Chapter 23: Hunting Expert
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 23: Hunting Expert
If a 72-hour Zombie Rush comes in 24-hour intervals, people usually think the third wave is the last.
But after the first wave at the start, the second wave at 24 hours, and the third wave at 48 hours, you reach 72 hours.
Right before the final Zombie Rush ends, the biggest wave of all hits, and then it's over.
So while the quest technically ends the moment the 72-hour mark hits, in reality, you have to survive that final wave for it to truly be over.
Well, in the original Zombie Apocalypse, this didn't really matter much.
It wasn't like you got a reward just for surviving. In the first place, the Zombie Rush was just a mode created by bored players. Even if they did include rewards, they didn't hand them out as quests; instead, players farmed items dropped by the endless hordes of zombies.
But here, quests actually exist.
As the final 72 hours came to an end, the rewards arrived.
[3 Points Acquired]
[Hunting Cheat Mode Unlocked]
The sex that started while washing the dishes continued until I came five times. My plan to clean up and then deal with the zombies outside was completely derailed when I passed out, postponing everything until I woke up the next afternoon.
Kim Ji-hee was completely spent, rolling around on the mattress all day. During the third wave, I went out alone to finish Repeat Quest 1-2, killed about a hundred more zombies, and came back inside.
I only had one sex-related mode, and since it was only Level 1, it barely gave any stat boosts. When we started, I hadn't expected to be able to go five rounds.
But thanks to the Base Invincibility effect, and the fact that my Safe Base bonus stats happened to go into Stamina, my Level 6 Stamina made it possible.
Of course, after coming five times, I was so exhausted I couldn't even lift a finger, which is why I fell straight asleep.
My Stamina recovered quickly, though.
As for Kim Ji-hee, whose Stamina was only Level 1, I told her to stay in bed and rest more.
And so, the final rush.
The quest was complete. As the Day 4 rush began, I looked at my 4 points with a satisfied smile.
"This feeling of getting stronger just by breathing... Which fucking broken mode should I level up today?"
Having too many options is a problem in itself.
While having sex, I did feel a slight urge to get a sex-related cheat mode, but I wasn't stupid enough to waste my points on that.
With such insanely OP modes practically begging for points, how could I possibly spend them anywhere else?
"Ah..."
Actually, this wasn't even supposed to be a dilemma.
I had originally planned to combine the 1 point from the Repeat Quest 1-2 reward with the 3 points from the Main Quest reward, using all 4 points to raise my Safe Base to Level 5.
Even though Predation was great, looking at it objectively, it was a late-game hunting mode. I judged that it was better to focus on leveling up my Safe Base first, which was the core of my current playstyle.
In fact, raising my Safe Base to Level 3 was what allowed me to bring Kim Ji-hee inside and help her quickly adapt and feel safe.
If I raised it to Level 5, I might actually be able to live a life inside this house that was far better than the one I had in the real world.
Though even now, just looking at what I ate and where I slept, it was already better than my gutter life in reality.
But this newly acquired hunting cheat mode made me reconsider those plans.
"Sigh... Fuck... Why isn't this linked?"
It didn't even link up with Predation, my other hunting cheat mode, to start at Level 2; it seemed I had to level it up completely separately.
Was it because Safe Base and Base Invincibility were modes I received specifically because I chose a base-building playstyle?
Whatever the case, Hunting Expert definitely had a certain appeal when compared to Predation, which was also a cheat mode.
Well, comparing them, both modes had clear pros and cons.
Predation was a mode that would improve my own combat-related abilities, whereas Hunting Expert was a hunting cheat mode that improved my surroundings—specifically, the performance of my items.
That was why I found it more appealing.
Because I had chosen and aimed for a base-building playstyle.
A mode like Hunting Expert, which had one foot in the base-building playstyle, was bound to be attractive.
In Zombie Apocalypse, rare items existed.
Since it wasn't an RPG, farming was usually limited to scavenging food, weapons, and clothes from houses. But over time, the developers had added a little something to keep farming fun in their minimal updates.
And that was 'rare materials'.
Anything could be a material with the 'Rare' prefix.
