| WRIAWW | Isn't He Quite Friendly? | 07
Sun Ming, who had been innocently caught up in the mess, was filled with regret.
He hated himself for meddling and striking up a conversation with Zong Le.
"Brother, my big brother, you’re really going to be the death of me! Why did you have to argue with that spoiled brat? His dad is the guild leader! We can’t win against him, and now look at us—two rookie D-rankers, buy one get one free, it’s not even enough to fill the teeth of a B-level weirdness!"
"Sure, you looked cool when you criticized the guild for exploitation, but you’ve got to understand one thing: when you’re under someone else’s roof, you have to bow your head! Don’t tell me you’ve been scrolling through too many forum posts and saw that recently emerged talented D-rank, thinking you could do the same?"
Sun Ming rambled on for a while before suddenly realizing that the surroundings were completely empty.
It was a little past eight in the morning, but the sky over Guiyi City remained completely dark, without a hint of light.
Ankang Community was an old, dilapidated neighborhood with outdated infrastructure. There were only five streetlights, and one of them flickered on and off, casting a pale glow under the blood-red moon.
Looking at the fragmented shadows of the trees around him, Sun Ming couldn’t help but gulp.
"Hey! Wait for me! Why are you walking so fast? Are you in a hurry to reincarnate?"
He quickly jogged to catch up with the figure ahead, while still making sure to issue a disclaimer: "I need to make this clear—this whole mess is your fault for overestimating yourself. If we run into danger later, don’t expect me to protect you!"
Despite his complaints, Sun Ming wasn’t paralyzed with fear like someone who knew their death was imminent.
That’s because he was someone who was terrified of dying. Ever since entering the Infinite Space, he had been scouring everywhere, asking around on forums for any way to save his life.
And as it turned out, Sun Ming actually found something.
At the top of the leaderboard was a figure who had long held the number one spot, revered by survivors as the savior of the Infinite Space and the most likely candidate to lead everyone out of this hell.
From the forums, Sun Ming learned that this figure, known as "The Patriarch," held the exclusive rights to an S-rank dungeon.
The Infinite Space was filled with numerous dungeons, each with a final, most difficult mission. The first person to complete this mission and achieve the highest rating would gain control of the dungeon, commonly referred to as the "first clear."
After clearing it, the dungeon would become a safe space, allowing free use of its resources and offering various enhancements and benefits.
Unlike other survivors who used their dungeons to establish guilds and build their own factions, Joshua didn’t treat his dungeon as private property. Instead, he opened it up to all survivors for free.
This S-rank dungeon was called "The Temple," an ancient temple built on the edge of the Aegean Sea.
Back when survivors were trying to conquer The Temple, they paid a heavy price. It could be said that every inch of the temple was soaked in the blood of survivors.
But in exchange for that price, the rewards was short of terrifying.
At the center of The Temple was a golden "Fountain of Healing." Immersing oneself in it while being blessed by the chants of the priests could restore even the most severe injuries, regrowing lost limbs in minutes. The Soul Lanterns that appeared in the main hall every month were even more precious.
If a survivor bound themselves to one, it was equivalent to gaining an extra life.
Moreover, after clearing the "Temple," Joshua obtained the position of “Patriarch of the Temple" along with its unique abilities and special items, making him a walking, god-tier healer.
As long as he was around, there was no need to worry about injuries or dying in the dungeon—he could literally pull you back from the brink of the underworld even if you had a single breath left.
On top of that, he was known for his upright character, gentle demeanor, and generosity, having aided many survivors. Thus, he had a massive following throughout the Infinite Space, serving as a spiritual beacon and a ray of hope for countless people.
After learning about the existence of the Soul Lantern, Sun Ming immediately packed up and slept at the entrance of the Temple. Every time he completed a mission, he would camp there, and after half a year of persistence, he finally managed to snag one.
There was no other way—the top-ranked big shots were incorruptible, and the Soul Lanterns weren’t for sale but given away on a first-come, first-served basis. Even if a top-ranked player wanted one, they had to fight for it themselves.
