Chapter 148: Oh Yoon-seop's Hunting Squad vs. Eagle Five Squad
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 148: Oh Yoon-seop's Hunting Squad vs. Eagle Five Squad
What exactly is a "Main Hunting Squad"?
Personally, I don't put too much stock in the title.
After all, the only hunting squad we currently have in Paradise is the one consisting of Oh Yoon-seop and the ten people he leads.
Since there's only one, they naturally became the Main Hunting Squad by default. They explore and farm the dungeons near Seoul Forest, while also handling whatever odd jobs I throw their way.
As our faction grows and we recruit more decent talent, we'll eventually split them into multiple squads. When that time comes, we'll officially designate a Main Hunting Squad.
The criteria for that, of course, will be based purely on their hunting skills—the core duty of any hunting squad.
It doesn't matter if someone has a great mode type or a high level like Oh Yoon-seop.
Those are merely qualifications to become a "Resident" and benefit Paradise; they aren't absolute indicators of how well someone can actually hunt.
Of course, it does give them an advantage.
Having a good mode and a high level means they're more likely to be selected as a Resident. And since any hunting squad with a Resident gets a +4 level boost to all stats, hunting zombies naturally becomes much easier for them.
Some might argue that makes it an unfair competition.
So what?
At the end of the day, becoming a Resident is a skill in itself.
They became Residents because they had the capability.
If we were to form a hunting squad composed entirely of Residents, that squad would almost certainly become the Main Hunting Squad.
But that's a story for the distant future.
Right now, Oh Yoon-seop is the only Resident in his squad, whereas the other side consists of five individuals who are all highly skilled in their own right.
But does that mean the rest of Oh Yoon-seop's squad is lacking?
Not at all, which makes this matchup even more exciting.
Though Oh Yoon-seop's presence makes the outcome somewhat predictable.
Still, if these five newcomers turn out to be as good as they seem, running two separate hunting squads wouldn't be a bad idea, even if they aren't the Main Hunting Squad.
Besides, there's plenty of room in the Level 3 Apartment.
Within our 5-kilometer-radius Safe Base, there are still countless dungeons to farm and zombies to hunt.
South, west, east, north.
Since we often have to cross bridges, the more hunting squads we have, the better.
"They fight well."
Oh Yoon-seop's side was performing exactly as expected.
Holding a shield in one hand and a mace-like weapon he'd found somewhere in the other, Oh Yoon-seop stood at the very front, blocking zombies, crushing skulls, and acting as the anchor of the formation, while his squad members supported him from behind.
They were highly proficient.
Even when surrounded on all sides by zombies, they didn't panic. Instead, they divided up their roles and carved a path forward. It was clear they had been hunting hard over the past three days.
In fact, many of the squad members had raised their stats by at least one level compared to before the Zombie Rush.
Dealing with a horde of over a hundred zombies seemed to pose no real challenge for them.
On the other hand, the group of five showcased a rather unique fighting style.
Relying on their Level 4 Agility, the two women moved with blinding speed, disrupting the zombies' formation and picking them off one by one. Meanwhile, the three men took the lead as tanks, flexing their strength and stamina to literally crush the zombies.
Even though their mode levels were low, they were clearly experienced in hunting zombies.
They must have worked hard on grinding their stats; despite their low mode levels, their average stats were actually higher than those of our hunting squad. They seemed to have a wealth of experience.
That was when it clicked for me.
"They're Zombie Apocalypse players."
Zombie Apocalypse players can recognize their own.
While it wasn't definitive proof, many players referenced the popular tips posted on the Zombie Apocalypse Gallery, which included various guides on how to hunt zombies.
If someone repeatedly targeted the same vital spots, even if the exact angles differed, there was a high chance they were a Zombie Apocalypse player.
A fairly experienced player.
For me as well, hunting zombies is just repetitive grinding.
Once you know exactly where to strike to kill them quickly and easily, there's no need to vary a tedious, repetitive action. You just perform the optimized movement instinctively.
I could see those exact habits in those five.
When confronting a zombie, they would pin its neck to prevent it from biting, then snap it, twist it, or smash its head with a blunt weapon.
Compared to Oh Yoon-seop's squad, who killed zombies at a slightly slower pace despite having superior numbers, their execution was remarkably clean.
Of course, from my perspective, they still looked a bit unpolished.
But for ordinary players, they looked like they had logged at least 2,000 hours of playtime.
Considering that, it made perfect sense how they managed to fight their way through the zombies even during the Blood Hour.
They could pull it off because they were intimately familiar with this kind of world.
Even if they had been unlucky with their modes, they possessed genuine skill.
