Chapter 76: Flirting and Fleeing

“Damn, this is really trying to get me killed!” Lin Huang hadn’t expected that barely a few days into his happiness, he would receive a mission so difficult it was practically suicidal. “Xiao Hei, don’t you feel even a pang of guilt issuing this kind of quest?!”

[No, because I don’t have a conscience to begin with.]

“...” Lin Huang was at a loss for words. It took him a while to recover, and then he declared, righteously, “I refuse this mission!”

[You can’t refuse, only abandon. Abandoning the mission is considered a failure, and the punishment will be executed immediately.]

[Are you sure you want to abandon the mission?]

“I won’t abandon it...”

Forcing down the urge to curse, Lin Huang admitted defeat. If he didn’t have Blackchar, that epic Dragonblood card, he truly wouldn’t have wanted to go deep into the Forest of Forgetting. But the price of giving up was too high: there was a twenty percent chance he would lose Blackchar.

With an evolution card, raising rare cards like White or Tyrant wasn’t difficult—one card would do the trick. But Blackchar wasn’t just an epic card, it was also a Dragonblood species. With Lin Huang’s notoriously bad luck in games, if he lost it now, who knew when he’d ever get another like it?

“Xiao Hei, can I return the remaining mission cards? If not, at least let me exchange them for something else?”

[All cards, once issued, cannot be returned or exchanged!]

“So can I throw them away? Or maybe you could help me destroy them and convert them into card fragments?” Lin Huang pressed.

[All cards are bound to the host. If the distance between a card and its host exceeds a certain range, it will automatically return to the host’s body. Mission cards are functional cards and cannot be destroyed.]

“So I can’t even get rid of them if I want to? This is a total scam!” Lin Huang was speechless.

Resigned to reality, he finally checked the mission cards, and suddenly noticed that of the three mission cards Xiao Hei had mentioned, only two were left—one activated, one not.

“Why is there one less mission card? I remember there was one activated and two unactivated before.” Lin Huang muttered.

[Each time a mission objective is modified, it consumes one extra unactivated mission card. After modification, both the rewards for completion and the penalties for failure are doubled.]

Xiao Hei quickly gave the explanation.

“Good thing there’s only one left. Once this mission is over and I’m back at base, I’ll activate the last one right away,” Lin Huang resolved on the spot.

He retrieved the activated mission card and examined the details.

On the golden card, the blonde woman in the black maid’s outfit remained as alluring as ever.

“Congratulations, handsome! Due to special circumstances, your mission card’s content has been modified!”

“Now, I will issue you a new mission!”

“The new mission is as follows: Enter the depths of the Forest of Forgetting, locate the missing Leng Yuexin, and bring her back to Wuyou City! Mission time limit: 20 days.”

“Mission completion rewards: one artifact card and one evolution card.”

“If you fail to complete the mission within the allotted time, you will be penalized: two random monster cards currently in your possession will be deducted!”

“Mission issued. For details such as the mission map, check the card’s reverse side.”

With the announcement complete, the blonde woman once again became motionless.

“There’s a mission map?” Lin Huang had been troubled by the thought of how to find Leng Yuexin in such a vast forest, but now he caught the last hint from the blonde.

Turning the card over, Lin Huang pressed his finger against it, and a three-dimensional map projected before him.

He saw two marked points on the map: a white one representing himself, and a yellow one labeled in tiny script, “Last known location of Leng Yuexin before her disappearance.”

Several other question-marked coordinates were marked as “Areas where Leng Yuexin previously stayed.”

“Can you show the coordinates for Li Yanxing and the others?” Lin Huang asked.

[Not mission targets, cannot be located.]

Lin Huang frowned slightly. “Then you should at least be able to show the chronological order of Leng Yuexin’s appearances at these locations.”

As soon as he spoke, the question marks changed into numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4.

Seeing that all the numbered locations were near the last disappearance point, Lin Huang could pretty much deduce that Leng Yuexin and her team must have been searching for something.

“Mark the distance and route from my current position.” Lin Huang gave another command.

Soon, a jagged red arrow marked the path.

“It’s over three hundred kilometers away...” Lin Huang’s brow furrowed once more.

Staring at the projected map for a while, Lin Huang finally noticed that the meat on his plate had gone cold.

