Chapter 14
I stared at him, eyes wide. Kwak Hanmuk frowned.
"Captain Mo looks like that, but she’s a real hard-ass. Unless she’s infected, there’s no reason she wouldn’t have made it to the Green Zone."
His words clicked immediately.
Mo Haein was the type who valued rules, and TRA’s top priority recommendation for Trial entry was regrouping with your team.
So she would have made joining up with us her primary goal.
Even if she ran into civilians caught up in the Trial, odds were she wouldn’t have acted alone.
Barring truly unavoidable circumstances.
When I tried to imagine a reason critical enough to keep Mo Haein from entering the Green Zone, zombie infection came to mind right away.
But a TRA team leader wasn’t a position you got handed for free.
She could escape even a horde of Dead Zombies.
Kwak Hanmuk seemed lost in the same question, deep in thought.
I asked carefully.
"What if she ran into Lieutenant Colonel Je Hyun-oh?"
Maybe a clash with Je Hyun-oh — who was aggressive toward Adaptees — had occurred.
Kwak Hanmuk groaned at my suggestion.
"Well... it’s possible, I guess. But probably not? The lieutenant colonel kind of cuts us some slack."
"What do you mean by ’cuts us some slack’?"
"He doesn’t attack us."
"...Ah."
True enough — even in the game, TRA personnel hadn’t attacked.
Either way, if she’d actually been bitten by a zombie, things were complicated.
In DeZonDeal, getting bitten by a zombie turns you into a Dead Zombie. The principle was immediate termination, given how dangerous the infected were.
A True Ending would fix it, but Je Hyun-oh is a variable...
I didn’t know what he’d done here, so I couldn’t be absolutely sure about the True Ending.
Just as I was sorting through the tangled thoughts, an angry voice rang out.
"Are you not interested in talking?!"
I’d completely forgotten about the people I’d parked in front of me. I belatedly turned my gaze to the middle-aged man.
The Green Zone housed about thirty people, including non-combatants like the elderly and children.
But everyone was too busy clinging to their own lives to risk stepping outside the Green Zone.
With food hard to come by, and me showing up with a backpack full of supplies, they were practically foaming at the mouth.
I pulled out the salmon mayo triangle kimbap — the one whose description made me most uneasy — and tossed it over the iron gate.
Just one triangle kimbap and they swarmed like locusts.
The wrapper burst, rice and seaweed completely separated, but that wasn’t their concern.
Everyone was scrambling to get even a single grain of rice into their mouths.
"It’s real food."
Even the middle-aged man, who’d been maintaining some dignity, couldn’t hide his excitement as he chewed with rice grains stuck to his lips.
If Kwak Hanmuk and I pulled out a hot dog here, they’d probably faint on the spot.
I tapped my backpack, meeting their glittering eyes.
"Let me inside for a bit, and I’ll tell you where to find supplies. Way more than this."
They exchanged glances for a long moment, then finally opened the iron gate.
But the peaceful development didn’t last. The middle-aged man — apparently the leader of this Green Zone — cleared his throat repeatedly.
"Ahem. We’ll let you into our safe zone too."
Kwak Hanmuk let out a hollow laugh at the condescending attitude, just as the leader said,
"But first, share that backpack."
The gun was still aimed at us.
They figured we’d managed to get food but no firearms, and they were pushing their luck.
I’d expected this, so I looked at Kwak Hanmuk.
He remembered the favor I’d asked before entering the Green Zone, and he executed it flawlessly.
Kwak Hanmuk shoved his hand into his baseball jacket pocket and spat out a curse.
"Ah, shit."
"What did you just say?"
"Oh, sorry. Your hearing’s not what it used to be."
He reached the leader in two strides and bent forward.
Tall and broad-shouldered, Kwak Hanmuk had an imposing build.
The leader, intimidated, hunched without realizing it.
Kwak Hanmuk looked down at him and repeated himself.
"I said shit."
"Wha— what the hell, you insolent bastard—!"
The leader’s face flushed red as he roared.
In that instant.
