Chapter 23

Chapter 23

Normally, a communicator’s settings wouldn’t include a “Channel” option. This must be the entrance she was looking for, so the Ark clicked on it.

As she clicked to enter, the communicator's screen flickered and then went dark.

After a few seconds, several lines of white text slowly appeared.

"Welcome to the entrance of 'The Fourth Dimension'."

"Here, there are no restrictions, no prying eyes. No one can reach the other side of the screen, only freedom and revelry exist."

The meaning of this welcome message was clear. It indicated the absolute security of the user's information, ensuring that no one could trace their identity or location through 'The Fourth Dimension' network.

Due to the uniqueness of shelter 004, it was often infiltrated by "criminals" wanted by the Central Authority, or "traitors" pursued by other shelters.

The dark web conducted various kinds of underground information exchange and dealings, and this protection was specifically for these people.

In a world where communication was largely controlled by the Paradise, the existence of such a communication network intrigued Ark, making her curious about the people maintaining it behind the scenes.

“Do you wish to enter 'The Fourth Dimension'?”

The prompt continued, and Ark chose “Yes”.

“Please enter your account ID. This cannot be changed later.”

She had thought it would be anonymous. Was there a concern about people exploiting anonymity for fraud?

Below these prompts, Ark noticed a line of grey-black small text, easy to miss. She strained to read it, finding it meticulously written—

[Don’t use your real name. What, you love surfing under your real name? I get annoyed seeing such idiots! If you die, it’s what you deserve!]

…Seems like the maintainer of this channel has a bad temper, but still quite conscientious.

It’s hard to imagine who would actually use their real name in a place like this.

After confirming there were no oversights, Ark pondered for a while and entered a seemingly unrelated ID, “One Punch Earth Exploder”.

“ID entry successful.”

“Welcome to 'The Fourth Dimension'. You are the 18599th Silent User.”

There were so many users on this channel.

Ark couldn’t help but feel surprised. Many small bases had only a few thousand people in total, yet there were many times more users of the dark web in shelter 004.

Upon entering, the screen displayed three scrollable blue sections. The creator of this page seemed lazy – no instructions, no fancy designs, not even bothering to name the sections, just blank spaces against a blue background.

Ark clicked through them one by one.

The first one had a straightforward layout, consisting of a section made up of posted point bounties.

The second section contained various gossip posts mixed with complaints about the point offers in the bounty section, resembling a chat forum.

The last section was currently locked, and Ark received a notification of insufficient permissions whenever she tried to access it.

After roughly understanding the layout and usage of the channel, she delved into the bounty interface to carefully look for her first task.

She needed to find something simple and low-key to test the waters.

The first few pages were filled with numerous assassination jobs, seemingly part of a power struggle between factions. She couldn’t take those – they were essentially choosing sides, and Ark was not yet fully accustomed to the idea of “killing”.

She scrolled through several pages before finding other types of bounties.

One particular bounty caught her attention.

Poster: Mountain Cat

Bounty Content: Is there any cleaner who can deal with the D-grade aliens in my building? They are swarming everywhere!

Bounty Requirement: Resolve the issue thoroughly without damaging the building!!

Bounty Points: 10,000 points

Ark didn’t yet have a concrete concept of points. Comparing it to the 3,000 points for assassinations and 8,000 points for dealing with higher-grade aliens, this bounty seemed unusually high, surpassing 10,000. It must be a significant amount, right?

Considering the D-grade's threat level was like an individual wire python from her body – no real danger, just a bit of a hassle.

For her, such troubles were minor issues.

Her summoner rank in her first identity had recently been upgraded, and creatures C-grade and below would automatically obey her without the need for forced subjugation. She hadn’t yet had a chance to try this out; this could be a perfect opportunity, with the added benefit of earning a substantial amount of points.

Ark felt like she had stumbled upon a great deal.

She immediately clicked on the private chat icon in the top-right corner.

[One Punch Earth Exploder]: Hello, I can take this job.

After a while, the other party replied.

