240 Hours (2)
Effective immediately, XX District of XX City, Gyeonggi Province, is hereby declared a Clean Zone free of roaming zombies and monsters!
Time limit: 240 hours! Exactly 10 days!
Savor this moment!
After milking the suspense for all it was worth, the reward the Administrator finally spat out was, without question, shockingly generous.
Alright, alright, alright — what is a Clean Zone, you ask? It means that for 240 hours, not a single zombie or monster will so much as show its snout in the designated area. That's the idea! Everyone got that?
Yeah, it was an absurdly generous reward…
Except the bastard delivering it was that shithead Administrator, so the thrill just wouldn't land.
Of course, that was just me.
"A C-Clean Zone…? H-hurray! Hurray!"
"Thank god…!"
"This means everyone else can come outside for a while without worrying! That's wonderful, unnie!"
My girls (not quite yet) all lit up at the news. Joy flooded their faces — the look of people who finally felt like they'd received a real reward.
Couldn't blame them. Unlike a freak like me who could go on a solo rampage whenever he wanted, for these three — and for every other survivor — just stepping outside took serious resolve.
Ho-we-ver! Getting too excited about this Clean Zone business would be premature! We've slapped a few restrictions on it, you see. I mean, come on — the world's ending, and making one whole region completely peaceful feels a little off, doesn't it? Doesn't it? We also have to consider the relative deprivation felt by certain individuals with the Lord class!
Listen to this asshole run his mouth. Truly, spectacularly punchable. That Administrator bastard's face was definitely uglier than a garbage heap — guaranteed.
But… restrictions? Besides the 240-hour limit, they were going to slap on more conditions?
And why bring up the Lord class at all? Why did that class even exist in the first place?
My eyes drifted, unbidden, toward Han Sora — our only Brave Saga Online info broker — and she caught my look, her face still glowing as she opened her mouth.
"Ah, Hoon oppa! So the Lord class is a job that—"
Of course she never got to finish.
Therefore, we will impose the following restrictions! First! The Clean Zone's time limit is 240 hours! This duration will never change — it will neither shrink nor extend. Keep that firmly in mind. And second! The only survivors permitted to reside in the Clean Zone are those currently living in XX District at this very moment! Nobody else may stay! Curious? Feel free to try!
The Administrator was too busy blathering through his own script. And goddamn was he loud. Fuck!
Still, you had to hand it to them — clean restrictions. For a second I'd worried survivors from elsewhere might flood in to freeload off the benefits we'd barely earned, but they'd cut that off at the root.
Ah… whether anyone out there even had the energy or organization to swarm us was another question entirely. Look at me overthinking…
Third! Should you leave the Clean Zone of XX District, Gyeonggi Province, and fail to return within a maximum of 12 hours, the system will determine that you have no intention of remaining in XX District — and your right to stay in the Clean Zone will be revoked! So please refrain from unnecessary outings. Stick to moving within XX District. Understood?
Pretty generous restrictions, all things considered.
Hold on… wait a second. If we played those restrictions right…!? I needed to talk this over with the others.
Alright then! Ahem, ahem… this next part isn't related to the Clean Zone. It's a little service for the ones who took down the Field Boss…
Hm? The ones who took down the Field Boss… that would be me and my three girls (not quite yet)?
You see, survivors… this feature was originally scheduled for early May, bundled in with another update. But you're already getting a taste of that update under the name "Field Boss," aren't you? And in the same spirit! Right here, right now! As a little preview! We will activate the Message Transmission System for a limited time!
Huh? Messages? Like texts, or emails?
Oh, that was good. I didn't know the details yet, but with something like that, communication would get a whole lot easier even without electronics.
…But hang on. That Administrator bastard had just said something about a service related to me and my three girls…!?
Buuuuuut! Just because it's activated doesn't mean you can send messages to just anyone! This is a brief opening — think of it as a beta test you're getting to experience! First off, the send function will be activated for all of you. Now then, next up — the recipients. Receiving is pretty important for a messaging system, right?