Kwak Hanmuk pressed a pistol to his head. The leader froze solid at the feel of the muzzle pushing firmly against his skull.
I spoke in a calm voice.
"We’re already carrying several firearms. I don’t want to waste time."
Ziiip.
I opened the duffel bag, spreading its mouth wide.
After letting them get a good look at the packed contents — pistols, submachine guns, ammo, knives, axes — I asked,
"Still want to keep going?"
"I... I suppose I won’t... I think I got a little carried away..."
The leader stammered out a vague apology.
Since I had no intention of taking over the Green Zone, I accepted the apology there.
Kwak Hanmuk slipped back to my side and took the duffel bag.
He’d been busy dealing with zombies on the way here, so I’d carried the luggage alone. Now he took even the backpack from me and whined.
"Making hyung-nim carry all the luggage."
Hearing a man seven years older than me keep calling me hyung-nim made me deeply uncomfortable.
I told him to just call me Goyo, then stated the purpose of our Green Zone entry.
"There are items I need to pick up here."
We were planning to set up the special task force’s temporary base in the Yellow Zone.
The goal was to minimize travel time to the lab by establishing a base as close to the Dead Zone as possible.
To do that, I needed to sweep up the items obtainable from the Green Zone first.
"Let’s split up and farm."
We also had to go find Mo Haein, so we needed to move faster than planned.
I told Kwak Hanmuk the items he needed and their locations.
As he listened to the item list, one eyebrow shot up at a particular item.
"That one’s the most important."
Honestly, even I could see how weird it sounded without context.
But it was genuinely crucial for the True Ending.
"I’m counting on you."
"Alright, if hyung-nim says so, I’ll do it."
"...Just call me Goyo."
"If Goyo says so, I’ll do it."
"Right..."
Kwak Hanmuk was to check the elementary school — the survivor shelter — while I checked the broadcasting station within the Green Zone.
The station wasn’t far from the school, so I could handle it alone. The Green Zone was safe, anyway.
I sent Kwak Hanmuk — backpack and duffel bag in tow — into the elementary school and headed for the broadcasting station.
The city wasn’t large, so the station building was modest.
If not for the radio tower rising high above the building, I wouldn’t have recognized it as a broadcasting station.
The eerie atmosphere of an abandoned building mixed with the darkness of night.
I quickened my pace and stepped inside.
Ding. A system window appeared.
◆Main Quest...
...It tried to appear, then stopped.
What the hell was this?
I waited for the system window for a while.
The square flickered, half-emerging and faltering, as if locked in an invisible struggle.
Then suddenly — thwump — it burst open.
★Event Quest: Exciting Broadcasting Station Exploration!
You have visited the broadcasting station!
The broadcasting station is ■■ ■■■’s minion! A tool of mass communication!
In the flood of infodemics, are you truly a ■■ with media literacy?
■■ ■■■ will keep watching you!
...The tone was different somehow?
The content was strange too.
So what’s the actual quest?
Maybe it was just exploring the station, but even that seemed weird.
Because this quest didn’t exist in DeZonDeal.
I usually liked discovering new parts that weren’t in the game, but this one felt off.
For now, I decided the system window had glitched out and ignored it.
I didn’t have time to dwell on that. I needed to grab the items and find Mo Haein.
The broadcasting station was no exception to the zombie outbreak — the inside was a wreck.
I crossed the silent lobby and entered the hallway. No moonlight reached inside; the building was pitch black.
The station’s interior was complicated, but I’d been in and out of this place so many times in the game that navigation wasn’t hard.
Relying on a single flashlight beam, I fumbled my way toward the emergency stairs.
Just before turning the corner in the hallway.
"Grrraaaah!"
A zombie with tattered flesh lunged out.
I wasn’t the type to get startled by jump scares. I calmly swung the baseball bat in my hand.
THWACK!
The zombie, struck by the bat, went flying.
Since it was a Green Zone zombie, even at night, one was manageable.
I left the twitching thing behind and found the emergency stairs.
"...Huh."
But something was off around the emergency exit door.
A row of green emergency exit signs — little running pictogram men — lined the hallway. All pointing in the same direction.