It was a solid pitch to me.
If they were Zombie Apocalypse players, I wouldn't have to explain every little detail about what to do or what to farm.
This made the competition all the more intriguing.
Despite it being 5 versus 11, the group of five went to hunt the zombies without a single complaint, and surprisingly, their kill rate was neck-and-neck with the larger group.
However, the wild card was, as expected, Oh Yoon-seop.
"Hyaaaah!"
Having skill and confidence is all well and good, but unfortunately, in this real-life multi-server, those alone won't make everything go your way.
In a multi-server apocalypse, the most important thing is your mode.
One look at what I've achieved with my cheat mode explains everything.
You need a good mode.
Skill? If you have a great mode, it can easily compensate for any lack of skill.
Of course, if you don't even have the capacity to use a mode properly, you'll just die quickly anyway.
Someone like Oh Yoon-seop, who possessed Level 8 Combat Readiness, could exert far more power in a zombie apocalypse than someone who had played thousands of hours of the game, even if he had never played it himself.
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
In a trance-like state, he swung his shield and crushed the zombies' heads with the mace in his other hand.
His sheer determination not to lose was plain to see.
To Oh Yoon-seop, Paradise was literally heaven.
He held a vital role in this heaven, which allowed his family to live in happiness. Having that position taken away from him?
That was absolutely unacceptable to him.
For my part, I also preferred Oh Yoon-seop leading the hunting squad.
He was highly loyal and capable.
His upright personality meant he was stubborn in a good way, though in a bad way, he could be a bit of a rigid stickler. But as his superior, that wasn't a particularly critical flaw for me.
After about forty minutes, the tide of the battle began to turn.
"Pant... pant..."
The squad of five was starting to tire, their movements slowing down.
Their specialty lay in combat experience, not in prolonged, continuous warfare.
Facing a hundred zombies at once was not something easily accomplished without exceptional stamina.
They only managed to survive and pull this off because they had trained hard to raise their Stamina to Level 3 or 4.
Otherwise, they would have given up or died long ago.
The same went for the members of Oh Yoon-seop's hunting squad.
They had likely trained their stamina diligently as well, but they couldn't compare to the hardcore veterans who had ground out their stats like machines in the game.
They were hunting the zombies purely on sheer willpower.
Meanwhile, Oh Yoon-seop squeezed out every drop of his stats—including the Resident bonus—to unleash a final burst of energy.
That was the deciding factor.
Resident status plus Level 8 Combat Mode.
In terms of individual capability, each member of the five-man squad was skilled enough to pull the weight of 1.5 people.
In Oh Yoon-seop's squad, Oh Yoon-seop alone pulled the weight of three to four people, while his squad members did about 1.2?
In the end, with no one lagging behind, it concluded with an overwhelming victory for the single powerhouse.
"Whew... whew..."
Once the hunt was over, Oh Yoon-seop's squad walked over to me, sat down, and caught their breath.
"Good work."
Though they looked exhausted to the point of death, their faces were bright.
Two hundred Coins was no small reward.
It was enough to buy a weapon with a Level 2 Rare option, or upgrade their armor to something decent.
They could also gorge themselves on whatever food they wanted.
About thirty minutes later, the squad of five returned alive, though battered and bruised.
Toward the end, I had genuinely worried that one of them might drop dead at any moment, but they had managed to survive and wipe out all the zombies.
"Sigh... We lost."
"You guys did well too, Eagle Five Squad."
"Our team name is the Apocalypse Hunters, though?"
"That sounds like shit. Just go with Eagle Five Squad."
"..."
I think that sounds even worse...
It was useless for them to look at me with those expressions.
For some reason, it was the name I had wanted to give them the moment the five of them arrived.
They didn't seem to like it, but what could they do?
"Welcome. By the way, did you guys play Zombie Apocalypse?"
"Huh? How did you know?"
"Your movements are exactly like those of someone who has."
"That's right. Our youngest has about 2,500 hours, and I've played the longest with around 4,000 hours. Haha."
That's quite a lot.
Even those in the 1,000-hour range are usually out of their minds.
I granted Membership Level 3 to the Eagle Five Squad, who had gracefully accepted their defeat despite their initial ambitions of aiming for the Main Hunting Squad, and turned to head back.
"Captain? The guy from the Main Hunting Squad called you Captain. Can we call you that too?"
"Do whatever you want."
"It seems like you played Zom-A too, Captain. How many hours did you log?"
I find newbies like this cute.
Trying to flex with their playtime.
"A hundred thousand hours."
"Pardon?"
"Roughly around that much."
New members had joined Paradise.