Chapter 19 The Number Nineteen is Gone

The commotion at Dawn Camp raged all night.

Those guys probably wanted to find the wanted criminal's accomplices, but ultimately they found nothing.

And Suren, as an accessory, was even more leisurely.

He found a secluded cliff to rest for the night.

Camping on the cliff face wasn't bad, except for the occasional strangely shaped insects crawling up to "say hello".

No one slept soundly. Early in the morning, Suren was squatting not far outside Dawn Camp on the only path to the ruins.

He and a group of freelance wasteland hunters who couldn't afford to live in the city were waiting for the large hunting teams to set off so they could hitch a ride.

Before long, the large groups left the city one after another.

Hearing that some hunting groups were heading towards the East District, Suren casually joined a team with a similar destination and set off.

Following the group, he could find out some news about last night.

Going hunting would also help him fabricate a "background".

...

Near the middle ring of the East District was a vast black lake.

By the lake was a ruined building, which was where the [1911 Hotel] was discovered.

Before coming, Suren thought there wouldn't be too many people here.

But when he arrived, there were easily one or two thousand people.

These guys had already surrounded the area with stones and mechanical equipment to create a small camp.

Looking at the flags on the tents in the camp, there were dozens of hunting teams, large and small.

In charge, of course, were several direct hunting teams from the five major families.

Suren wasn't in a hurry to enter the camp like the other wasteland hunters to inquire about the cursed space, but instead sized up the camp's defenses.

What he was thinking about wasn't how to get in, but instinctively how to escape after coming out of the cursed space.

He still had the card Hei Xiansheng gave him last night in his pocket, which made Suren feel like the dungeon was much less dangerous.

But... he had a feeling that something was going to happen again.

He looked around but didn't see anyone resembling the card-cloak person he'd seen before.

Suren didn't look any further and entered the camp.

Besides the armed wasteland hunters, there were also information merchants who looked like "scalpers", hawking information everywhere.

These guys had brought their business directly to the front line of wasteland hunting. They didn't need to enter the ruins themselves. They only needed to buy the latest information from the wasteland hunters who came out, summarize it, and sell it for a considerable profit.

Most of the wasteland hunters who came here had some strength.

No one would be stingy about buying some information to increase their chances of survival.

The information merchants were doing good business.

Just as Suren was wandering around the camp, a middle-aged man with a small mustache approached him: "Hey, brother, buying information? The latest information, guaranteed to be worth it..."

"How much?"

"Fifty thousand."

"Then forget it."

"Ten thousand?"

"No money."

"Tch, poor guy..."

Suren wasn't in a hurry to spend money, but instead pricked up his ears and listened around.

Hearing one person's opinion wasn't as good as hearing everyone's.

After inquiring, the information was similar to what he had bought from "Red Nose" Fox before, but there was also some new information.

Basically, the "ownership" of this cursed space belonged to the five major families, but they couldn't eat it all themselves, so they opened it up to all the hunting teams. After entering, they had to complete a specific exploration task assigned by them. If they completed it, the rewards were theirs, and there would be additional rewards. If they didn't complete it, they would have to pay a hefty "entrance fee" when they came out.

The ninety-nine rooms on the first floor of the hotel space were mostly explored one by one in this way.

These conditions didn't seem to have any problems.

Risk in exchange for rewards.

As for what the five major families were after, they said they only wanted the high-level items on the second floor of this space, and the final "source of the curse".

...

The distorted light gate of the cursed space would appear twice a day, and each time about a hundred people could enter.

The casualty rate fluctuated.

Sometimes, teams were mysteriously wiped out.

Sometimes, most people would survive.

Overall, the mortality rate was around sixty percent.

This was still within an acceptable range.

Also, because exploration tasks were arranged in advance, the people in the camp had roughly deduced which rooms on the first floor were "high-risk rooms" that should not be explored based on the casualty rate.

As for the information about the second floor that Suren wanted to know, there was still very little.

