for my Big Yellow.]

[You all left at some point, unlike me. I've been watching this guy's feed the whole time. That bell seemed to be an item, and he put it in his inventory ages ago.]

[Another item with special abilities? How nice. I want one, too. People from lower worlds don't deserve to use them.]

After seeing these messages, Zuo Cheng'an understood why he had found nothing.

The crucial information was probably all on that bell.

Just as he was about to try borrowing it for a look, he heard the pounding footsteps of enormous creatures.

Thick smoke billowed from the direction of the cowshed as one crazed cow after another, each as large as a van, came charging toward the sheep pen, panting heavily.

A frail figure was also fleeing for her life ahead of the herd. It was Fu Yu, who was already injured.

She was still holding a mop for cleaning. When she saw the two men blocking her escape route,

she waved and shouted, "The cows suddenly went crazy! Get out of the way!!!"

Zuo Cheng'an pushed his speed to the limit and leaped onto the shelter that shaded the sheep pen. Wang Guangfei followed close behind. After all, speed was the only one of his three attributes he had maxed out.

When Fu Yu fled close enough, Wang Guangfei gave her a hand.

With Wang Guangfei's help, she successfully climbed up as well.

The three sat on the roof and watched the crazed herd recede, shaken by the close call.

Zuo Cheng'an glanced at his palm. Just now, he had felt the texture of leather on the black sheep's neck.

Now was not the time to investigate that. Watching the herd charge away, he suddenly noticed that their route seemed carefully planned.

It allowed them to run through every part of the farm in the shortest possible time, while they also took care not to damage any farm buildings.

It did not look like an accident. It looked more like an obstacle certain beings had deliberately trained them to create for the players' tasks.

The charging herd caused an uproar, and the sheep in the pen took advantage of the chaos to escape.

Wang Guangfei was anxious. As soon as the crazed herd left, he eagerly jumped down to round up the fleeing sheep again.

Fu Yu jumped down as well, because the herd was heading toward the chicken coop, where her younger sister was still doing her task for her.

The sun was sinking lower and lower. They did not have much time left.

There was no telling how much the herd had affected things by now.

Soon, Zuo Cheng'an was the only one left on the roof. He felt rather helpless. Every time things reached a critical point, a whole mess of complications cropped up.

Since his task was already complete anyway, he helped Wang Guangfei round up the sheep and drive them back one by one.

"One, two, three, four... eighteen, nineteen!?"

Wang Guangfei counted again and again, but had to accept that another sheep was missing.

One look at the sea of white inside the pen told him that this time, the missing one was the black sheep.

They still had not found the missing twenty-first sheep, and now they had lost another. Wang Guangfei was so angry he laughed.

The viewers were discussing it in the comments, too.

[Was anyone watching the stream just now? Do you know where the missing sheep went?]

[No idea. I was watching the spectacle of the herd trampling tomatoes while an innocent girl broke down crying.]

[+1, I was there. That player's two big baskets of tomatoes were all trampled to mush. It's already dusk, so there isn't much time left.]

[Who had a bird's-eye view of the sheep pen just now?]

[Stop looking. That sheep jumped out of the west side of the pen and ran off. Absolutely true! If I'm lying, I'm a pig from a lower world!]

Hearing such a grave oath, the others mostly believed it.

But where in the west had the black sheep gone?

[Damn it! I don't care whether this guy lives or dies, or whether he finishes his task! I just hate being kept in the dark like this!]

[I've switched feeds so much I'm about to puke! Why can't I find it?]

[Yeah, if I'd known watching a dungeon without a walkthrough would be this frustrating, I wouldn't have come!]

[I'm different. I rather like watching the answer reveal itself bit by bit.]

[Found it! Found it! The black sheep ran into the tomato warehouse. Strange. Why would it go there for no reason?]

Zuo Cheng'an had been carefully examining the spot where the black sheep stood before disappearing. Unsurprisingly, he found nothing.

Then he glanced at the comments on the off chance of finding something, and happened to catch the message saying the black sheep was in the warehouse.

But before going to the warehouse, he had something else to do.