He’d spent his workday mulling over the task issue too.
The current task might show as a blank slate, but it wasn’t without hints.
Beyond Casey’s parents’ case, he had another thread: those prerequisite tasks.
Before 【His Birth】 triggered, the system had noted, “All prerequisites satisfied within the time limit.”
Given the hidden prerequisites, one question nagged at him:
What if some prerequisites didn’t even appear as “hidden tasks”?
Take the blood writing in the basement, for instance.
He’d never understood why a room crawling with corpses and roaches counted as a “reward.” He’d even enlisted G8273’s help, but no new task had popped up.
But what if it was a hidden prerequisite—one that didn’t display on the task interface at all?
Then how many such unlisted hidden prerequisites had he fulfilled before 【His Birth】 activated?
He’d spent the whole day racking his brain, untangling a web of leads:
Cornelius, the Final War, the Ghost War, the Existence War, the feud between Old Vincent and the Chief Commissioner, the bad blood between Finnian and the Chief Commissioner, Finnian and Babylon…
Too many. Way too many. Hastur felt like a cat that had leaped into a tangle of yarn balls, hopelessly ensnared.
That was the mess of reality—not the clarity of a game.
Games offered clear guidance, like all those previous tasks.
So why were there no details on this task interface?
Hastur’s gaze drifted to his status panel, untouched for ages. Amid a row of stats hovering above fifty, only one remained pathetically crippled:
【Intelligence: 3 (You have a brain, but not much of one. Even if clues dance right in front of you, all you’ll see is empty air.)】
Could it be… that it wasn’t missing details at all? That his game character’s intelligence was simply too low to perceive them?
The more he turned the idea over, the more it made sense. “….”
If that was the case, the game was downright sadistic. Why trigger the task at all if you were just going to hand him a puff of invisible nothing? It was mockery, plain and simple.
Hastur took a deep breath—an utterly pointless gesture, since he lacked lungs or nasal passages—and eyed the two Freedom Points remaining in his possession.
Ever since realizing Order Value had to come from his own efforts, he’d poured every output from the academy and Gourmet Street into Light Orbs. He didn’t have any spare Freedom Points on hand right now.
He tallied his daily earnings: three from the academy, two from Gourmet Street.
Five per day. How long would it take to scrape together enough to make the task details “visible”?
He felt like a broke player on the verge of a gacha pull, short on resources and scrounging every corner of the game for scraps. In the end, his eyes settled back on the academy.
New employees, new specialties—didn’t that mean time for new courses?
Hastur swiftly cleared out the long-idle restaurant—now that everyone ate at the big table in the living room, hardly anyone bothered with it anyway—and repurposed it as expansion space for the academy. It connected perfectly.
He allocated half to Adolf for a Military Comprehensive Classroom and the other half to Finnian for a Culinary Arts Classroom.
Once Gourmet Street fired up, the school and the street had started competing for Finnian’s time. One Finnian clearly wasn’t enough anymore.
Launching the Culinary Arts Classroom would free him up from Gourmet Street, letting him spend more time at the school—especially keeping an eye on the little matryoshka doll… er, Huslu.
Hastur efficiently completed the construction of the newly expanded campus, using his swift actions to mask the guilt gnawing at his heart.
Three months had passed—who would still remember that he had jumped into the game in the first place just to vent his Nesting Desire?
Hastur felt just like that game promo ad from the company: a little octopus collecting shells on the ocean floor, when an evil human sends over a wicked game controller. Before long, the octopus abandons its shells, loses itself to gaming, and three months later completely forgets about nesting, totally addicted to the ga—wait… what? Hold on???
Hastur abruptly looked up. “Z.”
“Huh… huh?” On the bench opposite him, the sprawled-out captain blinked awake in a daze, nearly tumbling off his seat. “What’s up?”
Hastur nimbly pulled up the company’s new promo ad on his phone. “What’s this ad based on?”
“…Uh, this one…” Sleep vanished in an instant as Z’s eyes darted wildly, his face practically screaming awkwardness and guilt. “It’s just… a little octopus living in the ocean. No real inspiration or anything.”
Hastur sniffed out the blatant lie!!
Outrageous! Infuriating! He immediately messaged Lv Zhucao, his words stern as he demanded the propaganda department yank the ad right now—no reason given, except that if they didn’t, he’d find somewhere else to nest for real.
Lv Zhucao paused on the other end of the line. “…”
His tone carried a hint of reluctance. “That ad’s actually pretty cute… Er, fine. It’ll be down in ten minutes.”
