Chapter 202: Full of Trash, Dungeon Missions

Chapter 202: Chapter 202: Full of Trash, Dungeon Missions

"So this is the special apocalyptic dungeon, the Junkheap Ruins?"

Seraphina Sullivan peered through the lens of her Anti-Poison Mask, her expression hard to describe as she surveyed her surroundings.

Before using the [Lv1 Special Dungeon Card], she had already imagined all sorts of possible dungeons in her mind.

A city besieged by zombies, a den of mutated beasts, or even a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

But the scene before her defied all imagination.

It still hit her with a powerful shock.

’How is this a "Junkheap Ruins"?’

’This is clearly a boundless world made entirely of trash!’

As far as the eye could see, there was only trash.

Though she was in a city, the towering "mountains" surrounding it were not mountains at all.

Instead, they were formed from countless pieces of broken furniture, twisted metal, and all sorts of stinking garbage.

They were multicolored, yet uniformly covered in a disgusting layer of grimy, greasy decay.

Trash was everywhere, filling every inch of Space.

Even the ground Seraphina stepped on was some kind of mixture of sewage, viscous liquid, and rotting matter.

Every step made the soles of her feet feel sticky.

Even through the highly effective Anti-Poison Mask, Seraphina felt as if she could faintly sense a whiff of the stench that saturated the air.

It all served as a reminder to Seraphina that the environment of this special dungeon, entered via a Dungeon Card, was extremely hostile.

’Thank God I have this Anti-Poison Mask,’ Seraphina thought, feeling a sense of relief.

’Otherwise, I’d definitely be poisoned to death by the air here. This overwhelming stench... what’s the difference between this and a biological weapon?’

She even suspected that without protection, staying here for just a few minutes would cause irreversible damage to her lungs.

Seraphina could also feel her skin starting to itch uncomfortably where it was exposed to the air.

She quickly took a set of tattered, long-sleeved clothes from her Space that fit the surrounding environment.

Seraphina suppressed the unpleasant sensation of stickiness and squishiness coming from under her feet.

She trudged onward, one unsteady step after another, toward a relatively "open" path ahead that seemed to have formed naturally between the heaps of trash.

It might have once been a street.

Now, however, it was squeezed narrow by collapsing mountains of trash on both sides, fraught with danger, as if a new "landslide" could occur at any moment.

Just as she was cautiously moving forward, trying to find clues or a safe spot...

RUMBLE—CRASH!!

A deep, continuous roar suddenly echoed from the sky!

Seraphina immediately stopped, her muscles tensing in an instant.

She warily looked up toward the source of the sound.

The sight in the sky left her utterly stunned.

In the gray, hazy sky, which seemed to be shrouded in permanent pollutants, she saw countless "holes" of varying sizes with blurry, distorted edges scattered across the firmament in the far distance.

Those holes were dark and deep, looking nothing like natural formations.

They looked more like ugly scars left behind after space itself had been torn apart.

And at that very moment, an uncountable amount of assorted trash was pouring out from those huge black holes, like a waterfall, or like vomit!

Abandoned cars, broken chunks of concrete, bundles of documents, remnants of furniture, twisted pipes... all mixed together, forming filthy torrents.

Accompanied by a deafening roar, they plunged toward the already overburdened land of trash below.

The massive noise she had just heard was the sound of this large-scale "trash rain" crashing down!

Seraphina stared up, dumbfounded, at the absurd and terrifying spectacle that was like something out of the apocalypse.

Her gaze slowly shifted from the black holes in the sky, which were endlessly spewing waste, back to the layered, seemingly infinite mountains of trash around her.

A thought surfaced in her mind.

’I see... So the source of all this trash, piled up like mountains, is these ceaseless "holes" in the sky.’

This dungeon world was, in itself, a giant landfill being continuously injected with waste.

’Or rather... a space being used as a garbage disposal station by other worlds?’

"What in the world is this dungeon all about?"

Seraphina muttered to herself, her voice muffled by the Anti-Poison Mask.

But it couldn’t hide the deep confusion and shock within it.

Clearly, this [Junkheap Ruins] dungeon was completely different from any apocalyptic dungeon Seraphina had experienced before.

It wasn’t a natural disaster in the traditional sense, nor did it stem directly from the collapse of humanity.

This was a slower, more thorough, and more suffocating form of "the end."

The entire world seemed to have become a giant, abandoned garbage disposal site.

It was currently enduring an endless downpour of waste from an unknown source.

’I should check the world mission first.’

Seraphina took a deep breath.

She forced herself to pull away from the shock and discomfort caused by this bizarre environment.

The urgent priority was to figure out the system’s mission for this dungeon.

She focused her mind, summoned the system interface, and fixed her gaze on the newly updated mission log.

[Main Mission 1: Survive in the dungeon for seven days!]

[Mission Reward: Return to the real world]

[Main Mission 2: Become a Purification Envoy]

[Mission Reward: Purification Set]

[Side Mission: Slay the Junk Monsters]

[Mission Reward: Random rewards. The more Junk Monsters slain, the higher the Quality of the reward.]

Three missions in total: two main and one side.

From the mission descriptions, Seraphina quickly grasped the key information.

This seemingly dead Junkheap Ruins was far from safe.

A threat known as "Junk Monsters" lurked within.

"Junk Monsters?" Seraphina repeated the name under her breath.

Her gaze subconsciously swept over the towering mountains of trash and the black holes in the distance that were still pouring out waste.

’Looks like this apocalyptic dungeon has dangerous creatures after all. I just don’t know if these Junk Monsters are an ’invasive species’ that fell from the black holes along with the trash, or... native monsters that mutated and spawned from the local garbage under certain conditions?’

If it was the former, it could mean more unpredictable attack patterns and traits.

If it was the latter, it would imply that the pollution in this world had reached a level capable of giving rise to twisted life-forms.

Neither possibility was good news.

After understanding the basic missions, Seraphina knew what came next would be the key to determining the quality of her survival for the next seven days and her mission completion rate.

Using her greatest advantage: the [Worker] Talent, to awaken a Profession exclusive to this dungeon.

’This is my first awakening since my Talent was upgraded. I wonder how it will turn out.’

A hint of barely perceptible anticipation and nervousness filled Seraphina’s heart.

Although the improvement from her Talent upgrade had been minor—its only new Effect was awakening two Professions, which gave her a choice—in theory, it should allow her to awaken a stronger or more environmentally-suited Profession.

In an extremely unique environment like this, a suitable Profession was perhaps more important than another powerful weapon.