Chapter 14

I looked at him with my eyes wide open.

Kwak Hanmuk frowned.

“Even though Captain Mo may seem like that, she’s actually an extreme conservative. If she weren’t infected, there would be no reason for her not to make it to Green Zone.”

I immediately understood what he meant.

Mo Haein was the type of person who placed great importance on rules, and the Trial Response Agency always established regrouping with teammates as the highest priority when entering a Trial.

Because of that, she most likely would have considered reuniting with us her primary objective.

Even if she had encountered civilians trapped inside the Trial, she probably wouldn’t have acted alone.

Unless it had been a truly unavoidable situation.

As I thought of a reason serious enough to prevent Mo Haein from reaching Green Zone, zombie infection also came to mind.

But becoming a team leader in the Agency was not something one achieved easily.

Even if she had found herself surrounded by a group of Dead Zombies, she had more than enough ability to escape.

Kwak Hanmuk seemed to have reached the same conclusion, as he fell into thought.

I asked cautiously.

“Do you think she might have run into Lieutenant Colonel Je Hyuno?”

Perhaps some kind of conflict had occurred with Je Hyuno, who was aggressive toward Compatibles.

At my suggestion, Kwak Hanmuk let out an uncomfortable grunt.

“That could be it. But I doubt it. Colonel Je usually shows a certain amount of consideration toward us.”

“What do you mean by consideration?”

“That he doesn’t attack us.”

“…Ah.”

That was true.

In the game, he didn’t attack members of the Trial Response Agency either.

In any case, if a zombie had really bitten her, things were becoming complicated.

In Dead Zone Delivery, a zombie bite turned the victim into a Dead Zombie.

Because it was considered an extremely dangerous threat, protocol called for the immediate execution of any infected individual.

‘If we achieve the True Ending, it’ll be resolved, but Je Hyuno is still a variable.’

I couldn’t guarantee the True Ending without knowing what he had been doing in this place.

While I was trying to organize my thoughts, an angry voice rang out in front of us.

“Are you going to keep ignoring us?!”

I had completely forgotten about the people standing in front of us.

I turned my head toward the middle-aged man.

Around thirty people lived in Green Zone, including the elderly, children, and other non-combatants.

But all of them valued their own lives too much to venture outside the safe zone.

Obtaining food was extremely difficult.

That was why seeing me arrive with a backpack full of supplies was enough to drive them crazy.

I pulled out a salmon-and-mayonnaise rice triangle, the food whose description I had found the most disturbing, and tossed it over the fence.

For that single onigiri alone, people threw themselves forward like a pack of starving dogs.

The wrapper tore apart, and the seaweed became completely separated from the rice.

But nobody cared.

Everyone was desperate to get even a single grain of rice into their mouths.

“It’s real food.”

Even the middle-aged man, who was trying to maintain some dignity while speaking with rice stuck around his mouth, couldn’t hide his excitement.

If Kwak Hanmuk and I had opened a sausage or a snack in front of them, they probably would have fainted.

I lightly tapped my backpack.

“If you let us in for a moment, we’ll tell you where to get food. There’s much more than this.”

The survivors exchanged glances for a long time.

Eventually, they opened the gate.

However, that didn’t exactly lead to a peaceful situation.

The middle-aged man, who acted as Green Zone’s leader, cleared his throat.

“Ahem. We will also allow you into our safe zone.”

Kwak Hanmuk let out an incredulous laugh at that condescending attitude.

Then the leader added,

“But first, share that backpack.”

The weapons were still pointed at us.

They thought we had obtained food, but not weapons.

It was exactly what I had expected.

I looked at Kwak Hanmuk.

He remembered perfectly the favor I had asked of him before entering Green Zone.

And he had carried out the mission flawlessly.

With both hands in the pockets of his baseball jacket, Kwak Hanmuk cursed.

“Damn it.”

“What did you just say?”

“Wow, sorry. You must have hearing problems.”

In just two steps, he arrived in front of the leader and leaned forward slightly.

Kwak Hanmuk was tall and broad-shouldered.

His physical presence was imposing.

Intimidated without realizing it, the leader shrank back.

Kwak Hanmuk looked down at him and clearly repeated his words.

“I said that’s a damn stupid idea.”

“Y-You… insolent…!”

The leader’s face turned red with anger.

At that exact moment, Kwak Hanmuk pressed a pistol against his head.