Hastur irritably hung up, refreshed the company website a few times, and only then felt like checking the game again. He switched the APP to the [Real-time Monitoring] interface and glared at the little figures on his screen.
After several updates to the Offline APP, players could now monitor the orphanage’s real-time status right on their phones. It wasn’t the realistic style from the game, though—this was all chibi-style paper figures.
At that moment, countless chibi figures were hurrying through the school. The three-heads-tall chibi Adolf sat behind a tiny front desk, cheeks puffed out with baby fat, a dense cloud hovering over his head.
And it was a literal cloud hanging there.
Raindrops pelted down, slightly larger than the other chibi figures’ but drenching Adolf all the same. The chibi Adolf shrank like a Samoyed getting a bath.
Hastur had been keeping tabs on Adolf’s status for a while now.
With that [Depressed and Listless] debuff, Adolf held onto it from waking up straight through to bedtime. Only when chibi Alpha was nearby did the floating [Depressed and Listless] status bar over his head shift to [For Father’s Sake, I Can Barely Keep Going].
Right now, the two-heads-tall chibi Alpha was snoring away in her second-floor dorm, blissfully unaware that all the other age-appropriate adults had gathered outside her academy—still too young to worry—staring at the bulletin board and griping up a storm.
In the real-world APP, their complaints popped up as bubbles over the little figures’ heads:
[Military class, fine, but who wants Cooking Class??]
[I’m not too worried about Cooking Class. Cooking’s something even Finnian can do—I’m game to pick up a few recipes, just in case our future boss kicks the bucket young and I miss out on his meals. But this Military Class… intriguing. I’ve been bored stiff in the academy lately; this comes at the right time. I hope the comprehensive courses include live combat training.]
[Who’s teaching? That mopey softie at the front desk, Adolf? Oh man, in real combat, I hope I don’t accidentally sprain the hand he uses to braid Alpha’s pigtails! Hahaha!]
Hastur: “…”
He watched these clueless, overconfident three-heads-tall little chubsters file into the new classroom as the bell rang, his gaze full of the pity one might spare a warrior facing doom.
At the front desk, Adolf stood up and strode forw—er, no.
No striding. With his [Depressed and Listless: Movement Speed -30%] debuff, Adolf shuffled into the classroom at a snail’s pace.
The moment he raised his head, the status bar beside him flipped to [Hell is Empty].
Hastur tilted his head in confusion. “…?”
In the classroom—built from donuts for walls and cookies for furnishings (all filters; in-game, these were real furniture)—the three-heads-tall chibi Adolf suddenly raised his massive bun-like right hand and flipped the donut podium, hurling it at the students below.
The chubby little students below yelped in surprise, flailing their arms as they scattered in panic.
In the next instant, Adolf grabbed each one by the ankle, dragged them back, and proceeded to thrash them soundly.
Three donut desks shattered under his bun-sized fists during the brawl, crumbling into cookie crumbs.
Five cookie chairs were swung viciously by Adolf, smacking the chubsters into squealing, bloody-faced messes.
What had been a cute, whimsical classroom was single-handedly turned by Adolf into a brutally adorable chibi beatdown video. Only when the last chubster lay twitching pitifully on the ground did he toss aside the cookie chair in his grip:
[Too weak. All of you.]
[From now on, I’ll be your instructor. Time to whip you into shape. On your feet. Now.]
[In my class, I demand absolute obedience. Understood?]
Hastur: “…”
So that’s why you ditched [Depressed and Listless] the second you stepped into the classroom and switched to [Hell is Empty]?
Whatever. Compared to Nirvana Gang thugs, a proper employee like Adolf was far more valuable. Cutting down even one day of his moping was a win. Sure, he might wreck the students a bit.
Harboring a twinge of guilt, Hastur pocketed his phone and headed off with his calling teammate. It wasn’t until the mission wrapped and he boarded the shuttle home that he pulled out his phone again for a peek.
5:30 PM—the tail end of the last Cooking Class.
Hastur cautiously opened the monitoring interface and breathed a sigh of relief that none of the trainees were too banged up to attend. Were their faces bruised and swollen? Were they stirring batter with QAQ faces clinging to their mixers?
Eh, as long as they could stand and walk, it was fine. Nobody got to live happily without lowering their standards a notch.
The Cooking Class, once derided by all, now buzzed with harmony. Occasional bubbles floated up from the chef-hatted chubsters:
[QWQ ow… Look at my reflection in this bowl! One eye’s swollen huge!]
[Cooking Class rocks. So peaceful. I love cooking. How did I never notice how great it is before?]
[This has gotta be the dean’s scheme—first Adolf lays into us with the stick, then the cooking class we all hated turns into honey after the beating!]
