Chapter 276: Soul Inn, Will She Become the Enemy of All Players?
Yun Zhenyue still remembered.
The first time she had met Li Ruxue.
The girl with the big red bow and arrogant expression.
Now, she was like a docile little kitten.
Speaking of kittens.
Gu Yuan had video-called her last night and said Lily missed her very much.
This mission had already taken a month.
Yun Zhenyue was getting pretty homesick.
’I just hope this mission ends soon.’
"Oh, right, Master!"
"My dad told me to give this to you." Xiao Jiu suddenly remembered something and handed a mission order to Yun Zhenyue.
"Another mission?"
Yun Zhenyue took it and read it.
It looked a little tricky.
Unlike the last two missions, this one couldn’t be completed by just a few of them!
This was a large-scale mission issued personally by the President!
It required her to lead three hundred core employees north of the Purgatory Factory to an SSS-rank dungeon called the Soul Inn, with the objective of occupying it!
The mission was in one day!
"The Soul Inn?" Yun Zhenyue’s brows furrowed slightly.
She had heard Huang Ting talk about this dungeon.
The proprietress of the Soul Inn was an aberration transformed from a player. Her nationality was unknown, and no one knew her name.
All that was known was that she often took in human players.
All players, when on the brink of death, had a chance of accidentally stumbling into that inn.
This was likely a unique ability of her Abyssal Organ.
That proprietress was a Great Evil.
Killing players was forbidden in the Soul Inn!
Every player just needed to work honestly to live a peaceful life. It was a "safe zone" in the eyes of all players.
According to the mission order,
a Factory employee had discovered that the proprietress of the Soul Inn was recently severely injured.
Her strength was now only at the Evil Star level.
This was a golden opportunity, the kind that only comes once in a century!
The Factory needed to take advantage of her injury to control her, occupy the inn, and rely on the proprietress’s ability to create a steady stream of consumables.
That’s right!
The Factory had its eyes on the Soul Inn proprietress’s ability!
And they wanted to develop it further!
If a player on the brink of death could fall into the inn, why not an aberration?
Besides, wasn’t the "brink of death" condition too narrow?
What if being injured was enough to fall in?
Or even accidentally missing a step could get you into that inn!
In the end, the Factory would capture everyone who entered the inn and turn them into consumables on the assembly line!
Looking at the mission order,
Yun Zhenyue’s expression was complicated.
This was asking her to personally cut off the only lifeline for players across the globe!
’This kind of thing...’
’It absolutely cannot be allowed to happen on my watch!’
At the end of the mission order, the President had thoughtfully asked for Yun Zhenyue’s opinion. Considering she was human, if she didn’t want to lead the team on this mission, she could hand it over to Xiao Jiu’s father.
But...
if she really did hand it over,
the probability of the mission’s success was extremely high!
It was practically a giveaway of contribution points.
The three hundred core employees, the 2- to 4-star personnel, were basically all at the Crimson-robe level of strength.
They had temporarily escaped the lowest level of the assembly line, but looking up, they could only see the backs of their mid-level managers.
It was obvious they were all extremely eager for contribution points.
And they would be led by an eight-star vice general manager?
Their target was just one aberration with the strength of an Evil Star, plus some human players.
The outcome was obvious.
Yun Zhenyue let out a breath.
Her eyes flickered.
She decided to talk to Xiao Jiu’s father first.
She wanted to see if the mission parameters could be changed.
If they really went there, even if she told Xiao Jiu, her sister, and Li Ruxue not to act, the three hundred employees would be more than enough to overwhelm the Soul Inn.
...
The Dragon Country audience had mixed feelings about this.
If Yun Zhenyue really went through with this mission!
She’d truly become the great villain!
The kind that could never be redeemed!
The Soul Inn was a dungeon that only appeared after this season of "Aberrant Matchmaking."
This was the players’ only lifeline!
Stumbling into the inn in a moment of despair and finding a path to survival was the only hope left for many players.
And now Yun Zhenyue was supposed to destroy it with her own hands?
Besides, after controlling the proprietress, who knows how many more players would be tormented by the Factory.
[Holy crap, this is so fucked up. The key is, Yun Zhenyue can’t refuse it, because if Xiao Jiu’s dad goes, they’re totally screwed.]
[This time, she really has to be a double agent.]
[Double agent? How would that even work? If she can’t even complete a mission that’s a total contribution point giveaway, what will the President think of her?]
[My head hurts just thinking about it!]
[Can’t Yun Zhenyue just persuade the President to give up on this mission?]
...
The Dragon Country audience felt their scalps tingle with dread.
The foreign audience, however, was even more furious.
[Shibal, her intentions weren’t pure from the start! She’s harmed so many people, and now she’s turning against the players.]
[I knew it, that Dragon Country woman was up to no good!]
[She’s already betrayed humanity! She’s persecuting everyone!]
[Damn it! If the Soul Inn is really destroyed, you people from Dragon Country will have to take full responsibility!]
[No... no way. Is she really going to make an enemy of all players?]
...
"You’re saying you want the Factory to postpone this mission?"
「In the Vice General Manager’s Office.」
Xiao Jiu’s father learned the reason for Yun Zhenyue’s visit.
He could understand.
As a human, she wouldn’t want to persecute her own kind.
But this was the Factory’s plan, the President’s order.
Though he felt sympathetic, his hands were tied.
"Can you tell me why...?" the vice general manager asked patiently.
If Yun Zhenyue could provide a reasonable explanation,
given her current status, a postponement would be possible.
In any case, it would take a long time for the proprietress of the Soul Inn to recover from her severe injuries.
"Well—"
Yun Zhenyue hesitated.
She just wanted to put the mission on hold for now.
’Maybe after another promotion, I’ll be able to influence the Factory’s plans.’
But a concrete reason?
She couldn’t really come up with one.
From the Factory’s perspective,
it was like a bar of gold had been dropped on the ground, unguarded.
To say the gold bar was too heavy?
Or that it wasn’t right to just pick it up?
Reasons like that were just too illogical.
’Do I have to bring out the name of the Ghost Lord, Gu Yuan?’
But Yun Zhenyue was afraid that the people from the Factory would go and bother Gu Yuan.
"Why don’t you take a rest and let me execute this mission?"
Xiao Jiu’s father suggested kindly.
"If you have friends in the Soul Inn, I can leave them untouched and hand them over to you to become your subordinates. How does that sound?"
...
After leaving the office,
Yun Zhenyue was in a bit of a daze.
The terms Xiao Jiu’s father had offered were already quite good.
If she continued to make other demands, it would make her seem unreasonable.
Whether it was him or the President!
They both held her in high regard!
If only Gu Yuan wasn’t the Ghost Lord, and she wasn’t human!
With this kind of caring attitude!
She would probably be willing to be ground to dust, to give her all for them.
But things just had to be this way!
Yun Zhenyue took out her phone, her finger already hovering over Gu Yuan’s contact.
’I just need him to say the word!’
’In the name of the Ghost Lord!’
’This mission could be abandoned with ease!’
But...
’Do I need to trouble Gu Yuan again?’
’Making him step in for such a trivial matter again.’
’And he’d have to be disgusted all over again.’
’Because the Factory is doing bad things in his name.’
"Forget it."
Thinking of this,
Yun Zhenyue gave up on the idea.
But a persistent thought took root in her mind.
’If only some coincidence could happen again...’
’...and stop all of this.’