Meteor Fall Master in the 'Starry Abyss'
Chapter 258 - 079. If the katana does not break Armor, then who is it really slashing at?

Chapter 258: 079. If the katana does not break Armor, then who is it really slashing at?

[You have triggered the side mission — "Teach the Cowards a Lesson"]

[Type]: Combat

[Time Limit]: 1 Natural Day

[Mission Difficulty]: D

[Introduction]:

"A bunch of cowards, abandoning me and almost getting me killed, beat them up badly."

Three friends betrayed their past effortlessly due to their fear of causing trouble, which is intolerable for you. Use your strength to teach them a lesson, or simply kill them to establish your reputation.

[Settlement Conditions]:

A. "Convince with Reason" — Use physical means to beat Villagers, Jiro, and Cheng Zhiju until they submit to you.

Reward: 200 Experience, Villagers, Jiro, and Cheng Zhiju will become your followers;

B. "Traitor’s End" — Kill them.

Reward: Random Reward (depending on the assessment, the higher the assessment, the better the final reward)

——————————

"To get a mission right from the start, alright, let’s do it this way."

Caramel Snail staggered towards the mission target, this mission would provide him with 200 points of experience, enough to level up his "Street Kid" occupation. Meanwhile, the surroundings felt alien and new to him.

Sky Ring is a strange country, where neon lights flash and flying cars zoom freely, yet people still wear large robes and bow down as they greet each other with "Hi, Arigato."

A blend of technology and retro.

Standing in the artificial sun’s rays, crawling like ants. The metro station’s ventilation ducts were piled with metal triangle spikes to prevent homeless people from sleeping there, the cold sunlight casting a grim filter over the world. In the distance, Houjo Group’s building romantically projected a holographic cherry blossom rain onto the street, and if one reached out to catch the electronic cherry blossoms, their Artificial Eye could only see shattered fragments of the Void.

The refresh rate of human eyes couldn’t keep up with the speed of hovercars, but the thinness of wallets increased faster and faster. People on the streets wandered aimlessly, their expressions hurried, showing no hint of expectation for life.

Dreary—that was the perfect depiction of Nuliang City, the largest industrial city in Sky Ring.

Like all pure industrial cities, Nuliang City had extremely poor public safety. The transient population brought a highly unstable social environment. The ubiquity of mines, factories, and urbanized blocks made it easy for workers to become addicted to the industrial entertainment offerings, unable to hold onto their wealth. Initially, workers from various places formed gangs and organizations to protect themselves, but the power of these organizations was limitless. Over time, Nuliang City became a dark metropolis filled with gangs and rampant with evil.

Did the Sky Ring Government not care about this? According to Saga Qi’s voice diary, even in a frightened tone, he said, "It’s best that they don’t interfere. For cost reasons, these jobs are all outsourced to large clan corporations. The samurai of the clans would filter the city like a sieve, leaving only the compliant good citizens. Companies would throw students into the mines and stuff wanderers into factories, then work them tirelessly day and night, until after their death, even their organs are harvested and offered to the company’s executives as an ’employee benefit’ to motivate the staff to strive in their jobs."

Everywhere on the streets, addicts, zombie-like with faltering steps, hung their mouths open, their gazes unfocused, limbs twitching bizarrely, instilling unease.

Despite being in the civilized urban streets, Caramel Snail felt a chill down their spine.

Out of an urge to escape the horrifying atmosphere around, Caramel Snail pulled up their hood, plugged in their earphones, and aimlessly started listening to the broadcast news:

"Good morning, good morning, good morning to you all in Nuliang City! Welcome to today’s Red Team news, this is your repugnant old brother Jin Zaishi."

"Did you sleep well last night? Of course, you must have slept well! You cannot have not slept well! You must kneel and clap your hands! In the magnificent Great Tienhuan Empire, His Majesty the Ring King allows no one to be unhappy!"

The host with the distinctive Sky Ring accent said half-mockingly:

"Last night, the Houjo Group released a new ’Carp’ model smart assault rifle, firing up to 300 rounds per minute, automatically targeting armor gaps—but guess what, how does it relate to you? With its hefty price tag of 3000 Zhu, even the bullets hitting your outcast bodies aren’t worth it. It’s a talisman for the playboys, but don’t worry; in the domain of smart weapons, Sky Ring wins!"

"The annual Nine Dragons Gathering is about to be held again. The Houjo, Inawashiro, Inoue, Ishide families, and other seventeen major clans will gather at the capital Qiong’anjing, to worship the ancient Dragon God and showcase the divine weapons crafted by thousands of craftsmen over the year. The Grand Yin Yang Master will sacrifice the Dragon’s Blood, anointing the elite with Dragon Qi—not that katanas break through nanoscale armor. Guess, whose bodies will these blades chop into?"

"A few days ago, the oppression of the anti-war protests organized by the Red Team was complete, and the riot leader ’Gretto Yegg’ was arrested—wonderful, isn’t it? Opposing the invasion of Hameda Archipelago is a crime, then if one day, the Red Arrow Empire ’reclaims’ Qiong’anjing by marching in Red Arrow Imperial City, aren’t those anti-war students also committing crimes?"

"On Wednesday last week, the Red Team was severely struck by the Sky Ring National Military Government and Clan Group, with two hundred brave warriors brutally killed. Prime Minister Park Jung-soon even claimed again: the Red Team is a dreadful anti-human organization. But what did the Red Team do? They actually robbed the clans’ wealth and distributed it to the poor! My god, that’s just too anti-human!"

