Survival Diary

Meanwhile, back in Korea, a single piece of news was lighting the internet on fire as articles poured out one after another.

Once filming officially began, BWG released a press statement first in the United States, and Korean media quickly followed suit, citing the overseas coverage in rapid succession.

And of course, the internet erupted with reactions.

The fans' reactions were, of course, overwhelmingly about their excitement for Yeon-woo's next project. He had gone from the film The Moon straight into the drama Parabola without a break, and still it never felt like enough. Filming for Summer's Table Season 2 had already been coordinated with JNBC, but it hadn't aired yet — so for fans starving for content, news of this survival shoot was rain after a long drought.

And it wasn't just the fans. Ordinary viewers were buzzing too. TVM's original series Survival Island had been a massive domestic hit despite being a reality show, thanks to its uniquely dramatic narrative. Anyone who had watched the original was bound to wait for a sequel — and with the scale now expanded to a global stage, the anticipation was only natural.

Even people who had never seen the original started taking interest once they heard the format had been exported to Hollywood and that Ryu Yeon-woo would compete as Korea's representative. As a result, Survival Island — months after its finale — reverse-climbed the domestic Netflix rankings and stormed back into the top charts.

Among those who weren't Yeon-woo's fans, online reactions split roughly into two camps. Most simply looked forward to new content with genuine curiosity. A vocal minority, however, frothed at the mouth and charged in swinging.

Most of the critical comments, if you actually analyzed them, weren't really attacking Yeon-woo himself. The core argument was simply this: no matter how thoroughly he had dominated a domestic league of assembled celebrities, how could he possibly hold his own on a world stage packed with the absolute best of the best?

What none of those commenters knew, of course, was that the very Yunus Kabak of Türkiye they were so busy praising was currently pale with terror, frantically glancing around in every direction.

"D-damn it…"

His decision to advance clockwise had, in the end, been the wrong call.

During the first strategy window, Yunus of Türkiye had planned to push five hundred meters downward from the three-o'clock position of the island. Every other direction was choked with dense forest — so thick that even at midday the shadows made the place feel unnervingly sinister, and he hadn't dared set foot inside. By circling the island clockwise, he reasoned, the ocean would cover his flank the entire way, the path behind him would be ground he'd already walked, and all he'd need to watch were the front and the right.

It had seemed like the best plan he could come up with…

They had run straight into an ambush from another team waiting in a cornfield along their route of advance. Frozen solid with panic, Yunus could only watch as both of his specialist teammates threw themselves forward to save him — and both were eliminated in the process.

Because I froze up like an idiot right there…!

The faces of his teammates flashed through his mind — the ones who had charged ahead, taking bullets with their own bodies to shield him as he stood completely exposed. And what had he done? The moment both of them went down, he had turned tail and fled as fast and as undignified as his legs would carry him.

The one silver lining was that the battlefield sat right next to the cornfield where the enemy had been hiding. Yunus had sprinted blindly through corn grown as tall as a grown man, and somehow managed to shake the Japanese team pursuing him.

But with every teammate eliminated, the path forward looked hopelessly bleak. If only he had chosen that dark forest as his first destination — anything would have been better than this. Unlike a forest that at least offered cover, a fight in open ground was a one-sided massacre the moment one side spotted the other first.

Haa… where even am I?

Yunus lifted his operations pad.

"…Thirty-five meters?"

In the chaos of running for his life, he had somehow ended up near his destination after all. The direction he'd fled hadn't been all that different from the one he'd been heading in to begin with.

Unless the Japanese team picked the exact same target I did, they'll have gone toward their own destination by now. So for the moment, I'm safe.

With that assessment, Yunus gripped his operations pad and pushed hard toward his marked location. No matter how hopeless things looked, he still had to complete the mission if he wanted to avoid elimination.

Fortunately, the spot he had randomly tapped on the map turned out to be dense with undergrowth. He slipped between the bushes, held his breath, and waited in silence for the timer on his operations pad to hit zero.

Maybe running around alone like this actually gives me a better survival rate…?

As the game moved into its later stages, more and more teams would end up like his — specialists gone, only the team leader left standing. When that happened, he might actually stand a fighting chance.

…This might even work out better.

Bzzzzzt—

The operations pad in his hand vibrated with a long, sustained buzz. Time was up. The next strategy window had arrived.

Yunus looked down at the screen.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

…Haa. I don't have any teammates left to move away from, you bastard.

It was a message sent to every player, he knew — but given his situation, it felt like the system was mocking him.

Beep—

A soft tone sounded, and a scatter of red dots bloomed across the map on his operations pad.

Fourteen teams…

Poland had been eliminated before the match even started, leaving nineteen teams to land on the island. That meant five more teams had been wiped out in the three hours since the game began.

At the start, the players' red dots had been spaced at roughly even intervals around a wide circle. Now they were scattered in every direction with no pattern at all.

…And now each of these teams is going to scatter off in different directions again.

Dodging them through prediction alone looked close to impossible. Among that swarm of dots was the gold marker representing Yunus's own Türkiye team — and not far from it, a single other point.

So that one's the Japanese bastards…

Most of the surviving teams seemed to have been gradually closing the gaps as they pushed toward the center. Only four dots, including his own and the Japanese team's, had moved along the outer rim of the circle.

No — the ones who circled the edge of the island might not have been four. It could have been ten…

The six teams already eliminated had probably made the same choice he had — advancing along the coastline.

Hmm…?

Then something strange caught Yunus's eye.

"…What the hell is that?"

Dead center on the screen, a single red dot was blinking with almost arrogant confidence — as if it were marking the exact midpoint of the island where the match was being held. At first he thought it might be a feature that simply indicated the island's center.

Was that there when we first picked our destinations? …Wait a second. No way.

One, two, three, four…

Yunus counted every dot on the pad one by one, and goosebumps raced up both arms. Including the one in the middle, the total came to fourteen teams.

That point right in the center is an actual person…?

If someone had advanced the way he and his now-eliminated teammates had — scanning every direction, finding cover, creeping forward bit by bit — reaching that distance would have been impossible. Being dead center meant they had charged straight for the middle the moment the game started, without a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠second of hesitation.

…That means they're either completely insane or a monster.

And in that instant, a single contestant flashed through Yunus's mind — someone who checked both boxes, "monster" and "lunatic."

The player who had fired like a maniac in Round One… and hit every single shot like a monster.

While Yunus was writing out his tearful survival diary, Yeon-woo was lying on his side in a patch of grass, casually fiddling with his operations pad in one hand. The posture was pure living-room sofa energy — the kind of guy scrolling through YouTube on his phone without a care in the world.

"Hmm. Still a long way off from the others."

Yeon-woo studied the blinking cluster of dots on his operations pad, genuinely unable to understand why everyone was dithering around and brawling among themselves.

Come on. Common sense says that when they tell you to advance at least five hundred meters, you should figure you can go a kilometer — or three. Why are they all just beating each other up on this tiny scrap of land?

The gap between what Yeon-woo considered "common sense" and how the other team leaders thought was still considerable.

"Still, now that they've seen us sitting right in the middle, the ones who figure something out will come looking before this strategy window ends."

Like ants marching straight into an antlion's pit — a trap you couldn't climb out of once you fell in.