Feeling the barrel against his skull, the man froze completely.

I spoke calmly.

“We already have several firearms. I don’t want to waste time.”

Ziiip.

I opened the duffel bag.

Inside were pistols, submachine guns, ammunition, knives, axes, and many other weapons.

I made sure he could see everything.

Then I asked,

“Do you want to keep arguing?”

“N-No… I… I’m sorry. I think I got a little carried away…”

The leader stammered out an unconvincing apology.

I had no intention of taking over Green Zone, so I decided to leave the matter there.

Kwak Hanmuk returned to my side and picked up the duffel bag.

The entire way here, he had dealt with the zombies while I carried the luggage.

Now he was carrying both the duffel bag and the backpack.

“How embarrassing, making only Big Brother Goyo carry everything.”

Having someone seven years older than me continue calling me Big Brother was starting to become unbearable.

I asked him again to just call me Goyo.

After that, I explained our objective for entering Green Zone.

“There’s an item we need to obtain here.”

The Special Mission Team’s temporary headquarters would be established in Yellow Zone.

The idea was to build a base as close as possible to Dead Zone in order to reduce the time needed to reach the laboratory.

To do that, we first needed to collect certain items from Green Zone.

“Let’s split up and search.”

We also had to find Mo Haein, so we needed to move even faster than planned.

I explained to Kwak Hanmuk which items we needed and where to find them.

While listening to the list, he raised an eyebrow when he reached a certain item.

“That one is the most important.”

Honestly, even I admitted it sounded strange if you didn’t know the context.

But it was a crucial item for reaching the True Ending.

“I’m counting on you.”

“Sure. If my hyung orders it, I’ll have to do it.”

“…Just call me Goyo.”

“If Goyo asks, then I’ll have to do it.”

“Yes…”

Kwak Hanmuk would handle searching the elementary school that served as the survivor shelter.

I would investigate the television station located within Green Zone.

It wasn’t too far from the school, so I could go alone without any problems.

Besides, Green Zone was relatively safe.

After sending Kwak Hanmuk toward the school carrying the backpack and duffel bag, I headed for the station.

The city wasn’t very large.

The broadcasting station building was also fairly modest.

If not for the enormous transmission tower rising above the roof, I never would have guessed it was a television station.

The typical atmosphere of an abandoned building mixed with the darkness of the night was unsettling.

I quickly entered.

Ding.

A system window appeared before my eyes.

◆ Main Mission…

But it didn’t finish appearing.

What was this now?

I waited for a moment for the system window to finish displaying.

The box kept appearing and disappearing, flickering as though two invisible forces were competing against one another.

Then, suddenly, the window exploded onto the screen.

★ Event Mission: Exciting Television Station Exploration!

You have visited a television station!

The television station is a subordinate of ■■ ■■■! A tool of mass communication!

Amid the flood of infodemia, will you truly be a ■■ ■ with media literacy?

■■ ■■■ will continue watching you!!

“…Didn’t the way it talks change?”

The content was strange too.

‘So what’s the mission?’

It seemed to simply be exploring the television station, but that was strange as well.

Because that mission did not exist in Dead Zone Delivery.

I liked discovering new elements that did not appear in the game, but this gave me a bad feeling.

I decided to assume that the system window had suffered some temporary malfunction and ignored it.

I didn’t have time to obsess over it.

I needed to collect the item and find Mo Haein as soon as possible.

The television station had not escaped the zombie disaster either.

The interior was completely destroyed.

I crossed the silent lobby and entered the hallway.

The building was shrouded in darkness, without even moonlight entering through the windows.

The interior layout was complicated, but I knew it so well from passing through it countless times in the game that I had no difficulty navigating.

Guided only by my flashlight, I advanced in search of the emergency stairs.

Just before turning a corner.

“Graaaargh!”

A zombie with torn flesh lunged at me.

Sudden scares like that usually didn’t affect me very much.

I gripped the baseball bat firmly and swung it calmly.

Whaam!

The zombie was sent flying by the blow.

Since it was a Green Zone zombie, even at night I could handle one without too much trouble.

I left it writhing on the floor and continued searching for the stairs.

“…Hm.”

However, there was something strange near the emergency exit door.

Along the hallway stretched an endless row of green emergency exit signs featuring the classic pictogram of a running person.

But the direction was strange.

They weren’t pointing toward the stairs.

They were pointing in exactly the opposite direction.

