April 1st: The Eve
Just before April 1st arrived.
11:58 p.m.
A restless murmur filled the air...
"So in two minutes the whole world's gonna go to shit, right?"
"Didn't you see that text? Said you'd been selected as a survivor or whatever! Even if you die, I'm living, you dumbass. Hahaha..."
"You little shit—"
"Hey, I saw that too!"
"You did? Dude, me too!"
"Hell yeah, that's Korea for you! Gaming superpower — practically nobody skipped that Brave Saga whatever-it's-called! Gotta write this up for the national pride blogs...!"
"Babe! If I turn into a zombie I wanna become one with you~"
"Aww, me toooo~"
"Alright, brothers, brothers! To confirm once and for all whether zombies show up at midnight, I'm live right now on the streets of X University in Seoul... Ah, thank you CheonyongaHimnaera for the fifty star balloons~"
"Oppa, Jenny got curious about whether zombies would appear too, so I came out to X University street... Ah, thank you UncleJenny for the five hundred star balloons, kyung-kyung!"
The plaza at X University — famous throughout Seoul as the street of the young — was packed shoulder to shoulder.
For the first time in years since the continental plague that had hammered the 2020s, the square was overflowing with every breed of human specimen imaginable.
Naturally, the vast majority of those specimens were the kind that lived and died for other people's attention.
They had gathered for one reason only.
To argue back and forth over whether the end of the world — as prophesied by the one who called himself an Administrator — was real or fake.
Already the major video platforms and every corner of social media were drowning in related posts, clips, and comment threads, pushing the servers of global tech giants to the brink of meltdown.
And really, none of it was strange. By any reasonable measure, suspecting that the apocalypse might actually arrive was not irrational.
Twelve hours earlier, everyone gathered here had been sentenced to death — warned of the end by a colossal timer floating in the sky (it was still hanging there now) and by an otherworldly voice that had thundered in their ears.
So the bored and the attention-starved had flocked together under the pretense of covering it live. They showed up at the hotspots of every major city in every country, phones out, streaming rigs powered on.
Of course, the network and cable news crews were hard at work too, broadcasting the gathering in real time from the edges of the plaza.
Somewhere in the crowd, someone who had come purely out of curiosity thought to themselves that the anticipation in the air felt even thicker than on New Year's Eve when the bell tolled. Looking at all these people packed in just to see whether the world would end or not, it almost seemed like humanity would be fine with going extinct.
And time — even through the swirl of expectation, curiosity, and a thin undercurrent of fear and unease — ticked steadily on toward the moment of annihilation.
"Fifteen seconds left!"
"The end is nigh! Repent, ye little lambs! Our holy leader KMJ received a revelation and descended upon this earth to—!"
"Cult! It's a cult!"
"Pffft, holy shit! Look at this guy actually going for it!"
"I am Kim XX of Gyeonggi-do XX!"
"Wait, who the hell was that just now?!"
"Is that the Piot guy? One of those gallery trolls?"
"Pffhihihihihik!"
Naturally, the closer midnight crept, the more every brand of trash and lunatic started airing out their particular brand of crazy.
Police were stationed throughout the area against any contingency, and the plaza wasn't that large to begin with — so anyone causing real trouble got scooped up in seconds before things could escalate.
And then...
"Oh, ten seconds!"
"Nine! Eight! Seven! Six! Five!"
As if welcoming the April 1st that would arrive in ten seconds, the crowd launched into a countdown.
From that moment, the streamers and broadcasters of every platform only got louder.
"Yes, the countdown is underway live right now, citizens! Will a worldwide apocalypse truly arrive in ten seconds? This has been reporter Kim Yeji for XXX New—"
"Brothers, even after the end I'll survive and keep streaming just for you! Don't you worry about a thing~"
"Yes yes, oppas, even if I turn into a zombie after the apocalypse, don't forget to watch my stream, okay? Promise? Okay?"
"Four! Three! Two!"
"Minji, I loved you, you fucking bitch!"
"Who the hell was that?!"
"It's that gallery troll stirring shit again, isn't it?"
"One!"
"Zero!"
The final number left their lips in English, as if by prior agreement — and with it...
April 1st of the year 202X arrived in the Republic of Korea.
And then...
Fwoosh!
"Kyaaaaaaah!"
"The lights went out!"
