The Heavenly Demon Hunts Zombies (1)
“Please save me, Ara.”
Enly, whom I hadn’t seen in days, grabbed my hand the moment she saw me. Her voice was so desperate as she begged for help that she almost looked like someone with a terminal illness facing death. In all the time I’d known Enly, I’d never seen her this frantic. The last time was when she promised to play a horror game, wasn’t it?
“Enly. Did you decide to play a horror game?”
When I asked, Enly’s eyes darted away. “Not exactly a horror game. Something similar, though.”
So it must be terrifying for you after all. When I simply stared in silence, demanding an explanation, Enly launched into a rambling description of the game. From what she said, it sounded like a survival game where ordinary humans are thrown into a horde of jiangshi and forced to stay alive.
“Does that sound fun?”
I didn’t mean to mock her, but I couldn’t hide my genuine confusion. What enjoyment could there possibly be in struggling to survive with a powerless human body? From someone who had done something similar, it seemed like nothing more than a desperate fight for survival—nothing entertaining about it.
“I don’t know. But it’s popular.”
Hmm. Why would that be popular? Is it the difference between truly fighting for your life and treating that struggle as entertainment? Well, since death in VR isn’t real death, maybe people can enjoy the process of struggling to survive as a form of recreation. Still, I couldn’t quite understand what was fun about it.
“I’m sure Lady Hwaryeong’s viewers will enjoy it too! This is basically a broadcast cheat code these days!”
Enly was desperate to drag me into it. She didn’t want to be dropped alone into a world full of jiangshi, did she? If it was her request, I was willing to go along with most things, so there was no need to beg like her life depended on it. Besides…
“If you hate it that much, why not just skip it?”
I asked in genuine confusion. Why force yourself to do something you dislike? Had she done something wrong again? The only feedback I’d heard from viewers when she streamed was that she sounded like she was grinding her teeth.
“My editor scolded me. Said there was nothing to edit. That covering everything with editing has reached its limit. Told me to cut back on FPS games.”
Enly’s words carried a kind of obsession—she had to play Dawn Escape just to justify playing FPS games. What could FPS possibly mean to her that she was acting like this?
“You’ll help me, right, Ara? Right?!”
“Yes. I will.”
“Thank you so much! I’ll definitely repay you later!”
*
“So today’s stream is a game called Dawn Escape.”
“I don’t know what nonsense you’re spouting, but I should contact Enly soon.”
The moment I thought that, a message arrived from Enly.
Friend Enly has requested an invitation. Do you accept?
When I pressed “Yes,” Enly’s avatar appeared beside me.
“Yep! This is Enly, ready for your call!”
“Were you watching the stream?”
“I had it on in the background! I was just waiting for a chance to jump in!”
She looked to be in a good mood today. No—her mouth was smiling, but her eyes were trembling. Was she pretending to be cheerful? Was she actually shaking so badly that she didn’t want to start the game, and was hypnotizing herself so she wouldn’t realize it and back out? That’s what it takes to make a living streaming, I suppose. If she’d been like this when we went to see the doll last time, it would’ve been less troublesome.
“Okay, let me explain how the game works first!”
In Dawn Escape, even if you enter together, you don’t start in the same location. So when playing together, you have to decide on a meeting point and find your way there somehow. Enly explained various other game systems she’d apparently studied, but none of it was particularly complicated. In the end, it boiled down to: eat when you’re hungry, treat injuries when you’re hurt, and rest when you’re tired.
“Lastly! When you sleep in Dawn Escape, you have to sleep at the same time for time to skip quickly, okay? Even if you’re apart, you both have to go to bed at 11 PM. Got it?”
“Understood. Is that all?”
“Yes! Shall we start?”
“Are you going to press the start button?”
“…No. Please press it for me.”
Enly’s request—that she couldn’t bring herself to press the button—sounded like a condemned prisoner being forced to drink poison with her own hands. It was just starting a game; why all the fuss? At her plea to press it quickly while she squeezed her eyes shut, I hit the button, and the scenery around us changed.
