The man appeared suddenly, and I didn’t have time to dodge.

He was so close that I could even see the pores on his pig-like nose.

Last time, it was the fish-headed man. This time, it's... a pig-headed man?

The owner of the hotpot restaurant is a butcher with a pig’s head?

My helmet’s internal system automatically reported:

【Confirmed: Cleaner Nina Chase has entered a contamination zone. Contamination level roughly estimated to be Class C. Would you like to report this to the Cleaning Center's Technical Department?】

【Current contamination level is at 99%. The contaminated area spans 5000 cubic meters and contains active contaminants.】

【The contamination zone is continuously expanding, and contamination levels are fluctuating. Please exercise caution.】

This new helmet was different from the one I had used before. It was more advanced, able to detect and report contamination levels automatically. I no longer needed to measure it myself.

Compared to the last time when I was a complete rookie, I could now read and understand the data. Two swimming pools' worth of contaminated area—that was significantly larger than the sewer system I had dealt with before.

Sewers are labyrinthine, but how could a hotpot restaurant be so big on the inside?

That was definitely unusual.

With the contamination level at 99%, I knew from experience that once you step into a contaminated area, the level will rapidly rise as you interact with the contaminants.

As for the contamination rating—if I didn’t report it to technical support, the helmet wouldn’t get the reading perfectly right. But the rough estimate was a Class C, which seemed more dangerous than the last time.

Again, I saw the black lines in the air, like black particles floating around. I had seen this once before on the last train of Metro Line 1, where I couldn’t see or touch them. They seemed like the background noise of the contamination zone.

I looked back briefly. The stairs I had descended were gone. Behind me, there was nothing but pitch-black darkness, and something was squirming within it.

There was no way back.

The contamination zone had expanded, and I was trapped again. I might have already lost contact with the outside world.

The pig-headed man spoke in a low voice, his tone strange, as if his voice wasn’t coming from his throat.

“Something wrong?”

I replied calmly, “I’m here for the job interview.”

I had taken Demon Hunter courses. I knew that contaminants often continue their previous behavior even after becoming contaminated. For example, the fish-headed man had constantly been looking for the last train, even after he had become a contaminant.

The simplest way to enter a contaminated area without force was to wait for an "invitation" from the contaminant.

The help-wanted notice on the shutter had provided me with the perfect reason to enter.

“Interview?” The pig-headed man eyed me up and down.

I had felt uncomfortable when dealing with the black-market store owner and the pimp, but I was more at ease with a contaminant. I had learned some of the rules.

When you're in an abnormal place, act like it's normal. So that’s exactly what I did.

“Yes, for the cashier position,” I said.

It would be pushing it to apply for a store manager position, but my degree in mechanical engineering would easily qualify me for a cashier role.

The pig-headed man fell silent.

He stood there for a solid three minutes, motionless, like a malfunctioning robot.

In those three minutes, he didn’t speak or even blink.

I guessed he didn’t want to let any outsiders into the restaurant, he was searching for a reason to reject me but he couldn’t find one.

After three minutes of struggling, the pig-headed man finally relented. “Come in.”

As expected, I had figured out one rule about contaminants: as long as you fit their logic, they can’t refuse you.

The shutter clattered down behind me with a loud bang.

Good. I was trapped down here completely this time.

Every contamination zone has its unique features, but they share a core logic. When an ordinary person enters a contaminated zone, the contaminants will find a way to contaminate them.

If I wasn’t wearing my uniform, it would be easy. One spore, and I would be assimilated.

So, the logic of the contaminants was predictable. They would either try to destroy your defenses or use mental contamination to slowly break your mind.

I stepped into the hotpot restaurant, and everything felt off.

First of all, for a hotpot restaurant, it was eerily quiet.

No one was talking.

There were 28 tables in the main dining area, and all of them were full. Each table had a bubbling hotpot in the center, and the customers were eating with smiles on their faces.

But their eating habits were strange. Some people were dipping themselves into the hotpot, even putting their arms in the boiling red oil without noticing.

The dishes on their tables were far from delicious. The meat was rotten, with maggots crawling through the meat.

One customer near me, seemingly oblivious, dipped the meat into the hotpot like a progammed robot. He then shoved the almost-decayed meat into his mouth, smiling in satisfaction.

Some of the meat on their tables, I couldn’t even recognize. It was dark, rotten, and completely unidentifiable.

Visually, it should have been revolting, but the smell... it was surprisingly delicious.

The dishes emitted a bizarre aroma, one that smelled more appetizing than any hotpot I had ever eaten.

