Trolley Dilemma (1)
“Sh-shit!!! It’s a Wave… a Wave!!!”
Private Kim’s desperate scream ripped through the air, and in the next instant—
WEE-OO-WEE-OO-WEE-OO-!!!!!!
The ear-shattering alarm blared across the entire Pangyo North Fortress defense line, shredding eardrums like mad.
“Rise and shine! Everyone up!!!”
“Get your asses moving!!”
“All hands to battle stations!! They’re right on top of us!!!”
Soldiers jolting from shallow sleep sprang up like coiled springs, instinctively grabbing their weapons. Tat-tat-tat!Clack! Dozens of combat boots thundered down metal stairs. The harsh clatter of magazines slamming home and frantic shouts tightened the fortress like a noose.
Captain Kim Tae-hyeong burst from the command center and leaped onto the barricade, veins bulging in his neck.
“You maggots, keep those muzzles straight!!!”
Even as the ground-shaking vibrations of the horrors closing in rattled everything, his voice wrapped around the entire fortress.
“Remember what we ate and drank just a little while ago! Not that shitty tire meat, but the real taste of the world before the fall!”
“...!”
“Why do you think that System or Shop or whatever gave it to us?! It’s shoving us forward—live like hell!! Hold the line!!! And rebuild that world!!!”
Captain Kim racked his rifle with a savage roar, like a beast unleashed.
“If the Pangyo defense line breaks, the entire Yellow Zone behind us is fucked!!! Not a single one gets over this wall alive!!!”
“All units, open fire!!!!”
The soldiers plastered themselves to the concrete barricade and squeezed triggers like maniacs. Red tracer rounds slashed through the darkness, ripping the pitch-black night apart. Tu-tu-tu-tuk! Heads of the lead Walkers and Runners—the weaker mutants—exploded like watermelons under the hail of bullets.
Kwaaang!Boom! Grenades lobbed over the wall detonated with thunderous roars below. Flesh rained down in the flash, but against the endless tidal surge, it was like tossing pebbles.
Clang!Kaaang!
“C-Captain! The small arms aren’t penetrating at all!!”
Under the red glare of flares, the monsters were laid bare—and they weren’t the usual skulkers from the Orange Zone fringes. Corpses fused into massive centipede-like horrors crawling the wall. Others spewed leech-like tentacles from split torsos. Grotesqueries that even hunters risked their lives to hunt deep in the Red Zone.
They were coming here.
“Fuck…”
“Why the hell are those things all the way out here…!”
Thud! Then, an earthquake that swallowed even the gunfire shook the barricade, nearly flinging it skyward. Something mountain-sized lurched from the dark. A grotesque black giant, easily six stories tall. An unknown mutant never sighted before.
“Wh-what the hell is that…?”
As paralyzing terror froze the wall for a split second—
“C-Captain!! Flanks on the ridges!! Mutants pouring down terrain they’ve never crossed before—heading straight for the Orange Zone rear!!”
Captain Kim snatched up binoculars at the spotter’s frantic cry. Hundreds of mutants, detached from the main force, scaled the fortress’s blind-spot ridges, sprinting for the rear.
Impossible… They’re bypassing the defense line entirely, straight for the Orange Zone backend?!
An invasion route they’d never seen. If that pack hit, the 1st Relief Center—and the whole Orange Zone—would take a direct hit. But with the giant and main wave barely blockable as it was, they had no reserves.
“Fuck…”
In the hopeless bind, Captain Kim spoke.
“Jin-su! Private Choi!!!”
Choi Jin-su raced over at the call.
“Pri-Private! Choi Ji-”
“Request reinforcements now!!”
“...R-Reinforcements…?”
“Yeah! Reinforcements!”
“Command’s been dark for ages, and nearby units disbanded long ag—”
“The gallery. The gallery.”
A beat of silence.
“S-Sir…? The gal—”
“Post on your account—if the line breaks, Orange Zone, Relief Center, all fucked! Pull every agro!!”
“...!!”
“Screw soldier pride—call every damn Stalker out there, whoever, now!!!”
Thump-thump-thump!
“Ahem.”
