Headhunting: The False Eden
We tail the bastard. My sister and I kill our presence, and since his Perception isn’t particularly high and we have Stealth, he never notices us. We stay ready to shoot the moment we’re spotted, but I have no real intention of pulling the trigger. All sorts of information tangle together in my head. The absurdly large parking lot. The lie about there being another one underground. The President heading down to the third basement level. The order to bring him back alive if possible. [Madness (Current Default Setting | Occurred due to experiments conducted in Exodus Arcadia)]
The decisive clue comes from Insight, the skill that lets me peek at the System. I reach a conclusion. There’s a laboratory beneath Exodus Arcadia. At the very least, some kind of facility equivalent to one. The third basement level isn’t the end. If we go deeper from there, we’ll find the core facility. Until now I couldn’t tell what the President had been lying about. Now I know. Exodus Arcadia isn’t just a group trying to survive like everyone else.
Then what does he want from Oh Jin-uk? A chill runs down my spine. I follow Oh Jin-uk while thinking, my sister walking ahead of me. Only one bodyguard visible. The bodyguard’s gear wasn’t in the armory. He didn’t care that we took equipment from the armory. The soldiers’ command structure was nowhere to be seen. Everything falls into place at once. I rein in my imagination and make a realistic judgment. What lies beneath the surface? It’s an obvious story. Maybe I can even guess what became of the vanished Saeneul cultists. I have decisive circumstantial evidence. The President knew about the miracles the Cult Leader possessed. But that doesn’t mean multiple people have miracles similar to the Cult Leader’s. It’s the opposite. I saw the Cult Leader’s life. I know what he did. His end was pathetic and idiotic, but his abilities were real. He turned Saeneul into a religion one in five Koreans believed in. There’s a lot of hearsay, but according to what’s commonly mentioned, he advanced technology, revived the Korean economy, and founded companies that led in every field. None of that came solely from the Shop. The Cult Leader had political skill. The ability to buy anything in the world with points, combined with political competence. So the thought anyone would reach after learning all that is this: the Cult Leader is truly special. The Cult Leader is the savior. Many people were loyal to him to that degree. Even after he became a zombie, they held a Eucharist with his flesh and blood. But the President immediately judged that there must be more powers like that miracle. That someone else must possess one. I’d felt suspicious from the start, but now I understand why. The President knew that miracle wasn’t unique. Once I realize that, I stop walking. I stare blankly at Oh Jin-uk’s retreating back.
“…Oppa?”
Only after he’s far enough away does my sister speak. She stands still, looking flustered yet waiting for my decision. I look at her and say, “The President lied to us.”
She meets my eyes. “I get why he wanted him brought back alive, too. Means he still has work left to do.”
She doesn’t have Insight, so she wouldn’t know the details. She’ll figure out the reason on her own anyway, and even without one, she’ll follow me no matter what. Still, I explain anyway. “Even if we bring him back alive, he probably never planned to let us walk away clean.”
Sometimes saying something out loud solidifies a thought and makes the judgment clear. This is one of those moments. “Or he’s planning something even worse.”
I roughly understand why he handed over the equipment so readily. He must think he can just take it back later. He probably has some hidden means. Maybe I should’ve just killed him during that one-on-one meeting. No, then we wouldn’t have gotten to play at the amusement park. Pointless to regret it now. What matters is what I can do right now.
My sister doesn’t look particularly shocked. Of course not. She’s Kang Ahyeon. But she doesn’t just agree that she expected as much, nor does she ask what we should do. “I know.”
A light answer. I turn to look at her blankly. She pulls something out of her pocket. It looks like a white card. No, it is a card. Not a credit card. It has a magnetic strip, but it’s completely white. What is this? She answers the question I didn’t ask. “I swiped it on the way back from the bathroom. It was in the President’s pocket.”
“…His pocket?”
Then this is… “And I snuck down to the third basement level. There were no cars. Instead… there was a door.”
“A door.”
“Yeah. A door with a locking latch. Opens if you swipe a card key.”
“…And that’s the card key?”
“Probably.”
“…Then the President couldn’t get in?”
She shrugs. “He contacted someone when he realized it was missing and had it opened.”
Security is lax. No, it probably isn’t. They just never imagined we’d steal it, and if they can’t connect the dots, they wouldn’t even know what it is. “So, what now?”
She glances sideways, looking in the direction Oh Jin-uk disappeared. “Want to go back? Kill the President?”
He lied to us. So he should die. I understand that conclusion, but everything has an order. I check the quest floating in the corner of my vision. And just like before, when my sister completed my quest in the bunker on my behalf, she probably knows about it too. So what she’s really asking is: do the quest, or go kill the President? I make a simple decision. North of North Island, where Oh Jin-uk disappeared. The area dense with civilian houses. “We’ll kill both.”
We start moving again.
