Chapter 3 - The Mercenary System

Author: He Feng Yan

Translator: HeXie

Editor: Nevermind

The zombies from outside were slamming on the fixed iron door, and the hinges slowly started to loosen up. The walls also trembled dangerously, causing tremors that sent dirt falling off it onto the ground, as if the zombies could rush inside at any time. The wounds on his benefactors body also shed more and more black pus, and his body started to smell like a corpse. Wu Ye, even though he was ignorant of the transformation process could guess that this was a sign of his benefactor turning into a zombie.

What should I do?

Do I really have to kill this man?

Wu Ye is not really sure if he could possibly do this, but he knows one thing.. Even if he really did kill that man and threw him out to the other side of the wall, his body couldn't possibly be able to off all the zombies– if he were one, he would have preferred to eat the living. . Besides, earlier he had the ability to outrun the zombies, but now his legs were shaking and trembling. He can't do that anymore.

What should I do? I can't wait here to die, can I?

By the way, what the hell was that mandatory mission just now?

When Wu Ye tried to think about it, he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his head. Somehow there appeared to be lots of new information in his mind.

It turns out, he travelled to this hellhole, because of the 'Cosmic Mercenary System'. Before the system activated, he bought some beads when he travelled to the plateau last year. The beads were very eye catching, so he bought them and kept them with him until he was in fatal danger, and the system activated at that moment.

'Cosmic Mercenary System' is an advanced artificial intelligence that was developed by higher civilization during the war. The original purpose of the research and development was to develop a training plan for intelligent life to maximize their potential that was given to them at birth. Thanks to this, it was expected that any ordinary intelligent life could be forged into an iron blooded warrior.

The mercenary system had played a great role in the war, but it was discarded after the war. In the end it's production was stopped and it was erased from history. However, it was undeniable that it was a very great and practical invention, so even with government intervention the banned mercenary system was still actively bought and sold in the black market of higher civilization.

The 'Cosmic Mercenary System' that was bound to Wu Ye is an improved product circulating in the black market. It was unknown how the system landed on earth, but what is certain was that the improved system has a wormhole function, allowing the binder to jump to a parallel world where the connection is then established.

The only disadvantage is that the system can only connect two random worlds after it's activation, and it couldn't be changed after the connection was established. And a certain amount of specific energy was required to open up the wormhole for it to be ready to be used.

In addition to the unique training tasks the system has a trading platform. The currency used in the trading platform itself was energy and points that Wu Ye gain from missions or other sources, and it could be used to exchange it for corresponding items divided into these four categories food, medicine, weapons, and skills. Things that Wu Ye salivates over, but a look at the exchange points or energy needed made him back out.

After understanding his system function in general, Wu Ye's evaluation of the system is that the golden finger is strong but very difficult to use. Compared with the golden finger in the 'Interstellar Mercenary', it was simply weak and incomparable.

However, for Wu Ye, this system had two clear advantages. The first one was the fact that even though the system couldn't be transferred to anyone, he didn't have to finish a mission to open the wormhole. The second one was based on the first, and it was the fact that when he saved up enough points, system could send him back to his original world where he'd be able to continue his rice worm lifestyle.

Based just on these two advantages, Wu Ye felt that there was still some hope for him, so he had a goal worth fighting for.

Regarding the specific energy that the system used, it would formulate the corresponding energy requirements according to the environment it was currently in. Currently the energy required by the system is energy core of the D (Death) virus from the infected people.

There are two ways to earn points. The first one is to kill the D virus infectee, the second one is to complete system's missions. There are two kinds of missions. The first kind is the random mission, that can be accepted without any punishment for failing but less rewards. The second kind was the mandatory mission, which was accepted automatically. However if you failed the mandatory mission, your points would get deducted and you would get physical punishment of varying degree. Correspondingly, the mandatory missions had better rewards, not only did you get more points, but you also got random material rewards.

Wu Ye went through the information he had in his mind, and these were the general rules of the system. As for specific details, it could only be slowly discovered and understood when it appeared.

The most important thing right now for him was to find a way to avoid all the numerous zombies out there.

Wu Ye's mind moved and a virtual control panel appeared in front of him, which could only be seen by him. The panel was small, and looked like a 14 inch computer screen, with only four icons in simplified chinese, which are: missions, exchanges, portals and beginner's gift pack.

Wu Ye clicked on the beginner's pack icon, the panel changed, and different icons showed up. The icons are: D virus vaccine x1, low grade D virus expelling agent x3, pure water 600ml x15, low grade nutrients x15, and climbing backpack x1.

"Why is there only this much?" At least give me a weapon, it's doesn't have to be AK47, but a new knife would do.

Several grey icons suddenly popped up. A set of low-level protective attire x1, rifle x1, bullet x100, field knife x1, ordinary motorcycle x1, gasoline x50L, low-level virus detector x1.

[The greyed out icons have been converted into energy to wake host up on time.] The cold electronic voice rang once again.

Wu Ye listened to the cold voice of the system with mixed feelings. All the weapons were converted into energy to wake him up. Why did the system show them back again? Wasn't this an intentional provocation? For the first time, Wu Ye felt the malice from the system's dark humour.

As the crashing sounds from the door became even more violent, Wu Ye had no time to continue to mourn for the missing items. He quickly clicked on the receive button at the bottom of the panel.

Another icon appeared below the system's panel: Are you sure you want to receive the beginner's gift pack?

Wu Ye clicked yes, and the panel disappeared. Suddenly a large black climbing backpack appeared in his hand, and the bulging backpack was heavy. Wu Ye quickly opened the backpack and took out the low-grade D virus expelling agent, that the system had shown was there. It was contained in a black spray bottle that was made from pressured iron, with no logo or words on it. It looked like a Shanzai version of insect repellant.

