I should’ve gone to the Huá Shēng Hall.
At that moment, Jaheun was thinking the exact same thing. After getting saddled with the full burden for one offhanded comment, his mind was spinning. A thousand disasters from the past caused by his loose lips flashed before his eyes like a panorama. Humans are foolish and repeat the same mistakes……
Jaheun glared at the cleaning contest scoreboard at the front of the yard. If it were up to him, he would’ve smashed it to pieces and escaped the merchant guild. Hanging around with Limousine for a few days had really cranked up his violent tendencies.
< Cleaning Contest Rankings >
1st Place – Jaheun [432 points]
2nd Place – Dòu Qī [404 points]
3rd Place – Dòu Bā [397 points]
Time Remaining Until Contest Ends: 1 hour 23 minutes 44 seconds
The cleaning contest had three categories: weeding, bug catching, and sweeping. Continuously doing these three kinds of cleaning earned you points, and if you placed first, you cleared the quest.
Weeding was a kind of gathering task. Weeds would randomly spawn around the map at set intervals, and pulling them gave you points. There were various types of weeds, and depending on what you pulled, the points varied. You had to spot which weeds spawned where and prioritize pulling the good ones. It wasn’t all that different from being a herbalist. Jaheun thought Limousine would’ve cursed him out if he’d heard that.
Bug catching was similar to weeding. But unlike weeds, which just needed to be pulled, bugs had to be captured and eliminated. This gave Jaheun a big advantage. While other NPCs had to hit a bug three times to kill it, he could do it in one. It was the one category keeping his score afloat.
Sweeping…… was what you did when there were no bugs or weeds. You just had to keep doing it steadily. It gave the fewest points because it was the easiest, but it still added to your total, so you couldn’t skip it. He was sweeping even now.
In short, the cleaning contest was a grindy mini-game made up of three tasks.
After about 30 minutes of boring, repetitive actions with no fun or emotional reward, a crushing wave of burnout hit. Jaheun liked solo content, but not this kind of one-dimensional grind.
Getting first place wasn’t all that hard, to be honest. The real problem was the additional condition: the point gap between first and second had to be more than double. That…… was the price he paid for not keeping his mouth shut. He couldn’t even get mad at anyone else.
The reason it was so hard was simple: it’s not like the others were just standing around doing nothing while Jaheun cleaned. The way the scoring worked made it hard to gain a huge lead. The tragedy of being just one person.
[Party] Limousine: Doing okay?
Just from that meaningless message, Jaheun could tell Limousine wasn’t doing so good either. He’d spent enough time around the guy to read him fast. At the same time, something clicked.
What if it wasn’t just him doing it alone?
After all, all the NPCs were playing solo. No matter how efficiently they moved, a single body could only get so much done. But Jaheun and Limousine were in a bond that let them progress on hidden quests together. Their scores should be shared as well.
And Limousine had maxed out the Herbalist trait. That was no small feat—it took thousands of gathering attempts, and you couldn’t just blindly collect anything either. There was a reason it was considered ‘graveyard content.’ If he managed that, then he could probably pull weeds and catch bugs with one finger.
[Party] Jaheun: Can you sneak away for a bit
[Party] Jaheun: Help me out, this is too much to do alone
[Party] Limousine: What?
[Party] Limousine: I’m super busy too;
Knew it. There was no way he’d help without complaining. Jaheun sighed and sent another message.
[Party] Jaheun: If you help me, I’ll help you
[Party] Limousine: You think you’d be any help?
[Party] Jaheun: What are you even doing?
[Party] Limousine: Housing contest
Wait, wasn’t your hidden quest a dating sim……? What the hell are you doing?
[Party] Jaheun: I went to art school
Limousine bolted out to the yard one minute later. What a petty little bastard.
“What do I have to do?”
“What you’re good at.”
After Jaheun explained the cleaning categories, Limousine scowled.
“This is just grind work.”
“You’re good at that kind of thing. Legendary herb gatherer.”
“It was hell, okay?”
<Legendary Herb Gatherer> was the achievement title given to those who reached the highest rank in the Herbalist trait. Grumbling all the while, Limousine still checked the scoreboard and instructions carefully. He could tell now why Jaheun had been struggling. Basically, he’d been doing a 1:10 bot match on [Very Hard] difficulty all by himself.
“What kind of dialogue choice did you pick to get this kind of penalty slapped on?”
Jaheun stubbornly refused to answer that one. At this point, it didn’t really matter anyway.
Limousine quickly fetched a broom from the sanitation chief and started sweeping beside Jaheun.
“By the way, is it really okay for you to be gone for an hour and a half?”
“Wow, you’re the one who called me here, and now you’re asking that?”
Limousine scoffed and shook his head at the late concern. I explained it well—let’s finish this first and then head back together.
