Chapter 35: Abrupt Halt Before the Finish Line

The buff effect of [Bad Luck] was exceptionally significant, forcefully creating an opportunity for the little snail to escape.
The members of the 123 team looked at each other, speechless for a moment.

“Damn it!” Hua Yibing hung his head in despair.
“It’s all because of this unlucky BUFF. There’s only half an hour left before the big snail comes back. What if we can’t find the little snail?”

“It’s okay, let’s split up and look,” Old Li patted his shoulder comfortingly.
“Isn’t there still half an hour? We can definitely make it.”

“It probably hasn’t been gone for long,” Yan Shuangwen walked to the bedside and touched the still-present indentation on it, judging, “It couldn’t have gone far in this amount of time.”

“Yoshi, then let’s set off!” Hua Yibing was comforted by his companions and regained a little of his energy.
He was just about to turn and go downstairs, but was stopped by two arms coming from different directions—

He looked up and saw the complicated expressions on his two teammates’ faces.

“You should just stay in the room. It’s best if you lie on the bed and don’t go anywhere,” Yan Shuangwen pointed towards the leaf bed.

Old Li also nodded grimly.
“If possible, it’s best if you wish for the mission to not be completed, and repeat it a few more times in your heart.”

Hua Yibing: “…”

He turned around abruptly and threw himself onto his bed with tears in his eyes—he was being disliked by his companions, but what could he do?
It was all because of this damn debuff!!

The next second, a miserable howl was heard from Huahua.

“Ahhh, my tail can’t move anymore. What is this [Sprained Waist] buff!!”

Old Li and Yan Shuangwen looked at each other, seeing the same helplessness in each other’s eyes.

Finding the snail was truly difficult, but it should also have been very simple.

Although the little snail wasn’t big, only about the size of a normal person’s backpack, if it deliberately hid somewhere, it would definitely be hard to find.
But it probably didn’t have so many thoughts.
It looked like just a mentally immature child.
It must have run off somewhere to play or gnaw on something.

Knowing this, the two of them also had a direction.

Yan Shuangwen was responsible for looking around the residential area to the east, while Old Li went to check the area around the resurrection point to the west.

Time passed minute by minute.
The two merfolk hurriedly set off.
There were only 20 minutes left until the end of the mission.

Yan Shuangwen hesitated for a moment, then made up his mind and knocked on the female neighbor’s door.

“Who is it?” The brown-haired girl poked her head out.
Her face first turned ugly for a moment, then when she saw it was only him, her expression improved quite a bit.

“It’s you. I remember you. Thank you for the reputation points you sent over. You’re a polite fellow, at least,” obviously, she still remembered his compensation.

That made things much easier.

Yan Shuangwen breathed a sigh of relief and asked, “Excuse me, have you seen that snail from before?”

The girl was startled.
“What? That snail came to my house again?”

She slammed the door shut with a ‘thump’ and hurriedly ran to her vegetable patch to check.
Not a minute later, the girl swam back.

“It’s not in my house,” she patted her chest in relief.
“Thank goodness, thank goodness. If it had ravaged it one more time, my vegetable patch would be done for.”

Yan Shuangwen still said thanks and was about to turn and go to the next house to look, but the girl suddenly called out to him again.

“Hey, I just remembered. Did your snail get lost a few minutes ago? I think I heard a ‘thump’ outside my window around that time, and then there was a ‘guruguru’ sound on my roof, from this direction to that direction.”
The girl gestured with her hand, her thin arm lifting high, like the pointer on a scale, swinging from left to right.

“Thank you very much. This clue is crucial.”
Having a clue narrowed down the search area.
After thanking her, Yan Shuangwen set off to continue his search in the western direction she had pointed to.

Not long after Old Li had set off, he ran into Diamond, who was climbing out of the resurrection point.

“Yo, great god, have you completed your mission?”
Diamond very skillfully operated the bulletin board with a ‘kaka ka’, accepted the daily quest, and prepared to continue his brick-moving career to save up for resurrection.

Old Li smiled wryly and shook his head.
“Not yet, the NPC is missing.”

“That snail?” Diamond’s eyes widened.
“I thought you guys let it out?”

“Have you seen the little snail? Where is it?” Old Li’s eyes lit up, his arm resting on the other’s shoulder, signaling him to continue.

Diamond scratched his head, a little unsure.
“I didn’t pay much attention. I just glanced at it when I was putting on a film at the resurrection point. At that time, it seemed to be chasing something and ran away along this road. Speaking of which, can snails really run that fast?” he sighed in hindsight.

“You’ve been a great help!” Old Li thanked him and hurriedly followed the small path.

At this time, there were still 15 minutes until the end of the mission.

Meanwhile, the snail had traveled more than half the distance.
If it just rolled for a little longer, it could reach the outside of the sea realm and enter the boundary of Sykes’s domain.

The closer he got to that place, the thicker the aura of the lord there became.
A powerful and… intruder.
…in his heart, it was almost painless and itchless to him, not to mention that he wouldn’t notice it at all, but for the… on his body…

…a few hundred meters, the black gas finally couldn’t bear it anymore and fell off onto the ground, … in a stone cave, turning into a black mass.

And Tom was still completely unaware.
Humming a song, he… from the box in… grabbed a handful, and counted them carelessly in his hand.
Counted, then grabbed another handful—

…one of the activities in between.
Sometimes when he was bored, he would even classify the gems of different colors, then mix them all up in a mess.

Ah, this wonderful feeling of relief made him enjoy this game tirelessly.

After counting only six handfuls of gems, Tom had already reached the domain.
He was just about to roll towards the residential area when he was blocked by someone.

He poked his head out to see who dared to block his path, but heard that person speak—

“Tom, what’s that on you?”
Sykes stood with his arms crossed, looking down at him from above.

