Chapter 30
His tone sounded like he was handing out party invitations.
’Finish it tonight?’
Theoretically, it was possible. But that was all it was — theoretical.
Even I had never cleared it on the first night.
Because if you played the game by the rules, it was impossible.
Unless you used cheats.
But right now, standing before me, was a being no different from a cheat.
My mouth went dry. I gathered saliva and swallowed.
I couldn’t tell if it was tension or anticipation.
The sun, barely showing its edge, cast one last red glow.
From a distance, carried on the wind, came a faint wailing.
A terrible cacophony spread over the ruined city. A thin line appeared on the horizon.
Je Hyun-oh, bathed in the sunset, spread his wings.
The black metal wings let out a sharp sound as they unfurled into the light — and the sun sank completely.
A remnant of light still lingered in the sky like embers, but soon darkness would swallow everything.
The line on the horizon began to churn.
It writhed unnaturally, closing in at a grotesque speed, its undulating shape almost like violent waves.
Waves that wouldn’t end until the next morning.
As the zombies surged in, Je Hyun-oh stood still with his metal wings spread, watching me.
He took a step back.
His black body dropped.
I knew he’d be fine, but I still ran to the railing and looked down.
I found nothing.
Je Hyun-oh was already soaring upward.
With his black wings fully spread, he looked down at the zombies from the highest point.
Then he dove straight into the center of the wave.
Like a bullet fired from a gun.
BOOM!
An impact that didn’t sound like a landing.
The ground shook in every direction, and for a moment, the zombie wave stopped.
A brief pause.
Then the zombies all rushed toward the source of the sound at once.
Hundreds of zombies, endlessly converging on a single being — it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call it a scene from hell.
Any normal person would have been terrified.
No — no matter how strong they were, they wouldn’t have picked such a reckless fight in the first place.
But Je Hyun-oh offered himself as bait, drawing every zombie toward him.
Not with fear — with elation.
"KYAAAAAAK!"
The zombies screamed. Even though they shouldn’t feel pain, the screams were soaked in agony.
Je Hyun-oh rampaged like a beast thrown into a flock of sheep.
His metal hands tore through zombie bones, his wings following close behind, slicing through flesh.
Wherever the black figure passed, flesh and bone fragments rained down.
It was a one-sided slaughter.
Je Hyun-oh was best at large-scale area attacks.
He could have taken out dozens at once, but he deliberately killed only four or five at a time.
It was easy to imagine how he’d been rampaging for the ten days he’d entered DeZonDeal ahead of me.
’But at that rate, he won’t finish by tonight.’
Maybe he was just messing around before getting serious.
Come to think of it, Je Hyun-oh had been behaving himself for a few days.
I watched him for a moment with the mindset of a beast tamer, then thought of Yi Ga-on.
The noise and vibration from Je Hyun-oh’s landing must have reached her in the lab.
But she seemed fine.
Not a vague hope — she genuinely seemed that way.
Before preparing the lab’s defense, I’d explained what would happen over the next three nights.
Even when I told her that hordes of zombies would attack every night, Yi Ga-on showed no sign of fear.
"I see... You’re done explaining, Roasted Chestnut-nim? I’m in a hurry."
She’d half-listened, then gone straight back to her research.
Her mind was already completely consumed by the work — nothing else could get through.
Given the situation, it made sense.
’She has to develop both the vaccine and the cure simultaneously in three days.’
With all her assistants gone, it was a mission beyond human limits for one person.
But the current Yi Ga-on seemed like she could do it.
Just like bosses have a berserk state, characters have an awakened state.
Though this was the first time I’d seen a researcher in an awakened state in DeZonDeal.
’Though Yi Ga-on seems closer to berserk than awakened...’
I recalled the gleam in her eyes.
No matter what happened outside, Yi Ga-on would only focus on her research.
All I had to do was defend the lab from the rear.
I slid the sniper rifle’s barrel through the rusty railing and locked the bipod in place.
Holding an actual M24 SWS felt strange — unfamiliar yet subtly familiar.
Probably from shooting it a million times in-game.
Kwak Hanmuk had given me a crash course, so I could at least hold it properly.
I brought my eye to the scope and looked for Mo Haein first.
Since she couldn’t use the Black Moon Blade due to the zombification, she’d taken a submachine gun instead.
Mo Haein, framed in the scope’s crosshairs, was the picture of a perfect soldier.
She held an MP5 submachine gun in her hands, a duffel bag full of 9mm magazines strapped crosswise over both shoulders, and an ammunition belt around her waist.
Mo Haein watched the approaching zombies from behind a large stone block, then slapped the charging handle down.
Click. The loading sound was followed immediately by the muzzle flashing.
BRRRRRRRRT!
Shell casings cascaded like a waterfall. Zombie heads burst like watermelons.
Despite the heavy recoil of the submachine gun, Mo Haein remained calm, expressionless, blowing zombies apart.
Only her short bob, shaking violently, betrayed the weapon’s kickback.
’As expected of Captain Mo.’
Even without the Black Moon Blade, her skills hadn’t dulled.
I caught zombies approaching from her blind spot in my scope.
I breathed in, let half out, and held it. Then I squeezed the trigger with my index finger.
BANG!
The barrel kicked back briefly.
The zombie’s head in my scope exploded.
’Not bad.’
Whether thanks to the Trial’s physical compensation or not, I could snipe well enough to be useful — if not as good as in-game.
I pulled the bolt back. The hot casing rolled across the floor as a fresh round slid into the chamber.
Then a deafening megaphone blared out.
"Ah, ah, zombies. This is an announcement."
