Survival Island: The Final Chapter (3)
Player 1, Kang Hak-joon, smirked as he studied the distance and direction displayed on his smartwatch.
"He's running hard, I'll give him that."
He'd assumed the Player Location Tracker he'd acquired was a one-shot item — the description had said "disposable," after all — but it was effectively a single-target lock. Once he registered Player 7, the device kept feeding him continuous position updates until that player was eliminated.
And this is the finals. Only me and Player 7 left, so I might as well call myself the winner already.
In modern warfare, the importance of reconnaissance satellites hardly needed stating. This, though, wasn't satellite-level intel — it was real-time tracking of an opponent's position. Reporting location and direction in five-meter increments, there was simply no way he could lose.
Of course, the guy seems decent with a gun, so forcing a one-on-one through cover might put me at a disadvantage. And his hit count is probably still zero.
Kang Hak-joon had already taken one round in combat, leaving him with only two lives remaining.
Still, the guy's a monster. Seven kills so far — no, wait. He took out that idiot Jang Ju-won earlier too, so that's eight kills total with zero hits taken…
Kang Hak-joon shook his head and leisurely tracked along the path his quarry had fled.
Getting that Player Location Tracker was a stroke of genius. Without it, I'd probably be struggling too… Hmm?
Following the route Player 7 had taken in his escape, he spotted an abandoned rifle lying on the ground.
…?
Had the guy been so terrified he'd thrown away his gun?
What kind of scheme was this?
It never even crossed Kang Hak-joon's mind that the rifle might have been discarded because every round had been spent. He had racked up a fair number of kills himself, but most had come from swarming group firefights where he'd only squeezed off one or two shots per elimination — so he still had plenty of ammunition left.
An opponent without a rifle… Sure, he'll have a pistol, but the rate-of-fire difference is massive. This is the final fight — it's going to be way too anticlimactic.
Certain of his victory, Kang Hak-joon frowned at the prospect of an unsatisfying finale.
Anyway, who the hell is Player 7? Min Jun-gyeong after all? This is exactly why rookies who don't even understand how television works are useless…
Assuming Player 7 was Min Jun-gyeong — a recently debuted singer who'd left a counterterrorism unit — Kang Hak-joon sighed and pushed through the forest, following the GPS signal.
Meanwhile, in the control room, Yoon Chang-joon PD raised his voice as he watched Kang Hak-joon's headcam feed of Yeon-woo's discarded rifle.
"I told you we should have given him more ammo!"
"What? When did you ever say that, PD-nim? You were thrilled about being able to dump the blame on the galleries."
"Ahem. If we'd given our Yeon-woo more ammo, we could have kept things tense right to the end."
At Yoon Chang-joon's words, the writer narrowed her eyes.
"Our Yeon-woo?"
"I—I never said that. I meant Actor Ryu Yeon-woo."
After conducting yesterday's interview, Yoon Chang-joon PD had come away with a great deal to think about. The principle that viewers, through the information gap created by interviews, develop a sense of shared secrets with the contestants and gradually start rooting for them…
That applied equally to the interviewer himself. He had gradually been drawn in by the young actor's sincere attitude — the kind that forced a man to examine himself.
Not just as a director, but as a viewer too.
And on the screen, Yeon-woo appeared entering the abandoned school's courtyard with only a pistol in hand.
Yes! Pistol versus rifle — fighting inside a building is at least a little more advantageous than outdoors. Good thinking, Yeon-woo!
No longer maintaining a neutral stance, Yoon Chang-joon PD was rooting for Yeon-woo inwardly when one of the staff watching the monitors spoke up.
"Huh? But he's picking something up as he goes in?"
"Picking what up? Connect the central entrance cam."
When the feed switched to the central entrance camera, Yeon-woo could be seen retrieving something long and rope-like before heading into the building.
"What is that? Is that the rope we supplied?"
"No. Our ropes are much thicker."
"Ah — that looks like the flag-raising line from the national flagpole? When we did the site survey, I saw it all rotted and lying on the ground."
"What on earth is he planning to do with that?"
As the production team switched between cameras installed inside the abandoned school, tracking Yeon-woo's path, their eyes grew wider and wider.
"I kind of get what he's trying to do, but… can that actually work?"
The two remaining galleries — Manager Kim Min-su among them — wore the same stunned expression.
…As expected, our actor always has a plan, doesn't he?
Kang Hak-joon had started out leisurely trailing Player 7. After all, no matter how hard the guy ran, Kang Hak-joon knew exactly where he was going — the man was in the palm of his hand.
But watching the distance steadily increase, he grew flustered.
…What? How is he this fast?
If he kept leisurely following, the gap would get too wide. He picked up speed to close the distance, and at some point the opponent seemed to stop, because the gap started shrinking rapidly.
Heh. Of course. Running full tilt through terrain like this, you'd have to get tired.
Smirking, Kang Hak-joon carefully advanced once the distance closed to within fifty meters.
Then he stopped dead in his tracks.
Through the densely grown trees, a small two-story abandoned school appeared.
…Damn it! I should've taken him out in the forest. If he digs in and hides in there, this is going to be a headache.
With no other choice, Kang Hak-joon gripped his rifle and pressed close against the building.
If I barge in carelessly, he could be lying in ambush.
Moving to a small entrance door at the left end of the building, Kang Hak-joon hid among the overgrown bushes, tension plain on his face. A decade or so ago, this would have been a well-tended flower bed in the small schoolyard. Now, long abandoned by human hands, the wild weeds grew thick and the scene was desolate.
