Chapter 24
Chapter 24
In the slums of Safe Zone 088, a well-equipped construction crew was swiftly putting up a building.
Or rather, a tiny house.
It covered barely more than twenty square meters. Apart from a basic bathroom, there was only a small bedroom.
A crowd had gathered outside the construction site.
“See those workers’ uniforms?”
“That’s the Anomaly Hunter Bureau’s emblem…”
“Why would the Bureau be doing construction here?”
“Haven’t you heard? The kid who used to live here became an Anomaly Hunter…”
“An Anomaly Hunter? Holy crap…”
Qin Lan might not have been sociable, but he had lived in this neighborhood for more than a decade. Most of the nearby residents had at least some impression of him.
Their faces were filled with shock when they heard that he had become an Anomaly Hunter.
Qin Lan had exchanged the corpses of several 1-Star anomalies for Bureau points, then spent those points on the Bureau’s reconstruction service to rebuild the little house his parents had left him.
Most of his belongings had been destroyed in the fire, but he still felt an attachment to this place that he could not let go.
That was why he had rejected the suggestion that he move downtown and chosen to rebuild on the original site.
In theory, with his current income, a few days spent roaming the Fallen Zone would earn him enough to buy a spacious home in the city.
He simply did not want one.
Su Xiaoyue had already left Safe Zone 088. The academy she attended was located in another Safe Zone, and she had needed to report back early.
Safe Zone 088’s full designation was Eastern Safe Zone 088. The hundred Safe Zones throughout the Eastern Region were numbered from 01 to 100.
Su Xiaoyue’s destination, however, was the Central Region–a core region where talented people gathered and major events converged.
Before she left, she had spoken to Qin Lan with tears in her eyes and her heart on her sleeve. It had largely been one-sided. Qin Lan had not understood what she meant and had offered almost no response.
Then again, even calling it a heartfelt confession would be generous. Su Xiaoyue had no experience with romance either. Compared with Qin Lan, she simply had a much more active inner monologue.
When she told him to “keep in touch,” that she would “miss him,” and that he had to “come see her,” Qin Lan took them all as polite farewells between friends.
Over the next several days, he traveled constantly through the Fallen Zone, earning the funds for the reconstruction while grinding his attributes along the way.
After several unremarkable 1-Star instances and one dull 2-Star instance, Qin Lan’s attributes had improved substantially once again.
——————–
Qin Lan
Race: Human
Strength: 6.2
Constitution: 5.6
Speed: 5.5
Spirit: 4.4
Curse Energy: 65
——————–
In addition to the growth of his base attributes, Qin Lan’s resurrection rewind had now reached two minutes.
That was twice its original duration, giving him far more room to maneuver against anomalies.
He was still a little short of the power needed to kill a 2-Star anomaly.
Against a 1-Star anomaly, however, Qin Lan was absolutely invincible.
Strangely, over the course of the week, the frequency with which he encountered instances in the Fallen Zone steadily declined. He had not found another high-star instance either.
At first, he thought his Talent had stopped working.
Then a warning arrived, and Qin Lan finally learned the reason for the abnormal situation.
[All Anomaly Hunters below 3-Star, return to the Safe Zone immediately!]
[Repeat.]
[All Anomaly Hunters below 3-Star, return to the Safe Zone immediately!]
Qin Lan was resting in a ruined residential building when he saw the warning. He froze.
“What’s going on? Every Anomaly Hunter below 3-Star has to return?”
Before he could process it, a message from Lu Xingshan arrived on its heels.
[Lu Xingshan (Director): Where are you?!]
[Lu Xingshan (Director): If you’re in the Fallen Zone, get back here immediately! I’m not joking!]
Qin Lan’s expression turned grave. This was the first time he had ever seen such urgency in Lu Xingshan’s messages.
Even when a 4-Star cursed artifact had gone out of control, the man had remained perfectly composed, as though everything were under control.
“It couldn’t be…” Qin Lan formed an ominous suspicion.
[Lu Xingshan (Director): A high-risk instance has gone out of control!]
