Great! I'm surrounded by villains!-Chapter 354 - 273: Forbidden Zone

An Eco-Ship harboured a forbidden zone.

As soon as the assistant was assigned to the Life Science Department, they heard about the existence of the forbidden area. If not required by work, all department employees kept their distance, unwilling to step even half a step into the forbidden zone. On the occasions that work necessitated it, they mostly delegated the task to newcomers.

They had one thing in common, after returning from the forbidden zone, newcomers usually fell seriously ill and missed several days of work.

Fu Ling, the supervisor, had long since grown accustomed to this. She would reward these employees with a holiday until their physical and mental state fully recovered.

The assistant had always thought these were just spooky tales spun by bored people to scare those who had just joined.

In reality, that place was not a forbidden zone at all. The inhabitants were not evil spirits or monsters but two Fox Demons from Blue Star, a Calamity Fox and a Ruihu. Even in Blue Star, their place of origin, they were extremely rare entities with high research value.

Not long ago, armor created based on Ruihu’s Life Energy had been put to use. Once the armor’s compatibility with Life Energy was fully fine-tuned, Long Branch would gain another full-fledged member.

This was exciting news.

For nearly a decade, Long Branch had not expanded its formal membership. Only when an existing member died would the armor be passed on to the next holder for replacement. What was worse, during the Department of Life Sciences’ recent visit to Blue Star, an Imperial Guard named Western Wind went missing, a loss that was naturally charged to the Department of Life Sciences.

Every member of Long Branch was the company’s most precious asset.

They were battle-hardened, had faced the universe’s perilous environments, but more importantly, the company had invested heavily in each one of them. Possession of their own armor was the key distinction between full members and candidates.

There were many candidates, but with the company’s current capabilities, it was insufficient to look after all of them.

The assistant composed themselves.

To the consortium, what did those two Fox Demons signify?

Assets.

Extremely valuable assets.

And if they were the owners, why should they fear what belonged to them?

Still, to be on the safe side, during breakfast, the assistant decided to sit next to a Shan Clan scholar.

"The supervisor sent you to that godforsaken place?"

To the assistant’s surprise, as soon as they broached the subject, the Shan Clan local looked at them as if facing a great enemy, sizing them up and down with eyes full of sympathy.

The new supervisor did not like the assistants assigned to her by the higher-ups, or perhaps, unlike her own mentor, she did not truly embrace the Shan Clan’s manner of conduct. After she took office, office politics dwindled, allowing people to finally devote more energy to academic research, leading to progress in many previously stalled projects under Fu Ling’s leadership.

Add to that her relationship with Blue Star, the entire department’s Life Energy business was in her hands, thwarting the upper management’s repeated attempts to replace her.

Fu Ling was good in all regards except that she rarely heeded the higher-ups.

Unfortunately, during this sensitive period, the consortium’s upper echelon wished for a Shan Clan person to assume the role of supervisor, or at the very least, a puppet who would obey their commands to the letter—just like Fu Ling’s mentor.

Yet Fu Ling had perfected the art of passive resistance.

Just like now, she seemed to be wanting to punish this overconfident assistant. Worse, the assistant had just arrived and was completely unaware of how dreadful the forbidden zone was.

"Since it’s a task handed down by the supervisor, you have no choice but to go. Grit your teeth and get through it, then be ready to take a vacation," said the assistant’s fellow countryman.

Seeing the genuine concern in their compatriot’s expression, the assistant frowned and asked, "Are you saying that I’ll be attacked by the Fox Demons in the forbidden zone?"

This seemed incredulous to them.

On their own territory, they would be attacked by their assets and were expected to swallow their grievances?

With concrete evidence, one phone call to the consortium’s upper echelon would bring professionals to administer some discipline to these non-compliant assets, such as putting collars on them to help them understand their position and situation.

The consortium’s business spanned the universe, and of course, they encountered many uncooperative assets. However, in the presence of these professionals, they were usually trained to be very compliant.

