Chapter 076: A Pest Exterminator This Terrible?

After pressing the numeric button, Li Tianque’s mask closed in front of him once again. After a brief moment of darkness, light returned to his vision.

The place felt dreamlike, as if he had entered a completely separate space. Here, he couldn’t even sense the presence of his helmet or gloves. He tried touching his head and could feel something hard, but the helmet itself seemed to have faded from his perception.

Next, he noticed a dazzling orb of light slowly rising before him. It appeared as though someone was hidden within it, approaching steadily.

Li Tianque swallowed nervously and walked toward the figure.

The radiance gradually dissipated, revealing the person standing within the orb.

Li Tianque was stunned. The figure was remarkably familiar, though he had never met him up close before.

Sharp golden spiked hair, piercing crimson eyes, lips curled with a wicked charm—such exquisite features gathered on a single face, giving the man an air of dominance and aloofness.

This was none other than the famed King of Bling—Gilgamesh!

What was going on? Had he broken through dimensions?

“King of Bling? What’s this? Are you an NPC in this system?” Li Tianque couldn’t help but exclaim.

He had seen some holographic projections of anime characters before, but to witness such a lifelike figure standing before him was astonishing.

Gilgamesh strode over with a sly smile, towering above Li Tianque as he spoke in a deep voice, “We’ve met before. I am Kyle.”

“Kyle?” Li Tianque quickly searched his memory for the name and recalled that this was the elusive, mysterious figure who helped him with onboarding. If he remembered correctly, Kyle was the HR manager at the Pest Extermination Company, spoke Chinese but not fluently.

“Ah, so it’s you. Is this your virtual avatar or…?”

“That’s not important. In any case, you’ve already selected number 9. The test is about to begin. You have three chances…” Kyle stammered as he spoke.

Li Tianque found Kyle’s persona utterly incongruous with Gilgamesh’s image—he couldn’t understand why Kyle chose to represent himself this way in the system; it was almost sacrilegious.

“Uh, I’ve already learned the rules. Let’s just start the test,” Li Tianque replied.

“Very well. You should already know the situation. Here, uh, your survival odds aren’t high. You can still leave now…” Kyle pronounced each word deliberately.

Li Tianque felt exasperated, wishing Kyle would turn invisible again.

“Odds aren’t high? Didn’t they say everyone at the company passed the test? Even if you recruited twenty people, the success rate should be close to fifty percent.”

Kyle seemed to grasp something, raised his eyebrows, coughed lightly, and hurried to change the topic. “Oh, so you’re ready to begin.”

“Exactly. Let’s start now.”

Kyle snapped his fingers, and behind him appeared a spinning golden vortex, reminiscent of the anime scene where Gilgamesh summons weapons from his treasury. From it, he drew a golden box, embossed with the number “9.”

He opened the box, and Li Tianque was utterly unprepared for what lay inside.

He’d heard rumors that some of the company’s pest exterminators used household items like mops or combs as their tools, and he’d mentally braced himself for the possibility that his test object might be something similar.

Yet, as he cradled the heavy golden box in his hands, his resolve wavered. Number 9 was his lucky number—he’d never been disappointed in choosing the ninth technician at a club, either.

Given that the award presenter was the legendary king and the weapon box was so exquisite, surely he was destined for good fortune this time.

Such a refined golden box, in most game settings, would require overcoming countless obstacles and completing a series of quests to obtain the key to unlock it.

Even if the contents weren’t some ancient artifact, they must at least be legendary equipment.

But when Li Tianque saw what was inside, his eyes nearly popped out.

What in the world was this?

It was a cob of corn. Worse—covered in green fuzz!

Life’s unpredictability, he thought. What could he possibly do with a hairy corn cob? Was he supposed to use it as bait to poison the nuclear bugs?

Li Tianque stared in disbelief at the golden box, glanced up at Kyle bathed in golden light, then back at his corn cob, utterly speechless.

Kyle smiled at him, feigning kindness, but with Gilgamesh’s face, it came across as pure mockery.

“Brother, don’t you think you owe me an explanation? How am I supposed to test this thing?”

“That’s simple, it’s corn. Obviously, you just need to eat a bite to complete the test,” Kyle said casually.

“Eat? Eat corn? Isn’t this supposed to be my weapon? What happens after I eat it?”

Li Tianque was completely baffled.

“Oh, I didn’t mean for you to eat the corn. See the green fuzz? That’s super aflatoxin—a Class 1 carcinogen, specially modified to be even more potent,” Kyle said solemnly.

“What? Carcinogen?” Li Tianque swallowed hard, already regretting his choice.

Apparently, his test was to eat the green fuzz on the corn cob.

Normally, moldy green fuzz on food is loaded with carcinogens, and this corn was nearly a mutant algae monster. Eat it, and he’d surely drop dead.

“That’s right. Go ahead. If your body is compatible, the system will prompt you. If not, just keep eating. Each bite counts as an attempt—three bites, and if there’s still no prompt, you fail,” Kyle explained.

Li Tianque was nearly losing his mind. The bizarre food before him was utterly revolting. Given the choice between the infamous secret hamburger and this green corn, he’d take the former without hesitation.

After all, filth may be disgusting but not deadly; swallowing copious amounts of enhanced aflatoxin would take down even Iron Man.

Li Tianque stared blankly at the golden box in his hands. After about five minutes, he finally steeled himself.

He was already on an irreversible adventure, and if one gamble could grant him immense power, it was worth it.

With that, Li Tianque summoned every ounce of courage, closed his eyes, and bit down hard.

The moment the green fuzz entered his mouth, a powerful moldy stench rushed straight to his skull, making him dizzy.

The taste was barely tolerable, but the bitterness that followed nearly made him faint.

Bitter! Indescribably bitter!

It was the most bitter thing he’d ever eaten, forcing him to clutch his head in agony.

The golden box fell to the ground, the corn rolled aside.

Li Tianque forced himself to swallow all the green fuzz. The system announced the start of the test.

Two minutes later, the system prompted again: “Test failed.”

Li Tianque rolled his eyes, saliva involuntarily dripping from his mouth.

He still had two chances left. Having tried once, he figured it didn’t matter—one bite or three, it was all the same.

But as he prepared for another attempt, the intense bitterness lingering in his mouth struck once more, relentless as a maggot on a bone.

He frantically swirled his tongue around his mouth, spat out a large amount of saliva, trying to dilute the taste.

Yet each wave of bitterness made his head spin and his eyes burn.

After a while, when he recovered a bit, he crawled over to the moldy corn, closed his eyes, and bit down again.

It reminded him of a drinking contest—if you’re going to get drunk anyway, might as well gulp it down and get it over with.

This time, the moldy taste intensified, the bitterness lessened, replaced by a powerful sense of nausea.

Li Tianque felt as if he were aboard a ship violently tossed by a storm, everything spinning, his consciousness fading.

He retched, and an even stronger churning sensation rose from his stomach.

He couldn’t control it—he was about to vomit.

But at that moment, the system prompted: “Vomiting will immediately terminate the test and count as three failures.”

On hearing this, Li Tianque cursed internally but forced himself to stop.

He grabbed his right arm and bit down hard, suppressing his urge to vomit.

Sadly, after a painful struggle, the second test still failed.

By now, his mind was foggy, and he vaguely heard Kyle say in broken Chinese by his ear, “Last chance. If you fail, you will die. Do you want to continue?”

Kyle’s words were clearer than ever, and Li Tianque answered without hesitation: “Continue…”

With that, he picked up the corn covered in revolting green fuzz once more…