Cha Do-hee stepped from the 1st Relief Center’s warm glow into the pitch-black ruins of the Orange Zone. Leaping lightly across a collapsed overpass, she was just turning toward another dead drop when—
WEE-OO-WEE-OO-WEE-OO-!!!!!!
“That sound…”
The siren shredding the entire Orange Zone. Do-hee skidded to a halt.
“The Relief Center…!”
Biting her lip, she hurled herself back toward the center she’d just left.
****
“M-Mutants!! They’re already here!!!”
“Kyaaack!!”
The flimsy barricade around the Relief Center crumbled helplessly. Tents meant for patients tore apart. A vanguard of centipede-like mutants, man-sized, flooded the open clearing, splattered in blood.
“Form up!! Pull the director and survivors back!!!”
“Cover fire from behind!!”
Stalkers lingering nearby rushed in, drawing weapons to shield Director Kang Seok-hyun and the survivors. A tank Stalker with a shield raised a translucent barrier; behind it, Awakeners cast skills to build a line.
Crack! But the mutants’ horrific strength spiderwebbed the barrier. As the clearing turned into a blood-spraying melee—
Boom!
Something tore through the air, smashing one mutant’s head and lightning-landing. Cha Do-hee.
“Get back!!!”
Whoosh! Her form vanished from sight.
“...!”
“!!”
Speed no Awakener’s eyes could track. Only black afterimages whipped through the clearing like a storm.
Splatter! Mutants about to breach the barrier burst apart, spraying blood, unaware they’d been sliced.
It ended in seconds.
“N-No way…”
“Insane… What the hell is that woman…?”
The Stalkers gaped, dumbfounded.
Red Zone spawns…? How’d they get here?
Shoving down the mounting dread, Do-hee shook blood from her blade and rushed to Kang.
“Old man! What the—”
“Do-hee! Scout team just reported in panic! Main Wave hit the Pangyo line—splinter group heading here!!”
The director shouted hoarsely, veins popping.
“Local Stalkers threw themselves in for now… But big guilds…?”
Do-hee’s brow furrowed viciously.
Of course they won’t come.
Big guilds’ playbook was obvious. Unless it dropped Magic Stones, no finger twitched. In this off-spec disaster, unrelated to their bases? They’d use the Relief Center as cannon fodder and ditch it.
Obvious. In a world with no absolute good.
Hold all three with no guild help, just this handful?
Feeling her blood chill, Do-hee yanked out a battered map and snapped it open.
“Main wave targets the line… splitting into two flanks…?”
“Yeah…”
Her eyes trembled like in an quake tracing the paths.
[Wave Main Force]
▼ [Pangyo North Fortress] (Ridge Bypass)
[Wave] << [▶ Pack Split] >> [Wave]
↙ ↘
[???] [1st Relief Center]
One flank: here. The other’s trajectory ended at—
“...The kids’ hideout.”
“Slum Village?!”
Do-hee’s fists clenched white-knuckled. No walls, no weapons, no Stalkers. Mutants would slaughter the hidden kids and slum-dwellers in five minutes flat.
Ding! A gallery concept post updated.
Red Zone mobs!! No, even a giant I’ve never seen crawling down!!!!
If this breaks, Orange Zone, Yellow Zone all flip!!!
Not asking hunters—Stalkers!!! Reinforcements!!!
“A giant like that… first time.”
Do-hee’s jaw clenched to breaking.
Defense line, Relief Center, hideout. Too far apart. Even for her, covering three at once was physically impossible.
Now, a horrific rational calculus hit her brain.
Pangyo breaks: entire Orange and Yellow Zones collapse.
Relief Center falls: Orange Zone’s top medical hub gone.
The kids’ hideout.
“...”
Strategically worthless. Abandoning it cost nothing.
Most rational: ditch Slum Village.
But her trembling hands refused that choice.
“...Damn it.”
She summoned her trait window.
Set a self-task. Rewards proportional to difficulty.
Tap.
Defend Pangyo North Fortress OR 1st Relief Center
📍 Success Chance:97% / Easy
🎁 Failure Penalty:All Stats -10%
Safest path. But defending the line kills the old man, patients, kids. Center falls, Orange Zone crippled.
