21

Chapter 21

I had been standing there in a daze when I jolted back to my senses.

It was because of the sharp sound coming from Je Hyuno.

His metal hand moved leisurely as it waited for my answer.

I said what I needed to say now.

“…I can clear it.”

Je Hyuno tilted his head to one side. He seemed puzzled that I was still guaranteeing a clear.

As his suspicion suggested, there was a high chance my answer would prove to be a lie.

But so what? By the time my answer was exposed as a lie, all of us would probably have become zombies together.

Of course, Je Hyuno would not be infected by DZD, so he alone would remain perfectly fine.

I imagined him cutting my zombified body into pieces.

‘Zombies supposedly can’t feel pain, so I should be fine.’

Having calmed down a little, I returned to first principles.

I had considered the possibility that the researcher who would develop the vaccine might be the injured person.

But unlike Mo Haein, I had never considered that the vaccine researcher might die.

That was because Trials fundamentally followed the framework of a game.

The way I understood Trials was as follows.

1. A Trial is a virtual space created on the basis of the Archive games I played.
2. A game possesses the minimum framework required for play to proceed.

Given those premises, there was only one possible conclusion.

3. A Trial also possesses the minimum framework required for it to proceed.

Naturally, the researcher could die after meeting the player and while the scenario was underway.

‘That would be a Bad Ending.’

But a situation in which the researcher responsible for developing the vaccine died before ever meeting the player fell outside the framework of the game.

It would be no different from the NPC Smiley dying all by itself in HSF.

In other words, it was a situation that simply could not occur.

There was no possibility that Je Hyuno, who had entered first, had already met the researcher either.

Je Hyuno knew the clear conditions too, so there was no reason for him to harm the researcher.

He would sooner have spent that time killing one more zombie.

Suddenly, another question struck me.

Je Hyuno loathed Trials.

He hated remaining inside them for long and always aimed to clear them in the shortest possible time.

Yet even though we were now in a situation where we might not be able to clear it at all….

Je Hyuno was far too normal.

Considering his disposition, he should have done something by now. Instead, he was acting as though he found this amusing.

‘It’s not as though Je Hyuno could know something I don’t.’

I could not begin to follow the thought process of a perfectly rational madman.

For the moment, I set aside my doubts about Je Hyuno and looked at the researcher zombie again.

I noticed something I had failed to see before.

The zombie kept slamming its head into the glass door.

It did so without paying the slightest attention to Je Hyuno and me talking right beside it.

That meant it had already selected a target.

I looked through the glass door. A person who had been difficult to see at first, concealed by the darkness, came into view.

A woman who had been covering her mouth and weeping in silence stared at me with trembling eyes.

Her tear-soaked face looked to be around my age.

An ID card hung from the neck of her researcher’s coat.

Lee Gaon

She was the “researcher’s younger sister,” the essential condition for the True Ending that I had been trying to find.

I thought I understood what had happened now.

DZD’s True Ending was the Vaccine Development Ending. Its other, ordinary endings concluded after obtaining nothing more than a clue for developing the vaccine.

Throughout the vaccine’s development, the lone surviving researcher worried about whether his younger sister was alive, even with the player’s help.

As he did, he told the player stories about her.

They were miscellaneous details: that his sister had joined the laboratory as a research intern and worked with him, and that he had raised her alone because their parents had died young.

But he never once gave the player a quest to find his sister. That was the trap.

The player had to use the researcher’s stories as clues and find his sister without being asked.

It was what you called a Hidden Quest.

Finding the younger sister alive unlocked the True Ending route.

If she died or became a zombie, the player could proceed only toward a normal Ending, no matter what.

Since some time had passed after Je Hyuno entered DZD, I had been anxious that the sister might have died in the meantime.

Instead of the younger sister, however, the researcher had become a zombie.

When Je Hyuno swept the zombies from the laboratory, the researcher had probably set out in search of his sister.

He must have encountered the other surviving researchers along the way as well.

Then, after finding his sister, he had been bitten by a zombie and abandoned by the other survivors.

‘They must have abandoned the seemingly useless sister along with him.’

Left alone with his sister after being bitten, the researcher must have faced a choice. What stood before me now was the result of that choice.

He had pushed his sister into the director’s office—the safest place in the laboratory, yet not so isolated that she could not respond to developments outside.

