Chapter 36: A Truly Difficult Mission
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Lu Er stood on the field with the rest of the rehabilitation center’s students, actively suppressing his unrestrained emotions caused by his imminent freedom. He waited patiently for the decision of the big shot in front of him that would decide his fate.
It was 8 pm, they were standing on the field in the headquarters of Qi City’s Special Affairs Department.
What differed from the previous two operations were the people; the previous students had all volunteered for rehabilitation, so each of them had returned to Qi City to continue their lives after obtaining Mo Xing’s signature.
The remaining rehabilitation students were all about present. All of them had high morale, their faces radiating confidence. The energy they were emitting seemed to be stronger than the energy of the Special Affairs Department’s members.
Mo Xing’s face was sullen as he scanned all of them from top to bottom. When he spoke, his tone was cold, “I know what’s going through your minds and what mood you all are in right now, but don’t go thinking you’ll be lucky; this time won’t be the same as the last two times. The couple of accidents that happened before have been completely investigated with the help of a few nearby security agencies.”
“Vigilante A, oh, some call him Hero of Qi City now. I don’t care what they call him; the one referred to Vigilante A in our files is the culprit behind the failure of our operative plans. While we were on standby for our previous operations, and he invaded the houses of the cultists and killed them all, therefore causing the arrival of the alien from another dimension to fail, since n.o.body was there to guide it here.”
“Those cultists had dead bodies in freezers, and those bodies all had their faces peeled off! Each and every one of them were criminals of the highest degree, which is probably why he broke his own law of no breaking and entering. He killed them all immediately without even declaring their crimes. From the looks of the crime scene, the cultists had all died unknowingly with a blow to their crowns.”
If Fang Ning had heard what Mo Xing had said, he would’ve been so afraid that he wouldn’t have been able to sleep for days. So the faces on the septogram really were ill.u.s.trated from the faces of real people!
It was just that the System hadn’t mentioned this at the time, which prevented Fang Ning from being frightened.
However, all the rehabilitation center’s students had heard Mo Xing clearly. Their faces paled in fear as they finally realized just how scary this whole thing was. Even human cultists who communicated with aliens were treated with such scary violence, they didn’t even have to think about what their master was like!
Hearing what Mo Xing said, Lu Er felt a chill run through him, his back became damp with cold sweat. His fear wasn’t the same as the rest, he just felt lucky that the three of them hadn’t committed any heinous crimes under Ma Da’s influence or they would’ve been attacked from behind by Vigilante A. He wouldn’t even have gotten the chance to awaken his ability or be chased for four hours by Vigilante A. Even the slap he was subjected to at the end wouldn’t have stopped at just a slap…
Seeing the situation, Mo Xing’s expression lightened slightly and he thought to himself, ‘You all deserve a good scare for being so bold and lawless. Just because a couple of accidents happened during the first round of clean-ups, you lot thought that I don’t know you call me “Difficult Mission Director Mo” behind my back?’
“The operation this time will be entirely different. According to the people from the Truth Department, that powerful alien that popped up on the radar after a thorough search is close to losing its mind after being made fun of twice. It’s preparing to forcibly break the World Boundary with the aid of the residual Enchantment energy in Qi City, thus forcing its arrival. So no matter how many cultists Vigilante A kills, it’s no use!”
“We are going to be facing an alien from another dimension for the first time!”
“This would truly be the first difficult mission!”
After hearing the details of the operation, the expressions of all the people present turned serious, with the students of the rehabilitation program having even worse expressions. Most of them felt terribly regretful of their reckless behavior from before.
However, none of them dared to back out at the last minute.
They had already signed an agreement of voluntary partic.i.p.ation in the operation, so if they didn’t obey to the orders given or if they ran away during an operation, they would be executed immediately with no exceptions.
A lot of them had seen the previous batches return to their previous lives after running a circle around the field post-operation; they didn’t have to eat plain buns and bland soup while having days upon days of cla.s.ses anymore, and because of that, every one of them in this batch actively decided to sign up for this operation with the related administration.
At that moment, Mo Xing decided to give them one last chance to back out. “If any student wants to turn back now, here’s your chance! Come to the front and you can return to the rehabilitation center. Anyone?”
The students looked around them, but n.o.body came forward.
“You have five minutes to decide. Once those five minutes are up, we leave as a whole. Any last minute retreats will be met with execution by firearm!”
With that, the first student to withdraw stood forward. His head was bent towards the ground, his gaze glued to it, as he walked out of the formations towards the front.
The second one appeared soon after.
The students that moved to the front gradually increased as Mo Xing’s expression grew more sullen. He thought to himself, ‘The worldviews of these youngsters was easy to guess. The rehabilitation program would deter them from committing evil at best, but when it came down to it, they would keep their necks well away from the chopping block unless they had something to lose.’
