A Little Monster With A Wife Is Amazing – CH4

Chapter 4: Even a Rabbit Driven to Desperation Will Go Mad

Jian Tang held his forehead in a daze, refusing to face reality.

At that moment, the phone in his pocket vibrated twice. Jian Tang pulled it out and saw a message from his coworker.

[Little Mud: Tang, where are you??? The Big Boss came to check the attendance himself!!]
[Little Mud: Get here fast, fast, fast!! If you don’t come, our monthly performance evaluation is going to hit rock bottom!!]

Jian Tang hurried to check the time in the top right corner of the phone, his pupils trembling: “!!!!”

How is it already this late?!
Oh no, oh no, in five minutes, it’ll be time to start working!!

Jian Tang spun around in a panic. It was definitely too late to catch a human bus now, and even splurging a huge sum of money on a taxi wouldn’t help—the distance from here to his workplace was simply too far!

Even a rabbit driven to desperation will go mad. Jian Tang gritted his teeth and decided to go all out. He had already “splurged” on the knock-off wife; his job could absolutely not go wrong now. He still carried a massive debt of 80 million credits loaned from the System!

Jian Tang made a split-second decision and bolted straight for… the apartment bathroom.

In the brand-new apartment, the bathroom facilities were also brand-new. The ceramic toilet reflected a soft, white porcelain sheen under the white light. With his heart burning with anxiety, Jian Tang jabbed the flush button. Amidst the sound of rushing water, he transformed into his original form and dove headfirst into the swirling vortex.

Jian Tang didn’t know that just as he was making a desperate “water-escape” to punch his time card at the factory, barely ten meters away in the lobby of Building 44, the detector in someone’s hand suddenly flashed a red light before quickly extinguishing.

“Hmm?”

Although it was fleeting, this anomaly still caught the attention of everyone present.

“Little Wang, what’s going on?” the investigation team leader asked.

Little Wang, holding the detector, shook the instrument and walked around the area, but he didn’t receive another signal. He scratched his head in confusion. “I don’t know… maybe a slight malfunction?”

This detector was an “old veteran” in the Bureau of Supernatural Investigation with a distinguished service record. It could detect all non-human supernatural entities within a one-kilometer radius and featured an automatic tracking function. As long as the red light lit up, it would mark the position of the supernatural entity on the radar map and trace a short path of their movement.

But this time, while the detector did light up, the radar map remained completely blank.

For such a situation to occur, two conditions had to be met simultaneously: the supernatural entity had to be very weak—so weak that the detector couldn’t be bothered to track it, merely flashing symbolically—and at the same time, it had to have escaped at a speed so fast that it outstripped the radar’s tracking response, preventing the radar from capturing a subsequent signal.

But the existence of these two conditions was a paradox in itself: In all the world’s martial arts, only speed is invincible. Supernatural entities with speed pushed to the limit were generally not that weak.

Very strange.

“Forget it. Since the detector didn’t show the purple light of the highest danger level, we don’t need to worry about it for now,” the team leader said, nodding to the other two members. “Let’s hurry up. If we delay too long, the building management will definitely be unhappy again.”

The team members replied one after another, speeding up their work—cutting out a floor tile in the lobby.

On that tile, a patch of dark, filthy slime was stuck. Even though it had been releasing its odor for a whole night, one could still smell the acrid, putrid stench if they leaned in even slightly.

Although it was hard to believe, after rigorous testing, this “puddle of mud” that had been blasted into dregs… was indeed the “serial killer” their bureau had been hunting for over half a month.

—

In the underground monster factory.

Although it was still two minutes before the start of the shift, the factory assembly line machines were already rumbling and running.

Large quantities of “trash” were being dumped onto the assembly line conveyor belt through massive pipes. Some of this trash was tattered and torn, some emitted foul odors, and others were covered in unknown sticky fluids or even bloodstains.

Of course, there were also many “qualified goods” that looked 70% or 80% new and could still be used after a little tidying up.

The monster employees in the factory were each attending to their duties, waving their respective tentacles/claws/mycelium/vine-arms/pincers, skillfully picking through the trash: they directly ignored the irreparably damaged or completely scrapped items, and they picked out the qualified items, placing them on another conveyor belt to enter the next step of the “refurbishment” process.

No monster noticed that one of the factory windows had been stealthily pushed open, leaving a small gap.

A slender, emerald-green vine crept in through the crack. At the tip of the vine were two small bumps, resembling a pair of small, cute rabbit ears.

Little Zombie and Little Mushroom, who were busy working, saw the sneaky green vine slipping in. The two little monsters exchanged a glance, both revealing a tacit, knowing smile.

The green vine moved like a lithe, swimming snake, winding along the way. With a clear objective, it finally stopped at a vacant employee seat and flicked a transparent spider silk next to the seat.

The spider silk vibrated twice—clock-in successful.

At the same time, a funeral-dirge-like, ear-piercing bell rang out over the entire factory floor, declaring to all monster employees—Time to work! Time to work!

Jian Tang, who had successfully clocked in at the last second, exhaled a long breath, transformed back into his human form on the spot, and plopped into his seat.