Wu Ye took it out and subconsciously shook it twice. Wu Ye, holding the mentality of a person ready for death, took a few steps towards the iron door, and sprayed the repellent randomly from the crack of the door.

A stream of yellow smoke billowed out.

God, what repellent? It's a biochemical weapon!

Is the rotten meat not bad enough? This thing smells a hundred times worse than rotten meat!

Wu Ye's nose could only smell the stinky smell in the air, making him wish that he could throw his nose away. He held his nose and breathed through his mouth. It was already bad enough for human's nose, but for zombies whose sense of smell was stronger, the smell was simply unbearable. Just the yellow smoke was enough for them, but it had even mixed in things that they hated. Soon, the zombies unable to bear the smell left one after another.

After a while, the sound coming from the door thinned out, and then disappeared completely. Wu Ye peeked through the crack of the gate and saw that the zombies had all disappeared. Only when he saw that, did he calm down and relax. His legs suddenly softened and he almost knelt on the ground.

The repellent's smell was so bad that Wu Ye dared not to wait any longer. He quickly walked to Qin Wuhua, picked his climbing backpack, and went to great pains to get him up and drag him to the empty house.

"What a pig, he's crushing this daddy." Wu Ye panted and placed him at the dusty concrete floor, and took out a syringe with a vaccine from his backpack. Recalling the 'Resident Evil' and various other American dramas he watched, there were three places he could use to inject the vaccine: neck artery, buttocks and the arm vein. He decided to inject it in arm vein, since he had some experience with that.

"Shit, what a big loss, it's my only vaccine and I gave it to you. When you're awake, your life will belong to me, do you understand me?" After he finished injecting the vaccine Wu Ye dropped the syringe and sat down, patting Qin Wuhua's face absentmindedly as he scolded him 'fiercely'.

After a short break, Wu Ye became hungry and felt his stomach gnawing on his insides. He took out a tube of nutrients from his backpack. It didn't have any label as well and looked like a toothpaste, whether in appearance or size, so he unscrewed the cap and squeezed a big chunk into his mouth.

What the fuck is wrong with this smell?!

It smells like dinner that was left overnight! It's sour and sticky, is it really something humans should eat?

Wu Ye could neither swallow or vomit it out, so finally he prepared his heart and drank more than half a bottle of mineral water to finally swallow it down. He resolved himself to never, ever touch that disgusting thing again.

Wu Ye put the nutrients away, tampered with the system, and found out that he had completed a mandatory mission[Escape from the Zombies], mission rating: G.

[Will you receive the mission reward?]

Wu Ye looked forward to the reward but at the same time he was also uneasy about it.

Rewarded: 10 points, medical alcohol x1.

"It doesn't matter whether it's good or bad ranking, it's still a mandatory mission, so how come I only received 10 points? It's way too little" Wu Ye was very disappointed with this reward. It took 1000 points to open the portal, which meant that based on current rewards, he had to complete 99 more difficult tasks to reach his goal. Would he still have the same luck next time? Wu Ye was discouraged when he thought of the ferocious zombies.

Never mind, we'll cross the bridge when we get to it. Anyways, couldn't he get the points for killing zombies? No matter how much meat mosquitoes have, it's still meat. Gathering 1000 points from killing them is still in the realm of possibility.

He didn't know how his parents feel right now, they should have realized he's missing by now. They must be worried. Wait a second, didn't the system say it activated automatically when he was in life threatening situation? He remember he got in the car, and then… he seemed to fall asleep, what happened after that?

"System, what kind of life threatening situation did I experience?" Wu Ye asked as he faintly realized that he seemed to have forgotten something.

[Lethal dose of hallucinogens, high-speed car accident.]

"How is it possible?" Wu Ye was very surprised. While he was playful, his old man kept a close eye on what he played with, so he never played with something dangerous like drugs. However there was no need for system to deceive him, and it was impossible for him to take drugs.

Wu Ye had a vague feeling that he forgot something important. But no matter how he tried, he could only remember getting into the car that his eldest brother sent to pick him up, and getting into it before he fell asleep. The next thing he remembers is opening his eyes and waking up in this strange and terrible world.

No, something else seemed to happen when he fell asleep.

Wu Ye couldn't recall it. The only thing he could do was to ask the system, but the only reply he received is.[No data recorded prior to the activation.]

In the end, what happened after he got in the car?

He didn't have a grudge against anyone. Was it possible that his family was in danger? After all, he just somehow survived a near death experience.

Furthermore he didn't even know against whom the grudge is. Was it aimed at him, or maybe his whole Wu family. Wu Ye was lost in thought.

Another time and space, in a bright and elegant office.

"Are you sure he was in that car?" The man in the suit asked as he sat behind his desk whilst frowning, tapping his fingers on its surface. The atmosphere in the room was stifling..

The man in a black suit standing in front of the desk bowed respectfully. Although he was not really handsome, he possessed an awe inspiring aura around him as he murmured " Yes boss, I personally witnessed Wang Jian getting into that car and followed him on the highway all the way up to the incident.

"What about that man?" The man frowned and asked, his eyes blazing with fire.

"… I'm really not sure, boss." He also wondered how did the body disappear into thin air. "She has given him enough hallucinogen that even if, by any chance, he escaped it's impossible for him to survive."

"Jingzhou, you've been with me for so many years, so you should be able to understand that I hate unexpected things happening the most." The man is still carelessly speaking, but Li Jingzhou knows that he has become extremely angry.

"Sorry, I messed up."

"Forget it, anyway, our plan is almost successful. You'll go inform Andrew later and tell him that the cooperation plan is ahead of schedule. I'll go home in the afternoon, and help me book L'amour table. Tonight, I'm going to propose to Miss Ouyang."