Safe City Ch.127.1

Chapter 127.1: World Mission

Just as Cheng Qisheng was eyeing those mantle weapons greedily, Aether spoke up.

“City Lord, the world mission has been issued.”

“Mission: Eliminate all [Moon Silk Star Companies]. This is a confidential mission. You must not disclose it to any native inhabitants. (A Level-100 Cognition Lock item has been activated in this world. The native inhabitants are incapable of comprehending concepts related to Safe Cities.)”

“Mission Reward: One [Heaven’s Punishment].”

Cheng Qisheng: “?”

She had only just started coveting the weapons belonging to the [Companies], and the world mission immediately turned out to be eliminating the [Moon Silk Star Companies].

Wasn’t that a little too coincidental?

Fortunately, she had already noticed the next line in the information dossier.

[Moon Silk Star’s world mission is special. Any Safe City Lord who descends upon Moon Silk Star will immediately receive the world mission to eliminate all [Companies] once they form the concept of [Companies].]

Oh!

So that’s how it was.

In previous worlds, world missions were usually announced to everyone after some time had passed. But on Moon Silk Star, the mission was issued to each City Lord as soon as they arrived.

No wonder all the City Lords had unanimously chosen to pretend to be native inhabitants.

There was a Cognition Lock, so they didn’t have to worry about exposing their identities.

Cheng Qisheng was envious of that Level-100 Cognition Lock for exactly one second before her attention shifted to the mission reward.

The mission reward was actually [Heaven’s Punishment].

According to records, before the apocalypse, Moon Silk Star had a total surface area of 1.3 billion km².

And despite Moon Silk Star’s enormous size, a single [Heaven’s Punishment] could cover more than half the planet in its strike radius.

Simply looking at the numbers might not make the scale particularly easy to grasp, so put it this way:

Moon Silk Star was large enough to contain three Blue Stars, or more than twenty Dark Stars.

In other words, [Heaven’s Punishment] could destroy Dark Star more than twenty times over, or Blue Star three times over.

Although it produced radiation twenty years later and therefore couldn’t be used recklessly, in a life-or-death situation, this thing could absolutely determine the outcome of a battle.

To put it bluntly, Cheng Qisheng estimated that with this weapon in hand, even if Blue Sea eventually had to face a higher-tier Safe City, she wouldn’t have anything to fear.

And now, this ultimate weapon was being dangled right in front of Cheng Qisheng as her mission reward.

Cheng Qisheng: “……”

She wished she could charge straight into the [Companies] right now, mow everyone down in a barrage of gunfire, then drive an excavator back and forth, up and down, left and right, bulldozing every single building belonging to the [Companies].

And finally stick up a sign:

[Tomb of the Companies]

Of course, that was just wishful thinking.

Anyone could tell that an organization powerful enough to make more than three hundred Safe Cities tacitly agree to “keep a low profile” was definitely not something to be trifled with.

Besides, after taking on quite a few world missions—actually, not that many, but she had gained plenty of experience completing them—she had developed a rough understanding of how world missions were structured.

World missions could broadly be divided into two categories.

One was rescue or assistance missions, such as the virologist, Dr. Yu Zhitian, on Velvet Star.

Because she could develop a zombie vaccine and delay the destruction of the civilization, rescuing her became a world mission.

The other was elimination missions, such as the Skywing Dragons on Dazzling Star and the Lilith people on Green Billow Star.

And even in the case of the Lilith people, whose actions had caused such upheaval on Green Billow Star, the mission had only been to “take them away,” rather than “eliminate” them.

Yet the world mission on Moon Silk Star was to eliminate the [Companies].

Essentially, it was no different from the previous mission on Dazzling Star: “Eliminate the Skywing Dragons.”

In other words, according to the world mission’s assessment, at least for the time being, the ones who would ultimately cause Moon Silk Star’s complete destruction were the [Companies].

—For some reason, she wasn’t surprised at all.

