Chapter 14
I stared at him with wide eyes. Kwak Hanmuk frowned.
“Captain Mo may look like that, but she really is one hell of an old-fashioned stickler. Unless she was infected, there’s no reason she couldn’t make it to the Green Zone.”
I immediately understood what he meant.
Mo Haein was the type who valued rules, and the Trial Response Agency recommended reuniting with one’s team as the highest priority upon entering a Trial.
Therefore, she would have made joining us her first objective.
Even if she had encountered civilians caught in the Trial, there was a high probability that she would not have acted alone.
Unless the situation were truly unavoidable.
When I considered a reason grave enough to prevent Mo Haein from entering the Green Zone, zombie infection occurred to me immediately as well.
But she hadn’t become a Trial Response Agency Team Leader for nothing.
Even if she encountered an entire pack of Dead Zombies, she was perfectly capable of escaping.
Kwak Hanmuk seemed to have arrived at the same question and fallen into thought.
I asked cautiously,
“Could she perhaps have encountered Lieutenant Colonel Je Hyuno?”
She might have clashed with Je Hyuno, who was aggressive toward the Compatible.
Kwak Hanmuk groaned at my suggestion.
“That… could be possible. But probably not. Lieutenant Colonel Je goes somewhat easy on us.”
“What do you mean by ‘goes easy’?”
“He doesn’t attack us.”
“…Ah.”
True enough, he hadn’t attacked Trial Response Agency characters in the game either.
In any case, if Mo Haein had truly been bitten by a zombie, matters had become complicated.
Anyone bitten by a zombie in DZD became a Dead Zombie. Since they were extremely dangerous, DZD protocol required infected beings to be killed immediately upon infection.
‘The True Ending would resolve it, but Je Hyuno is a variable….’
Without knowing what he had done here, I couldn’t be certain that the True Ending was still possible.
I was organizing my tangled thoughts when an angry voice interrupted.
“Do you have no intention of speaking with us?!”
I had forgotten about the people standing in front of us. Belatedly, I looked at the middle-aged man.
Roughly thirty people lived in the Green Zone, including noncombatants such as children and the elderly.
But everyone valued their own life, and they were afraid to venture beyond the Green Zone.
Food was difficult to obtain. When I arrived carrying a backpack full of it, it was only natural that they lost their composure.
I took out the salmon-mayo triangular rice ball with the most unsettling description and threw it through the steel gate.
The people descended on that single rice ball like a pack of dogs.
Its wrapper burst, completely separating the seaweed from the rice, but that was no concern of theirs.
They fought to place even a single grain in their mouths.
“It’s real food.”
Even the middle-aged man who had maintained some dignity until then couldn’t conceal his excitement as he spoke with grains of rice stuck around his mouth.
If Kwak Hanmuk or I unwrapped so much as a hot-bar snack here, they looked ready to faint.
I patted my backpack for the people watching it with gleaming eyes.
“If you let us inside for a moment, I’ll tell you where to find food. There’s far more than this.”
After exchanging looks among themselves for a long time, they finally opened the gate.
However, matters did not proceed peacefully. The middle-aged man who served as the Green Zone’s leader repeatedly cleared his throat.
“Ahem. We will permit you two to join our safe zone as well.”
Kwak Hanmuk gave a hollow laugh at his condescending air. Then the leader spoke again.
“But first, you will share the contents of that backpack.”
Their guns remained pointed at us.
They were taking a hard line because they assumed Kwak Hanmuk and I had obtained food but no firearms.
It was exactly what I had expected, so I looked at Kwak Hanmuk.
He remembered perfectly what I had asked before we entered the Green Zone, and he carried out the assignment splendidly.
Shoving a hand into his varsity-jacket pocket, Kwak Hanmuk swore.
“Ah, fuuuck.”
“What did you just say?”
“Oh dear, my apologies. Your hearing must be failing.”
Kwak Hanmuk reached the leader in two or three steps and bent at the waist.
Tall and broad-shouldered, Kwak Hanmuk possessed an imposing build.
Intimidated, the leader unconsciously shrank in on himself.
Looking down at him, Kwak Hanmuk repeated what he had said.
“I said this is f*cking bullshit.”
“…Wh-What insolent bastard do you think you are?!”
