Chapter 129: Hanyang University Hospital Director (4★)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 129: Hanyang University Hospital Director (4★)
When the sun rose, I woke up naturally.
How many hours did I sleep?
About six hours?
That was quite a lot, considering I slept inside a dungeon.
I used to make sure to get a solid eight to ten hours of sleep, but sleeping outdoors after so long brought back the old vibes, and my body seemed to have reverted to that old sleep schedule.
Still, I didn't feel tired at all.
Six hours was actually a long sleep.
In a Demonic Lair, it was common to go thirty or forty hours without sleep, and even if you did catch some shut-eye, it was only for two or three hours.
Sleeping four hours was considered a luxury.
Of course, I could sleep soundly because I had Cheat Mode.
If it weren't for the Safe Base-Exclusive Automatic Door, I wouldn't have been able to sleep so comfortably.
No matter how strong I was, I wouldn't be able to fend off zombies attacking me in my sleep.
"Whoa. Quite a few of them have already come down."
There were already zombies wandering around right outside the door.
They hadn't noticed me yet, so they weren't banging on the door, but new zombies had taken up positions among the corpses of the ones I had cleared out the night before.
They probably hadn't respawned.
They must have wandered down from the second floor or higher.
"Shall we go on another fun hunt today?"
For breakfast, I boiled a cup of ramen and ate it with two rolls of gimbap.
Seriously, where else in the world could you live like this?
I could boil cup ramen with hot water from a rare thermos, and eat gimbap pulled from a thermal pouch that tasted like it was made with freshly cooked rice.
Honestly, cold gimbap is perfectly fine as long as you have cup ramen, but being able to enjoy a warm meal in a remote place like this was a luxury only possible with Cheat Mode in a zombie apocalypse.
I love Safe Base supplies.
I packed up my sleeping bag, tossed my trash into a corner of the room, and opened the door.
After detaching the automatic door and putting it back in my backpack, I cleared out the zombies waiting to welcome me.
Zombies were perfect for warming up my stiff body after sleeping.
The only annoying part was the splattered blood drying on me without a way to wash it off, which felt a bit gross.
But just like when I used to sleep in dungeons, it was business as usual.
After a quick cleanup, I went into the restroom to relieve myself.
The original Zombie Apocalypse game didn't simulate physiological needs, so players didn't have to worry about them. However, the real-life multi-server was different. Urination and defecation had become crucial survival factors, sparking heated discussions all over the gallery.
This issue was largely resolved once I started selling the Sewage Disposal Service to Level 2 Membership users for a fee.
Actually, there was no real reason to charge for this.
After all, there was no need to solve everything for them. If you understand people's needs and wait, the value will rise on its own.
What would people have done if I had bundled this feature with Level 3 Membership?
Groups and factions would have absolutely forced at least one person to sign up for Level 3 Membership just to use the sewage disposal system.
But I made it accessible to anyone who was at least Level 2.
It wasn't because I was some generous saint.
It was because they had no alternative.
After all, unless you plan on eating and then dying, waste disposal is an unavoidable human necessity.
But with the water system broken and shut down, how would people handle this waste?
Would they want to do their business inside their own homes or bases?
It would only stink up the place and be a nightmare to clean.
They would build outdoor latrines or dump it somewhere else.
I didn't really care what they did, but if that waste piled up, the neighborhood would start to reek, attract bugs, and potentially trigger an epidemic.
Zombie corpses vanished on their own, but that kind of filth didn't.
I couldn't let that happen inside my Safe Base.
Of course, those who didn't have the coins for Level 2 Membership might still resort to crude methods, but since I couldn't keep every single corner of my Safe Base perfectly clean right now anyway, I was just delaying the inevitable as much as possible.
Because the day might come when I would have to rule over the entire Seongsu-dong Safe Base.
Even the restroom I was in right now reeked of stale urine, despite being inside a zombie-infested dungeon.
Frowning, I stepped out of the restroom and headed up to the second floor.
There were plenty of zombies on the second floor as well.
The second floor also housed highly frequented departments like the reception desk, medical oncology, and breast surgery.
I slowly looted the area while looking around.
Since the hospital was so massive, it took quite a while.
Of course, a lot of time was wasted.
Just because it was a hospital didn't mean there was loot scattered everywhere.
Since patients frequented the building, necessary medical supplies and managed items were kept in specific storage areas, while most of the space consisted of examination rooms or waiting areas.
It took a long time because I had to search thoroughly while clearing out zombies and harvesting meat from them.