"What? What is it?!"
"Is this actually the end of the world?!"
April 1st. Midnight.
Every shopfront and streetlamp around the plaza went dark at once.
Not everything failed, though. People's phones, the various broadcast lights, and any lamp running on emergency batteries all stayed on. In other words, only things wired into the power grid had gone dead.
"...Anything different? You a zombie?"
"Do I look like a zombie, you idiot? Want me to bite you and find out?"
"The power's out, and— ah, my phone's dead! I can't make calls! Chat's down too!"
"Brothers? Brothers? Looks like the internet just cut out for a sec. I'll record this and upload it later, hyung-nims."
People muttered among themselves as they registered that the internet and electricity were gone — but that was all.
Nothing else changed. Nobody turned into a zombie. No fireballs fell from the sky to wipe out the crowd. No massive earthquake rose up to swallow the city and everyone in it.
When that noisy, uneventful reality had dragged on for about two minutes, some people even started muttering in open disappointment.
"...Nothing's happening? It was just the power and the internet going out!"
"That's the weirdest part! Why would the power and internet just die like that?!"
"Today's April Fools'! You think this is some nationwide prank?"
"Dude, you think the government has nothing better to do than pull some insane national-scale stunt— ah. Wait. They already have, haven't they?"
"Should we just go home? The subway's probably still running, right?"
People's thinking had fully shifted toward the idea that they'd been caught in an April Fools' gag of absurdly massive scale.
All because nothing noteworthy had happened for a mere two or three minutes — and on that flimsy basis alone, they let their guard drop completely.
And so it was that the sword of judgment fell first upon those who had turned their backs on the truth.
Thud!
"Whoa there, miss. Careful now!"
Among those trying to leave the plaza, someone crumpled bonelessly to the ground. A sturdy man nearby caught her.
His reason for catching her was simple. The person collapsing so freely was a rather attractive woman.
Damn, look at that body... jackpot.
The sturdy man grinned.
The reason he'd come to the X University plaza this late at night was a filthy little hope that he might snag a decent-looking woman.
And right now, he was celebrating. The catch he'd reeled in was a higher grade than he'd dared imagine. A woman like this... maybe he could skip the drinks and take her straight to a hotel. The total blackout was a bummer, sure. But the power would come back soon enough, right?
There was a problem, though.
Even cradled in the man's solid arm, the collapsed woman just hung there limp, showing no sign of moving.
What the hell? Did she pass out?
Sensing something off, the man leaned in closer — and that was the moment.
Crunch!
"Gh— uh...?!"
The man felt something punch through and sink into his neck, along with a searing pain. It felt exactly like being bitten by a fanged animal.
What the— is there a loose dog around here? Why is something suddenly on my neck— who—?
Groaning through the pain, the man finally made out the identity of whatever had bitten him.
"Wh— wha...?!"
It didn't take long to register the twisted face of the woman he was holding up.
Her eyes showed nothing but whites. Even in the dim light of the blackout, her skin looked not merely pale but rotting. No — she looked like a corpse wearing a human shape.
"KRAAAAAAAAGH!"
And that woman, teeth still buried in his neck, let out a monstrous shriek.
That was the trigger.
"Kya— kyaaaaaaah!"
"What— what the fuck is wrong with this psycho?!"
"What are you doing, why are you suddenly biting peop— aaaagh! That guy, what's wrong with him?!"
"What the hell is going— gyaaah! Get away, you crazy bastard!"
And so the end began.
Crunch!
People who had been casually checking their phones or heading home never even got a proper look at the human faces suddenly lunging at them.
Crack-crunch!
They never noticed that those humans — now moving with twisted gaits and skin gone deathly pale — had marked them as prey.
Chomp. Chomp!
The price of that complacency was excessively, grotesquely brutal.
"C-call the police! Wait, the cops are right here. Why aren't you subduing those peop— gyaaaaaah!"
"S-senior! Th-this... what do we do?!"
"H-hurry and contact the higher-ups! There are lunatics on the street biting peop— aagh, g-get away!"
Of course police officers softened by peacetime had no chance of responding properly to an emergency on this scale.
Among the first victims of the zombie outbreak were more than a few officers who had been standing around the scene looking bored.
The boast about turning ninety percent of humanity into zombies had not been empty bluster.
