Chapter 2: Base-Exclusive Cheat Mode
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 2: Base-Exclusive Cheat Mode
[Currently, xxx-ro xxxx-ga, Seongsu-dong, Seoul, Republic of Korea has been designated as a Safe Base.]
Since the starting base was automatically designated, it seemed the food supply had arrived.
Message or not, I was too busy savoring my hamburger.
"Mmm... so damn good."
It was just a plain, ordinary bulgogi burger.
But it wasn't some sad, cheap franchise bulgogi burger; it was the kind of quality you could only get at a gourmet handmade burger joint.
Bun. Bulgogi patty. Lettuce. Tomato. Onion. Sauce.
To think they could coax this much flavor out of just that.
Savoring the burger, chewing on fries, and then, just as my throat started to feel dry, chugging down a cold Coke—the carbonated rush sliding down my throat gave an orgasm that rivaled sex.
"Fuck. Pure sex."
Not like I've ever actually had sex, though.
Anyway, sex probably felt something like this.
Even in reality, I didn't get many chances to eat hamburgers.
Buying one whenever I had a craving had become too much of a luxury because burgers were so cost-ineffective. My only real chance to eat them was using the free coupons I got after donating blood.
You couldn't even begin to compare those cheap Teriyaki Burger coupons to this piping-hot, fresh hamburger.
"Ah. It's so fucking good."
What made it even more moving was how perfectly my sense of taste captured it.
It was rendered so flawlessly that it felt like actual reality.
Enough to make me mistake it for eating in the real world.
And so, I was happy.
"They could actually make a Zombie Apocalypse game like this?"
At least for now, all the complaints and shortcomings I had written in my review had been addressed and applied to this multi-server.
Honestly, if it was this good, did I even need to eat instant ramen in reality anymore?
I could just stuff myself with cheap, feed-like food in the real world to survive, and then eat delicious meals here in the Zombie Apocalypse.
After greedily devouring every last french fry, I gathered the trash into a bag.
"So damn good."
The efficiency of a mere Level 1 Mode was already this incredible.
What more would it give me if I invested points to level it up?
And it wasn't just a meager daily ration to scrape by on, either.
For one person, it was enough to keep me stuffed all day with leftovers to spare.
"If I wake up, eat the special meal around lunchtime, and then boil some ramen with rice before bed, I can save the rest."
Was this kind of eating habit even remotely plausible in a Zombie Apocalypse setting?
Normally, the best-case scenario was barely finding a can of food every two or three days and eating it a quarter at a time just to avoid starving to death.
Even that became impossible once you hit the third or fourth year of survival.
Because no food would be left.
By then, you'd have to resort to zombie meat... which, well, is an acquired taste. There was a mod that changed the setting so zombies dropped animal meat instead, allowing you to obtain food against extreme odds.
"Oh? This is here?"
As I was thinking about it, that exact mod was listed among my active modes.
Honestly, thinking realistically, is it really any different?
Zombie meat is basically human meat, but the game system just goes, Ta-da! We'll package it as animal meat for you.
But looking at it from another perspective, precisely because it's a game, you can eat it thinking of it as animal meat without worrying about it being human flesh.
After all, if you trace it back to its source, the zombie in front of you isn't a real person anyway—it's just data.
In any case, since I had used this mod before because I didn't want to resort to tearing into actual zombie flesh, it was a very welcome sight.
On top of that, living up to its name as a Cheat Mode, the mod's performance itself was far superior to the original version.
"1kg at a 1% chance? That's fucking amazing."
A low probability didn't really feel that bad.
After all, getting fresh meat in an apocalyptic world is an absurd concept to begin with, so being able to get some from just one out of every hundred zombies killed was nothing short of a blessing.
In the original mod, it was only 100g.
An amount that wouldn't even pass for a single serving at a Korean BBQ restaurant these days.
It was barely enough to get a taste, but this was a whole kilogram.
I could grill and stuff myself with this for days on end by myself.
"The probability will probably go up if I level this up too."
The day zombies disappear from this world is when the game ends.
So, at the very least, I wouldn't starve to death until this server went under.
Even if such a day did come, I still had the safe asset of my food supply.
I felt reassured.
At least the hunger issue was completely resolved.
Furthermore, food wasn't just a means to stave off hunger.
In a multi-server, food—which other players would desperately crave—would serve as a valuable substitute for currency in a world where money had lost all meaning.
"Heheh."
I tossed the water and food into my room and prepared to head out.
Normally, when starting a game, you loot your spawn point and move elsewhere. But since this was a multi-server where I was the host, and my house seemed to be set as the default base, it felt better to use this place as a starting point, clearing out and lighting up the surrounding area.
And indeed, I had to do so.
"I was tricked."
The tutorial had definitely said I could unlock mods from the other side, whether I chose Base-Building Type or Hunting Type.
But it said Base Invincibility was a mod that could only be obtained by choosing the Base-Building Type.
This meant the Hunting Type had its own exclusive mods too, likely of a similar caliber.
I was a bit curious, but I didn't regret my choice.
If anything, it was a relief.
"To think a mod like this exists... holy shit..."
Cheat.
From a game developer's perspective, it was bound to be an incredibly sensitive word.
