Online Game: My Decay Drives the Entire Server Crazy

Chapter 94: The game boosting service is booming, specifically targeting unscrupulous overseas whales.Ghost’s onboarding process was simpler than anyone imagined. No interview, no probation, and no pre-job training. Lin Ye sent the coordinates for the third floor of the Unscrupulous Business Center via private message. At 3:00 AM the next day, a young man wearing a black hoodie appeared in the alley behind the business center’s back door. Fatty Wang, who had gotten up in the middle of the night to check the warehouse, was startled by the figure crouching in the alley and almost triggered the security alarm. The figure stood up, revealing a pale face under the hood, and spoke softly: ”I am Ghost. Brother Ye told me to report in.”

When Fatty Wang led him into the VIP room on the third floor, Lin Ye was sitting by the window drinking tea. Ghost stood at the door without entering, his eyes fixed on the floor and both hands shoved in his pockets, looking like a startled cat. Lin Ye didn’t stand up, but simply pointed to the chair opposite him. Ghost hesitated for a moment before walking over and sitting down, never looking up the entire time.

”You watched me from the shadows for a long time. What did you see?”

Ghost remained silent for a while before pulling a palm-sized holographic projector from his pocket and placing it on the table. The projector started automatically, spreading a dense stream of data in the air. Overseas server cheat transaction records, the cross-server fraud networks of black-hearted whales, the flow of funds from gambling groups controlling cross-server events, and chat logs of the US Server’s Freedom Alliance secretly colluding with game insiders. Every piece of data was marked with time, location, personnel involved, and monetary amounts, precise to two decimal places.

”I’ve collected these over the past three months. The grey industries of the overseas servers, from cheat manufacturing to gold laundering, from event manipulation to account theft—there are over a dozen lines in total. I only collected them before because I didn’t have the ability to deal with them. That was until I saw the livestream where you wiped out the Anti-Unscrupulous Alliance in the Cross-Server Core Zone.” Ghost looked up at Lin Ye once and then quickly lowered his head again. ”You used the Cross-Dimensional Contagion Chain to compress the Abyssal Lord’s summoning delay to under three seconds. That logic perfectly matches the defense mechanism of the game’s underlying code. Your Talent isn’t just a simple game skill; it resonates with the game’s core code.”

Lin Ye set down his teacup and looked into Ghost’s eyes. What this young man said was highly consistent with what he had felt before that grey door deep within the Test Server.

”What do you want?”

”I want to work with you. No salary, no title. I just want a corner where I can work in peace and someone who can protect me.” Ghost’s voice was soft, but every word was steady. ”I can help you keep an eye on all the grey industries in the overseas servers, build a global intelligence network, and monitor the fund flows of black-hearted whales. Just give me a corner.”

Lin Ye turned to look at Su Qinghan. Su Qinghan nodded slightly. Lin Ye stood up, walked over to Ghost, and reached out his hand. ”Head of the Technical Department. Salary will be at market rate, and benefits will be the same as core members. You can pick your own office location—stay wherever you want. But there’s one rule: the Technical Department is only open to you, and all your work is reported directly to me.”

Ghost reached out and shook Lin Ye’s hand. His hand was cold but his grip was firm.

That afternoon, a new business section was added to the official website of the Unscrupulous Business Center. The name of the section was simple and direct—Cross-Server Vile Power-leveling, Specializing in Curing Scumbags. The first item of service was to stand up for wronged solo players and counter-attack kill-stealers and black-hearted whales. The second was to track cross-server scammers and recover stolen materials and gold. The third was to deal with overseas guilds that maliciously monopolized resources and force the cancellation of unfair trading contracts. The fourth was even more direct—orders to actively bully ordinary players are not accepted, and once verified, the ordering account will be permanently blacklisted.

As soon as the business announcement was posted, Fatty Wang’s private message box was flooded. The first to place an order was a solo player from the Chinese Server’s Novice Village. While farming materials in the wild, his boss was snatched by a US Server whale. Not only were the materials stolen, but he was also mocked: ”Chinese Server poor dogs don’t deserve to farm materials.” Lin Ye personally took this order, teleported across servers to the US Server, found that whale, and applied the ”Mandatory Transaction Penalty” debuff. The effect was immediate—that whale sold a legendary weapon in the Trading House that day, and the moment the transaction was completed, an equivalent amount of gold was deducted from his account. When he tried to buy potions, he found his gold balance had become negative, and he immediately posted on the forum complaining about ”encountering a game bug.” Lin Ye replied with two words under the post: ”Not a bug, it’s what you owe.” Then he sent the recovered materials back to the solo player in the Novice Village exactly as they were.

