The First and Only Chance
A silence so complete that even an ant crawling across the floor would have made more noise.
The floor was a lottery wrapped in fog — one careless step and there was no telling what I'd win. The only trail I could follow was a cluster of tentacles retracting through the pale darkness just a little faster than a man could walk.
Like Hansel and Gretel dutifully chasing a path of breadcrumbs that wasn't even there, I used those tentacles as my landmark and pushed myself deeper into the dark.
You only get one shot at a Screamer. The first encounter. That's it.
A Screamer's territorial control is outstanding, which means its strengths are obvious — but its weaknesses are just as clear. I carefully extended the Glow Stick in one hand and let its soft fluorescent wash pull the thing into view.
Wooooooooooo…….
A thin moan, like wind leaking out of a vast cave. It wasn't even screaming in earnest. It was just breathing, and already my ears were ringing.
It didn't look this huge when I saw it in the game.
The difference in presence between a screen and the real thing was apparently unavoidable.
Squirm. Squirm. Barely a few meters away, the thing that had just finished retracting its tentacles was writhing that disgusting body of its, getting ready to send them out again. True to its nature as a Position-Holding primordial that couldn't leave its territory, the Screamer was nearly twice the size of a Growler — which, given the volume and length of the tentacle clusters it deployed, was only natural.
That's why most newbies who see a Screamer for the first time assume that giant pouch of a body — the one storing all those tentacles — is the weak point.
The anatomy did look like it would pop like a water balloon if you so much as poked it with a needle. An easy mistake to make. But that wasn't how it worked at all. The reason I'd drawn a hard line — that I'd only get one chance to kill it if I ran into a Screamer — was the same.
Its weak point wasn't that bloated, cyst-like body. It was the entrance the tentacles passed through: the flower-bud-shaped skull. Unlike a human, a Screamer's respiratory, vocal, and feeding organs were all unified into one. Everything it did had to go through that bud. In other words, whether you were human or primordial, the head was still the weak point.
If I'm going to explore this place, I have to kill this thing. Leaving it alone and walking past is way too much risk.
I carefully climbed onto a desk scattered nearby and set my stance. In the game, a character with high enough stats could reach this height with a simple jump. I wasn't there yet. The thing was almost done retracting its tentacles and getting ready to send them out again. Ten seconds, give or take.
Click.
I remotely switched the Modular Exo-Suit's strength amplification ON. Then I waited, burning for the moment it would unfurl that flower-bud skull to launch its tentacles again.
Even ten-year veterans like me get tense when taking down a primordial that can wreck a run as badly as a Screamer. Game or reality, accident or intent — the physical penalty and the mental strain that come crashing down the moment you wake one of these things are beyond imagination.
Don't screw this up. You're a Prisoner.
Think about how many Darkzones you've been dropped into. How many primary objectives you've cleared. How many times you've made it out. If your mind remembers that, your body will answer.
Shrrrk.
Now!
"Hup!"
The instant it spread that flower-bud skull wide to launch its tentacles, I floated up like a butterfly and drove the jungle machete into the dead center of its skull like a bee. The orthodox method was to burst the head in a single blow with something that packed enormous force — a massive mace, a hammer, a spear. But I had one more ace up my sleeve.
Psssssshhhhh!
The thick, razor edge of the alloy-steel jungle machete sank in, and the thing's body convulsed inward. It wasn't enough to kill it outright, so the moment it registered the external impact, its instincts tried to scream.
We keep it quiet in the Darkzone, you bastard!
Twing!
Using the vertically buried machete as a stake, I brought Pretty down with everything I had.
KRAAANG!
The shock that erupted a heartbeat later traveled down the blade and completely paralyzed its muscles. And as the blade, already seated in the weak point, drove even deeper under the secondary impact of the shock, a critical hit landed.
"Got it, you son of a bitch……!"
The Screamer died without ever letting out the scream that was supposed to be its entire identity. Looking at the enormous gourd-shaped primordial hanging limp, I felt my shoulders lift and my nose tilt toward the ceiling. Of course, I didn't stand there basking in my own glory like some mid-tier player. I immediately cocked an ear and checked the surroundings.
Fortunately, the distance between the communal sector I'd already passed and this classified sector was considerable enough that I hadn't woken the hibernating primordials. Honestly, I'd been prepared to wake them the moment I swung Pretty. I'd gotten lucky.
"Whew. Persistent bastard. Anyway, that nets me something I can actually use."
I scooped a decent amount of the Screamer's biological tissue into an empty container I'd brought just in case. Given EFD's worldbuilding and story progression, the current South Korean government and corporate consortium would only just be starting their research into primordials. Last time they'd paid a premium for biotech-related items like those unidentified vials. This probably wouldn't be much different.
