The System Arrived Four Years Early, but the Anomaly Is Still a Juvenile - Chapter 182

Upon hearing this, Shen Ge immediately took out the “heart” for a look. Sure enough, the red fleshy growth, originally the size of a baby’s fist, had now shrunk to the size of a fingernail, like a withered fruit.

“Can you still detect the presence of Strange Energy?” Shen Ge asked.

After performing a detection, Little Classmate Seven replied: “A weak presence of Strange Energy is detected, and… it’s gradually dissipating. It will disappear completely within a minute at most.”

After a moment’s thought, Shen Ge immediately said: “The Strange Energy data was already analyzed before, right? Immediately scan the Hanseong Base to see if similar Strange Energy exists!”

“Yes, Master!” Little Classmate Seven immediately began Strange Energy detection.

Just then, the system, which had been mostly dormant for over half a year after devouring “Trace-less” and “Misfortune”—with only basic functions like Devour, Sell, and Lottery working—suddenly reacted!

[Triggered Tier 4 Promotion Mission “The Freak’s Heart” – The freaks have found a method to fuse humans with strange creatures. Although this method is extremely dangerous, with the help of a mysterious power, they have successfully completed the fusion. Even though the “Heart” has withered, it can be revived by injecting it with the same type of Strange Energy.]

[Mission Objective: Find and devour 3 “Hearts”. 1/3]

[Time Limit: 30 days.]

[Reward: Promotion to Tier 4. The system will unlock a new function – “Attribute Amplification”. The attribute panel will be updated.]

[Additional Reward: Trait Enhancement Point x1, System Points x5000, Random F-grade Supplies x10, Random E-grade Supply x1.]

Huh?
What on earth is Attribute Amplification?

But aside from his surprise at the new function triggered by the system prompt echoing in his mind, Shen Ge had even more questions about the withered “heart” in his hand.

Previously, because the system was in a dormant state, it didn’t issue any warning prompts when he was attacked by Do Woo-seong at the hotel.

Even after eliminating Do Woo-seong, the system only gave the conventional reward for killing a “Tier 3 Freak”. There was no reaction even when Little Classmate Seven “snatched” this fleshy lump of a heart.

Why did the system react now, when the “heart” had withered?
“System, scan the surrounding area for strange creatures.” After a moment’s thought, Shen Ge issued the first command to the awakened system.

According to past experience, after giving the order, the system would detect the surrounding Strange Energy and mark the locations of strange creatures and freaks with red dots on the [Map].

Strangely, this time, several seconds passed after Shen Ge gave the order, and the system showed no reaction. Even the [Map] remained inaccessible.

“System?”

No response.

“Sing a Jay Chou song.”

The system didn’t seize the chance to mock him; still no response.

“Lottery!”

As soon as the word left his mouth, the system reacted. The lottery wheel appeared before Shen Ge’s eyes.

After some testing, Shen Ge found that only basic functions like “Devour”, “Lottery”, etc., were still operational, similar to the situation during its previous dormant state.

Shen Ge’s expression darkened. Was the system still in a “dormant” state, and only woke up briefly because this “heart” is too important to it, just to issue a promotion mission?

After returning from his trip to Haiya where he used the lottery, Shen Ge’s mental power had long met the requirements for promotion to Tier 4, but there had been no reaction. He initially thought it was because the system was dormant and couldn’t facilitate his Tier 4 promotion. But given the current situation, he had a new hypothesis.

For example, the system remained dormant because it hadn’t finished digesting “Trace-less” and “Misfortune”, and this new type of freak’s “heart” was the key to completing that digestion.

Therefore, the system forced itself awake amidst its “busy schedule” to issue him a promotion mission, and even worried he might not go, specially added an “Additional Reward”.

“Tsk.”

This “heart” seems significant!

After some thought, Shen Ge spoke to the system again: “If you want me to find three hearts, could you at least restore the [Map] function and give me a precise location?”

Half a minute passed, and the system still didn’t respond.

“Fine, it seems it really did just wake up ‘amidst its busy schedule’ to issue the mission and went right back to sleep.” Shen Ge sighed, suppressing the urge to complain.

After all he’d been through, the hypothesis of his “symbiosis” with the system was almost beyond doubt. The only thing he couldn’t figure out was where the system was hiding.

