Chapter 18: Zombie Rush, Day 1
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 18: Zombie Rush, Day 1
Ever since the zombie apocalypse began, I had been living a disciplined life, something I had never done before in my entire existence.
It wasn't a perfectly rigid sleep schedule, but I made sure to get at least eight hours of sleep, sometimes even up to ten.
Going to bed later and later was a bit of an issue, but since I didn't have to commute to work here anyway, it didn't really matter whether I slept at 10 PM or 3 AM.
In a zombie apocalypse, it's generally better to be active during daylight hours, so sleeping as soon as the sun goes down is ideal. But as long as I was inside my Safe Base, day and night didn't make much of a difference to me for now.
After spending nearly a week sleeping soundly and waking up refreshed, I set an alarm and woke up at midnight for the first time.
I didn't have a phone, but while waiting around, I had scavenged an empty house, picked up an iPad, and used it to set an alarm.
Finding an iPad without a passcode lock wasn't easy, but surprisingly, it didn't take too long either.
A dark night.
I had gone to bed early, so I managed to get at least six hours of sleep before waking up.
[The Zombie Rush is beginning.]
[Time remaining until completion: 71 hours, 59 minutes, 59 seconds]
The Zombie Rush had begun.
This was exactly the same as the Zombie Rush Mode I knew.
In the first place, the modes applied to this multi-server were basically adapted and refined from user-made mods, so it was only natural.
What I was curious about was the settings for the Zombie Rush.
User-created Zombie Rush modes allowed for various configurations.
As I mentioned before, depending on how you configured the settings, the Zombie Rush Mode could turn the zombie apocalypse into an entirely different game.
Normally, zombies didn't move in packs, but in this mode, they swarmed together to hunt down users.
The most common setting was for all zombies within a certain radius to swarm toward the user's current location.
But since this was reality, would such an unrealistic scenario actually happen?
On what basis would the zombies suddenly band together and swarm toward a user's location?
On top of that, this was a multi-server.
On a private server, they could target the single player protagonist and swarm them, but right now, even just looking at Seongsu-dong, the number of living users must be quite high.
Just the number of people I occasionally saw while walking around was pretty significant.
And you couldn't ignore those who were hiding out, either.
Hunt them down one by one? People who were currently hiding so well they couldn't even be spotted?
Well, I suppose it was possible.
I was just curious to see how it would play out.
That was why I opened my eyes as soon as it hit midnight to watch.
[Zombies grow hungry under the influence of the Blood Moon.]
[Zombies grow sensitive under the influence of the Blood Moon.]
[Zombies' abilities are enhanced under the influence of the Blood Moon.]
"Wow. So that's how it works."
I stepped outside and looked up at the sky.
A blood-red full moon hung in the sky.
Kraaaagh!
Khwak!
The shrieks of zombies echoed throughout the city.
"Fuck. This is killer."
This eerie atmosphere was probably the most fitting setting for a zombie apocalypse.
Just listening to it gave me goosebumps and made me want to shrink back.
In this reality-applied zombie apocalypse called a multi-server, they had made the Zombie Rush highly logical and plausible.
Of course, the Blood Moon itself could be seen as a sudden supernatural phenomenon beyond modern science, but did that shit even matter?
As long as there was a plausible reason for the zombies to suddenly attack, that was enough.
And the effects were immediate.
Screams of humans began to echo from all directions.
Under the influence of the Blood Moon, the zombies' hearing became sharper and their vision improved.
Even their sense of smell, which could be considered their only weakness, became quite keen.
This was an extremely dangerous sign.
After all, even if humans hid, they couldn't help but emit odors to survive.
The smell of food.
The sound of movement.
Lit lights.
These elements were inevitably inseparable from gathered humans.
Naturally, the zombies head in that direction.
"Shall I warm up a bit?"
Put another way, I was completely free from the mechanics of the Zombie Rush.
If I stayed inside my Safe Base and shut the door, no sound from the outside could get in, and no sound from the inside could get out.
The same went for smells.
In other words, this was a total breeze of a Main Quest that I could clear simply by holed up inside for three days and enjoying a vacation.
Yet, here I was, standing outside.
If I were going to survive like a cowardly pussy, I wouldn't have picked a fight with the Seongsu Autonomous Organization in the first place.
I needed to grow.
It might be comfortable right now, but the difficulty of this game wasn't something that could be easily cleared even with Cheat Mode.
Even if you loaded up on Cheat Modes, you could get wiped out in an instant in the late game if you didn't play seriously. That meant I had to grind hard early on.