[Lu Xingshan (Director): It’s releasing entrances at random locations throughout the Fallen Zone. Several Anomaly Hunters have already been pulled inside and officially declared dead, including a 3-Star Anomaly Hunter!]
[Lu Xingshan (Director): It isn’t limited to Safe Zone 088. Entrances have appeared around every Safe Zone from 085 through 090. All of them are under full lockdown!]
Qin Lan’s scalp prickled.
It really was an instance out of control.
Under normal circumstances, an instance’s entrances would only appear within a limited area of the Fallen Zone. Their precise locations might vary, but never by much.
Take the Road to the Netherworld, for example. The place where it had pulled Qin Lan in for the second time was barely over a kilometer from where he entered during the college entrance exam.
For that reason, any area in which the entrance to an instance rated “extremely dangerous” might appear would be sealed off, preventing underqualified Anomaly Hunters from dying inside.
But once an instance went out of control, its entrances could appear randomly across an enormous area. Several might even emerge at the same time.
Anyone unfortunate enough to be dragged inside could do nothing but pray for their ancestors’ protection.
According to Lu Xingshan, the affected area spanned several Safe Zones and required all of them to impose lockdowns simultaneously.
The danger posed by this instance likely exceeded all imagination.
“Damn… A 3-Star Anomaly Hunter is already dead. That means the instance must be at least 4-Star. It might even contain several 4-Star anomalies…”
“Could it be… 5-Star?”
“Staying alive comes first.”
Qin Lan sucked in a cold breath. Once he grasped the danger, he immediately set off for the Safe Zone.
A single 3-Star Conductor had already made his life miserable. He did not dare imagine what would happen if he encountered a 4-Star anomaly.
He might be able to resurrect endlessly inside an instance, but that did not mean he could ignore its dangers.
“There is no such thing as an unsolvable instance.”
Every high school student learned this iron law of instances.
It meant that every instance contained a hidden means of escape. Even without the strength to oppose its anomalies, one could survive by exploiting its rules.
But high school teachers did not tell their students that instances rated 5-Star and above had another name–unsolvable instances.
Every 5-Star instance shared one defining trait: that hidden hope of escape did not exist.
Even if a person discovered every rule within the instance, survival against its anomalies was not guaranteed.
An unsolvable instance was synonymous with despair.
Even Qin Lan could meet disaster inside one.
He might become trapped at an inescapable point of death, condemned to repeat the same two minutes for eternity.
The thought alone sent a chill through him.
“No wonder the low-star instances have been disappearing. So this was the reason…”
Qin Lan cursed under his breath as he checked his map for the right direction.
Anomalies were much like animals. They fought over territory and domains too. When a terrifyingly powerful anomaly began to hunt, weaker ones would avoid it or retreat into hiding, just as small animals fled from a tiger in the forest.
“An unsolvable instance… Even someone as strong as Lu Xingshan would probably be sweating bullets in there, right?”
“I wonder how likely a 4-Star Anomaly Hunter is to survive one.”
The very next second, Qin Lan abruptly found himself sitting on a bus.
Huh?
It took him three full seconds to realize that he had accidentally stepped into an anomaly’s trap and been pulled into an instance.
“Damn it… It just had to come after me now? This is holding up my escape!”
Qin Lan swore as he read the instance information in his mind, already calculating how to kill the anomaly inside as quickly as possible and clear the instance.
[This is a summer trip after your high school graduation.]
[You and your friends agreed to depart today. Unfortunately, you have run into rush-hour traffic.]
[Heavy rain is falling outside. The air conditioner inside the bus is turned up high, but the stuffy heat still leaves you drowsy, and you begin to nod off.]
The background description seemed perfectly ordinary. Nothing about it stood out.
But the lines that followed made Qin Lan’s entire body go rigid.
——————–
[Final Destination]
Difficulty: 5-Star
Cursed Artifact Present: Yes
Special Class Present: Yes
Rule 1: This is a script written by Death. You are merely an insignificant character in it.
Rule 2: You are going to die. There is no escape.
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