Zhao Guanghui did not forget the precise instructions given earlier by the factory team leader.
Still shaking with adrenaline, he grabbed a refrigerated container from the breeding room next door. With clumsy urgency, he placed the still-warm, bloody liver inside.
"Quick!" he gasped, his voice hoarse with tension. "We have to send it to the window before it spoils!"
He sprinted out of the farm chamber, boots echoing on the sterile floor.
By the time Lucas stepped back into the processing room, Zhao had already shoved the container into the wall slot. The conveyor link whirred, swallowing the box behind a rotating baffle.
For a brief second, silence. Then a harsh mechanical beeping filled the chamber.
Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep…
A red warning message flashed above the slot.
[Unqualified – Code EH31]
Zhao froze mid-motion. His face drained of color.
"What? What does that mean?" His voice cracked. "Why is it unqualified? Was it because it wasn't fresh enough?!"
Lucas's eyes calmly scanned the laminated manual affixed to the wall. He traced down the error list until his gaze settled on the corresponding code.
"EH31," he read aloud softly. "Wrong type of raw material. Example: livers of chickens, ducks, pigs, or other livestock were placed inside."
Zhao blinked in confusion, stunned.
"Wrong type? How can a human liver be considered the wrong type? Aren't they all the same?!"
Lucas's memory flickered back to what he had seen earlier that morning—the large, grotesque head that had regenerated after death, its strange structure unlike any normal human. His lips tightened.
"…It really is different," he whispered.
Zhao clutched at his hair in frustration, tugging at the disinfectant hood. His voice broke into near-hysteria.
"I don't get it! None of this makes sense! What are we even doing here?!"
Despair was seeping into him like poison. His sense of justice clashed violently with the grotesque reality around him.
Lucas, however, was thinking about something else.
Zhao killed a factory breeder. Yet the confessional punishment hasn't triggered. That means killing employees isn't classified the same way as other crimes here.
He filed the observation away, raising his guard higher than ever. Every mechanism in this factory was a carefully designed trap, and he had no intention of being caught in one.
---
The Second Attempt
"One of the few advantages of being assigned to this food factory," Lucas murmured.
Zhao was still muttering angrily about the "wrong category" when Lucas quietly moved away.
"What are you doing?" Zhao demanded, chasing after him.
Lucas's answer was soft, almost casual. "If…"
Zhao's eyes widened as the implication hit him. His stomach dropped in shock.
Lucas was already standing in front of the second cubicle.
Inside, a man sat chained on the bed. When Lucas's gaze met his, the man immediately lowered his eyes, shame and guilt clouding his face.
[Modeling…]
[Animals in food factories: No Danger]
"I haven't been sleeping well lately," the man admitted in a low voice, almost like a confession. "My liver hasn't been regenerating properly these past few days."
Lucas's expression softened. He smiled kindly and stepped closer.
"It's all right. That's not your fault," Lucas said warmly. "If the light, temperature, or food isn't comfortable, you can say so. It's important you feel at ease."
The man's eyes trembled. A flicker of human emotion passed across his face—something rare in this farm. He looked genuinely touched.
"Thank you," he whispered. "You… you're so kind."
Zhao, who had followed close behind, overheard everything. He stopped dead in his tracks, his entire worldview crumbling in an instant.
Was that a normal conversation? Between a prisoner and the one about to carve him open?
The man on the bed willingly unzipped his protective suit, revealing the mutilated cavity of his chest and abdomen. His internal organs beat steadily, exposed and grotesque.
Lucas calmly followed the procedure. He connected the plastic tube, prepared the scalpel, and readied the crisper box.
"Wait!" Zhao finally snapped, his voice breaking with disbelief. "You're actually going to do this?!"
For a moment he couldn't even find words to describe the horror of what Lucas was about to perform.
Lucas glanced at him briefly, then turned back to the man on the bed. His voice softened once more.
"I will make you painless."
The man flinched. His face paled as memories of past agony flickered in his eyes. But Lucas's tone carried a strange conviction, and against his fear, the man forced a small, shaky smile.
Lucas's scalpel flashed. Zhao barely registered the motion before the blade sliced cleanly. Blood welled up, but almost instantly the tissue began regenerating.
Click. The lid of the crisper box closed neatly.
---
The Miracle
The man blinked. His breathing was shallow, but no scream left his throat.
"It's… over? Already?" He sat up slowly, bewildered. His gaze dropped to his stomach, where a fresh patch of regenerated liver tissue glistened.
"Why… why don't I feel anything?"
His expression twisted into awe and disbelief. Tears welled in his eyes.
In Zhao's stunned gaze, the man suddenly knelt forward, forehead pressing to the cold floor.
"Thank you! Thank you so much! I didn't feel any pain at all!!"
The system's chime filled the chamber.
[System prompt: Player Lucas has eliminated the pain of being raised as a human being. Hidden side mission of 'Verne Town' completed.]
[Hidden mission complete – Progress +25%]
[Current world view exploration progress: 26%]
---
Shockwaves
The prompt appeared in every player's interface across the dungeon.
Zhao's eyes bulged, his face frozen in disbelief.
"Wait… what? That counts as eliminating pain?!" His voice cracked with hysteria. "How does that even make sense?!"
His mental stability crumbled further.
[System prompt: Player Zhao Guanghui's emotions are unstable. Mental value -2. Mental value -2…]
But Zhao wasn't the only one shaken.
All across the live broadcast, players and audience members gaped at the system message.
"...What the hell did I just witness?"
"Did the system seriously count that as completing the mission?"
The clown host staggered on stage, arms flailing. His painted grin twisted into something manic as he screamed, voicing the thoughts of thousands:
"What is going on?!!!"
---
The Illusion of Comfort
Inside his chest, Lucas felt the steady beat of his artifact—[Heart of Vision]. Its power hummed, subtle but undeniable.
Being trapped here, being slaughtered or left to rot—these are the true sources of pain. But if they are given comfort, even illusionary comfort, then that pain can be erased.
The man hadn't screamed because Lucas had used the artifact's ability to cast an illusion of painless extraction. His body experienced the procedure, but his mind registered nothing.
"If they believe they suffer no pain, then their torment is gone."
The audience was in chaos.
"Don't tell me—these people actually think being farmed for organs is happiness??"
"It looks like that's exactly the case. Lucas used his ability to overwrite their suffering. They really believe it's painless!"
"I thought eliminating pain meant liberating them! Instead, he just made them accept it?!"
"He didn't hesitate for even a second. Did you see his mental stats? Not a single fluctuation!"
Meanwhile, Zhao Guanghui's emotional instability had worsened so much that his chart spiked higher than Lucas's, despite Lucas being the one holding the scalpel.
The irony was staggering.
And as the entire factory echoed with disbelief and chaos, the live broadcast audience was left with a single question burning in their minds—
What kind of person is Lucas?
---
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