Chapter 16
Je Hyuno wasn’t my first Registration. I had registered Park Seonggyeon as a Sample earlier.
But this was completely different from that time.
Scalding heat, bubbling and seething, tore through my entire body.
It was unquestionably agonizing. Yet the strange sensation that arrived at the same time made me feel abnormal.
Liberation? Relief? The quenching of thirst…?
I couldn’t describe it precisely. The sensation crushed the pain beneath it and drove itself into my brain.
The corners of my mouth curved upward on their own beneath the rising exhilaration.
Registration complete!
I already knew what I needed to do.
It was as natural as a newborn lamb seeking its mother’s colostrum.
‘Restriction, Message.’
Restricting ‘Je Hyuno.’
You think of a Message to send to ‘Je Hyuno.’
My nose throbbed. It felt as though the heat in my eyes had traveled downward.
Licking the metallic taste, I sent the Message. I could see the message window blocking Je Hyuno’s path.
“Captain, don’t attack him!”
Kwak Hanmuk faltered while preparing his strike.
“Just ram him!”
If Je Hyuno counterattacked, the two of us would be torn into gruesome pieces.
But there was no time to deliberate over the decision.
“Captain Kwak!!”
When I called him, Kwak Hanmuk burst into mad laughter.
Instead of attacking, the rosary whipped around Kwak Hanmuk and me, binding us together so we couldn’t be separated no matter what happened.
“F*ck, Lieutenant Colonel Je! Receive the new Recruit!”
Kwak Hanmuk’s wild laughter mingled with the shrieking exhaust. The motorcycle barreled onward.
Je Hyuno, unable to move under the Restriction, filled my vision.
As did the System Window floating before him.
Stay still.
The gaze fixed on the System Window turned toward me.
My face was reflected in the smooth surface of the goggles, their LEDs unlit.
But I still couldn’t see the face beyond them.
Just before the motorcycle was crushed…
The rosary completely covered my vision. Kwak Hanmuk and I were inside a cocoon formed from its beads.
BOOM!
The explosion sounded as though we had struck a wall of solid iron. The violent impact seemed to shake even my organs.
The rosary unraveled, and Kwak Hanmuk and I tumbled messily across the ground.
“Ugh…!”
Kwak Hanmuk vomited a gush of blood. The rosary had absorbed a substantial portion of the impact, but it couldn’t block it completely.
Je Hyuno’s body was made from an extraterrestrial metallic substance, making it the absolute worst match for the Lightning-Struck Jujube-Wood Rosary, which was already poorly compatible with metal.
Leaving a pool of blood on the floor, Kwak Hanmuk checked Je Hyuno before worrying about his own condition.
A brief silence passed. Then a somewhat flustered voice quietly crept from him.
“…Lieutenant Colonel Je?”
Je Hyuno lay at the end of a long line scored across the ground.
As docile as a puppet with its strings cut.
Kwak Hanmuk voiced his wishful thinking.
“Is he dead?”
Of course, even he knew that was impossible.
I rose unsteadily and approached Kwak Hanmuk.
“We should… move quickly.”
We couldn’t waste this opportunity while Je Hyuno was unable to move.
But Kwak Hanmuk abruptly seized my face in both hands.
He stared at me in silence.
My cheeks were being crushed between his palms, so I protested quietly.
“That hurts….”
Kwak Hanmuk didn’t budge even after hearing me say so. He stared for a long time before muttering,
“They’re back to normal.”
“What is?”
“Nothing. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. What about you, Captain Kwak?”
“I’m f*cking great.”
…Kwak Hanmuk answered with a grin as blood streamed from his mouth.
I probably didn’t look much better. Pulling at the hem of my clothes, I roughly wiped beneath my nose and across my chin.
“We need to move.”
“Yeah, let’s go.”
He rummaged through the backpack and duffel bag that had been flung far away.
