Season 2: Chapter 40. The Prelude to a Counterattack (1)
In this game, all weapons were very much based on reality. The bow was the same. The closer a bow was to reality, the harder it was to handle. Generally, one couldn't even shoot it properly. Even among experts, those who could hit a moving target were rare.
Nevertheless, Kim Yi-Seo had collected data from numerous masters to balance it. Almond was also included in the data. He didn’t expect Almond to surpass himself.
"Sigh. Who is this guy? I warned that advertising through him was risky."
The Red Hat officials glanced at each other. After all, Almond was their chosen advertising model.
Among them, the brave ones spoke up.
"But still, Almond is our company's hero."
"Yes. Excluding him from the advertisements... That just doesn't work!"
Kim Yi-Seo sighed.
'These foreigners... If only this wasn’t a hologram meeting...'
Hologram meetings weren’t frequently used. It was only for meetings between distant countries.
The amount of data transmitted through holograms was immense. Only those who could handle it could use it. WePlug was a fairly successful company, but not to the extent of having idle chats during hologram meetings.
"Well, if you guys are fine with it, it's fine. And it's not like there was an error in the game."
"Is that so?" Ho-Tae questioned them.
He saw this as part of an error. Killing the boss monster so easily and being able to shoot from so far to directly hit Baek Joon-Soo.
"No. The ability to shoot Baek Joon-Soo was because Almond gained too much experience from killing the boss zombie."
Zombie School had a hidden stat system unknown to players, one of which was the EXP system. Killing zombies granted experience points. Players somewhat sensed this, but didn't exactly know how it worked.
"So your interpretation is that his fear was reduced because of his full experience?"
"Yeah. It makes sense. Normally, a player would kill this boss and then kill Baek Joon-Soo right before escaping with the immunizers. It’s supposed to be like that 99% of the time, but this is also a playstyle."
Since the boss died too early, it caused an error in everything. Almond was unaware of a key element in this game, that the immunizers existed. A scene that could only occur at the end happened first.
"It's fortunate that Baek Joon-Soo survived."
"He'll die soon though."
"Still, he survived. The boss died from two hits with a golf club because the counterattack's power was accurately calculated by the physics engine."
"Ah... The boss was so fast that it must have calculated all that as additional force."
"Honestly, I didn't think Almond could counter at such a speed, especially since the boss isn't even that big. He did it, so he got rewarded."
In summary, Almond's play did not violate any of the game’s major rules. He was not an exception, but a special case.
"So, there's no problem at all."
Kim Yi-Seo's expression said the opposite, but he couldn’t refute them.
"The only problem is that it’s going in a strange direction from the advertisement’s intention. Since the sponsors who paid are happy, it doesn't really matter."
The officials from Red Hat appeared as holograms and marveled at Almond's play. They high-fived each other in excitement.
"This is thrilling! It was a great idea to include the bow."
"Such an unexpected situation arose. Truly beautiful!"
"My goodness!"
Awkward translated sentences continued to flow out.
Red Hat seemed pleased with the way the advertising was going. They said they wanted players to cause unexpected problems. They saw this as a symbol of freedom.
However, this was a hard mindset to accept for Kim Yi-Seo, who grew up in East Asia and loved money. Only some hardcore gamers would like that, but his view was that it wouldn’t sell well in their market.
This difference in perspective would likely never be bridged. Ultimately, they were the sponsors.
"Let's end it here since it’s a waste to talk more about this matter. Well, if you all are satisfied, that's all that matters."
The meeting ended there.
***
Meanwhile, Almond's viewers also reacted similarly to the production team.
— Did he die?
— Wow, did Almond really hit!?
— He's gone wild for real.
The viewers could not help but be amazed by the ultra long-range shot. The shot even penetrated through a window and hit its mark.
Not only the viewers, but the class president and other students felt the same.
"This is crazy..."
"Is this, is this not a coincidence?"
"Damn... Is this really the same Kim Ju-Hyeok I knew?"
"Wow, amazing..."
They whispered to each other while hiding in the bushes and watched Baek Joon-Soo collapse.
"We should have brought more arrows. It doesn't seem like he's dead."
"I didn't know this crazy guy would hit Baek Joon-Soo first..."
"Who would have imagined?"
"In this situation, being hit by an arrow is almost as good as dead. There's no disinfection or treatment."
"Still, we should have brought one more..."
They regretted bringing only one arrow. It was unavoidable due to their lack of trust in Almond. They seemed to trust Almond infinitely more after that single shot.
***
Shortly afterward, they returned to the construction site. The other students looked at the returnees with eyes full of curiosity. There was no need for Almond to step forward and say he succeeded.
The class president already stepped forward and shouted, "It was no lie!" He continued earnestly, "This guy shot Baek Joon-Soo. From the main building garden through the first floor window!"
The students’ eyes looked as if they would all pop out.
"Really?"
"For real?"
"No way."
The class president extended his hand to Almond in front of everyone.
"We'll provide you the weapons."
Almond shook his hands and they agreed to the deal.
"Let the store lady and that bushy-haired one go."
They also released the hostages.
The class president solemnly added, "Now it's our turn to attack Baek Joon-Soo's gang."
The students grew excited at his words.
"He's already hurt. It’s not a big deal anymore."
"Yeah, I'm so hungry. I could even eat Baek Joon-Soo right now."
The students, who seemed gentle toward Almond, turned ferocious at the mention of Baek Joon-Soo.
"That jerk deserves to die. He killed two of our members."
"Yeah..."