If the system was a strange creature with the “Devour” trait, it must have a physical form. It didn’t make sense that Li Xiang used various methods but found not a single clue.

If the system wasn’t a strange creature but a “orthodox” system like in novels, then it could only be said to be the lowest among systems, its abilities utterly pathetic.

No system space, lottery rewards reliant on transferring surrounding items… apart from “Devouring” strange creatures, allowing Shen Ge to master their traits, it had almost nothing “special” about it.

However, after the Tuokou City Strange Disaster, Shen Ge had another guess: that the system, as a strange creature, had completely fused “symbiotically” with him. He was now in a half-human, half-strange state, which was why the “Trait Powers” devoured by the system could also be used by him.

Shen Ge sighed, rubbing his forehead with a headache. Overthinking was useless now. He just had to find a way to complete the mission first and see how the system would “evolve”.

…It couldn’t just grow legs and run away, could it?
From the intelligence provided by the system, Do Woo-seong’s situation was as Shen Ge had initially guessed: he was like a “clone”, with many “individuals”, not someone who died and came back to life.

But what puzzled Shen Ge was, since there were multiple “individuals”, why did the corpse placed in the lowest level of the containment area disappear without a trace?

Was Korea trying to be mysterious?

Or were they planning something?
With the system currently unreliable, Shen Ge could only rely on Little Classmate Seven to find similar Strange Energy signatures based on the analysis of the Strange Energy from the “heart” and locate Do Woo-seong’s position.

While thinking, Shen Ge, wearing his Strange Leather Boots, had already leaped over the heavily guarded dormitory area and was heading towards the brightly lit containment area in the distance.

Affected by the “invisibility” effect, Shen Ge moved through the base as if he were in an empty space, without having to worry about being discovered.

As for whether Kwon Sang-il might double back, Shen Ge wasn’t concerned. The ones who needed to worry were the Yoona sisters. Since they wanted to “pledge allegiance”, they naturally had to find a way to handle these issues for Shen Ge.

Moreover, even if Shen Ge was “exposed”, it didn’t matter much. After all, he came here to help Korea solve the Do Woo-seong problem. Since Kwon Sang-il said Do Woo-seong was causing trouble at the base, Shen Ge had specially given up his warm comfort to go out and help deal with the freak. They should be touched!

When Shen Ge arrived at the containment area, Korea’s Anti-strange Investigators and soldiers were methodically dealing with the rampaging strange creatures.

Although Shen Ge was full of disdain for Korea, he had to admit at this moment that after experiencing the strange creature riot at the Asian Anti-strange Research Conference, Korea had made significant progress in handling such emergencies.

Due to the large number of Tier 1 anomalies released, the South Korean agency with the long name used tanks and armored vehicles to secure the area and assist the anomaly investigators, concentrating the anomalies and containing them within the containment zone.

Instantly, the containment area was ablaze with light, artillery roaring, surprisingly “suppressing” the strange creatures.

However, Korea’s problem wasn’t just holding back these strange creatures, but finding a way to “re-contain” them. The issue lay in the lowest level of the containment area.

Do Woo-seong “revived”, destroyed the containment devices holding the strange creatures, and caused this disaster.

Actually, Korea wasn’t sure if it was really Do Woo-seong’s fault, but the explosion and collapse started from the lowest level, and the most dangerous thing down there was the recently contained Do Woo-seong.

Whether it was him or not, they could just pin the blame on him. This way, they could also get a certain helper to take action.

In fact, the “containment” of strange creatures had always been a major headache for anti-strange departments worldwide. Since the adoption of the “using strange against strange” policy, strange creature corpses had become the most valuable resource.

Transactions of strange creature corpses and Strange Energy equipment between countries, while not openly acknowledged, happened frequently behind the scenes. Especially after the exposure of strange creatures, desperadoes formed anti-strange mercenary organizations, serving for money to profit from strange creature corpses.

The trade of strange creature corpses on the dark web even surpassed the former “three poisons”.

However, what makes these creatures so bizarre, besides their mysterious and ever-changing abilities, is another major characteristic: even after death, their bodies continue to absorb faint amounts of strange energy from the air. When the absorbed energy reaches a certain level, their rapid regeneration ability can even allow them to “come back to life.”