The scene felt unsettling, but I had no other choice.

I moved forward against the directions indicated by the green pictograms.

When I entered the emergency stairwell, the first thing that caught my attention was the strange floor numbering.

⇧2⇩B1

The smiling face seemed to indicate that I was on the first floor.

My destination was the live broadcast studio on the sixth floor.

I climbed the stairs quickly and looked at the indicator again when I arrived.

⇧99⇩5

Throughout the climb, it had displayed a smiling face.

But on the sixth floor, it had changed to a crying face.

And on top of that, the next floor was marked as Floor 99.

I stared at the sign carefully.

‘This wasn’t in the game either.’

In the game, it was just a simple emergency exit.

Those strange signs and smiling-face indicators didn’t exist.

It made sense.

‘Because it’s a zombie game.’

This didn’t fit a zombie setting.

It wasn’t something that should appear in Dead Zone Delivery.

Maybe in Happy Smile Factory.

I tightened my grip on the bat and cracked open the stairwell door slightly.

My flashlight illuminated the hallway beyond.

Nothing seemed unusual.

I carefully stepped onto the sixth floor.

Among the three studios located there, I searched for the studio dedicated to news broadcasts.

The door was wide open.

The inside was a disaster.

There were obvious signs of a hasty evacuation.

News scripts were scattered across the floor, covered in dried bloodstains.

I stepped over a fallen television camera and headed toward the monitoring area.

I needed to find a backup USB drive among all those monitors.

Just as I raised my flashlight.

The lights suddenly came on.

And a voice began to play.

“An unknown virus is appearing simultaneously throughout the country.”

“The Center for Disease Control has reported that the infected exhibit high fevers, extreme aggression, and temporary deterioration of their cognitive abilities.”

The monitors had turned on by themselves.

They were showing a news broadcast.

I wasn’t surprised.

The exact same thing happened in the game to explain the background of Dead Zone Delivery’s world.

“The government will announce specific response measures during an emergency conference scheduled for six o’clock this evening.”

“We ask all citizens not to be misled by unverified information and to rely only on official announcements.”

The anchor’s voice sounded calm.

But beneath that calmness was a faint tremor.

It was fear.

It was terror.

The screen changed.

And the anchor’s fears proved justified.

“Citizens of the nation. We will now broadcast a national emergency order.”

His voice now sounded closer to a desperate scream.

“The unidentified infection currently spreading throughout the country has exceeded all limits of control. The government hereby declares an immediate nationwide evacuation order effective from 18:00 hours… No! Help me! AAAAAAAH!”

The broadcast ended with both news anchors being devoured by zombies live on air.

Ignoring their screams, I found the USB drive inside a drawer.

I slipped it into my pocket.

And just as I was about to leave the studio.

Everything turned red.

I looked at the monitors.

Every single one displayed the exact same image.

A bright red breaking-news alert.

Breaking News!

For a moment, I froze at the sight of that scarlet color.

Then the screen changed.

And a new image appeared.

It was me.

My own face appeared on the monitors.

I looked slightly pale as I stared at the screen.

Samra?

It couldn’t be.

Samra couldn’t enter Trials.

And he couldn’t influence them either.

Just as tension began to take hold of me.

BOOOOM!

A deafening explosion shook the entire building.

I staggered but managed to keep my footing.

The ceiling.

The floor.

Everything was covered in cracks.

The monitors that had displayed those strange images moments earlier had been destroyed.

Their screens were now filled with iridescent colors and visual static.

‘The impact came from above.’

I thought briefly.

Then I abandoned the shattered monitors and ran toward the emergency stairs.

The building could collapse at any moment.

But instead of fleeing downward.

I went up.

Jumping two and three steps at a time, I sprinted toward the rooftop.

I was worried that something strange might happen because of that Floor 99 indicator.

But fortunately, I reached the rooftop without any problems.

Although the floor numbering remained rather bizarre.

I threw open the rooftop door.

‘…Damn.’

The sight that greeted me on the other side made the curse slip from my lips on its own.

The enormous transmission tower rising above the rooftop had been bent in half.

It was so twisted that it looked like a broken toy.

The upper half had been driven directly into the rooftop floor.

And someone was standing atop that bent tower.

Someone I should never encounter while alone.

You have encountered ‘Je Hyuno’!

‘Je Hyuno’ is a registrable character.

Do you wish to register him?