Cheng Qisheng poured herself a glass of strawberry juice and slowly pressed a hand against her chest.

Calm down. Calm down.

The greater the reward, the greater the difficulty.

The extraordinarily generous reward from this world mission was itself evidence of just how difficult the [Companies] would be to deal with.

Blue Sea had only been on Moon Silk Star for less than a day. At present, the only information they had was what Coriander had provided, and Blue Sea hadn’t yet personally investigated Moon Silk Star to figure things out.

As for the world mission, she would have to approach it gradually.

The one thing she had never lacked was patience.

Cheng Qisheng took three seconds to calm herself down, then continued reading the information.

Aether floated in front of Cheng Qisheng and displayed surveillance footage from the Safe City’s nuclear crystal warehouse.

“City Lord, the mission reward was issued after Blue Sea descended upon Moon Silk Star.”

When Blue Sea had first arrived on Moon Silk Star, they had immediately received Coriander’s distress call, followed by a major battle. Aether was now Tier 6 and had become much smarter than before. Although it had received the notification, it had waited until the City Lord had finally gotten some free time before reporting it.

The jellyfish AI said seriously, “Aether counted them. There are indeed twenty thousand nuclear crystals.”

Cheng Qisheng suddenly experienced the satisfaction of finally getting paid after chasing down a stingy boss for her wages.

It had finally arrived!!

Previously, world mission rewards had always been credited instantly. This time, however, she had no idea how the system had determined completion.

The Lilith people leaving Green Billow Star wasn’t enough.

Blue Sea taking the Lilith people on a tour through the vast universe wasn’t enough either.

It specifically had to be Blue Sea Safe City taking the Lilith people and descending into a new world before the mission counted as complete.

The mission was [Take Lilith Away].

Cheng Qisheng had previously thought the emphasis was on [take].

Now it seemed the emphasis was probably on [away].

Looking at the twenty thousand glittering nuclear crystals in the warehouse, the great Blue Sea Creator God let out a tremendous sigh of relief.

Blue Sea now had only 4,000 nuclear crystals left as a reserve.

If these twenty thousand crystals hadn’t arrived, she really would have become so poor that she’d have to start selling supplies for crystals in the group chat.

That said, unless she was once again down to fewer than five thousand crystals, she still decided that next time they changed worlds, she would pilot the Safe City through the vast universe and look for a suitable place before choosing a new world.

Sure, piloting the Safe City cost crystals.

But the vast universe was absolutely packed with good stuff.

During these past few days of “drifting” through the universe, just the technology she had salvaged from those abandoned spaceships had already made the trip worthwhile.

Not to mention that she could choose her own world.

That was pretty darn reliable.

To be precise, the reason Blue Sea had become poor after drifting through the universe for several days wasn’t that the vast universe was at fault.

It was simply because Blue Sea was too poor.

Things were looking much better now.

Not only did she have twenty thousand crystals in hand, but the mutant beasts and Night Beasts on Moon Silk Star also had nuclear crystals inside their heads.

Even if they failed to complete the world mission in this world, they could still stockpile a substantial amount of nuclear crystals.

The more Cheng Qisheng thought about it, the more hopeful she felt about the future.

In a good mood, she quickly finished reading the remaining information. Once she had a general understanding of the situation, her conversation with Coriander finally shifted from casual chatting to business.

[Blue Sea Safe City: You’re a Tier 5 Safe City now, so you still need to raise your residents’ combat strength as quickly as possible. At the very least, when you face a powerful enemy, you shouldn’t be in a position where you don’t even have a chance to escape.]

After all, Cheng Qisheng had seen through her believers’ perspectives that the combat strength of Coriander Safe City’s residents was nothing like what one would expect from a Tier 5 Safe City.

At best, they seemed to barely reach the level of residents from a Tier 3 Safe City.

No wonder Sanluo Safe City had treated him like an easy target.

