Players are coming, fortunately I have a time travel simulator

After accepting the task, the first step of the task prompt is:

[Talk to Sherlock and listen to his introduction.]

The steps are similar to those of the Giant Mission, which is equivalent to the cutscene that starts the mission, and also contains a lot of possible details of the mission.

Then Sherlock chattered to Zhou Ning about some details of the mission.

"It all started about a month ago when the Docklands East Police Department was investigating a series of disappearances. After investigation, they zeroed in on a wealthy businessman named Jeremy Wayne Aiden."

"Because his neighbor called the police at Docklands East Police Station, claiming that he saw a group of ghosts in Aiden's yard when he passed by last night, including the figure of a missing teenager."

"At the time, many people didn't take it seriously because Aiden was, on the surface, a super-rich man. He owned a large carriage rental company, and his annual turnover exceeded 200,000 Victa last year."

"In addition, he is a devout Ascetic. He is very active in the local community and is willing to help others. He is also very active in politics and a close friend of many nobles. He was the first to provide free labor services. Just last year, he was appointed by the church as the director of the parade for the Christmas Day of the Sun Goddess. His future is very bright."

"But when the police raided his mansion on Canary Street, they discovered it was a massive cemetery. Aiden had already moved most of his property and fled. Police excavated 35 bodies around his mansion, many of which were in pieces and could not be put back together. Aiden seemed to have a crazy fascination with death. He killed countless people in cold blood, burying the bodies of 28 of his victims in his fireplace and gas pipes, burying four in his yard, and discarding the remains of the other three known victims in the nearby Seton River."

"Because this incident clearly had supernatural traces, Ian and Cherry became involved in the investigation. They discovered handcuffs, a folding knife, ropes, incense, idols, an altar, and other items in a secret room in Aiden's home. They also confirmed that Aiden had contracted a terminal illness earlier this year and was attempting to sacrifice humans to the evil god, reviving him and appeasing him to gain his favor. He had also recruited a significant number of his company's employees into his followers, either voluntarily or by force. Oh, and the coachman who drove the carriage carrying the alchemical bomb into the campus that day was one of his employees."

"Although I don't know the outcome of his sacrifice, I personally tend to believe it was successful, because since then, Aiden seems to have recovered his health."

"That very night, Ian and his friends saw many undead spirits appear in Aiden's mansion and yard. Some of them resembled zombies and were very aggressive, while others were more like vengeful spirits, simply wandering around in the same place."

"As you can see, Ian had very bad luck for a long time, and more sightings of the undead appeared in many parts of Docklands, becoming more and more severe as time went on."

Zhou Ning couldn't help but let out a breath. This story sounded quite bizarre. Just by listening to the narration, he could imagine the image of Jeremy Wayne Eden.

A cold-blooded, cruel and shrewd man.

"Did Aiden get caught later?"

"No. That's why I want your help. We want to capture Aiden and find out the real reason why the undead appeared, but we don't have enough manpower." Sherlock shook his head and added.

Then Sherlock handed a thick stack of files to Zhou Ning: "This is the relevant file about this incident, it should be helpful to you."

"What about you?" Zhou Ning asked.

"We have other plans." Sherlock spread his hands helplessly. "If necessary, Kyle Robbins can be temporarily loaned to you."

"Forget it." Zhou Ning shook his head and began to read the file in his hand.

The first is a portrait of Jeremy Wayne Eden, a middle-aged man with a portly figure, fair skin, and brown eyes. His physical features are very distinct.

After flipping through all the files page by page, the task prompt only appeared on the panel at this time.

[Traces of the Dead]

[This mission is a large-scale serial mission. You can advance the mission by completing the following objectives.]

[Hidden secret: A torn diary was found in an abandoned house on Canary Street.]

[Mystery of the Ancient House: A wandering ghost has been found near an ancient house in South Wales County (coordinates 749, 1212). Unknown clues are hidden within this ghost. Please find this ghost and investigate its true cause of death.]

[Origin of the Dead: There is a book called "Origin of the Dead" hidden in the Municipal Library of Temple Harbor. Find it and bring it back.]

[Ghosts hidden in the depths of the night: There are some ghosts wandering around the Lantern Avenue in the trade zone. Please eliminate them or find out the real cause of their death.]

[Aiden's traces: Some say Aiden was seen in the Rustu area west of the city. Find him, follow him, and discover his secret.]

[This is the first stage of the quest. This series of quests may affect the main storyline and the development of the faction. Once the quest is completed, it is irreversible. Please accept it with caution.]

[First round reward: 40 experience points. You can complete any of the above tasks in any order. Once you complete any one of the objectives, you can apply for task settlement. Additional rewards will be given based on the task evaluation.]

After glancing at this series of tasks, Zhou Ning wasn't surprised. The tasks related to the main storyline had always had a high degree of freedom. And they were full of options. Some tasks could be done or not, full of variables.

Even if you have only completed one task, you can submit your progress and obtain basic rewards, but this will affect the entire task process afterwards.

For example, if you miss the task of finding Aiden, after submitting the first round of tasks, the generated task may continue to ask you to look for Aiden, thus generating a completely different task route, and the task ending will also be different.

But one thing is certain, the more goals you complete, the higher the completion rate and the higher the task evaluation will be.

The rewards for this task are indeed very rich. The basic reward for the first ring of tasks alone is close to 40. After completing other tasks, who knows what the additional rewards will be.

It could be a random item or a rare specialty.

But these missions are so damn troublesome. Not only are they distributed in various areas of Docklands and are extremely cumbersome, but two of the missions even require going to South West County or even Temple Port.

South Wales was fine, but Temple Port was located southwest of Blython, and it took over ten hours to get there by steam train, which was a huge waste of time. It was a rip-off.

After saying goodbye to Sherlock, Zhou Ning walked on the street leading to the trade zone, thinking to himself.

"Now that I've accepted this dreadful mission, I can't just give up. So, is there any way to complete it without wasting too much time?"

Zhou Ning thought about it, and suddenly an idea came to him.

He opened the Star Guild's guild panel, edited a few tasks and put them on it. He separated [Unknown Secrets], [Mysteries in the Ancient House], [Origins of the Undead], [Ghosts Hidden in the Night] and [Traces of Aiden] in the order of the serial tasks, and compiled them into new tasks and put them on the guild's task panel.

To accept a mission, the guild needs to contribute 3500 points - this means either making a generous donation or going to the Adventurer's Guild to accept an adventure mission, helping the guild upgrade while also obtaining some guild contribution points.

Of course, Zhou Ning did not forget to mark the task as a "main task" before it. Anything related to the main task is also a main task, so there is nothing wrong with that.