Chapter 32: Special Mission

Ever since the snail was carried away by the lord, Hua Yibing looked at the vegetable patch behind Old Li’s house with growing anger—

‘Destroying someone else’s property, even an NPC can’t be forgiven for that!’

‘Even a delicious-looking NPC is no exception! (In a loud voice)’

He decided not to go anywhere and just squatted outside the merman tower, waiting for the snail.
His poor little seedlings, his poor seeds that died before they were born.
Even if he couldn’t get compensation items, getting in touch with a special NPC wasn’t a loss.

One must know that such a suddenly appearing intelligent NPC definitely had a quest chain on them.

Other players were still watching, but smart players, like himself, were already preparing to blackmail the NPC!

First, he put his hands on his hips smugly for a while.

As expected, effort pays off.
In the end, Hua Yibing did manage to wait for it.

“It was you, this snail, right! You crushed the land I worked so hard to plant before!”
He brewed his emotions, put his hands on his hips, and blocked the snail’s path.

To be honest, this snail was really big.
Hua Yibing had to tilt his head up to see the other’s face.
A confused expression appeared on the snail’s face—don’t ask him how he could see an expression on a snail’s face, just say it’s a talent that comes with playing too many games.

“You don’t remember? You rolled near my house before and crushed all my vegetable patches! Do you know how hard it is for us to plant a piece of land? My partners and I spent a full four hours!”

“Go and see if you don’t believe me!”

Hua Yibing wanted to drag the other to recall the “crime scene.”
His hand, imitating the lord, grabbed the edge of the snail shell and pulled with force—

It didn’t budge.

‘Why are we both merfolk, yet I’m so weak?’
Huahua felt the disparity of the world for a moment.
Fortunately, this NPC named Tom understood his words.
The soft flesh under its body began to creep, crawling in his direction.

After arriving at the place, the large light-golden snail extended its long antennae and measured the horrible looking vegetable patch.

“Oh, my dear child! You must know that no merfolk lived on this land before. I’ve been to this place so many times, and I’ve always used this house as a brake…”
The snail embarrassedly patted its own head with its antennae, just like a person would pat their own head with their hand after a sudden realization.

“I didn’t expect you guys to have moved in when I came this time. Old Tom didn’t do it on purpose, I’m very sorry.”

‘Emmmm, a brake? This house?’

Hua Yibing subconsciously turned his head and glanced at the cracks on the wall that he had repaired.
He suddenly understood why this particular wall of Old Li’s house was so dilapidated in the first place…

‘Could it be that the reason was this snail in front of me? Heavens, can the game developers even lay foreshadowing like this?’

“What’s the use of apologizing?”

Suddenly, the window above them was pushed open, and a black-haired, black-eyed merman poked his head out.
It was Hua Yibing’s roommate, Yan Shuangwen.

He frowned and looked at the snail with a serious face.
“You may not know this since you just arrived, but if this vegetable patch can’t produce on time, we’ll have to do more quests to exchange for enough food to survive. We have to work harder every day to ensure we don’t starve to death.”

“Starve to death? You…”
Although Sea Realm had a satiety system where death was ineffective, the shop also sold very cheap satiety potions.
One daily quest could be exchanged for a bottle, which would directly max out the value.
How could it be as exaggerated as Yan Shuangwen said?

Hua Yibing subconsciously wanted to question it, but he immediately received a warning glance from his roommate.
Old Li also appeared behind him and quietly shook his head at him.

The words that were about to come out of Huahua’s mouth were swallowed back.
He suddenly realized his teammates’ purpose—no matter when, playing the victim is always the most useful!

His reaction was very fast.
The corners of his mouth quickly turned down, looking pitiful as if he was about to cry.
“Why did you have to say it in front of him? We just need to work hard slowly, we don’t need others’ sympathy!”

Hua Yibing tried hard to recall the strong and resilient commoner female leads often seen in old TV dramas and continued to be stubborn.
“It’s just being a little hungry, I’m used to it anyway.”

The snail looked up at the frowning Yan and Li, who seemed to be worried about their livelihood, then looked down at the stubborn Hua Yibing with slightly red eyes, and completely believed their story.

Its antennae drooped listlessly, looking extremely guilty.
“I’m sorry, child, I didn’t do it on purpose. Is there anything Old Tom can do for you?”

‘Here it comes!’

Hua Yibing’s heart leaped with joy, but he still tried to maintain a strong and stubborn expression on his face, his eyes quickly winking at his teammates—the opportunity is here! Hurry up and take it!

“Hmm?” The snail lowered its head and patted Huahua’s head with its antennae.
“What’s wrong, child? Is there something wrong with your eyes?”

“No, no, no, nothing!” Hua Yibing shivered, then looked at the other’s suspicious eyes… and they twitched!

“Originally…” it seemed even more guilty.