Standing nearby, I couldn’t help but wonder—was that meat actually good?

I almost reached out, thinking I might try a bite. Just one bite, right?

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Suddenly, I froze. Without realizing it, I had already stepped up to the hotpot and almost grabbed the chopsticks to try a piece.

This was mental contamination. Doing something abnormal, something that was normally harmless, was a form of mental contamination.

The more ordinary it seems, the less we’re on guard. If someone was being murdered here, your brain would immediately recognize it as something horrifying and cause fear. But eating hotpot and catching the last train—those were normal, harmless activities. They made us lower our guard.

Just one taste wouldn’t hurt, right?

Thinking like that, I was at risk of being contaminated.

Even though the system didn’t alert me about my mental value dropping, I could already feel the effects.

I shuddered, imagining how Daniel would have reacted if he were here.

“Boss,” I asked, “Where do I work?”

The pig-headed man replied, “I’m not the boss, I’m the deputy manager. You can call me Frank.”

Not the boss? That made sense. The real boss must be sick.

Frank said, “Follow me.”

I followed him to the cashier counter. He pointed to the register. “You’ll work here.”

I asked, “Start now? No orientation?”

Frank glared at me. “You don’t know how to use the register?”

I felt like I was caught in a lie. It was like listing a skill on your resume that you didn’t know how to do, then being called out for it. I gave a shameless answer. “I can do it.”

Frank grunted. “Get to work.”

Of course, after working at a paradise of a workplace like the Cleaning Center, being exploited at a place like this felt strange.

No contracts, no familiar procedures—five minutes in, and I was already working.

Frank went into the back kitchen. I could hear the sound of meat being chopped.

There weren’t many employees in the restaurant. Frank was doing multiple jobs, and from the sound of it, he was chopping large cuts of meat.

I didn’t want to know what kind of meat it was.

I stood silently at the register for a minute, reflecting on my situation. Here I was, working three jobs.

Daytime garbage cleaning, and now I was also the cashier at a cannibalistic hotpot restaurant.

Fortunately, the register was a smart device. It wasn’t difficult to operate; after pressing a couple of buttons, I got it running.

But once it opened, I hesitated. I didn’t want to see what was inside.

The drawer was filled with fingers—carefully sorted by size and thickness, some still wearing rings.

Some fingers were still bleeding, and some were twitching.

This was their currency? A cannibal restaurant, truly living up to its name.

This was another form of mental contamination. The more I stared at the fingers, the more they seemed to come alive, wriggling in the drawer.

This was their way of lowering mental values.

I quickly closed the drawer, feeling like this restaurant was more complex than the sewer, more disturbing.

No wonder it was a C-Class job.

The helmet displayed the latest contamination data: 【Contamination Level: 108】

The cashier job seemed pointless. The customers didn’t need to pay; they didn’t even finish their food. They were stuck in their seats, eating non-stop.

I watched for a while and realized something was wrong.

The customers weren’t happy. They were smiling, but it wasn’t a happy smile.

They were eating too much, constantly shoveling meat into their mouths without talking. Their stomachs were growing bigger, like they were pregnant.

Then—pop—I heard a faint noise.

One customer’s stomach split open. Meat spilled out, but even then, the customer continued smiling and eating.

They were trapped in here, but not by the hotpot.

It wasn’t the customers eating the hotpot.

It was the hotpot eating them.

Once the customer’s stomach split open, chunks of rotten meat spilled out, and it wasn’t just dead matter—it began to move. The pieces of flesh were slowly crawling and gnawing away at the customer’s innards and skin.

The customer sat there, staring vacantly ahead, seemingly oblivious to the fact that their body was being devoured, and they didn’t react at all. They simply kept eating, their smile frozen in place.

It was disgusting, but not just in the usual way. The sight was nauseating in a much deeper, primal way. It was pure, unadulterated horror—the kind that doesn't just make you cringe but sends waves of disgust through your soul.

System alert reminded me that my mental value drop by 1%.

I needed to get out of here quickly. If there were no survivors inside, I could just blow up the restaurant and finish the task.

But if there were survivors… then I had to do what I’d always done—find the source of contamination.

From what I’d heard from the pimp of the "Noble Queen" club, the contamination source was likely the owner.

But how could I even approach the owner?

I decided to head to the kitchen to ask Frank. I couldn’t just stand at the register, pretending to be a cashier while the hotpot was literally eating people. The restaurant wasn’t going to pay me anyway.

I left the register, heading into the back kitchen, my helmet automatically activating its night vision mode.

