A Guide to Humanity’s Extinction

The sky cleared. Ke Mingqing slipped on his earphones and set off down a sunlit sloping street.

Ginkgo trees swayed in the morning breeze on either side of the road, scattering pale green leaves across the ground. Bicycle wheels rolled through the fallen foliage, chains rattling in the sunlight.

Most of the students riding past cast glances at Ke Mingqing.

Some looked surprised; others let out low, mocking chuckles. The murmurs followed him the entire way, but Ke Mingqing simply played deaf behind his earphones, his expression perfectly calm.

The ”school bus incident” had spread like wildfire among the student body.

After all, the person involved was right there beside them, and people always paid the most attention to things they could see and touch.

Some admired Ke Mingqing for acting so decisively in a crisis despite being a normal human, rather than resigning himself to fate like the rest of the students. Others simply mocked him, claiming he was just trying to act tough like Jiahao from the next class.

Opinions were completely polarized—a perfect reflection of the modern internet.

But no one paid any attention to the warehouse explosion from last night, nor did anyone care about the drug dealer who had died in it...

The only person who cared was probably Rain Crow.

Yet even after Ke Mingwei spent the entire night using all his connections at the Super Hero Company to investigate the name ”White Jack,” he turned up absolutely nothing.

That was because it was nothing more than an alias Ke Mingqing had made up on the spot.

White Jack had existed for less than a day. Other than Rain Crow, no one had ever interacted with him.

Ke Mingqing yawned, dragging his sluggish gaze away from his phone.

Now that he had escaped the high-pressure environment of his home, the tension vanished, and exhaustion hit him like a wave.

A moment later, however, a series of panels popped up in his vision, instantly waking him up.

[Prompt: ”Weekly Missions” feature unlocked (missions will refresh automatically every Sunday at midnight; previous missions will disappear, so please complete them in time).]

[Weekly Mission 1: Complete 100 push-ups in a single day. (Reward: 1 Attribute Point)]

[Weekly Mission 2: Kill one of the super-human species. (Reward: 1 Item Roulette draw)]

”Today is Monday, so I have six days to finish,” he muttered to himself. ”The push-ups are easy, I can just take my time with those at school... As for killing one of the super-human species, if I tail that crow guy and pick off his scraps, stealing the kills on the super-human species criminals he catches, would he stomp his feet in rage?”

At that thought, Ke Mingqing suddenly noticed a gaze fixed on him from a distance.

He tilted his head slightly, glancing back out of the corner of his eye. A girl with a teardrop mole was walking his way.

She didn’t speed up to walk beside him, choosing instead to casually trail behind him.

Seeing this, Ke Mingqing looked away, stuffed his hands into his pockets, and silently kept walking.

A short while later, the girl with the teardrop mole sent him a message.

A chat interface popped up in his field of vision.

[Kuroki Hitomi: Why did your player ID disappear?]

[Ke Mingqing: It’s the effect of my exclusive Talent. What about yours?]

[Kuroki Hitomi: My Talent is ”Lucky Coin.” It gives me a chance to get an extra spin on the roulette, generate an extra weekly mission, or force the shop to refresh with high-level skills.]

[Ke Mingqing: Not bad. Sounds way more useful than mine... Oh, right, if you run into any other players later, keep my existence a secret. Don’t let them know about me.]

[Kuroki Hitomi: You’re not going to interact with other players?]

[Ke Mingqing: I’ll assess the situation first. Besides, there are only a hundred players globally; Leijing won’t have that many.]

Ke Mingqing and Kuroki Hitomi walked one after the other, maintaining the exact same distance as they conversed silently through the interface.

The sunlit road stretched out between the ginkgo trees, throwing patches of shade beneath the branches. They walked on into the distance, passing through alternating bands of light and shadow.

[Kuroki Hitomi: Mm... Oh, by the way, there’s a super-human species in my family too. Her codename is Magical Girl Little Red Riding Hood.]

Ke Mingqing felt like he had finally found a kindred spirit. He was just about to type back: ”Having a super-human species in the family is great! Now you can experience the exact same ’loving parent, filial child, and affectionate siblings’ dynamic that I do!”

But before he could hit send, a tall, thin figure came sprinting over from the distance.

Ke Mingqing turned his head, his eyes landing on a handsome, clean-cut young man.

The young man was about 1.82 meters tall and wore the same blue-and-white school uniform. His name was Jiang Qingzi.

Jiang Qingzi was a friend of the body’s original owner.

The two had known each other for five or six years, and they were close enough to share a single pair of pants.

