Chapter 24 Regional Mission (Part Two)

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[Mission Description: The central area of the Qingcheng New District has automatically formed a medium-sized safe-zone barrier due to the gathering of over thirty thousand survivors. If one hundred thousand people can be assembled, it will upgrade to a large safe zone. Citizens with the means are encouraged to make their way there.]
[Humanity faces the threat of extinction. As awakened ones, you are obligated to protect powerless civilians and assist their retreat.]
[Escort Mission: Each awakened one must escort a number of civilians to the central gathering point—at least one, and at most three. Upon completion, rewards will be determined by escort distance, number of civilians, and their injury level. The lowest reward is a tattered treasure chest; the highest is a golden one. You must decide whom to protect within six hours, or the mission will be automatically cancelled. Once the protected individuals are chosen, they cannot be changed. You may opt to accept or refuse the mission. Note: If you accept and a protected person dies, one to five points will be permanently deducted from your total attributes, depending on the situation.]

“A regional mission!”

Kong Zhe stared in astonishment at the prompt on his panel. He was familiar with regional missions—if a city met certain conditions, such a quest would be triggered, and the rewards were always generous but the difficulty was typically extreme.

For example, this mission appeared to be a simple escort of three people, but with everyone’s levels so low in the early stages, even awakened ones struggled to move freely, let alone drag along three burdens.

The most crucial aspect was the penalty for failure. Attribute points were incredibly precious. Most first-level awakened ones had only five or six points; losing four or five would reduce them below even ordinary people—a truly severe punishment.

Most awakened ones would realize this, and in the early game, as players were still unfamiliar with the differences between treasure chest levels, more than half would likely choose to abandon the mission, and the rest would mostly opt for the one-person task. Escorting a single person was possible, but only those truly capable, or those whose family happened to be close by, would dare to take on two or three.

If a weak, reckless awakened one blindly took the three-person mission, it would almost always end in total annihilation.

Kong Zhe gazed at the mission for a while, carefully weighing his options, and ultimately decided to accept the three-person task. Unlike others, he knew just how rare the golden treasure chest was. Never mind the one he had received three days ago—it was likely a launch bonus, and he might never have such luck again for the rest of his life.

Even for this mission, the conditions for a golden chest would be exceedingly strict.

He was currently in the New District, separated from the Old District by a long bay coast, roughly estimated at seventy or eighty kilometers from the city center. The distance should satisfy the golden chest requirements. The rest depended on the number of civilians escorted and ensuring their safety.

Though daunting, for the golden chest, he had to try.

Besides, there were loopholes in the mission—the conditions for the civilians were simply “ordinary people,” but nothing more was specified.

That left room for selection: most women would scream and cry when confronted with monsters, so, as a rule, choosing men was easier. Among men, the robust were preferable to the frail; at least they could run faster when danger struck.

By that logic, picking three obedient, strong young men seemed optimal, but in truth, it was the most foolish approach.

The best candidates weren’t determined by gender, but by whether they had the potential to awaken.

After the apocalypse, a person’s ability to awaken depended on magical aptitude. Without it, one would never awaken. According to statistics from his previous life, the ratio was two to eight—meaning 80% of people could never awaken.

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Those with magical aptitude would awaken at different times depending on their talent. The gifted usually awakened within two days, so this mission was mostly aimed at them. Yet there was a significant portion who, though still ordinary now, possessed latent potential.

If he could find two or three such people and make them his escort targets, it would be tough at first, but once one of them awakened, the burden would instantly become an ally, greatly reducing the difficulty of completing the mission.

The problem was the six-hour time limit: to find ordinary people likely to awaken, and select those with imminent potential, was no easy task.

Kong Zhe shook his head. Surrounded by a horde of monsters, his priority was to escape. This matter would have to wait until later; perhaps he could find suitable survivors in the residential complex.

He signaled the little dog and continued forward, silently praying for no further unexpected mishaps.

Perhaps his misfortune had run its course, for the rest of the journey was uneventful, and Kong Zhe arrived safely at the mall.

Only after closing the door did he finally breathe a sigh of relief, brushing snowflakes from his clothes and gazing at the mall before him.

This mall had five floors; the first was the food, clothing, and daily goods section. As he looked at the dazzling array of goods, his heart raced uncontrollably.

After the apocalypse, a kind of liquid food appeared—sold in NPC shops. It merely filled the stomach, but tasted like unsalted biscuits soaked in water for hours, so revolting that a single bite was enough to nauseate anyone.

Yet because it was cheap, Kong Zhe ate it for three years. Most people were the same—daily life was about survival, not flavor. Milk, chips, cola—even chewing gum was a luxury.

Even if he happened upon these sweet and sour delights, he couldn’t enjoy them; he’d trade them for more vital healing potions and equipment.

But now, all these goods belonged to him!

“Ah…”

Just as Kong Zhe’s eyes gleamed and he prepared to collect supplies, a sudden uproar of panic and shouting reached him from deep within the supermarket, interspersed with the roars of monsters.

His heart tightened. There were monsters here after all. He crouched and crept forward, peering through stacked shelves.

Deep in the supermarket, six or seven people were cornered with two monsters. The humans cowered together in a dead-end, trembling, their eyes full of despair.

They were employees of the mall, who had survived the apocalypse by hiding in the basement. But food had run out, and today, hearing that the monsters upstairs had dwindled and grown quiet, they risked emerging to search for food—only to be discovered by the monsters lurking within.

Now, blocked by two fierce creatures, they knew they were doomed. The only reason they still lived was that the monsters had fallen into conflict with each other.

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One beast was a purple-skinned fishman; the other, a dog-headed creature wielding an iron shovel. They snarled and threatened each other, both intent on claiming the humans as prey.

In the end, the fishman retreated first.

The dog-headed creature, triumphant, waved its shovel and swept its gaze greedily over the survivors, considering which to devour first.

Its fevered focus soon settled on a delicate-faced girl. She turned deathly pale, despair flooding her heart. The others, seeing this, shrank away, relieved that the tragedy had not chosen them.

The dog-headed monster howled, opening its maw as it closed in on the girl. All believed she would die in its jaws—

“Little Dog, go!” came a low, commanding voice.

As if responding, a dog-headed mage charged in from afar, leaping like a hunting leopard. It collided fiercely with the dog-headed monster about to feed.

“Awroo!” The struck creature howled, tumbling across the floor from the impact, but the little dog wasted no time. Brandishing its shovel, it battered the ordinary dog-headed monster’s skull relentlessly.

But the fight wasn’t over. As the little dog entered the fray, a figure cloaked in white, wielding a long blade, rushed in from a corner and engaged the remaining fishman.

This, of course, was Kong Zhe. Once the little dog appeared, the purple-skinned fishman spotted him behind the shelves, prompting him to act.

The purple fishman was a level-two monster, much stronger than the one he had killed at Xue Feifei’s home.

Fortunately, his quintupled physical attributes matched the fishman’s speed. He dodged the incoming claws, swinging his blade at its waist.

“Clang!”

The sound of metal striking scales rang out. Sure enough, the fishman’s scales were tough; the powerful blow left only a white scratch.

The fishman, regaining its composure, roared and lunged. Its claws clashed with Kong Zhe’s blade, sending a surge of force through his hands and knocking the weapon aside.

Despite losing his blade, Kong Zhe seized the moment. As the fishman faltered, he darted behind it and gripped its throat with his right hand, choking hard.