Tom drilled back into his shell with a ‘swoosh’, and when he came out again, he had already turned into a human form.
The golden-haired youth scrambled out of his shell and hurriedly checked its exterior. Tom didn’t take these problems lightly.

“Is there something? What did you find? Seaweed? Mud? I should have shaken it clean before I came in!”
He looked over it once and found nothing unusual, then took out a magnifying glass from somewhere and carefully examined the patterns on the shell as if studying some cultural relic.

Then he was slapped to the ground by Sykes’s tail.

The merman physically moved the nuisance out of the way, then placed his palm on a piece of ground—that was the area where the black gas had previously attached.

Here… there seemed to be a very familiar, disgusting aura.
Sykes’s brows furrowed.
He took a can of disinfectant with extreme disgust and sprayed the snail shell from top to bottom.

“Hey! What strange thing are you doing to my shell!!”
Tom was being pressed firmly to the ground by the merman’s large tail, but he couldn’t control his mouth.

“Smack.”

The merman’s translucent tail slapped him again and pressed Tom down even harder, as if to press him into a snail pancake.

“I was wrong, I was wrong, …” Tom whimpered, begging for forgiveness for his moment of rash words.

At this time, there were still 5 minutes until the mission deadline.

Yan Shuangwen was rushing to a place, his target clear.

After getting the clue, he followed the female neighbor’s directions and asked a few more people along the way.

There was the foodie who had just returned from gathering ingredients—

“Eh? The little snail? I did see it, and I gave it a sweet leaf.”

“After that, I found a plant I hadn’t seen before, so I didn’t pay attention… Oh, right! It should have gone east. I saw some crushed seaweed when I was coming back.”

And some unknown house-repairing player—

“Are you talking about a milky-white snail? Of course I’ve seen it!”
As he spoke, he pointed to the wall he had just repaired.
“See? I even repaired that wall based on its appearance. Doesn’t it look very similar?”

Yan Shuangwen looked at that time.
It was indeed very similar, a 90% restoration of the snail’s appearance.
Compared to Hua Yibing’s magical painting skills, it was like heaven and earth.

“Where did it go? It’s obvious. It ran into that house along this road!”

The house he pointed to was a simple wooden house that had not yet been repaired.
It was not occupied by messy colors and stood out a bit on this street.

Yan Shuangwen thanked the house-repairer and swam towards that house.
Just as he turned a corner and was about to reach the door of that house, he suddenly saw his partner.

After getting Diamond’s testimony, Old Li had followed the small path all the way and had also received help from many people.

“Are you talking about a snail? Let me think. Oh right! Was it this big? It just rolled past me and even ran over my tail! It’s so heavy!”

[Saw it. Mm. Oh. Turn right.]

“It’s right over there! I saw the snail run into the house in front of the one in front of me!”

It seemed some strange person had gotten mixed in.

But there was no need to care about that.
In short, Old Li also got the final answer and swam to the door of that house at full speed.
Just as he turned a corner, he saw the black-tailed fish swimming over in a hurry.

“Then let’s… knock first?” Old Li asked tentatively.

“Mm.” Yan Shuangwen nodded with a serious face.

Then the two of them suddenly started laughing—

“Hahahahahaha, if I had known, I would have just come to look together in the first place,” Old Li laughed heartily.

Yan Shuangwen knocked on the door, a very obvious smile on his lips.
“It’s indeed a coincidence.”

The door opened.
A girl with shoulder-length hair opened the door.
“Are you… looking for something?”
She recognized the two players outside and said hesitantly.

This person was Ge Jiao, who had observed the 123 team before.

“Yes, have you seen a milky-white snail, about this big? Someone said it ran into your house,” Old Li explained.

Ge Jiao had a sudden realization.
“There is indeed a snail that broke in. Are you looking for it?”
She turned and made way, politely inviting them in.
“Please come in. It’s in the backyard. My sister is playing with the snail.”

Ge Jiao led the two through the house.
Yan Shuangwen noticed that this house, from the inside out, didn’t seem to have been repaired at all.
Was it because they didn’t care about these things, or…?

The door to the backyard was right in front of them.
The door looked very thick.
The original owner of this house was probably someone with no sense of security.
The walls and doors of the house were made very thick, like a sturdy little fortress.

“The backyard is just through this door. The snail you’re looking for is there,” Ge Jiao said.
Her hand was also on the doorknob.
With just a gentle twist, she could open this wooden door.

Old Li glanced at the time on the quest bar—

[Special Quest · Take care of the sea snail cub! Requirement: Before Old Tom returns, take good care of his nephew. Time limit: three hours. Remaining time: 2min.]

[Hint: Detected that the mission object is not within 1 meter of the player. Please arrive at the mission object’s side in time before the mission ends, otherwise it will be treated as a failure.]

‘Two minutes, that should be enough,’ he breathed a sigh of relief.

At the same time, Hua Yibing, who was still lying in his room like a salted fish, looked worriedly at the quest bar.

“There are only two minutes left… have Old Li and the others found it?” he muttered, then covered his mouth.
‘No! I can’t jinx it! Pei pei pei!’

“Hiss!” His waist stiffened again, and the familiar buff reappeared in his status bar.
The fishtail that had just been able to move was once again as stiff as a stick.

[Waist Injury: Strenuous activity has caused damage to your waist, entering a state of stiffness. Duration: 5min.]

“What’s wrong?” Yan Shuangwen asked, seeing Ge Jiao’s strange expression.

Ge Jiao lowered her head, confirmed that she hadn’t twisted it in the wrong place, and tried to turn the doorknob again with force.
But it was as if it had rusted and wouldn’t turn at all.

“This doorknob… seems to be broken?” Her tone was filled with strong disbelief.