This was a room inside an ordinary house. Aside from the furniture being in disarray and the presence of something strange outside, it was unremarkable.
“Enly, outside—”
Halfway through my sentence, I realized Enly and I had been separated when we entered the game. Right. She was probably somewhere else right now, desperately trying to survive. So there was no point in talking to her. I looked around the room and examined my body. It was nothing more than an ordinary human. Being told to fight the dead with a body like this… Could Enly really survive here alone? I suspected her real problem wasn’t meeting me, but avoiding a sudden death somewhere. I needed to find her quickly. She’d said to look for a map first and figure out the way from there. Since this was an ordinary house, maybe I could find a map if I searched thoroughly.
“…Though, do modern houses usually keep maps on hand?”
“So there’s a chance I won’t find one no matter how much I search.”
Hmm. I hoped this wouldn’t turn out to be unnecessarily troublesome. With that thought, I opened the door—only to come face-to-face with an unclean thing waiting outside. Well, “face-to-face” wasn’t quite right. That thing didn’t have eyes. The moment it saw me, it let out a strange noise and charged. I grabbed the arm reaching for me and threw it over my shoulder. Its movements lacked any intelligence. To a skilled martial artist, it would be nothing more than a toy. Even as I thought that, I moved my foot and crushed the zombie’s arm. I hadn’t even stepped down hard, yet the arm came clean off.
Hmm. Its body was fragile too. It seemed even weaker than an ordinary person. Well, a dead body should be weaker than a living one.
“How noisy.”
Annoyed by its constant groaning, I smashed its head, and the zombie stopped moving. Was that it? It hadn’t seemed intelligent enough for that. Did crushing its head really stop it? Seriously?
“Children, let me ask you something. Do the jiangshi of this world die if you crush their heads?”
“No. In Murim, you had to cut off all the limbs of a jiangshi.”
I’d assumed the zombies here would be the same.
“Are all the other zombies like this?”
“Then isn’t this too easy?”
When Enly had been going on about how hard and difficult it was, I’d thought it would be similar to what I’d seen in Murim. But every enemy was just this pathetic?
“Even if hundreds of these things swarmed me, would that be dangerous?”
No matter how powerless this body was, I didn’t think these creatures could hurt me.
“Aren’t you cheering for the wrong side?”
Honestly, they were just like kids looking for anything to tease. Well, there didn’t seem to be any more strange creatures in this house, so I might as well search it slowly.
*
“Shut up.”
Enly bit her lip after confirming that Hwaryeong had disappeared from beside her. This damn game. Why couldn’t we just start together? Why did we have to get separated and meet up again? Why did it have to take away my reliable bodyguard?!
Even as she muttered to herself, Enly desperately scanned her surroundings. She’d been told to grab anything that could be used as a weapon first, right? A chair would do here. Picking up the chair with both hands, Enly felt a small sense of relief at having a weapon.
“It’s fine. There’s no problem at all. Zombies are just corpses, after all. I just have to follow what other people wrote in their guides.”
“You don’t know? Then shut up.”
First, she needed thick clothes, a bag, something that could work as bandages, and a map. This room didn’t look like it had any food, so she’d have to search outside. The moment Enly opened the door with that thought, a zombie waiting outside charged at her.
“Kyaaaaaaaah!”
In panic, Enly swung the chair wildly. The game’s built-in Correction System made her movement look plausible, and the chair struck the zombie’s head, knocking it down.
“Die! Die! Dieeee!”
Enly kept smashing the zombie with the chair long after it had stopped moving before she finally managed to stop.
“Haa, haa. See? It was nothing!”
“…Maybe this house is close to the ranch?”
Since the respawn location was random, there was a chance the ranch was only about five minutes away if she got lucky. Enly muttered with desperate hope, but the only response was mockery.
“There aren’t more zombies in this house, right? Right? Just the one, right?”
“The window?”
Following the donor’s voice, she turned her gaze—and saw a zombie banging on the glass.
“Hgggyaaaaah?!”