Only then could I enjoy a much more entertaining zombie apocalypse life.
This was an opportunity.
I turned up the volume of the siren sound I had downloaded on the iPad to the maximum and pressed play.
Weeeeee-oooooo—
The sound blared in all directions.
I drew the hunting dagger I had scavenged yesterday.
Doing this on the very first day of the Zombie Rush...
Blaring a siren to gather zombies was choosing a path of extreme hardship, but it was fine.
– A hunting-exclusive mode. When defeating an enemy, there is a 3% chance to prey upon and absorb 1 of the target's positive modes.
– When defeating an enemy, there is a 10% chance for 1 random stat to increase by ★. (Max 1 / Max ★ / Lasts for 10 minutes)
I invested the 1 point I obtained from completing Repeat Quest 1-1 (killing 200 zombies) into Predation instead of my Safe Base.
Of course, I knew that fighting while receiving the Base Invincibility mode from my Safe Base meant investing points into the Safe Base would be far more beneficial, but 1 point wasn't enough to reach Level 4.
"To think it requires 2 points starting from Level 4..."
I hadn't expected this, but then again, requiring only 1 point to level up all the way from Level 1 to 10 would be too broken.
I figured even a Cheat Mode would have some sort of scaling like this.
"If even normal modes require 2 points, that's going to be a bit tough."
I hadn't used points to level up normal modes yet, but if they also required 2 points starting from Level 4, I might end up running shorter on points than I thought.
In this zombie apocalypse, you normally had to level up skills by actually using them, so being able to level them up using points was already incredibly fast. Still, considering the name 'Cheat Mode,' it felt a bit disappointing.
Well, I could just check that later when I leveled up a normal mode.
At any rate, my current stats were 5/4/4/4 thanks to the Base Invincibility effect, and with the Rest Bonus stats added, they were now 5/6/4/4.
It was a shame that the extra stats didn't go into Strength, but at least they didn't go into Mana.
For the first time in a while, I plunged into the swarming horde of zombies.
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"Hold the barricade!"
"The front gate is being breached!!!"
"Fuck. There are way too many of them."
"Call all non-combatants too!! If this place gets breached, we're fucked!!"
Kim Ji-hee trembled as she held her baseball bat, watching the horde of zombies pounding against the barricade.
She was terrified.
She was filled with dread.
There were easily over a hundred zombies within her line of sight alone.
Since this wasn't the only barricade surrounding the apartment complex, she couldn't even begin to imagine how many more zombies there were.
She wanted to run away.
Although there were over a hundred people inside as well, they had never faced such a massive horde of zombies desperately rushing them before, and less than thirty percent of their group was skilled in combat.
Would it be better to just go inside her home and hide?
But the Autonomous Organization didn't make that choice.
They chose to hold the line.
They actually held up reasonably well.
Quite a few people had gotten used to killing zombies by utilizing their modes.
But there was no end to them.
The zombies did not fear death.
Corpses piled up in front of the barricade, and the living ones used them as stepping stones to climb over.
One by one.
It took less than an hour for them to start spilling over.
They were pushed back to the secondary defensive line, and it took three hours for that to be breached as well.
"The Zombie Rush will end if we just hold out for a few days! Hold out as long as you can!"
The shout of someone who at least knew about the zombie apocalypse became their sole beacon of hope.
Was this really hope?
The defensive lines they had established across the vast apartment complex collapsed, and people scattered to survive on their own.
The group no longer had any meaning.
When everyone began fleeing to their homes without looking back...
When she saw her aunt and uncle running toward their home without even glancing at her, despite being right next to her...
Why was that?
A clear destination flashed in Kim Ji-hee's mind.
Could she make it?
When there were hordes of zombies everywhere?
But surprisingly, thanks to the scattering people, it didn't seem entirely impossible to find a path.
It might be a choice that required abandoning everything.
After all, her clothes, food, and belongings were still back at her home.
Yet, her feet moved before her regrets could hold her back.
Holding her breath as much as possible, she ran with all her might.
Even amidst the chaos, she managed to navigate the path she had only taken three or four times before, arriving after a twenty-minute walk.
By the time she snapped out of it, a sudden silence had enveloped her.
Quiet?
The apartment complex was an absolute hell, so why was it like this here?
Kim Ji-hee only realized the reason once she reached the studio apartment building.
Piles upon piles of zombie corpses.
Seeing a man covered in blood, eating a cup of ramen and pouring beer into a chilled glass right in the middle of the carnage, her legs gave out and she collapsed to the ground.
"You're here?"
The man waved at her warmly.
Strangely, the sight filled her with relief.