Precisely because of this, the term “containment” was usually used for strange creatures before they were made into Strange Energy equipment, because they weren’t truly dead.

As strange creature incidents became more frequent, the “consumption” of strange creature corpses couldn’t keep up with the rate of containment. This led to containment areas always having “living” strange creatures.

Even though containment areas were always the most heavily guarded sections of any anti-strange department, the special abilities of the Twelve Branches made them hard to defend against.

Therefore, to collect strange creature corpses for making Strange Energy equipment, one had to continuously contain strange creatures. Containing strange creatures meant planting a hidden danger for oneself…

Some countries have tried to disperse and contain anomalous phenomena through specialized departments, preventing a single incident from causing a complete collapse of defenses, but this also results in a dispersion of defensive resources.

During the period when strange creature incidents were still measured in years, many anti-strange departments set up their headquarters in city centers, convenient support for any city district where a strange creature incident occurred.

This was fine when strange creatures were scarce. But once strange creature containment increased, if the anti-strange department was attacked, it could easily trigger a Strange Disaster. Dajing was a prime example of the opposite.

Later, the Rong City Branch built a new containment area at the Quanlong Mountain base, stationing Anti-strange Investigators and combat troops there. However, the action teams and research institute remained in place, convenient support while avoiding hidden dangers. But anti-strange departments as large and well-established as the Great Heavenly Dynasty’s Rong City Branch were, after all, a “minority”.

Especially in a “small country” like Korea, where the weather forecast could be summed up in one sentence, and “military service” was already a chronic problem, manpower shortage was the biggest issue. Therefore, strange creatures contained from all over the country were placed in Korea’s largest base, the Hanseong Base.

This also meant that if the Hanseong Base had problems, it could easily trigger a Strange Disaster. Korea’s solution was to concentrate all its military force here.

After the exposure of strange creatures, the defensive strength of all other Korean bases besides Hanseong Base plummeted. This was how Do Woo-seong managed to slaughter several bases single-handedly.

At that moment, Shen Ge noticed another team arriving from the direction of the dormitory area, led by none other than Kwon Sang-il, who had come to ask for his “help” earlier.

Although Kwon Sang-il seemed somewhat “timid” facing Shen Ge, he indeed had some skills. Leading the Anti-strange Investigators, he pushed forward layer by layer, gradually forcing the strange creatures surging from the underground containment area back.

Shen Ge had only come to watch the “excitement” and had no intention of intervening. Seeing the Korean Anti-strange Investigators and soldiers performing so well, he simply changed direction and headed towards the Hanseong Base’s armory.

During his previous trip to Korea, Shen Ge had already “visited” the Hanseong Base’s armory once. This time, he went straight to the lowest-level Strange Energy equipment warehouse.

Although there was trouble in the containment area, the Hanseong Base didn’t reduce the patrol personnel at the armory. In fact, they tripled the patrol teams, obviously afraid someone might take advantage of the chaos.

But unfortunately, no matter how many personnel they had, without “anti-invisibility” capabilities, it was useless. Moreover, Shen Ge now wasn’t just under the double buff of “Invisible + Silent”, but also had the detection-proof “Trace-less”. Even if Korea deployed Strange Energy detectors or similar detection methods, they couldn’t pinpoint Shen Ge’s location.

Shen Ge arrived at the tightly shut large door of the Strange Energy equipment room. Glancing at the team of well-equipped soldiers guarding both sides of the hatch, he directly activated his Invisible Strange Domain from the front and swaggered into the warehouse.

“Tsk, tsk, the little Koreans are quite rich.” Shen Ge’s gaze swept around, and he couldn’t help but exclaim in admiration.

Having “visited” the Hanseong Base’s Strange Energy equipment warehouse once before, and knowing that Korea only had about ten pieces of Strange Energy equipment back then—all taken by the Investigators going to the conference—he had only looted the Strange Energy cans last time.

But now it was different. After the exposure of strange creature incidents, strange creatures were erupting in various countries, and Korea was no exception.

In just half a year, the number of Strange Energy equipment had doubled. Even though the Investigators had taken many to the ongoing battle in the containment area, there were still several pieces left in the warehouse.

Besides that, the number of Strange Energy cans exceeded a hundred.