[Mountain Cat]: Really? Just to clarify, you can't damage the house. I need to inspect and confirm that the problem is fully resolved before settling the points.

[One Punch Earth Exploder]: No problem.

Then, an address was sent from the other side.

Ark checked the location on the communicator's map for shelter 004. It wasn't far from her current position, within the same district, about a ten-minute drive.

[Mountain Cat]: When can you get here?

[One Punch Earth Exploder]: Now, I'll be there in about ten minutes.

After replying, Ark reverted to her previous disguised appearance, grabbed her cloak, got the car keys from Lu Feilan, and drove off.

On her way to the destination, Ark also made a mental note of the area she passed through.

Soon, Ark arrived at the location specified by Mountain Cat.

It was a typical residential area, far more chaotic than where Lu Feilan had found them lodging. Some buildings were old and unrenovated, looking perilously unstable. Only the building given in Mountain Cat's address was newly built.

Ark guessed that Mountain Cat planned to rent it out, which is why he opted to use points to hire someone to clear the hazards affecting the livability.

After surveying the surroundings, Ark didn't have to search for the D-grade aliens herself; they slowly crawled out from the dark corners of the building's exterior.

The smallest were like various bugs from the old world, while the largest were about the size of rats.

Although small in size, the sight of them clustered together was rather unsightly.

Passersby, seeing this scene, couldn't help but curse, "Have these D-grade aliens gone mad? Why are they all coming out!"

Meanwhile, Ark's vision was bombarded with rapidly changing information, making her dizzy.

[Alien Creature “xx” submits to you]

[Alien Creature “xxxx” submits to you]

[Alien Creature “xxx” submits to you]

……

[Automatically absorbed]

[Automatically absorbed]

……

[New entry added to the compendium: …]

[New entry added to the compendium: …]

These were notifications of D-grade aliens automatically submitting and being added to her compendium, their incessant voices flooding her mind. Ark promptly muted this group of aliens.

Once the notifications ceased, Ark checked the numbering in her compendium; it had reached number 13, indicating that there were ten types of D-grade aliens present.

What surprised her more was the automatic subjugation being area-based. As soon as they entered her vicinity, these D-grades automatically submitted, requiring no effort from her.

Hastily reviewing the newly added entries, as expected, few were useful. Their intelligence levels were low, incapable of even basic scouting and reporting back to her.

Ark had no intention of integrating these many bizarre small aliens into her body... even she would find it disgusting 🙂

To avoid arousing suspicion from passersby, she ordered them to hide in the nearby sewer pipes, distributing them around to serve as her temporary eyes, though she had little hope these inarticulate creatures could be of much help.

However, she suspected the aliens outside these houses were not the real targets of the bounty.

With no one to meet her at the door, and considering the nature of the bounty, the poster was unlikely to trade in person. Ark decided to proceed with resolving the situation directly.

Entering the building, Ark immediately noticed a camera at the entrance. She wasn't concerned about her face being captured, but recording the clearing process could be problematic.

Ark summoned the wire pythons to approach the camera's blind spot, using their bodies to completely cover the camera lens.

After completing this, she officially entered the hallway.

Seeing the situation inside, Ark realized these were the real troublesome aliens causing the poster's headache. Their information flashed before her eyes.

[Alien Creature: Parasitic Pot]

[Danger Level: D-grade]

[Intelligence Level: B-grade]

Portions of the building's walls were densely covered with creatures resembling barnacles. Their bodies were embedded in the structure of the floors, while the remaining shells clung tightly to the walls.

Every few meters, there was an area like this. Even Ark, who had seen many strange aliens, couldn't help feeling goosebumps all over.

Before Ark could do more, another notification popped up.

[Alien Creature “Parasitic Pot” submits to you]

[Automatically absorbed]

[New entry added to the compendium: Parasitic Pot]

[Alien Level: D-grade (Assessed based on combined danger and intelligence)]

[Ability: Extremely rapid reproduction, can parasitize any constructed building]

This seemed somewhat useful. With an intelligence level of at least B, it could communicate normally with her, assess the environment, and perhaps be more suitable than the wire pythons for dispersing across various locations for reconnaissance.

