Translator: THIS BRO and vivi from dummytranslations

Editor: THIS BRO, Vivi, Drago 👾

Chapter 2: The Polluted World (2)

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[Lord Host! Every time you complete a mission, you only need to spend 20 points in order to connect to the Salvation Alliance Forum!] The system continued to promote.

[That is the best place for us newcomers and rookies to help each other out, exchange salvation advice, and seek guidance from the veterans! It’s a pity that we only have 10 points…] System 2d14 added on regretfully.
　　
A certain alien wasn't interested in this so-called forum and instead, found a new point to focus on.
　　
"Why is my estimated contribution rate only at 10%?" A certain alien was dissatisfied.

System 2d14, [This is because, as long as a saviour obtains any sort of achievement, they will not pick a mission that has a difficulty of less than 1.

Thus, the Salvation Alliance will randomly select 10 to 20 newcomers to practice. However, to avoid the possibility of all newcomers being unable to successfully complete the mission and thus, causing the world to get destroyed, the main system will randomly select an A-rank or higher veteran saviour to oversee and work part-time on the mission.]

“For example, Huo Li?” The dark-haired youth asked.
　　
System 2d14, [Lord Host, how do you know about big boss Huo Li? He is the record holder in the Salvation Alliance for having the most points earned on his first mission! He is a god whose total points have never fallen out of the top 3 places, ah ah ah!

His system 099 is also a legend amongst our system world! It's just... SSS-rank gods like Huo Li will never come to assist us newbies.] 2d14 became downcast.
　　
"He has already been here for four days now and left just now. It is said that he will come back after a year." Just within this city, he'd already used his black strands to see News station 58821 broadcasting the news relating to him.
　　
[Lord Host, how do you know?]
　　
The dark-haired youth simply picked up the remote control and changed it to Channel 1.

"According to the news revealed to us by the National Federation’s spokesperson: The Intergalactic Salvation Alliance's Sir Huo Li has finished this planet's four days long inspection and has left at 5:40 this afternoon. Reliable sources report that Sir Huo Li will return in a year to continue assisting countries to deal with the increasingly serious pollution problem..."
　　
Rewinding time back to four days ago:
　　
In the Salvation Alliance Town, Huo Li was sitting by the door to the balcony of his luxurious manor, leisurely sipping his afternoon tea.

[Ding! Lord Host, the points for the mission you submitted yesterday have been calculated, a total of 10÷1×200×80×233×80%= 298.24 million points. Ding! Your total amount of points has raised your ranking by one standing, you are now in the first place.]
　　
“What will happen if I go on a vacation for a year?”
　　
System 099, [Ding! Host has to pay 5% of your total amount of points for a year's vacation away from the Salvation Alliance, calculated to 2 billion 276 million 967 thousand points. Your ranking on the leaderboard will fall to fourth place. Lord Host, you... will you be taking a vacation again?]
　　
Huo Li hummed and gracefully picked up his cup to take a sip before saying to System 099,
　　
"Help me accept the Zerg invasion mission, the one with a difficulty factor of 755 from the mission hall."
　　
System 099, [Yes, Lord Host. Submitting your request... Ding! Mission request failed! The Alliance has already randomly selected you as the supervisor to a novice mission. Please report to the polluted world within 24 hours. The mission duration is 20 years. Lord Host…]

“What’s the difficulty level?”
　　
System 099, [...0.3]
　　
Huo Li slammed his cup down, he lightly drummed his fingers on the table as his expression darkened,
　　
"Ha! What tricks does the Salvation Alliance want to play this time? To randomly pick me? I'd be stupid to believe it! 099, apply for the Zerg Invasion as a part-time mission. I want to see just how special this novice task is!"

[Ding! Request accepted! Host, please report to the Zerg apocalypse world within 5 days.]
　　
Therefore, big boss Huo Li arrived at this polluted world with a heart full of suspicion. As always, he was ‘enthusiastically’ and ‘politely’ welcomed by the officials of the National Federation.

