"Ahhhh…" Emma screamed and covered her eyes, looking terrified as if she had seen a ghost.
On the other hand, Romeo looked furious, starting to hit the table again, though more lightly this time.
"So if someone doesn't obey an order for one minute, will they really explode?" he muttered with a blank stare.
Neither Liam nor Jack paid attention to his words.
They were still grateful that they were not slaves.
And at this moment, the presidents on TV began talking about prohibiting bosses from abusing this Slavery System to exploit their subordinates.
The punishment could even be equated to murder.
They even threatened by saying that they themselves possessed the greatest number of subordinates in the world.
"Hey Liam, what are you going to do?" Jack suddenly asked him.
"What am I going to do? How would I know?" Liam replied, slightly annoyed by the question.
"Eh…" Suddenly, Romeo—who was always restless—seemed to be startled by something that only he could see.
His gaze fixed straight ahead.
In front of him was only Jack, yet he clearly wasn't looking at Jack.
He had to be focused on his virtual screen.
Liam couldn't guess what was happening. Romeo's expression kept changing.
It looked as if he was communicating with someone.
"What's wrong, Romeo?" Liam asked.
But Romeo didn't answer. He still looked focused.
Liam became increasingly certain that he was communicating with someone.
After all, the System had already stated that they were being watched. Those viewers should have ways to contact them directly without System Codes.
After a while, Romeo finally stopped focusing.
But then, he began to space out, occasionally glancing at Liam, Emma, and Jack in turn.
His gaze made them uncomfortable.
"What?" Jack said.
"Nothing…" Romeo shook his head in response.
RING!
Suddenly, his phone rang. Romeo's eyes widened when he saw who was calling.
"That damned old devil," he said irritably.
He clearly didn't want to answer the call, but something suddenly filled him with fear.
"How is it possible… I'll explode just because I deliberately don't answer that old devil's call?" he muttered, panting with trembling hands.
With no other choice, he answered the call.
"Romeo, come to the warehouse now and start working. We have a lot of goods that need to be moved." A voice echoed from the phone.
Then the call ended just like that.
"Damn it!" Romeo slammed the table hard again, stood up, and hurried away.
Left behind, Liam, Jack, and Emma exchanged strange looks.
It wasn't really the boss's fault that Romeo had been exploited all this time, forced to work hard for little pay, since the latter owed him quite a lot of money.
Emma, although also a slave, at least worked in a better place—a part-time cleaning service at a luxury hotel.
"Mm…"
Suddenly, a message appeared on Emma's phone from a contact she had named Manager.
She opened the message. Since it came from her superior, Liam and Jack felt an uneasy premonition. They peeked at the message as Emma opened it.
(All employees of Wilson Hotel in New York City, please come immediately to meet our Young Master!)
"What is this?" Emma looked in disbelief at the message.
Called to meet the Young Master?
Emma had worked there since high school until now in college, and she didn't recall any such meeting ever happening.
Why would that Young Master care about the employees of one of his family's hotels?
Of course, for now, the employees at the New York branch were the easiest for him to gather. He might need them urgently.
"This Young Master, isn't he Alexander Wilson from our university? The one who slept with that blonde professor?" Jack said.
No one responded.
Liam just stared at Emma, whose eyes suddenly widened.
"I have to go now," she said as she stood up.
She hurried toward the door.
"Damn it, there's no way bosses will just sit still. If I were a boss, I'd definitely exploit my subordinates too," Jack said after Emma left.
Liam felt the same.
Normally, someone couldn't just order others around however they pleased just because they were a boss. But if their subordinates were slaves who couldn't refuse at all, that would be a different story.
After all, humans naturally had a desire to oppress others.
"By the way, it seems like there aren't any monsters in sight. So where are they? I thought a lot of monsters would appear so we could level up by killing them," Jack wondered aloud.
That was also something Liam wanted to know.
He checked the city forum, which was now flooded with discussions about what had happened.
Liam wanted to see if there were any posts about monsters.
But it seemed that no one had posted about them.
"Liam, Liam, look at this. This app—could this be real? It was just released…" Jack suddenly showed him his phone.
Liam looked at it, shocked by the title of the application.
(Monster Map!)
Below it was a description explaining that the app would display the locations where monsters appeared.
However, it wasn't a free app. It cost 100 dollars per week—a price that greatly shocked Liam.
He initially thought it was a scam, but when he saw who released the app, he couldn't think that way anymore.
(X Technology Inc!)
"Maybe their technology really can do it, but isn't this way too fast?" Jack said.
"There's nothing strange about it. The presidents held a conference right after the System appeared. They might have communicated with aliens beforehand," Liam replied.
He then searched for the app and downloaded it.
Of course, downloading it was free. Paying was required to unlock the service.
It wasn't that Liam had no savings. There was about 150 dollars in his account. He was just hesitant to use it.
Aside from buying a phone, he had never spent that much money before.
But he was extremely curious.
After thinking for a while with furrowed brows, he finally decided to subscribe.
The price was 100 dollars. With an additional 10% tax, it became 110 dollars.
Jack was shocked by Liam's action—but even more shocked when the map finally opened.
Naturally, the map showed New York City.
The difference was the red dots scattered across it—around a hundred or more.
For a city housing over ten million people, that was an extremely small number.
Only a few monsters? How were people supposed to divide them for leveling?
Liam observed the red dots, and one of them made him slightly startled.
"Isn't this behind our apartment building?" he said.
"Looks like it…" Jack nodded.
He lived in the same apartment building as Liam, not far from the café.
"Let's check it out!" Curious, Liam immediately stood up and ran outside.
"Wait!" Jack chased after him, but struggled to run due to his fat body.
And Liam didn't wait for him.
He understood one thing. With such a small number of monsters, people would have to compete for every monster that appeared.
The apartment building was located in an old neighborhood. The roads were full of deep potholes, and the sidewalks were crowded with drunk homeless people. There was even human waste on the ground, forcing people to step carefully.
It hadn't been long. People were still busy trying to digest the appearance of the strange System.
Fortunately, the apartment building—despite being fifteen stories tall—was very quiet due to its low number of residents.
Liam entered a narrow alley leading behind the building and didn't see a single person.
There was a small open space there, filled with garbage.
When he arrived, Liam was instantly captivated by a huge rat standing atop a pile of trash.
It was almost the size of a goat, with long fangs reaching its chin and blood-red eyes. It looked ferocious.
Liam, an ordinary human, felt an intense sense of danger for the first time. The hairs on his body stood on end, as if he were watching a horror movie.
The rat stared at him, its mouth slightly open.
"Aghhh…" A hoarse hissing sound echoed as the rat lunged toward him, its speed shocking Liam.