Before entering the Infinite Space, Sun Ming had been a bottom-tier athlete. He wasn’t good at much, but he was shameless and willing to go all out.
Thanks to binding with the Soul Lantern, he could now handle things with ease.
With his ulterior motives in mind, Sun Ming followed behind Zong Le, constantly scanning the surroundings and ready to retreat at the slightest sign of trouble.
After all, he had no shame. If things went south, he could always run back, kneel before Young Master Qin, and beg for mercy while slandering Zong Le. As long as he could please the young master, the collective punishment would likely be overlooked.
"This stairwell is so scary... damn."
As soon as he entered Building 4, Sun Ming couldn’t help but shiver as the temperature around him plummeted.
Before he could even catch his breath, he saw Zong Le ahead casually turn on his phone’s flashlight and walk up to knock on the first resident’s door. Sun Ming nearly jumped out of his skin: "Are you insane?!"
Zong Le looked puzzled: "Huh? What’s the problem?"
"The problem is huge! If you just knock like that, what if there’s a weird inside? You’ll alert the enemy!"
"But if I don’t knock, how will the residents fill out the survey?"
"Seriously? You’re actually planning to play the role of a community service worker?" Sun Ming was speechless.
At that moment, though he had never met a survivor named Wen Pushi, he felt the same sense of helplessness.
Usually, when doing missions, survivors would at most skim through the side tasks, and never pay attention to the main objectives. After all, no matter what the main task was, the ultimate goal was always for the survivors to eliminate the weirdness.
For example, in this B-level mission, as long as all the weirdness in the neighborhood were eradicated, the overall happiness index of the community would naturally rise.
Among survivors, there was an unspoken rule: ignore the main task and just kill everything in sight.
As the two of them were at a standoff, the fierce chopping sounds inside the door suddenly stopped.
This was followed by heavy, approaching footsteps.
"Who’s there?!"
Hearing the clearly hostile question, Sun Ming immediately shut his mouth and stepped back, wishing he could crawl into the wall.
The wooden door was abruptly pulled open, revealing a menacing iron mask in the darkness.
Behind the doorframe stood a burly man, towering at over two meters tall. He wore a greasy, stained brown apron and held a sharp meat cleaver in his hand.
As the door opened, a wave of foul, rancid meat stench poured out. Sun Ming’s sharp eyes caught a glimpse of a few twitching muscle fibers still clinging to the side of the cleaver, a testament to its freshness.
What was even more terrifying were the dense shadows hanging from the ceiling inside the room.
The thought that those strings of blood-soaked meat chunks might all be his own kind made his scalp tingle.
In the ultimate dungeon, there was no room for paranoia—everything could be imagined in the worst possible way.
Yet, the black-haired young man standing at the door showed no reaction to this scene, which was akin to a murder scene. He even raised his hand and greeted casually.
"Hey, Butcher Brother, good morning. Sorry to disturb your work."
Sun Ming: "..."
He didn’t have any mental energy, so he couldn’t sense whether the butcher was an NPC or a weird. But at that moment, he genuinely felt that, with such a nonchalant attitude, the butcher’s meat cleaver would be swinging at Zong Le’s neck in the next second.
Sun Ming was already prepared to witness a bloodbath.
To his astonishment, the butcher remained silent for a moment, then responded in a voice as deep and rumbling as thunder.
"What do you want?"
The voice was hoarse and terrifying, like coarse sandpaper scraping against straw paper, sending chills down one’s spine.
"Oh, nothing much. I’m a community service worker now, here to conduct a survey today. I need to fill out a happiness index questionnaire. Could you please cooperate with my work?"
The butcher said nothing, only silently raised his hand.
Understanding the gesture, Zong Le quickly handed over the questionnaire and pen he was holding.
Next, Sun Ming watched in stunned silence as the two-meter-tall demon put down his cleaver, pressed the paper against the wall, and clumsily gripped the pen with his bloodstained, calloused hand, marking one crooked check after another.