After Shen Ge’s Rotten Flesh Armor upgraded to “Red Mist III Type”, its absorption and conversion capabilities for Strange Energy had improved by leaps and bounds. Therefore, these 100% pure Tier 1 Strange Energy cans were less practical for him, and his need for them had greatly decreased.

But since the little Koreans always liked to steal others’ things, letting them experience the feeling of having their assets “emptied” was quite an amusing idea.

“Little Classmate Seven, interference the cameras.” Shen Ge said, his gaze sweeping over the cameras in the warehouse.

Little Classmate Seven replied: “Report, Master. All monitoring equipment here was interference the moment you stepped into the warehouse. You have two minutes to empty this place.”

“Come on, help me move everything!” Shen Ge, a true man, said he would empty the Korean Strange Energy equipment warehouse, and he wouldn’t even leave them the display shelves!
To move the shelves and display cases, Shen Ge even donned his armor and activated “Red Mist Form”. With the help of Little Classmate Seven and the convenience of the Rotten Blood Tentacles, he stuffed everything into the Bloodskin Backpack.

Two minutes later, the sound of a hatch opening was heard at the entrance, followed by two teams of guards and the person in charge of the armory rushing into the paranormal equipment storage room.

Seeing the completely empty warehouse, without even a single shelf left, the group was dumbfounded.

Was this… haunted?

When Shen Ge returned to the containment area, thanks to the efforts of the Korean anti-strange department, the strange creatures had been blocked at the entrance to the underground containment area.

At this point, the tanks and armored vehicles had to control their firepower, so the Anti-strange Investigators had to step in to push the strange creatures back into the underground containment area.

Shen Ge bypassed the Korean Anti-strange Investigators fighting the strange creatures and went straight to the lowest level of the underground containment area.

Although the saying goes “he who accepts gifts feels short-handed, he who accepts food feels short-tongued”, Shen Ge felt no psychological burden about emptying the little Koreans’ warehouse. His current trip to the underground containment area to “help” was motivated by wanting to check the strange creatures on the lower levels and see if the turned-into-“shredded meat” Do Woo-seong had truly resurrected corpse.

Because this strange creature incident was caused by an explosion and collapse at the lowest level, releasing the strange creatures, it was impossible to go further down past the second-to-last level.

Shen Ge could only rely on his memory from when he accompanied the Koreans to contain Do Woo-seong’s corpse, find the approximate location, activate his Invisible Strange Domain, and use “Collapse” to pass through the collapsed slabs to reach the bottom level and search.

After much effort, he found the containment room where Do Woo-seong was held. A search revealed that not a single “shred of meat” remained.

“Little Classmate Seven, can you detect Do Woo-seong’s Strange Energy?” Shen Ge asked.

Little Classmate Seven replied: “Report, Master. No Strange Energy similar to the withered heart is detected. Only the Strange Energy of several strange creatures is detected. Comparison has been made with the Strange Energy of the strange creatures fighting the Koreans above. Confirmed to be the strange creatures previously contained here.”

Little Classmate Seven not only answered Shen Ge’s question but also very “thoughtfully” answered the next question he might ask.

Because in Shen Ge’s view, the thoroughly dead Do Woo-seong couldn’t possibly “revive”. So, most likely, someone from outside broke in and caused trouble.

Coincidentally, Kwon Sang-hwa had escaped from prison and gone missing. The Koreans didn’t know Kwon Sang-hwa had been buried by Shen Ge, so they pinned the blame on Kwon Sang-hwa.

Thus, Kwon Sang-il’s earlier words to Shen Ge made sense.

However, there was another question… If there were no other freaks or strange creatures—intruders with Strange Energy—then where did Do Woo-seong’s corpse go?
Could it really be a show staged by Korea themselves?
“The production budget for this must be huge!” Shen Ge roughly estimated that the losses in personnel casualties alone were enormous, not to mention the consumption of ammunition and Strange Energy equipment.

“Sigh.”

“Seeing how miserable you are, I’ll help you save some bullets!” Shen Ge said, activating the “Red Mist Form”. The Rotten Flesh Armor covered his entire body as he maintained the triple buff state of stealth. He fought his way up from the underground containment area, selling the corpses to the system as he went, ensuring not a single hair was left for Korea.

Korea really suffered a double loss this time: not only was their Strange Energy equipment warehouse emptied, but a significant portion of the strange creatures they had painstakingly “collected” were devoured by Shen Ge.