Because the moment cheats enter any game, the balance is inevitably ruined.
Yet, the developers had provided a Cheat Mode.
It was a mod that truly lived up to its name.
"At least I'm invincible here."
In the default settings of Zombie Apocalypse, the probability of infection upon being bitten by a zombie is 50%.
Depending on where you get bitten, the time it takes for the infection to take hold varies, but the probability is always 50%.
And as time passes, the higher-level zombies that appear have an even higher rate.
When wounded by a zombie's claws or a weapon tainted with the zombie virus, it's 5%.
While you could practically consider that safe, if you got extremely unlucky, that 5% could still turn you into a zombie, so it was a probability that could never be ignored.
But this mod ignored all of that.
Even if I got bitten by a Level 2 or Level 3 zombie, as long as I stepped inside my base, I wouldn't be infected.
Explaining just how insanely broken this was would only waste my breath.
Of course, since it was limited to the base, not being able to roam the wider world was a drawback, but I wasn't the type to wander around aimlessly when playing Zombie Apocalypse anyway.
So, it was perfect.
Even putting aside the ridiculously broken option of infection immunity, having my stats unconditionally increase by 1 level inside the Safe Base was fantastic.
In fact, the condition attached to the end was so good that "fantastic" didn't do it justice—it deserved to be called downright god-tier.
"Inside the base, I could probably take down a Level 5 zombie by myself later on."
In Zombie Apocalypse, stats max out at Level 10.
Granted, Level 10 was a value you could only barely reach after years of survival, working out without fail, hunting, and grinding stats.
Once you hit Level 10, you no longer gained experience.
But this mod broke through that limit.
If I raised my stats to Level 10, the 1 level added by the Base Invincibility mod would bring my stats to Level 11.
And what if the level of Base Invincibility itself rose, further increasing the stat boost?
"Fucking sweet."
It made sense when I thought about it. To truly be invincible in a base, there shouldn't be anything capable of threatening me within its boundaries.
For forcing a system-level restriction that prevented anyone from attacking the base owner would feel too game-like and unfair, so the system widened the gap this way instead.
That was why even a shabby, tiny studio apartment like this was fine.
I could just expand it from here.
"Hmm-hmm~"
A hum naturally escaped my lips.
It was March, with winter just ending and spring on the horizon.
I threw on an eight-year-old padded coat that barely kept me warm anymore and grabbed the only kitchen knife in the house.
The blade was quite dull, but it didn't matter.
"Shall we go?"
As I opened the door, familiar sounds drifted in.
Kyaaaah!
Aaargh! Help me!
Fuck! What are these things?!
"Wait, this place is soundproofed too?"
Naturally, the studio apartment I lived in had zero soundproofing; it was a space meant strictly for sleeping.
To make matters worse, it was on the first floor.
At night, the sound of motorcycles passing by would pierce straight through to my ears without any filtering. The fact that I hadn't heard any of this chaos meant the Safe Base automatically handled soundproofing as well.
"Maybe I should just sleep here from now on."
A game that was better than reality.
I chuckled at the absurdity of it.
"Help me!"
The moment I stepped out of the building, a welcome voice greeted me.
A woman was running toward me, screaming desperately.
"Me?"
Since this was a secluded alleyway with very little foot traffic, and the few people around were either zombies, being chased, or getting bitten, she seemed to have rushed toward me because I was just standing there looking like an easy target.
Behind her, a single zombie was giving chase.
A short, scrawny, Level 1 weakling of a zombie.
But the woman, who seemed to be either an NPC or a player, probably didn't know that.
Or did she? If she was a player, she'd likely be a veteran. Maybe she was an NPC.
Well, it didn't matter.
Because she was pretty.
"Get behind me."
Instead of asking "Why should I?", I finished scanning her in a split second, hid the woman—who had run over wearing mismatched shoes, having lost one somewhere—behind my back, and faced the zombie chasing her.
I gripped the kitchen knife and lowered my stance.
Watching the zombie's movements, I raised my guard.
"...Ah, fuck it."
Then, I straightened up and walked forward.
This wasn't the server I used to play on.
This was a multi-server.
A server that had just been created.
The zombie crawling toward me was a Level 1 weakling among weaklings.
It was shuffling along so slowly it made me yawn; there was absolutely no need to strike a pose and analyze its movements.
As the distance closed, I slipped inside the reach of the zombie's flailing arms, palmed its chin upward, and drove the kitchen knife straight into its neck.
"Kyaaa!"
Her reaction was excessively dramatic for a mere Level 1 zombie kill.
Now this is what I'm talking about.
Blood sprayed out, painting my vision.
Crack.
I twisted the half-embedded kitchen knife, completely severing the zombie's windpipe.
[Obtained 1 Coin]
A Level 1 zombie was basically a walking coin.
And a very good friend that even dropped meat with a 1% chance.
I tossed the corpse aside and turned back to the woman with anticipation.
Naturally, she took a step back.
Between the pathetic Level 1 zombie that had been shuffling after her, and me—who had killed it in a single strike and was now approaching her with a grin, drenched in blood and holding a gore-stained kitchen knife...
Which one was scarier?
"P-please... spare me."
Once again, the woman begged for her life.
Instead of answering, I pulled down my pants.