It could be food, a weapon, or clothing.
Compared to normal materials, rare materials each possessed a special power. To put it simply, you could think of them as having bonus stats or options, just like in other games.
The Thermal Pouch I got from the supply box was a prime example.
Distinguishing rare items wasn't easy.
After all, it wasn't like every single item with an option was considered rare.
Even the [Rusty Dagger (★)] I picked up had '+1 Damage to Zombies', but it wasn't a rare item.
A truly rare item had options, but they were special options, not basic ones.
So, in truth, even Zombie Apocalypse players couldn't easily tell them apart.
The veterans on the gallery had compiled lists of rare items, but none of it was official.
Because the developers never released any official data.
Even the [Rusty Dagger] might actually be treated as a rare item under some definitions.
Anyway.
Rare items held that kind of value.
They were valuable enough for veterans to spend dozens of hours of playtime scouring entire cities just to find one.
It was content officially created by the developers to help balance the game's difficulty.
One of the most representative rare items was the Lightweight Backpack.
Depending on its level, it was a backpack that acted like a subspace, reducing the weight of the items inside and allowing you to carry more.
It was something like that.
Which meant that a hunting mode that increased the drop rate of these rare items was, without a doubt, the absolute most broken of all broken modes.
Since the odds of finding one in an entire city were slim to none, to borrow the words of Zombie Apocalypse players, it was basically like winning the lottery.
A 1% increase to that?
Although there was a catch—similar to how Predation only had a 1% chance of working on zombies with positive modes—it was still a number that absolutely couldn't be ignored.
So, I had no choice.
"Let's split it fairly and give 2 points to each."
Leaving points unspent is a waste.
I've never played an RPG before, but leaving spare points behind meant choosing not to get stronger when you easily could.
It was a completely different story from saving them because you had no other options.
To invest the points perfectly without any leftovers, there were only two options.
Hunting Expert 3 / Safe Base 4
Safe Base 5
I could also go with Hunting Expert 2 / Predation 3 / Safe Base 4, but unfortunately, Predation was a lower priority for now.
Or I could raise Hunting Expert to 4, but that would make the side-gig of hunting bigger than my main base-building playstyle—the tail wagging the dog.
"Whoa. Holy shit."
I had leveled up Hunting Expert first, just in case.
Safe Base was already a proven cheat mode that always delivered results beyond my wildest expectations.
My trust in it was absolute, but I hadn't been sure about Hunting Expert.
Yet, it showed performance on par with Safe Base.
The jump to a 5% chance was crazy enough, but the new options that appeared at Level 2 and Level 3 were enough to make me blurt out 'holy shit'.
"There are dungeons too?"
Setting aside whether the rewards became more valuable or not, just the word 'dungeon' made my heart flutter.
If you asked veterans what the biggest flaw of Zombie Apocalypse was, every single one of them would say the same thing.
That there was no content.
Zombie Apocalypse was a game where you had to make your own content, and it gave players immense freedom to do so, but in the end, the lack of built-in content was still a major disappointment.
With such a vast world and free-form gameplay, if they had just added a few cliché pieces of content, it wouldn't have ended up as such a niche, trash game.
But in the multi-server, all of that feedback had actually been implemented.
If they officially turned those places into dungeons, letting players enter them and earn slightly better rewards, then this game... No, wait, this isn't a game anymore...
This world could be considered the absolute perfect zombie apocalypse itself.
And the final option.
"Try hitting me."
"Huh?"
I pulled Kim Ji-hee up from where she was rolling around on the mattress and said.
Kim Ji-hee hesitated for a moment, then swung her arm.
It was a completely non-threatening, clumsy swing.
Even if it hit, it wouldn't deal a single point of damage, but that wasn't what mattered.
I could see the trajectory.
I understood exactly what those words meant in an instant.
"...This is insane."
I was staring in a daze and ended up getting hit on the arm.
"Why? Does it hurt? I'm sorry."
"Like that would hurt."
To be able to see attack trajectories...
This was an ability that would be called ridiculously OP even in a game... and yet, it was actually possible to manifest it in reality.
For a 2-point investment, I couldn't be more satisfied.