Apocalypse: System of lotteries



"Runiel, how many pieces did we buy?"

A blond man in a white undershirt stood in his castle bedroom, his arms stretched out to either side, each side attended by a woman clothed in thin gauze, their voluptuous figures highlighted by the radiant light. 

They were helping him dress for the day, handling his attire with great care for fear of dislodging the small pearl buttons or diamond decorations on the clothing. They knew that Governor Dise was a man of particular tastes and any mishandling could mean being kicked out of this secure and comfortable castle, and sold off to some filthy establishment full of sweaty, grimy men.

They cherished their current lives.

Runiel was Governor Dise's chief minister. His thin neck supported a large head. Lifting his face, which bore a pair of sharp, intelligent eyes, he answered, "We bought 20 pieces."

Dise tilted his head back, reveling in the state of being attended to. His eyes were half closed as he took a deep breath of the singular scent of the 'Clear-headed Peony', the only flower in the room, through his nostrils above his golden mustache. 

After exhaling, he asked simply, "How did it go?"

Runiel's ingratiating face flashed a moment of unease. "They were all of C-grade quality," he added quickly, "I've already exiled the guy who used the identification scroll to the mine."

"You arranged that?"

Dise lowered his gaze to Runiel. Seeing the governor's eyes, as blue as gemstones, Runiel felt a chill through his body and quickly bowed his head. "Governor, I only made a suggestion, the final decision was yours."

"Heh." Dise chuckled suddenly, looking down at his neatly dressed figure. 

He stepped forward, giving his chief minister a friendly punch in the chest. "Do as you said, you looked quite terrified. By the way, what was the other thing you wanted to tell me?"

"Governor, the other thing is, we found some Fire Elemental Stone in a desert."

As Runiel spoke, he lifted his head again, regaining his ingratiating smile.

"Good news indeed, just send some men to mine it."

Dise said, accepting a glass of red wine from one of the women, "What? Is there something troubling you? I can't imagine what would trouble the chief minister of the 1001 provinces."

"Yes."

Runiel said, "Our men found a wooden stake claiming ownership of the desert before we arrived there. It bore the name 'Ming'."

"Ming?"

Dise swirled the wine in his glass. "That Ming?"

Runiel bowed, "I can't confirm that, so I came to you for a decision."

"Ah…"

Dise brought the wine glass to his lips, sniffing it, "Tell them not to start mining yet, wait until we figure it out. Assign someone to keep an eye on that area daily. If it really is that Ming, let me know immediately. I want to see what kind of person he is."

"Alright."

Runiel nodded, then said, "Today you're meeting the Governor of the 101st sector, he's a guy who likes pretty boys."

"Ah..."

Dise chuckled, "Pretty boys, we're not short of those in the 1001 provinces. By the way, my daughter wants to learn flower cultivation from your wife. You know, it's a rare thing these days for young girls to be interested in that."

"Sure, I'll send someone to bring her to teach our most dazzling gem of the 1001 provinces."

"Don't flatter my daughter too much, she might get arrogant. But her eyes are just like mine, as blue as gemstones, quite beautiful."

...

Before Ming went out, he gave Bear a box of fish, telling her to continue her supervisory duties at home. Now she had many animals to manage, especially with the new additions of rhinos, lions, leopards, and honey badgers.

The job he assigned her was simple, to clean the construction waste into the earth's cracks. As long as they worked, he didn't care how they did it.

As for the frogs' so-called mounts, that was impossible. If they traveled on mounts, they would not have any travel experience, which was absolutely not allowed.

[Your Merlin looks at you pitifully, wanting to tell you not to separate it from the lion. It saw you shrug, then turned to tell the lion, "See, it's not that I want to leave you, but my home discipline is strict. I didn't trick you here and then ignore you. Don't think too much, be good~"]

[Merlin winked at you, Ming, all settled~]

"Great job."

Ming picked up Merlin and placed her in the hollow of his collarbone, tucked Da Vinci and Foodie each into his pockets, and activated the teleportation.

Day 25 of the third chapter, is the day of the individual random dungeon.

He had decided that this would be the last time he would go to the individual random dungeon until the end of the third chapter.

A beam of white light fell, teleporting him and the froglets away. Left behind was a Bear with a floral crown on her head and a box of fish in her arms. She looked at the animals of various sizes in front of her, commanding them with her gaze while raising her huge bear paws, indicating that it was time to work and laziness was not allowed.

...

Ming landed, opened his eyes, and found himself in what seemed to be a desolate valley, filled with rocks and rubble.

Not far ahead, there was a faint outline of a fence surrounded by barbed wire, with orderly buildings inside, but no high-rises.

"What is this place?"

Ming looked ahead, put the three froglets on the ground, petted their heads, fed them fish, and kissed their heads.

A buzzing sound followed.

After he kissed Merlin, he felt a wave of dizziness and a splitting headache. However, it only lasted for ten seconds or so before returning to normal. It seemed that his resistance to poison had increased quite a bit.

Moreover, he found that Merlin might have adapted him to her poison. The time of recovery after poisoning was getting shorter and shorter, and the adaptation interval, from the original several hours, had now reduced to at most a few minutes.

Then, he checked the dungeon content:

[Welcome to the Personal Random Dungeon: Mysterious M—301 Military Base]

[Please kill the final BOSS of the dungeon within 24 hours...]

[Countdown: 23:58:31]

"Military base?"

Ming watched the froglets hop away, then looked ahead again, wondering, there should be a lot of zombies in a military base, right?

If that was the case, then Alia's fourth stage task could be easily completed.

What a good place.

At that moment, a breeze blew toward him. He sniffed and his initially excited face turned a bit uncomfortable.

Upon closer sniffing, besides the smell of cement from the buildings and the earthy smell from the wind blowing the sand and gravel, there was surprisingly no smell of zombies.

"Could it be..."

Ming frowned, was his excitement going to be in vain?

[Your foodie stopped, telling Da Vinci that it had dreamt of this scene last night, a very terrifying experience. Da Vinci was curious, were you eaten by zombies?]

[Foodie told Da Vinci that it was even more terrifying than that. It moved closer to Da Vinci to have a secret conversation in a froglet's unique way. Da Vinci croaked, Merlin is doing it all for your own good, how could you say she's scary?]

[Foodie stared at Da Vinci, "You did that on purpose, didn't you? We agreed this was our secret, why did you say it out loud..." Foodie turned to look at Merlin... Merlin hopped forward pitifully, "Since foodie said I'm scared... then I will have to double the scariness~ I'm the best at using poison to fight poison~"]

[Merlin stopped, looking at the foodie, "Da Vinci, hurry up and follow me~ We're waiting for you~"]

[Foodie looked at you, Ming, "I need you."]