The second order came from a solo guild on the Korean Server. They had been scammed by a local black-hearted power-leveling studio. They paid a large amount of gold for help with a dungeon first clear, but the studio vanished into thin air after taking the money. Ghost took over this case and took less than a day to find that the group had changed their name and fled to the US Server to continue scamming. Lin Ye chased them across servers and applied the ”Fortune Zeroing” debuff to every member of the studio. All their transaction activities were forcibly canceled by the system, and the gold they had already scammed was returned to the victims’ accounts. The group broke down and started cursing in the cross-server channel, while a US Server solo player posted a screenshot of the arrival of funds under the post: ”My gold is back, not a penny missing.”

Yamada Ichiro of the Sakura Shrine proactively made a huge neon billboard for the Unscrupulous Business Center in the game, placing it in the most prominent spot of Edo City’s square. The slogan was written by Lin Ye himself: ”The bottom line of being unscrupulous is not to bully ordinary people. If there are kill-stealers, scammers, or black-hearted power-levelers around you, come to us. We’ll do the unscrupulous work; we’ll protect your dignity.”

In just one week, the schedule for Cross-Server Vile Power-leveling orders was booked nine months out. Fatty Wang’s hands were cramping from filtering orders, and Su Qinghan’s voice was hoarse from coordinating with clients. Ghost set up a global intelligence monitoring system in a corner office he chose for himself in the Technical Department, with a dozen holographic screens lined up, refreshing grey industry data from overseas servers in real-time. Po Jun led the security team to provide cross-server escort for each power-leveling mission, from the Chinese Server to the Korean Server and then to the US Server, ensuring the safety of material transport for the power-leveling orders.

The renewal rate for the global protection fee package quietly climbed to over ninety-five percent. Many small and medium-sized guilds proactively messaged Fatty Wang, saying they renewed not because they feared Lin Ye, but because Vile Power-leveling truly helped them solve many problems they couldn’t handle on their own. A solo player from a small Southeast Asian server sent Lin Ye a long private message, the last sentence being: ”Before, we could only endure being bullied, but now with you, we know someone will speak up for justice on our behalf.”

Lin Ye sat by the window on the third floor of the Unscrupulous Business Center, looking at the weekly report on overseas server grey industries that Ghost had just submitted. The last page of the report had a line highlighted in red: William, the leader of the US Server’s Freedom Alliance, has recently been in secret contact with several non-contracted guild leaders, suspected of planning to bypass the Vile Power-leveling business to form a ”Counter-Alliance.”

Su Qinghan also saw that line. She frowned slightly. ”After William was wiped out last time, he was quiet for a while. Why has he popped up again?”

Lin Ye put down the report and took a sip of tea. Ghost sat quietly in the corner, his fingers flying across the keyboard as if tracking something. After a moment, he stopped, turned to Lin Ye, and spoke in his usual soft voice: ”William didn’t use the guild elites directly this time. He spread rumors among US Server solo players, saying that Vile Power-leveling’s high fees are just a way to exploit ordinary players. He also forged chat logs of our power-leveling orders, taking snippets out of context to say we take money privately to help whales suppress solo players.”

Fatty Wang got angry as soon as he heard this. ”When did we ever help whales suppress solo players? Our review standards are so strict; we don’t accept any orders to actively bully ordinary players. What did he use to forge those chat logs?”

Ghost replied softly, ”It’s not hard to handle from a technical level. There’s a glaring loophole in his forged records: the order number format in the screenshots doesn’t match our actual format. Our order numbers automatically embed a Cross-Dimensional Energy Signature when generated, which is created in real-time and extremely difficult to replicate.” He projected several comparison images of the genuine and forged records onto the holographic screen; the difference was clear at a glance.

Lin Ye stood up and walked to the window, looking at that golden custom gaming pod in Dawn City’s square. Solo players were still lining up to experience it, the queue as long as ever, with everyone’s face glowing.

”Post the comparison screenshots of the truth versus the forgery on the US Server forums and pin them. Then issue a cross-server announcement.” Lin Ye turned around, a slight smile on his face. ”The title of the announcement should be: Vile Power-leveling Annual Operations Report No. 1. The subtitle: We protect your dignity, but for rumor-mongers, dignity is not included in the free shipping.”