Butcher Brother, you look like a ferocious demon with a face full of meat, but it turns out that you have a very good temper?
Wasn’t it said on the forums that NPCs in the ultimate dungeon had terrible tempers and no sense of morality? Did he read a fake post?
As soon, as the writing ended, the form was handed back to Zong Le.
The latter took the bloodstained questionnaire without batting an eye, as if there was nothing unusual about it.
[Side Quest Completed (1/4)]
Even as the violent chopping sounds resumed, Sun Ming was still lost in thought.
"Wait, aren’t you scared of him?" he finally blurted out after a long pause.
Just looking at the mask, the rivets on the side were horrifying. Sun Ming could see clearly—six of them, each driven into the cheekbone, with yellow-green pus oozing from the gaps. It was clearly not someone to mess with.
"Huh? Why should I be scared?" Zong Le asked in confusion. "Isn’t he quiet friendly?"
Sun Ming: "..."
Something felt off, yet it also felt completely right.
"Well, yeah, he’s quite the tough guy with a soft side."
What could Sun Ming say? He could only admit that this reckless kid had some luck. In the ultimate dungeon, he had blindly drawn the lot and somehow ended up with an NPC that wasn’t a weirdness.
But Lady Luck wouldn’t favor the same person every time.
Watching Zong Le naturally head upstairs, Sun Ming pursed his lips and followed.
He just couldn’t believe that an entire building could be filled with such harmless NPCs.
The stairwell was pitch black, and the higher they climbed, the heavier the cold, eerie feeling became.
Sun Ming, who followed behind in the distance, shivered, his hands and feet were cold and heavy. He struggled to climb another floor. When he looked up, he saw Zong Le striding ahead effortlessly, and a big doubt flashed through his mind.
Are you the athlete, or am I?
Soon, Zong Le arrived on the third floor. He first knocked on the door across the hall. However, this time, there was no sound of scratching from inside.
"Sister Liu doesn’t seem to be home..."
After a moment of thought, Zong Le decided to continue upstairs.
The mischievous kid upstairs was indeed home, as the sound of bouncing a ball could be heard from afar.
Sun Ming clenched his teeth and followed. Just as he reached the corner, he saw the door in front of Zong Le suddenly creak open, startling him so much that he nearly missed a step.
A little boy in overalls silently appeared behind the door, his face as pale as paper, his pitch-black eyes staring straight at them, holding an unidentified object in his arms.
The thought of how long this figure—whether a weird thing or an NPC—had been standing behind the door sent a chill up Sun Ming’s spine.
"Little brother, where are your parents?"
To accommodate the child’s height, Zong Le considerately crouched down.
The boy tilted his head as he looked at the adult in front of him. "They’re not home."
His voice was innocent and childlike, but in this setting, it was straight out of a horror movie.
"When will they be back?"
"Xiao Fu doesn’t know. They haven’t been back for a long, long time."
Hearing this, Zong Le felt a surge of guilt. Ankang Community had many such left-behind children, whose parents worked away from home year-round and only returning during holidays to see them.
Perhaps it was because of this that the lonely child was bouncing a ball in the middle of the night.
He softened his voice. "Big brother has a survey here. Could Xiao Fu help fill it out?"
"Can big brother play ball with Xiao Fu for a while?"
As he spoke, the little boy extended the object in his hands.
With just one glance, Sun Ming nearly had a heart attack.
Because it was a shriveled human head.
Zong Le scratched his head awkwardly. "But I don’t have time today. Big brother still has work to do. Maybe next time?"
Next time? I think you’re about to be turned into a dried-up head by this ghostly thing!
With that thought, Sun Ming turned around and bolted downstairs without looking back, wishing he could disappear into a blur.
Better to let others face danger than yourself. No amount of persuasion can save someone determined to die. This ghostly encounter was too close for comfort—self-preservation was key.
Hearing the hurried footsteps, the two—one big, one small—paused for a moment, staring at each other in confusion.
