Unity-4: The Executioner's Secret
"First, the survivor cards... What the hell, when did these get laid out?"
"I've had them out for the past ten minutes, but anyway, I'll draw a survivor card too. Here."
I reached out to Karin for a character card, but Yukiko cut in and handed me three face-down cards.
"Master, please choose one from these."
"Huh?"
I picked one absentmindedly. It was a young male character.
"Two extra dice... Each turn, randomly steal one card from any player you want, and every time a new survivor is added, draw one survivor of your choice..."
It was a blatantly overpowered character. I shook my head at the shady vibe. For a board game like this one that should still be fairly new after the war, its condition wasn't great.
"This one's the brother-exclusive event card... We've all picked our characters too, so now we just need to choose the scenario and objective cards!"
Zombies' Winter was a hardboiled co-op game where multiple survivors banded together against zombies, achieving shared and personal goals while facing ethical dilemmas. At least, that's how I remembered it being hardboiled. The characters getting cuter—especially the female ones—didn't bother me much. I liked the old art style's quirky designs too, but there was no reason to feel bad about prettier characters.
But the few male characters coming with cheat-level abilities and extra rules? That rubbed me the wrong way. It blatantly ruined the game's balance. Games had trended this way for a long time now.
RPG fans couldn't accept their "special and strong" characters being weak. Just throwing money at microtransactions wasn't enough—they wanted more. Before long, even single-player and competitive games naturally added "something for men."
Korea especially encouraged this shift from the government side, and game companies raced to emphasize "pro-male" designs anyway. They cut back on male characters, made females more sexually appealing, and snuck in increasingly explicit sexual elements.
Not a fan of the changes, I stuck to games where my identity couldn't be traced or old single-player titles.
"Shared goal is... scavenging fuel! Collect 20 fuel by game end, and no zombies around the base! And this is the personal objective card!"
They divvied up cards among the three of them again, leaving me out, and passed me the stack clearly "prepared just for men." I sighed involuntarily and drew two cards. No doubt, they'd be yawn-inducingly easy objectives.
Public Objective - Harem Formation
At game end, have 6 survivors in your group, and 10 survivors with sex tokens must exist in the game.
Secret Objective - Executioner
Kill all survivors of one player or turn them into sex slaves. The player who loses all survivors this way cannot gain new ones.
"Hmm..."
On the surface, this was a co-op game, but sometimes it had traitors like a Mafia game. Worse than games with guaranteed traitors, this one might not have any, which made it vicious. And "traitor" objectives that deliberately screwed other players were usually easy.
But wiping out 3 to 6 survivors? That was brutally hard. Get caught once, and I'd be under fire. Plus, managing the cheat counters dropped by dead survivors.
"Hipster bastards..."
I'd figured they were in bed with the times, but this backstab from an unexpected angle stung.
"Alright. Seongha... I'll explain anything you don't know! Let's start!"
The clatter of over ten dice rolling across the wooden table was pretty upbeat.
"Start... If memory serves, the oldest player goes first, right?"
"Master goes first, as the man."
The petty deference grated on me. Some people liked easy modes, sure, but excessive favoritism in games felt infantilizing.
"Okay, move first... Wait. Roll dice for this?"
Unlike other players starting with three survivors, men began with one. Textbook strategy: exit the base, grab guns from the police station, meds from the hospital, dodging zombies to hit objectives.
But movement risked zombie bites and infection. Bad luck, and the game could end in one go.
Skip movement? Then steal cards or pass. In a co-op, stealing was zero-sum. Starting suspicious felt off, but focusing one player to build real grudge while sparing others made sense for the Executioner goal.
Glancing at the girls to pick a target, I realized my thinking was too shallow. This was gonna suck.
"Moving my character now seems too risky. I'll use the character ability. Steal two from Karin, one from Yukiko, one from Mikoto, and end turn."
"Thief! Thief! What, coming in hot right away?"
"It's a game. Don't overimmerse! I only have one survivor—move wrong and get bit, and we fail the scenario!"
"Unity! Co-op!"
"Then you shouldn't have picked this game."
I'd said "don't overimmerse" to Karin, but really hoped Mikoto would hear it. My face shows thoughts easily, but Mikoto's poker face was awful. She'd been trembling since seeing her objective—obviously a traitor one.
Come to think of it, fair play was impossible with a man involved. Karin was the exception, unrealistically bold. Normal women struggled to refuse a man's demands, let alone suspect or attack strategically.
Even with free Korean women, it'd be similar. Bought slaves like these could be treated rough but weren't easily discarded once owned. Free women had protections but risked total loss if not desperate for a man even briefly—social status, physical pleasure, all gone overnight. The anxiety must be immense.
"O-okay, my turn. The, the student to school... B-bonus there, right? Oppa?"
Mikoto checked with me like a kid. Karin snapped at her.
"Why're you freezing up all of a sudden? It's your character—move it!"
"Ah! Got it. Um, so... Move student to school, investigate..."
"Mikoto. If you choose move, place the piece and roll the danger dice. Or spend fuel?"
"Ah, right... Danger dice..."
Mikoto rolled the red twenty-sider. Miraculously, teeth came up.
"Wha... Huh?"
"Infection. 'Student' dies instantly. Character death: move sanity counter down one."
Before Mikoto could process, Yukiko coldly tallied it. She cleared the cute blonde student piece, shifted the sanity counter, added a zombie to school.
"No way..."
"It's fine. Just a game. You have actions left—move another."
I stroked her hair gently. She snapped out of it and scouted outside the base with others.
Part of me wanted to quit right there. But stopping now would scream "for Mikoto," causing issues. We had to push on, make it fun. Looked tough, though.
"Alright, my turn! Ninja to police station! Danger dice... Clear. Firefighter and soldier to station too!"
Karin moved boldly, acing every danger roll. Mikoto's 1/20 instant loss was rotten luck; Karin's injury-free streak was godlike.
She might flop last, but I wanted a clean, game-like finish.
Seeing her snag a rifle on a perfect search roll eased me a bit. But watching Mikoto furtively peek and hide her secret objective—suspicious as hell—killed the hope.
Forget acting; no way she pulled off traitor with that mindset.
"Karin meets event conditions. Master, I'll read the 'Slave Training' event—choose one of two options."
"Wait, what?"
I reached for the card Yukiko held, but she smoothly pulled it back.
"Rule is: no peeking penalties or advantages—just read the text and choose. I'll read it—please wait?"
"I know that, but what's this 'Slave Training' event...?"
Mental HP draining in chunks everywhere—were we playing zombie co-op or Cthulhu co-op? Sanity loss from "weird shit" fit the latter more.
Could we even finish this game? Doubt crept in.