At the summit of the pollution control facility, Huo Li sat in front of the table and coldly swept his gaze over the leaders of their respective countries as they agreed that environmental control was inevitable. On one hand, they kept silent about the amount of pollution that their country would bear, and on the other, they schemed and continued to play taichi[1], pushing the responsibility away from themselves. At the same time, they faintly hinted to Huo Li, hoping that as an SSS-rank saviour, he could use his abilities to magically clean up the pollution.

At this time, Huo Li’s psychic ability had already infiltrated the minds of every person in this room.
His powerful consciousness swept over all their joys, sorrows, and fears contained in the depths of their souls.
Looking through all the inhumane secrets about this world that were hidden in the darkest corners of their minds.

　　……
　　

On the fourth day of the summit, Huo Li suppressed his temper as he continued to search. He still had not found any 'big' secret.

However, even though this was the case, Huo Li still professionally wrote down a 4 million word salvation plan for this C-rank world.

From this, he had control over three high-ranking officials from the national federation as well as heads of state of seven countries. After ensuring that the salvation plan could be completely implemented within the first year, Huo Li left for the Zerg Apocalypse world.

Perfectly missing a certain descending alien.
　　
And back to the present.

At 10:30 pm, the time of sleep for human beings, a certain alien dedicatedly cleaned up, changed into its pyjamas and closed its eyes to sleep for the first time in its life.

An hour later, a certain alien opened its eyes in reluctance: It turns out that after a human drink a lot of coffee, they won't be able to sleep! So, it rolled over and started to play on the tablet it’d just bought...
　　
5:06 am.
　　
On the other side of the planet, from within the deep ends of the ocean, two black strands emerged and continuously extended upwards. They met and merged into one body.

The black-haired youth who was currently gaming abruptly tossed the tablet away and sat up, sighing dramatically,

“At this moment, I have embraced the world!”
　　
On the other side of the planet, more and more black strands gathered from the opposite sides of the world and merged into two python-like thick black ropes. Following that, they morphed into two large hands and solemnly gave each other a handshake as a display of celebration.
　　
System 2d14 dazedly asked, [Lord Host, what did you say?]
　　
“Nothing.”
　　
A certain alien laid back onto the bed and continued to play on the tablet. The corners of its mouth hooked to form a silent smile as it whispered,
　　
“Let’s begin!”
　　
In an instant, all the black strands around the world stopped camouflaging and began to unscrupulously envelop the various rubbish and garbage around them. Following the absorption of the organic pollutants, the black strands gradually began to thicken before finally growing into a giant vein-like structure. At the same time, branches of black strands began to spread out and enter the soil, while another branch withered into black dust as it drifted to the skies.

Within a certain city, a girl who spent the entire night in a bar drunkenly walked towards the direction of her home. She was wearing high heels and only felt that the texture of the asphalt road was strange, it was as if she was walking on rubber. Suddenly, her heel caught onto something. She lost her balance and fell onto the ground with a 'thud'.

The girl sat up from being splayed on the ground as she used her hand to wipe off the dirt that had stuck onto her face. She instinctively borrowed the light from the streetlight to look at what it was that had gotten stuck on her face, only to see dozens of thin black bugs wriggling in her palm!

