Chapter 4
Chapter 4
A Zombie Is Chasing Me
Honestly, even I knew my current situation wasn’t exactly normal.
I drank myself to sleep, then woke up transformed into a character from a game. And not just any character, but one I played all the time.
What? God heard my desperate wish and granted it? What kind of nonsense was that?
At this point, even I knew that if one of my acquaintances said something like that, I wouldn’t be able to look at them like a sane person anymore.
To begin with, this was a transcendent phenomenon with no explainable cause. Who could possibly make something like this happen?
That was why the first thing I should’ve suspected was whether something had gone wrong mentally.
You know, those kinds of things weren’t uncommon. People suffering a shock too overwhelming to handle and suddenly seeing hallucinations or hearing voices.
The news of Abyss shutting down had absolutely been that kind of shock for me, so it wouldn’t have been strange if I’d lost my mind like characters in movies or dramas.
But I was completely sane right now. I’d checked multiple times to make sure this wasn’t a dream. I’d bent my fingers and pinched my cheeks over and over to confirm it.
Unless I’d been kidnapped by some mad scientist and had my brain electrically stimulated inside a glass tank, this was undoubtedly reality.
So then, what should I do?
How was I supposed to deal with this incomprehensible situation where both the world and I had changed overnight?
A normal person would probably try to uncover the cause immediately, or at the very least start planning how to live from now on.
Instead of sitting around in their room playing games like this.
But I was different.
I didn’t care where my original body had disappeared to. I didn’t care how the identity of this current body, this so-called Camilla, had been handled either.
It wasn’t that I intended to ignore those things forever. Someday I’d worry about them and think them through.
Just not now.
Their priority had simply been pushed back. Right now, the highest priority for me was Abyss, my returned comrade and friend. Everything else came after.
Things like my changed body and identity belonged in the category of “everything else.”
I knew perfectly well those weren’t minor matters. I really did know.
But just because you know something doesn’t mean you’ll actually act on it.
If I’d possessed that kind of drive, planning ability, or perseverance, would I really have been living shut inside my room like this?
Study hard, get into a good university, enter a major company, earn money, prepare for retirement… I knew all those things in my head.
I just never acted on them.
So later. Yeah, I’d deal with it later.
For now, I was going to play games.
Because Camilla was desperately calling out to me.
Naturally, if you wanted to play Camilla well, you first had to understand her character concept.
Camilla, the dancing diva of the battlefield. A dance fanatic who wanted to show her dance to as many people as possible.
Because of that, she had the rather screw-loose setting of constantly dancing around even in combat.
First of all, she was a melee character. Her weapons included daggers, dual blades, greatswords, rapiers—she could use practically every type of bladed weapon.
Despite her pretty appearance, Camilla was surprisingly macho. She had absolutely no ranged attacks or poke abilities, meaning she had to physically throw herself at enemies head-on.
A damage-tank, in other words a bruiser. She used her decent utility abilities to relentlessly cling onto enemy damage dealers. At the same time, she could use passive shields to juggle aggro, lifesteal, attract attention, and disrupt opponents.
And when she got fed, she could go on a rampage and slaughter enemies outright. In those situations, she became pure hell for so-called ADCs. Escaping from a fed Camilla was much harder than people expected.
Listing it all out like this, she really sounded like a flawless character. And she was pretty too. There was no reason not to play her.
Even though Abyss had become a god-tier game now, its roots still came from being the sort of game only hardcore nerds played, so preferring female characters over sweaty male ones was the more common taste. Hell, even I got into the game because I was captivated by Camilla’s appearance.
“Hm.”
But no matter where you go, your own kid always looks prettier.
Right now, I needed to look at things coldly as the head researcher.
Objectively speaking, was Camilla actually a viable hero right now?
I asked myself that question.
The answer was yes or no.
“No.”
Painful as it was, the answer came immediately.
Camilla possessed an almost all-purpose skill set for a bruiser, but unfortunately, there wasn’t much room for her in the current environment.
To begin with, being “all-purpose” meant her stats were spread evenly across the board. In other words, it meant she didn’t particularly excel at anything and ended up awkwardly mediocre.
