The Giant Protospecies Awakens
Few people truly enjoy the saying “Hard work pays off in the end.”
The reason is simple: what most people want is an obstacle of appropriate difficulty that sparks a desire to challenge themselves, not a Himalayan mountain range that they wouldn't even dare to climb.
Even I, who has played the EFD, that piece-of-shit game, diligently for 10 years, can't overcome the human instinct to want to get comfortable, so sometimes I feel a strong desire to just eat it raw.
Why am I suddenly thinking this? Because a Himalayan mountain range suddenly appeared in front of me and gave me an 8,849m punch without taking a breath.
Kwuaaaang!
The moment the giant protospecies (estimated height 10m) threw a punch, the fragile fire shutter was completely torn off. It wasn't enough to completely neutralize the destructive power, as several of the furniture that had been stacked up with great effort were smashed to pieces.
Clearly, the guy who was several meters away in the fog hadn't been noticed by us, and the way he was striking the barricade at pinpoint range as if a ghost the moment the fog disappeared was quite annoying.
If it had been just one giant protospecies, I would have quickly escaped while it was struggling with the barricade, but unfortunately, I couldn't escape so easily.
“Ka-a-a-a-a!”
The walkers trying to push in from the gaps in the barricade, pushing with their arms and faces, come into view.
If the smoker I had met before was a protospecies belonging to the walker category, the ones trying to cross the barricade now were closer to the fundamental walkers.
In other words, they were just zombies with certain body parts greatly distorted.
“Have you seen a B-grade zombie movie or two?! Shoot their heads! You can tell by looking at how their heads are all swollen that these are the ones with nuclei in their heads!”
“Does that mean there are nuclei in other body parts too?!”
“Those kinds of guys are common!”
After all, walkers are protospecies where certain body parts swell or distort depending on the location of the nucleus, so if you aim at those parts, you can easily deal with them.
However, because their numbers are so high and their movements are quick, unless it's a well-coordinated elite party that combines forces, it's hard to respond.
Of course, Lucy and I are a pair that matches perfectly.
Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta! Thwack! Thwack!
Lucy first poured bullets into the walkers, squeezing the swollen skulls like balloons, and I finished them off by blowing away the heads of the ones still breathing with a shotgun.
As a result of facing off with the enemies with the barricade in between, by the time the giant protospecies had destroyed about half of the barricade, the walkers had already been slaughtered by us in dozens.
But as always, the time to suck honey is extremely short.
Kwung!
Eventually, the barricade couldn't withstand the giant protospecies's fierce punches and completely broke through.
The momentum of the walkers pouring in like a tidal wave was comparable to a pack of starving beasts that had been starving for three days.
If they caught us, we would be deliciously torn apart even without spraying MSG.
“Grenade in the hole!”
Shouting the cry that Korean male military service men have to shout instinctively even if no grenade rolls into the hole, I rolled the grenade towards the point where the enemies were pouring in.
It was a shot that could definitely hit a strike in bowling.
And exactly 2 seconds after I and Lucy started running at full speed towards the escape route leading to the opposite side of the electronics store.
Ppeoeoeoeung!
An enormous explosion that was incomparable to gunfire echoed, scattering shockwaves and debris everywhere.
Who said the blast radius of a grenade is only a few meters. Games and reality are as different as heaven and earth.
Thud! Thud-thud! Ping! Thud!
Fragments flying in all directions hit the floor, walls, and ceiling without discrimination, creating a harsh noise.
Whenever fragments that tore through the air and flew in passed dangerously close to the place we had passed, I got chills.
The grenade had that much power, and of course, the massive explosion and vibration accompanying that power turned this multi-story shopping center building into the official hot spot for national events.
Big power comes with big responsibility, big aggro with big protospecies.
Based on this absolute law, more protospecies were felt to be pushing into the electronics store that had just been smashed to pieces.
The giant protospecies is too big to circle around the complex shopping center, but relatively small protospecies can push in here anytime. Either drive them out at the right time or completely exterminate them.
We ran madly down the dusty corridor, passing through the shopping area that had already been smashed to pieces earlier, and turned corners whenever they came into view.
If it were a dungeon like an ant nest, but the complex shopping center building built on the ground couldn't exceed the size of a large supermarket no matter how big it was, so there was no worry of getting lost.
The problem was that the structure was so simple that we wouldn't get lost, which means the protospecies don't need to mark a path to chase us.
“How are they chasing us?! We should have already left the line of sight long ago!”
“There are various reasons! Most protospecies rely on vision and hearing, but there are also some that are insanely sensitive to smell!”
“The walkers?”
“No! Those guys look human-like but are quite simple, so they only have vision and hearing! The smell is that of the giant protospecies!”
The reason when we first discovered the enemy, the enemy didn't notice us and just passed by.
It was because we were hiding our bodies in the thick fog, so we weren't detected by either vision or smell.
But now that the fog has disappeared, the giant protospecies has surprisingly quickly returned to the place where we were. That is, as long as it's within the range not affected by the fog, it will definitely be caught by its smell.
Kung! Kung! Kung!
As evidence, even at this moment, the giant protospecies is moving noisily along the outer wall of the building.
Sniffing like a pervert trying to smell the unique body odor of the outside lifeform of the Darkzone that we are spraying.
“Then how do we drive them out? Do we have to go out the completely opposite entrance?!”
“No! We'll be caught up with them anyway!”
The guy's body is unnecessarily huge and his legs are long, so even if we run with our short legs to death, we can't be faster than him.
