Chapter 14: Hunting Cheat Mode
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 14: Hunting Cheat Mode
[1 Point Acquired]
[Hunting Cheat Mode Unlocked]
Uninvited guests had arrived, but in truth, I was the one who invited them.
I knew they were tailing me but pretended not to notice, having deliberately provoked them to follow me.
Honestly, after seeing me kill one of those tattooed thugs in a single blow, they should have realized I wasn't someone to be messed with.
They probably did.
Otherwise, they would have tried to take me out right then and there.
The reason they didn't wasn't just because of the crowd watching, but because they suspected I had something up my sleeve.
That's why they tailed me, waiting for a moment of vulnerability.
And to ensure they didn't let their guard down, they handpicked five of their combat-capable guys to send after me.
But that decision was their worst mistake.
It might have been more feasible if they had all attacked me together back at Seongsu Apartment.
Though in that case, I would have just run away.
In any case, a one-on-five fight didn't mean much to me while I was under the effect of Base Invincibility.
Besides, they didn't even ambush me from all sides at once; they cornered themselves in a narrow hallway and let me take the first strike.
Once they lost their will to fight, I didn't even need the Base Invincibility effect anymore.
Thanks to that, I easily completed the Hidden Quest, earning 1 Point and unlocking the Hunting Cheat Mode.
"With this, I can upgrade the base to Level 3..."
This incident made me realize one thing for sure about the Safe Base.
The more Points you invest in it, the better.
Seeing how the Base Invincibility effect cut off the moment I stepped out into the hallway, it definitely needed to be wider.
I needed the effect to cover at least the front yard, or better yet, this entire narrow alley, so I could defend my precious base without letting it get damaged.
But upgrading the Safe Base right away meant ignoring the variable of the newly unlocked Hunting Cheat Mode.
During the Zombie Rush coming in five days, I might be able to hold them off from inside the Safe Base, but there could also be moments where I'd have to go out and fight.
If push came to shove, I might even have to go to Seongsu Apartment to rescue Kim Ji-hee.
In a zombie apocalypse like this, there was nothing more foolish than obsessing over a woman.
When just surviving was hard enough, taking on another mouth to feed was practically a death wish.
But I was the owner of Cheat Mode.
I had already spent 100,000 hours playing solo.
Unless it was absolutely impossible, I wanted to bring along the first woman I met in this world.
She was just that beautiful.
If I was going to have sex for the first time, Kim Ji-hee would be a great choice...
With that in mind, I grew more curious about the Hunting Cheat Mode.
"Oh, shit."
I liked how simple the description was.
The Safe Base description was relatively simple too, but it had taken some time to fully grasp. This one, however, was just a single sentence that required no deep thinking.
Kill an enemy.
Get a mode with a 1% chance.
An incredibly simple ability.
Yet, it required absolutely no cost.
It might not seem like much right now, but my 100,000 hours of playtime told me that as time passed and the mode level increased, its true value would shine.
It was a very simple logic.
No matter how overpowered I was, the amount of Points I could use was limited.
In fact, just using those Points to level up my Cheat Modes was already a tight squeeze.
I didn't know how many Points I would get in the future, but it was a fact that wasting them one by one on minor modes felt like a waste.
This would allow me to save them.
Even if I couldn't cherry-pick exactly what I wanted.
If a new mode popped up every now and then, I'd find a use for it eventually.
And as the level rose, the chance of Predation would increase too.
"Wow... this is a tough choice."
If it had been a mode that temporarily boosted my stats, I would have invested the Point into the Safe Base without hesitation.
Even without boosting my stats further, if I ever had to go rescue Kim Ji-hee at Seongsu Apartment, there were plenty of ways to handle it without much trouble.
But Predation wasn't entirely separate from the Safe Base.
With a Zombie Rush announced, and not knowing how many zombies I would slay inside my base, this mode would create an incredible synergy with the Safe Base.
Instead of getting 1 mode for every 100 kills, leveling it up might net me 2 or 3.
"Hmm."
After some deliberation, I made my decision.
"Let's go with Safe Base Level 3 first."
To compare the efficiency of Safe Base Level 3 versus Predation Level 2, there was an important assumption to make: whether I could actually get 1 mode from 100 Level 1 zombies.
