Chapter 38: ???, ???, ???, ???, ???

Like an infection, curiosity spread among those who witnessed the man’s reaction, prompting them to utter the word "task" as well.

The man gestured with his fingers in the air, as if trying to touch something.

Zayn looked down at the man still sitting on the ground.

"You saw the screen, right?"

The brown-haired man replied:

"Yeah, it wants us to kill some ’Goblin King’ or whatever."

’Did he not see the other two?’

"And we’re also supposed to eliminate these disasters... along with the ominous question mark task."

Whenever Zayn said "task," the window would reappear, forcing him to swipe it away.

The man looked at Zayn as if he were stupid, when he was actually the ignorant one.

"Huh? What do you mean by eliminate disasters and the question mark task?"

Zayn responded sarcastically:

"What do I mean? I’m talking about the other two tasks."

The man looked thoroughly confused. He fell silent for a moment, then raised his head and said:

"Well, I only have one task: to slay the Goblin King..."

’Really?’

Had Zayn received a special task? Surely not. What had he done to deserve something like that?

’...None of this makes sense anyway.’

Why was Zayn even taking it seriously?

Well...

His damn instincts were screaming at him to treat everything as if it were real.

’I guess it wouldn’t hurt to try making sense of the situation.’

Zayn decided to bring in a third party. He called out to a nearby woman, careful not to alarm her by touching her.

"Excuse me."

When she finally noticed him, she stared at Zayn quizzically.

"Hello?"

Zayn quickly asked:

"Did you get the task to eliminate disasters?"

"You mean the one about slaying the Goblin King? Yeah, that’s the one everyone seems to have."

’Are they blind?’

Or was there really something different with him and him alone?

"That’s not what I mean. I got that task, but I also have another one telling me to hunt sixteen disasters. Did you only get one?"

The woman tilted her head in confusion before firing off a series of questions:

"Yea why? Did you get an extra task? I’ve been listening to people around me, and as far as I know, we all have the same single task. Can you... elaborate?"

"It says I have to hunt sixteen disasters, and if I fail, humanity goes extinct. There’s also a small slot labeled ’Disasters Identified,’ followed by a list. However, the only two items on it are four sets of three question marks. It doesn’t even tell me what the disasters are."

Zayn left out the question mark task because discussing it wouldn’t reveal anything. The brown-haired man remained beside them, listening intently.

The woman fell into contemplation for a moment before summarizing what Zayn had said:

"So you have to kill sixteen ’disasters,’ but you aren’t told what a ’disaster’ is. It seems you have a way to identify them, though I’m guessing you don’t know how. And if you fail to kill them, we all die... Apparently."

Zayn nodded when she finished. She’d said ’kill’ instead of ’hunt,’ but the minor discrepancy hardly mattered. All that mattered was figuring out why his screen displayed something different from everyone else’s.

The woman continued, speaking as if she fully believed Zayn:

"The disasters could be monsters or something we’ve never seen, but... maybe they’re human. We’ll have to experiment somehow, but we have nothing to start from."

Zayn shrugged and decided to ignore her odd level of compliance.

"I doubt they’re humans. Some divine entity has summoned us — surely the ’disasters’ are demons or monsters."

Zayn wasn’t entirely convinced by his own words. He would rather not even consider the possibility that he’d have to kill... ’hunt’ a person. He knew the consequences of taking a life. He knew the effect it would have on the victim’s family and friends.

After all, a silent killer had claimed his sister, a drunk driver had claimed his mother, and the world had swallowed his father.

Worst of all, Zayn was still alive.

He was the one who had to continue suffering.

While Zayn knew it wasn’t true — he’d never place his feelings above his family’s — it sometimes felt harder to survive than to be the one dying. The grief was a constant mountain of pressure bearing down on his neck and crushing his windpipe. Even if he managed to stand for a while, it would shift onto his shoulders, waiting for him to stumble so it could drive him back down.

It was a paradox.

The loving memories from his childhood would pick him up. Those same memories would immediately kick him back down...

Of course, Zayn didn’t know precisely what dying felt like or what the afterlife looked like. Maybe living, even with the constant suffering, was truly better than dying.

Either way, Zayn had just been ripped from his home and transported to a random forest full of strangers. He was more concerned with what the hell was going on than what he’d have to hunt or kill.

However, he was also worried about his cat...

And if completing this task was the way back to Fluffles...

’Then I better treat it with the utmost seriousness.’

He’d be Janina... he’d kill for Fluffles.

Emerging from his deep thought, Zayn added:

"I have no idea how to start investigating. I think I should just wait. Surely something will reveal itself."

The woman replied:

"Hmmm... Okay. I’ll agree with that for now, but tell me if you find something out. This has piqued my interest..."

Then she leaned closer and whispered in Zayn’s ear:

"...I’ll help you even if the ’disasters’ are human."

The sadistic, almost manic tone of her voice unsettled Zayn, but he laughed it off.

He could only hope that wasn’t the case...

He hoped.

’But if they are humans, maybe this crazy lady would be a good ally.’

The man with short brown hair and a scar on his lip, who’d mostly observed the conversation, added:

"Me too... but what was that second thing you said?"

The woman completely ignored him and kept her attention fixed on Zayn.

"Are you sure you didn’t grab that thing’s attention somehow?"

’That was a little rude...’

A small voice in the back of Zayn’s mind warned him that he might be talking to a psycho.

"No, not that I can remember," Zayn replied, trying to recall what he had been doing before he was summoned.

He had been reading, gone to get water, and then fallen.

’What could I have done that was special?’

The scarred man, still desperate to join the conversation, tried to speak, only for the woman to cut him off.

"Weird, I—"

"Yeah, it is weird. For now, let’s keep this between the three of us. The others might think you’re lying, or it might only confuse people. Well, you could be lying. However, I’ll choose to believe you received an extra task or two because you have no reason to lie, and you genuinely seem confused. You should fill us in on anything you learn about your task. I’m Amaya."

The woman, who seemed to have it out for the brown-haired man, introduced herself at the end of her spiel.

Zayn smiled back.

"I’m Zayn."

The other man waited for his turn. Once nobody else spoke and he finally had the stage, he introduced himself:

"I’m Maks. Maks Dziedzic. Nice to meet you both."

Maks said it jubilantly, though he seemed a little sad.

The two responded simultaneously:

"Likewise."

"You too."

"What the hell is that?!"

A woman’s shriek tore Zayn’s attention away from Amaya and Maks. She was pointing frantically toward the crazy man who had earlier carved into his own skin with a rock.

Zayn followed her finger and noticed that everyone had gone still, their gazes fixed on the same spot.

He followed their line of sight and spotted a small green humanoid clutching a sword...

’Wait... is that... don’t tell me...’

"A goblin?"

’Like one from the task? Are we supposed to... kill it?’