"My fellow brethren, we in the Red Team are still fighting; so long as the evil military regime and clan dominion persist, so long as the samurais remain doggedly loyal to the corrupt Ring King, the Red Team’s fight will never stop! Salute to the great ’Black Knight’ Gretto Yegg!"

A pedestrian walking with their head down brushed past Caramel Snail and suddenly bumped into their chest, grabbing the earphone cord to steal the terminal device and flee.

"Fuck you!"

Enraged, Caramel Snail held onto the terminal body in his pocket; the earphone cord instantly tensed. The thief staggered, not managing to keep his balance. Caramel Snail immediately pounced, attempting to grab back the earphone cord from the other’s hand.

Seeing things go awry, the thief pretended to cower as if bracing for blows, but then sneakily pulled out a switchblade, plunging it directly toward Caramel Snail’s neck.

"Fuck!"

Caramel Snail instinctively jumped in fright and was about to dodge, but in a flash, he realized it was just a game and immediately balled his fist to smash the other person’s nose.

It might have been the faint fighting instincts given to him by the "Street Kid" occupation, or the resentment that had been building up inside Caramel Snail since entering the game. His punch was fast and hard, solidly breaking the other person’s nasal bone.

Hiss—

Luckily, the other person’s knife was blocked by the collar and didn’t stab through in one go; it only punctured a bloody hole in the neck. Caramel Snail hadn’t had the chance to lower his pain perception system, which instead fueled his rage. He instinctively elbowed the other’s wrist that held the knife, letting the sharp blade stab into him, while he grabbed the other’s throat and fiercely slammed it three times against the other’s eye sockets and windpipe, then he swiftly grabbed his device and smashed it hard against the other’s temple.

The knife-wielding robber, who had been menacing just a moment ago, instantly lost all life, collapsing on the ground with a face covered in blood, his left eyeball sunken in from the blows.

[You killed lv1. ’High School Dropout Han Zihao’—Total damage output 100%, Gained Experience: 25 points]

"Huh?"

Caramel Snail stopped his striking, looking bewildered.

"He’s dead, just like that?"

Only then did he notice the robber he had killed was still peach-fuzz-faced, not yet past the age of adolescence, and quite frail in build.

Did I... kill a kid?

A high schooler not yet an adult, even though he attacked me, I could have chosen not to kill him. I killed him, killed him in cold blood...

For some reason, even though fully aware that it was just a game, Caramel Snail still felt quite uneasy, seeing the bruised face and the sunken eyeball of the opponent, still entwined with the smell of fresh blood on his hands—Caramel Snail immediately felt a strong urge to vomit.

"Ugh—truly disgusting..."

As he spoke, he hurriedly added the newly acquired 25 experience points to "Street Kid," then picked up the fallen spring knife and scavenged through the opponent’s pockets, quickly fleeing the scene with 400 zhu in coins.

—Reality being reality, and guilt being guilt, but the moment he remembered that the other person had almost killed him, his guilt almost entirely dissipated.

If he intended to kill me, then he should have been prepared to be killed in return.

The police in Sky Ring were notoriously negligent, or rather, deaths in Sky Ring were so common that with an average of 70,000 people dying from shootings, common disputes, and excessive self-defense each year, the police generally couldn’t be bothered. If you could escape without being caught, you were considered capable.

Caramel Snail ran for a while, noticing no police cars were on duty. He was shocked by the baffling dedication the Sky Ring police had to their jobs, and meanwhile, he started assessing his injuries.

It wasn’t serious. The high schooler seemed to be starving, having stabbed him several times, none of which were fatal; all the wounds were superficially lodged in the fatty layer under the skin. He bought high-proof alcohol from a vending machine on the street, poured it over his wounds to disinfect them, then wrapped some cloth around them and didn’t bother with them further.

"Street Kid" provided him with a very simple initial skill—"Brawling": rudimentary ability to bash opponents, enhancing his instinctual dodging and blocking chances.

Besides that, 19-year-old Saga Qi had decent physical strength: "Strength" at 6 points, both "Dexterity" and "Constitution" at 6, and "Will" reached a normal person’s level of 5 points, while "Charm" was quite pitiful. Due to the disheveled nature inherent to "Street Kid," his "Charm" was only 3 points.

Luckily, he didn’t need "Charm" right now.

Just as Caramel Snail was hurrying to his destination, the cheap rental apartment, suddenly, he heard a slight noise of something hitting the ground in the alleyway.

Thud.

It was very faint, like a jelly hitting the ground, only dust was stirred up.

If he weren’t so close, he probably wouldn’t have noticed such a subtle sound.

What could it be? A body? Or something else—

For some reason, perhaps because he had just killed someone, Caramel Snail felt extra tense. He instinctively sought a wall as cover, sticking to it and carefully peeking into the alley.

The dark alley was empty, save for a calico cat with its fur puffed up, standing on a garbage can, its fur standing on end, baring its teeth and emitting a sharp cry:

"Waah—Meow!!!"

That was the sharpest sound Caramel Snail had ever heard in his life, the harsh resonance making his heart uneasy and causing goosebumps all over his body—most crucially, he keenly noticed that the calico cat wasn’t screaming at him.

Its eyes kept moving as if seeing an invisible figure slowly approaching him, passing by his side, and suddenly, the cat’s gaze became fixated just over his shoulder.

Caramel Snail’s pupils constricted, sensing something and froze in place, not daring to move.

"Yo."