Except the direction was strange.
They weren’t pointing toward the emergency stairs. They were pointing the opposite way.
It was an unsettling sight, but I had no choice. I walked against the flow of green pictogram men.
As I entered the stairwell, the first thing that caught my eye was the unusual floor indicator.
⇧2⇩B1
A smiley face marked the current floor — the first floor. My destination, the live studio, was on the sixth floor.
I climbed the stairs briskly and checked the sign again on the sixth floor.
⇧99⇩5
The face had been smiling the whole way up, but on the sixth floor, it was frowning. And the next floor was marked as 99.
I studied the sign carefully.
This wasn’t in the game either.
In the game, it was just a normal emergency exit. No backward-pointing exit signs or weird smiley indicators.
Which made sense.
It’s a zombie game.
This kind of thing didn’t fit a zombie apocalypse setting. It wasn’t something you’d see in <Dead Zone Delivery>.
<Happy Smile Factory>, maybe...
I gripped my baseball bat and cracked the emergency door open.
Flashlight beam stretched long into the hallway beyond. Nothing unusual.
I cautiously entered the sixth floor.
Among the three studios on this floor, I found the news studio.
The door was wide open, and the interior was a mess. Signs of a hasty escape.
Dried bloodstains on news scripts scattered everywhere.
I stepped over a fallen broadcast camera and headed toward the monitoring area.
I needed to find a secure USB among the cluster of monitors there.
Just as I was about to shine my flashlight — the room suddenly lit up, and an anchor’s voice rang out.
"A virus of unknown cause is occurring simultaneously nationwide."
"The Disease Control Agency reports that infected individuals show high fever, extreme aggression, and temporary cognitive decline."
The monitors had turned on by themselves, playing news footage.
I wasn’t surprised. I watched the screen.
In the game, the monitors turned on the same way, delivering DeZonDeal’s backstory.
"The government will announce specific countermeasures during an emergency briefing at 6 PM this evening."
"Citizens, please do not be misled by unverified information. Confirm accurate details through official announcements."
A faint tremor lurked beneath the calm voice. Fear. Dread.
The screen changed. The anchor’s premonition had been correct.
"Citizens. We are relaying the government’s emergency disaster order."
Now the anchor’s voice was nearly a scream.
"The unidentified infection crisis currently spreading nationwide has exceeded controllable limits. Effective 6 PM today, the government issues an immediate nationwide evacuation order — no, please, help me, AAAARGH!"
The news ended with the male and female anchors being torn apart by zombies side by side.
Leaving their screams behind, I found the USB in a drawer.
I pocketed it and was about to leave the studio when everything turned red.
I looked at the monitors. They were all displaying the same screen.
A blood-red breaking news screen.
Breaking News!
In that moment, overwhelmed by the red, the screen changed.
The new image that appeared was...
Me.
My face, slightly pale, looking up at the monitor, was reflected on screen.
Was it Samra?
But Samra couldn’t enter the Trial, and likewise couldn’t exert influence here.
I tensed at the incomprehensible situation.
KABOOM!
A deafening explosion rocked the building.
I staggered, barely catching myself before falling.
Ceiling and floor — both were covered in cracks.
The monitors that had been showing that strange footage were all shattered, their panels bleeding rainbow colors.
The impact came from above.
After a moment’s hesitation, I left the broken monitors and ran for the emergency stairs.
The building could collapse any second.
But instead of running down, I went up. I took the stairs two or three at a time, climbing to the roof.
I’d wondered if something strange would happen since it said 99 floors, but thankfully I reached the rooftop safely.
The floor markings were a bit weird, though.
I threw open the roof door.
...Crazy.
The scene beyond the open door made me curse under my breath.
The radio tower, once soaring high above the roof, was folded in half.
Bent grotesquely, its upper section smashed into the rooftop — it looked less like a steel tower and more like a broken toy.
Someone was standing on top of that folded radio tower.
Someone I should not be meeting alone.
’Je Hyun-oh’ discovered!
’Je Hyun-oh’ is a registerable character. Would you like to register?