Then he had bound his own arms and legs and gagged himself.

He probably could not bring himself to ask his sister to kill him. That would have been too horrific a request for her as well.

“Grrrr….”

The gagged zombie once again smashed its mangled head against the glass door.

I remembered what the researcher had told me in the game.

“My little sister, Gunbam-nim—she’s seriously so rude. She doesn’t even call me Oppa. She calls me by my name, and whenever she’s in a bad mood, the first thing she does is shout, ‘Hey!’”

“She only joined the laboratory as an intern because of me…. If it weren’t for me, she would at least have been in a slightly safer zone.”

“I’m telling you, she’s smarter than I am. I even got her autograph in advance.”

“I just hope she’s alive. If only she can hold out until we make the vaccine….”

I had assumed we could reach a Happy Ending, just as I had in the game.

I wanted to start over, but I could not.

There was no time to reenter, and the moment we cleared it another way and left, Mo Haein—an infected person—would be executed.

‘If only this were a game.’

Then I could have quit and started again from the beginning.

As I entertained that impossible thought, I suddenly felt an icy chill.

Je Hyuno, standing beside me, was raising his metal hand to dispose of the zombie.

“Lieutenant Colonel Je, please wait a moment.”

I moved in front of Je Hyuno. Blocking the frightened woman’s view of us, I said,

“That female researcher is an NPC vital to clearing this. She’s the younger sister of the researcher who develops the vaccine.”

Watching my reflection in his black goggles, I continued.

“No matter how much of a zombie he has become, if we kill her family right in front of her, it may create a hostile relationship.”

Fortunately, Je Hyuno listened to me.

It seemed less because he trusted my judgment and more because he wanted to watch how I would overcome this obstacle.

With Je Hyuno’s cooperation, I bound the researcher zombie even more securely.

Then I knocked on the reinforced-glass door.

Knock, knock.

The thin body jerked in surprise.

“We’re soldiers. We came to help you, so please open the door.”

But she remained wary. After a brief hesitation, I spoke a name.

“…I know Lee Seon.”

The name of the researcher who had become a zombie.

The instant she heard her Oppa’s name, Lee Gaon’s expression changed.

She sprang to her feet and immediately unlocked the reinforced-glass door.

I pulled the door open. A thoroughly exhausted, cracked voice slipped through the widening gap.

“Y-you know my Oppa? How…? My Oppa doesn’t have any friends….”

“We met through work a long time ago and spoke briefly.”

“Ah…….”

I brought Lee Gaon outside and took a drink and a chocolate bar from the backpack for her.

“Please wait over there for a moment.”

After sending her to a corner, I isolated the zombified Lee Seon inside the director’s office.

Then I piled obstacles in front of the glass door.

The director’s office was extremely sturdy. He would not be able to escape until someone outside removed the obstacles.

“Hngh, snff….”

Meanwhile, Lee Gaon was sniffling back tears and mucus as she gobbled down the chocolate bar and drink.

She must have been trapped alone for a very long time. It was remarkable that she had endured until now.

“Thank you….”

Lee Gaon thanked me.

She tried to thank Je Hyuno as well, but the moment she saw his metal hand, fear left her frozen and unable to speak.

I turned to look at Je Hyuno and found myself understanding Lee Gaon’s feelings all too well.

^ ^

Hiding his metal hand would not have solved the problem.

There were the goggles displaying emoticons, of course, along with his menacing combat uniform and gas mask.

If I met someone dressed like that on the street, I would avoid him first and ask questions later.

…Honestly, I wanted to avoid him even now. I simply was not in a position to do so.

“Can you explain what happened?”

The instant she heard my question, Lee Gaon burst into tears again. Fresh tears flowed over the dried tracks on her face.

I handed her another bag of gummies. Lee Gaon sobbed as she ate them.

“Oppa—hic—my Oppa….”

The explanation that followed was exactly what I had expected.

Read only on MUGEX

The surviving researchers had exploited Lee Seon for all he was worth.

Using their willingness to overlook the presence of his sister—a mere intern sheltering with them inside the classified laboratory—as leverage, they had driven Lee Seon into the most dangerous places.

Lee Seon had been forced to retrieve food and supplies.

