April 1st (End)

For all the tension that had marked my departure, the journey home was peaceful beyond anything I could have ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠imagined.

For one thing, my Stealth skill worked perfectly on those brain-dead zombies even in broad daylight. More importantly, nothing like those bastard zombie dogs—mobs with better smell and hearing than ordinary zombies—showed up again.

Still, I didn't let my guard down. I crept carefully all the way back to my nest, and only after I opened the door to my third-floor apartment, stepped inside, and shut it behind me did I finally let out a long breath of relief and sink down onto the floor.

"Haaah... System on!"

Leaving the bag stuffed full of food and drinks in the middle of the room, I called up the system window and opened my status screen.

I burned every line of that status screen into my eyes.

So experience really was shared across all classes.

And if my memory served, the EXP system in Dragon Gate RPG was cumulative. That meant once I hit 1,250 EXP and leveled up as a Rogue, the counter wouldn't reset—I'd keep going from 1,250 and start stacking toward the next level from there.

But there was something even more satisfying than that.

That game—Dragon Gate RPG—supported dual or even triple classing depending on the race you picked!

What did dual or triple classing mean?

Normally, when you made a game character, you picked one class and only the related subclasses branched off from there. That was the standard. But the TRPG rulebook that formed the foundation of Dragon Gate RPG let you choose two or even three classes based on your race when building a character.

Among the dual-class combos, Warrior/Mage, Warrior/Rogue, and Rogue/Mage were the big favorites. Warrior/Mage was basically what people called a magic knight, so the balance was solid. Warrior/Rogue could wear armor and still use rogue skills, making it versatile in all kinds of ways. Rogue/Mage could sling spells freely while still running rogue skills—another strong pick.

And the one I'd been blessed with—Warrior/Mage/Rogue—that triple class was a late bloomer.

Raising it early on was a real grind, but once the levels piled up in the late game, you were left with nothing but the strengths of Warrior, Mage, and Rogue all rolled into one monstrous class.

You could wield every kind of weapon like a Warrior, rain down devastating magic like a Mage, and use Stealth that put pure Mages to shame so you could smash enemies from behind like a Rogue. On top of that, some of the late-game armor still let you cast spells and use rogue skills while wearing it.

But this was reality now. There was no way gear like that existed here. At best you'd find the body armor cops and soldiers used.

Besides, stomping around in full plate in an environment like this would just get you surrounded and turned into zombie chow.

Looked at another way, under modern-world conditions... this Warrior/Mage/Rogue triple class was nothing but advantages right from the start.

I wanted to thank my childhood self over and over for making this character. How the hell had I built the single most broken character for a reality that had gone completely off the rails? I wanted to hoist kid-me onto my shoulders and parade him around the room!

Basking in that class satisfaction, I turned my attention to the stats section.

I'd never played Brave Saga Online, so I couldn't speak to that system—but I knew exactly how much raw power the stats in Dragon Gate RPG represented.

When you built a character, the minimums and maximums varied by class, but every stat had a hard floor and ceiling. Six was the minimum. Seventeen was the maximum. Some classes, like Warrior/Rogue, capped Intelligence at 15. Mages, for their part, couldn't push Strength or Agility past 15 either.

But look at those beautiful numbers sitting in front of me.

Strength 17. Agility 17. Intelligence 17!

Only the Warrior/Mage/Rogue triple class could hit those values. Because you were a Warrior and a Mage and a Rogue all at once. A kind of built-in privilege.

That said, early stats hadn't mattered much in Dragon Gate RPG. You got to add one stat point every three levels anyway, and stats only really started to shine in the late game.

But. This. Was. Reality.

That was how it worked in Dragon Gate RPG. Here, things were different.

And right beside my numbers was a conversion into Brave Saga Online character stats. I couldn't know other people's exact values, but if they were starting at Level 1 the same as me, there was no way they were kicking off with numbers this high.

I'd overheard friends talking about it before. That game started you with extremely low stats. In exchange, Brave Saga Online walked you through something like tutorial quests up to Level 10, handing out class skills along the way—and only then did you get to control your character properly yourself. I'd heard that much.

But starting at Level 1? A tutorial? The world had just suddenly decided to end. Had the system really extended that kind of courtesy to anyone else?

That woman who'd died running for her life outside earlier—she must have been one of the 10% of survivors the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Administrator had mentioned. And even she had died without getting to do a damn thing. That alone was proof that no such tutorial kindness existed.

Which meant... if those converted numbers beside mine were real, I had started this apocalypse with a survival edge far above everyone else.

"It doesn't get better than this...!"

Looking back, I should have cooled my excitement and examined the status window more carefully right then...

First things first—I opened the fridge and packed away the supplies I'd brought home.

"Ah, damn it..."

Then a frustrating thought hit me and I groaned. Why the groan? Because of this.

"System, on!"

That second menu—Items & Gold. At first I'd thought it was an inventory box and nearly cheered. But when I tapped it, this is what came up.

I didn't even need to guess who'd written that piece-of-shit restriction and notification.

A curse rose all the way to the tip of my tongue.

"You spawn of something that deserves divine punishment...!"

...What the hell was going on with my mouth?

Anyway! You hand people a system and then two of the menus are completely useless? Available from April 7th? So for the next six days we were supposed to sit around sucking our thumbs until we dropped dead, or what?

...Ah, right. They'd already told 90% of humanity to go die. No, no—they'd given this system to the remaining 10% so those people could live! So how the hell was the system this half-baked and empty? I was lucky enough to get a completely different one from everyone else, but the ordinary people stuck with the standard system... ah, humanity's future was looking bleak!

