Swallowed by the Final Boss

My body plunged. I didn't even get the chance to flail my arms and legs. Before I could grasp what was happening, the fall was already over.

Splat. A nauseating sensation swallowed me whole.

"Hahk!"

I sucked in a huge breath. A rotting stench rushed into my lungs, but I barely registered it. The sky before my eyes vanished at terrifying speed. The mouth that had yawned wide to devour me was closing.

I planted my feet in the sloshing interior of its maw and reached out. There was nothing to grab. My hands slipped. The mucous membrane wrapping my limbs heaved and rolled. And then—gulp. I was swallowed.

My body tumbled down a slick passage that had to be an esophagus. In the pitch dark on every side, system windows erupted in a frenzy.

The system was pissed that Je Hyeon-o had gotten the better of me. But I couldn't Execute him over something like this—not after everything he'd shown me. Taking down a million zombies, for instance. I'd known he was strong, but watching it happen right in front of me had been overwhelming. Having seen just how useful he was, I simply couldn't bring myself to execute Je Hyeon-o.

Instead I set myself a more modest goal: get out of here alive and... well, grabbing him by the collar might be a stretch, but I could at least lodge a complaint.

Honestly, for all its bluster, the system window probably didn't actually want me to execute him. It had been the one most desperate for his Registration in the first place.

A new quest popped up as I tumbled endlessly through the slick mucus.

There was a long block of text beneath it, but I could barely read while falling in a panic.

How long did I fall? At last my body stopped.

"Nnngh..."

I let out a small groan as I landed in a space about the size of a small room. Fortunately, the impact was almost nothing. I'd slid down something like an esophagus, and the floor I'd hit was yielding and soft all over.

Unlike the pitch-black gullet, a faint light here let me see my surroundings. Surprisingly, there was no stench. It was a slightly ridiculous way to put it, but I felt as though I'd landed in the cleanest part of the thing. The texture, though, was deeply unpleasant.

I made a small sound of disgust at the wall, which sank in the exact shape of my palm. As I braced against it, my palm started to itch for some reason. I pulled my hand away—and froze.

An eye had formed on the damp wall. The same kind of eye that had sprouted across Nothing's outer hide had now appeared inside its guts. A bloodshot eye stared straight at me.

As our gazes locked, the inner wall rippled, and more eyes bloomed one after another. Within moments I was surrounded by hundreds of them. A visceral revulsion raised goosebumps across my skin—and my heart was pounding for an entirely different reason as well.

I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠studied the eyes on the inner wall carefully. Had the ones on the outer hide been pushed inward? Or were these newly generated? I'd never had occasion to end up inside the final boss of Dead Zone Delivery, so I couldn't quite suppress my curiosity.

Having already adapted to the grotesqueness, I reached out and touched an eye. The Captains would have been horrified if they'd seen me, but I was alone in here. Nobody to scold me. The eye was damp and slick. Whether because it felt no pain or because it had no eyelid, it didn't blink. It simply rolled its pupil to follow my hand.

I pulled my hand back and remembered what I'd briefly forgotten.

I need to get out of here.

The only items I had were the ammo belt at my waist and a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠single military knife strapped to my thigh just in case. No matter how wildly I slashed with the knife, it would be useless against a zombie that felt no pain.

I can't count on the Captains coming to save me, either.

Je Hyeon-o had personally snatched me up and dropped me into the boss monster. There was no way he'd let Mo Hae-in and Gwak Han-muk come rescue me. But it didn't seem like he was trying to kill me.

"Goyo. Don't die."

That was what Je Hyeon-o had said as he dropped me. He seemed to want to confirm something about me. I had no idea what.

You could've at least tossed a gun in with me.

If I suddenly got out of here, I felt like I really might grab him by the collar.

First I pulled up the system window I hadn't been able to read earlier.

"...?"

I read the whole thing, but I couldn't make sense of it. It wanted to be together with me?

Haspack's Smiley had tried to draw players in out of loneliness. But Nothing was a boss monster formed from a mass of dead zombies and urban wreckage. It had no self—it simply carried out its purpose of killing the player.

I told myself it was just the system talking nonsense, but a faint unease lingered. Maybe it was all those eyes watching me. Strangely, their gazes felt almost expectant. But expecting what? Just like in a game, the only thing a boss and an Adaptor could do to each other in a Trial was defeat one another. All I could do now was burst these guts open or split them apart and get out. Unless a special quest was issued, there was no peaceful way to resolve this. I had no idea what Je Hyeon-o wanted from me—or the boss monster, for that matter.

Then a stinging pain registered along my back. I felt around with my hand and found a shallow cut through a long tear in my uniform jacket. Je Hyeon-o's metal hand must have grazed me when he snatched me up. The bleeding had mostly stopped, but some blood came away on my palm.