Discarding the burst rice balls, crushed cans, plastic bottles, and ruined firearms, he repacked the luggage with the food, axes, knives, and other items that remained intact.
After slinging the duffel bag over one shoulder, Kwak Hanmuk placed me behind him and approached Je Hyuno.
Je Hyuno continued lying there quietly.
Kwak Hanmuk gestured with his fingers, and I limped after him.
Just as we were passing beside Je Hyuno, his goggles lit up.
X X
I thought I understood why they called him a perfectly sane lunatic….
The instant Kwak Hanmuk saw Je Hyuno’s goggles, he let loose a torrent of abuse. But he didn’t waste any more time.
Leaving Je Hyuno behind, Kwak Hanmuk and I entered the Yellow Zone.
Despite it being the middle of the night, the Yellow Zone was quiet, without a single zombie in sight.
Every zombie in the vicinity had rushed toward the bridge and been drowned together in the river.
After finding an old jeep, Kwak Hanmuk tore open its ignition box and started the engine with a screwdriver.
“Can you drive, Goyo?”
“I have a license, but I’ve only driven a manual in games.”
Kwak Hanmuk gave a faint laugh at my response and took the wheel.
“Should we go to the base first?”
“Yes. That’s a good idea.”
We needed to regroup before searching for Mo Haein. In this condition, forget conducting a search—we couldn’t even kill one zombie.
While Kwak Hanmuk drove, I sank into the passenger seat like a flattened rice cake and decided to examine Je Hyuno.
‘Je Hyuno’s Status Window.’
- Je Hyuno (Hyunhyun)
- Soldier
- Acquired Items: None.
- Possessed Items: Crow Hooded Jacket (1), Crow Combat Uniform (1), Crow Goggles (1), Crow Mask (1), Crow Gloves (1), Crow Combat Boots (1).
Message
Restriction
Execution
There were additional details that hadn’t appeared with Park Seonggyeon. I examined the entries one by one.
Hyunhyun seemed to be the name Je Hyuno had been given inside the Trial.
His occupation was listed simply as Soldier, without a rank. That was probably because DZD had no specific setting for the player’s occupation.
Items were divided into Acquired and Possessed categories.
‘Acquired must mean items obtained in the Trial he has currently entered, while Possessed means… items he already owned, like Mo Haein’s Black Moon Blade.’
I waited briefly.
No System Window appeared to contradict me, so my guess seemed correct.
His Possessed Items list was an outright festival of crows.
Je Hyuno always equipped his own items inside Trials, but this was the first time I had learned they all belonged to the same set.
‘And Restriction.’
It was the ability I had used on Je Hyuno earlier.
Restriction temporarily prevented a registered individual from taking any action.
But its duration was short. At most, it had felt like three seconds.
That seemed to be the limit of my current ability.
The reason Je Hyuno remained still even after those three seconds passed was the Message I had sent afterward, telling him not to move.
From Je Hyuno’s perspective, an inexplicable phenomenon had occurred, so he must have obeyed the System Window for the time being.
‘Because he doesn’t know I sent it.’
It seemed I could use that against Je Hyuno several more times.
The problem was that it remained nothing more than a temporary expedient.
With my current abilities, I couldn’t control Je Hyuno completely.
I also couldn’t use Restriction repeatedly.
Considering the pain I experienced when activating the ability, it clearly placed a tremendous strain on my body.
I might die trying to capture Je Hyuno.
‘Is there no attack Skill?’
Read only on MUGEX
You feel a tremendous sense of accomplishment at having taken a step forward.
You consider this a highly successful first Registration and resolve to work hard toward further growth.
You believe it would be best to fill all 3 Character Registration slots first, allowing you to grow quickly and acquire new abilities.
The System Window seemed to be in a good mood.
Ordinarily, it would have sent me only a perfunctory word such as ‘Lacking,’ yet now its response was surprisingly thorough.
Apparently, that was because I had registered Je Hyuno.