"They won’t attack you, but that doesn’t mean you can leave unscathed,"

The compatriot hemmed and hawed for quite some time, seemingly at a loss for words on how to explain to the assistant.

This is the problem with encountering laymen: what you consider common knowledge might as well be celestial script to them. If he were to explain to the assistant the mechanism by which Life Energy affects the human body in detail, he’d probably have to spend the entire day here.

He had heard that the assistant worked in administrative management at the Consortium headquarters, which was a far cry from the projects managed by the Life Science Department.

But he was of the Shan Clan People, trusted by the upper echelons, which to some extent represented the intentions of the higher-ups.

"Put simply, most life on Blue Star possesses a Strength known as Life Energy. By manipulating this Energy, one could give birth to Superpowers that align with conventional wisdom. Although those in the Forbidden Zone are all Fox Demons, their Abilities are exactly the opposite," he said.

The local momentarily set aside scientific jargon and started explaining in terms more understandable for the assistant, "To put it simply, everyone who goes to the Forbidden Zone ends up cursed with misfortune."

"Misfortune? Do you mean just unlucky?"

"It’s difficult to explain," he said.

The local shook his head, feeling that perhaps only when the assistant had personally experienced the feeling produced by the misfortune would he understand the terror of it.

This sort of conversation had happened too many times aboard the Eco-Ship. Many people would dismiss the talk of misfortune, thinking it was no big deal.

Everyone had experienced misfortune, like twisting an ankle while stepping out or hitting seven or eight red lights when in a rush. But these were the kind of unfortunate events people could imagine, things within the realm of everyday mishaps, a world away from true misfortune.

That’s what the assistant believed.

He had considered many unlucky scenarios, but this was the Eco-Ship, equipped with the most advanced medical systems in the universe. As long as he stayed in his room for the next few days after contacting those two Fox Demons and went nowhere else, he couldn’t imagine any misfortune that could befall him.

After all, his job was usually quite leisurely, and as an outsider, he had no hand in professional matters.

Watching the assistant’s figure disappear, the local shook his head helplessly.

However, it was fortunate that the Calamity Fox had a good sense of measure; although each curse tormented the visitors to near death, it never harmed their lives. In just a few days, they could return to their workstations. What was left behind was more of a psychological trauma.

The fear of unknown misfortune was branded into the hearts of every one of them.

Having bid farewell to the local, the assistant got his recording equipment ready and passed through the security doors that led to the Forbidden Zone.

This door was usually locked, but its purpose seemed less to prevent Fox Demons from escaping and more to quarantine something inside.

When the hatch opened for the assistant, a fresh breeze caressed his face.

He was standing below a tall mountain, a lush and verdant landscape stretching out before his eyes.

The area didn’t look at all like the dread-inducing Forbidden Zone, but rather a picturesque paradise. The assistant had heard that this mountain was specially prepared for the Fox Demons by the Department of Life Sciences, almost perfectly replicating their natural habitat.

He had heard that the Fox Demons lived in seclusion on Blue Star’s deep mountains, with a dilapidated shrine at the peak housing a statue of a fox, built by humans of ancient times. But as times changed, Monsters had long since faded from people’s lives, and the romantic tales had lost their audience.

The Fox Demon couple resided in that shrine.

At least, that’s what Fu Ling had told him.

With a coffee cup in hand, the assistant felt refreshed by the green mountains and clear waters, and his fear of the Forbidden Zone gradually subsided.

Now, he was about to climb to the top of the mountain, to the shrine where the Fox Demons dwelled.

He withdrew his gaze from the peak and was about to take a step forward when his movement suddenly stopped.

The assistant felt an itch in his nose, as if something was trickling out of his nostrils.

He stared blankly at the droplets of red falling into his coffee cup.

Blood.

He reflexively wiped his nose, and his fingers were immediately stained red.

He was bleeding from the nose without warning; the assistant couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a nosebleed.

When he came to his senses, he realized that his other hand had moved to his abdomen of its own accord.

There was a faint pain there.

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