Chapter 2

“Tsk.”

Jiang Yun let out a cold laugh.

The system, manifested in the form of a glowing orb, trembled guiltily and let out an awkward chuckle.

Jiang Yun smiled without smiling: “Stop playing dead. Tell me, how do you plan to compensate me?”

【This… this might also be data corruption caused by plot instability. Our Main Space is a victim too……】

Jiang Yun pursed a kind smile: “You’ve got it wrong, system. I actually don’t think this even reaches the level of ‘victim.’ How about this—I happen to have a great idea to help you make that title official.”

“I’ll go find the male lead right now and tell him, oh dear, we’re actually in a manga world, and you, well, you’re just a manga character. He probably only has a little bit of awakening right now, but I’ll help him push that progress bar straight to a hundred percent. By then the whole manga world will collapse, and you’ll be victims in the most official sense possible.”

“Don’t worry about me, either. Even if I get humanely destroyed along with this manga world, there are still three other manga worlds I can go to. And at the very least, even if I really vanish completely, I’ll be taking an entire world down with me. Worth it.”

“How about it? By then you can play the victim however you want. Satisfying, right?”

System: ???

He—It had wanted to say that Jiang Yun couldn’t possibly be serious, but looking at Jiang Yun—though the corners of her mouth were curved, her eyes were utterly solemn and cold—It felt a chill in Its heart.

During the trial mission of escaping Demon Island, Jiang Yun had worn exactly this look in her eyes as she broke through the final line of defense, a line that had been a near-death ordeal.

This woman.

She was nothing like her face suggested—clear, cold, soft, and timid. Instead, she was—

Crazy and ruthless.

The system shed intangible cold sweat: 【Let’s talk this out nicely.】

Jiang Yun gave a slight nod of her chin: “Of course we’ll talk this out nicely. So, back to the original topic—you made a mistake. What kind of compensation are you planning to give me?”

The human and the system argued their case firmly.

In the end, on top of the help that was already going to be provided, the system additionally granted Jiang Yun the following permissions:

To a certain degree, she could modify the manga’s settings.

Access to the manga forum, to keep track of the latest discussion trends among readers following the series.

Jiang Yun: “Modify settings to a certain degree—what degree specifically? If possible, just set it so the male lead has to follow the plot the mangaka laid out, and then there’d be no need for me to control the risks brought by the character’s awakening.”

System: 【To be honest, I don’t know the exact threshold of that degree myself. The task-taker will need to explore it on her own. But what I can say is that these setting modifications must be within a reasonable scope, one that the mangaka, the manga readers, and the manga characters can all acknowledge and accept.】

Understood.

This modification permission ranked below the mangaka. So the male lead, whom even the mangaka couldn’t control, would naturally be beyond the reach of this modification permission too.

Jiang Yun complained: “What kind of logic is this? According to you, a mangaka can ignore logic when he wants to rush a bad ending, but if I want to save the manga world he created, I have to be reasonable and make everyone accept it.”

The system was silent for a moment, then said: 【Please, task-taker, prepare for the worst when it comes to mangakas. Mangakas are old scoundrels. They are shit.】

—Ah, that feeling of countless bitter tears behind those words was back again.

It seemed the [Manga Management] system really did harbor a great deal of resentment toward the mangaka demographic.

Jiang Yun nodded: “Fine. But this manga forum—can I open an account and participate in discussions?”

This time the system was silent for a long while.

Finally it said: 【I will try my best, but it will take time.】

Fine.

Jiang Yun could tell the system wasn’t deliberately making excuses—it genuinely lacked the ability—so she set the idea aside for now. Still, she said a few more words aloud, making the system feel a bit more guilty toward her, so it would strive to get this done as quickly as possible.

After finalizing the compensation details, the system transmitted the relevant materials for “World of Sin and Slaughter” to Jiang Yun.

Jiang Yun first read the manga chapters that had already been updated, to understand the worldview setting and the storyline.

“World of Sin and Slaughter” shared the same world background as her trial mission [Escape from Demon Island]: a global unified government, with all of humanity divided into four residential zones by grade.

Distinguished by landmark structures, they were the White Tower Zone, the Gray Tower Zone, the Black Tower Zone, and the Dense Fog Zone.

As the names suggested, the White Tower Zone had a white tower at its center, the Gray Tower Zone and Black Tower Zone had gray and black towers respectively, and the Dense Fog Zone had no tower at all, with thick fog often filling the air and reducing visibility to very low levels.

Maintaining order across the four zones was a force whose full name was the Global Joint Inspection Team, possessing extremely high authority.

The male lead, Yan Xieyue, was the deputy captain of the current Joint Inspection Team’s Y01-1 Squad.

The first few chapters mainly laid out the world background and depicted the male lead first joining the Inspection Team, where some in the squad were unconvinced by him, and the male lead cleverly resolved the conflict.

In the plot, the male lead’s true identity was actually the SSS-rank strongest sniper, ranked number one in the Inspection Team’s main force, codename Joker. Yet he concealed his identity and came to the Y01-1 Squad, deliberately hiding his abilities, revealing only a portion of his strength.

The specific reason was unknown; the mangaka only hinted through certain panels that the male lead was doing this to take revenge on an enemy.

After finishing the manga, Jiang Yun opened the manga forum.

There were many posts on the forum.

