Chapter 78: Wendigo Hunt

After a day at home doing little besides eating and sleeping, Lin Yan finally removed the bandages from his head and right hand.

The throbbing in his head was gone. His reattached index and middle fingers bent normally, with only a slight pulling sensation when he made a fist. Between the three-thousand-Credit medicine and his recovery Traits, both injuries had more or less healed.

Lin Yan gripped the mouse with his right hand while his left thumb—the only finger he had left on that hand—shuttled between W and the space bar. His opponent killed him three times in a row, then posted in chat:

"Since when can bots jump?"

"Fuck."

Lin Yan quit the game in disgust. A top-of-the-line PC, consoles, everything he could want—and he didn’t have the hands to enjoy any of it.

He slumped onto the couch and scrolled through videos for ages, then put on a movie and switched it off a few minutes later. Bored out of his mind, he opened the System.

[Current points: 90,000.]

[Add one Trait Slot.]

[Cost: 100,000 points.]

Only ten thousand short. Might as well head out, see if there were any Convergence-Borne creatures nearby, and earn the rest.

Lin Yan picked up his phone, opened the Commission page, and filtered for local jobs.

The commissions ranged from F-Grade to A-Grade, each listing its reward and eligibility requirements. The authorities generally didn’t post anything they could handle themselves. Public commissions meant they were short on personnel, needed a particular ability, or would have to spend too much resolving the problem with their existing resources.

F-Grade jobs were the most numerous, mostly investigations, requests for information, and retrieval work. One offered a hundred and eighty Credits to recover some equipment from a building affected by an anomaly. The people sent in earlier had kept circling the same floor, unable to find a way upstairs. The requirements specified an ability to deal with spatial anomalies.

Below it was a request for leads in a serial murder investigation, offering a hundred to five hundred Credits. The attached image was the same news story he had seen on the forum yesterday—three victims found in six days.

The nearest crime scene was less than four kilometers from his apartment. The police had yet to identify a suspect. The commission only asked for unusual sightings, suspicious individuals, and other leads; participants weren’t expected to make an arrest.

Further down, E-Grade and D-Grade commissions included more creature exterminations, rescues, and exploration of restricted zones. Listings became noticeably scarcer at C-Grade and above. One community screening job offered twelve hundred a day.

[C-Grade Commission — Community Screening]

[Objective: Identify disguised nonhuman entities among residents.]

[Requirement: Verified identification ability.]

[Reward: 1,200 Credits / Day.]

"A hundred and twenty thousand a day?"

The assignment was at a temporary housing community. Participants would help the stationed personnel screen residents for abnormal entities hiding among them. Troops on site would handle any identified targets, with additional bonuses for confirmed identifications.

The first attached photograph showed a middle-aged man holding an ID. In the second, his jaw had split open all the way to his ears, and several thin limbs were forcing their way out of his mouth.

"What the fuck is that?"

[Mimic.]

These creatures could imitate human appearances and voices, using their victims’ clothing and identification to blend into the population.

Lin Yan looked at the first photograph again. The man looked completely ordinary.

All he had to do was identify them. He wouldn’t even have to fight them himself. Sounded easy enough. Unfortunately, he didn’t have a Trait that could see through the disguise.

A set of related commissions appeared at the bottom of the page. He opened it.

[Operation Hollow Shell — Related Commissions]

Community screening was only one part of the operation. The B-Grade commissions called for tracking down individuals that had escaped after being exposed, while the A-Grade bounty for the overall operation sat at the top.

[A-Grade Emergency Commission — Operation Hollow Shell]

[Objective: Locate and eliminate an organized Mimic group.]

[Minimum Reward: 100,000 Credits.]

[Requirement: Reliable mass-screening capability.]

The report noted that these creatures were highly intelligent and worked together, using their assumed human identities to cover for one another.

Lin Yan had heard of "six degrees of separation"—the idea that any two people in the world might be connected through just a few mutual acquaintances.

If these things worked their way through those connections, replacing people as they went, it might not take them long to reach someone rich or powerful.

The people hunting them could end up taking orders from them.

No wonder they were willing to pay twelve hundred a day just to screen residents.

He closed the related commissions and continued browsing. A still from a campsite security camera caught his attention.

A naked humanoid creature stood beside a tent, looming well above it despite its hunched back. Gray-white skin clung to its skeleton, every rib protruding, its belly sunken as though it had been hollowed out. Both arms hung below its knees, ending in curved black claws.

Its face looked like a partially decomposed corpse, with deep-set eyes and ruined lips exposing two rows of bloodstained teeth.

[B-Grade Joint Commission — Wendigo Hunt]

[Location: Blackpine Forest.]

[Objective: Locate and eliminate the target.]

[Base Bounty Pool: 8,000 Credits.]

[Registered Participants: 6.]

[Status: Open.]

According to the report, every camper at the site had been killed. Several bodies had had their limbs torn off. The footage showed someone scrambling into a car, only for the creature to catch up and overturn the entire vehicle with one hand.

The forest was currently closed, and the target had not been located.

A wendigo? Even monsters from folklore were showing up in real life now.

Lin Yan finished watching the footage. Flipping a car with one hand took some strength, but he was confident he could do the same. The recording might not show everything it was capable of, though. He could assess it further when he got there.

This was a joint commission, with eight thousand Credits as the total bounty. Locating the target, providing useful intelligence, conducting rescues, and making the kill would all count toward each participant’s contribution. The Federation would verify those contributions and divide the reward accordingly. Participants were required to retain footage of their activities for the assessment.

The entry requirements were listed below: B-Grade accounts had to register as a team. A-Grade accounts and above could participate independently without waiting to form one.

Lin Yan tapped Accept, and two options appeared.

[Join a Team.]

[Participate Independently — Account Grade A Required.]

Joining a team meant waiting for people and discussing how to proceed. He couldn’t be bothered, so he selected independent participation.

[Account Grade: A — Verified.]

[Independent Participation Approved.]

[Commission Accepted.]

An A-Grade account certainly made things convenient. He could leave whenever he wanted.

Since he was going out to kill something, he needed to change his Traits.

He unequipped Vitality I and Minor Regeneration I, replacing them with Blade Arts II and Battle Instinct I.

[Blade Arts II — Green equipped.]

[Battle Instinct I — White equipped.]

The nodachi was too long to wear at his waist and awkward to draw from his back. Lin Yan strapped the scabbard to the outside of his left upper arm. Moving that arm backward as he drew with his right hand let him unsheathe the blade without needing his left hand to hold the scabbard.

He tried it several times. The blade came free smoothly each time.

With everything ready, Lin Yan grabbed his phone and headed out, following the directions in the commission.