The kitchen smelled heavily of oil, as if it had been used constantly for years without proper cleaning. The floor was slick with old grease, and the walls were stained black and yellow from years of smoke. I could feel a sticky residue on my fingers as I touched the walls.

The kitchen was laid out in a complicated maze—a long hallway with eight rooms on either side. At the end of the hall, there was a staircase leading down to the basement.

On my left, I could hear the sound of meat being chopped, so the room on that side was likely the prep room. On the right was a freezer, presumably for storing meat.

I wasn’t sure what the other rooms were used for, but I wasn’t interested in snooping around too much.

I was about to investigate further when suddenly, a hand shot out from the shadows, gripping my wrist with terrifying precision.

My heart jumped, and my instincts screamed for me to draw my weapon. But I held back. The last thing I wanted was to make a move and alert the contaminants.

The hand was ice-cold, and I could feel an oily substance coating the palm.

I glanced down and saw a glint of metal in the darkness—an axe. Someone was standing behind a curtain, silently holding an axe, the other hand clutching my wrist.

“You looking for something?” The voice was familiar.

It was Frank.

I took a deep breath, trying to stay calm. This wasn’t the time to panic.

My danger sense hadn’t triggered yet, meaning there was no immediate danger.

“I just wanted to see if I could help with anything,” I said, trying to sound casual.

The excuse was solid enough. The kitchen was understaffed, and Frank had been alone in the back. Offering help made sense.

Frank hesitated for a moment, then released my wrist. He stared at me, quiet for a second, then turned and walked away.

I didn’t rush into the kitchen right away. I didn’t want to see anything too disturbing.

I waited for a while, hearing the sounds of chopping and strange noises coming from the back. Eventually, Frank returned, holding a black garbage bag in his hand.

“Take out the trash,” he said, handing me the bag.

Take out the trash? This was my old line of work.

I grabbed the bag, immediately noticing it was moving. Something inside was squirming.

The meat was shifting slightly, making faint sounds against the plastic bag.

“What is this?” I asked, maintaining my calm, even though I was repulsed.

“Rotten meat. It’s no good anymore,” Frank replied flatly.

“The trash bin’s out back. Go through this door,” he gestured to the third door on the left.

That was the door to the back exit. Now I know what's behind three doors, leaving five unknown rooms.

I walked through the door, across a three-meter-long hallway, and found myself at the back exit.

The entire restaurant was half-basement so even stepping outside didn’t mean I was on solid ground. It felt like I was in a deep pit.

I pushed open the door, stepping into what appeared to be the trash disposal area. It seemed like there was some sort of recycling system in place for waste.

I wanted to see what kind of meat was in the bag, but a voice of reason stopped me—looking at it would be a bad idea. If I did, I’d most likely get contaminated, and I couldn’t afford that.

I tossed the bag into the meat recycling bin and shut the lid.

The moment I closed it, I heard a short, sharp scream.

Then everything fell silent.

What was that? Was the trash bin alive? Was this some kind of feeding mechanism?

I stared at the dark, quiet bin, my mind still trying to figure out what had just happened.

Suddenly, I heard a soft thud, and my heart froze. A wave of panic rushed through me.

The black trash bin reflected a glint of cold light.

Someone was behind me.

I spun around just in time to see a person standing there, holding an axe, standing close to me.

How had they gotten there? And why had they been so silent?

I recalled the Demon Hunter course I’d taken, and one of the key lessons was that contaminants dominate the environment within their zones. The pig-headed man was the master here, and I was just a visitor.

There was no time to escape.

In that moment, I saw a flash of blood as the axe swung and hit the back of my neck with precision. The blow was so powerful it almost severed my neck in half.

I blinked, feeling my body go limp as I fell forward.

The trash bin began to shake violently. Something was crawling out from inside.

I tried to steady myself, to fight back, but the trash bin lid flipped open, and a mass of tentacles poured out.

The tentacles grabbed hold of me, pulling me into the abyss as if it was feeding on me.

Thud—

I heard another thud. My heart pounded, but my body didn’t respond.

Then, in my mind, I heard the system’s voice:

【Elementary talent triggered: Danger Sense . A 30-second warning of impending danger has been sent. Please proceed with caution.】

I snapped back to reality, realizing the trash bin still reflected the pig-headed man—his axe hadn’t even been raised yet.

Had I just seen my own death?

So this was what danger sense was?

A glimpse into how I’d die, 30 seconds before it happened?

A way of predicting the manner of my death?

Before I could even process this new skill, I drew my shotgun and fired, blowing the pig-headed man’s head off before he could raise his axe.

Damn it. I hate sneak attacks.