Chapter 1: The New Job

Kelly woke up to the sound of knocking on her door.

"Open the door! Stop pretending you're not home. I know you're in there!"

Her first instinct was to reach for the knife under her pillow before she remembered she was no longer in the zombie-infested world.

Ten days ago, Kelly had been fighting zombies in the apocalypse. She had just infiltrated a mission site when she heard the bomb countdown behind her.

Five, four, three, two, one.

With a loud explosion, Kelly didn't have time to find cover. She felt a moment of weightlessness. When she came to, she found herself lying in an abandoned garbage room. It was raining acid that day, and the sky was a bleak yellow.

Her abdomen was in excruciating pain, with a piece of metal embedded in it, blood soaking through her clothes.

Driven by the instinct to survive, Kelly crawled with all her strength to an automatic medical vending machine and spent all her money on a powerful healing agent. After stopping the bleeding, she followed the memories of her predecessor to get back to her residence.

This was a wasteland world, where eighty percent of the land had been contaminated. Humans could only survive within high walls to fend off the monsters outside.

At least there were walls to protect her from the dangers.

In her previous world, zombies had taken over everything. Every day was a struggle for survival, and she never knew if she would see the next day's sun.

The wasteland world had its technology fully developed, with powerful healing agents, gene enhancers, and nutrient solutions.

And then there was... the system.

When she first woke up, she had bound herself to a purification system. In her previous life, she had nothing. When she first got the system, she thought her luck had changed and examined the panel over and over again.

Name: Kelly

Age: 19

Education: Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering

Identity: Fifth-Class Citizen

Talent: Unknown

Mutation Direction: Unknown

Degree of Mutation: Unknown

Physical Strength: Unenhanced

Mental Value: 100 (average human value is 20)

All the following categories were grayed out and needed to be activated autonomously. Except for the high mental value, there was nothing remarkable. In other words, it was a brand-new panel for a newcomer, not even with a welcome package.

The system conveniently issued a main mission: Purify the contaminated land and rebuild humanity's home.

What? Why not just send her to her death directly?

As the saying goes, you can't paint a pie too big. When you face an impossible task, you just want to be a couch potato. Kelly had no will to survive and even thought this world was fake, and the system was just nonsense.

Let it all collapse, just like this.

For the past ten days, Kelly had been lying low, barely leaving her room and surviving on nutrient solutions. Unfortunately, reality seemed to have other plans for her.

"Kelly, open the door!" The person waiting outside was growing impatient. "If you don't open up, I'll break the door down!"

Kelly got up reluctantly and opened the door. Outside stood a short old woman, only 1.2 meters tall, suffering from dwarfism. She was the building manager, Auntie Wei.

Auntie Wei thumped the ground with her cane. "Rent."

Rent? They still had to pay rent in this dilapidated place?

"How much?" Kelly asked.

Auntie Wei gave her a strange look. "Twelve months' rent is twenty-four thousand new coins."

"How much?" Kelly couldn't believe her ears. Her entire fortune was only seven hundred new coins.

"Twenty-four thousand," Auntie Wei repeated.

Kelly took a deep breath. This was a ruthless wasteland world. Did they really pay rent on a twelve-month basis here?

"If you don't rent, get out. Plenty of people are waiting to take your place," Auntie Wei said, tapping the ground with her cane and staring at Kelly with her beady eyes.

Kelly realized she had acted strangely just now. The previous occupant had lived here for five years; how could she suddenly forget about the rent?

"Rent," Kelly said. "Give me two more days."

"By the end of the month at the latest," Auntie Wei asked. "Are you going crazy again?"

Again? Going crazy again?

From the few words she heard, Kelly sensed that the previous occupant had been mentally ill, and it seemed everyone knew about it. Her memory loss regarding the rent was normal in their eyes.

Kelly decided to play along. "Yeah, I've had a headache lately."

Auntie Wei believed her and didn't ask any more questions.

Kelly said, "I'll definitely pay the rent by the end of the month. Don't look for a new tenant yet."

Kelly still had many things about the previous occupant to figure out. If she got kicked out, she wouldn't even have a place to stay.

Auntie Wei gave her a meaningful look. "Don't turn my house into a haunted place."

Kelly frowned. The day she had come home covered in blood, she had accidentally bumped into Auntie Wei. In her eyes, Kelly might have seemed like a failed suicide attempt.

Before leaving, Auntie Wei said, "Deal with the payment notices at the door."

Payment notices? Kelly stuck her head out. There were all kinds of payment reminders stuck to her door—water and electricity bills, property fees, management fees, and taxes.

Kelly tore off the thick stack of payment notices and quickly calculated. She owed about eight thousand new coins to various management departments. Eight thousand in payments, twenty-four thousand in rent, and future expenses.

Starting with a debt, she felt like dying and being reborn again.

She took the payment notices back into her room. Avoidance was shameful but effective, and the system hadn't given any more prompts in these past few days.