Fortunately, Shen Ge didn’t go too far. He stopped at level -2, leaving two Tier 2 strange creatures and five Tier 1 strange creatures for the Korean anti-strange soldiers.

The Koreans were utterly baffled. After pushing the strange creatures back into the underground containment area, with tanks and armored vehicles unable to assist, the pressure fell entirely on the Anti-strange Investigators.

Over forty Anti-strange Investigators had been stalemate with the strange creatures at the entrance for over half an hour. The strange creatures had even broken out at one point, causing over a dozen casualties among the Investigators. Then, suddenly, the pressure drastically reduced, and the strange creatures pushed back into the underground containment area never came out again.

When the remaining Anti-strange Investigators and combat troops pressed into the underground containment area, they were stunned… Out of thirty to fifty strange creatures, only these few remained?
Just as Kwon Sang-il and the others, exhausted from the bitter fight, hadn’t recovered from the shock of the missing strange creatures, they received even more shocking news—

The Strange Energy equipment warehouse had been emptied!
Not even a single shelf was left!

The Hanseong Base immediately descended into chaos, worse than when the underground containment area had the incident. Investigations, investigation, and attempts to repair the monitoring equipment yielded no clues. Finally, they concluded that both the strange creatures and the Strange Energy equipment had “vanished into thin air”, as if it were truly haunted!
…

…

Dawn arrived, with thick clouds blocking the sunlight, as if the sky might collapse at any moment—much like the mood of everyone at the Hanseong Base.

In one night, they lost nearly ten pieces of Strange Energy equipment and a warehouse full of Strange Energy cans, not to mention over thirty of their reserve strange creatures!

The key point was, they couldn’t find out who did it!

When Kwon Sang-il and other team leaders were called in for an emergency meeting, the Minister also had people check the surveillance around the dormitory area. Unless the culprit could burrow through the ground or turn invisible, it was impossible for them to slip out from under the tight surveillance during the latter half of the night with the heavy guard presence!
The Minister considered having Kwon Sang-il take people to inspect the dormitory again, but remembering the Anti-strange Investigator who was mysteriously burned into a cripple, no one wanted this assignment.

It wasn’t until early morning that Kwon Sang-il, using the pretext of “delivering breakfast”, brought people to the dormitory door and knocked.

Unbeknownst to them, Shen Ge, wanting to figure out what scheme Korea was plotting, had infiltrated the meeting room and taken a nap inside a filing cabinet. He had only returned to the dormitory about ten minutes before Kwon Sang-il.

However, even though Little Classmate Seven monitored the entire meeting, it couldn’t discern any Korean plot. Instead, it witnessed Korea’s misery.

When Kwon Sang-il was invited inside by Yoona, Shen Ge was sprawled boldly on the living room sofa, his feet propped on the coffee table like a local tyrant, enjoying a leg massage from the maid-like Seol.

Yoona entered behind them and obediently stood by the sofa, taking up her role as a dedicated “translator”.

“Well, if it isn’t Investigator Kwon Sang-il? The base was quite lively last night. You didn’t set off fireworks just to welcome me, did you?” Shen Ge’s tone was full of mockery.

Kwon Sang-il had his difficulties. Last night, he had tried to use Do Woo-seong’s name to trick Shen Ge into dealing with the escaped strange creatures, hoping to reduce the casualties among Korea’s Anti-strange Investigators.

Who would have thought the other party wouldn’t take the bait? Instead, due to their own “rashness”, one Anti-strange Investigator was injured not in combat with strange creatures, but by this man’s bizarre ability!
Kwon Sang-il had the soldiers bring in the breakfast and calmly recounted the events at the Hanseong Base last night to Shen Ge, only omitting the part about the Strange Energy equipment being plundered and the mysterious disappearance of most of the strange creatures.

However, during the meeting last night, student Xiaoqi discovered that the South Korean government suspected that members of the Twelve Branches were responsible for raiding the supernatural energy equipment storage facility, because according to intelligence gathered from various countries, the Twelve Branches possess the ability to “teleport,” making them the most capable and most likely suspects.

