Working Records in a Weird World - 91

 

| WRIAWW | Zong Le is Not a Survivor At All! | 91

Zhou Ke'er was in the office, helping sort through class rosters.

The homeroom teacher continued ordering him around without courtesy: "Take all these to the classroom. If any parents come back later, you must label each gift with numbers and cross-check them with the students."

"As for your gift, there's no need to look. Zhou Lian already left it with me in advance. You can take it away later."

Had these survivors been actual influential parents, the teacher would never dare to order them around.

It was because she knew these were temporary parents hired by the school did she feel entitled to boss them around for free labor.

Naturally, in front of the education bureau inspectors, she'd claim this parent was assisting as their child was class monitor and parent committee representative for this meeting, it was a flawless explanation.

Fortunately, Zhou Ke'er was good-natured and well-acquainted with NPC behavior in instances. He nodded perfunctorily but continued meticulously organizing the rosters.

Although trivial, with the teacher using her authority, perhaps he could ensure this opportunity to improve the survival rates of other survivors.

Although he was numb to colleagues' deaths, and one of the top ranks. He understood better than anyone that the dead were beyond saving. So within his ability, he'd help the living whenever possible.

While carrying materials to the classroom, he spotted an anxious survivor pacing frantically and stopped them.

"What's wrong?"

Recognizing him as the10th, the A-level survivor looked as if granted amnesty: "Boss Zhou Ke'er!"

He obviously had a lot to say, but he hesitated for some reason, Zhou Ke'er instantly understood.

He spread his hands, and a faint white light burst from his fingertips, instantly forming a small domain.

This was an advanced application of the strength-type survivor's skill "Domination."

Because the scope of use has expanded from the individual to multiple targets, its power was greatly weakened. It was no longer capable of enhancing survivors but only constructing a simple domain.

Its utility also became limited, it could only create a temporary shield within high-level weird domains.

The benefit was that, within this space, they wouldn’t have to worry about their words being detected by the weird domain's rules.

Witnessing this, the A-level survivor immediately poured out everything he wanted to say, like spilling beans from a bag.

"You have no idea how outrageous these brat NPCs have been!"

For the next five minutes, the survivor cursed the ancestors of these mischievous children eighteen generations back.

Just now, the survivors who had received the envelopes didn’t dare delay for even a second, and immediately following the instructions inside to search for the gifts prepared by the children for their parents.

However, the thought processes of the ultimate dungeon’s NPCs were utterly bizarre, let alone second-graders, who are already wild and unrestrained.

Some survivors opened their envelopes to find terrifying crayon drawings, others discovered sheets of paper scrawled with "Die Die Die" in red ink, and some even received a summer homework booklet, leaving them clueless on where to even begin.

What was even more infuriating was that not only did the brats refuse to give proper clues, but when the survivors tried to communicate with them, the kids just giggled, treating it all as a joke.

At first, they completely ignored the survivors' questions, but after persistent efforts, they reluctantly offered some hints, like claiming the gifts were hidden under pillows in the dorm, in the trash pile on the rooftop, or buried in the muddy grass by the stinky ditch near the playground.

Yet when the survivors painstakingly searched those locations, they found nothing. Then, the kids would casually say they "remembered wrong" and point to another spot.

They were inside a S-level weird domain, where every step was accompanied by the chilling sensation of being watched, and forced to separate from the main group for this phase of the mission, unless they were high-tier S-levels like Zhou Ke'er or Joshua, who could handle themselves on their own.

Most survivors were on edge. So, they didn’t have the luxury of carefully analyzing the situation, they could only rush to complete this task and move on to the next location.

Although the kids didn't cooperate, most of them were not weird.

Facing ordinary dungeon NPCs, the survivors naturally didn’t remain overly cautious—especially when the kids' combined ages didn’t even match the survivors' shoe sizes.

"And when you reached the next location, you still didn’t find the so-called gifts, right?"

By now, Zhou Ke'er had already pieced things together.

The A-level survivor nodded. "Exactly. It was only when one of us noticed the kids were all wearing smartwatches that we realized they had a private group chat where they were coordinating ways to prank their 'temporary parents.' They even covered for each other, making fools out of us."

"It was then that we also found out that the missing A-level survivor had been given a fake name by one of the kids. If not for that, he wouldn't have failed, these kids don't know how to play pranks at all!"

At this point, the survivor's voice trembled with anger.

A small dent was left in the concrete from the force.