W… wait. Don't tell me—
Yep, that's right! Everyone! Message reception privileges will be opened for one person only — Survivor Jeong Hoon, who defeated the Field Boss Skeleton King!
Wow, congratulations, Survivor Jeong Hoon! You'll be receiving fan mail from all across the nation! Waaaaah, clap clap clap clap!!
W-what the hell did he just say? That insane bastard!
If they locked a function like that onto me alone…!
Messages from people all over the goddamn world were going to bury me alive!
Great, great! In commemoration of the Field Boss world-first kill, we will open the Message Transmission System beta test for exactly three minutes! Ta-daaa — precisely… 5… 4… 3… 2… 1! The feature is now live!
Huuuuuh!?
…Huh?
It was quiet.
No big change that I could tell. Had something shifted in the system window?
Or maybe the intelligent survivors out there were suspicious of the Administrator's words and weren't reckless enough to touch some shady new system?
If that were the case, it'd be really ni—
Message function activated! Message send/receive available for 3 minutes!
No… the system had just been slow to activate.
Haha…
The notification windows kept stacking like a wildfire. Thirty thousand… fifty thousand… a hundred thousand… two hundred thousand… four hundred thousand… climbing without end.
"System, on…"
I opened the system on pure reflex.
1. <Your Stats>
2. <Items & Gold>
3. <Messages (Unread: 4,754,197)>beta!
3. <Shop>
4. <FAQ>
I tapped the message window.
⊳ Subject: Is this thing actually sending…?
⊳ Subject: Please help us, this is Seoul…
⊳ Subject: Please come here, Gyeonggi…
⊳ Subject: Please save me I'm trapped…
⊳ Subject: Oppa do you have a girlfriend? Right now…
⊳ Subject: Hot unnie always available Busan Metro…
⊳ Subject: Help me help me help me…
. . .
What a goddamn mess.
Haha. Hahaha… hahahahahaha…!
Just like that, they'd turned me into a worldwide celebrity. I never even asked for it.
Thanks a lot, Administrator.
When I finally meet you…
"I'll make damn sure you learn what it feels like to burn in the fires of hell…!"
You hear me, Administrator?
"Huh?"
"H-Hoon oppa…?"
"Um, Jeong Hoon-ssi. What did you just say…? More importantly — are messages actually going to you right now? A new message-sending window just popped up for me too…"
Ah… right. I wasn't alone right now.
I'd just written myself a brand-new black mark in the history books.
Fuck!
Seoul, Republic of Korea.
The number-one district of politics, finance, and commerce.
An island that wasn't quite an island — Yeouido.
"No way…"
Deep inside one of its ruined buildings, someone was breathing in ragged bursts, a system window open before him.
"No way… no way… is it you?"
His trembling hand hovered a hair's breadth from the system window.
Then he started hammering at the empty air with his fingers, pounding as if he were thrashing something to death.
To an outsider, the frantic hand movements might have looked like the work of a madman. But in this age of zombies, he was nothing more and nothing less than an ordinary survivor tapping at a system window.
The man had barely escaped monsters and hidden himself in a corner of this building — a space that had once been some company's office. The Administrator's announcement moments ago had snapped him wide awake.
It had already been ten days since the end of the world. Ten days of miraculously staying alive, crawling from one hiding place to the next like a beggar.
All that time, even while fretting over his own life, he'd never stopped thinking about other people in the silence and the dark.
His family, for instance, who had never quite trusted him. His (ex-)girlfriend, whose betrayal still left a ringing aftershock. The friends who'd mocked him for getting dumped…
And above all, his friend who'd spent every day until March 31st lamenting that he didn't have a Brave Saga Online account, only to drop out of contact — Jeong Hoon.
"Hoon-ah… is it really you?"
Son Minsu, twenty-nine years old, muttered the name again under his breath, his finger trembling over the send button.
And then — press.
He pressed it.
Subject: Hoon-ah, is it really you? It's me, Son Minsu
A message pleading for help.
Even knowing it would almost certainly be buried…
He sent it.