Just as the red-faced leader shouted…
Kwak Hanmuk pressed a pistol to his head. Feeling the barrel bearing steadily against him, the leader froze solid.
I spoke calmly.
“We already possess several firearms. I don’t want to waste our time on something pointless.”
Ziiip.
I opened the duffel bag and spread its mouth wide.
After giving them a good look at the pistols, submachine guns, ammunition, knives, axes, and more packed inside, I asked,
“Would you like to continue?”
“No, well, I-I’m sorry…. I think I was a little impatient….”
The leader stammered out an awkward apology.
I had no intention of taking over the Green Zone, so I accepted it and let the matter end there.
Kwak Hanmuk bounded back beside me and took the duffel bag.
I had carried the luggage alone on the journey because he was dealing with the zombies. Kwak Hanmuk even took the backpack from my shoulders and lamented,
“To think I made Goyo Hyungnim carry all the luggage alone.”
Being repeatedly addressed as Hyungnim by someone seven years older left me unsure what to do with myself.
After asking him to simply call me Goyo, I explained our purpose in entering the Green Zone.
“There are items we need to take from here.”
We planned to establish the Special Mission Team’s temporary base in the Yellow Zone.
That would place our base even slightly closer to the Dead Zone and minimize the time required to reach the research facility.
To do so, we needed to sweep up the items obtainable in the Green Zone in advance.
“Let’s split up and farm them.”
We had to look for Mo Haein as well, so we needed to move even faster than planned.
I told Kwak Hanmuk which items we needed and where to find them.
As he listened to the list, Kwak Hanmuk slowly raised one eyebrow at a particular item.
“That one is the most important.”
Even I had to admit that without knowing the context, it sounded strange.
But it truly was an important item for the True Ending.
“I’m counting on you.”
“All right. If Hyungnim says so, I have to do it.”
“…Please, just call me Goyo.”
“If Goyo says so, I have to do it.”
“Yes…….”
Kwak Hanmuk would search the elementary school serving as the survivors’ shelter, while I would inspect the broadcasting station located in the Green Zone.
The station wasn’t far from the school, so I could easily make the trip alone. The Green Zone was safe anyway.
I sent Kwak Hanmuk into the school with the backpack and duffel bag, then headed toward the station.
The city must not have been large, because the broadcasting-station building was modest.
If not for the transmission tower rising high above it, I wouldn’t have known what it was.
The atmosphere peculiar to abandoned buildings mingled with the darkness of night, making it eerie.
I entered at a brisk pace.
Ding. A System Window appeared.
◆ Main Quest….
…Or began to appear, then stopped.
What was it doing now?
I waited for the System Window for a while.
The rectangle kept flickering, halfway appearing and disappearing, as though engaged in an invisible contest of strength.
Then the System Window suddenly burst into existence with a pop.
★ Event Quest: An Exciting Broadcasting-Station Adventure!
You have visited a broadcasting station!
Broadcasting stations are the minions of ■■ ■■■! Tools of mass communication!
Amid the flood of the infodemic, are you truly a media-literate ■■ ■?
■■ ■■■ will continue watching you!
…The manner of speech had changed, hadn’t it?
The contents were strange too.
‘So what is the Quest?’
Perhaps it meant I should simply explore the station, but that would be strange in its own way.
This Quest didn’t exist in DZD.
I enjoyed discovering new elements that hadn’t appeared in the game, but something about this one made me uneasy.
For now, I decided the System Window had briefly lost its mind and ignored it.
I had no time to fixate on such things. I needed to gather the items quickly and find Mo Haein.
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The broadcasting station had not escaped the zombie outbreak, and its interior was a wreck.
I crossed the silent lobby and entered a corridor. The building was dark, without even moonlight penetrating inside.
Its internal layout was complicated, but I had visited so often in the game that finding my way wasn’t difficult.
Relying on a single flashlight beam, I felt my way toward the emergency stairs.
Just before I rounded a corner in the corridor…
“Graaaagh!”
A zombie with strips of flesh hanging from its body leaped out.
Jump scares like this rarely startled me. I calmly swung the baseball bat in my hands.
Thwack!
The blow sent the zombie flying.
Since this was a Green Zone zombie, even at night, I could handle one without difficulty.
Leaving it to writhe on the floor, I found the emergency stairs.
“…Hmm.”
But something around the emergency-stairwell door seemed strange.
