Purpose

I sprawled on the cold rooftop floor, arms and legs flung wide, lungs heaving as if they might burst. Worse than the tearing pain in my chest was the rotting face of the thing that had tried to tear into me moments before, and the raw terror of dangling in empty air, thrashing for my life—those images still flickered behind my eyes.

"God... I really thought that was it today..."

Seo Yeong-ju's voice beside me was thin, trembling just enough to notice. The usual sharp edge was gone. I didn't even have the strength to look at her; I just gasped out a reply.

"Yeah... me too."

We sat in silence for a long while. Far off, from the rooftop of the building we had just escaped, the hollow, starving howls of the things still up there rolled across the city—the only soundtrack proving we were still alive. Time slipped by. When the adrenaline finally drained away, a crushing exhaustion flooded in, and I managed to push myself upright.

The claw marks on my forearm burned, announcing themselves. The skin wasn't deeply gouged, thank god, but dark red beads of blood still welled up.

"Get over here. Stop staring like an idiot."

Yeong-ju yanked my arm toward her. From the backpack she had salvaged earlier she pulled out the precious pressure bandage she had been hoarding and the nearly empty bottle of disinfectant—now down to a few drops. In this hell, clean bandages and disinfectant were pure gold. She carefully soaked a scrap of gauze and pressed it to the wound.

"Ow! That stings—take it easy! You're killing me!"

"Hold still, you little shit. If you'd actually been bitten I might've had to cut the whole arm off myself! And if we were unlucky you'd still turn and start walking around out there as a zombie! Be grateful it ended like this. Say a prayer of thanks to the sky while you're at it."

She ignored my yelp and pressed harder, cleaning and wrapping the wound with practiced hands. That cool, gentle touch somehow sent a wave of relief through me.

Without her I would have been dead long ago—just another one of those things moaning mindlessly down in the streets.

"Thanks."

"Whatever. If you die I'm the one stuck carrying all this crap alone."

The same blunt answer as always. But I knew every meaning packed into those words. We were each other's only lifeline. Watching her finish the bandage, I let out a low sigh and muttered,

"We're so close now... just a little farther..."

The moment the words left my mouth her hands froze. A cold shadow settled over her face. Ah. That look again.

"I told you to drop that."

"No, listen.

We're almost there. It's got a perfect automated defense system, hydroponic food production... even a medical bay that can set a broken bone in a couple of hours. Even if you're hurt like this, even if I'm cut up like this, we walk ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in, blink once, and we're healed clean. No more trembling over a few drops of disinfectant."

"So where is this famous 'Cosmic Colony Shelter' of yours? Inside that big head of yours?"

Her voice had gone ice-cold again. Frustration pushed my own voice higher.

"I've told you a hundred times it's not a delusion! Right over there! The Buk-gu District Office Sports Ground in Daegu! We just have to reach it! I can still see it clear as day—why won't you believe me?!"

I jabbed a finger at empty air. Only I could see the translucent system window floating there, its sharp letters a mix of hope and curse.

That window had started appearing at the edge of my vision about a month before the zombie outbreak. Everything traced back to the game I had poured ten years of my youth into: Cosmic Pioneer.

Cosmic Pioneer was a space-colonization simulation infamous for its brutal difficulty. You were a pioneer dispatched to a mysterious alien planet, gathering resources, building a base, surviving capricious environments and unpredictable alien invasions—all to create a new home for humanity.

From my school days straight through college and into early adulthood, nearly a third of my life had been spent with that game. Countless players quit, cursing the nightmarish difficulty and the predatory cash shop. I stuck it out as a free-to-play player and survived.

Then, on the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠tenth anniversary, after collecting every free daily reward without missing a single day, I finally completed the planetary colony in a game almost no one still played. The next day I replaced the decade-old number-one ranking with my own username.

That was when the game gave me its final reward.

When that message appeared I was face-down on my desk, drowning in assignments. Three in the morning, mind half-asleep. I figured it was some new event from the company—or a prank hack. "Reality synchronization"? Ridiculous. Still, it sounded fun, so I snorted and hit the imaginary install button.

A map of South Korea unfolded before my eyes. Half-joking, half-dozing, I zoomed in on Daegu, where I lived. My place was a shabby villa in Nam-gu. Then, out of nowhere, I remembered the district sports ground where my father used to take me to watch early-morning soccer—still in use, supposedly. Wide open flat land. Perfect match for the requirement.

Eh, no way this actually works. Might as well pick somewhere big and far away.

Stupid, childish thought. I clicked the sports ground at the far edge of Buk-gu—about as distant from my Nam-gu home as you could get inside the city—and hit confirm. I never dreamed that choice would become the biggest mistake of my life... and maybe my last hope.

From then on the system window always floated at the edge of my vision. At first I thought I had a brain tumor. I was seriously considering a hospital visit when the world ended. Unidentified lights fell from the sky along with airplanes, and people went mad, tearing into one another. Zombie apocalypse. The hell we only ever saw in movies had become real.