Even after completing so many instances, it was hard not to feel a pang of sorrow at this moment.

For the instance NPCs, a prank was just a few minutes of amusement, but for the survivors, especially in what could be their final instance before returning to the real world, a prank could mean the difference between life and death. That colleague could have made it back with them to the real world.

Although, survivors have become numb to death, they were not entirely indifferent.

"So the first guy who saw the group chat flew into a rage, and grabbed the brat, and gave him a good beating."

Instance NPCs, especially a seven-year-old kid, had little power. After a few hits, the kid was wailing, shouting threats like "My dad's a leader in Guiyi City's bureau!" and "My mom's a corporate executive! You'll pay for this!"

However, the survivors who had been tricked were no pushovers either. Over the years, they had all taken NPC lives in instances, and in some extreme cases, even carried out massacres to complete missions. 

A mere child wouldn’t have lasted a second if not for the education bureau's inspection team still being around.

But that was precisely the problem.

"This weird domain covers the entire school, and we're being watched every second. Thanks to the main system's memory erasure, discussing instance-related tasks is fine, but any mention of 'temporary parents' or anything that might expose our identities would violate the domain's rules. The guy who beat the kid suddenly noticed that the window of the dormitory was covered with the shadows of the inspection team. In the end, before he was arrested, he used the voicemail function of the forum to leave us this information."

"That’s roughly all what happened... Now we're stuck. These kids can’t be hit or scolded, but if we are nice, they’ll walk all over us, and it's even more impossible for them to give us information about the gifts."

Now, with no way forward, everyone was at a loss.

Desperate, he remembered their team had two S-level members, one of whom was the 1st-ranked strategist. Surely, Joshua could find a solution.

But Joshua was nowhere to be found. Instead, he ran into the 10th-ranked Zhou Ke'er on the way.

Figuring an experienced S-level might help, they explained the situation, hoping for a solution.

Zhou Ke'er pondered. "Hmm, at this point, there’s no perfect solution. Maybe use the temporary parent identity to threaten them...? Never mind, I’m not great at strategizing. It's safer to leave it to the 1st-ranked."

"Then I won’t waste time, I’ll keep searching. If you see 1st, let us know on the forum."

"Wait." Zhou Ke'er hesitated, then handed over a roster. "Actually, I’ll look for 1st. You take this parent list and check the classrooms for any parents searching for gifts."

"...Huh?"

Ye Yun froze.

He wasn’t a newcomer. He understood the subtext behind Zhou Ke'er's words all too well.

In this dangerous S-level dungeon, staying safely in the classroom to count supplies was far better than wandering outside where one might get caught by the inspection team at any moment, it was practically a get-out-of-jail-free card.

Moreover, the justification was sound, a parent can voluntarily offer assistance. Even if this conversation were monitored, there was nothing wrong that they could be found at fault

"But wouldn't that put you in danger—"

"I'm still a 10th rank, after all. Since when did you start worrying about me? Besides, I don't need to search for gifts. Being able to use this excuse to exempt one more person is a good thing."

Zhou Ke'er smiled: "Alright, go on now. When the homeroom teacher comes looking for you later, make sure you don't give yourself away."

At this point, Ye Yun would seem ungrateful if he refused any further.

What's more, facing such a dangerous S-level dungeon, an A-level like him truly felt helpless. He immediately bowed repeatedly, "Thank you, big boss! Thank you!"

Even after Zhou Ke'er's figure disappeared down the corridor, Ye Yun still hadn't recovered from this pie in the sky.

Ina daze, he clutched the student roster and made his way to Class 2-A.

The classroom was empty at the moment, as the elementary students were all playing in the activity room.

'Big brother Zhou Ke'er is really kind, just like the 1st,' Ye Yun couldn't help but think.

After finally catching a breather after being on high alert for so long, he pulled out his phone to check the forums, keeping an eye out for the latest updates on the mission while idly flipping through the roster.

A competent survivor would seize every opportunity to gather intel, no matter the circumstances.

In the past, he could have sold dungeon information to the Merchant Guild, but now everyone's main goal to return home as soon as possible.

The content of the roster itself was unremarkable, it listed the students' parents' names, occupations, and contact details. Ye Yun noticed that some entries had red marking with handwritten notes emphasizing certain names for special attention.

At first glance, there didn't seem to be anything particularly noteworthy.

