Chapter 1 The World Has Changed

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"Huff~huff~"

In the corridor of an old office building, a young man was panting heavily as he descended the stairs.

The young man appeared to be around twenty-four or twenty-five, an intern at a company here.

At the moment, his left hand was holding a mobile phone, playing a song meant to embolden him in the night, while his right hand was constantly buried in his pocket, tightly gripping something.

"Ah ah oh~ ah ah oh ai~"

From the phone, a nonsensical singing voice rose, echoing through the narrow, pitch-black corridor, creating an eerie feeling.

"Bang!"

A loud noise came as the young man forcefully burst through the safety door leading to the underground car park.

"What the hell is going on? What has been following me!?"

He ran into the long hallway, his face showing unmistakable panic.

"Creak...creak..."

Behind him, a sound resembling the rubbing of bone joints emerged, sending shivers down one's spine.

Unable to help himself, the young man shuddered and quickened his pace, his right hand subconsciously squeezing even tighter around the object he was holding.

"Gurgle...gurgle..."

At that moment, the weird noise from behind suddenly drew nearer, like a stifled sob coming from a throat, making the young man feel as if it were now less than one floor away from him.

"Fuck! How can it descend the stairs so fast!?"

His heart pounded violently, feeling as though he was about to be caught any second.

"I don't give a damn anymore, let's just rub it here!"

The young man abruptly took out the object he had been gripping in his palm from the right pocket and started rubbing it while he ran.

"Ten seconds! I just need ten seconds!"

Listening to the approaching gurgle, he frantically rubbed the object while his feet also ran wildly.

"Diloo dadee diloo dahdee... Diloo dadee diloo dahdee..."

From the other pocket, the music on the phone started to intensify at this very moment.

"Klod klad klod klad..."

Behind him, the sound of quick footsteps emerged, as if in pursuit, accompanied by the noise of trash cans being knocked over.

Hearing these closing-in sounds, the young man felt as if every second was an eternity; he had never imagined ten seconds could feel so long.

The teeth-grinding gurgle sounded again, this time as if it was emanating directly behind his ear.

Now he was sure that whatever was behind him was definitely not human!

A human being couldn't possibly make such a sound!

The young man now felt full of regret; he should have started rubbing the stone in his hand earlier.

No!

He shouldn't have taken this corridor at all!

Why didn't he just rub it upstairs, instead of fearing exposure and hiding it?

Just as he felt he was about to be caught, the music that had been playing in his pocket suddenly erupted into a piercing high-pitched cheer.

"Yo!!! Haiya!!!!!!"

With the shrill soprano ringing from the phone, the footsteps chasing him from behind came to an abrupt halt.

Then, a sharp and painful scream echoed from that direction, followed by an even more frantic set of footsteps.

An overwhelming sense of oppression descended; the young man didn't dare to look back throughout the ordeal.

Just as the dreadful presence was about to envelop him, his surroundings suddenly changed, the ground beneath him disappeared, and he fell down from the bed.

He was home.

......

"Huff, huff, huff~"

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Zhang Xiaoman sat on the ground, breathing heavily, his mind full of the terrifying scene he had just experienced.

In his right hand, an oval-shaped white stone slipped and fell to the ground with a heavy thud.

"This is definitely not human! Absolutely not!"

Zhang Xiaoman was drenched in cold sweat, feeling completely drained.

Just thinking about that grating gurgling sound behind him and the last roar he heard made his heart grow colder still.

He pulled out his phone to turn off the music that was still playing and sat down on the bed with a flop.

Glancing at the stone on the floor, he stared at the temporarily dimmed blue circle on it and spaced out.

It was just yesterday, while he was eating lunch, that a wild crucian carp gave him an enormous surprise.

He had unexpectedly encountered a system inside it!

Yes, the kind that seems to be an indispensable soul companion for protagonists in legends.

And its name was quite strange as well—World-saving Plan.

The function was simple, essentially just a lottery draw.

Besides that, the system also had two other abilities, "store" and "upgrade."

There was only one item in the store, and the upgrade function was unusable due to insufficient points.

Even the system didn't have a System Elf to chat and bicker with; everything had to be explored by himself.

Suddenly bestowed with such an unexpected fortune, Zhang Xiaoman was naturally overjoyed. Unfortunately, before he could even get used to the system, he encountered the incident that had just occurred.

And the stone that he had been rubbing in his hand at the last moment was an item he obtained through the system's daily lottery draw—the hearthstone.

[Hearthstone]

Bound

Effect: After continuously rubbing for ten seconds, teleport you back to your home.

Cooling time: 1 hour.

- Rub me.

Zhang Xiaoman looked at the attribute panel of the item in front of him and took a good while to come back to his senses.

He could see this kind of attribute panel just by staring intently at the item, but this ability seemed to work only on items produced by the system and had no effect on ordinary objects.

"Could it be that those terrifying monsters actually exist in this world…"

Zhang Xiaoman muttered to himself, and the scene from just now involuntarily surfaced again before his eyes.

The creepy gurgling sound, the horrifying roar, the heavy footsteps, and that almost overwhelming cold breath behind his head.

Just the thought of it all was enough to make one's skin crawl.

Originally, after obtaining the system, he had been ready to live an easy life and reach the pinnacle of human existence.

But now, after what had just happened, he suddenly realized that things seemed to be a bit different from what he had expected.

While he was pondering, Zhang Xiaoman heard a "creak," and someone opened his room door from the outside.

A graceful middle-aged woman walked in.

"Eh? You're back."

Pei Lingsu opened the door and saw her son's distressed expression; she was startled first, then asked with concern,

"Xiao Man, what's the matter with you? You look like you've lost your soul."

Zhang Xiaoman unconsciously turned his head to look at her, then stood up with a "swish" and pulled his mom into the living room.

"What exactly happened? What's going on?"

Seeing her son's abnormal behavior, Pei Lingsu was full of worry.

"Gurgle gurgle..."

Zhang Xiaoman gulped down a large glass of cold water and took a couple of deep breaths before adopting a very serious expression and began to explain to his mom what had happened.

"Mom, I think I just ran into a monster..."

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