‘My business partner can’t even take a proper dump without me. He’s been struggling with constipation lately…… would it be okay if I step out for a moment?’
[Oh my.]
He did come to deal with shit, so it wasn’t exactly a lie. Jaheun’s eye twitched at Limousine’s words. Just wait and see. They really were alike, especially in how their tongues could create enemies by the dozens.
“But hey.”
“Yeah?”
Limousine’s voice lowered.
“Did you find the insignia?”
Jaheun shook his head. There’s nowhere to hide it around here. Did you try digging? I don’t think you can dig normally. So you’ve just been cleaning like mad since you got here? We’ll get kicked out if we don’t win. He mumbled gloomily as sparkly Poof! sound effects echoed simultaneously around the yard. It was weed-pulling time.
“So you just pull them?”
“Five-leaf ones give the most points.”
Limousine and Jaheun immediately scattered like they’d never been standing together. Their movements were perfectly in sync.
[Party] Limousine: But what even is the insignia?
[Party] Limousine: Like a command token?
[Party] Jaheun: We’re doomed ‘cause we don’t even know that
[Party] Jaheun: Not like there’s a reference image or anything
Hmm…… Limousine hummed quietly, while his hands stayed busy gathering weeds. Could the insignia maybe be something a herbalist has to dig up? No, that doesn’t make sense. It’s not like the insignia would be a herb……
[Party] Limousine: Maybe one of the NPCs has it
[Party] Limousine: Should we search them?
[Party] Jaheun: Let’s raise the score a bit first
[Party] Limousine: Okay
With one more person added, the weeding was finished quickly. The two of them checked the scoreboard.
< Cleaning Contest Rankings >
1st – Jaheun [508 points]
2nd – Dòu Bā [432 points]
3rd – Dòu Qī [427 points]
Time Remaining Until Contest Ends: 1 hour 10 minutes 21 seconds
Sure enough, working as a team widened the gap from 2nd place. The scores were shared. Calling Limousine had been the right choice.
Thirty minutes later, their lead had safely surpassed double the 2nd place score. Limousine left Jaheun to clean for a while and stood up.
[Party] Limousine: Call me if the score starts lacking
[Party] Jaheun: Yeah, yeah
Limousine approached one of the NPCs who was hard at work sweeping the yard—Dòu Qī, currently in second place. It was a calculated move.
“Hey.”
[Hmm?]
Dòu Qī turned his head at the call. Without hesitation, Limousine reached out.
[Wh-What is it?]
“You’re in good shape. Do you work out?”
Limousine’s face remained calm as he casually patted and felt Dòu Qī’s torso and arms. From the expression alone, he looked like an airport security officer. But a few steps away, watching from a distance, Jaheun nearly choked. Wasn’t this just straight-up groping?
[Party] Jaheun: What are you doing?????
The question came with just as many question marks as his shock.
[Party] Limousine: Searching
[Party] Jaheun: No like; why are you groping him?
[Party] Jaheun: You’re gonna get banned
[Party] Limousine: What? How is this sexual?
[Party] Limousine: I’m just checking if he’s hiding something or not
If an NPC is touched sexually, it’s considered misconduct and the account may be penalized. One of <Celestial Wind>’s strictest ethics systems, it evaluates user body response records and the location of the touch to determine intent, and in some cases, can even lead to a permanent ban.
Of course, what Limousine was doing was far from that…… or…… was it?
Jaheun, brain bleached from the scene, kept alternating between denial and disbelief. So it’s okay as long as it’s not sexual? Am I the weird one here? He really wanted to report this.
[Hah hah! These are working men’s muscles! Hardened through labor!]
Far from shocked, Dòu Qī seemed proud of himself. He was probably a gym rat. Limousine even patted down his back thoroughly before giving up. Not only did Dòu Qī not have anything resembling an insignia, but he didn’t even carry a wallet. He’s not it. Limousine turned to approach the next NPC, but Jaheun quickly grabbed his shoulder.
“Why?”
“This…… this just doesn’t feel right.”
If you get permabanned, my quest is over, too. I’m telling you, I won’t get banned. Limousine tried to argue, but Jaheun’s expression was so serious and sincere that he stopped for now.
“Now that I think about it, I doubt an NPC competing in the cleaning contest would be carrying it. It’s way too random. I mean, it’s supposed to be an insignia—shouldn’t it be with someone higher-ranking?”
Jaheun’s passionate speech made Limousine’s eyes roll in thought.
“I mean, still.”
There were NPCs named Dòu Yī through Dòu Bā. Dòu Qī had just been checked, which meant seven more left. If he skipped them thinking they didn’t have it, and one of them did— Just imagining it was horrifying. You couldn’t be too thorough.