A Tier 5 Safe City with Tier 3-level combat strength—if he wasn’t an easy target, then who was?

If Cheng Qisheng hadn’t chosen to descend into this world, or if she had spent a little longer observing the vast universe and arrived a little later, Coriander would already have been reduced to a pile of ashes by now.

[Coriander Safe City: 😭😭 I didn’t want this either, Boss! I was forced to advance a tier!]

[Coriander Safe City: It’s like this, Boss. In my previous world, I was in a world that was somewhat like ancient times. There were towering mountains and giant trees everywhere, and even the smallest wild beast was two meters tall. I initially figured I couldn’t beat them and was planning to run away. But then, right near my landing coordinates, there happened to be a nuclear crystal mine!]

Nuclear! Crystal! Mine!!!

There were actually nuclear crystal mines?!

Cheng Qisheng, who had been lounging lazily in the driver’s seat, immediately sat cross-legged.

[Blue Sea Safe City: Tell me everything.]

Coriander carefully described what had happened. Basically, the moment he saw the nuclear crystal mine, he had been absolutely ecstatic.

[Coriander Safe City: At the time, I was thinking, “If only Boss were here.” (Two hundred words of flattery omitted.) But even if Boss wasn’t there, it didn’t matter. I could just mine it all out and give it to you! (Another hundred words of flattery omitted.) So I had my residents start digging like crazy.]

Mining nuclear crystal ore was a physically demanding job in itself. Nuclear crystals were embedded in rock, and both the crystals and the surrounding rock were extremely hard, so naturally, extracting them was quite labor-intensive.

On top of that, the wild beasts in that world were incredibly ferocious. A large number of people had to be deployed to deal with them, so Coriander Safe City’s mining speed wasn’t particularly fast.

They stayed there for roughly half a year and mined a total of more than two million nuclear crystals.

Coriander still held the same mindset as most Safe City Lords:

As long as your combat strength hasn’t improved enough, avoid advancing tiers if you can.

That way, you could continue staying in relatively low-risk apocalyptic worlds.

So even though he had obtained all those nuclear crystals, he hadn’t actually planned to advance a tier. He intended to use them to purchase useful items, facilities, weapons, and the like.

Unfortunately, he was targeted by a Tier 4 Safe City.

That Safe City possessed an item capable of detecting nuclear crystals. Following its guidance, they eventually discovered a Tier 3 Safe City and a nuclear crystal mine being actively excavated.

What happened next didn’t exactly require much imagination.

After taking a cannon blast, Coriander hurriedly purchased large-scale heavy weapons and fired back.

To his surprise, the other side was equally willing to spend crystals on weapons. All kinds of defensive shields and heavy weapons were deployed in succession.

When it came to weaponry, the two sides fought back and forth through the power of “money”.

But when it came to their residents, the quality of Coriander Safe City’s residents was clearly inferior to that of the Tier 4 Safe City’s residents.

At the critical moment, Wen Huahua chose to advance all the way to Tier 5 in one go.

Then, using the defensive shield that came with a Tier 5 Safe City, he managed to turn the tables and win.

[Coriander Safe City: And then I became a Tier 5 Safe City 😭. Sure enough, I ended up descending into this complicated and dangerous world. I knew my combat strength wasn’t great, so I deliberately kept a low profile and focused on repairing my Safe City. But I guess I was too low-key, because Sanluo ended up targeting me 😭.]

The only thing to be thankful for was that he hadn’t had time to completely repair the Safe City before the war began.

At least he didn’t have to experience the misery of “finally repairing all the buildings, only for them to get destroyed again.”

[Coriander Safe City: Boss, there’s one more thing I need to tell you. My supernatural ability has manifested.]

[Coriander Safe City: Boss, you’ll never guess what my ability is. It’s called “Fortune Comes from Taking Risks” (crying-hysterically-as-a-bear.jpg).]