As for the mysterious disappearance of many strange creatures, they believed the creatures must have engaged in “mutual devouring” during the chaos. Many strange creatures were injured by the Investigators and, when forced back into the underground containment area, were more easily devoured by others. They suspected the two Tier 2 strange creatures were the main culprits!
Shen Ge didn’t expect that without doing anything at all, the South Korean authorities would remove him from the list of suspects and, in the process, pin the blame on the members of the Twelve Branches.

This gave Shen Ge a sudden idea: should he use the professional “stealth thief” triple buff to plunder the Strange Energy equipment warehouses of other countries and let the Twelve Branches take the fall?
As Shen Ge was pondering this, Kwon Sang-il changed the subject and suddenly said: “Investigator Shen, now that Do Woo-seong has ‘revived’, and the Hanseong Base suffered severe damage from last night’s strange creature incident, we hope that, for the sake of the friendship between our two countries, you can help us resolve some strange creature incidents this week and quickly locate the freak Do Woo-seong for containment.”

Shen Ge very much wanted to ask, “Since you claim Do Woo-seong caused this strange creature incident, you still dare to contain him?” But then he thought, the system wanted him to find three “hearts”, and he only had one now. Since he needed to operate within Korea anyway, this was a good opportunity.

Besides the “Promotion Mission”, Shen Ge was also very interested in the “Honghwase” that trained the Yoona sisters. According to them, the leader of Honghwase had three blood-red fleshy growths. By the “Twelve Branches” standard, this might be a hidden “four-headed, eight-armed” boss!

Shen Ge smiled slightly, swallowing back the words “We have absolutely no friendship with you,” and said, “Since you’ve brought up something as significant as the friendship between our two countries, I have no choice but to agree.”

“Thank you, Investigator Shen, for your righteous assistance. I will definitely have the Ministry of Foreign Affairs convey our respect for your heroic actions to your country!” Kwon Sang-il said respectfully.

After Kwon Sang-il and his men left, Shen Ge picked up the milk, bread, bibimbap, and kimchi on the table, looked at them with disdain, pushed them to the center of the coffee table, and then took out several cups of instant noodles from his Bloodskin Backpack.

“Want one?” Shen Ge asked the two sisters beside him.

“…”

This Investigator Shen was truly an odd character, actually carrying cup noodles with him habitually!

The two sisters thanked him and each chose a flavor.

“Mr. Shen, would you like me to cook these in the kitchen? Maybe add some greens and an egg?” Yoona suggested.

Shen Ge said: “No need. Mine just needs hot water. The essence of ‘instant’ noodles is in the ‘instant’ part. You two can prepare yours as you like.”

“Yes.” The two sisters nodded, didn’t go to the kitchen, and simply boiled water to prepare three cups of noodles.

In Shen Ge’s eyes, even instant noodles were more appealing than Korea’s “specialty delicacies”. Although he liked pickled vegetables, that only applied to the Great Heavenly Dynasty’s version, not Korea’s knock-offs.

“By the way, did they send anyone last night?” Shen Ge asked.

Yoona shook her head: “My sister and I took turns guarding the doors and windows. Only three patrol teams came by during that time, using the patrol as an excuse to observe from outside the window for a while. When my sister and I noticed them, we deliberately made some noise, and they left shortly after hearing it.”

“Noise?” Shen Ge was somewhat puzzled. Shouldn’t they stay quiet and wait for the observers to leave if they discovered surveillance? What was the point of making noise on purpose?

Just as Yoona was about to answer, Seol let out a few “Mmm, ahh” moans and then said, “It was roughly that kind of sound.”

Yoona was taken aback. She had indeed warned her sister Seol last night that Shen Ge was unfathomable and it was best not to play clever tricks with him.

Men from the Great Heavenly Dynasty were different from the little men of Korea. “Sincerity” for “sincerity” was what Great Heavenly Dynasty men valued most. If they wanted Shen Ge to help them leave Korea, treating him with honesty was the best approach.

But Yoona never expected her sister to be so “honest” as to faithfully recreate that kind of situation.

“…”

The corner of Shen Ge’s eye twitched, and his gaze towards the two sisters became somewhat strange… So, these two had been making those noises all night?

Yoona seemed to sense Shen Ge’s confusion and quickly explained: “They only came three times.”