Kwak Hanmuk, leaning out of the driver’s window of a jeep, was shouting into a megaphone.
"Zombies, please proceed immediately to the central area toward Lieutenant Colonel Je Hyun-oh. I repeat. If you zombies would kindly head to the center, I’d be fucking grateful."
Of course, the jeep’s blaring megaphone drew the zombies straight to him.
Kwak Hanmuk didn’t flinch. He kept broadcasting stubbornly while steering with one hand.
Then he drove the jeep toward where Je Hyun-oh was.
The zombies almost caught him a few times, but each time he narrowly fended them off with his Bead Rosary.
I quickly picked off a few zombies with the sniper rifle.
Kwak Hanmuk, driving like he was performing acrobatics, finally herded the horde straight toward Je Hyun-oh.
"LIEUTENANT COLONEL JE!"
Kwak Hanmuk bellowed through the megaphone.
"STOP PLAYING AROUND AND GET TO WORK!"
Je Hyun-oh, who’d been having a grand old time slaughtering zombies indiscriminately, swung his metal wings.
Metal feathers shot from the wings, thwacking into the zombies.
Dozens of zombies nearby dropped as their foreheads were pierced.
The metal feathers that had punched through their skulls slid smoothly out of the bone and returned to his wings.
—
Je Hyun-oh displayed an emoticon on his goggles that I guessed was a sullen face. But he still moved his wings, lifting himself into the air.
Flying up to a moderate height, he raised his metal hand.
I quickly sent him a Message.
[Captain Mo is near the church.]
I’d sent it because it looked like he was about to unleash an attack without considering her position.
Je Hyun-oh checked the system window floating before him, then turned to look at me.
And, as if showing off, he swept his hand down toward the church.
A line over ten meters long split the ruined city.
The black line stretched all the way to the church where Mo Haein was positioned.
Kwak Hanmuk, knowing what disaster would follow, floored the jeep’s accelerator and shouted through the megaphone.
"CAPTAIN MO!!"
No explanation — he just yelled.
But the moment she heard his shout, Mo Haein ran without looking back.
Not long after she sprinted at full speed, the black line began to split open.
The zombies caught in the line were bisected on the spot, their entrails spilling out as they died instantly.
The ones that dodged the line met a similar fate.
"KAAAAAK!"
"KREEEEEK!"
Buildings and ground split apart, zombies plunging into deep darkness.
However far he’d dug into the earth, the zombies that fell never crawled back out.
Several hundred were deleted in an instant — enough to stall the tide of zombies surging in like a tsunami.
A system window appeared.
[First defense successful!]
[(Current defense successes: 1/3)]
He’d already filled the quota for the first night.
But Je Hyun-oh didn’t stop. He clapped his metal hands together.
CLANG!
The impact rang clear. Then came a scraping sound — screech, screeeech — like metal grinding.
It wasn’t just noise from his hands meeting; it was something stranger.
The source of the discordant sound revealed itself as he spread his hands apart.
Between his palms, small black crescents swarmed like a hive of bees.
They clashed against each other, letting out constant scraping sounds, moving erratically.
The black crescents, darting around maddeningly, turned toward the sky.
As they rose in a line, new crescents kept forming and joining them.
They multiplied in an instant, too fast for the eye to follow, blanketing the sky.
The sky, still faintly lit, darkened like midnight.
Screech, screech, screeeech...
The hair-raising sound tortured my eardrums mercilessly. On top of that, the zombies, excited by the metallic noise, roared along.
I forced myself not to cover my ears and kept watching Je Hyun-oh.
When the sky was completely covered in black crescents.
Je Hyun-oh finally stopped creating them.
He slowly clenched his metal fist.
As his hand closed, the black crescents covering the sky scraped against each other, making a terrible noise.
Just as I felt it had reached its limit —
He opened his hand. Like letting go of the reins.
Black rain poured down.
It felt almost like a meteor shower.
After a very short downpour.
"..."
I was speechless.
Every zombie in sight was dead.
Ding.
A system window appeared.
[Second defense successful!]
[(Current defense successes: 2/3)]
...Crazy.
I threw down the sniper rifle and shot to my feet.
The Death’s Three Days quest looked like you had to defend for three full days, but you could actually finish early.
If you killed a certain number of the infinitely spawning zombies, it counted as a successful defense.
The number for the first successful defense was ten thousand.
And the number for the second successful defense was...
One million.
I only knew this number because of hidden information I’d gotten from a sub-quest. I’d never actually achieved it.
Because without cheats, it was an absolutely impossible number to fill.
And Je Hyun-oh had filled the impossible number.
As I stared blankly at the defense success window, somber music began to play.
It signaled the start of the third battle — the music announcing DeZonDeal’s final boss, ’the Nothing.’
The corpses of the dead zombies writhed, flesh and bone tangling together like clay.
They absorbed not just human remains but scattered steel frames, stone, plastic — all the garbage around — and began to form into a new existence.
With a hideous, nightmare-like appearance, it grew rapidly, expanding to a height even larger than the lab.
I looked up at the Nothing with bewildered eyes.
’Wasn’t it smaller than this before?’
Hundreds of pupils were embedded in its slimy outer shell.
Zombie eyeballs.
They spun around in different directions, then suddenly stopped.
All of them were looking at me.
Before I could feel the horror —
"...!"
My body jerked violently and lifted into the air.
Startled, I looked up to see Je Hyun-oh flying, his metal hand cunningly hooked around my belt.
"Goyo."
Je Hyun-oh sounded like he was having the time of his life.
"Don’t die."
Then he flew over the boss monster —
And dropped me.
"AAARGH! LIEUTENANT COLONEL JE!"