Do-hee gritted her teeth, backspaced.
Tat-tat.
Simultaneously Defend Pangyo North Fortress AND 1st Relief Center
📍 Success Chance:22% / Very Hard
🎁 Failure Penalty:Permanent Severance of Both Hands
“Damn. Damn it…”
But her fingers didn’t stop. Couldn’t.
Couldn’t weigh lives on strategic scales.
Tat-tat-tat.
Defend Pangyo North Fortress, 1st Relief Center, AND All of Slum Village
📍 Success Chance:1% / Hell
🎁 Failure Penalty:Awakener Abilities Revoked + All Stats Reset
[Accept?]
Before the emotionless system window, same as always.
“Looks doable.”
Cha Do-hee chose without hesitation.
***
After the whirlwind clash,
“Hah… hah…”
Do-hee, who’d maxed her speed to shred the mutant pack surging the 1st Relief Center. Her ragged breaths filled the blood-stinking clearing.
“This fucker’s still alive!”
“Crack its skull!”
“Smash it!!! Smaaash!!!”
Splat!Clang!Thwack! The last mutant, barely surviving Do-hee’s blade storm, got pulped under the Relief Center men’s furious clubbing.
“Good…”
Relief Center secured—but no second to breathe. Her destinations weren’t just here.
“Do-hee! Are you insane?!”
Director Kang rushed up, blood-soaked bandages clenched on his hands, yelling.
“You held here—now solo the defense line and Slum Village?! That’s suicide! Look at yourself!”
As he said, dark blood dripped from Do-hee’s lips.
Damn. Already…
She knew how reckless. Covering three spots nonstop was beyond even her limits, uncharted.
“At least find another way—”
“I’m fine. I can do it. I have to.”
Do-hee casually wiped her mouth with her sleeve. In her vision’s corner, the mad task she’d accepted blinked red.
Defend Pangyo North Fortress, 1st Relief Center, Slum Village Entirety
Success Chance: 1% / Hell
1% miracle odds. But abandoning anyone was never her dictionary.
Awakener Abilities Revoked + All Stats Reset
Even if the price was reverting to civilian life.
So Do-hee pulled down her rider goggles.
“Back soon. Like always.”
“At least get treated. Give me a minute—”
“Old man. No time.”
“...!!”
Whoosh! The clearing’s dirt exploded into a massive crater.
“...Foolish girl.”
No time to stop her, Do-hee’s form vanished into the dark.
“Please… just come back alive.”
Director Kang clasped his rough hands, bowing earnestly at the dispersing dust.
As he finished his brief prayer and turned back to the wounded—
Rumble! Ominous vibrations rose from the ground.
“Huh…?”
He and the survivors’ gazes snapped to the pitch-dark Relief Center outskirts.
“An-Another wave…?”
“Third…?”
* * *
Shrieeek! As Do-hee tore through the dark.
A chill fear pierced her: all this frenzy might fail anyway.
Her life? Gladly. But the kids…?
Not that. Anything but.
Biting her blood-oozing lip, she summoned the gallery.
Who sees it, who comes? No clue. But…
Tat-tat! Even at blinding speed where opening her eyes strained, her trembling fingers hammered the air keyboard, typing a post.
I’ll do everything I can.
After posting, she rocketed skyward with a mad roar.
“This challenge! Death-defying thrill rideeee!!!”
*****
Starflex basement level 1, lights out, wrapped in dead silence. Only blue hologram glow pierced the black, amid frantic pings.
Ding!
Ding!
Ding!
Ding!
Ding!
Posts updating every second, desperate titles. No total collapse yet—but Orange Zone’s fate teetered on the brink, proven in real-time hell-texts.
Ding!
One post pinned to gallery top.
“Hm.”
A low voice cut the basement silence under the screen’s blue glow.
After drinks with Teacher Kim, delayed by CCTV watch, Shin-su pored over the posts.
“This is no joke…”
Scratching his fuzzy head, he tapped the Speedrun post’s hologram, murmuring.
“A BBIP customer’s request, huh…”
Guess I’d better handle this with full sincerity.