Chapter 1 The Beginning

The handsome man in the suit, E Wu Nian, had no idea what Li Ang was thinking about his appearance as he continued, "There are just too many monsters in the dense forest. If they all swarmed us, we could be drowned alive.

"The factor that's keeping those monsters out of the forest is probably the key to our survival in this mission."

"Mm."

The Stonemason nodded, looking at Forest Cat and Dong Feng Po, who hadn't said much, "Do you two have anything to add?"

Forest Cat frowned slightly and said cautiously, "The mission title is 'Mechanical Mansion,' which means that this Williams Manor probably hides some kind of mechanism, whether real or surreal.

"Once we enter the mansion, we must be careful and not separate. All actions should preferably be carried out within sight of teammates."

The others nodded. They understood without Forest Cat's explanation that in this strange and unknown instance, working with teammates was beneficial to both the team and their own survival.

Dong Feng Po added, "There's not much time left until the deadline. I think we should go inside the mansion first. It would be terrible if we didn't have enough time for the second phase of the mission."

Because this cooperative mission scattered all the players to different areas of this region, no one knew how many people this scenario was originally for.

But with time being precious, they could only assume that there were no more teammates...

After a discussion, the five decided on the order of entry, with Li Ang and E Wu Nian, both lv11, in the lead, Forest Cat and Dong Feng Po, the two lower-level players, in the middle, and the Stonemason bringing up the rear.

Li Ang walked up the steps to the gate, using the blade of his trilateral bone spear to prop against the copper handle of the wooden gate, and pushed the gate open with a heave.

Squeak—

The gate made a grating, teeth-aching sound as countless dust particles fell from above the doorframe and scattered on the ground.

Inside was a tall and spacious hall, decorated in the Victorian style. The thick dust could not hide its former exquisite beauty.

A crystal chandelier hung from the dome of the second floor, and the floor of the first floor was covered with a dark red hand-woven carpet.

However, due to years of disrepair, many cobwebs had formed.

The light inside the house that everyone had seen outside did not come from the crystal chandelier, but from flower-shaped sconces hanging on the walls—these sconces uniformly emitted a gentle, goose-yellow light.

On the wall on the far side of the hall hung an oil painting, depicting an unsmiling old woman sitting in a chair, wearing a court dress, with her hands on her lap. Behind the chair was an old man of about the same age, with a pale goatee, also wearing noble attire, with one hand resting on the back of the seat.

To the left of the oil painting was a wide wooden semicircular staircase, leading to a dimly lit corridor on the second floor. The walls along the edge of the staircase were also hung with various oil paintings, depicting men and women in different costumes.

There were corridors on both the left and right sides of the living room, but the dim light made it impossible to see what was inside.

Li Ang poked his head in and out of the door for a while, sniffed the air, and detected nothing unusual except for a musty smell. He turned to his teammates and nodded, saying, "The air inside is safe. It smells a bit like sweet, fragrant first love."

E Wu Nian shook his head. "...Stop talking nonsense. Let's go in."

A group of players filed in. As the Stonemason, walking at the rear, stepped over the threshold, the wooden gate was suddenly pushed by an invisible force and began to close inward.

The Stonemason had anticipated this. As the gate tried to close, he turned around and braced his hands against the door, preventing it from closing.

However, the force pushing the gate was quite strange. With a "bang," the gate slammed shut, and even the Stonemason himself was pushed back two or three steps by the force.

At the same time, the five players heard a system notification sound in their ears.

[All players are present. The next task prompt is now announced]

[Phase Two Task Objective: Eliminate eight kinds of abnormal organs in the Williams Manor: Heart, Lungs, Intestines, Kidneys, Limbs, Torso, Head, and Embryo.]

[Task Reward 1: An S-level completion rating will grant a random item of exquisite quality *1. An A-level completion rating will grant a random item of rare quality *1. A B-level completion rating will grant a random item of common quality *1.]

[Task Reward 2: 300 experience points]

[Task Reward 3: 600 game coins]

[Task Time Limit: 3 hours]

[Task Failure Penalty: None]

"Fuck."

E Wu Nian couldn't help but curse, scanning the hall with a gloomy expression, his back slightly arched, his hands naturally hanging down, clearly ready for battle.

The faces of the other players were equally grim. The goal of this mission was to eliminate various abnormal organs within the mansion, such as the heart, intestines, lungs...

A sense of terrifying and bizarre deformation was palpable.

"The penalty for failing the mission is still none,"

Dong Feng Po muttered, "Which means that if we can't complete the mission within three hours, something very bad will happen.

"For example, these abnormal organs will mutate, or the thousands of monsters in the forest outside will break free and completely submerge and devour us..."

With the three-hour time limit looming, the players didn't dare to delay and immediately began to investigate the living room.

The first thing was the inexplicably closed front door.

The Stonemason first took out something like a master key and tried to pry open the lock, but failed. Then he took out two paper-cutting knives from his inventory, holding them in his hands.

The two paper-cutting knives looked extremely ordinary, with red plastic casings, the common type that could be bought in stationery stores on the street.

He held the paper-cutting knives, trying to insert them into the gap between the two doors.

For some reason, although the space between the wooden doors on both sides was visible to the naked eye, the knives could not be inserted at all—as if this space had been firmly welded shut.

The attempts of several players to destroy the gate or walls all failed.

Not only the wooden door, but the glass windows in the living room were also indestructible.

Li Ang used the trilateral bone spear, infused with Ripple energy, to heavily strike the glass, but only managed to leave a faint spiderweb crack, and the crack was healing rapidly at a visible rate.

"We're trapped inside the mansion."

E Wu Nian glanced at the calm living room, licked his lips, and gloomily took out a large piece of pale yellow clay-like object from his inventory, sticking it firmly to the gate.

"Is that... chewing gum?" The Stonemason glanced at the clay-shaped explosive and his expression changed slightly, hurriedly stopping E Wu Nian, "Are you crazy?"

"I'm not crazy." E Wu Nian shook his head coldly, "I deliberately controlled its yield. This amount won't hurt us.

"Besides, I'm not blowing up the door to open it, but to test the hardness of the air wall.

"By doing this, I can learn the specific strength of the abnormal force enveloping the mansion."

"I know."

The Stonemason shook his head. He also kept various explosives in his inventory, and even if E Wu Nian hadn't, he would have conducted the test.

"But don't forget that the name of this mission is Mechanical Mansion. Recklessly detonating it could trigger some kind of trap,

"To test the hardness of the air wall, we have to wait until we've searched this living room and roughly understood what those deformed organs are all about before we can carry out a light explosion on the ground."