But I wanted to avoid further Registration whenever possible.
It had already made me uneasy, and registering Je Hyuno had made the reason even clearer.
Holding a leash that completely controlled another human being was burdensome enough, but most decisively…
It felt as though I became strange.
The emotions and manner of thinking I experienced at the moment of Je Hyuno’s Registration had been abnormal.
I thought I had entertained some bizarre notion as well, but only the faintest impression remained, and I couldn’t remember it properly.
It was as though I had fallen into a trance and awakened afterward.
True to my name, I preferred a tranquil life.
Simply becoming Earth’s System was already more than I could handle.
Adding something that might adversely affect my mind felt overwhelming.
Was it difficult to upgrade the System’s abilities through Trial Clears alone?
I would find out if I achieved DZD’s True Ending.
‘As much as possible, I’ll resolve things on my own.’
Je Hyuno was already registered, so there was nothing I could do about that.
After roughly organizing my thoughts, I looked at Kwak Hanmuk.
He was the supporter enabling me to act freely right now.
Even when he found something questionable, he trusted and followed me completely.
What happened earlier had only been possible because Kwak Hanmuk rammed Je Hyuno as I instructed.
Of course, he might have listened simply because doing something insane sounded entertaining.
“What?”
Perhaps I had stared too long, because Kwak Hanmuk glanced at me. Since it had come to this, I invented a question.
“May I ask what name the Trial gave you, Captain Kwak?”
I was curious about information the game had never revealed. Kwak Hanmuk answered readily.
“Blue Thunder.”
“…….”
“You just wondered why I’m called Blue Thunder when my hair is red.”
“…How did you know?”
“Hahaha!”
Kwak Hanmuk laughed heartily.
Holding my wounded pride, I envied him.
I should have chosen a cool name when I played the game too. The price of picking something carelessly was painful.
‘Can’t I change it?’
I would have purchased a Name Change Ticket if one existed.
While feeling dejected, I wondered why Kwak Hanmuk had been named Blue Thunder. Even his eyes were gray.
I was curious but couldn’t bring myself to pry. Steering with one hand, Kwak Hanmuk held something out to me.
An exclamation escaped me before I realized it.
“Wow….”
It was a portable cassette-tape player connected to wired headphones.
“Found it in the glove box. First time seeing one, Goyo?”
“I’ve seen them in archival footage.”
Kwak Hanmuk muttered, “Archival footage….” There was apparently a slight generational gap between us.
I examined the cassette player with fascination.
It was an item I had never seen in the game either. The vehicle’s glove box couldn’t be opened there.
Its item description was simple.
Portable Music Player: Contains a cassette tape with 6 exciting songs.
“Don’t listen to the music, though.”
I had been about to put on the headphones, but lowered my hand with a sound of understanding.
The Trial Response Agency had a rule against carelessly using items from Trials.
That was only natural for safety when no one knew what infection they might cause.
‘I want to hear it.’
It seemed that wouldn’t be possible yet. I placed the cassette player in the duffel bag.
Come to think of it, the convenience store’s triangular rice balls and Buldak noodles were modern, whereas the firearms, jeep, and cassette player were all old.
It felt as though different periods had been mixed together at random.
I hadn’t noticed it while moving through DZD as a game, but confronting it in reality gave me a strong sense of incongruity.
It felt a little too unsettling to dismiss simply because this was a Trial.
Assuming the Trials were based on games created by the developer…
I knew he wasn’t someone who would mishandle details like this.
His meticulous settings were one of the reasons I liked his games.
If different periods had been mixed together from the beginning, and the game had concealed that fact……
“Aagh!”
Screeeech—!
Kwak Hanmuk suddenly yelled and slammed on the brakes.
My body jerked violently forward, and only the seat belt prevented me from flying.
Nearly striking my forehead against the windshield, I stared ahead in shock.
“Captain Mo…?”
The zombified Mo Haein was hitchhiking.