Human Non-Protected Zone (1)

I'd watched an idol performance from the front row at a university festival.

She was far prettier in person than she'd ever looked on a monitor or smartphone screen. The old saying that the real thing beats the screen wasn't wrong. Even while pouring out buckets of sweat, she bounded across the stage with genuine energy, and her bright smile at the students' cheers and group chants was impossible to miss.

It wasn't quite legendary fancam material, but the atmosphere was electric enough that short clips of it spread easily. The stage vibe had been that good.

Yet I felt dizzy. Maybe I'd screamed along with everyone else. Maybe it was from shaking my body in time with the light sticks. Or maybe it was something else entirely.

Either way, it was late and I couldn't exactly drag myself to the hospital over nausea. Instead I stopped by a club booth, traded ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠help cleaning up for drinks instead of medicine, and finally fell into a deep sleep.

I only understood why I'd felt dizzy the next day. The reason was absurd.

I had still thought of them as people who existed only inside screens. Seeing them dance right in front of me had been a shock.

The versions I knew lived in thirty-second clips where they smiled brightly, or in hour-long streams where they smiled and laughed the entire time. Me in my room. Them inside the screen.

Then suddenly they were there in the flesh, performing for two full hours that were neither thirty seconds nor one hour. Close enough that fifteen steps would have let me reach out and take their hands. Every piece of common sense I owned had shattered.

Why is an idol standing right in front of me?

Of course I knew idols were human beings.

But that was only knowledge stored in my head. It wasn't the same as accepting them as real people, the kind who showed up late to study sessions or the kind who wandered around in ugly ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠jeans like the landlord of my one-room apartment.

That was only natural. Idols stood with one foot in reality and the other in fantasy. The gap between the two had simply expressed itself as a headache.

Zombies were the exact opposite.

Zombies crossed from fantasy into reality, and people said things like it gives me chills or so realistic.

Besides, the fact that zombies didn't exist was common sense. That line of common sense was incredibly sturdy, which was exactly why people dangled from the edge of fiction and thrilled themselves with whoa, it feels so real. We were actively asking to be deceived.

But when that common sense died like the zombie whose head had been split open by a rusty axe, I fell straight off the cliff of fiction.

That's how I dropped into a game I normally enjoyed. A game where a zombie virus was spreading, people killed each other without mercy, and the ultimate goal was to survive as long as possible by minimizing mistakes.

Or, to put it another way, a well-dying simulator where death was inevitable, so the question wasn't how well you lived but how well you died. The name of that game was Erysichthon Protocol.

"Does this even make sense?"

My head throbbed with irritation.

Every sense in my body was screaming the same message: Hey, this is real. No doubt about it. My brain, however, refused to process the data. It was acting like a boss who waits until the absolute last second before approving anything.

It wasn't that I didn't understand the situation. I understood it too well, which was exactly why fear had paralyzed me.

"When has common sense ever won?"

A fresh wave of nausea hit, so I dropped heavily into a chair. I took a slow breath and scanned every corner of the kitchen.

See? Exactly as I thought.

Every form of entertainment, whether it was hwatu cards, baduk, board games, or poker, began with learning the rules. How to win, when you lose, what actions to take.

This house was the place that taught the rules. Basic controls. How to pick up weapons. The game's laws. Combat patterns. That was why, whenever you installed the game and clicked New Game, you always started in this exact kitchen.

The separate tutorial window first taught you how to move in all four directions.

Next it taught you to pick up the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠old hand axe and throw it at the zombie in the living room. No matter what character you created, the trigger was set so that a single solid hit would kill it. After all, this was only the tutorial.

Which was why even someone like me, whose only experience with an axe was touching one while cleaning the army warehouse, had accurately smashed a zombie's skull with a throwing axe. I'd done it as naturally as folding blankets while half-asleep.

No matter which way I looked, the truth was unmistakable.

"Why me?"

What had I done? What exactly had I done to deserve this? No matter how far back I searched my memories, nothing came up.

I'd finished my usual night shift, come home to my one-room apartment, and felt too tired to do anything but also too restless to just sleep, so I'd turned on the game for the first time in a week. Job applications and interview prep had kept me too busy for even a single round.

"Ah."

There had been a major update. It dropped exactly a week earlier. I was glad the developers had finally done something worth the money, but the patch was so huge that installation would take a while. The changelog was so massive I'd given up reading halfway through.

Still, I decided to look on the bright side. Since the update had been out for a while, plenty of user-created mods were already available. I downloaded every interesting-looking one.

Most raised the difficulty by changing zombie patterns, but some added their own quests. This one might conflict with the earlier mod, but this one looks like it'll be more fun if I add it... A few were updated versions of mods I already knew, but most were completely new.

