Chapter 164: Armed Thugs with Guns
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 164: Armed Thugs with Guns
[Faction Quest 7]
– You have fallen into a trap set by the "Lotte World" faction, who spiked your food with sleeping pills. Quell the rebellion of "Lotte World" as they dream of mutiny, and re-establish your absolute dominance.
– Rewards: 2 Points, 19+ Mode Level (★) Selection Ticket x3, Normal Mode Level (★) Selection Ticket x3
The reason these cliché, tedious, repetitive tropes are so boring is because they always work despite being incredibly predictable.
Once or twice, you might think, Wow, how novel. This is fun, and let it slide. But when you've done this dozens or hundreds of times and succeeded like I have, it doesn't even register as a surprise.
In fact, if they designed a trap but chose not to spring it, or if they actually remained friendly to the very end, that would be far more refreshing and keep me on my toes.
Serving food and acting completely submissive while slipping in sleeping pills or poison is such a shitty cliché that even modern novels and dramas avoid using it.
But surprisingly, in reality...
...and especially in a zombie apocalypse, it's an incredibly effective tactic.
Because food itself is such a precious resource.
When people walk right into the middle of a group, arrogant and thinking they hold the upper hand, how do you subdue them?
There's no need for brute force.
If you offer them food, they'll feel an immense sense of superiority and eat it without suspicion. Even if they don't, they'll eventually have to eat out of hunger anyway. If you present them with high-quality, irresistible food, they're bound to take at least a bite.
But we were different.
The food we brought from Paradise was far more delicious and warmer than the best spread they could muster here, and since we already expected a trap, we didn't touch a single bite.
That was why we could remain wide awake.
"Are you sure you put enough sleeping pills in?"
"Yes. Even if they only ate half, they would've passed out."
"Let's go in."
I didn't need to worry about Oh Yoon-seop's hunting squad or the Eagle Five Squad.
I had told them not to fire their guns and just subdue anyone who entered, but the elite members of Lotte World's main hunting squad wouldn't have been deployed here anyway.
Since they were coming in expecting us to be drugged, they wouldn't be prepared for a real fight.
Creeeak.
The door opened.
The lights were all off, so it would be pitch black.
They slotted the keycard to turn on the lights, but nothing happened.
I had already broken the sensor.
"...?"
They sensed something was wrong, but it was already too late to turn back.
They stepped into the room.
It was a spacious suite, so it took them a while to walk all the way inside.
Waiting by the door, I covered the mouth of the first guy to enter my room and slit his throat with a scalpel.
I laid his corpse, eyes still wide open, onto the bed and covered it with the duvet.
Blood pooled out, staining the slightly dingy white duvet crimson, but the next person coming in wouldn't be able to see it.
Even if their eyes adjusted, darkness was still darkness.
"Where are they?"
"Are they not in the room?"
There were about five or six of them.
Knowing I was staying alone, they hadn't sent a large group.
As they scattered to search, they were quickly taken care of one by one.
When I openly walked up to the last guy, he stared at me in utter disbelief.
"How...!"
"Too predictable. Zero points."
In the dark, he probably didn't realize that the food on the table in front of him remained completely untouched.
After finishing off the last guy, I stepped out of the room.
The hunting squads were emerging at just the right moment.
"Let's go."
The goal was achieved.
While watching the event unfold and obtaining the quest was one of my goals, it was merely secondary. My real objective was to bide my time and spread rumors.
Since I had acquired 2 points, Normal Mode points, and 19+ Mode points in the process, there was no longer any need to stay in this uncomfortable, smelly place.
There was an elevator, but we took the stairs.
Descending one floor and opening the door, loud groans and beastly sounds echoed through the 31st-floor hallway.
Since the sounds were sparse, it seemed they had already moved up from the lower floors.
The hunting squads took a room each, kicking the doors open.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Accompanied by the sound of gunfire, they cleared the rooms and continued down, floor by floor.
We repeated this for about ten floors.
By the time we reached the first floor, people had gathered outside, barely even dressed.
"P-Please spare us!"
The 5th floor had been empty for a while, and since I couldn't see the guy I met earlier, I figured he had run away.
"Where are the people from the 5th floor?"
"...They fled. They're probably at Lotte Tower..."
A man who had quickly learned the simple rule that silence meant getting shot immediately ratted them out.
Seeing how easily he talked, it seemed none of the high-ranking members of this faction were left here.
I left them behind and walked past.
The quest had already been completed.
Since a rebellion just meant some guys trying to ambush and kill me, I had handed out appropriate retribution. There was no need to slaughter everyone.
If we wanted to use Lotte World again, we needed people to manage and clean the place.
"Clean up Lotte World and keep it well-maintained."
Besides, since this faction had settled here, there were bound to be people who knew how to maintain the amusement park rides.
After giving them one final warning, I left, entered a suitable building, turned on the electricity, and went to sleep.
When I woke up in the morning, rumors had spread on the gallery exactly as I wanted.
Naturally, we were the ones who started these rumors.
The Eagle Five Squad and the Main Hunting Squad had gone into their hotel rooms and diligently posted on the Paradise Gallery.
Although it used a real-name system, nobody knew the names of our hunting squad members anyway.
The rumors spread rapidly as the newly registered members of the Lotte World faction chimed in to corroborate them.
Of course, even with all this, factions currently outside the Safe Base couldn't read these posts right away.
Because the Paradise Gallery was only accessible to Paradise Membership holders.
That was why I deliberately gave it some time.
Just because a faction was outside Paradise's range didn't mean they couldn't use the Paradise system at all.
They must have heard of Paradise.
Especially since they weren't far from the Safe Base's boundary, there were various ways to exploit the system.
Even if they couldn't get water, electricity, and heating directly in their own bases, they could set up temporary outposts at the very edge of the boundary to utilize the system slightly. Or they could plant a membership holder inside the Safe Base to buy food with coins and smuggle it back.
Thus, the news was bound to travel one way or another.
And that strategy proved highly effective.
"We've been waiting for you. Our faction has a total of 211 people, and we will have 200 of them sign up. We heard that 90% is enough... May we exclude 11 people?"
"By the way, will the electricity service be available immediately...?"
"We've heard so much about you. I wanted to visit and ask in person... Thank you so much for coming all this way!"
Honestly, this was the realistic reaction.
No matter how large a faction was, it didn't mean they were running smoothly.
If they had a large population but couldn't farm resources properly, their quality of life was often far worse than that of a small, tight-knit party.
With so many mouths to feed, the amount of food required was astronomical, and sustaining that was impossible unless they were exceptionally capable.
In most factions, it was taken for granted that only a tiny elite—about 5 to 10%—lived like actual human beings, while the rest were treated as mere cogs working to support them.
So, rather than opposing us—who were armed with high-end weapons like guns—they chose the easy way out and surrendered.
Of course, they had to spend coins.
But they had already done the math, having seen what happened to those who resisted at Lotte World.
Besides, the benefits of joining the Paradise Membership must have been well-known by now.
In a world like this, just being able to use electricity was a value that coins couldn't buy.
The rest was easy to wrap up.
After subjugating all five factions, forcing them to sign up for the Paradise Membership, and raking in a sweet amount of coins, the Eagle Five Squad shared their thoughts on the way back.
"It felt like we were real armed thugs. That was so much fun, Captain."
"It felt like playing Zom-A again after a long time."
"Where to next?"
"For now, we head back."
"Yes, sir!"
[Quest Complete!]
[Safe Base (☆★) Enhancement unlocked.]
[Enhancement up to Safe Base (☆3★) is now possible.]
[Safe Base-Exclusive Effect Selection Ticket x1 acquired]