Chapter 146: Rage Against a Tilted Society
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 146: Rage Against a Tilted Society
The person who had purchased a Level 3 Membership and requested the Safe Escort Service was not far away.
The navigation system pointed to an alleyway on the way to Seongsu Elementary School.
The dot had been stationary for a while, but since it hadn't disappeared yet, it seemed they were still alive.
The applicant was a Level 2 Membership subscriber.
Since there were no other membership subscribers nearby, it was one of two things.
Either they were a small party where only one person had subscribed to a Level 2 Membership to use the service, or they were truly surviving all on their own.
There are many such people in a zombie apocalypse.
People who know that there is strength in numbers, yet live alone because they cannot trust others.
I knew that feeling all too well.
That was why, whenever I played zombie apocalypse games, I always built my base and lived alone.
Of course, games and reality are different.
In a game, being with others is just an inconvenience. If you want to do whatever you want, being alone is much more comfortable. But in reality, who cares about a little inconvenience?
If it means saving your life, living together is much more convenient, so being in a group has many advantages.
Why else would I have established a faction and gathered more people?
As long as you can eliminate the inconveniences, a group offers immense benefits.
They can handle the tedious chores for me, and I can make them do whatever I want.
Well, it's not like everyone can live like me.
"Hmm. It should be around here."
The narrow alleyway was packed with zombies.
Holding my scalpel, I stabbed and withdrew it from the necks of the bastards rushing me.
The scalpel's reach was incredibly short.
In fact, using something like this as a weapon was practically handicapping myself from the start.
But I actually quite liked it.
While it didn't penetrate deeply enough to pierce the heart like a dagger, the scalpel had its own advantages.
Of course, if I had to choose between a dagger and a scalpel, I'd choose the dagger. But when a weapon with such high performance turned out to be a scalpel, what could I do?
In a zombie apocalypse, it's much more efficient to use whatever good weapon you're given rather than holding out for your preferred choice.
If they were the same level and the scalpel was only slightly better, I would have used a dagger for its longer reach and superior lethality. But since I had already obtained a scalpel that was a literal murder weapon—killing anything with a single stab thanks to its options—I had to use it until I found another weapon.
Besides, my stats were so high that even a scalpel was easy to use.
Squelch. Squelch.
Just stabbing and pulling it out of their necks sent blood spurting as the zombies shuddered and collapsed.
Since its base damage was incredibly high and it even had a +6 damage modifier, simply striking a vital point was enough to kill them.
It felt like I could easily take down up to Level 2 Zombies without much trouble.
"Knock, knock."
I arrived at the location indicated by the navigation.
A collapsed building.
Broken windows, and old furniture and bed frames piled up as a makeshift barricade.
They were completely destroyed, likely trampled over by zombies, rendering them entirely useless.
"Hmm."
The zombies inside spotted me and rushed forward.
There had been quite a few zombies on the way here, but with this many inside as well, was I already too late?
Yet, the dot was still showing.
The navigation pointed to the second floor.
There were two apartments on the second floor.
One of them had its door wide open, while the other was closed.
I tried opening the closed door.
It swung open effortlessly, making the fact that it had been closed completely meaningless.
"Anyone order Jajangmyeon?"
There were no zombies inside.
However, there were clear signs of a struggle, with blood splattered everywhere.
A trail of smeared blood led toward the inner room.
In the living room, several human corpses were mixed in with zombie carcasses.
When I opened the door, a man who looked to be in his mid-20s was lying there, gasping for breath.
He was covered in bite marks and lacerations.
The battle seemed to have been incredibly fierce.
"Oh, dear."
The man was on the verge of death.
He reached his hand out toward me.
I could tell he desperately wanted to say something.
"What a shame."
I genuinely meant it.
If only he had held on just a little longer.
Would he have lived if I had arrived earlier and cleared out the zombies outside?
Probably not.
Looking at his state, the wounds had been inflicted quite some time ago; it was a miracle he was even still breathing.
The blood on his wounds had already dried, and his breath was fading fast.
He was clinging to his thread of life solely through sheer willpower to survive.
Judging by this, he must have already been wounded when he spent 2,000 Coins to purchase the Level 3 Membership and request the Safe Escort Service.
Even if I had arrived right then, the outcome wouldn't have changed.
"I got held up in traffic, so I'm a bit late... but it looks like you're already a goner."
At a glance, he had multiple bite wounds.
Without a Level 2 Vaccine, infection was guaranteed, and there was no way I was going to hand over a Level 2 Vaccine just because he spent 2,000 Coins.