Hastur: “…??”
Who had the gall to spread rumors like that? Clearly, Adolf hadn’t hit hard enough.
Any lingering nonhuman guilt evaporated in a flash. Hastur shut off his phone, closed his eyes to rest, and didn’t check it again until the shuttle landed and he returned to his lair.
No missed calls, but at the top of the screen glowed a simulated call button. It was the Offline Phone feature from the Offline APP!
Hastur’s hand froze midway to his helmet—this was his first in-world call from a game NPC.
The surreal thrill of shattering the fourth wall made him unconsciously swish his yellow robe. After a moment’s hesitation, he set the helmet aside and answered in reality. “Hello?”
“…Zzt…” The static steadied quickly. “Dean, sir? Remember me? Nasir!”
Hastur hadn’t expected his first Offline Phone call to come from someone not super impor—er, a fairly useful NPC. A touch disappointed, he kept the line open. “Mm. What’s up? The payment from that deal come through?”
“Sigh… If only.” Nasir sounded exasperated. “Truth is, that Little Hank Vincent who hired us? He’s in a real spat with Mr. Lancer right now.”
“He’s refusing to pay up for his own brother—even though by our code, once the job’s done, the client pays, no exceptions.”
Hastur recalled what G8273 had said in the hotel banquet hall. Little Hank blowing up like this wasn’t surprising.
But rules were rules—industry customs etched in stone. They didn’t bend for one hothead’s tantrum…
Unless that hothead had the muscle to shatter them:
“That’s not my problem, middleman. You hook us up with jobs, we do the work, you deliver the pay. That’s on you.”
“Of course. Rest assured, I never disappoint my partners—at worst, they disappoint me.”
Nasir’s tone turned perilous. “No one walks away unscathed after reneging on a deal with me. Little Hank’s boneheaded move won’t just trash his rep; it’ll cost him big time.”
“Actually—”
Nasir cleared his throat, seamlessly shifting to a teasing lilt:
“Actually, I’m in talks with Lancer Vincent right now about a partnership.”
“The next two weeks are gonna stir up a storm inside Babylon Company—but you probably knew that already? Bet Mr. Lancer’s filled you in on his plans.”
Once again misunderstood by a human, Hastur replied, “…I have no idea. You might not believe it, but our relationship’s not great. These days, we just stay out of each other’s way.”
“Live and let live? Ha!” Nasir burst out laughing in an instant. “How could that be? Do you think I’d tell you about my collaboration with Mr. Lancer for no reason? That’s not something a middleman should do.”
“I asked him ahead of time how I should handle my attitude toward you. He said nothing here needs to be kept from you.”
Hastur: “……”
Could he say that G8273 had done anything wrong? Of course not. Staying open and honest with him was a friendly signal, and there wasn’t a single thing to criticize about G8273’s behavior.
No, the problem was with humans. They spent all day chasing gossip. Couldn’t there be pure, non-human relationships in this world?
Expecting non-humans to reflect on their own words and actions was impossible—absolutely impossible.
Hastur gave a few casual responses to brush him off, then prepared to hang up and log back in as quickly as possible.
Just as the app switched back to the previous page, he suddenly paused.
On the Order Value interface, the Light Orb was emitting a steady, soft glow.
He stared at the line below the Light Orb: [Can be exchanged using Freedom Points]. A sudden thought struck him.
Freedom Points could be exchanged for Order Value, but could Order Value be exchanged back for Freedom Points?
He tapped the screen experimentally. The Order Power already inside the Light Orb couldn’t be extracted.
But what if he could somehow obtain a clump of Order Power that hadn’t been fed into the Light Orb—one that existed independently?
Hastur pondered for a moment. “Mr. Nasir.”
“Hm?” Nasir halted his chatter. “Do you have something to say? I’m all ears.”
Hastur tapped the Light Orb on his phone. “Could you pass a message to G… Lancer Vincent for me? Ask if he’s free lately. Maybe we could meet up?”
Nasir: “……”
And this guy still claimed rivers and wells didn’t mix? Only a fool would buy that.
Nasir said with a beaming smile, “What a coincidence! I’m in Mr. Lancer’s study right now. Why not ask him yourself?”
“?” Before Hastur could react, a rustle of fabric and clink of metal came from the other end of the game call as the phone changed hands.
In the next instant, G8273’s voice broke through the barrier between game and reality, striking his real senses. “Nasir says you’re looking for me?”
G8273 seemed to chuckle, his voice weaving nonchalance and intrigue into a lazy drawl that carried a hint of suggestion.
“Got any new orders, Chief?”
