Chapter 21: The Difference Between a Real Piece of Shit and Shitty Bastards
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 21: The Difference Between a Real Piece of Shit and Shitty Bastards
There are so many different ways to play Zombie Apocalypse.
Since it's a game with a high degree of freedom, it definitely has the downside of kicking out newbies with its high barrier to entry. However, the advantage where literally any choice you make seamlessly extends your gameplay was a unique innovation exclusive to Zombie Apocalypse.
At least, when the game was first released.
Nowadays, VR games have gotten so good that you can enjoy high-freedom games anywhere without having to play Zombie Apocalypse, so it has degraded into a niche game for enthusiasts.
To play a game like that for 100,000 hours, you can't be in your right mind.
It's not like someone held a knife to my throat and threatened to kill me if I didn't reach 100,000 hours, nor did anyone offer a prize saying, "Reach 100,000 hours and we'll give you a billion won!"
I played purely because I found Zombie Apocalypse fun. As a result, I feel like I've tried almost every possible playstyle in the game, and in the process, I developed my own unique style.
To be precise, maybe not "my own unique style," but just the kind of playstyle that suits my taste?
Playing this way allowed me to play the longest, most comfortably, and without stress.
That kind of feeling.
I can't say there's a single right answer.
Honestly, whenever I started getting bored, I would visit the Zombie Apocalypse Gallery to watch and copy how other crazy bastards played, or try things that didn't fit my taste. But in reality, there were times when the most incredibly boring, tedious playstyles turned out to be the most comfortable and helpful for survival.
My current actions are a result of adopting a few of those advantages.
I kill the real pieces of shit.
In a way, the AI of the NPCs in Zombie Apocalypse falls a bit short of being called human.
Let alone 100,000 hours, after just 1,000 hours, you can easily see right through them acting according to their pre-programmed stories and settings.
And yet, their shitty behavior can still catch you off guard and stab you in the back when you least expect it.
Never trust humans in an apocalypse.
Kill anyone who will eventually get in your way.
This isn't just my own golden rule.
Anyone who knows what they're doing in Zombie Apocalypse teaches this to newbies.
It can't be helped.
Unless players set up a private multi-server and bond in real life, betrayal is fatal in a survival apocalypse.
Setting aside the fact that the base you worked so hard to build gets destroyed, if you lose your food, there's nowhere else to get it.
So, I kill the real pieces of shit first.
But I don't kill shitty bastards right away.
That's why when I first saw the Auntie from the 2nd Floor, I only took care of her food and didn't kill her.
Because the Auntie from the 2nd Floor was just a shitty bitch, not a real piece of shit.
In the end, the difference is whether they pose a threat or not.
Of course, if I leave them alone and they end up trolling me, causing some shitty situation, it might be my own dumb fault for showing mercy. But killing every single annoying thing just to eliminate every tiny variable isn't my style of playing Zombie Apocalypse.
Sure, it would be convenient.
It would be safe and comfortable if there was absolutely nothing breathing within a one-kilometer radius.
But then, you lose human interaction, which is one of the fun parts of Zombie Apocalypse.
I kill the bastards who pose a direct threat immediately, but I leave the people who might cause small, amusing episodes alive to watch them.
In a bleak game where every single day is a struggle for survival, you really need to play for about 10,000 hours to understand how precious those little events are.
"...Why do you do things like that?"
And when I told Kim Ji-hee that, she looked at me with a strange expression.
"What do you mean 'things like that'? Why do I leave people to die?"
"No. What if they escape and come back later to get revenge..."
"If a modeless woman in her forties survives and suddenly brings back something that actually threatens me, wouldn't that be fucking hilarious?"
"..."
Well, I know I'm not normal.
The reason I stopped posting on the Zombie Apocalypse Gallery at some point was because I didn't want to waste my breath on idiots who couldn't understand my playstyle.
Some might think this is frustratingly slow.
But I'm a cider-path.
In my 100,000 hours of playtime, I've never once died a pathetic death from a boomerang effect caused by missing these tiny variables, so I can afford to play like this.
And honestly, this makes for a much more brutal and entertaining ending anyway.
Breaking down their door and beating them to death for stealing my meat?
That's easy and simple, but watching and listening to the final screams of a powerless person struggling to fend off a Zombie Rush is bound to be much more amusing.
That's why I made this decision.
Let someone else do the cleaning.
"Let's go."