Every one of those bugs looked very nauseous, with one end of their bodies extended all the way to the ground, connecting to their seemingly endless friends.
　　
"Ah ah ah ah ah ah!!!!!" The girl screamed in horror as she clambered off from the ground in panic. She stomped furiously on the ground with her heels before running off, screaming hysterically, "Help! Help!"
　　
40 minutes later, the first rays of golden sunlight pierced through layers upon layers of smog, eventually turning white as it shone on the ground. The entire city's architecture seemed to be covered by a black veil. This was actually an illusion created from the thin black strands hanging off of the exterior walls of the buildings.
　　
The ground seemed as if a layer of black lacquer was added overnight, the black strands crowded together until it looked like it had a black carpet laid over it.
　　
As for the dozen or so landfills around the city, they were already been taken over by these black strands. Black vines wrapped around all the garbage heaps they could reach, quickly absorbing the nutrients within them. The main branches that came out from the centre of the landfill had already grown to be as thick as water buckets and stretched out towards the city to provide energy for their malnourished friends in the city.
　　
The early-rising office workers began to leave their houses one after the other, but once they saw the dark city... the entire street instantly exploded! Countless people began to scream, sob, and rush to announce to the world that the apocalypse has arrived!
　　
There were some who had immediately ran home, screaming. They slammed their doors closed, locked them, and even went as far as to rummage through all their belongings to find duct tape in order to seal off the edges of their doors and windows.
　　
There were others who immediately grabbed their phones to file police reports, “Hello? Is this the police department? I am at XXX Street and we have been surrounded by human-eating alien insects!”
　　
There were some elementary school children who took one look at the situation outside before shouting, “Dad! Mom! Hurry and look at this! The end of the world has come!”
　　
There were some workaholics, who after finding out that the black strands caused no harm to humans and did not obstruct traffic, continued with their day as they drove to work in their cars.
　　
And there were others who rushed to kowtow onto the ground as they shouted in earnest, "Merciful God above! Wherefore has't thee brought upon us this terrifying punishment!"
　　
The other 19 newbies on the planet were also frightened by this scene! Only regretting that they didn't have enough points to log into the forums... they could only hug themselves and shiver in fright together with their systems.
　　
As time went on and more and more people discovered their world's frightening changes, the braver ones believed that they should wage a war to the death on these black bugs so as to protect their homeland and the lives of their countrymen! Those people started using knives to cut, hammers to smash, cars to run over, fire to burn, and even going as far as to use strong acid to corrode...
　　
The dark-haired youth that was already awake and watching a movie suddenly felt helpless. He threw the remote onto the bed and stood up.
　　
System 2d14 was surprised, [Lord Host! What’s wrong?]

At the same time, somewhere in the world, a black strand wrestled away a buff man’s axe and in the next moment, wrapped him up into a black cocoon. That buff man with a face full of unkempt whiskers screamed in terror,
　　
“Mommy! Save me, Ah!!!”
　　
"As a human, I need to be modest, I need to be tolerant, I need to be reserved." The dark-haired youth took a deep breath as he suppressed his anger once more before sitting back on the bed and watching his movies.
　　
The black strands that wrapped around the whisker-buff-man slowly untangled and left him alone. They turned and wrapped around the garbage nearby, going back to work.

That man was scared half to death as he fell onto the ground, no longer able to face the sight of the numerous contorting black strands as he stumbled and fled.
　　
At this moment, the governments of the world were in complete chaos. Towards these black bugs that seemed to have instantly covered the entire world, there was nothing that they could do. They could only desperately spam the request for the Salvation Alliance to contact Huo Li! To let him return!
　　
However, the mission world's inhabitants did not have the authority to directly contact the saviour assigned to the mission. Therefore, the federations of various countries turned their sights to the Salvation Alliance instead, and sent out a distress signal: We are under attack by an alien species!
　　
By the time their message was approved by the Salvation Alliance and forwarded to System 099, it was already 10 a.m.
　　
At this time, in a certain area in outer space, Z-Planet's intergalactic warship battalion was battling against an overwhelming amount of Zergs. In front of the Zerg army that stretched for hundreds of kilometres into the distance, the dozen or so warships still miraculously held their position, like a mantis trying to stop a car!
　　
If you zoomed in, you would be able to see a man hovering at the forefront of the mothership! In front of him was an empty space of 2 kilometres wide, glowing with a faint blue light, like an unshakeable spirit as it guarded the most important line of defence! As long as a Zerg stepped inside this bluish glow, they would immediately turn around and indiscriminately attack its fellow species! But at this time...
　　
[Ding! Lord Host! Your other mission planet has been invaded!]

End of Chapter 2

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