Now that I look, there was a bulkhead behind this thing.
I'd been so focused I hadn't properly checked. Behind its massive frame sat a bulkhead that had only half-opened. Near it, strange lumps of flesh and dark crimson mucus had been left to harden over a long time. Circumstantially, it looked like the primordials had burst out from inside.
The moment I finished collecting the sample, I shoved myself through the gap in the bulkhead. If the primordial swarm had erupted from in here, the source of the contaminating fog enveloping this entire Darkzone was very likely somewhere inside as well.
A special security-key signal mounted on a high-value asset has been detected within 200 meters.
"So this research facility is ridiculously huge, huh."
If control authority over this facility's emergency containment system can be acquired, the Prisoner's exploration and escape will become considerably more efficient.
It was a pretty tempting offer, but I couldn't exactly celebrate. If I assumed that a high-value asset even Crazy Clock would acknowledge was sitting at the innermost center of the classified sector, then this research facility's radius was 500 meters at an absolute minimum. Which meant I'd have to tear through a mega-lab that was roughly a kilometer across as the crow flies — and I could already picture how ugly that process was going to get.
So that's why the old-timers always told me not to become a slave to money.
They'd said it over and over: don't chase money — make money chase you. I'd written the whole thing off as nothing but old-man nagging, and I was starting to feel ashamed of that.
Well. Be that as it may.
I'd made it past a hibernating primordial swarm and a Screamer-sized ambush in one piece. Time to pick up the pace. The old-timers had told me not to become a slave to money. They'd never said a word about not becoming a slave to the Darkzone.
I set off into the Darkzone's darkness, which somehow felt as warm and familiar as a mother's arms. Deeper. Toward the place where even more treasure and secrets lay sleeping.
"Ghhk… khh!"
"I won't ask twice. Are you certain he went into that facility?"
"Certain… fuck! I'm certain!"
"W-we saw it clear as day! He circled the outside of the facility, stopped in front of a bulkhead that never opens, and then — like magic — he opened it and walked right in!"
Unlike the ordinary convicts, the figure standing over them was loaded with military-grade gear, a black hood pulled low. He looked down at the men sprawled at his feet and said nothing for a moment.
Pupils darting with nowhere to go. Short, ragged breath. Muscles locked tight with tension. And at the end of every sentence, fear and anxiety thick enough to taste. The odds that they were lying were not particularly high.
But Seoul Southern Prison was overflowing with natural-born actors — men shameless enough to lie with a straight face, and sometimes talented enough to fool even themselves. Which meant you dug into the details.
"And how did you know that facility's bulkhead never opens?"
"It's already famous among the convicts who've explored this sector. That giant facility has one bulkhead that's already open. Every other one stays shut no matter what you try. So anyone dropped into this area goes in through that entrance from the start — and that rookie Orange just walked up to a bulkhead that doesn't open and opened it!"
"And?"
"A-and what? That's everything we know. We tried to follow him in, but the bulkhead shut on its own and we lost him. That's the end of it. We don't know anything else!"
"A waste of time."
Digging into the details had at least made one thing clear: they weren't lying. What it hadn't done was produce much of anything useful. The figure — whose clothes blended into the Darkzone's gloom almost too well — reached into his coat and drew a pistol fitted with a suppressor.
The convicts' movements turned a good deal more urgent.
"W-wait! If the one you're looking for is that rookie Orange, he went in on the opposite side from the entrance convicts normally use, so it's going to take you forever to find him! We know the inside of the facility reasonably well, so if you let us guide you……!"
"All of you know the inside of the facility well?"
"…Of course."
"Then which of you three has the most experience? Give me first and second."
"M-me! I've got the most experience!"
"I'm next! I joined this team before the guy next to me!"
"Good. That works out."
Thwip! Thwip!
The muzzle put a nail-like metal spike through first place's brow, then second place's, one after the other. The rods punched through their specialized gas masks, destroyed both brains with precision, and turned the two men into Darkzone fertilizer.
Explosive powder weapons were strictly forbidden here for the enormous noise they produced, which made a high-compression modified gas gun like this one simple common sense.
"In a place like this, the more experienced they are, the less you can trust them. You lead."
"A-alright. Just… let me take their gear first……!"
"At least you can read a room. Five minutes. Make it quick."
He looked toward the facility's only entrance — still steadily exhaling that strange fog — and gathered himself.
Inmate number 77777, supposedly admitted a week ago. Kill him and it was thirty million won. A lot more lucrative than risking your life in here picking up scrap to sell.
He felt no particular guilt about this kind of work.
In the end, this world is nothing but money.