Cheng Qisheng: [A luck-based ability?]

[Coriander Safe City: Mhm, mhm, mhm! Its official name is “Extremes,” but most City Lords call it “Fortune Comes from Taking Risks.”]

[Coriander Safe City: This ability means that after encountering a great fortune, you’ll soon encounter a great risk. After encountering a great risk, you’ll then encounter another great fortune. And the cycle continues over and over.]

[Coriander Safe City: (crying-hysterically-as-a-tree.jpg) Apparently, everyone who possesses this supernatural ability ends up dying horribly despite dying with a fortune in their possession. Waaaaah!!]

Cheng Qisheng now understood why Coriander hadn’t stopped wailing from the moment they met.

The luck-based ability “Extremes” really was rather torturous.

Its ability was “Fortune Comes from Taking Risks,” not “Take a Risk and You’ll Definitely Survive.”

Simply put: the fortune part was definitely a fortune, but whether you survived to enjoy it was another matter.

And this wasn’t something the person with the ability could control, either.

For example, suppose someone with this ability was walking down the street and suddenly spotted a lottery ticket lying on the ground.

They picked it up and discovered that the drawing had already taken place—and that the ticket had won 100 million.

That was the “fortune.”

It didn’t matter whether the person actually went to claim the prize.

The moment the fortune appeared, it counted.

And the next step would be “risk.”

The person might next get into a car accident, slip and fall from a rooftop, be poisoned, get caught in a fire, be struck by lightning, fall into water despite not knowing how to swim, get hit in the head by a brick falling from the sky while walking down the street, board a plane that crashes, get on a ship that capsizes, and so on and so forth.

Fortunately, these various “risks” wouldn’t come one after another in succession. Instead, one would be randomly selected.

If they managed to avoid it, they could continue on to the next round of “fortune.”

If they failed to avoid it…

Well, that was it.

In a sense, this ability was essentially a transfer of luck: huge amounts of good luck and huge amounts of bad luck constantly taking turns.

The only good news was that this ability wouldn’t actively affect other people.

For example, if a plane crashed, it would have been destined to crash anyway. It was simply that, through a combination of various circumstances, the “Extremes” ability user happened to board that particular plane.

The bad news was that Coriander was the City Lord of a Safe City, and a Safe City was considered to be one with its City Lord.

Therefore, the risks he encountered could target him personally, or they could target Coriander Safe City as a whole.

After reading through the information on [Extremes], Cheng Qisheng also found it rather troublesome.

If Coriander were being hunted or something, she could help him deal with it.

But this situation, where he could repeatedly encounter random dangers, was genuinely difficult to handle.

For example, suppose Coriander happened to slip while walking around the City Lord’s Residence, accidentally dropped a cup, and spilled the water inside onto an electrical wire—and then happened to touch the exposed end of the wire…

If Coriander ended up getting electrocuted into a shaking mess right inside his own Safe City, Cheng Qisheng couldn’t exactly reach over and pull him out.

All she could do was make him a promise:

[If we’re in the same world and you encounter danger, call me for help immediately. I’ll do my best to deal with it.]

That could also be considered a win-win situation.

Take the current situation, for example.

Sanluo was attacking Coriander, so she would deal with Sanluo.

Coriander would gain his safety.

And she would gain new territory, along with all the resources inside Sanluo Safe City.

Cheng Qisheng thought for a moment, then added:

[Also, now that you know you’ll be encountering risks, you need to improve your own combat strength and that of your Safe City’s residents. This world happens to have plenty of powerful mutant beasts and Night Beasts for practice, so you might as well use them to train properly.]

Improving combat strength was extremely important.

Take the Old Eighths, for example.

They had sturdy physiques and quick reflexes, giving them a much higher chance of dodging when danger struck.

Wen Huahua of Coriander Safe City actually thought the same way.

He hadn’t planned on relying on Blue Sea’s boss to look after him forever. First of all, that simply wasn’t possible under the Safe City system.