And the instant he was bitten by a zombie, they had abandoned him along with his sister.

Lee Gaon had done everything she could to save Lee Seon as he turned into a zombie.

She was the researcher Mo Haein had met.

Lee Gaon had traveled all the way to the Yellow Zone to obtain medical supplies, but there was no way to reverse Lee Seon’s transformation once it was already underway.

Every method failed, and in the end, she had been forced to watch her Oppa become a zombie before her eyes.

I waited for the sobbing Lee Gaon to calm down a little, then asked a question.

“Did Lee Seon happen to leave you any information about the vaccine?”

“…….”

“I’m sorry to ask when you’re already going through so much. But….”

“I don’t know anything about that!”

Lee Gaon suddenly raised her voice. Startled by her own behavior, she immediately apologized.

“I’m sorry…. But I really don’t know.”

“I see.”

“Even if I did know, what would it matter?”

Her eyes brimmed once more with the tears she had only just managed to stop.

“My Oppa has already become a zombie.”

I stared at her. Thoughts raced through my mind.

I recalled the contents of the Quest Window I had seen at the broadcasting station.

‘Media literacy….’

The ability to evaluate the reliability of information.

It did not take me long to reach a conclusion.

“Lee Gaon.”

“Snff, hic, yes?”

“You know how to make the vaccine, don’t you?”

Silence fell at my question. Je Hyuno, who had been watching as though none of this concerned him, leaned closer with interest.

Lee Gaon answered with a flustered expression.

“I really don’t…. And I’m not even a proper researcher. I’m only an intern….”

This time, I cut her off.

“You do know.”

What had struck me as strange was the fact that Lee Gaon had “gone to the Yellow Zone to obtain medical supplies.”

As a facility that handled viruses, the laboratory was equipped with high-quality medical supplies.

There had been no need to travel all the way to the Yellow Zone, yet Lee Gaon had risked her life to go there.

There could be only one reason.

“Because you went to the Yellow Zone to obtain ingredients for the vaccine.”

Lee Gaon’s face turned pale.

I called up the Quest again.

◆Main Quest: Search the laboratory and locate the surviving vaccine developer.

The Quest had already specified it clearly.

It told us to find the “vaccine developer.”

Whether that person was a researcher at the laboratory or an intern did not matter. So long as they were “the person who would develop the vaccine,” the condition would be fulfilled.

At that moment, a chime sounded and the System Window updated.

You have located the surviving vaccine developer!

It was a System Window announcing that my judgment had been correct.

‘You could have told me sooner.’

It had waited until I was certain, only now announcing the Quest’s success like a congratulatory message for finding the right answer.

At this point, calling it a System Window was too generous. It might as well have been an alarm.

You are….

I dismissed the System Window before it could display another message. Then I looked down at Lee Gaon.

She could not speak. Pale-faced, she merely clenched her fists tight.

Her expression was resolute, as though she would never surrender the vaccine information even with a blade pressed to her throat.

But I had no intention of threatening her. Instead, I asked a simple question.

“Don’t you feel wronged? Your Oppa was turned into a zombie.”

“…….”

Lee Gaon, who had been staring only at the floor, slowly raised her head.

“I’ll help you take revenge.”

Her eyes trembled faintly.

“…How?”

I heard fear in her answering question. The other researchers must have tormented her quite a bit.

Lee Gaon seemed to regard the surviving researchers as extraordinarily formidable and dangerous people, so I opened my hand and gestured beside me.

Her eyes followed my hand, and her lips parted.

A being who could deal with not merely two researchers, but two entire units of heavily armed soldiers.

Je Hyuno stood there.

“We’ll handle them however you wish. Kill them, keep them alive, turn them into zombies just like your Oppa—anything.”

Thinking my expression might be too stiff, I raised the corners of my mouth as gently as I could.

Lee Gaon looked dazed. After staring at me for a long time, she finally spoke.

“All I have to do is make the vaccine?”

DZD’s True Ending was the development of a vaccine.

But I did not want to close the Trial in its current state.

I stole a glance at Je Hyuno. His black goggles were fixed on me.

If it had been Kwak Hanmuk or Mo Haein, I would have hesitated to say it, but with Je Hyuno, it seemed fine.

I told her the Ending I wanted.

“Please develop a cure as well.”