I Am the Team

What was the most appealing thing about EFD?

Even as a ten-year veteran, I couldn't pin it to a single answer. But if there was one thing I could name with confidence as EFD's unmatched strength, it was this.

Diversity.

The content was diverse. The builds were diverse. And so the ways you played became diverse, too. Even the player base ran the full spectrum, from hardcore fossils who'd seen it all to trolls who just wanted a laugh. That about said it.

Which was why you should never dare talk about a "correct" way to play this game. However you did it, whatever you were aiming for — the path you chose was the right one.

But a boring troll on your team? That's unforgivable.

Funny trolls were fine. It wasn't like anyone was putting their life on the line. We were all here to have a good time, and if you could do that while laughing, that wasn't a bad choice at all.

The problem was, right now I was running on a single credit. Under those conditions, even the funniest troll banging drums and cymbals beside me wouldn't have gotten so much as a twitch out of my face.

"So you're not forming a squad. You're going into Special Duty solo?"

"That's right."

The guy who'd been my temporary friend until this morning had vanished after breakfast, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠then reappeared to hear me out — and now he was staring at me like I'd grown a second head.

Was it that shocking that someone on his second day inside would just waltz into the Darkzone alone? Or was it that this wasn't the plot he'd been hoping for?

I was betting on the latter.

We were still in the early story — hell, before the story had even started. He'd probably figured that if he dropped a few hints about this Darkzone scavenging they called Special Duty, a broke newbie like me would take the bait and cling to him. Even a death row inmate with nowhere left to go still valued his life. Work me over the right way, and I'd make a fine meat shield. Or a slave.

There was just one thing he'd failed to account for.

I wasn't some dime-a-dozen newbie.

"It's way too dangerous. I've been on Special Duty plenty of times. I know exactly what kind of threats are lurking down there. It's not a place some greenhorn can swagger into alone and expect to accomplish anything."

"Good."

"What?"

"Think about it. Every death row inmate like me that gets culled is one less competitor for guys like you who have to keep going on Special Duty, right?"

"......"

I yanked the laces of my combat boots tight — one of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the basic pieces of kit the guards had issued in advance. They felt like a hybrid of hiking boots and military issue: plenty tough, plenty stable.

Every inmate got laceless shoes and a prison uniform for daily life inside. But when you were heading outside or down into the underground for work detail, they issued a separate set of field clothes. For the inmates' "safety" on the outside, and for their "efficiency" in the Darkzone. Or so they claimed.

"I don't think you understand. That place isn't as simple as you think it is."

"Then what am I supposed to do?"

"Get help from people around you, obviously. Form a team with experienced guys, or at the very least pad out your numbers even if they don't have the experience."

"Not interested. I doubt there are many people lining up to team with a death row inmate. Even fewer who'd go into Special Duty with one."

"That's why—!"

If I latched onto him, he'd reluctantly agree to form a team? Was that it?

I waved him off. Not worth hearing the rest.

Watching a guy who'd kept a perfect poker face from the start finally crack like this was pretty entertaining. But of all the things I wasn't going to do, getting close to someone with a face like his was at the top of the list. In real life, too, the ones who came at you with that look — playing the good guy, being friendly for no reason — not a single one of them had ever turned out to be actually good.

Maybe Korean face-reading was a lot more scientific than people gave it credit for.

"And you don't need to pretend ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to be that worried, by the way."

"Pretend? Me? Are you serious right now? I'm the one who looked out for you the second you got here."

"I appreciate that. But I've got a pretty good eye for people. You don't look like you'd amount to much in the Dark... in Special Duty."

Setting aside the mental and psychological side of things, if you judged him on pure physical ability, this guy was a troll through and through. How types like him had survived this long and still been strutting around was obvious enough. While everyone else was hauling heavy logs, he'd been faking the effort and riding the bus the whole time.

"I don't know how many newbies like me you've been fleecing, and I'm not going to judge. That's your way of surviving. I'm just saying I'll pass."

I glanced at the cluster of death row inmates hanging back, pretending not to look while they kept stealing glances this way. Probably his regular party members, or a tight little conspiracy of like-minded souls. Maybe a really tight relationship, if you caught my drift.

I gave my clothes one last adjustment, shrugged once at the guy whose poker face had completely collapsed, and turned away.

There might be retaliation later. Not my problem right now.

Getting used by guys like that is a bigger problem than getting revenge taken on me.

Hauling a clueless newbie into a high-difficulty zone and scaring the soul out of them as a prank? That was just being cute. The veterans who pulled that kind of stunt usually made sure you cleared it anyway. Some of them even walked you through the hard stuff one piece at a time and helped you get better.

But the ones who tried to squeeze every last drop of marrow from a newbie who was actually trying to grow? That was unforgivable.

In the game, different parties never ran into each other in the same zone, so competitive survival wasn't even a thing. Here, it's different.

This was a game, and it was also reality. You could actually inflict physical harm on someone. And even if you didn't go that far, there were a thousand creative ways to screw someone over. That much I could personally guarantee — intentional or not, I'd team-killed plenty.

Which was why I liked the Darkzone.

The dead didn't talk.

The announcement came at just the right time. I put some slow, deliberate distance between myself and the ugly bastard wearing the skins of his countless victims.

Ah. I at least owed him for the free meal.

"One piece of advice: start building your physique, even now. The way you're doing things, you'll be obsolete before you know it."

"......"

EFD demanded both brawn and brain. If you were mediocre at both, building your physique was just about the only way to pull your own weight. In the game you could cover that gap with personal stats and better gear. Here, raw physical ability was going to come first.

With that, I boarded the cargo elevator ahead of him. His quivering face vanished as the doors slid shut.