Kelly sat in front of the computer. The huge computer screen was considered high-tech in her time, but it was just an antique in this era.

It was too old-fashioned. Except in Zone 103, few people still used this model. But because it was old-fashioned, Kelly had no trouble operating it.

She opened the job recruitment website.

With her past "rich work experience," there must be plenty of jobs that paid well quickly. If not, she could always go back to her old line of work.

The job recruitment website listed a wide variety of occupations, some of which Kelly couldn't even understand. After scrolling through, she saw that there were tens of thousands of job openings. There were so many jobs, Kelly thought optimistically.

Someone was recruiting mercenaries. Kelly's eyes lit up, and she almost volunteered on the spot.

Me, professional, pick me.

Few problems, fast work, guaranteed satisfaction for the employer. But as soon as she clicked in, a pop-up window appeared: the hard requirement was third-class citizens and above.

Damn it! She was blocked by her citizen class.

In the wasteland world, all citizens were screened for genes at birth and classified according to the screening standards. Unfortunately, Kelly's gene screening didn't pass, and she was classified as a "defective," a fifth-class citizen.

She noticed a filtering button in the upper right corner. The website could automatically screen for suitable positions for her. She entered her personal information, citizen class, and educational credentials, then clicked to filter and match jobs.

Whoosh—

After the page refreshed, hundreds of pages of jobs disappeared, leaving only one page.

Kelly: "……"

On that page, ten jobs prioritized males. This damn world also had discrimination. Only six jobs were left that fit her criteria, all of which were nursing, repair work, or nannies.

Kelly looked through them one by one. Wait, this job wasn't bad. Three hours for five thousand new coins, plus commission?

This was a... cleaner?

Kelly read carefully. The information was too brief. Garbage collector, the job was to sweep trash. Just working for three hours would earn five thousand new coins, and the commission was awarded based on specific circumstances.

The website automatically calculated the average salary, which was... twenty-five thousand? What kind of trash were they sweeping to earn twenty-five thousand? Collecting corpses?

An average salary of twenty-five thousand, no restrictions on age, gender, education, or citizen class? This seemed like a scam to lure people in.

Federal law required that job recruitment information must be true; falsification could lead to imprisonment. Collecting corpses was worth a try, so Kelly clicked the application button.

Whoosh—

The website burst into colorful fireworks, congratulating her on the successful application.

Whoosh—

You have been hired by our company.

Kelly: "……"

Immediate hiring? No interview? A hundred percent acceptance rate, as if they were afraid she would change her mind? But it was too late for her to regret now because she had a new email in her mailbox. She had received an offer.

……

The start time was at six-thirty in the evening, and the workplace was near the incinerator in Zone 103. The company was called the Zone 103 Cleaning Center.

When Kelly saw the company name, she was taken aback for a moment. It wasn't some fly-by-night company. She followed the navigation into the cleaning company's entrance, where there was no security check, only a robot to guide her.

The robot pressed the button for the 49th floor. The building had a total of 360 floors; the top floor seemed to pierce the clouds.

Ding—

The elevator doors slid open to both sides, and Kelly was stunned by what she saw—a chaotic mess.

The lobby was noisy, with mountains of paperwork piled on every desk. The employee nearest to Kelly was losing their temper. "Stop beating around the bush and just tell me if it can be done!"

Two others were arguing heatedly, their faces flushed. "How is this my fault? The approval document didn't come down. Can't you be reasonable?" "Whoever started the Class A program, let them take the blame!"

It didn't feel like a cleaning center; it was more like a securities center. A woman in a business suit noticed Kelly. With her hair neatly coiled and delicate features, she looked like an assistant. The young lady hurried over with an apologetic smile. "Sorry, it's just really busy here."

"No problem," Kelly replied.

"Kelly, right?" The young lady glanced down at her tablet and said softly, "I'm Kelly, the center's assistant."

The surname Fang—what an elegant name.

"Don't worry, your first day won't be too difficult. Just follow the instructions and you'll be fine," Kelly said as she guided Kelly along. "The probationary period is just one day. If you pass, you'll be officially hired the next day."

Kelly sensed their desperation for new employees, just like the speed at which they sent out offers. It was all too fast.

Kelly led her into a conference room. "Let me explain the salary structure. The base pay is five thousand new coins, and all you need to do is work for three hours. For every additional hour, you get an extra thousand new coins. The commission is calculated based on the number of items, with different prices for different levels. Generally, you can earn more than ten thousand."

Kelly was overwhelmed by the string of numbers. The pay was incredibly high.

But based on her experience, introducing the salary first and then the job content meant the work was probably challenging.

Kelly asked, "What exactly is the job?"

Kelly, who had been speaking rapidly like a machine gun, suddenly paused. She put on a very serious expression and looked at Kelly, making her a little nervous.

Was it that difficult? What kind of thing would they be dealing with?