The Little Mud monster next to him immediately sent a message of congratulations: “Congrats, congrats. That was close; I almost thought you were going to be late, Little Tang.”

Little Zombie expressed his concern: “Little Tang, where did you go? I didn’t see you in the corridor this morning. I thought you were stepped into vegetable paste by a big monster last night and thrown into the trash can.”

Jian Tang was currently soaking wet; the extreme “water-escape” had exhausted him. He waved his hand in a way that was hard to put into words, while constantly craning his neck, trying to see how far the “Big Boss who came to check attendance” had gotten.

“Relax, the Big Boss checked halfway and left,” the Little Mushroom opposite him said with a sweet smile, the spores on its mushroom cap dancing happily. “Our factory just received a huge batch of orders; the boss is so happy he’s gone crazy. He probably won’t have time to come bother us anytime soon.”

“Oh?” Jian Tang became interested. As he extended a few vine-tentacles to pick through the trash on the conveyor belt like everyone else, he secretly fished and chatted with his friends. “Didn’t the boss throw a temper tantrum a few days ago, saying there were too few orders and he had to lay people off? How did it suddenly have a turnaround?”

“Sigh, you have to thank that ‘Bloody Butcher’ for this.”

Jian Tang froze. “The butcher you’re talking about… don’t tell me it’s the one ranked first on the Tasker Credit Leaderboard?”

The three little monsters nodded in unison: “Yeah, yeah!”

As a little monster who almost never entered dungeons, Jian Tang didn’t pay much attention to Taskers, but even ignorant as he was, he had heard of the “Bloody Butcher’s” fierce reputation, simply because… this guy’s reputation in the monster community was too, too, too stinking bad. =?=

“He didn’t slaughter his way through someone’s lair again, did he?” Jian Tang twitched his eyelid. “Or did he dismantle a company someone spent hundreds of years painstakingly managing? Or did he trigger a bug and drive some dungeon guardian insane? Wait, did he take his accomplices and empty out some poor monster’s dungeon assets again??”

Dungeons entered by human Taskers, in addition to the public dungeons opened by the System, were often private dungeons set up by the supernatural monsters themselves. Unlike public dungeons where you worked for the System, the earnings from private dungeons could be kept entirely by the monsters, so they were more favored and sought after.

Any supernatural monster with even a bit of skill liked to take the lead, gather a team, and set up a dungeon session to make a killing. Even if they were too weak and the turnover rate was too high, they could post on the Monster Forum with titles like “100 Design Ideas for Rules-Based Horror, Teaching You How to Drive Taskers Mad!” or “Dungeon Guard Rate as High as 78.88%, What Did I Do Right?”, selling courses and making a fortune—it was just too profitable.

—Until the super demon known as the “Bloody Butcher” came into existence.

It was only after this “Butcher” appeared that the supernatural monsters were shocked to discover a dungeon rule never realized before: when the mortality rate of monsters in a private dungeon reached 100%, the dungeon, with no one left to guard it, would have its “Item Protection” feature disabled. Every material and item within the dungeon, as large as an entire building or as small as a blade of grass, could be taken away by Taskers.

Thus, the monsters operating private dungeons met their nightmare—

Whenever the “Bloody Butcher” participated in a dungeon, it would always reach a “100% Monster Mortality Rate,” and then the entire dungeon would be swept clean by the loot-hoarding Taskers. The monster dealers would be left without even their underwear.

…It was too much; it was simply too much.

You Taskers, kill monsters if you have to, but why do you have to loot and steal everything too!

It was like a shopkeeper opening a hotel to do business, planning to earn a day’s rent, but the guests arrived with a moving truck, packing up all the furniture and appliances in the hotel, and not even letting the air conditioner’s outdoor unit go.

What was even more excessive was that some monsters went through intermediaries to ask that “Bloody Butcher”: Clearly, you can get rich rewards just by completing the dungeon mission, so why must you kill them to the point of a ‘100% Monster Mortality Rate’?

That abominable human Butcher pondered for a moment and replied lightly with four words.

“Since I’m already here?”

The monsters: “…………”

So, you’re a thief who never leaves empty-handed; if you don’t kill everything, sweep everything, and grab everything, you feel uncomfortable, right??

He was simply a devil!
This guy was even more devilish than the most evil devil in the supernatural world!

Thanks to this “Dungeon Herbicide,” orders at the monster trash recycling factory had dwindled—most of the refurbished second-hand goods were sold to private dungeons because the System had rating limits on opening dungeons, and dungeon facilities and mission items needed to reach a certain level before monster dealers were allowed to “open the door to guests.”

But following the trend led by the “Bloody Butcher,” private dungeons had become high-risk investments. Many monsters didn’t dare to open them anymore, leading to fewer factory orders. The big bosses in the monster town could curse the “Bloody Butcher” eight hundred times a day.

Now, Jian Tang heard from his friends that their factory had received a large batch of orders again, and it was related to their sworn enemy, the “Bloody Butcher.” This was truly strange.

“It’s not just the factory in our town; monsters all over the supernatural world are setting off fireworks to celebrate right now!” Little Mushroom said with a smile.

“Because that Bloody Butcher announced his retirement! He won’t come to wreak havoc on our supernatural dungeons anymore!”

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