In the past, they would often drag a desk to the school rooftop after class, drinking sodas as they watched the sun sink below the horizon and take the city’s lingering daylight with it.

Unfortunately, high school regulations were much stricter, so they gradually lost the freedom to do that.

It was worth mentioning that this guy, Jiang Qingzi, was a famous rich kid at school. As a pampered young master, he had a private car chauffeuring him to and from school every day, saving him from ever needing the school bus.

Otherwise, there likely would have been one more student dragged into last night’s school bus incident.

”More money than brains, completely lacking in common sense”—that was the mental label Ke Mingqing had slapped onto Jiang Qingzi based on his inherited memories.

Right now, Jiang Qingzi was sprinting over like the wind. Taking massive strides, he slammed the brakes right in front of Ke Mingqing—crashing into him and shoving both hands heavily onto his shoulders. Ke Mingqing was nearly knocked flat, pinned down by the sheer weight.

Letting out a long, heavy sigh, Ke Mingqing asked, ”Is there something wrong with your brain?”

As he spoke, however, Ke Mingqing suddenly froze. A status panel for a super-human species had just materialized above Jiang Qingzi’s head.

[Superhuman Codename: Black Magic Hand]

[Type: Esper]

[Danger Rating: A Rank]

[Superhuman Profile: Left wandering the streets at a young age due to a broken home, he was eventually adopted by the leader of the international thief organization, Death Crow, and became one of its members. Death Crow consists of 10 people who stop at nothing, committing arson, murder, and robbery. They are currently listed on the Super Hero Company’s SS-Rank Wanted List.]

[Known Weaknesses: None.]

At the same time, a new mission prompt sprang into Ke Mingqing’s vision.

[Main Mission 3 (Phase 1): Use your secondary identity to make contact with the supercriminal Black Magic Hand and attract his attention, thereby intersecting with the thief organization, Death Crow.]

”Is there a fucking end to this...”

Ke Mingqing’s eye twitched as he stared at the blood-red text that read Death Crow.

Death Crow. Anyone with a pulse knew they were a notorious criminal syndicate. You only had to log onto the official Super Hero website to see their active bounties. Among their ranks were individuals known as The Pope and Red Pirate.

Death Crow had previously committed several world-shaking atrocities: slaughtering everyone at a Seoul auction house and stealing all the merchandise; looting the British Museum and murdering the UK’s strongest Esper bodyguard, White Arc; and even assaulting a military transport ship in the Pacific Ocean, only to immediately sell the stolen supplies to another country’s mafia.

You couldn’t list all their crimes on a single piece of paper if you tried.

If they ever fell into official hands, every member of Death Crow would be sentenced to the firing squad at least a hundred times over. And Jiang Qingzi... was actually a member of this very syndicate.

A stampede of a thousand curses trampled through Ke Mingqing’s mind.

’Bro, oh bro,’ he thought in disbelief. ’So your rich kid persona was a complete fabrication? Does that mean the luxury car you ride to school was stolen too? You’ve been playing with my feelings all these years?’

”Holy shit, do you have any idea? I watched the video circulating on the school forum last night! Everyone’s saying you told off Rain Crow! I was so hyped I went crazy telling everyone you were my best bro...”

Jiang Qingzi faked being out of breath, rambling incessantly as he slapped Ke Mingqing’s shoulder.

Ke Mingqing stared at him in silence. ’Just keep acting,’ he thought. ’As long as you’re having fun.’

Think about it: an A Rank member of the super-human species capable of soaring through the skies and tearing through the earth was somehow violently panting in front of him after jogging a short distance. It was basically like a champion swimmer doing an interview and claiming they were afraid of water, or that taking too long of a shower made them faint.

”Why aren’t you saying anything?”

Jiang Qingzi gasped for air, resting his hands on his knees as he bumped his shoulder against Ke Mingqing. ”Your eyes are full of resentment. Did Rain Crow lecture you so hard on the bus last night that you went mute?”

Ke Mingqing let his head hang in defeat and replied bluntly, ”Yeah, yeah, exactly. The whole school bus thing last night gave me psychological trauma. Do you mind not jumping out at me like that?”

Just then, Kuroki Hitomi, who was still trailing not too far behind him, sent another message.

[Kuroki Hitomi: Take him out?]

[Ke Mingqing: Me?]

[Kuroki Hitomi: Us.]

Ke Mingqing froze for a moment, silently staring at the message on the panel. Kuroki Hitomi’s response was so unyielding, like she was swearing a blood oath—it was a bit too much for him to handle.

[Ke Mingqing: Sure, sounds great. You go take him out, and I’ll cheer for you from the back.]