Madman, Oh Jin-uk — Defeat 0/1
The village is surrounded by massive greenhouses and fields. Instead of the smell of fertilizer, what hits our noses is the sharp stench of corpses. The smell of rotting, decaying flesh. We cross the fields. Using the vegetation between them for cover, we stay low, muffle our footsteps, and keep our rifles close. The task is simple. Kill Oh Jin-uk. He possesses Madness, so there’s no telling if he can even understand reason. He has immunity to regeneration and is an untrustworthy individual. On top of that, he’s a cult pastor. Killing him here is the right call. Whatever stat points or Advanced-level Heavy Swordsmanship he has left are just a bonus. I set my rifle to semi-auto. Through the bushes, we finally spot his hideout. Inside are…
“…Ugh.”
Naked zombies. Wandering around in the wild, completely bare. Did he strip every single one of them? Why? While I’m thinking, Oh Jin-uk comes into view. “Come now, let’s work hard again today! My brothers and sisters! In the Garden of Eden, let us please the Lord!”
I can roughly guess. His Madness. Maybe it twists the zombies into thinking they’re human. The fact that he bothered stripping them makes it obvious he’s deluded himself into believing this is Eden. I recall when Madness first appeared for me. [Madness (Resistance to stress and anomalies above a certain threshold)] That’s what my Madness felt like. If I had chosen Madness and that was the default state… what would I have looked like? I don’t want to become something like that. For the first time in a while, I think I’m truly lucky as I raise my rifle. I meet my sister’s eyes. She sets Holy Lance upright on the ground and picks up her rifle, the stock adjusted shorter than mine. We aim at the same time. The task is obvious. The quest wants that bastard dead. I want that bastard dead. If our goals had differed, we might’ve spared him. But he’s dangerous. An unpredictable variable. With the uncontrollable variable called Madness, the President wanted him alive. So we kill him. I aim at the zombies. No need to coordinate a signal.
Kakakakakakakakang—
The rifles, set to semi-auto, spit fire. I adjust my aim between zombies as if scraping across them. One second. Two seconds. Spent casings clatter to the ground. Zombies with holes in their heads drop. My sister and I swing our muzzles toward Oh Jin-uk at the same time. Click, a short sound. Full auto. We empty our magazines. Kakakakakakakang. Amid the storm of bullets—
“Ghk—”
The man trembles violently, choking, shaking, spilling blood. Crimson flowers bloom across the old man’s body. Blood sprays in every direction. The moment her magazine empties, my sister grabs Holy Lance, which she’d propped diagonally on the ground, and aims. Kwaaaaaaaaang! There’s no need to say it spits fire. Holy Lance launches an inexplicable spear at high speed and pierces through. Fwoooosh! Oh Jin-uk’s body flies into the air before rolling across the ground. “Reload.”
I slap in a fresh magazine and step out of the bushes. Roughly fifteen rifle rounds each—thirty total—plus one shot from Holy Lance. That’s usually fatal. Even if Strength 20 greatly improves muscle quality, it doesn’t make you immune to bullets. So he should be dead. Even with regeneration. He has to be. Yet—
Oh Jin-uk stands up. In a grotesque posture, feet planted on the ground, body slowly rising. The bullets embedded in him are pushed out by new flesh and roll across the floor. Even the Holy Lance stuck in his neck is yanked free and discarded. Vitality quickly returns to his aged body. “Ah… aaaah…” He weeps. Tears fall as he looks at the zombies collapsed on the ground. “Everyone… ah, how could this… aaaah… aaaaaah—!” He screams. Screaming, he picks up a machete. Crying, he glares at us. A chilling sensation. The bullets have been completely expelled by new flesh and lie on the ground. Even with his old, potbellied body, I can feel the writhing power inside. And that’s not all. “Aaaaaah—! My brothers and sisters—!” At his cry, I sense restless movement. With Nanggojisang widening my field of vision, I see writhing shadows approaching from the distant horizon. “Oppa…” I sling my rifle onto my back and grab the hilt at my waist. Guns won’t work on him. More precisely, the wounds from bullets are too small for regeneration to handle easily. What’s needed isn’t point damage, but line and surface damage. So not a gun. A sword. The blade slides out without a sound. A milky-white, sturdy sword. “You vile, demonic bastards… After everything I went through to escape, after coming all this way… it can’t end here. Grhh…” Watching Oh Jin-uk lower his stance while growling, I take a middle guard. “Leave the zombies to me.”
He accelerates. Boom. He kicks off the ground and charges. His lower body sways grotesquely, belly jiggling. Even so, his Strength is 20, nearly equal to mine. But the moment I grip the sword, I see it. My Expert-level Heavy Swordsmanship analyzes his movements. What lingers in his actions is swordsmanship. Technique lost to Madness, to insanity. Yet carved into the body. Which means this is my domain. Kwaaaaaaaaang! The world blurs violently with the speed of Tadol. Within that blur, I dodge his machete and extend my sword. No need to swing. All that’s required is thrusting the blade at the precise angle. And so—
Kaaaaang! Oh Jin-uk’s outstretched left arm is severed. “Ugh, grk, aaaaaah—” The arm flies up, then drops to the ground with a thud. I declare, “This one’s mine.”