twojebook Chapter 112 : Chapter 112
Chapter 112 : Chapter 112
Chapter 112
Ji Qing got back in touch with White Night once again.
White Night accepted Ji Qing's sudden disappearance with remarkable speed, and the moment contact was successfully reestablished, he immediately tossed two missions at him. White Night wrote: 【I'm very sorry, senior. But I'm severely short-handed right now (tears streaming all over the floor.jpg)】
White Night: 【The targets for these two missions are very close to each other. I'm sure you can finish them both in one go, senior! Keep it up!】
At that, Ji Qing tugged at the corner of his stiff mouth.
He deliberately compared the coordinates of the two mission sites and thought from the bottom of his heart: White Night might have seriously overestimated his strength... Were these two missions really the kind that could be wrapped up quickly...?
But bitter fruit of his own planting could only be eaten by himself.
Without much energy, Ji Qing typed: 【Okay.】
White Night: 【Oh right, senior. Senior Emerald suddenly dismissed everyone from the Base of Operations. Do you know why?】
Ji Qing's fingertips paused when he saw that.
Naturally, he knew the reason, but it was rather complicated to explain. So Ji Qing expressionlessly typed: 【? I don't know.】
White Night: 【I see...】
White Night: 【I thought you might know. But missions are definitely more important. Keep it up, senior!】
The same words of encouragement appeared once again in White Night's messages.
As the cold and taciturn senior, Ji Qing replied with a very cool answer: 【Mm.】
Only after finishing that did Ji Qing's mind finally clear a little. He thought: White Night probably heard about it from Red Heart, or from some of the other Infected who had originally been at the Base of Operations. White Night was responsible for gathering intelligence, so he should have quite a few information channels.
Maybe he could have him look into clues about Licheng's fall as well?
Ji Qing fell into thought.
But when he thought of the World Book, which had not yet been put to use, Ji Qing decided it was better to wait. After all, hot tofu could not be eaten in haste.
His top priorities now were Dawn Society's missions, advancing his Hunter Account, and the school assessment that might appear at the end of the semester... Ji Qing's eyes darkened slightly, and then he suddenly let out a long sigh. "Looking at it that way, dropping out really would have been better."
Ji Qing could now understand the actions of his original self in the manga's planned main plotline.
If he had simply dropped out last semester, he could have avoided a great many problems now. But the moment he thought of that silly, adorable ball of light, along with the help the system had given him in the early days of his amnesia, and the classmates of Class S, his urge to run away abruptly faded.
Ji Qing could not help mocking himself. "I really do bring trouble on myself."
For the following half day, Ji Qing moved quickly toward Huicheng. He planned to board a train there, then speak with the system at a transfer town about what he had seen recently, and after that head to the mission sites to search for the targets.
By the time Dawn Society's missions were nearly finished, it would also be time to start working on raising his Hunter rank.
Just like that, Ji Qing's plan for the next few months was freshly laid out.
And while on the train departing Huicheng, Ji Qing was still paying attention to the movements of his classmates in Class S. Just as Shao Huayu had guessed, Ling You’er had chosen to team up with Feng Youyou and Song Xiaoran. The squad formed by Shao Huayu and the others had officially completed their third commission a few days earlier. They were not far from becoming C-rank Hunters.
Xie Chang’an and Gu Lingxue had signed up for the Firearms Club together.
But judging from the occasional confusion Gu Lingxue revealed in the class group chat, Ji Qing always felt that the two of them must have run into something. Still, he could look into it more deeply once he had time to read the comic. For now, the two of them were definitely capable of handling it themselves.
As for Jiang Cuo... a strange look flashed through Ji Qing's eyes.
Jiang Cuo had not sent any messages in the class group chat. Aside from the day of reporting in, he had practically been lurking the whole time. Even Ji Qing had done better than that, because he was currently chatting casually with his classmates in the group from time to time, and every now and then Xie Chang’an would pop up as well.
"How strange. It looks like whatever he's dealing with is pretty complicated," Ji Qing murmured softly.
If this kind of behavior had come from someone who was naturally taciturn, it would have been perfectly normal. But one of Jiang Cuo's labels was "noisy chatterbox." Ji Qing thought with certainty: he was probably like him, tied up by some situation and unable to get away.
Ji Qing continued following his own plan.
Amid the system's confused nodding, he told it his true identity. Then, in the midst of the system's terrified shrieks, he stuffed the system's mouth shut with the quilt he carried around with him. But what mouth did the system even have?
So Ji Qing simply wrapped the system up in the quilt and let it calm down for a while.
Only after the system's movements inside the quilt finally quieted down did Ji Qing pull the quilt away. A ball of light flashing with neon-sign special effects came wobbling out, muttering to itself, "Who exactly did I bind to? Don't tell me I bound to the final villain boss? Would a final villain boss really be this easy to talk to? Are Aberrants really this easy to %￥￥%..."
Seeing that the system had crashed so thoroughly, Ji Qing simply smiled and said, "How about you study that for a while? I'll head off first."
He had no leisure to sit around waiting for the system to regain its reason.
Ji Qing acted swiftly and decisively, fleeing the Pure White Space at once, then quietly began planning out his brand-new mission targets. During that time, the system wandered out in a daze, only to be smacked straight back into the Pure White Space by Ji Qing.