Similarly, there's no need for me to step in at Seongsu Apartment either.
If their barricade collapsed and they scattered right at the start, the Seongsu Apartment self-governing body won't be able to fulfill its purpose anymore.
---
The streets were actually emptier than before the Zombie Rush.
If you break down the mechanics of a Zombie Rush, a major rush occurs once a day.
The zombies that start moving right at midnight make up that major rush, and they roam around relentlessly searching for humans for twelve hours.
Then, at noon, they take a temporary break.
Zombies are humans who have lost their minds, not Jiangshi.
They need energy to move, and likewise, they need sleep.
So, from noon until midnight, they halt their rush and rest nearby.
Naturally, the streets where zombies usually loitered had to be empty.
Because they were all gathered near places where humans might be hiding.
As we got closer to Seongsu Apartment, zombies began to appear.
The fact that there were still zombies here meant the situation at Seongsu Apartment hadn't been cleared up yet.
Since survivors were still resisting inside the apartment, the zombies weren't leaving.
"..."
I followed Kim Ji-hee as she looked over the apartment complex with a serious expression, stepping over the collapsed barricade.
Zombies were scattered all over, limiting our path, but we had no trouble looking around.
She looked conflicted.
At the same time, she also seemed to find a sense of certainty.
Her insistence on coming here after daybreak was probably because she wanted to find certainty amidst the chaos.
Among the scattering people.
That risking her life to come to me, rather than going back home, was by no means the wrong choice.
"Do you like what you see?"
"..."
She obviously wouldn't.
Still, she must have grown close to some of the people she spent nearly a week with, and regardless of her relationship with her aunt, they were family.
Not many people could look at corpses scattered everywhere, knowing their acquaintances might be dead, and feel relieved just because they survived.
Yet, Kim Ji-hee nodded.
"Let's go now."
I placed my hand on Kim Ji-hee's shoulder and was about to turn back when I heard a voice in the distance.
"Kim Ji-hee!"
At the shout of a well-built man, I looked toward the sound and saw a man opening the closed automatic entrance door in the distance, yelling.
It was a welcome face, even though it had only been a few days.
Of course, I didn't actually remember his face, but I recognized him because he was a tattooed thug who still couldn't let go of his tough-guy act, with his sleeves rolled all the way up.
"Wow. He's really trying hard to survive."
The 1st Zombie Rush—even though nearly 140 of them came at me—isn't that threatening as long as you keep your base small and have enough food to hold out inside.
It's not like there's a quest requiring you to kill every single swarming zombie.
If you hold out well enough, a resting period like this comes along. You can regroup during this time, and if you stay quiet during the next day's rush, you can slip right past it.
That's why even in the midst of all that chaos, the bastards with combat modes manage to survive.
I applauded his stupidity—screaming out loud while lacking the courage to actually step outside.
"Is he a dumbass?"
It would have been fine if he had just run out here.
The nearby zombies began to shuffle around.
They were resting, but they weren't dead.
"Hey, you crazy motherfucker! What are you doing?!"
"No, wait... Kim Ji-hee is..."
"Does that matter right now? Close the door, quick!"
Surprising to see someone with actual brains among them.
Well, he's right.
You have to be alive to fuck a girl.
If you get bitten and die right now, what use is a girl or her tits?
The problem is that to guys whose brains are ruled by their dicks, that doesn't really matter.
About twenty to thirty zombies swarmed toward the apartment entrance marked Building 108.
They closed the door too late, and the zombies didn't stop pounding on it.
It might not break.
But the zombies, having already been aggroed, would stay like that for at least three hours.
They would leave if they didn't sense any presence inside, but that was assuming the door didn't break within those three hours.
The rest was up to their fate.
"Let's go. If those bastards are still alive when this is over, I'll kill them myself."
It was pretty funny for me to talk about killing them when, to Kim Ji-hee, both that tattooed thug and I were probably the exact same kind of bastards who only wanted her body. But she must have found them to be real pieces of shit too, because she nodded.
"Should we go back and grill some meat?"
"I'm full..."
"Sex, then?"
"..."
"Let's farm a game console on the way. We have to stay inside today."
When darkness fell and midnight arrived.
The sound of zombies swarming into the building echoed.
I hadn't sounded a siren on an iPad, nor had I gathered the zombies.
I did absolutely nothing.
And because I did absolutely nothing, the zombies swarmed into the building.