In an instant, zombies began appearing all across the towns and cities where people lived.
No — "appearing" wasn't the right word. Transformation was more accurate. Perfectly ordinary people walking down the street would suddenly go limp, start drooling, fix their eyes on other humans as prey, and charge.
And the military — the greatest physical force that should, by all logic, have been able to contain a crisis like this — was...
"Fuck, what are you doing?! You're not even controlling the civilians— aaaagh!"
"S-Sergeant! Th-there's a person over there... eating a person...! D-do we shoot or not?!"
"H-how the hell should I know?!"
Just like civilian society, officers and enlisted alike had fallen into total panic. No matter how much training they'd done in peacetime, a huge number of soldiers had never actually pointed a gun at a person — let alone a civilian — and pulled the trigger.
And the target in front of them was a sight no one had ever witnessed: human beings biting and devouring other human beings. For anyone living in modern society — whether a young recruit or a seasoned officer who'd done every year of service — keeping a cool head and making sound judgments in the face of that reality would have been the unnatural response.
There were those who managed to keep their wits, of course, but...
Bang, bang!
"You useless bastards! What the hell are you standing around staring for?! Didn't you hear a zombie world was coming, for fuck's sake?! What the hell is even— eh, eh-eh! Hey, hey!"
All too often they were bitten by a comrade who had suddenly turned, and died screaming on the spot. It was inevitable. The zombies hadn't come from outside.
When the soldiers who still had their heads on straight raised their rifles and fired, most of their targets were wearing the same military caps, the same combat boots, the same fatigues — shambling forward with weapons dangling from limp hands, drool stringing between their teeth.
"Oh, fuck...! What the hell is going on all of a sudden, Jinseong... Jinseong? Hey, Choi Jinseong! Why'd you suddenly stop talking and hang your head like th—"
"KRAAAAAAAAGH!"
"Huh? AAAAAAAAGH! H-help me!"
There was no way ordinary soldiers could easily handle a squadmate who'd been perfectly fine one minute earlier suddenly transforming right beside them.
And so nearly every military unit was wiped out from within — by sudden internal infection and sluggish response.
In that same moment, an unexpected variable arose on the organizers' side.
Ninety percent of humanity — those who were meant to die — turning into zombies was fine.
The problem was the ten percent who were supposed to live. More precisely, the people who had been granted the power of Brave Saga Online, undergone a kind of "awakening," and were meant to survive.
But even among those clearly selected as survivors, the ones who had responded with complacency mostly...
"Wh-what. I-I... I was told I was a survivor! I-I'm supposed to be alive, that's normal! Save me, save meeeee! Get awaaaaay! Aaaaaaagh!"
...got bitten to death after growing arrogant simply for being chosen, or panicked in the sudden chaos and got mauled, and so on...
Even the ten percent who were supposed to survive were dying one by one, or turning into zombies themselves.
No — not one by one. At this rate, by the time April 1st was over, the casualties would far exceed the original projections.
The host who called himself the Administrator pondered.
Even the Administrator hadn't predicted that so many among the survivors would be out and about, actively moving around, right up until midnight.
He'd figured most of the survivor-selection messages had gone to people who spent their lives holed up at home playing games... but to think this many of them would be out living it up outdoors.
Still, true to the one who had unleashed this colossal chaos in the first place, the Administrator cooked up a solution with almost insulting speed.
Gazing down, the Administrator spotted a number of people who had barricaded themselves in underground bunkers or sealed buildings, using them as hideouts.
They trembled in terror even as they hypnotized themselves with every flowery reassurance they could muster, curling into corners and telling themselves they were safe. The Administrator was delighted.
It was a decision made entirely on impulse.
And the Administrator was by no means a kind being toward the humans of Earth.
Just as Jeong Hoon — currently passed out at home — would have put it, it was the kind of voice that made you want to punch someone square in the face.
April 1st.
8:00 a.m.
Around the time Jeong Hoon was slowly beginning to wake...
Ninety percent of humanity had become zombies without ever mounting a single act of resistance in the name of survival.
And then...
"Kkhehehehehk!"
"Grrrrrrrrrr...!"
"Uwooooooooorh!!"
"Heheheheh...!"
Letting out bizarre cries and screams, their very bodies screaming that they were something unknown —
monstrous lifeforms began to reveal themselves upon the Earth.