In summary, the first floor was mostly Tier 1 Aberrations (Black Iron and Silver).

As for the second floor, it was said that the Aberrations were all Silver-tier or higher, and there were also an unknown number of Tier 2 Aberrations.

Suren understood that the higher the floor, the higher the combat power of the guests who had mutated into monsters, and the better the materials produced.

...

The mortality rate of this dungeon wasn't low. Although there were one or two thousand people in the camp, not many dared to go.

The two batches a day were just enough to fill one hundred people.

Suren signed up for the next round of exploration into the cursed space and received a task: explore Room 1088.

Then he sat in the waiting area, listening to the temporary captain explain some precautions.

"After entering, no one is allowed to hunt the hotel's guests in advance! Otherwise, after midnight, these dead will definitely turn into 'Specter Species'. You will harm yourself and others!"

"1021, 1055, 1071... Remember, these three rooms are not allowed to be opened, and you are not allowed to harass the residents of these three rooms!"

"You can look for clues, but don't offend the guests or do anything strange. Otherwise, if you are caught by the hotel security, you will definitely die! Last time, a lust-addled guy went to harass a noblewoman. He enjoyed himself, but it also caused that noblewoman, who was originally a second-floor guest, not to go up after midnight and directly mutated into a Tier 2 Aberration on the first floor, almost wiping out that team..."

"Before the ghost fog appears, we have plenty of time to look for clues. But remember, don't trigger some high-difficulty plots casually. The fewer changes, the greater our chances of survival."

"..."

Suren listened silently, which was about what he had guessed.

Each time, the plot in the cursed space unfolded the same, but because of human intervention, the ending was different.

For example, when the midnight ghost fog descended, there was a big difference between the guests being in their rooms and not being in their rooms.

Although they would all turn into Aberrations, their combat power would be the difference between Black Iron and Silver-tier Aberrations.

There was also a big difference between being dead and alive. The dead would turn into "Specter Species", and the living would be "Zombie Species"...

...

Just as Suren and the others were listening to the temporary captain's explanation of the precautions, the camp suddenly became noisy.

"Look! The exit of the cursed space has appeared!"

"It's the people from the 'Falcon Team'..."

"Hey... quite a few people survived this time. Looks like they had a good harvest."

"..."

Not far from the camp, a several-meter-high oval distorted light gate suddenly appeared.

Like a black hole, it sucked in the surrounding light.

This was also the normal way for the cursed space to appear.

In the midst of the noise, wasteland hunters with more or less injuries on their bodies walked out of the dark light gate one after another.

However, although these survivors looked a little disheveled, they all wore relieved smiles on their faces.

Surviving meant that the harvest had now turned into "real money".

As soon as these people came out, professional merchants were already waiting at the entrance of the space, vying to bid for the treasures they brought out.

"Thirteen Black Iron, five Silver Cursed Materials..."

"Oh, it's actually a rare ancient job-change material..."

"Heavens, Brother Belloc, where did you find so many alchemical books? This batch of goods can sell for at least seven million!"

"Wow~ High-purity gems, these are good materials for enchanting. One is worth three hundred thousand. Brother, you've made a fortune. This bag is worth..."

"..."

Merchants were counting the wasteland hunters' harvests.

Each bid stimulated the excited nerves of the wasteland hunters outside.

Not to mention the good treasures that the wasteland hunters might have hidden, just these harvests alone were worth over a million per person.

For most ordinary wasteland hunters, this was already wealth worth gambling their lives for.

Suren also squeezed into the crowd of onlookers, but his gaze fell on the distorted light gate.

With the Omni-Vision Eye, he identified the results.

[1911 Hotel]

Detailed explanation: A large-scale complex cursed space, sealing a section of the limb of a transcendent being '***'. The guests have been contaminated by corpse qi, and at midnight, they will completely mutate into Aberrations. Survive in the space for twenty-four hours, and the space exit will reappear; Death in the space, qi and blood will impact and destroy the seal, the current removal progress is 1157/3000;

Suren's heart was unmoved when he saw the information about this cursed space.