Both before and now, Camilla was a low-stat bruiser, which meant she wasn’t particularly threatening from the enemy’s perspective.
At best, she was just an annoying fly that occasionally landed a painful hit.
She couldn’t tank well enough to stand on the front line. Diving in and instantly exploding under focus fire was a daily occurrence, and as for assassinating ADCs? Actual assassins did that job far better.
“There’s absolutely no reason to pick her….”
Possessing the mindset of a coach selecting players, I clicked my tongue in disappointment. Sadly, this was Camilla’s current reality.
The Camilla on the screen almost seemed to wear a tearful expression somehow.
But I shook my head.
“Don’t worry, Camilla. I’ll never abandon you.”
Unless the game died again or I quit gaming entirely, I’d probably keep playing Camilla forever.
And since the first possibility had already been solved, there was effectively no chance of me ever discarding her.
Perhaps understanding my words, the Camilla on the screen smiled softly.
I awkwardly smiled back.
“Let’s try this build first….”
The changed meta compared to the past, newly added items, the various possibilities Camilla possessed.
Taking all of those into consideration, I had already drafted dozens of builds.
Each meticulously crafted build had a different playstyle and goal, with completely different item choices as well.
And so, the glorious first build selected for battle was—
“Zombie Camilla MK.1, I choose you!”
A build with an absurdly grand name: Zombie Camilla.
Words become reality.
Streamer Nikang was now experiencing that saying firsthand.
“Stop chasing me already! Stop! How far are you going to keep following me?!”
[Nikang the hardstuck Gold]
[She’s actually so bad]
[Nikang… the being destined to surpass mortal ranks… just watching fills my chest with awe]
[It’s true btw. Nikang hit Plat 4 and instantly found the wall]
[Is it real that she instantly started getting destroyed after hitting Plat?]
[But the enemy really is chasing her like crazy lol why are they only chasing Nikang?]
[Well… killing the streamer is profitable]
[Ah… this feels familiar]
[That orphan-hunting’s pretty good lol]
[Camilla just refuses to die]
[The enemy doesn’t look like an actual Plat player]
-Would you like to dance with me?
“What dance, you crazy bitch?!”
[Oh my]
[Too harsh ]
[Camilla cover your ears!]
Swearing at the woman chasing her from behind, Nikang briefly recalled the past.
Though “past” only meant a few moments ago.
First of all, while Nikang had climbed smoothly to Platinum, she was still ultimately a newbie who hadn’t been playing Abyss for very long.
Perhaps because Platinum was considered high for a newbie, people didn’t really notice, but she still didn’t know every skill possessed by every hero in Abyss.
Like most players, Nikang learned the major heroes’ abilities gradually through playing. In fact, by now, the skills of heroes she frequently encountered had become familiar enough that she could roughly predict when they’d be used.
But today was different.
Right from the loading screen, there was a character on the enemy team she had never seen before.
A character with silver hair and a pretty face, someone Nikang had never once encountered while playing Abyss.
Camilla. According to viewers, “pretty trash.” A nickname given because her performance couldn’t keep up with her attractive design.
‘Then there’s probably nothing to worry about.’
That was what she thought, and honestly, that remained true during the early game.
Camilla barely showed herself at all, and even when she occasionally appeared, she didn’t feel threatening.
That situation—the balance of the match—began to tilt during mid-game.
-What is this? Why won’t she die?
For some reason, Camilla, the harmless-looking pretty dancer, simply refused to die.
Some of Nikang’s skills were dodged while others were tanked head-on as Camilla approached her relentlessly, creating a bizarre sight.
She stuttered awkwardly, almost like an old dementia patient regaining lost memories, yet hidden within that clumsiness was subtle experience and sharpness, making her extremely difficult for Nikang to handle.
‘What the hell is this…?!’
Nikang could confidently say this was the most troublesome bruiser she had faced while climbing.
Not just mechanically, but mentally too.
-The basics of dancing begin with your steps. I’ll teach you one by one.
Watching the pursuer endlessly bleeding while casually saying lines like that was more than enough to shatter Nikang’s composure.
Faced with the grotesque and horrifying scene before her, she forgot she was even streaming and screamed sincerely.
“I don’t need your lessons! Aaaah!!”