Moreover, the guy seemed to be issuing 'orders' to the walkers while chasing our body odor in real time, and if we couldn't process or tie up either side properly, it was almost impossible to escape this place.
Here, either survive until we completely exterminate the walker guys here and the giant protospecies's aggro is released, or first deal with the giant protospecies so it doesn't track us, then outmaneuver the stupid walker guys. In the end, it's a choice between two options.
We can't do both. We lack the hands and firepower for that.
The grenade that I had rolled deliciously a moment ago should have taken at least six walkers, but even so, the eerie screams and noisy footsteps echoing from behind our backs weren't diminishing.
Want to use more grenades? It's not a bad idea, but not a good one either.
At first, I used it to gauge the quantity of the enemies and to buy a little time to escape, but using it to exterminate the walker guys doesn't have good cost-effectiveness.
Considering the advantages of grenades and flashbangs in the Darkzone, you can see how wasteful it is to waste precious throwing weapons on such guys.
Instead, I quickly analyzed the internal structure of the complex shopping center.
Because of the blind function of the gas mask, I couldn't read the letters, but I could figure out the patterns unique to the store signs.
Since we passed the electronics store and the clothing store, it's about time for the food court to appear.
The composition of the stores in the complex shopping center building on floors 1-2 is obvious.
Where the neck is okay, there are small hospitals (clinics), pharmacies, and famous brand stores packed in, so there's no room to squeeze in, but where it's not, B-grade stores with the purpose of making money are mixed in. Right here.
As expected, large and small restaurant signs soon appeared. Even if I couldn't read the letters, the very intuitive rice bowl shape or the signs with crossed spoons were too familiar to me.
Ramen shop, generic franchise restaurant, convenience store, unlimited refill restaurant, etc.
I kicked open the door of the unlimited refill restaurant among them and searched from the already chaotic warehouse.
Even in the midst of being chased, Lucy didn't show much reaction to me suddenly starting to search the restaurant warehouse. Instead, she proactively threw chairs and tables at the entrance to install a temporary defense line.
After all, the shopping center building has an open structure with front and back doors, so she quickly blocked the entrance where enemies were approaching.
Meanwhile, I found kitchen detergent, oil barrels, and gas cylinders in the messy warehouse where survivors had looted the ingredients.
When people in the city suddenly face a disaster situation, the first things they loot are food, medicine, and daily necessities.
Modern people are like primitive people in suits if they don't have a smartphone, as someone said. Indeed, it wasn't wrong.
I threw a bottle of kitchen detergent to Lucy.
“You have to erase the body odor! Sprinkle it on your body!”
Lucy, who received my ‘Non-toxic! Clean! Finally!’ series kitchen detergent, immediately sprinkled the contents appropriately on various parts of her body except her head.
Since the kitchen detergent has a strong scent and is used to remove grease, it could effectively erase the human-unique body odor and sweat. Plus, it's relatively safe because it's non-toxic.
Of course, since it's not something used for washing the body, it would be bad to come into contact with bare skin often, but it would be usable once in a while.
Next time, I need to prepare a high-performance antibacterial deodorant too.
This was something I hadn't prepared in time because I didn't pay much attention to the 'body odor' of the character when playing EFD as a game.
Fortunately, I realized it now, so as long as I don't repeat the same mistake, it's okay.
I opened the cap of the oil barrel with a determined mindset and sprayed the contents madly near the store hall and entrance.
The walkers who came chasing us belatedly were sticking to the thick store glass windows and entrance, trying desperately to break through the barricade.
The sight was so ridiculous that it looked like angry monkeys in a zoo enclosure, but we didn't have the leisure to watch leisurely.
“If I take this oil too, how much money will I make… Ugh!”
Tears obscured my vision.
It was because I used a similar method when I hunted the Growler on the day I was first deployed to the Darkzone, so the emotional investment was oddly strong.
This time the scale is a bit larger, so it's a problem.
Squeak, squeak.
Since I'm making money, I boldly open the valve of the gas cylinder too. More money is pouring in!
Perhaps I opened all the gas valves of the kitchen range without leaving any, even the ones that might have remaining gas, and found the butane gas used in portable gas stoves and rolled them into various places in the store.
This isn't just pouring money on the floor, but sending liquid money like a sea.
The amount of oil and gas filling the inside of the shopping center was so much that it was starting to feel dangerous.
The pungent smell of oil and gas that filled the store interior in an instant caused the oxygen filter residue of the gas mask to drop rapidly. That means the air density has become quite toxic.
Crack! Creak!
The hastily made barricade started breaking much faster than before, and the thick glass windows were slowly cracking as the walkers' hideous faces approached us physically.
It was heart-wrenching to have to blow up the entire store that was once someone's dream and all their assets.
But what can I do? Life doesn't turn out as planned.
“Thank you for the meal. I'll give you five stars.”
I placed a banknote without a face on the counter and slipped out the back door, then immediately ran to the opposite corridor, shooting a flare through the already broken window.
Immediately after, the hot heat spread from the restaurant interior and swallowed the shopping corridor in an instant.
The explosion that spread a step slower than light and heat proved that there was an enormous explosion that would soon make the ears numb.
Although we were running with all our might without looking back, so we couldn't directly see the beautiful explosion with our eyes.
As soon as the shockwave pushing from behind made my body float, I could feel that we had properly blown up someone's dream and the peace of their home.
It was shameful, but quite a pleasant feeling.