The best students were the ones that had partic.i.p.ated in the first operation, but there were too little of them. It looked as if they had no choice but to continue pressuring their superiors with suggestions and ideas; now wasn’t the time to give up on eating for fear of choking, they had to expand their reach to teenagers. They couldn’t allow the people from the Truth Department to monopolize the abilities anymore or it would bring them all to their deaths.
In the end, Mo Xing only saw two people who were willing to partic.i.p.ate in the operation out of the entire batch of students.
One of them was Lu Er, who, despite being scared, knew that he could run faster than ever before now. So if worst came down to worst, he would still be able to escape. He wasn’t afraid of being executed because he had found out that his ability had evolved. He now had an active skill that made him fast enough to evade even bullets once it was activated…
The other person was a 30-year-old man named Shao Han. He already had white hair, but his face still hinted at youth.
He had introduced himself as a professional novelist who was extremely honest. His ability was typing fast, which wasn’t an ability that needed forced rehabilitation, but he had gotten a notice for voluntary partic.i.p.ation in the rehabilitation, which made him think that he was an awakened individual. He felt that joining an organization would provide him with better security and so decided to enter the rehabilitation center to learn.
Hearing his words, Lu Er silently labeled him as an idiot. He had entered this place with his phone and his notebooks, and must’ve thought that the cla.s.ses here wouldn’t be harder than senior year in high school, which meant that he would still have time to update his novels.
What he hadn’t expected was Old Man Zhang going on about how they had to focus on studying and so disconnected their Internet connections. Apparently, his laptop and phone contained about a hundred thousand drafts in total, but he hadn’t updated his novel in two months…
According to him, his fans would definitely disperse after being starved of updates. The Special Affairs Department wasn’t subsidizing anything, either, so he had no choice but to drop everything to partic.i.p.ate in the operation this time…
Lu Er more than welcomed another student’s company. He definitely wouldn’t be able to outrun Vigilante A, and he barely knew anything about the mysterious members of the Special Affairs Department. Lu Er was confident that he would be able to give this guy the slip at least ten times over…
After five minutes had pa.s.sed, all the students that were unwilling to partic.i.p.ate in the operation had already stepped forward. Mo Xing then threw a glance at Princ.i.p.al Zhang, who was standing by the side.
Princ.i.p.al Zhang thought, ‘I’ll give them three times worth of cla.s.ses before they graduate.’
Mo Xing nodded his head slightly in satisfaction before speaking up, “Alright, everyone that has come forward can return to the center. As for the two representatives left, you both are responsible men. Once the operation ends successfully, not only will the two of you obtain the right to freedom, you’ll also be automatically recruited into the Reserve Forces, where you’ll be able to enjoy special treatment from the Special Affairs Department.”
Lu Er really wasn’t interested in some stupid special treatment. He still had brothers he could depend and rely on, and he could even use his speed ability to become a star athlete and earn riches legally. He didn’t need a lifelong secure position that required him to work under someone. He was only interested in freedom.
Shao Han was extremely elated. Wouldn’t that count as having a secure job? While he worked at a secure job, he could just wait for his novel to grow popular. Shao Han couldn’t think of anything better.
“Alright, to the ones left, we leave according to plan. Our destination will be announced after we’ve boarded our vehicle!”
With that being said, Mo Xing left with his people.
Princ.i.p.al Zhang glared at the rehabilitation students that had backed out, but didn’t say anything. He turned to look at the people leaving, one thought echoing in his heart, “None of you die on me now.”
…
Vigilante A was farming monsters as usual…
The System said, “Increasing the level of that Dragonization Ability uses too many experience points, and I can’t find a powerful monster to farm anywhere nearby. The Celestial Weapon is almost done, it just needs one more hit from my hammer. Do you think we could start a business luring monsters?”
Fang Ning answered, “No, no. After seeing Madam Zhao, I think we still need to power up ourselves even more. These hidden enemies are quite strong. They’re on par with you and we’re only talking about this city. I don’t even want to think about enemies from the rest of the country, or the world. If a few that you can’t handle were to suddenly appear, we can only spend our lives running from death. Our free food and the business I had worked so hard on would all be for nothing!”
“You’re right. Then I’ll save that hit for now and continue waiting here.”
Hearing this, Fang Ning spoke up in confusion, “Why can’t we farm in some other city? It’ll only take a few hours in an airplane, which would definitely be more efficient than just waiting here.”
“We can’t simply switch places before the Reputation Module is unlocked. Once we move to another place, the Fame that has been acc.u.mulated will be emptied and we’ll have to start from scratch.”
“Oh, I’d always thought that it was because you were lazy to go somewhere far, like me. I’ve never asked you before, but I never expected there to be a reason like that.”
“…”
After a brief moment, the System spoke up again, “Wait a minute. There’s movement on the System Map. An extremely huge monster is appearing and I really want to farm it…”