“In fact, we received a quest with a generous reward. As long as we can complete it, my two partners and I will no longer have to worry about food.”
Old Li, as the representative, pushed open the window and swam down.

He had a sturdy build, and his dark green fishtail… he looked very much like a big brother.

Tom thought so too, so he turned his head to Old Li.
“What kind of quest is it? …?”

“Outside the domain boundary, there is a terrifying one-eyed octopus. Its existence threatens the merfolk who go out to explore. Our mission is to defeat it,” Old Li explained simply, then tentatively asked, “If possible, could you please…”

He originally wanted to see if the NPC could join the team and help defeat the wild BOSS, but he couldn’t finish his sentence because the system came with a timely warning—

[Serious Warning: Players are prohibited from inviting the non-combat NPC [Tom] to the team. Please do not take shortcuts, or you will be expelled by the Lord.]

“Could you please give us some advice?” Old Li was very tactful and directly changed his words.
“It was injured some time ago, so it’s a good time to defeat it. But it has surrounded itself with ink, and the visibility in that sea area is zero, which affects combat.”

The snail Tom looked a bit troubled.
He thought for a moment, then thought again.

“It’s not that Old Tom doesn’t want to help you, it’s just that the methods I can think of, you can’t operate at your level. You know, when your magic level rises to 30 or above, the restrictions will be much smaller. At that time, a cleaning spell might be able to take care of that dirty ink,” he muttered to himself.

“Ah! I have it!” The snail suddenly thought of something.
Its two antennae shot up straight like antennae with a ‘ding’.
It shrank its head back into its shell, and then the whole shell rolled unnaturally on the spot for a few circles, as if it were looking for something inside.

“Hey, my children, look what I found. Something that perfectly meets your requirements—a powerful version of disinfectant!”

“Just take this, spray it into the ink, and the seawater will return to its original state!”

With his words, a bottle made into a spray nozzle rolled out from the opening of the snail shell and stopped after rolling a few circles on the ground.

Hua Yibing subconsciously wanted to pick it up, but the bottle was pressed down by the soft flesh under the snail’s body with a ‘smack’.

He looked up.
This was probably the snail’s “foot” position, and it was firmly covering the bottle of disinfectant.

Huahua: “Hmm? Didn’t you say you were going to give it to me?”

“No, no, no,” the snail shook its head like a rattle drum.
“Although I sympathize with your plight and really want to help you, Old Tom is a genuine traveling merchant. Every item given out by a merchant must be a valid transaction!”

Hua Yibing looked confused, and Old Li was also a little lost.

The snail sighed and explained, “A transaction must have a buyer and a seller, paying a price and getting a return. This is a transaction.”

“Also, the price of this potion is very expensive. Oh, you know, any noble who has some pursuit for the quality of their living water will choose to have a portion, even the picky sea elves are no exception.”

“So that’s how it is,” Hua Yibing nodded, convinced by him, feeling it made a lot of sense.
“Then how can I get it?”

Old Li opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but felt as if there was no need to say anything.
When he looked at the snail’s soft face again, he had a strange illusion that it seemed to overlap with the photo of a certain well-known奸商in the real world.

The snail Tom clearly became happy.
“I happen to have some things I need to entrust to you. Believe me, it’s a very simple matter! As long as you complete the mission, as a reward, I will give you this thing.”

He couldn’t wait to push a smaller snail out of his shell—

The little snail was suddenly sent to the outside world.
It looked a little dazed and timidly measured its surroundings.
Its shell was pure milky white, looking like an art piece carved from white jade, extremely beautiful.

Tom proudly straightened his chest and introduced to the players:

“This is my thirty-sixth nephew, very, very obedient and sensible, and can already understand most words. Now it wants to look around this place. You just need to follow it and take good care of it for three hours!”

The snail pushed the bottle out again.

“This expensive little thing will be yours!”

[Beep, special quest triggered—Take care of the sea snail cub! Requirement: Before Old Tom returns, take good care of his nephew. Time limit: three hours.]

[Quest Reward: Powerful Disinfectant ×1, Lord’s Favorability +1, Tom’s Favorability +5]

[Failure Penalty: You don’t want to anger a snail that can settle accounts, in every sense of the word.]

Hua Yibing, Old Li, and Yan Shuangwen by the window exchanged a glance and nodded.

“Okay, we promise!”

[Quest accepted. Quest executors: Hua Nord, Number Two, Old Li. Please note, once the quest is accepted, it cannot be abandoned!]

Who would want to abandon a special quest! It was a godsend!

Hua Yibing bent down, patted the little snail’s head, and smiled at Tom very relaxedly.
“I’m the best at taking care of children, especially since this child looks so obedient… obedient.”

The next second, his smile suddenly froze on his face.
His head lowered stiffly, his neck making a ‘crackling’ sound—

He saw that the previously obedient and cute little snail had, at some point, opened its small, blood-red mouth and swallowed half of his palm.

“Obedient??”