However, Ark hadn’t forgotten her main task. She ordered the Parasitic Pots to silently leave with their shells and disperse underground, also halting their reproductive habits to prevent them from inadvertently covering the entire underground area.

Ark didn’t even watch the Parasitic Pots move; it was too disgusting. If not for their potential utility, she would have chosen to dispose of them outright.

Only after receiving the report that they had all evacuated did she retract the wire pythons from the camera.

In this way, she resolved the task effortlessly, also testing the effects of her enhanced abilities.

On her way back, Ark thought to herself: What a profit, a huge win!

……

……

Meanwhile, half an hour earlier.

A man with gold-tinted bangs was replying to messages on his communicator while playing mahjong with three friends.

Seeing the message from the newcomer named [One Punch Earth Exploder] with a default avatar, Shang Xize, also known as Mountain Cat, who posted the bounty, suddenly stood up.

“Whoa, you startled me. What’s up?” asked the man sitting opposite him.

“Someone took the bounty I posted on 'The Fourth Dimension'."

“Which one? The one about clearing out D-grade aliens?”

“Yes.”

“What’s the deal? Someone actually took your low-point bounty?”

“I didn't expect it either. I just casually posted the bounty, and it’s been half a month. Setting a high reward isn't worth it, as no one would take it. It's better to offer a lower reward – someone might bite,” Shang Xize said, “If I hadn’t spent so much effort preparing to rent it out, I wouldn’t waste these points.”

Contrary to Fang Zhou's expectations, in others' eyes, this was not a “great bargain” to be easily picked up.

Bounties like the one Shang Xize posted usually involved houses infested with many D-class alien creatures within their structure, a situation only resolvable if they willingly come out, or else they need to be forcefully dealt with inside.

The simplest method is to destroy the walls they inhabit. If that's all, the task isn’t difficult, and many transcendents with slightly stronger destructive powers could do it.

But the problem is Shang Xize's requirement to “not damage the house” while completely clearing the D-class aliens inside, which is inherently contradictory.

This makes the task almost impossible to accept regardless of the reward offered, unless someone capable of ultra-fine transcendent power control through the house's structure takes it, but such a high-caliber individual would demand far more than what Shang Xize refers to as a “higher” reward.

Just for a house, spending points beyond a certain limit isn’t worth it, especially with the increasing number of parasites lately, leading Shang Xize to consider giving up.

“I might have been tricked. Could it be a voyeur trying to extract information from me?” Shang Xize anxiously realized later, “This account seems new too.”

“Why the panic? What specific information can they get from an old house?” His friend reassured him, “Besides, voyeurs in the fourth dimension are immediately eliminated upon discovery. Otherwise, if voyeurs were rampant, who would dare post bounties in the fourth dimension?”

“If you can resolve it, you’ll make a big profit. If not, it's normal, and you won’t lose this amount of points.”

His friend made sense, and Shang Xize quickly calmed down, sitting back down with a chuckle and began shuffling cards.

It wasn't until the evening that he remembered the matter, prompted by a notification when he re-entered the fourth dimension.

He clicked in, finding a message from a user with a default avatar, evidently a newcomer.

[One Punch to Obliterate Earth]: Hello, I have cleared all the D-class aliens from your house. Just to be safe, I also dealt with those nearby. Please check the results, and if there are no issues, transfer the points to wristband number FL1123.

"Damn," Shang Xize couldn't help but swear. Was this for real, or just a bluff? It seemed like a show-off move, not uncommon in the fourth dimension.

Despite his skepticism, Shang Xize hastened home. Upon arriving at his building, he inspected every floor up to the sixth. To his surprise, the previously swarming D-class aliens were all gone, leaving only marks on the walls from their adhesive shells.

Compared to the infestation, these marks were a minor issue.

"Damn!"

He exclaimed again.

Who was this philanthropic powerhouse? This time, he had struck it rich!