By the time I finished installing everything, it was nearly one in the morning. Somehow none of the mods conflicted with each other.

I'll play tomorrow after I finish my errands.

With that pleasant anticipation in my chest, I had gone to sleep.

And then, just now, I had thrown an old hand axe and smashed a zombie's skull.

The scene was exactly as I remembered from the tutorial. A large man with an axe buried in his head made a wet gurk, grrrk sound and toppled backward.

The impact wasn't a simple thud. It was a thunderous crash. The man had been genuinely obese. The floorboards splintered, the shockwave shook the walls and ceiling, and decades of dust rained down.

"Should've lost some weight."

The absurdity of it all made the words slip out. Creak. Creeeak. A familiar sound. The zombies next door.

By now the tutorial window was probably displaying that exact tooltip. Of course, the part that said usually ignore ordinary sounds was bait for beginners. I had never seen a zombie that was truly indifferent. Especially not when scent rode the air alongside sound.

Thump...

That was the sound of a body slamming against a wooden fence. Soon the fence would collapse, or the zombie would learn to climb it, or by pure coincidence it would shove the gate open.

This was exactly how every playthrough had gone. No matter how many versions or mods I added, that part never changed. Which meant there was still a way.

The truth was, if you followed the tutorial exactly, you were guaranteed to die.

After learning the controls, throwing the axe, and casually wandering around the house to loot items before stepping into the living room, you would find yourself surrounded by six zombies.

Your precious character, the one you'd given a cool name and carefully customized, would be eaten alive. The help window would pop up with its snide message.

These days people laughed and called it a newbie hazing ritual, but the first time I saw it the disgust had been indescribable.

Having experienced the same situation dozens of times and even watched strategy videos, the circumstances were now completely different. At least inside this tutorial house the events were identical, so if I handled things well I could survive.

"All right."

The zombies would need about ten minutes to cross the threshold. I had to loot the entire house in six minutes at most. Four minutes would be enough to prepare.

First I checked the water and electricity. If both were still running, it meant at least minimal social infrastructure remained.

When I turned the faucet, only a few drops fell. Lifting the drain pipe revealed lingering moisture and no stench, which suggested the supply hadn't been cut off for long.

Gas wasn't worth much consideration. This was a small rural village that used LPG tanks. Turning the stove knob produced a sharp hiss as gas ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠flowed out, but no flame appeared.

The tutorial house used an all-in-one gas range and oven that required electricity for the ignition plug. Since there were no sparks, the power was out. I left the gas running for now.

Next was the refrigerator. No motor hum. That meant the power had been cut. Yet a faint chill still leaked from inside, so the outage hadn't happened long ago either.

It was possible only this house or this village had lost service while the city area still had power.

But then...

"...Huh?"

There was a problem.

"This can't be right."

It was empty. Both the freezer and the fridge contained nothing. There should have been a plastic bottle of water here.

This spot, like the forced axe throw earlier, existed to teach players to open furniture and collect the items inside. There was supposed to be a drink. There had to be.

Yet there was nothing. This had never happened before. No bug report had ever mentioned it. Had the mods conflicted after all and deleted every item...?

While I was imagining the worst, morning sunlight suddenly poured into the living room. The broken axe blade, covered in reddish rust, still looked vicious.

No. If there were a real problem, that axe wouldn't be here either. There has to be something. There has to be...

I calmed my breathing and quickly opened the cupboards. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. There.

A single can of condensed milk.

Don't imagine the nutritious, thirst-quenching kind of milk. This was the version that had been boiled down and sealed in a can. It was closer to cream; eating it straight would only make me thirstier.

The label even said sugar had been added during the boiling process. If I poured it over water, milk, or shaved ice when I was exhausted it might help, but eating it like this...

Never mind that. I couldn't even open it.

"They could at least give me a can opener."

There were no chopsticks, no spoons, no forks, not even a single kitchen knife.

I flung open every cupboard in the kitchen, then checked the rooms and bathroom. The doors had already fallen off their hinges, revealing only piles of trash inside.

Torn wallpaper fluttered mockingly. Still, I did find one useful thing: a backpack a middle-schooler might carry. It was a character product featuring a Barbie doll on hot pink fabric.

The condition was decent. Inside were only two empty candy wrappers. The doll's smiling face felt strangely unpleasant, so I could understand why no one had taken it.

Only one place remained. Under the living-room TV stand. I'd left it for last because it was quite close to the zombie corpse.

Thump... Thump...!

That was the sound of bodies pushing against the wooden door. The zombies that had come out earlier wondering about the noise were now reacting to the scent spreading from this house. Their movements were precise and violent, unlike before.

The creatures had found their prey.