“…” In a certain sense, wasn’t that still all night?
“Never mind, it’s not important… If I’m not mistaken, Korea will likely assign me some strange creature incidents next. I’m very interested in the ‘Honghwase’ you mentioned. I might use this opportunity to ‘disappear’ for a while. When that happens, you should know what to do, right?” Shen Ge said casually while eating his instant noodles.

The two sisters quickly put down their chopsticks and replied very seriously and respectfully: “Mr. Shen, don’t worry. We will definitely cover for you properly.”

Shen Ge didn’t place much hope on this. Being exposed wasn’t a big problem for him, especially after awakening “Invisible”; the word “exposure” was practically erased from his dictionary.

But following the principle of making the best use of everything, these two “pawns” who delivered themselves to his doorstep, the Yoona sisters, might just be used to make Korea suffer a silent loss.

Shen Ge initially thought that after Kwon Sang-il came to ask for his help in the morning, it would be afternoon, or even the next day, before they assigned him any “tasks”.

Before noon, Kwon Sang-il personally came to find Shen Ge, saying that traces of the mysterious man Woo Sung had allegedly been discovered in downtown Seoul.

And so, Shen Ge was invited onto a “vehicle” and sent to Hanseong.

…

…

In less than a year, the streets of Hanseong had transformed compared to the time of the last Asian Anti-strange Research Conference, like the difference between a village town and a major city.

The streets were desolate, with only two or three shops open on an entire block. The key point was that one could hardly see a single pedestrian.

Back when Shen Ge caused havoc in Hanseong, Korea suffered significant losses, and its citizens grew fearful of the monster-like existence.

Later, after the exposure of strange creatures, incidents increased one after another. In Hanseong, there were even cases of people disappearing in broad daylight while walking on the street.

As various urban legends spread throughout South Korea, Seoul’s economy was severely affected. The birth rate, already incredibly low, plummeted even further, while unemployment and suicide rates skyrocketed after these bizarre incidents.

Affected by life pressures, more and more “deviants” emerged. Not daring to vent their emotions on their own kind, they took it out on animals, unintentionally increasing the number of strange creature mutations.

Even though the Korean government heavily promoted that strange creatures evolved from animal death and fear, and that abusing animals would deepen the strangification process, it only further incited these “deviants” to seek revenge on society. This shifted from previous large-scale “Yama King release rituals” to recent mass animal abuse and killings.

Most normal Koreans didn’t even dare to go out on the streets, making it hard to see a single pedestrian even on the streets of Hanseong, the central city.

And this was the situation before the freak Do Woo-seong appeared. After he showed up and slaughtered several military camps, those who dared to walk the streets now were true warriors.

At that moment, a black sedan drove down the empty road from afar and finally stopped outside the previously sealed-off, largest “Gangnam Mall” in the city center.

Then, four men in different attire got out of the car. Two wore the Korean Anti-strange Investigators’ combat suits. Of the remaining two, one was a man around forty years old, wearing a neat suit and a pair of sunglasses. The other was a woman in her thirties, dressed in a Korean-style windbreaker outfit, also wearing sunglasses.

“Is this the rendezvous point?” The woman looked around. There wasn’t a single person on the whole street, and theirs was the only car.

The middle-aged man nodded: “The Minister said to meet here.”

The youngest among them, an Anti-strange Investigator in his twenties with narrow eyes and straight brows, said discontentedly: “After the last Asian Anti-strange Research Conference, the underground research lab at Gangnam Mall was blown up, causing stored Strange Energy to leak. Later, a freak invaded and created a terrifying high-tier strange creature there. Now the Minister sends people like us to deal with that high-tier strange creature? Isn’t this sending us to our deaths?”

The middle-aged man said calmly: “No need to worry about that. According to the Minister, the Great Heavenly Dynasty’s top Anti-strange Investigator, invited to deal with the freak Do Woo-seong, will come here to ‘help’. It’s more like he’ll be fully responsible for this matter, and we only need to assist from the sidelines.”

That young Anti-strange Investigator questioned: “The Great Heavenly Dynasty’s top Anti-strange Investigator? Self-proclaimed? Or did the Great Heavenly Dynasty just slap that title on some random Investigator and send him to our country for diplomacy? Top? Pah! The last one of our country’s top ten Anti-strange Investigators is still sitting in jail.”

At this point, the other Investigator in a combat suit beside him said: “Kwon Sang-hwa is really an idiot. Lost his composure because of one freak. If he had restrained himself later, he wouldn’t have ended up like that.”

