Let's Finish It Tonight

With a rattling clatter, the metal wings folded shut. Je Hyeon-o touched down on the rooftop, a backpack hanging from his hand, several carabiners clipped along its straps. Of all those rings, only a single one had survived, still dangling from his metal fingers. Having brought the pack back in one piece, he set the load down and cocked his head to the side.

"Lieutenant Colonel."

Gwak Han-muk, who had been waiting on the rooftop with a bag of potato chips, dusted the crumbs from his hands. Mo Hae-in, standing beside him, offered nothing more than a brief nod of greeting before taking the backpack and heading down the emergency stairs — she needed to get the delivery items to Lee Ga-on as ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠fast as possible.

Gwak Han-muk delivered a brief report.

"During the basement boss fight, Han Goyo's pupils turned gold. Captain Mo Hae-in reported it earlier, and it matched the symptoms I witnessed in the Yellow Zone."

A short silence passed, and then a rough, gravelly voice spilled out.

"Just gold?"

Je Hyeon-o pushed his goggles up onto his forehead, baring his eyes.

"Or the same color as mine?"

Gwak Han-muk looked for a moment at those vivid gold pupils, so different from the dark purple irises around them, and answered with certainty.

"The same color as yours, sir."

He had seen it twice; there was no room for confusion. There was, however, one difference.

"In Han Goyo's case, though, it wasn't just a temporary change in color. It felt like they were giving off light."

"They sparkled?"

Sparkled. That wasn't quite the right word. Gwak Han-muk turned the scene over in his mind, then picked the closest word he knew.

"Radiance... I think that's what you'd call it."

At that, Je Hyeon-o's eyes curved in a smile. He pulled the goggles back down.

"I'd love to see it for myself. Wonder what I'd have to do to make him show me."

"You can't kill him, sir."

"I know."

It was right then, as Gwak Han-muk was extracting that none-too-reassuring answer, that a chime sounded and a system window bloomed into the air.

"Can you see it? Gunbam, this — this is real, right? I can't believe it..."

Lee Ga-on had finished her tests. She was trembling from head to foot as she shouted at me.

"You were the cure, Gunbam!"

Something about serum, something about antibodies — she poured out a torrent of words I could barely follow, all of it at a blistering speed. I didn't understand even a quarter of it, but I grasped the core.

My blood was the cure for the zombie virus Pandora.

"Hhk, Gunbaaam..."

Lee Ga-on finally let the tears come. Even the ugly memories of what Tak Ju-cheol and Paeng Sang-do had put her through seemed to have been wiped clean; her crying face was full of nothing but joy.

I was happy ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠too, of course. But it didn't feel real. I hadn't expected things to unfold this way — not even a little.

"I'm going to try making enough of the cure for two people first, and I'll run the vaccine production at the same time."

"How much blood do you need?"

"I'll need four hundred milliliters, but..."

Lee Ga-on chose her next words with care.

"If you were in ordinary condition it might be fine, but in your current state, you may feel a little weak after the draw."

I hadn't been getting proper rest, so she was probably right that it would take a toll.

Not that we can afford to put this off.

Developing the cure as fast as possible was what mattered most. I held out my arm without hesitation.

Lee Ga-on stared at the blue veins in my forearm with greedy eyes. She swallowed hard and murmured, as if entranced,

"I'll prepare for the blood draw."

...Thank god I had built up her affection beforehand. If I had been Tak Ju-cheol or Paeng Sang-do, she might have taken the whole arm.

In a matter of seconds she had gathered a 16-gauge needle, a blood bag, and the rest of her kit, and sat me down on a spare cot in the corner of the lab.

"It'll be done in ten minutes."

Then she vanished, tapping something furiously into a tablet as she went.

I watched the blood run into the bag for a moment. It still didn't feel real — and then a chime sounded, and a system window opened in front of me.

There was some strange content mixed in, but it was the main quest I knew, at any rate. A defense quest known in DZD as the Three Days of Death — and tagged with a second nickname besides, the Ending Cutter, for the way it kept players from ever seeing the ending.

Starting tonight, then?

The window ran from sundown to the following sunrise, which meant there was hardly any time to prepare. I found myself wishing I had stocked more submachine guns. But I wasn't truly worried. We had the most perfect being imaginable for a battle on this scale right here on the team.

I was studying the system window, turning over how to run the operation as efficiently as possible, when a shadow fell across me. Why is it so dark all of a sudden? I looked up without thinking — and flinched.

A pair of pitch-black goggles was looking down at me.

"Lieutenant Colonel..."

I pressed a hand to my startled, hammering chest as I said it. I didn't even flinch at most jump scares, but Je Hyeon-o shoving those goggles in my face had genuinely gotten me. The place where the needle sat in my arm gave a throb. I looked at my own face reflected in the lenses and asked,

"When did you get here?"

I asked, of course, without expecting an answer. A cold aura clung to him, so he had probably only just arrived.

The next quest popped, so the delivery to Lee Ga-on must have gone fine.

I decided that counted as a reply, and checked that the blood was drawing properly. Then I looked past him. Mo Hae-in and Gwak Han-muk were walking over, talking as they came.

"Trainee."

Mo Hae-in's face was taut with tension.

"Did you check the quest window?"

"Yes. The zombies will start coming tonight."

I gave my superiors a brief rundown of the quest. When I mentioned that it ran from sundown to the following sunrise, Mo Hae-in's relief was visible. She had apparently thought we would be hounded by zombies around the clock for three straight days.