Only then did I understand: that game message hadn't been a joke. And at the same time I despaired. Same city or not, from my Nam-gu home to the far edge of Buk-gu was a solid hour by car even in peacetime. Crossing that distance through this chaos was pure suicide—a full traverse of a dead city.

"Should've just put it on our own roof... or if the size didn't work, the parking lot in front of the apartments next door, fuck... why did I click without thinking..."

I clutched my head, drowning in self-reproach. That one foolish choice had been chaining my ankles for five months. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠For five months we had clawed our way across a Daegu turned into a city of death. Starting from Nam-gu, through the downtown of Jung-gu, sometimes detouring west into Seo-gu or east into Dong-gu, we had only just reached the outskirts of Buk-gu. Dozens of kilometers, countless brushes with death, days when we advanced only a few hundred meters.

"Hey."

Yeong-ju called me. Pity and sorrow mixed in her eyes. She knew exactly what I was thinking.

"Snap out of it. That wasn't your fault. The world ending isn't on you. You just... it was too much. The shock was so big your brain invented a defense mechanism to protect you."

She was genuinely worried. She believed I had invented the fantasy of "game powers" because I couldn't face the nightmare. No matter how many times I gestured at empty air claiming I saw a system window, to her it only looked like a madman's seizure.

"No, Yeong-ju. This is real. Please believe me."

"What more do you want me ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to believe?"

She stood and walked to the rooftop railing, staring south—the direction we had come from.

"If that 'Shelter' of yours is real, why have we been doing this shit for five months? Why are we starving, getting hurt, shaking every night listening to zombies? Did that amazing system ever drop us food? Did it ever stop a single zombie for us?"

Her voice was sharp, but deep grief ran underneath. She had endured this hell right beside me. She needed hope too. But to her eyes my hope was too unreal—dangerous, even—a delusion.

"Because... it only activates once I get there."

"Right. Because of that Shelter that only works when we arrive, we've been crossing this hellscape for five months. Remember the survivor groups we met? At first everyone was full of hope. Building forts, making rules, trying to survive somehow. And now? Once the food ran out they started suspecting each other, kicking out the weak, killing each other until they became zombie food or turned into monsters themselves. That's the reality we saw."

Her words were a painful truth. Early on we had tried joining a few survivor groups. But as time passed, humanity rotted. Conflict over food and resources was inevitable; distrust inside became more terrifying than any threat outside. We saw that and decided it was better to move as two. Yet I couldn't deny that the foundation of that decision was my goal—the Shelter.

"If you'd just dropped that delusion, we might already have found a stable place and settled down. Like other people. I don't know if that would've been better, but at least we wouldn't be risking our lives every day crossing a city like lunatics. You think this is normal judgment?"

"..."

I had nothing to say. Every word was true. My foolish hope was dragging my only companion into a death trap.

"Either you're crazy or I am. One of the two."

Yeong-ju sighed.

"But you know what, Seo Yeong-chan? No matter how much nonsense you spout, no matter how much you rant at empty air about a system window that isn't there, I'm still here with you. Why do you think that is?"

She turned to face me. Under the gray hoodie, her exhausted eyes pinned me straight through.

"...Because you're worried about me?"

"Worried? Of course I'm worried. My only partner loses his mind and wants to go hunting a utopia that doesn't exist—how could I not worry? But that's not all."

She looked north again—the direction we had to go.

"Even if every word you say is a lie, even if you're completely insane... at least you have a purpose."

"...Purpose?"

"Yeah. In this fucked-up world most people just try to survive today. They die worrying whether they'll open their eyes tomorrow morning. But you're different.

You have a clear goal: reach the Buk-gu District Office Sports Ground in Daegu. Delusion or reality, you're heading there, and that keeps you moving."

She kept talking as she coiled the rope.

"So... I can't leave you behind, I guess?

Even if that hope isn't real, I can't leave alone the guy hanging onto it and fighting to stay alive.

I'm not following because I believe in your Shelter. I'm just following you. Maybe along the way we'll find some hideout worth settling in."

She finished speaking and slung the coiled rope over her shoulder.

"Alright, break's over. We can't spend the night here. Long way still to go, right, 'First Pioneer' sir? You said we're almost there."

The last line was pure sarcasm, yet somehow it didn't sting. I stood. The pain in my arm, the exhaustion in my body—both felt a little lighter.

She doesn't believe in my power. She thinks I'm a trauma patient. But she stays. She walks this foolish, reckless journey with me through five months of hell. That alone was enough.

I stood beside her and looked north, the direction we had to go. Beyond the ruins of countless buildings, a place that now felt almost within reach. The translucent system window still floated in my vision. And beneath it, in tiny letters, another line of information appeared.

I swore to myself that one day I would change those words "Unsynchronized" to "Synchronization Complete." I would prove to her that all of this was real, and I would give her the safest, most perfect sanctuary in this hellish world.

"Let's go."

I said it. Yeong-ju nodded.