"A newbie on Special Duty. Been a while."

As the cargo elevator descended, one of the inmates who'd already been aboard took a shot at me. I turned, wondering if he was trying to establish dominance, and found a prisoner with a scar that looked like someone had cheerfully carved a knife across half his face.

Scarred guys, tattooed guys, guys who'd packed on muscle — they all had one thing in common. They were professionals at looking tough. This one just seemed curious, though, so I gave him a decent answer.

"Death row inmates don't have a shot at getting out, but I heard you still need money if you want to spend whatever life's left in any kind of comfort. I tried a proper bulgogi meal this morning sitting next to guys eating pig slop, and I got a pretty clear picture of how that feels."

"Heh. Can't argue with that. But if you heard that much, you probably also heard what Special Duty actually is and what kind of place you're walking into. So why go alone?"

"Never been in the habit of picking up boyfriends."

"Should've picked up a girlfriend, then."

The ones standing around snickered along, playing backup. Maybe it was the 2040s — they were a lot more open-minded than someone from the 2020s like me. As someone who loved EFD's diversity, I didn't particularly care. I'd already seen more than enough of the truly unhinged: grotesque body modifications, mutant DNA injections, lunatics who deliberately crashed their Rationality Value to stay in a berserk state.

"Anyway, let's call that last part a joke. This next part I'm saying for real, so take it to heart. Once you're down there, you're going to regret not scraping together whatever warm bodies you could find to make up the numbers."

"I think so too."

EFD was a co-op game at its core, weighted more toward multiplayer than solo. I'd always had more fun playing with other people than going it alone, myself. But that was a system only the genuinely mediocre clung to.

"Then why didn't you make a team?"

The cargo elevator doors opened. I stepped off first from the now-silent car, under the stinging gazes of guard robots and officers with their muzzles trained on us, and headed for the isolation chamber.

To prevent inmate riots, any equipment with lethal capability had to be issued separately in the isolation chamber immediately before Darkzone insertion. Of course, they couldn't just rip out illegal enhancement implants or Smartlink procedures, so those they left alone — managing them instead by embedding a special chip that degraded performance. If an inmate started a disturbance or did anything suspicious, they could remotely trigger the chip at once, shorting the internal circuits and overloading them, cooking the person from the inside out.

The problem is, when those inmates go on Special Duty, they temporarily lift those restrictions for the sake of scavenging efficiency.

I catalogued the most obvious enhancement-implant and Smartlink users among the inmates filing in behind me. Five with light arm or leg modifications. Two wearing Smartlinks connected to a temple, the back of the head, or a prosthetic eye. The rest were ordinary people, same as me.

There was a chance some of them had sophisticated modifications that didn't show. I was in no position to worry about that right now. What mattered was this: party members or not, anyone heading into the Darkzone on the same day as me was someone to watch.

A heavy thud.

Once every inmate was inside, the door connecting the cargo elevator to the isolation chamber sealed shut. Then the ceiling opened, and a massive mechanical arm descended, issuing each prisoner the equipment they had requested, one by one.

Someone received a massive hammer. Someone else, a well-honed machete. Another, a specially modified crossbow, or a shock gun with its lethal output dialed down.

The ones receiving good gear were the ones with real Darkzone experience. Veterans who'd used the money they'd already earned to buy new equipment within prison limits, then used that equipment to bring back even more money.

I, on the other hand, took the lightweight equipment set whose contents I had modified myself.

What I'd changed was as follows.

I'd stripped everything unnecessary from the standard basic kit and added only what I actually needed — my own lightweight loadout.

The specialized gas mask and oxygen filters stayed. The folding entrenching tool I cut without hesitation; the durability was worse than you'd think, and the efficiency wasn't there either. Someone might argue a shovel was decent enough in close combat, but if you were going to fight up close, a knife was simply better. Unless I was going to procure a big, sturdy shovel later, it was dead weight. Better gone.

I wasn't planning to linger down there for long, so I kept a single ration and left the two water bottles as they were. In Darkzone scavenging, the first thing you actually ran out of wasn't food — it was water.

And I don't need antibiotics or painkillers right now, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠either.

Keeping emergency meds "just in case" might sound like sound judgment. In practice, it didn't help nearly as much as you'd think. If you were in a state that required antibiotics and painkillers, you were already looking at a serious injury or an infection — and without proper trauma gear, you were as good as dead at that point anyway. Better to pack the bleeding with compression bandages, hit an adrenaline booster, and get out with every last scrap of strength you had. Then you could take whatever you'd brought back, cash it in, and pay for real treatment with the settlement.

And last: the Glow Sticks and the flashbang.

Those served two purposes. One was to light my own field of view while keeping the light source to a minimum — unlike the idiots who went around using flashlights without a second thought. The other was to dump a monstrous amount of light into someone else's eyes and blind them.

In the game, once you'd finished all your prep, a waiting screen would pop up along with the words Inserting into Darkzone.

But in this case...

A long, depressurizing hiss.

The large and small doors set into three walls of the isolation chamber opened one after another as the pressure equalized. In the game, each party was automatically inserted at a different location. Here, it seemed the inmates chose their own insertion routes.

A different insertion route meant a different extraction route, obviously.

This might not even be the only isolation chamber.

Which meant you could insert from here and come back through an entirely different one. You might run into inmates who'd inserted from somewhere else along the way. Or you might never run into anyone at all.

Fine by me.

I knew exactly how vast and how varied the Darkzone was.

I walked into a small insertion route nobody else had picked. Behind me, the door slammed shut with a heavy thud that echoed through the passage.

They say heaven and hell are only a set of iron bars apart.

This was where hell began.

The Darkzone.