Chapter 1: High-Risk Experimental Subject  

“Still no contact with that person?”  

The winter of the Orc Empire was eerily silent. The sound of Crown Prince Larence’s anxious pacing echoed clearly across the scarlet floor of the palace.  

“Your Highness Larence, Adjudicator No. 11’s outpost is buried under snow and ice. Our liaison team is already struggling just to climb that glacier. It will take quite some time before we receive any updates from the frontlines.”  

“Hmph. It’s a wonder that man has lasted so long in that godforsaken place.”  

Crown Prince Larence snorted through his nose. “It’d be best if he were already dead. Tell the liaison team to keep searching! I want to know whether he’s alive or not!”  

The day after this reply was received, the liaison team arrived at the glacier.  

Fully equipped, they halted at the entrance.  

A bone-chilling wind howled from the depths of the canyon, and they lacked the courage to press forward.  

This was no place for humans. Aside from a dilapidated wooden shack near the entrance—likely a supply point—there was no trace of human activity.  

No one was home, but venturing into the glacier in this weather would mean certain death.  

“Should… should we keep looking?” The youngest member of the team trembled as he spoke. “I’ve… never even seen what an Adjudicator looks like.”  

The team leader, the oldest among them, took a deep breath and declared loudly, “Even if he is an Adjudicator, no one could survive alone in these conditions for so long. He’s probably already dead!”  

The moment he finished speaking, a *click* sounded from the shack—someone had accidentally pressed a button while rummaging through an old radio.  

The radio crackled to life, tuning into one of the Empire’s channels.  

There was a signal, and the battery still had plenty of charge, proving the shack’s owner had used it not long ago.  

The rest of the liaison team exchanged uneasy glances.  

“He left recently?”  

One of them broke the silence. “But I don’t sense any traces of his Mental Power.”  

He scanned the surroundings. “Normal human activity should leave behind some residual Mental Power…”  

“Seems like the rumors are true,” a liaison officer whispered. “The reason Adjudicator No. 11 was exiled here is that he has no Mental Power at all…”  

No one responded.  

Even if this had long been a secret rumor among the Empire’s upper echelons, no one dared openly discuss an Adjudicator.  

“What do we do now?” the youngest member asked timidly. “Wait here?”  

“Quiet, all of you. Listen to what channel he was tuned into.”  

Another member turned up the volume. “If we can find a clue from the radio, maybe we can figure out where he went.”  

Everyone fell silent, holding their breath to listen carefully.  

After half a minute, someone couldn’t hold back anymore: “What the hell is this—”  

The radio’s sweet, clear female voice announced: “Fate awaits you now. Has any of our featured singles’ declarations moved your heart? Call in to the Capital’s First Radio Station, and we’ll arrange a sweet rendezvous for you…”  

“This is the Empire’s matchmaking channel…”  

*  

Meanwhile, on the far side of the distant glacier, the snow had stopped.  

This was the Orc Empire’s City of Extreme Cold. Once a thriving industrial hub, it now lay buried beneath a kilometer-thick layer of permafrost.

When the last snowflake drifted down, a massive crack split through the thousand-foot-thick ice, accompanied by the roar of violent winds.  

A young man with black hair and dark eyes stood at the edge of the fissure, holding his breath as he gazed into the abyss beneath the ice.  

The depths below were an unfathomable darkness.  

A terrifying, shrill shriek rose from the crack, spewing a blinding mist of snow that instantly engulfed the young man.  

But the piercing screech abruptly ceased, plunging the world into an eerie silence.  

The snow mist slowly settled.  

Adjudicator No. 11, Jing Rong, remained standing at the edge of the fissure. Only now, he held in his grasp the body—or rather, the vaguely humanoid form—of a creature.  

This being had a scaly, segmented fish tail and a flat, bluish-gray face. Its throat was clamped tightly in Jing Rong’s grip, rendering it incapable of making another sound.  

“626, help me identify this.”  

Jing Rong spoke. “I don’t recognize it.”  

The space around him was empty—there should have been nothing but the wind. Yet, moments later, a voice sounded beside him.  

“System 626 at your service. The thing—no, the *creature*—you’re holding is a mermaid suffering from severe Mental Contamination.”  

System 626 flipped through its biological database. “The mermaids in this world retain a body structure covered in hard, spiny protrusions. They possess a certain level of intelligence but are highly aggressive, making them one of the most dangerous fish species in this frozen wasteland.”  

“Of course, these mermaids have nothing in common with the legendary sirens.”  

Jing Rong seemed thoughtful as he tightened his grip on the mermaid’s neck, studying its face carefully.  

This process appeared to be somewhat difficult for him.  

After scrutinizing it for a while, Jing Rong finally said, “It really is ugly.”  

Hearing this, the hideous mermaid thrashed in indignation.  

*Damn it, that’s (fish) racism!*  

Jing Rong released his grip, letting the mermaid drop back into the fissure beneath the ice.  

The mermaid shot him a venomous glare before swiftly swimming away.  

System 626 sounded like it had just woken up. “You chased this thing nonstop for three days… just to catch *this*?”  