Secondly, Safe Cities ultimately had to survive under the rules of the apocalypse. Relying on a powerful ally might provide temporary safety, but without the ability to protect oneself, it was never a sustainable solution.

But…

Blue Sea’s boss actually regarded the incredibly powerful mutant beasts and Night Beasts on Moon Silk Star as training targets?

He had clearly sent over every photo and video he had of the mutant beasts and Night Beasts he knew about.

—Wen Huahua once again gained a new understanding of just how powerful Blue Sea’s boss really was.

With that thought in mind, he felt much more confident about what he was about to say.

[Coriander Safe City: Boss, according to our contract, I’ll give you 40,000 crystals first as the protection fee for this world.]

[Coriander Safe City: Also, I’d like to make another contract with you. Could I pay 90,000 crystals to hire some Blue Sea residents who are good at teaching combat and have them train my residents in this world?]

[Coriander Safe City: Boss, I know you’re a Tier 6 big shot now. These tens of thousands of crystals might not seem like much to you, but I spent more than a million of the crystals I’d previously mined on advancing tiers, and another several hundred thousand on the war. I still need to repair the Safe City afterward. This is the most crystals I can spare.]

[Coriander Safe City: I promise! Next time I encounter a great fortune, I’ll definitely share it with you, Boss! Please don’t look down on this offer!]

Wen Huahua was genuinely worried that he didn’t have enough nuclear crystals.

After arriving on Moon Silk Star as a Tier 5 City Lord, Wen Huahua had only then learned that Tier 5 Safe Cities were generally quite wealthy because their combat strength was sufficient—at least compared with lower-tier cities.

Since higher-tier Safe Cities were wealthier…

Then Blue Sea’s boss was already Tier 6, so she must be even richer.

Blue Sea’s boss surely possessed an enormous fortune, one that he wouldn’t even dare imagine having himself.

…

Meanwhile, the impoverished Cheng Qisheng at that very moment:

! 130,000 nuclear crystals!!!

She now understood even more deeply just how valuable it was to discover a nuclear crystal mine.

She had only just received 20,000, and now another 130,000 was coming in.

Today really was her lucky day!

Cheng Qisheng replied instantly:

[No problem. I’ll arrange for some instructors to train you and your residents on Moon Silk Star.]

When Wen Huahua saw Blue Sea’s boss’s reply, a warm feeling still welled up inside him despite already knowing what kind of person she was.

There must really be a place for him among Boss’s subordinates.

Otherwise, why would she agree so quickly?

Actually, there was an even faster way to improve his residents’ combat strength:

Have them operate alongside Blue Sea’s residents.

But Wen Huahua didn’t mention it.

For one thing, he knew his own residents’ level of strength all too well. If they really joined Blue Sea’s residents in their operations, all they would be good for was holding everyone else back.

For another, Coriander could tell from the rosy cheeks and clean clothes of the Blue Sea residents who had come to provide assistance that Blue Sea’s residents enjoyed a pretty good standard of living.

He was afraid that if his own residents spent too much time with Blue Sea’s residents, the contrast would make them feel inferior.

Boss really was Boss.

Even in the apocalypse, she could keep so many residents well-fed and healthy, with not a single one looking frail.

Wen Huahua was filled with emotion.

Fortunately, he was the City Lord.

If he were a resident, Blue Sea would have been the first place he’d defected to.

But now that he had become one of Blue Sea’s subordinates, that could also count as a form of joining them, right?

With that thought, Wen Huahua did his best to demonstrate just how considerate he was:

[Boss, once the Endless Night is over, I’ll have my residents deliver the nuclear crystals to you. That way, we can save the 5% handling fee~]

Sure enough, Blue Sea’s boss seemed to think he was being very considerate as well, and sent him two emojis: one of someone nodding with an “Mm-hmm”, and another of someone patting him on the head.

<< _ >>