[[Phase Two Mission Objective: Prevent the second murder caused by the Cognitive Bias Curse]
[Mission Time Limit: 1 hour]
[Mission Reward 1: An S Rank Completion Evaluation will earn an Excellent Quality Skill Scroll*1, an A Rank Completion Evaluation will earn a Rare Quality Skill Scroll*1, and a B Rank Completion Evaluation will earn a Common Quality Skill Scroll*1]
[Mission Reward 2: Game Coin 200]
[Mission Failure Penalty: The difficulty of the next script mission will increase]
[Accept/Decline]
"Hmm?"
Li Ang frowned, glancing over at Tang Ranno, who was also a bit astonished, as his thoughts raced.
An Excellent Quality Scroll, for Li Ang's current level, could well serve as the ultimate reward for a regular mission. This also meant that the Phase Two mission objective they had just received was likely the final stage of this entire mission.
"The highest level reward is an Excellent Scroll," Tang Ranno squinted, gently tapping her coffee cup's porcelain wall with a metal spoon. "But considering there's only an hour left for the mission, and the penalty for failure is that the next script mission gets harder... What do you think? If we quit now, we can still take the reward for the first phase of the mission and exit unscathed."
The accept/decline option for regular missions lasted up to three minutes; if a choice was not made within that time, it was automatically declined. Moreover, according to explanations on the forum, for cooperative missions involving more than two players, even if someone decided to quit, the remaining players could continue with the mission.
Li Ang didn't rush to reply, instead calmly asking, "Can your friend who's proficient in Occult Studies pinpoint the exact source of the curse? Or the specific location of recent Curse Energy Fluctuations within Yin City?"
"I'll ask." Tang Ranno lowered her head to her phone, swiping and tapping, then after a moment shook her head. "No go. The webpage right now doesn't contain any traces of the curse anymore. Pinpointing the exact locations where the curse has taken effect recently is even less realistic. Even the Special Affairs Bureau hasn't been able to set up a surveillance system that can detect all supernatural energy fluctuations within Yin City."
"TSK..." Li Ang tapped the table with his fingers, silently staring at the webpage on his tablet, toggling the screen parameters back and forth. In the lower left corner of the image, he found a clue. Xia Junqiang, before his death, had a heated discussion with four other programmers under the Anti-996 License page, and the platform IDs of three of the programmers were barely distinguishable.
As the three-minute limit approached, Li Ang, without a sound, chose to accept the mission. At the same time, Tang Ranno, who had been intently watching him, also heard the System's notification sound, informing her that her teammate had chosen to continue with the mission.
Without hesitation, Tang Ranno also chose to accept the mission. After clicking confirm, she took a subtle sip of her coffee to disguise the cold sweat seeping from her palms. In these regular cooperative missions set in the real world, one had to consider the choices of teammates. The somewhat rowdy and rustic-looking young man who was her teammate had already opted to continue with the mission. If she chose to decline, their partnership would end, and he could attack her directly. If she were to lose in the ensuing fight, the consequences would be unthinkable...
Tang Ranno had already arranged for her best friend to come and provide support as quickly as possible through their chat. Now was not the time for direct confrontation… Similarly, if he chose to decline, Tang Ranno would also have to reject the mission—even if she could win in a fight, there probably wouldn't be enough time left to complete the mission objective.
At least until the mission is completed or fails, I'm temporarily safe. Tang Ranno thought to herself, her face expressionless. "Do you have a plan for completing the mission yet?"
"Yes." Li Ang nodded, using the friend communication to contact the information broker, Mule, transferred 10 Game Coins, and received two pieces of software.
The first piece of software could lock onto the real-world address of a fixed IP based on the trajectory of the webpage's information flow. The second, akin to the network attack tool EternalBlue MS17-010 (developed by the White Hawk Security Department's NSA and leaked online in 2017), could load vulnerabilities and hack into computers. Once a successful breach occurred, this network attack tool could run wild: record the input and output information of someone else's computer, monitor the screen for real-time images, turn on the microphone to record audio, start the camera to monitor the user in front of the screen...
This was why Li Ang would cover his own computer's camera with tape and block the microphone—Hacker Technology was just too hard to defend against. What if one day someone caught a photo of his handsome face picking his nose, posted it online, and suddenly a bunch of fanboys and fangirls banded together to form a fan club?
Quickly, Li Ang used the hacking software to find the real-world IP addresses of the four programmers from their forum IDs. Based on these IP addresses, he then hacked into their computers, activated their cameras, and saw the view in front of their screens. Coincidentally, all four programmers were working with heavy dark circles under their eyes, wearing different colored plaid shirts and T-shirts, with uniformly receding hairlines. Three of them were from out of town, with only one located within Yin City.
Li Ang used the Citizen Information Auto Query System to find the real identities of the four programmers. Then he took a disposable phone out of his inventory, stepped outside the coffee shop, and used various voice disguises to make separate calls to the local government departments where the other three programmers were, each with a fabricated crime report. The calls were simple, arbitrarily accusing the three programmers of crimes like burglary, kidnapping, or extortion. The local officials would surely dispatch agents to investigate these three programmers who had interacted with Xia Junqiang—if the coders showed any violent reactions, the agents could subdue them.
All missions issued by the System would be within the players' capabilities. Moreover, there wasn't just one single solution to a mission. This second phase mission, "Prevent the second murder caused by the Cognitive Bias Curse," did not allow the two players to reach out-of-town locations within an hour. However, they could control the potentially cursed programmers by making reports over the phone. Hmm... if they weren't cursed and didn't attempt any violence, the authorities would certainly release them later. It would all just be a misunderstanding.
The one programmer within Yin City, having the highest probability of being cursed (due to his proximity to the players), might require the players to personally intervene to control the situation.
Having made up his mind, Li Ang snapped the disposable phone in half, pocketed the broken fragments into his inventory, and had Tang Ranno hail a cab. The two of them headed towards the workplace of the last remaining programmer.