I frowned at my crimson palm—and felt their stares.

"......"

I slowly lifted my head. Every single pupil was looking at the same thing. My bloodstained hand.

Lee Ga-on's voice suddenly flickered through my mind.

"Gunbam-nim, your blood was the cure for the Pandora virus!"

Maybe... there was something I could do.

From the moment the boss monster opened its mouth, to Han Goyo falling, to the gulp that swallowed him whole—it had all happened in less than a minute. Mo Hae-in froze on the spot, then broke into a dead sprint. She threw every last shred of protocol toward a superior officer out the window and screamed.

"Je Hyeon-o!!!"

She tasted blood in her throat as she shouted.

From the first moment he'd laid eyes on Han Goyo, Je Hyeon-o had been excessively aggressive. It had been strange, but understandable. He'd always been hostile toward Trials and Adaptors—the Era Bureau being the sole exception. But by now he clearly recognized Han Goyo as ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a teammate. And yet he'd tossed him to the boss monster like a toy. This hadn't been an instinctive attack, a slip of the hand. This was a violation of Era Bureau regulations. It was a crime that warranted arrest.

As she charged toward Je Hyeon-o, prayer beads came flying from a distance. The Thunder-Struck Peach Wood Prayer Beads streaked through the air like a long rope and coiled around him.

"Lieutenant Colonel Je, you fucker!"

Gwak Han-muk seized the beads and roared.

"I told you not to kill him!"

The man who had caused this entire mess remained perfectly calm. Bound by the beads, he simply floated motionless in midair.

"I didn't kill him."

"Are you fucking kidding me?! Then what the hell was that for?!"

He answered in a tone that was not merely calm but almost languid.

"I wanted to see the color of his eyes, too."

Mo Hae-in felt the blood rush to her head. As she drew closer, the sheer absurdity of the situation hit her with brutal clarity. The boss monster, larger than the Research Institute itself, stood motionless in a sludgy mass like a heap of filth. The hundreds of eyes that had once studded its outer hide had vanished somewhere. Since swallowing Han Goyo, it hadn't attacked at all. It just stood there, vacant.

Mo Hae-in test-fired a burst into the thing looming like a small mountain. The bullets simply sank into the flabby flesh and were absorbed.

If I could just use the Black Moon Blade...!

Helplessness painted her vision red. With the Black Moon Blade unusable, the only one who could split that colossal monster in a single stroke was Je Hyeon-o. There were other methods, of course—but there was no telling what would happen to Han Goyo trapped inside in the meantime.

Mo Hae-in trained her muzzle dead-center on the gleaming goggles.

"Now! Get the Trainee out right now!"

A metallic screech rang out—Gwak Han-muk tightening the beads wrapped around Je Hyeon-o.

"Lieutenant Colonel. Get Goyo out."

A brief flash of blue light sparked from the prayer beads. Je Hyeon-o glanced at them, then slowly named the two of them one by one.

"Captain Mo. Captain Gwak."

Then he said something bizarre.

"Could you hold off on the insubordination for just a moment? I think something interesting is about to happen."

What kind of bullshit was he spouting now. He was impossible to reason with. She was about to pull the trigger.

"...!"

Mo Hae-in flinched and swung her muzzle around.

Splat. Something sloshing and formless dropped from the boss monster. The falling object was a zombie corpse it had absorbed. That was only the beginning.

Splat. Splat. Splat. The boss monster's flesh kept crumbling. It was vomiting back up everything it had indiscriminately absorbed and sucked in. Zombie corpses. Rubble from collapsed buildings. Urban trash. As the parts that had composed its body collapsed, its enormous size shrank by degrees. Mo Hae-in and Gwak Han-muk could only stare, dumbfounded, as the boss monster disassembled itself alive before their eyes.

When more than half of it had collapsed, a brilliant gold light spilled across the darkening surroundings. The source of that light, walking out from inside the crumbling boss monster, was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Han Goyo. The color of his eyes had changed again.

Mo Hae-in gazed at those golden eyes as if spellbound—then her own eyes flew wide. She had finally seen what the gold had been hiding. Han Goyo's entire body was soaked in blood. Beneath his ashen face, several huge slashes—as if carved by a knife—gushed and spilled blood. The blood flowing down was absorbed by the boss monster before it could even pool at his feet, and wherever the blood touched, the creature melted apart as if dissolving.

Mo Hae-in and Gwak Han-muk stood frozen as Je Hyeon-o's laugh rang out. He had already deactivated his goggles, and he shouted with a grin.

A cheerful ding sounded, and a system window appeared.

It was the victory notification announcing that Han Goyo had taken down the final boss of Dead Zone Delivery.