Well... after unloading that internal rant, I went back into my stats window. The part I needed to look at carefully was...

Exactly this part. The Magic and Skills (Rogue) sections. The very first time I'd looked, both of those fields had been blank.

Three hours ago, when I'd first checked my own status window, those sections had been empty.

What's this? If I tap Magic and Skills (Rogue), do I get to choose? I'd wondered—and when I pressed them...

That had popped up. So it worked? I'd hit Yes without a second thought.

And then a string of extremely familiar Level 1 spells had unfurled down the list.

The memories had come flooding back. Ahh, that familiar feeling... it had been so long. Classic RPG magic...

The first spell to learn had been a given. Magic Arrow. It was a Mage's most basic attack spell, and in a zombie apocalypse like this—where the risk of infection was enormous—ranged attacks were desperately needed.

Hm? A sling? Darts? Throwing knives? Like those would just be lying around in some ordinary person's house! Even that European army knife earlier—if my friend hadn't gotten it for me, it never would have ended up in my hands.

...So thank you, Minsu. You're still alive, right? I hope so...

When I clicked Magic Arrow, a new notification appeared.

Right. This was where the real deliberation started.

My eyes were drawn to Sleep. I'd noticed it by chance—when I stared hard at a spell, detailed information about it poured straight into my head.

Now, this spell had a fatal flaw. It didn't work on zombies.

How did I know? I'd already tried it on undead in the game. Undead were the risen dead—they didn't sleep. The spell only affected living creatures that actually slept, so casting it on zombies a hundred times would do absolutely nothing.

So why was I still drawn to Sleep? Because I wanted to cast it on survivors and do something nasty? N-no. Absolutely not!

I had another reason! I'd remembered the warning that Administrator had screamed loud enough to rupture eardrums. That Administrator had definitely said...

That was the kind of cheerful, rage-inducing crap they'd shouted!

Creatures from fantasy worlds.

If that was real—no, of course it was real! Were the zombies outside fake, then?

Anyway, if monsters like that showed up... never mind how strong they might be. The real question was whether my mind could hold together after seeing those grotesque things. Just looking at one or two of the zombies rampaging outside had already made me throw up and lose it.

So...

"Sleep. Selected..."

I spoke the spell I intended to choose out loud.

And as if it had been waiting, my status window refreshed.

Clean. Next up—Rogue skills?

Huh? They'd just appeared out of nowhere. And they had letter ranks on them?

...Aha. So as a Rogue I already had all the skills unlocked, and I was supposed to invest points to rank them up.

Right—more memories bubbling back up. The higher you ranked a Rogue skill, the better its success rate got.

I'd more or less seen this coming, so I'd already decided what to put points into. I'd told myself that if I ever ended up with the Rogue class, this was exactly how I'd build it.

Lockpicking wasn't needed right away. If something wouldn't open, I could just smash it open with raw Strength. Pickpocket wasn't urgent either... but I'd put a few points into it just in case I ever needed to steal good items or gear off a monster.

Trap Disarm was basically the ability to detect traps, so I'd ranked it similarly to Pickpocket...

But the most important skill by far was Stealth. Obviously. In times like these, staying out of other people's sight was how you stayed alive the longest.

And ambushes mattered. Rogues came with a basic passive skill called Backstab that dealt massive extra damage when you attacked an enemy from behind. That same passive also triggered if you attacked from Stealth.

I'd finished ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠allocating points and headed out around noon. The result: I'd slipped past two zombies just by keeping low, one-shot a charging zombie dog from the front, and wiped out three zombies near the convenience store in seconds. I'd gotten cocky and moved more boldly than I should have... but the system's effects were incredible.

I'd deliberately held off on using magic today. Sleep didn't work on undead, so that was a non-issue... and I simply hadn't needed Magic Arrow. Using it up close was inefficient, and I'd been saving it just in case—but I never ended up needing it, not even on the way home.

"Haaah..."

Anyway, I'd finished mapping out the system... so I went to the bathroom, buried my face in the sink, and washed slowly.

Fortunately, the water hadn't been cut off completely. Before leaving the apartment, I'd turned on the shower and left it running into the basin in the bathroom. By the time I got back, it had filled to a certain level and stopped. That must have been the limit. Was there a water tank on the roof of this building? I'd have to haul that water down later...

I dried my face with a towel and came back out. I opened the fridge and pulled two energy bars from the food I'd scavenged earlier.

A cup of water to go with them. Incredibly meager—but in a situation like this, it was heaven-tier cuisine. A hot meal? I wanted one, but without butane gas it was impossible. Shit, I should have stocked up beforehand... Why the hell did they have to announce the apocalypse was starting yesterday, of all days. That Administrator bastard!

"No, wait..."

In truth, that text message sent on March 17th—that flippant little one-liner—could already be counted as a warning. The problem was that not a single person on Earth had taken it seriously. Myself included.

Well, maybe... some tiny handful of people out there had taken that message seriously and were locked up tight inside their homes right now. People I'd never meet in my entire life, most likely.

I snorted a quiet laugh and drank the water from the cup. Carefully, I stuck my head out past the window and looked outside.

...Ah. Far off in the distance, some kind of large bird was flying.

No. That wasn't a bird.

It was a monster.

"KROARARARARARAROK!"

A monster shrieking an unholy scream.

...Time to close the curtains.

"You who have strayed from the natural order... someday I shall drive every last one of you from this land...!"

I wanted to just rip this mood-killing mouth of mine clean off. Why the hell did it keep doing this?

...

And so...

April 1st—the day the world ended—passed into history.