But how many Level 1 zombies actually possessed modes?
Even if they did, very few would have positive modes.
That meant the actual probability would be far lower than 1 in 100.
And even if I did get a mode from those zombies, it might not be very useful.
"To think they'd officially use the term 'positive mode'..."
The phrase "positive mode" had appeared in the mode's description.
This was a concept from the individual point modes in the original Zombie Apocalypse game. Positive modes cost negative points, while negative modes granted positive points. By balancing them to net zero, players could adjust the game's difficulty.
Some might ask if there's any real change in difficulty if it all balances out to zero anyway. But to make things easy for players who wanted a casual run, the game allowed them to start with up to +20 points by default. Even without playing in such a "coward mode," there were plenty of ways to lower the difficulty while keeping the net points at zero.
For example, a classic negative mode was "Chain Smoker."
It was a great mode that granted a whopping +5 points. The player entered a "Chain Smoker" state where they had to smoke an average of at least three cigarettes a day to avoid penalties. For actual smokers, this was practically a freebie. Besides, in this world where humanity was wiped out, cigarettes were scattered everywhere anyway, so players usually picked it as a default.
Conversely, if you wanted to make the game harder, you could select cooking-related positive modes that cost negative points, and then take on negative modes detrimental to survival—like injuries or hearing impairment—which would skyrocket the difficulty.
The game was hard enough as it was, but adding intermittent deafness or night blindness turned it into absolute hell.
In fact, I had already seen a negative trait on Kim Ji-hee.
Dependency Level 5.
A trait where one's mental state rapidly deteriorates unless they depend on someone. In this reality, it manifested as a mode, and at Level 5, her mind would likely shatter within a few days.
In extreme situations, it could happen in a single day.
That was why I had deliberately stirred up trouble at Seongsu Apartment and left.
In a situation like this, Kim Ji-hee would desperately want to depend on someone.
Even though they weren't her parents, staying with her aunt's family at Seongsu Apartment was likely for that very reason.
Because she had a deep-seated need to lean on something.
That was the concept.
Of positive and negative modes.
Following that logic, what kind of positive modes could a mere Level 1 zombie possibly have?
Therefore, upgrading the Safe Base was the better choice.
I invested the 1 Point obtained from the Hidden Quest into the Safe Base.
"..."
I had expected this.
Just how monstrously would this fucking broken base mode grow?
Considering the amount of supplied goods had increased when it went from Level 1 to Level 2, I figured Level 3 would naturally provide even more food.
Since it wasn't explicitly written here, I'd have to wait until 6:00 AM tomorrow to find out.
And there were no notable changes to the water, electricity, and heating services.
Well, it wasn't like those could get much better anyway.
I wondered if they might offer discounts or something, but that was pure speculation.
I did think a new option would be added, but...
This was completely unexpected.
"Powerful refrigeration and freezing? Are you fucking kidding me?"
Just how much is this base going to spoon-feed me?!
The fatal flaw of "Zombies are an Excellent Source of Meat" was that it was difficult to store the meat for a long time after obtaining it.
Raw meat is hard to keep for long, whether you refrigerate or freeze it.
Freezing it allows for longer storage, but over time, the nutrients break down and the quality of the meat deteriorates.
But powerful refrigeration and freezing prevented that.
This was, without a doubt, one of the broken modes that existed in the original Zombie Apocalypse game.
It made survival so easy that players would just raid a supermarket right at the start, pack the fridge and freezer to the brim, and begin the game with at least two years' worth of food.
That was why I knew it so well.
It was a feature that prevented not only spoilage but also nutrient destruction.
Of course, since this had to run 24/7, it might cost a fair amount of Coins.
But did that even matter?
"This is fucking insane."
This was a mode that even a cheat-mode lover like me had never enabled before.
But in reality, if they were giving it to me, I'd gladly take it.
I activated it immediately.
[Powerful Refrigeration Activated]
[Powerful Freezing Activated]
The activation cost was 2 Coins per 24 hours each.
4 Coins in total.
It was probably because the fridge and freezer in this small studio apartment were split in half, but it was a reasonable price.
I packed the fridge, filling it with all the water and food in the house.