Just as Ye Yun was thinking this, his gaze swept over one line. But when he closed the book, he suddenly realized that something was wrong.

Wait!

He frantically flipped the pages open again, his movements so forceful he nearly sent the entire stack flying. His fingers hurriedly skimmed through the dense list of names before finally stopping on one page.

A bright red circle unmistakably highlighted one entry:

[Student: Liu Fu]

[Parent: Zong Le]

[Occupation: Dean of Taikang Yongle Hospital]

[Contact: 1XXXXXXXXXX]

"How is this possible...?"

No matter the name or the occupation behind it, it is absolutely impossible for someone like this to appear here!

After double-checking to confirm he wasn't hallucinating from stress, Ye Yun took a breath.

As everyone knew, the roster must have been printed before the parent-teacher meeting. So why was the name of a talented newcomer here, along with the dean of Taikang Yongle Hospital...? 

His mind was in chaos, countless theories swirling inside.

Finally, after several minutes of intense brainstorming, Ye Yun picked up the roster.

He looked out the window at the pitch-black, colorless sky and finally made up his mind and walked out of the classroom without looking back.

......

Almost simultaneously, a deafening explosion erupted from the center of Sunshine Experimental Elementary School.

The entire school building shook violently, dust raining from the ceiling as if struck by an earthquake of magnitude eight.

"What's happening?!"

Everyone was startled by the sudden disturbance.

But that wasn't the end of it. After the massive tremor, the black translucent barrier enveloping the school began to dissolve like flowing ink. The colorless surroundings gradually regained their hues.

Outside the window, the blood moon still hung in the eternal night sky, but the suffocating pressure had vanished without a trace.

It was the sign of a shattered Weird Domain.

"Huh? The Weird Domain is gone?!"

Although the survivors were scattered across different locations, the expressions on the faces of every survivor currently undertaking the "Sunshine Elementary" mission wore identical expressions of utter disbelief.

"This can't be right. How could the Weird Domain shatter?"

Every survivor who had read the new manual and possessed basic common sense knew that Weird Domains were nearly impossible to destroy by external forces. They could only dissipate when the weird died or was severely injured.

Moreover, this was an S-level mission's Weird Domain, destroying the domain from the outside was practically impossible.

That left only one possibility.

"Did that S-level inspection team weird die???"

"How is that possible? The mission just started. It's barely been an hour at most."

"Did the weird withdraw the Weird Domain itself? But why would it do that?"

The survivors gathered together due to the sudden change in the Weird Domain, the survivors exchanged bewildered glances, none of knew the reason.

After a long silence, someone finally spoke up: "Why don't we form a team to find the inspection team and see what's really happening? Since we're all here, more hands means more power."

"Good idea!"

"I agree."

"Yes, if this is some trap by the weird, we'll have time to react."

"I remember their vehicle was parked at the school gate, it's not far from here."

"Not anymore. When I passed by earlier, I saw those shadowy figures gathered in the principal's office on the first floor. They press against the glass, moving to whichever window shows abnormalities to capture anything."

With the Weird Domain gone, everyone can speak without restraint now, they no longer needed the forum to relay messages, saving significant time.

Meanwhile, Ye Yun, who had rushed out with the roster after a brief exchange with his homeroom teacher, witnessed this scene.

His sense of foreboding grew stronger, but the thrill of uncovering a major secret, mixed with terror, left him no time to pause and think.

Fortunately, at the next turn, he ran into the very person he wanted to find.

The silver-haired man seemed to have just concluded a "hunt," his pristine white robe hem stained with faint traces of blood. Having confirmed and obtained crucial information, his ice-blue eyes behind the monocle gleamed with rare vitality, his smile more genuine than usual.

"Lord Joshua!" Seeing 1st, Ye Yun cried out as if grasping a lifeline, hurrying toward him.

"Hmm?" Joshua glanced up at the noise.

He didn't recognize this A-level survivor, he didn't even have any impression of him at all, but that didn't stop Ye Yun from breathlessly pouring out his discovery to the man universally regarded as the most reliable saint in the Infinite Space: "Lord Joshua, I've found something terrifying!"

"That newcomer, Zong Le, you know him, right? He seems..."

At this point, Ye Yun began trembling uncontrollably.

After several stammered "seems," he finally forced out his earth-shattering suspicion:

"He seems not to be a survivor at all! But a native from Guiyi City!"

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TL: I'm surprised Ye Yun didn't take a picture and post it on the forums or something.