Furthermore, carrying this comatose man on my back when he could turn into a zombie at any moment was completely out of the question.
The reason I put the Base Cleaning Service and Safe Escort Service on the online store wasn't for people to use them as a last-ditch 911 call while they were already dying. It was meant to be requested before things got dangerous, as a way to get a second chance at life.
I checked the time.
"Time of death..."
The man was dead.
I ended up making a wasted trip.
Of course, that didn't mean I was going to give a refund.
The person who should receive the refund was already dead anyway, so refunding it would just mean throwing Coins into the void.
I searched the house.
There didn't seem to be anything worth taking.
They had somehow been scraping by, and seeing that the water still ran and the lights still turned on, my guess seemed to be correct.
The corpses of family members lay mingled with those of zombies.
You see this kind of thing a lot when playing zombie apocalypse games.
Families who huddled together, determined to survive at all costs, only to end up slaughtered in a zombie raid.
In a game, you just brush it off as dramatic staging, but in reality, it leaves a bitter taste in your mouth.
One might ask what good comes from getting emotionally invested in someone else's life, but from their perspective, that sheer helplessness and despair are the very emotions that define the core of a zombie apocalypse.
Give up on life?
Can you really just die because there's no hope or future?
Some might, but most people grit their teeth and hold on, dreaming of a better tomorrow.
A vaccine will be developed.
A cure will be made.
As long as I keep breathing...
A better world will eventually come.
And if you die helplessly like this after all that, the accumulated futility must wash over you alongside death.
I stepped outside and vented my rage.
"You motherfuckers. How dare you kill my customer?"
I had to at least give them 2,000 Coins' worth of revenge.
The lunch I ate earlier seemed to have digested a bit during the walk.
I diligently slaughtered zombies to finish digesting my meal.
Unfortunately, I didn't have the power to change this tragic society.
How infuriating!
That even with my Cheat Mode, I couldn't change society like this...
"Huh?"
As I was hunting zombies while putting on my 2,000-Coin performance of grief, a strange stone I'd never seen before dropped from a zombie.
"Whoa!"
Instinctively, I realized it was an Enhancement Stone.
From a Level 1 Zombie?
I quickly picked it up.
[Lowest-Grade Enhancement Stone (★)]
- An Enhancement Stone used to enhance ★ and 2★ items. Used as an enhancement material at the Enhancement Center.
- Enhancement Success Rate: ★: 10%, 2★: 5%
- Upon failure, there is a 50% chance the item will be damaged.
"Ah. I didn't specify the level restriction."
When I was creating the enhancement system, I had thought about adding various restrictions, but not all of them went through.
The system tried its best to interpret and implement my ideas, but some things didn't make the cut. Having them drop only from Level 2 Zombies and above seemed to be one of those failed restrictions.
Well, I suppose they need to drop from Level 1 Zombies too so that ordinary survivors can at least get a taste of enhancement.
Reading the description, this definitely seemed a bit more brutal than enchanting.
I didn't know what Level 2 Enhancement Stones would be like, but a 10% success rate for same-level items, combined with a 50% chance of the item being damaged upon failure, was rough.
If an item got damaged, its options would probably degrade.
In other words, this meant you couldn't easily brute-force it even with sheer quantity.
"Still, some lucky bastard is bound to run around with an insanely overpowered item."
I knew how it went.
I'd seen it happen plenty of times.
The atrocities committed by lucky bastards.
Those motherfuckers who just started the game, wandered around, farmed an ultra-rare item with a 0.01% drop rate that you'd barely see once in an entire playthrough, and then went to the gallery to humble-brag about it.
The world was full of people like that.
But the more good items out there, the better.
Because if I liked it, it would soon be mine anyway.
And besides, I could just cheat my way through those RNG-carried scammers.
After all, the mode I created for exactly this was "Enhancement."
[Enhancement (★)][Normal +100%]
- Item enhancement and enchantment success rates increase by 5% (+5%).
- Penalty rate upon failure decreases by 5% (+5%).
"Hehehe... Hahahahaha!"
I had intentionally made it a Normal Mode.
Perhaps because I placed a restriction—or rather, a pseudo-restriction—that linked its growth to my Cheat Mode level, or maybe because the system didn't deem it to be on par with a Cheat Mode, it had been applied exactly as intended. Raising the level of this Enhancement skill would be a pain, but the mere existence of this mode gave me the power to crush those RNG-carried scammers.