It turned out that Baek Joon-Soo killed two of their members to show his superiority and even took what little food they had. They couldn’t stand up to Baek Joon-Soo's gang then because they weren’t cruel enough to kill someone.
Now, they seemed so desperate that they mentioned even possibly eating Baek Joon-Soo as food. They had gone three days without eating anything.
Almond asked why they didn't go outside the school if they were so hungry.
"The situation is even worse out there. Do you think there were this many of us from the start?"
"There are monsters out there. The zombies in the school are fairly weak compared to those ones..."
Apparently, many more of the strange variants Almond encountered on the second floor were outside the school.
— Are there more of those?
— Wow, so it's not the end.
— Can't leave the school, huh...
— How long do we have to survive like this?
— How do we beat this round then?
The concept of clearing the game usually didn’t exist in such hardcore survival games. Players played for the fun of achieving the longest survival time record. Moreover, this game was still in early access, which made that even more likely.
"Here. This is all the arrows we have."
The class president brought over a quiver of arrows. There weren’t as many as expected.
'Just three?'
The class president hung his head after seeing Almond’s expression.
"We had more, but we used them. We used one just now to shoot Baek Joon-Soo."
They never wanted to give up the bow because they only had a few arrows.
Then Soo-Hyun interrupted them, “I think it’s better to split up into two groups instead of attacking Baek Joon-Soo’s gang together. One group stays here to protect what we have and make more arrows while the others attack their gang. What do you guys think?”
Almond agreed, but the cowardly Kim Ju-Hyeok couldn’t fight without arrows. With only three arrows, he couldn't contribute much against the gang.
"No, that won't do. You guys won't be able to handle all the zombies if the other group stays here to make arrows," the class president firmly refused.
He probably tried something similar before. The class president said the noise from all the cutting would attract all sorts of zombies.
"There’s a reason why we couldn’t make many arrows. We have to reuse what we can."
"Ah, okay."
Ultimately, they decided to team up and all attack.
However, Almond shook his head.
"No, the arrows are more important."
"What?"
"We don't need many people for the attack. I can take just the three who went with me earlier."
The class president’s face turned pale.
"Three? But there's too many of them."
Going with just three seemed too risky, especially since he was one of the three. It was like going on a suicide mission.
"How many of them are there?"
Almond didn't know their exact numbers, but the president knew because he faced them before.
"Probably around twelve."
"Then make just twelve arrows."
His words stunned the students. Exactly twelve arrows to face off against twelve enemies?
"They don't understand what I am saying. Have they suddenly become less intelligent or something?"
— No, they're shocked...
— That wouldn’t make sense to anyone, lol.
— Almond suddenly blaming their intelligence, lol.
Almond started talking to his viewers and wrapped up his stream.
"Anyway, it was very fulfilling today shooting Baek Joon-Soo, right?"
— ???
— Is this where you end?
— No way, lol
— Could it be...?
— ??? Don't end it here. ??? How do you do that?
— Huuh... no...!
The chat tried to stop Almond from ending the stream, but he had to end it anyway. His playtime had been too long. He should’ve ended the stream after defeating the boss, but he dragged it on until now.
"We'll continue the rest next time. Bye Treevy~!"
— Bye bye
— It was fun!
— Goodbye, zombie friends...
Almond ended his stream just before the last major battle. It was late at night already.
Slide.
Almond came out of the capsule, opened the fridge, and drank some cold water.
"Huaah..."
Even with an improved capsule, playing for such a long time raised his body temperature. He cooled off a bit by drinking some water.
Then, he checked Ju-Hyeok's room. Ju-Hyeok seemed to be asleep in bed already.
Sang-Hyeon also got ready to go to bed. He checked the community reactions on his phone out of habit.
He often visited Zom's Garden first these days.
[Something is wrong with Almond's play]
[Is Baek Joon-Soo down already?? LMAO]
[Almond-style of killing the boss.gif]
Posts about Almond's play topped the trending list. The community sprung up around Almond and Bubblegum, so he was always on the hot trending list.
A few posts also talked about Bubblegum. Most likely, he played Zombie School today too.
[Bubblegum also met the bullies today, lol.]
[Bubblegum's side bullies took over the store.]
[Brooo, I told you not to go to the 2nd floor...]
[WTF was that?? Was he a boss??]
Bubblegum's stream seemed to have been significantly impacted by the boss on the second floor. A zombie emitting white light fluttered around and massacred the people in the video.
— Holy, their team got wiped...
— Tako-sama..
— Let’s start over from the beginning, lol
— His expression, lmao.
— He’s in despair...
Bubblegum and Takoyaki had built quite an impressive infrastructure at the time, but they all died needlessly after messing with the second floor.
— I didn't know that boss was that strong...
└ The nut crew is confused, lol
└ For real! haahaha. I didn't expect that...
└ Almond, you are a moral textbook...
— Wow, Almond finished the boss with just two golf club swings.
└ There’s a monster on the 2nd floor... (Almond)
— That's really scary...
Viewers who only watched Almond's stream today felt puzzled by the scene.
Sang-Hyeon felt a sense of pride and chuckled. He was about to visit another community when he saw the overall search rankings in the Community Garden.
1. Ah-Sung
2. Almond
Almond and Ah-Sung appeared together in the search rankings. That didn’t seem like a good sign. He found the cause of this in the Evening Wide Garden.
A certain post sat at the top of the list.
[Today's post on All-Line]
It felt like déjà vu. He thought a similar post also trended yesterday. The post featured similar content when he clicked on it. The simple post talked about an anonymous tip posted on All-Line.
Sang-Hyeon read through it and murmured, "Director Park... in the end..."