He put the mission card away, reheated the meat, and continued his dinner.

He ate slowly, lost in thought. By the time he finished, it was close to eight in the evening and night had fully fallen.

After tidying up, Lin Huang summoned the Azure-scaled Wolf and Shadow Ghost to stand watch, then crawled into his tent early.

Lying inside, he didn’t sleep right away. Instead, he compared the map from the Imperial Heart Network with his mission card’s map. He also searched for news about the Forest of Forgetting on the Imperial Heart Network, but found nothing new being discussed.

Not until after eleven did Lin Huang send a message to Yi Yeyu: “Are you asleep?”

“What do you want?” Yi Yeyu replied almost instantly.

“Nothing much, just wanted to ask you something.” Lin Huang sent another message.

“Haha, you failed your Iron-grade advancement, didn’t you? I told you not to make the Six-armed Enchantress your life seed target, but you wouldn’t listen!” Yi Yeyu sent a long message, ending with a string of mischievous, gloating emojis.

“You guessed wrong, I’ve already succeeded. I have something else to ask.” Lin Huang replied, noticing his typing speed had significantly improved since acquiring the Trickster’s talent.

“Yeah, sure, keep making things up.” Yi Yeyu’s message ended with a pouty emoji.

“I wanted to know if anything unusual has happened in the Forest of Forgetting recently?” Lin Huang finally seized the chance to ask his question. “I couldn’t find anything on the Imperial Heart Network or the official Hunter website. Your Gold Hunter clearance is higher, so I thought I’d ask you.”

“I’ll check for you.” After this message, Yi Yeyu went quiet for a while, then suddenly initiated a video call.

Lin Huang hesitated, but accepted.

On the other end, Yi Yeyu was sitting on an opulent sofa, holding a glass of red drink. She was visibly surprised to see Lin Huang’s surroundings. “Are you outdoors?”

“I’m still in the Forest of Forgetting,” Lin Huang said with a smile.

“Camping in a Tier 4 wild zone? Are you out of your mind?!” Yi Yeyu was shocked at his daring.

“I’m just in the outer zone, it’s fine.” Lin Huang kept his gentle smile.

“You should leave the Forest of Forgetting as soon as you can. It’s really not safe right now. I checked what you asked, but found nothing. Worried my clearance wasn’t enough, I got my brother to look into it. Turns out, there is a piece of information that hasn’t been released yet.” Yi Yeyu’s expression turned serious.

“What is it?” Lin Huang asked, sensing it couldn’t be good.

“The Monitoring Bureau detected abnormal fluctuations in the forest’s central area recently. There’s a possibility a monster is about to ascend to the transcendent level. Judging by the strength of the fluctuations, this time it will be at least a mutated monster—maybe even a second-stage mutation! No matter how accurate this info ultimately is, you should get out of the Forest of Forgetting now. Whether you’ve advanced to Iron-grade or not, don’t stay inside any longer,” Yi Yeyu relayed what her brother Yi Zheng had found out.

“Understood.” Lin Huang nodded. “Thank you, beautiful Yi. I have to get up early tomorrow, so I’ll hang up now.”

He waved at Yi Yeyu through the screen and cut the call.

“He hung up on me?” Yi Yeyu realized what happened only after the screen went dark, and her expression turned odd.

Lin Huang didn’t think much of it. The reason he hadn’t contacted Yi Zheng was that, late at night, a man’s call would almost certainly be ignored—at least, that’s what Lin Huang himself would do. So, he had chosen Yi Yeyu instead. What he hadn’t considered was that his swift exit left her feeling a bit flustered.

After ending the call, Lin Huang searched the Imperial Heart Network again for any information about the fluctuation, but still found nothing. Seeing it was nearly midnight, he finally pulled up his blanket and went to sleep...

~~~~~~

[Thanks to TianzuiV for the ten-thousand-coin reward! And thanks to all the other friends who have supported me. Forty-nine people rewarded last week. On Sunday, I wrote a few words of thanks, but forgot to paste them into the chapter... I won’t get sentimental. In short, thank you all, and to everyone who likes “Monster Paradise”! I’ll do my best to tell this story well. That’s the best way I can repay you.]