The middle-aged man said: “Kwon Chan-yul, if I remember correctly, Kwon Sang-hwa is your cousin, right? You dislike him that much?”

“Pah! What cousin? After he became team leader, he became arrogant, looked down on our Kwon family, wished he could change his name and clan to climb up to the chaebols.” The young Anti-strange Investigator named Kwon Chan-yul cursed disdainfully.

Then, the woman spoke: “Team Leader Park Chang-ho, I recall the Great Heavenly Dynasty’s top Anti-strange Investigator is supposedly a ‘newcomer’ who’s been an Investigator for less than a year? Is he really that powerful?”

Park Chang-ho said: “Investigator Kim Soo-jung, it seems your information is too outdated. This top Anti-strange Investigator from the Great Heavenly Dynasty has quite a background.”

“Oh? How so?” Kim Soo-jung asked curiously.

Park Chang-ho cleared his throat and seriously began recounting Shen Ge’s resume: “From what I know, this Investigator named ‘Shen Ge’ not only participated in the two major Strange Disasters in Dajing and Tuokou but is also said to be the one who single-handedly resolved the Chongqing Tier 4 strange creature incident that nearly caused an international dispute.”

Kim Soo-jung nodded upon hearing this: “I’ve heard of the Tuokou City Strange Disaster. They say over a hundred Anti-strange Investigators from around the world went to support Sakura, but less than a tenth survived in the end! Although Sakura’s Strange Disaster wasn’t completely resolved, simply surviving that hellish place is impressive enough.”

Park Chang-ho agreed: “Exactly. With such a capable Anti-strange Investigator responsible for dealing with the high-tier strange creature at Gangnam Mall, we probably just need to be guides.”

Kwon Chan-yul, however, looked uneasy and said: “I’m not so sure. You know my cousin Kwon Sang-il, right? Team Leader of Hanseong Base’s Anti-strange Team 7… I heard the Hanseong Base was attacked last night, causing the contained strange creatures to rampage and create chaos. If this so-called top Investigator is really that powerful, would such a big mess have happened?”

Kim Soo-jung frowned, her expression grave: “I also heard about the Hanseong Base incident. Do you think it was the work of this top Investigator? And that’s why the Minister sent him to deal with the high-tier strange creature at Gangnam Mall, hoping he’d die here?”

The youngest Anti-strange Investigator who had complained first asked: “Team Leader Park, what’s your suggestion for this operation?”

Park Chang-ho said: “The Minister only told me to assist that Investigator, ask more questions, do less, let him take the lead whenever possible, and report his every move.”

“I think the Minister must suspect him too!” said the youngest Investigator, Kang Dong-wook.

Park Chang-ho warned: “Kang Dong-wook, you can say these things in front of us, but since there’s no concrete evidence, once he arrives, keep your attitude proper. Don’t cause any trouble.”

“Don’t worry, I understand.” Kang Dong-wook nodded.

While the four were discussing Shen Ge, the roar of a vehicle came from the distance. A military jeep pulled up behind the black sedan.

Shen Ge and Yoona got out of the vehicle. Shen Ge was still wearing the same casual clothes from yesterday, without even a bag, which made the four frown.

Although only Kang Dong-wook and Kwon Chan-yul, the two younger ones among the four, wore combat suits, Park Chang-ho and Kim Soo-jung also had two full bags of equipment, just stored in the trunk.

Kim Soo-jung only needed one look at Yoona to dismiss the idea that she was the “top Investigator”. Kang Dong-wook, standing behind, muttered quietly: “It’s the man. I’ve seen the woman before; she’s one of a pair of twins. I saw them when they were transferred to Hanseong, back at the operations department. Pah, to think such fine goods were given to a foreigner.”

Kwon Chan-yul replied: “How do you know they were ‘given’? Maybe it’s just regular work? Don’t be prejudiced.”

Kang Dong-wook chuckled: “When I saw the two sisters at the operations department, I was interested too. I’m an Anti-strange Investigator now; surely I should be able to get a woman, right? But when I mentioned it to the Secretary, he refused without even thinking, saying they were for entertaining a distinguished guest. Pah! With looks like that, like they stepped out of a plastic surgery catalog, are they