"Is that big brother’s friend?"
Zong Le shook his head. "No, I don’t have any friends yet."
"Oh, I see," the boy said thoughtfully.
The rest of the process was similar to dealing with a butcher, except that some words on the survey were beyond the child’s understanding, and a seven-year-old’s writing ability was limited. Zong Le had to read the questions aloud and then fill in the answers for him.
[Side quest completed (2/4)]
After receiving the system notification, Zong Le took back the completed survey and casually handed a piece of candy to Xiao Fu from his pocket.
Just as he was about to ask the child if he had seen Sister Liu on the third floor, a blood-curdling scream suddenly came from downstairs.
"Ah—"
Zong Le didn’t have time to ask further. In a flash, he disappeared from the doorway.
When he reached the third floor, he saw Sun Ming sitting on the ground, surrounded by scattered fragments of light.
"There’s... there’s a weird in there!"
Sun Ming pointed ahead in terror.
He had indeed abandoned Zong Le and run away, but as he sprinted down to the first floor, he didn’t hear any screams from upstairs. Just as he began to feel suspicious, he coincidentally received a side quest notification from the main system, so he decided to turn back and sneak up to investigate.
Little did he know, this decision would nearly plunge him into eternal damnation.
As he climbed back up, Sun Ming felt his body growing colder and colder, the chill becoming so severe that he could barely move his legs. Since he had experienced this before on his way up, he didn’t pay it much mind.
It wasn’t until something dangled down from above and brushed against his neck that Sun Ming realized something was wrong.
“There’s a creepy woman in a white dress crawling on all fours on the back of the stairs! She wrapped her hair around me and tried to strangle me!”
If it weren’t for the soul lantern he had obtained from the temple blocking the fatal blow, his head would have already been separated from his body.
After listening to the description, Zong Le followed Sun Ming’s finger and looked at the tightly shut door ahead.
“......”
Zong Le even turned back to glance at his own house a few times, making sure he wasn’t mistaken.
But no matter how he looked at it, the place Sun Ming kept insisting was haunted was actually the home of his neighbor, Sister Liu.
“Hmm... is it possible that you were just too stressed from the mission and saw hallucinations?”
Zong Le had seen his neighbor before. She was a quiet woman who often wore a white dress. Sure, her hair covered her face a bit more than usual, but in Sun Ming’s words, she had somehow become a carbon copy of Kayako, which was quite unsettling.
“My life was on the line! How could I have made a mistake?!” Sun Ming was furious at Zong Le’s lack of trust. “Aren’t you a bit dense? Like that little boy on the stairs earlier, he was holding a human head—don’t tell me you didn’t see that either!”
“It’s just a realistic toy. How can you have such extreme thoughts to speculate about a child who’s only a few years old?”
Just then, a creaking sound suddenly echoed.
It sounded like someone was frantically scratching at the door.
“That’s the sound!” Hearing the familiar sound of death again, Sun Ming’s hair stood on end. “She... she’s coming!”
But under the overwhelming fear, his legs went weak, and he couldn’t stand up at all.
“You, you need to hold that door shut! It’s about to open!!!”
Hearing the genuine fear in Sun Ming’s voice, Zong Le’s expression turned serious.
Because he thought of another possibility—what if the weirdness Sun Ming mentioned wasn’t Sister Liu, but that weirdness had entered her home?
Considering this, Zong Le, who always cared deeply about his neighbors and saw maintaining good relations as his duty, immediately stepped forward and yanked the door open.
“Bang!”
The next second, the entire door was ripped off the wall, along with the door frame and shattered bricks.
Liu Rouya, who had been frantically scratching at the door from the other side, was clearly caught off guard. Her hand hung in mid-air, her ten-centimeter-long black nails filled sawdust.
For a moment, the hallway was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
Zong Le was the first to break the silence.
“Uh, Sister Liu, sorry about that.”
He awkwardly smiled. “I... accidentally used a bit too much force.”
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