She put her own condition on the table in advance.

"I can't fight on the last day."

Once tomorrow passed, Mo Hae-in would turn completely. More precisely, she would turn around sunrise, after the second battle ended. But there was no telling what variables might arise, so for safety's sake it would be better if she sat out partway through the second fight. I laid out that opinion, then added one more thing.

"I don't think we'll be lacking in firepower. Not with the Lieutenant Colonel here."

Gwak Han-muk's zombification, though, was a problem. Today was only the first day of infection, so it was manageable enough — but by day two, keeping his aggression in check would not be easy. He might hold it together in ordinary moments, but once we were in combat his instincts would be far more stimulated. The idea that he wouldn't come after me was, for all practical purposes, impossible.

"That's why I think it would be best if we split up and each took a zone."

I was human, and the weakest of us, so I would take the rooftop at the very rear and focus on firearms. Je Hyeon-o would hold the center of the front line. Gwak Han-muk and Mo Hae-in would take the two flanks. Their zombification had already boosted their stamina and strength, so dividing us that way ought to hold.

"Hey, Goyo."

Gwak Han-muk, who had been listening in earnest, cut in without warning.

"Why are they drawing your blood?"

Only then did I realize I hadn't explained the most important fact of all. I was still turning over how to put it when, as if on cue, Lee Ga-on appeared.

"I'll take the needle out."

She walked right up without a trace of fear — two zombies and a pair of goggles notwithstanding — checked the blood bag, and drew the needle from my arm. There was no fear in her eyes. If anything, a gleam that bordered on madness lingered there. The thrill of having found the cure seemed to have crushed everything else beneath it.

Watching her carry on like a mad scientist, Gwak Han-muk tried again.

"Researcher. Why are you drawing his blood?"

Lee Ga-on had been waiting for that question. She cried out in a voice bright with rapture.

"Gunbam's blood was the cure for the Pandora virus!"

The instant those words landed, Gwak Han-muk and Mo Hae-in's faces hardened in unison, to a degree that was almost frightening. Lee Ga-on didn't seem to register it at all — not even with two zombies pulling ugly faces right in front of her. Wearing an expression of drunken rapture, she took my blood bag and vanished.

The moment she was out of sight, Mo Hae-in turned that stare on me.

"Trainee."

Her voice lashed like a blizzard, ice-cold.

"Come with me. We need to talk."

I got chewed out. Thoroughly.

I swallowed a sigh and replayed the lecture Mo Hae-in and Gwak Han-muk had poured on me from both sides, firing like a pair of machine guns.

"Minimize contact with NPCs and items. That's the basic rule of trial entry — you don't know that? Get your head on straight, Trainee. What the hell do you think a trial even is?"

"Gwangbam, I swear to god you're gonna drive me insane. You just hand over your blood like it's nothing — you have any idea what an NPC might do with that? And what if she faked the blood draw and shot you up with some drug instead? Huh? What made you sit there like a lamb and let her stick a needle in your arm? Aigoo, this is fucking crazy."

The truth was, they and I were looking at this from different places. I had played the Archive's games, and I had no small amount of fondness for the NPCs who belonged to the trials. A well-disposed attitude was the only one I could take. But for Mo Hae-in and Gwak Han-muk, a trial was a disaster that had fallen from outer space. To their eyes, my behavior would look like waving a hand around inside a roaring blaze and going, This is nice and warm. It's not that hot.

No matter how much I insisted it wasn't dangerous, it wouldn't matter.

Of course, I needed to take the Captains' words to heart. Nothing they had poured on me had been wrong.

They're right that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I'm doing reckless things.

If I had acted normally and rationally, I never should have spared the Cook Zombie in the basement. Trying to make a cure, giving my blood to an NPC for that purpose — all of it, put coldly, was insanity.

But... even if I turned back time, I had a feeling I would make the same choices. Because I knew Lee Ga-on and Lee Se-on, the Cook Zombie, Princess Tarantella and Smiley — people Gwak Han-muk and Mo Hae-in did not know.

Anyway, once the vaccine and the cure were successfully completed, the Captains would probably soften a little. I told myself I had better fight well over the next three days, and finished assembling the firearms.

The sun was already going down.

I was about to deploy the guns the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠way Gwak Han-muk had shown me when my eyes found, quite naturally, the figure standing on the rooftop railing. Je Hyeon-o had let his metal hand hang at his side, and he was watching the sun pour out its sunset light.

Come to think of it, the Lieutenant Colonel hadn't said a word.

Well. It would have been stranger if he had.

I approached with the caution of someone walking up to a fierce wild animal.

"Lieutenant Colonel."

Je Hyeon-o turned his head toward me.

He had put a smiling face on the goggles, and he looked to be in an extremely good mood. He even gave his metal hand little shakes, producing a series of clicking sounds.

"I'll be able to see the whole battlefield from the rooftop, so if Captain Mo or Captain Gwak need support, I'll let you know through the system window. And the zombies will probably concentrate on you, sir. With three days of continuous fighting, if it becomes too much..."

"Goyo."

The sudden call stopped me mid-sentence. No — it was closer to say my breath had caught without my noticing, and that was why my voice had died in my throat.

"You know about Zero, I hear."

"......"

"And yet — three days?"

A laugh reached me, as if it were ringing out from somewhere deep in the dark. Je Hyeon-o whispered in a voice that did not know what to do with its own delight.