Kang Hak-joon began searching the first-floor classrooms through the windows. Some still had intact glass panes; others had broken windows thick with spiderwebs. In some places the windows had been torn out entirely, leaving gaping holes he could easily enter through.
Then a noise came from the second floor of the building.
Click—
Clank!
Reflexively raising his muzzle upward, Kang Hak-joon realized Yeon-woo was on the second floor.
Then he could attack me through a window from above. That's actually more dangerous.
Making a quick decision, Kang Hak-joon entered the building through a space where a window had fallen out completely, leaving a wide opening. Moving swiftly toward the central entrance, he carefully checked the stairs above, then climbed while covering each space the opponent might burst from with his muzzle.
Meanwhile, the production staff in the control room and the two remaining galleries watching on the monitors were sweating with tension. The winner of Survival Island, now in its third day of competition, was about to be decided, and they swallowed hard as they stared at the screens.
Of course, the two remaining galleries were each praying with clasped hands for their own celebrity to win.
"Ugh, they're about to meet."
"Pull up the piano room cam."
The piano room Yeon-woo had entered was from such an old branch school that it wasn't even a piano — just a small classroom with an old-fashioned pump organ.
Kang Hak-joon silenced his breathing and slowly stepped up to the piano room door.
Since the GPS measured in five-meter increments, Player 7 was within at least a five-meter radius — and that meant only this piano room.
Being an old school, the piano room had only a tiny window high up facing the hallway, making it hard to check inside.
Plastic rounds aren't real bullets anyway, so they won't even penetrate this rotting wooden door. I can just crack the door open a little, stick the muzzle through the gap to check, then fire. No need to risk going in. Being inside is a disadvantage in this situation — what an idiot.
Kang Hak-joon gently opened the front door of the piano room.
Click—
At the same moment, he heard the back door opening.
…!
If the opponent came out the back door right now and shot him, he'd be in trouble.
Was he just waiting for the door to open from inside?! Either way, he's only got a pistol, so if I land three shots first, I'm good! A rifle's rate of fire is way more advantageous!
Kang Hak-joon shoved the front door open hard and entered. The door felt quite stiff from long disuse.
The moment Kang Hak-joon opened the door and stepped into the piano room, the back door also swung wide open.
Click—
Clank!
That was definitely the same sound he'd heard from the second floor while hiding in the flower bed.
He urgently swung his muzzle toward the back door and took aim — but all he saw was a metal rod lying on the floor. The rod had probably once been the handle of an oil mop used to varnish the old classroom's wooden floorboards.
Only then did a mechanism catch Kang Hak-joon's eye.
A thin line was connected between the front and back doors of the piano room. At the top of the thoroughly rotted front door, a portable entrenching tool supplied by the production team was embedded, and the thin line wound around that shovel was looped around a metal rod propped at an angle in the crack of the back door.
When he'd opened the front door, the line had naturally gone taut, pulling the metal rod wedged in the back door, which then pushed the back door open and sent the rod clattering to the floor.
A b-booby trap…!
Behind the flustered Kang Hak-joon, Yeon-woo appeared without a sound — like a ghost haunting the abandoned school's piano room.
From outside the window.
Hmm. That should be tied nice and secure.
Having firmly secured a rope to the old-style exhaust duct on the school rooftop, Yeon-woo took position at the rooftop railing and waited for the signal.
Then, from the piano room directly below, a noise tore through the silence.
Clank—
At the same moment, Yeon-woo gripped the rope with one hand and slid down from the rooftop. Being an old building, the floor height was low, and with only two stories, it was almost embarrassing to call it a rope descent.
Sliding down the rope swiftly, he could see through the broken piano room window the flustered opponent's back. Gripping the rope with one hand and his pistol with the other, Yeon-woo pulled the trigger.
Bang bang bang bang—
He had only four pistol rounds left, so he poured them all out. With that, every single bullet the production team had provided was spent.
Combat effectiveness in the field is not determined by who has more muscle strength, who can carry heavy loads farther, or who shoots more accurately.
The ability to maximize every resource available to subdue an opponent — that is true field combat power.
And with that final attack utilizing everything at his disposal, the lamp on Player 1's protective gear lit up red.
The final elimination.
Silence fell over the control room.
They had observed everything up through Yeon-woo setting the trap in the music room. But while briefly watching Player 1's headcam, Yeon-woo had left the hallway and vanished from the monitors. They hurriedly switched to Yeon-woo's headcam and bodycam, but all that was visible was the building's exterior wall — so even the control room couldn't figure out where he was.
At that moment Yeon-woo had been hanging from the rooftop railing with the rope wrapped around him, so of course the cameras on his helmet and chest protector only showed the exterior wall.
"Wh-what? What just happened?! Did you find where Player 7 went?"
"Uh, well — Player 1 has been eliminated. Final out on two hits. Sending kill logs to both players."
Then a staff member who'd been replaying the various camera feeds raised a hand high.
"PD-nim, found him!"
"Put it up!"
The staff member replayed the moment of elimination captured by the camera mounted on the music room ceiling and zoomed in on the right corner.
There on the screen was Ryu Yeon-woo, ghostlike, emerging from outside the window, gripping a pistol in one hand and firing at his opponent.
"In-insane…!"
Meanwhile, as the winner was being decided on the remote island, strange rumors were spreading across the internet.
Through contestants who'd already left the island and their agency staff, testimonies about Ryu Yeon-woo's unbelievable performance were starting to emerge one by one.