Even looking at the "source of pollution" as a fragment of an unknown transcendent being's limb, he didn't feel any surprise.

Without this transcendent existence, it would be impossible for the people in an entire hotel to mutate into Boss-level monsters.

Looking at the last sentence, he muttered in his heart: "Sure enough, it's the same old routine..."

Sharing such a cursed space that produced good items, the five major families were indeed up to no good.

Suren had only suspected it before, but now, looking at this information, it was solid evidence.

They seemed to have also learned another way to break this space through some means.

That was to fill it with human lives instead of exploring.

Probably because the scope of the recent wasteland reclamation was getting larger and larger, and the slave groups weren't enough, these guys wanted to use this method to attract freelance groups.

"No wonder the mortality rate is so high, so that's how it is..."

Logically speaking, the more times the same dungeon was farmed, the lower the chance of battle damage. But here, it had always maintained a mortality rate of around sixty percent, which was very strange.

But it wasn't always a total wipeout, leaving some survivors to spread the news and attract more people to come.

No matter how you looked at it, it felt fishy.

Seeing this, Suren wasn't very interested in the treasures produced in the ruins. He focused his attention on everyone who came out, paying special attention to those who didn't have any injuries on their bodies, or whose emotions weren't so excited.

Soon, he discovered something.

...

After the distorted light gate appeared, it disappeared again.

It wasn't until evening that the entrance reappeared.

And the camp had just gathered more than a hundred people, waiting in line to enter.

Suren was going anyway, so he led the living corpse to the middle of the line.

He scanned the team entering again but still didn't see the person who might be the "card-cloak person".

"Could it be that I'm wrong?"

Suren didn't think too much about it and followed the team into the space.

And after he went in, he didn't know that a small episode had occurred outside.

The number of people entering the space wasn't constant, but about a hundred people.

But in reality, the stronger the people who entered, the fewer the number of people.

Originally, more than a hundred people were prepared, but as they entered, the light gate suddenly disappeared.

This unusual scene left everyone dumbfounded.

"Hey... why did the light gate disappear after only a few people went in this time?"

"It seems like there were only sixty or so?"

"That's not right... even the time when a Tier 2 professional led the team, there were more than ninety people who went in. Why are there so few this time?"

"Could there be a problem with the space?"

"..."

The news quickly reached the ears of the manager of this small camp.

However, this didn't attract their attention.

Various strange things could happen in the ruins, and this fluctuation in the number of people was probably normal in their opinion.

And what the leaders of these hunting teams from the five major families were worried about was something else.

In a tent, several leaders were frowning and discussing something.

"The higher-ups have already issued a death order to break this sealed space as soon as possible. But as it seems now, at least one or two thousand more people need to be filled in before this space can be cracked."

"I heard that there was a big mess at the main camp last night. The mysterious item that the 'Blood Axe Team' found last time was stolen. This caused great anger among the higher-ups of the Black Tower..."

"Hey, it's useless to talk about those things. Spread the news and find a way to attract more wasteland hunters..."

"But no matter how we spread it, we can only enter two hundred people a day. We can't just kill people inside every time, can we? If the mortality rate is too high, it's okay once or twice, but any more, and we won't be able to attract freelance groups at all..."

"..."

...

On the other hand, Suren and his group had already entered the cursed space.

This was a scene of Dawn City a thousand years ago.

A group of wasteland hunters appeared on the street, and in front of them was a luxurious building with a "1911 Hotel" sign hanging on it.

The temporary captain also noticed the abnormality in the number of people, slightly puzzled, but didn't think too much about it.

"There are a few people this time, everyone be careful. Remember the precautions I told you before, okay, disperse..."

"Yes."

Everyone dispersed.

Seeing that the number of people who came in was greatly reduced, Suren guessed something and thought, "That person really came in..."

But he wasn't in a hurry to enter the hotel to hunt for treasures like the others. Instead, he found the source of that faint "malice" and followed it.