Chapter 20
After the sale, on her way back to the potion lab.
Mo Xi blinked curiously at Cookie Girl, who had blocked her path.
Cookie Girl lightly tapped the ground with her toe, her hands clasped behind her back, and said somewhat sheepishly, “Um, I don’t have that much money on me right now, so... could I reserve a Life Potion for after we leave this world?”
Looking at Cookie Girl’s embarrassed expression, Mo Xi readily agreed. She had been broke herself once, after all, and understood why Cookie Girl felt awkward.
But...
“By the way, can you tell me why everyone else was so desperate to buy the potions? I thought Life Potions would get a lukewarm response.”
Mo Xi thought back to the staff who had made such aggressive bids just now. The potions had a fixed price, yet they had turned it into an auction, each person offering more than the last.
Cookie Girl tilted her head in confusion. Seeing that Mo Xi really didn’t understand, she began to patiently explain.
“Staff have very few opportunities to gain free attribute points. They can only improve their attributes through missions assigned by the Paradise and items like permanent attribute potions.”
“But can’t staff enter worlds and complete world missions too?” Mo Xi asked, puzzled.
Cookie Girl shook her head and explained seriously, “Not every staff member can fight. Most would rather stay in the Paradise and slowly use the income from their trade skills to find a way to improve their attributes than risk entering a world to complete a mission.”
“I see.” Mo Xi nodded slightly.
Simply put, although staff and contractors both lived in the Paradise, their lifestyles were completely different. The former used their abilities to run businesses and buy stat boosts with money, while the latter gained attributes by taking risks themselves.
Compared to them, Mo Xi, who both ran a potion stall and went on adventures in other worlds, was something of an oddity among the staff.
After chatting briefly with Cookie Girl, Mo Xi returned to the potion lab to rest.
For the time being, all the staff could do was wait—wait for Fire Mage and the others to return victorious, and wait for the world mission to be completed.
As time passed, Mo Xi, stuck waiting aboard the transport ship, grew increasingly anxious. She wasn’t someone who could stand doing nothing.
Rather than entrusting her life to others, she preferred to keep the possibility of survival in her own hands.
Fortunately, this anxious wait eventually came to an end.
With roughly half the mission time remaining, the transport ship’s hatch suddenly closed. A moment later, the dwarf captain’s excited voice came over the intercom: “Buckle up! We’re going to support them.”
Before the people in the main hall could even react, the transport ship suddenly began to shake. It was starting to accelerate.
The next moment, a powerful force shoved them back. The Slugcat, which had been playing by jumping around in the potion lab, was flung through the air. If Mo Xi hadn’t been quick enough to catch it, the kitten would have slammed into the wall with a splat.
A short while later, above the Iterator superstructure.
Mo Xi gazed through the window at the metropolis below, so artistically designed yet monotonously colored. For some reason, it reminded her of an ancient tombstone. There was nothing left down there.
“From what I remember, the Ancients built their homes atop the Iterator superstructure to escape the harsh weather. That means it won’t rain here,” Mo Xi murmured.
As the transport ship gradually descended, the contractors standing atop the Iterator superstructure came into clearer view. They looked... a little worse for wear.
As the hatch lowered, the contractors surged inside, and Mo Xi pieced together what had happened from their various complaints.
For example, the Underhang was hard to navigate, flying vultures on the high walls were taking sniper shots, and there was even a chance of getting electrocuted while climbing...
Watching the contractors get back on their feet, Mo Xi suddenly had a question. She found the dwarf captain.
“Since we can fly the transport ship directly to the top of the Iterator now, why didn’t we just fly here as soon as we entered the world?” Mo Xi asked, puzzled.
The dwarf captain was taken aback, then explained, “That’s because of the Paradise’s rules.”
“The Paradise’s rules?” Mo Xi repeated, confused.
The captain downed half a bottle of liquor before explaining, “One of the Paradise’s rules is that it can’t put contractors in a situation where they’re certain to die. That’s why it provided the transport ship when we entered the world.”
“I know what you’re thinking, but flying the transport ship straight here to drop off the contractors would break the rules. The Paradise can only help the contractors complete their mission more easily within the limits the rules allow.”
As he spoke, the dwarf captain pointed at Mo Xi. “Look, sending a group of excellent staff like you is already the greatest help the Paradise can offer.”
“Then why can the staff come along on the transport ship?” Mo Xi asked.
The dwarf captain thought for a moment. “Have you noticed that you can’t get too far from the transport ship? In fact, according to the rules, the staff and the transport ship are one and the same, like a ship and its crew.”
Seeing Mo Xi’s thoughtful expression, the dwarf captain took a sip of liquor. “Don’t overthink it. This is the source world of the Fantasy Paradise. The Paradise will do all it can to help.”
Hearing the dwarf captain’s pointed remark, Mo Xi nodded.
A short while later, in the transport ship’s main hall.
Mo Xi looked at Fire Mage, who had an enormous afro and was spewing black smoke, and couldn’t decide whether to laugh. She turned to Cookie Girl beside her and asked, “What happened?”
Cookie Girl leaned closer and lowered her voice. “A contractor just said they had some kind of electroshock device that could restore all their stats. Fire Mage’s condition was pretty bad, so...”
Mo Xi’s eye twitched as she looked at Fire Mage’s exasperated expression and the contractors beside him laughing themselves silly. Sometimes, she really pitied the Paradise. How did it always end up with such ridiculous contractors?
It had been the same in the previous world Mo Xi visited. One contractor refused to turn in a perfectly good mission and insisted on trying to absorb the sealed souls. They didn’t even know what those souls were, yet dared to absorb them.
In the end, five people had gone in, but only two came back. Honestly...
Just as Mo Xi was lamenting this, she heard Fire Mage telling the other contractors that they were going into the Iterator to kill the boss.
The moment she heard that, Mo Xi froze. Then she realized the contractors were not going after “Five Pebbles,” but some other creature.
“Oh no, it can’t be that one...”
Mo Xi vaguely recalled something, and her expression turned troubled. Compared with monsters like lizards and Leviathans, that blue, mushroom-like creature was much harder to deal with.
If that thing had fused with the world core, Mo Xi felt the boss fight would be incredibly difficult.