Kelly lowered her voice and asked gravely, "Miss Kelly, are you afraid of monsters?"

Huh? Is that it?

Kelly replied, "...Not really."

To be honest, she had seen too many.She had seen too many corpses before, human ones, zombie ones, and some that she couldn't even identify. To her, seeing a body was like seeing a streetlight.

"Fearlessness is good. You can start working," Kelly said.

Kelly: "...Is it that simple?"

She had thought there would be some kind of test.

"Our job isn't technically difficult. The only requirement is to have a strong nerve, not be afraid of blood or gore, have high stress tolerance, and maintain good mental health," Kelly explained.

Kelly paused for a moment and asked in a low voice, "So it's about collecting bodies?"

"You can think of it that way. We need to clean up the scene," Kelly replied.

As expected, since they asked if she was afraid of monsters and corpses, she would definitely be dealing with those things. Kelly quickly understood two things: First, there was some kind of mysterious monster in this world, and she didn't need to know what it was. Second, the corpses of these monsters needed to be collected by someone.

The job wasn't difficult. No interview was required, and the hiring process was so simple that it must be a support role. Such jobs usually didn't require facing conflicts directly; they just needed someone to follow the main team and clean up afterward.

Kelly's previous life had been a daily struggle for survival, so this job seemed overly simple to her.

"Such a high salary and yet they can't find people?" Kelly asked.

The pay was five thousand new coins for just three hours, and according to the website's calculation, the daily wage would be tens of thousands.

In the wasteland world, where most jobs had been taken over by robots, this job would be highly sought after once it was posted.

Kelly sighed, "There aren't many people who meet the criteria. Most can't handle it. Our longest-serving employee has only been with us for eight and a half years, and many quit after just three months."

Kelly: "Why?"

Kelly looked troubled, "It's easy to go crazy if you do this job for too long, which is why we're always recruiting."

Kelly: "Go crazy?"

"Yes," Kelly said with a wry smile, "Most people can't take the mental strain. But we monitor our employees' health. When someone can't handle it anymore, the center will step in and stop them. But don't worry, we won't force anyone to work. We cover medical expenses for injuries, and there's a monthly pension after resignation."

It sounded cruel yet warm in its own way.

"So our probationary period is only one day. If you can make it through one day, you'll be fine," Kelly said.

Kelly asked, "What about robots?"

It seemed like there was some kind of mental field involved. If humans were affected, robots should be fine.

"Robots will short-circuit," Kelly replied.

Kelly: "?"

Kelly: "I can't say much more. No amount of talking can replace your own experience."

"To be honest, we desperately need new people, but the job has a certain level of confidentiality, which is why I have to explain it to you clearly," Kelly said, pushing a stack of contracts in front of her.

Kelly glanced at them. The confidentiality contract didn't list many specific terms; it basically just required her to keep what she saw a secret.

One contract was for the probationary period, to protect Kelly's basic rights, and another was a safety agreement, which was very long—twenty pages in total. Kelly read it carefully, and a few clauses caught her attention.

Article 11: Any casualties during work shall be fully the responsibility of the Federal Cleaning Center, with triple compensation according to Annex 15, Article 3.

Article 35: Those who suffer permanent disabilities will be taken care of for life by the Federation.

The safety agreement mentioned casualties.

"Is it dangerous?" Kelly asked.

"There is some risk, but the probability is low. Generally, by the time the cleaners go in, it's already clean," Kelly said.

After all, they were not the vanguard. The dangers were handled by those who went in first. In summary, it was the most laid-back job among dangerous occupations, perfectly suited for Kelly, who preferred to take it easy.

After reading through all the terms, Kelly signed the contracts decisively.

She figured any job was a job, so why not choose one with a high salary? She had always liked the idea of earning enough for a month in one day and then taking it easy for the remaining 29 days.

Kelly's wrist device beeped; someone else was looking for her. She said to Kelly, "Your workplace today is the A7 Sewer. Someone will take you there."

Kelly operated something on her screen. "We have a prepaid system. Your attendance wage for today will be transferred to you first, and the commission will be settled after you finish the job."

Ding! Kelly's wrist flashed as five thousand new coins were credited to her account. She felt like she was just here to make easy money.

……

Kelly underwent an hour of basic employee training, commonly known as: "Zero-Basis, One-Hour Guide to Garbage Collection."

The training time was counted as working hours, so this training video was particularly valuable.

Kelly watched the video very carefully. After all, it was still a somewhat dangerous job, and she couldn't afford to be careless.

The corpses in the training video were all mangled and unrecognizable. From what she could see, it was almost impossible to tell what kind of monster it was. She only knew that the official term was "contaminant."

Kelly memorized every step. She was quick to grasp the essentials. In summary, it was about collecting bodies and cleaning up the scene, which was quite simple for her.

After watching the video, someone took her to change into her "work uniform." She didn't expect that changing clothes would be the most time-consuming part, taking a full twenty minutes.