"No one gets to interfere with my work. I mean that in the literal physical sense," Ji Qing said firmly.
Whether or not he could hurry up and finish the job depended entirely on his own self-discipline. And most importantly of all—he was absolutely not some final villain boss! That hateful system always jumped to absurd conclusions. How could he possibly rise to the position of Aberrant boss that easily?
After sorting out the movement routes of his mission targets, Ji Qing set off at once.
The system, which had been staying in the corner of the room watching its Host gather and analyze intelligence, was dumbstruck. Out of nowhere, an image surfaced in its mind of its outstanding, highly self-disciplined Host fighting one-on-one against the still-developing main character of the manga.
System: "It's over, he absolutely can't win, sob TAT."
On the other side, Ji Qing paid no attention at all to the system's wavering. He still spent a great deal of time tracking down his mission targets. Only after he had dealt with both of them and finally reached the clean-up stage of the operation did he notice the system trembling anxiously in the corner.
Ji Qing raised a brow. "You still haven't figured it out, even after talking with your seniors?"
System: "Sob QAQ."
So Ji Qing went to the trouble of listening to the system's wildly ridiculous descriptions. Every time the system voiced a ludicrous guess so absurd it left one speechless, Ji Qing would expressionlessly thump it on the forehead once, then let out a cold laugh. "Heh."
By the time Ji Qing was done hitting it, he had finally knocked the system's reason back into place.
The system cried out in sudden enlightenment, "I get it! I finally get it! I was trying to understand a transmigrator who received nine years of compulsory education! I truly brought this on myself!"
Ji Qing's brow twitched violently when he heard that.
He felt he might have knocked the system's brain in the wrong direction, but there was no better way to sober it up. So Ji Qing stroked his nonexistent beard and said in an artificially profound tone, "It's good that you understand."
Anyway, the problem was solved, right? Probably? Ji Qing thought guiltily.
Over the next stretch of time, Ji Qing and the system browsed through the newly updated comic plot together, which also gave them a chance to see whether Xie Chang’an had run into any trouble. For some reason, Ji Qing felt like a free-range parent now, occasionally checking in through the internet on the physical and mental well-being of a child living far away at college.
The way the two of them interacted was basically like this—
Parent: "Have you been eating enough?"
Child: "Mom, Mom, please, could you send me a little more money? TAT"
The system was left staring in shock. "..."
As if discovering Ji Qing's true nature for the first time, it circled around him several times, muttering, "How strange. So Host actually has a talent for telling cold jokes?"
Hadn't he always had that?
After hearing that, Ji Qing merely shrugged with complete composure and continued reading the comic.
Volume 6 of the comic had already ended, and the plot had now reached the final part of Volume 7. After signing up for the Firearms Club together with Gu Lingxue, Xie Chang’an decided to take Hunter commissions centered around the town where he was based, while also training his firearm skills.
Gu Lingxue naturally agreed with pleasure.
In the second semester, when the students of Class S had all scattered in different directions, she had been worrying about what she should do on her own. Since she and Xie Chang’an already knew each other inside and out, Gu Lingxue was naturally very willing to team up with him.
Thus, the focus of Volume 7 split between the two of them: their coursework and the handling of commissions.
After Gu Lingxue became proficient in the basic firearms application class, the club teacher suggested that she no longer needed to continue learning it. Instead, she could try improving her Mental Threshold or take an Ability practical combat class. After all, Gu Lingxue was an Ability user herself, and Ability users did not need to rely on firearms on a regular basis.
Xie Chang’an, meanwhile, continued studying the firearms application class.
After learning that his talent could only take him this far, Xie Chang’an turned around and learned some other skills needed for wilderness survival. Calmly, Xie Chang’an warned himself: he did not need to become the best. He only needed to be better than most people.
Those had once been Li Yuan's words of advice to him, and now he was using them to caution himself.
At this point, many comic readers cried out things like "I'm shipping it," "It is love and hate all in the same person," and "This bond is eerie yet heartwarming, it's absolutely incredible," and even the system said with tears in its eyes, "The protagonist is really working so hard, he's really amazing, sob sob sob..."
Beside it, Ji Qing helplessly rubbed his brow.
So this was what people called a "mom fan," huh? The silly, adorable system had been thoroughly ensnared by the carefully crafted growth arc written by Yuexia. Ji Qing thought: But it's also about time for me to start taking commissions too. Surely it would not do for me to be the only one with the lowest Hunter rank when the whole class met again.
Ji Qing tilted his head back and let out a weary sigh. "The more I think about it, the more things there are to do."
And so, over the next two or three months, Ji Qing's schedule kept switching back and forth between Dawn Society's missions and Hunter commissions. Because low-level Hunter commissions were quite easy to complete, he did not need to spend too much effort on them.
During that time, Red Heart sulked over "being driven out of the Base of Operations by Emerald," but because he was truly too bored, he forcibly snatched his work back from Ji Qing.
Ji Qing found it amusing on one hand, while secretly breathing a sigh of relief on the other.
As his Hunter rank increased, the difficulty of Hunter commissions gradually rose as well. Now that he had advanced to the level of a B-rank Hunter, he had already reached the point where he needed to take commissions seriously. Red Heart's actions had practically rescued him in his hour of need.
At last, the time came for his first call with Emerald.
With the World Book's help, the culprit behind Licheng's fall had already begun to come into view. It was also time for him to set out.