Third floor. Fourth floor.
"Holy shit. This place is ridiculously huge."
According to the Paradise Map, it went up to twenty-one floors.
Seeing that there was both a main building and an annex, I decided I needed to move faster and picked up the pace.
No matter how long it took, I had to head back by tomorrow.
Fortunately, the other floors didn't have as many zombies as the first and second, so my progress sped up.
Instead, the ratio of Level 2 and Level 3 zombies was higher, but that wasn't much of an obstacle for me.
Looks like I'll have to pull a night shift today too.
I moved diligently.
And on the twentieth floor, I found it.
"The Hospital Director's Office."
The door swung open, and a middle-aged man in a doctor's gown lunged at me.
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To sum up my first impression in one word:
He was insanely fast.
Whoosh—
It felt like something was flying at me, and suddenly, a man was right in front of me, swinging a scalpel.
I dodged the sharp blade aiming precisely for my neck and counterattacked.
I swung without using any skills, but my opponent managed to dodge, escaping with only a minor graze.
"Level 4."
The number 4 floating above his head indicated that he was the master of this hospital and the boss of this dungeon.
He was the fastest zombie I had encountered so far.
Which made sense, of course.
His stats were: Strength 7 (+2) / Agility 8 (+2) / Stamina 7 (+2) / Mana 4 (+2).
Even considering that all stats were reduced by 1, they were still insanely high.
"How the hell are people supposed to kill something like this right now?"
Well, I suppose this is what a Level 3 Dungeon difficulty should look like, especially for a boss that drops pieces of a Level 2 Preventive Vaccine.
If it were too easy to kill, every Tom, Dick, and Harry would come trying to hunt it.
The stat gap between us was still massive, so while I was briefly impressed, he wasn't a particularly difficult opponent for me.
Still, I wondered if Oh Yoon-seop could win if he were standing here.
Even if he got Level 4 stats, his stats would probably still fall short.
Unless he could bridge the gap with pure combat skill, it would probably be a struggle.
Though, in the first place, just fighting his way up here through the zombies would be hard enough for Oh Yoon-seop.
Screeech.
The hospital director looked almost human.
But he couldn't hide the distinct movements of a zombie.
He took a stance, preparing to pounce.
"What the hell is Level 7 medical swordsmanship?"
`[Specialist Medical Swordsmanship (7★)]`
- A skilled doctor's medical art makes them stronger when wielding a scalpel, an instrument they have handled their entire life.
- All stats increase by 2★ when inside a hospital.
What a bizarre mode.
Since he was a boss monster, the system seemed to have given him a fitting mode. It was kind of funny, but from an opponent's perspective, it would be incredibly annoying.
You'd think, what kind of doctor uses swordsmanship? but seeing how sharp his strikes were, he was a tricky opponent.
Swish— Swish—
It was a speed that forced even me to concentrate.
Of course, since our stat difference was nearly 10, it wasn't mind-blowing, but then again, once stats start approaching 10, the rate of growth doesn't feel as massive anymore.
Though there is still a pretty big difference between 10 and 20.
On top of that, I hadn't even used "Time Acceleration" and "Time Deceleration" yet.
Gripping my dagger, I timed the hospital director's scalpel swing, activated deceleration and acceleration to dodge, and sliced off his wrist.
The wrist was severed as easily as slicing through tofu.
I followed up by stabbing his flank three times, finishing with a thrust to his neck.
Even with his vital points pierced, the hospital director still struggled desperately to attack and harm me.
When dealing with high-level zombies with high stamina, you can never let your guard down, even after stabbing their vitals.
I had neutralized all threatening elements, but people often came to the gallery to complain about dying pointlessly after letting their guard down, only to get bitten by a zombie that played dead and squeezed out its last bit of strength.
Confirming the kill wasn't hard.
In Zombie Apocalypse, the system kindly notified you with a message when a zombie died, letting you know you had earned coins.
`[Acquired 1,000 Coins]`
A Level 4 Zombie gave a whopping 1,000 coins.
With my coin acquisition rate effect added, it came to 1,500 coins.
And that wasn't all.
`[Tutorial Quest 4]`
- Defeat a Zombie (4★)
- 1 / 1
- Reward: 3 Points
"Sweet."
To think the day would come when I'd clear Tutorial Quest 4.
I had killed the hospital director, but the dungeon wasn't cleared yet.
There were still remaining zombies.
I could just clear them out while finishing up looting the hospital.
I searched the hospital director's corpse to claim my reward.