I Don't Really Know, But I Fought Well Anyway
What was the best way to put it?
It felt as though he were carrying out a sequence of movements he’d already practiced a dozen times in perfect sync, like a routine set down in advance and now unfolding naturally under his hands.
The moment the thought came to him that he had to fight the zombies, his body seemed to move on its own.
What the hell is going on...?
“Wow! Dad’s really good at fighting!”
At his daughter’s voice, he came back to himself and lifted his head.
The strange phenomenon he’d just experienced still lingered in the back of his mind, but this was his first time in VR anyway, so he decided to simply shrug it off and accept it as part of the experience.
That ominous feeling returned the instant he saw the chat scrolling past.
And then came the unpleasant sounds.
“Kigegagak!”
“Gwooo-”
The gunshots had drawn in the zombies, and now they were coming en masse.
“Da-dad! The zombies!”
In the tunnel beneath the overpass, father and daughter were suddenly caught between the undead advancing from both front and back.
Even knowing it was a game, the graphics were so realistic that fear still crept up his spine. But Yeongho forced himself to calm down and assess the situation with a cool head.
There are fewer zombies in front than behind.
It was hard to count accurately because their numbers kept growing, but a strange, almost whole-body instinct told him the front was the less dangerous direction.
If he wanted to break through, he had to move forward.
“Stay right behind me, okay?”
“Waaah— D-dad!?”
Calling to his daughter, he ran straight at the zombies.
He could see twelve of them ahead, no, fourteen... fifteen?
Ugh. How many are there even going to be?
Still, there was no point standing there and letting them tear him apart, so he had to punch through.
He swung the shovel at the lead zombie.
And once again, that odd sensation struck him.
The head came off cleanly, just like before.
This is...
The movements of the enemies seemed to stretch out like slow motion.
He could tell where the teeth were aiming as the mouth gaped open.
He could tell what those rough, flailing hands were trying to seize.
For some reason, he could read everything.
And his body moved in answer.
He bent his knees slightly, lowering his center of gravity to slip past a hand reaching for his shoulder, then drew the shovel blade close to his chest and twisted his torso, carving a tight circle.
Shhk!
Before the zombie whose head had just been cut off had even hit the ground, he pivoted the other way and swept into a wide arc.
Swshk!
The zombie on the other side was split open, and his second head went rolling.
But that was only the beginning.
The shovel kept spinning, again and again, never stopping.
Every time Yeongho plunged deeper into the horde and moved, severed heads thudded down to the ground and rolled at his feet.
The chat was burning like a house on fire.
In barely a little over ten seconds, nearly twenty zombies had been cleanly decapitated and dropped to the ground. No wonder everyone was reacting like this.
For first-time players of Escape City, one of the most common experiences was carelessly firing off one of the guns you could find early in the game, then getting swarmed and killed by zombies.
So when people assumed this would end the same way again, they couldn’t stop themselves from gaping at the shocking battle Yeongho had just shown them.
While the chatroom exploded into a heated debate, the two of them, having broken through the zombie pack, slipped into a nearby alley and caught their breath.
“Hoo, hoo...”
“Urgh... I thought we were dead. Dad! How did you do that?”
“How did I do what?”
“You fought like a monster! You didn’t get bitten even once, and all those zombies—ah! Wait, you did not get bitten, right?”
“Huh? Yeah. I don’t think I got bitten anywhere.”
“Phew. What a relief.”
Seeing how worried she was about him, a little warmth rose in his chest.
“If Dad got bitten and turned into a zombie, how am I supposed to clear the mission alone? That would’ve been terrible.”
“Daughter...?”
Was the mission clear more important than her father’s life, even in a game?
He felt a little hurt.
Yeongho gave a wry smile for a moment, then clenched and unclenched his fist, staring down at his own hand.
If you ask me how I did it, I honestly don’t know either.
Maybe it was just that the moment he thought he had to fight, his body naturally moved to fit the situation.
It was such an unfamiliar sensation, such a strange experience, that even he had no idea how to explain it.
But the viewers weren’t going to leave him alone just because he had gone quiet.
The fired-up viewers even started sending donations along with their questions.
“Dad!”
“Yeah, I’m reading it too. Um... I’m just an ordinary office worker, and in the army I was just an ordinary admin clerk in a normal unit.”
“And as for how I did it, I don’t really have an answer... I just felt like I should dodge when I had to dodge, and hit when it seemed like I should hit? Something like that.”
Come to think of it, that was true, wasn’t it? Once synchronization was complete, what kind of level would that even be?
The chat started boiling again.
In any case, if they just stood around in one place, more zombies might come swarming in again, and they still had to keep progressing through the game.
So the two of them decided not to keep engaging with the chat and moved on.
“But Dad’s so good at fighting that I can’t really show off my own skills.”
“Oh? Then should I, ahem! try fighting from the front for a bit, To-To-Ring?”
“Eh—no, not really. I’m not confident I can fight like you, Dad, and I’ve got a gun, so I’ll just support from the rear.”
She tapped the side of the rifle she’d been hugging tightly to her chest as she spoke.
The gunfire had drawn the zombies in, but handling them wasn’t as hard as expected, so it would probably be fine.
Yeongho nodded and held out a hand toward his daughter.
“That works. But hold on a sec.”
“Hm? Why?”
“It’ll be uncomfortable like that. I’m going to adjust it to fit your body better...”
The rifle Sunhee had picked up was an M16-series weapon, the standard firearm used by the U.S. military for a long time.
Come to think of it, this setting isn’t Korea after all. I’ve never even traveled abroad, and now I’m getting a taste of foreign countries through a game.
If this had been Korea, he would’ve been dealing with K1s or K2s.
Ah, didn’t reservists in Korea used to carry M16s back in the day?
In any case, he adjusted the sling to suit her smaller build and switched the selector to semi-automatic.
For a beginner, spraying in full auto would probably be less effective than careful single-shot aimed fire.
It wasn’t the familiar K2 rifle he’d used in the army, but the basic mechanisms were similar enough that he had the controls sorted out in no time.
“Oh! It feels more comfortable to carry now that the strap’s shorter! Still heavy, though.”
“A gun’s usually heavier than it looks, so even men have a hard time hauling them around. If it gets too much, Dad can—”
“Nope! In a world like this, a gun is basically a lifeline. I can’t just leave it to someone else!”
“R-right.”
As Yeongho kept moving slowly, explaining the caution points of firearm use and the basics of shooting while Sunhee stubbornly insisted that she would keep handling the gun herself, more zombies began to appear one by one.
And of course, the result was always the same.
Swshk!
Not long after appearing, they only ended up losing their heads to the blade of Yeongho’s shovel.
Several short skirmishes repeated in succession, but neither of them ever found themselves in danger.
“Ah~ Don’t fight, everyone. If you fight, you get banned!”
It was around then, as the viewers were bickering and the atmosphere started to turn sour, that he stepped in to calm the chat.
Bang! Bangbang!
The sound of gunfire, coming from not too far away, pierced both of their ears.
At the same time, the chat itself seemed to sense something coming, and began to stir with restless excitement.