【Licking Yan-dage’s devastatingly handsome face!】

【Only a few chapters into World of Sin and Slaughter and there are already so many hot guys! Dead old scoundrel, how are your hands so amazing—were they kissed by God?】

【A researcher’s deep dive into Yan Xieyue’s true combat power—it will absolutely exceed your expectations.】

【Summarizing the construction status of the protagonist’s little squad～】

【Main plot organization: a brief discussion of my several猜测 directions regarding the protagonist’s enemy.】

Skipping the thirst posts and filler, Jiang Yun clicked on several plot-oriented posts that interested her more.

Although some of the content was overly imaginative and didn’t quite follow common sense, a large portion of it was quite enjoyable for Jiang Yun to read, and some of it gave her a sense of sudden enlightenment.

Especially this speculation post about the enemy.

OP: 【I’ve specifically compiled all the panels from the manga so far that might involve the main plotline, i.e., the protagonist’s revenge line, into one place. [Images] First, let me sigh over how good the dead old scoundrel really is at drawing handsome men—and his skills have improved recently. The male lead Yan Xieyue is genuinely ruggedly handsome!

Ahem, okay, back to the point. As everyone knows, “World of Sin and Slaughter” is a futuristic alternate-setting suspense mystery manga, and the main plotline is the male lead Yan Xieyue’s path of revenge. As for who Yan-dage’s enemy actually is, there are various theories on our forum. I’ve roughly summarized the mainstream guesses.

……

Anyway, through plot analysis and the preview panels for the next chapter, it can be seen that a major case has occurred in a certain Gray Tower Zone. Personally, I think it’s very likely related to Yan Xieyue’s enemy.

I’m betting that in the next update, there will absolutely be clues related to the main plot.】

After reading through the main posts and comments of several threads, Jiang Yun pulled up the latest updated manga chapters and read through them again. After thinking for a while, she had an idea.

She roughly organized her thoughts into writing and called out the system.

“System, let me ask you—if I want to create a brand-new character for myself, or directly change my character settings in the manga, is that within my modification permissions?”

The system hesitated for a moment, then answered: 【I would advise the task-taker not to do so.】

【Creating a character is a creative act from zero to one—an ability only mangakas possess. The task-taker’s modification ability is changing A into B, and it must occur on the basis of established things.】

【At the same time, the task-taker can understand herself as a player in a game, and manga characters as accounts to log into the game. To play freely in the game world, you need enough game currency. Right now you have no currency, so you can’t create new game accounts, much less bring about massive changes to the character settings within.】

【Normally, when a task-taker enters a mission world, we find a background extra character with no self-awareness and let their soul take over. But the host already has an established character in this world, so by default, the mission proceeds with that character.】

Got it.

Jiang Yun raised an eyebrow with feigned displeasure: “Then how do I get this so-called currency?”

System: 【……Resources of this kind can be roughly equated to the task-taker character’s attention level, discussion level, and degree of importance in the mangaka’s eyes in the real world—simply put, it’s related to popularity.】

Jiang Yun sneered.

No wonder this crappy mission had never found a suitable task-taker.

Not only was the mission itself extremely difficult, but there were also far too many restrictions. The system simply couldn’t offer any useful cheat items.

Her background extra character in “World of Sin and Slaughter” was the younger sister of the owner of a restaurant across the road from the office building of the Inspection Team squad the protagonist belonged to—and she was a vegetable patient sleeping in a hospital.

Her only appearance was when the restaurant owner mentioned that he was working hard to earn money, all to pay his sister’s medical bills. She showed her face in that one speech bubble.

After saying that, the owner went back to cooking.

And after that, there was nothing else.

🙂

The owner himself was just a tool character who provided the restaurant setting—aside from cooking, he just cooked, with barely any meaningful appearances. Let alone her, a tool character’s tool character.

She couldn’t even move, and had zero appearances. How was she supposed to build any popularity in a suspense revenge manga?

Not to mention that she now wanted to get involved in that Gray Tower Zone case.

The system seemed somewhat guilty. Suddenly it flashed with light: 【Host, I’ve detected that the male lead Yan Xieyue is playing an online gunfight game. He’s about to start a new match. I can match you into the same game as him. Ahem, let’s think from a different angle—through online gaming, you can also build a connection.】

What a clumsy subject change.

Jiang Yun opened the game, glanced at it a few times, and raised an eyebrow: “Fine.”

System: 【Great. Shall I lock you into the [Medic] role position on the same team?】

The system’s reasoning was this: Yan Xieyue would almost certainly play Sniper, with a small chance of choosing Assault. Whichever position he picked, he would badly need a Medic on the same team to heal him, creating plenty of opportunities for contact. No worry about failing to cultivate feelings!

The system gave itself a big thumbs-up for its cleverness.

It hadn’t expected its host to say coldly: “Same team? Medic? You might have some misunderstanding about me.”

“What I want is to be his opponent. Lock me into the enemy team’s [Sniper] position.”

As she spoke, Jiang Yun recalled the definition of [Conquering the male lead] in the mission: making the male lead experience unprecedented intense emotional turmoil.

Guide them onto the right path of the plot with love?

How narrow-minded.

Jiang Yun thought mockingly—hatred, wasn’t that also an intense emotion?

Only by forcing someone with hatred could they be driven more relentlessly onto the path opposite their enemy.

And it just so happened that this game would let her see just how much strength Yan Xieyue, the strongest ace sniper, really had.