Jing Rong picked up his equipment bag from the ground, rummaging inside before pulling out a piece of compressed biscuit. He took a bite and replied, “One night, I saw it swim past beneath my feet. The color of its scales was unlike anything I’d ever seen. I wanted to see what it looked like.”  

System 626 fell silent for a moment. “Bro.”  

System 626 continued, “If you’re really struggling to find a partner, maybe you should just go back and try arranged marriage.”  

The icy wind howled as 626 genuinely felt sorry for its colleague. “At least the people you meet through matchmaking are still *human*.”  

Jing Rong: “…………”  

At this point, any further explanation would be futile.  

As a first-class executor of the Cosmic Enforcement Bureau, his purpose in coming to this world was indeed to find a partner.  

Before this, he had already gone through twenty-eight failed workplace matchmaking sessions, becoming the bureau’s sole remaining single member.  

In pursuit of a partner, he had taken paid leave from the bureau and begun searching for a potential spouse across various minor worlds.  

For the sake of worldline stability, his identity in each world was randomly generated, and certain system functions were restricted.  

But in this particular world, he had already spent a year wandering the frozen wasteland, spending his days staring down various contaminated creatures.  

Due to the nature of his assigned identity here, he was temporarily confined to this place.

“Let’s head back.” After finishing the compressed biscuit, Jing Rong stood up. “The wind from the canyon direction smells different today. What’s going on?”

System 626 scanned the map: “The map shows visitors arriving today—not just one, but many.”

Jing Rong raised an eyebrow: “Visitors?”

Only a select few knew his identity and location. If someone could find him, they must have come from the distant capital.

System 626 replied: “Their exact identities are unclear for now. Something seems to have happened in the royal capital, but my detection range is very limited. You know I’m on vacation too—this is all the information I could gather.”

Jing Rong fell into thought, gazing toward the distant edge of the snowfield. There was nothing but endless white, impossible to make out.

*

When Jing Rong appeared alone at the entrance of the snowfield with his gear, the liaison team stared at him as if they’d seen a ghost.

“Have a seat. Would you like hot water? Or hot cocoa?”

Jing Rong sat by the chairs, casually arranging a row of aluminum cups as he spoke. After receiving their answers, he began adding cocoa powder to each cup one by one.

The sound of boiling water filled the cups, steam dampening his jet-black hair.

The others stole glances at him, each face bearing varying degrees of astonishment.

Jing Rong was nothing like the Adjudicator they had imagined.

He was too calm—unnervingly so, lacking the solemnity and terror they associated with an Adjudicator.

Ignoring their curious looks, Jing Rong finished preparing the cocoa and handed them out.

The team leader accepted the cup from him. For some reason, though those eyes were tranquil, the moment he met Jing Rong’s gaze directly, he instinctively took a step back.

Jing Rong didn’t notice his reaction.

The leader tried to mask his discomfort: “Thank you for your hospitality… Adjudicator No. 11. We’re here to inform you that, by His Majesty’s secret order, there’s an urgent mission in the capital awaiting your participation.”

Jing Rong didn’t respond immediately. Only after distributing the last cup of cocoa did he ask indifferently: “What mission?”

His tone conveyed his lack of enthusiasm: “If the mission details are unclear, even a royal order gives me the right to refuse.”

Under Adjudicator law, the highest-ranking Adjudicators could reject commands from the royal family.

Jing Rong wasn’t one to seek trouble, and these people had clearly brought a thorny task from the capital—one that didn’t align with his paid vacation plans.

As if anticipating his attitude, the leader handed over a thick leather document pouch, lowering his voice to a tense whisper.

“An SSS-class High-Risk Experimental Subject has escaped.”

At the mention of “SSS-class,” Jing Rong paused briefly.

System 626 also flickered in his mental domain.

The previously silent 626 spoke up: “An SSS-class High-Risk Experimental Subject. Given its designation, no one in this world has sufficient Mental Power to oppose it.”

“Even the highest-level royal Mental Power users only reach SS-class.”

System 626 added: “I don’t recommend you recklessly take on this mission. It’s undoubtedly a major plotline closely tied to the world’s core narrative.”

Jing Rong agreed with 626’s assessment.

Having executed critical missions across multiple worlds, he had developed sharp instincts for such pivotal figures.

Without the request from the Cosmic Operations Bureau, he generally had no intention of interfering with the worldlines.

Usually, it required extra payment.

But right now, he was just on paid leave and didn’t need to get entangled in too much karma.

Jing Rong casually flipped through a few pages and was about to return the documents to the team leader when his gaze suddenly stopped on a photograph.

The photo was high-definition, with excellent color reproduction—the only one with clear facial features. The young man in the picture had his head lowered, his body covered in wounds, his wrists and ankles deeply scarred by shackles.

To be fair, it was an exquisitely beautiful yet cruel photograph.

But Jing Rong felt little emotion.

He suffered from severe prosopagnosia—his perception of human or humanoid features was practically nonexistent.

What caught his eye was the disheveled mane of fiery red hair, so vivid that even the cold prison light couldn’t dull its blazing hue.

Across countless worlds he had visited, he had never seen such a hair color.