A long row of illuminated emergency-exit signs, each depicting a running green pictogram person, stretched along the corridor.
But the direction in which the figures were running was peculiar.
Weren’t they pointing away from the emergency stairs rather than toward them?
It was an unsettling sight, but I had no choice. I walked against the flow of green pictogram figures.
The moment I entered the stairwell, an unusual floor indicator caught my eye.
⇧2smile.png⇩B1
The smiley apparently represented the first floor, where I currently stood. My destination, the live studio, was on the sixth.
I diligently climbed the stairs and checked the sign again on the sixth floor.
⇧99nosmile.png⇩5
The face had been smiling throughout my ascent, but on the sixth floor, it looked miserable. The next floor was even marked as the ninety-ninth.
I examined the sign carefully.
‘This wasn’t in the game either.’
In the game, it had been an ordinary emergency exit. There were no rows of signs pointing the wrong way or strange smiley floor indicators.
That was only natural.
‘Because this is a zombie game.’
These elements didn’t suit a zombie universe. They weren’t things one should see in .
If this were something like , perhaps….
Gripping the baseball bat, I cracked open the stairwell door.
My flashlight beam stretched far down the corridor beyond it. Nothing appeared amiss.
I cautiously entered the sixth floor.
Among the three studios there, I found the one dedicated to news broadcasts.
The door stood wide open, and the interior was a mess. It bore the traces of a hurried evacuation.
Blood had dried on the news scripts scattered everywhere.
I stepped over a fallen studio camera and headed toward the monitoring area.
I needed to find a Security USB among the cluster of monitors in various sizes.
As I raised my flashlight, the area suddenly brightened, and the voice of an anchor began to play.
“Outbreaks of an unidentified virus are occurring simultaneously across the nation.”
“The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency has announced that those infected display high fevers, extreme aggression, and temporary cognitive impairment.”
The monitors had switched on by themselves and were displaying a news broadcast.
I watched without surprise.
The monitors activated in precisely the same way in the game to explain DZD’s universe.
“The government will announce specific response measures during an emergency briefing at six o’clock this evening.”
“Members of the public are advised not to be misled by unverified information and to consult official announcements for accurate updates.”
A faint tremor colored the composed voices. It was fear and terror.
The screen changed. The anchors’ premonition had not been wrong.
“Citizens, we bring you an emergency disaster order from the government.”
Now the anchor’s voice was almost a scream.
“The unidentified infection currently spreading nationwide has exceeded all controllable limits. Effective today at 18:00, the government issues an immediate nationwide evacuation order… No, stop, save me, aaaaagh!”
The news ended with male and female anchors being mauled side by side by zombies.
Leaving their screams behind, I found the USB in a drawer.
I slipped it into my pocket and was about to leave the studio when everything around me turned red.
I looked at the monitors. Every one displayed the same image.
A bright-red news alert.
Breaking News!
The color overwhelmed me for an instant, and then the screens changed.
The new image they displayed was…
Me.
My own face, slightly pale, appeared on the screens as I looked up at them.
Could it be Samra?
But Samra couldn’t enter a Trial, nor could he exert any influence inside one.
I tensed at the inexplicable situation.
BOOM!
An enormous crash shook the building.
I staggered but barely managed to keep my feet.
Cracks covered both the ceiling and the floor.
The panels of every monitor that had been displaying those strange images were now broken and stained with rainbow colors.
‘The impact came from above.’
After a moment’s thought, I abandoned the damaged monitors and ran toward the emergency stairs.
The building could collapse at any moment.
But instead of fleeing downward, I headed up. Taking the steps two or three at a time, I raced toward the roof.
I had wondered whether the ninety-nine-floor sign would cause an abnormal phenomenon, but fortunately, I reached the rooftop level safely.
nosmile.pngnosmile.pngnosmile.pngnosmile.pngnosmile.png
Though the floor indicator remained a little strange.
I threw open the rooftop door.
‘…Shit.’
The sight beyond the open door drew an involuntary curse from me.
The transmission tower that had risen high above the roof was folded in half.
Bent grotesquely with its upper half driven into the rooftop, it looked less like a steel tower than a toy.
Someone stood atop the folded transmission tower.
The one person I shouldn’t encounter alone right now.
You have discovered ‘Je Hyuno’!
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