Chapter 31
His body plummeted fast.
He barely managed to flail his limbs a few times.
The fall was over before he even fully registered what was happening.
Squelch.
A disgusting sensation enveloped his entire body.
"Haaah!"
He gasped for air.
The stench of rot flooded into his lungs, but he couldn’t properly register it.
The sky above him was rapidly disappearing.
The mouth that had gaped wide to swallow him was closing.
He planted his feet on the squelching tongue and reached out. But there was nothing to grab onto.
His hands slipped.
The mucous membrane surrounding his limbs convulsed.
And then — gulp.
He was swallowed.
His body tumbled down a slick passage that felt like an esophagus.
Darkness on all sides, and the System window kept flashing like crazy.
Would you like to execute ’Je Hyun-oh’?
Would you like to execute ’Je Hyun-oh’?
Would you like to execute ’Je Hyun-oh’?
Would you like to execute ’Je Hyun-oh’?
Would you like to execute ’Je Hyun-oh’?
I was apparently pissed off from getting done in by Je Hyun-oh.
But Je Hyun-oh had shown me too much for me to execute him over something like this.
Like taking down a million zombies, for instance.
I knew he was strong, but witnessing it firsthand was overwhelming.
Having seen how useful he was, I couldn’t bring myself to execute him.
Instead, I set a goal of surviving this place somehow and grabbing Je Hyun-oh by the collar — well, that might be too much, so maybe just lodging a complaint.
Honestly, even the System window was just saying that. It probably didn’t actually want me to execute Je Hyun-oh.
It was the System window itself that had most desperately wanted him registered.
A new quest appeared as I kept tumbling endlessly through slimy mucus.
◆MA!IN! QUE!ST!!!: Escape from the Nothing.
There was more written out, but it was hard to read while falling out of my mind.
How long did I fall?
Finally, my body stopped.
"Ugh..."
I landed in a space about the size of a small room and let out a small groan.
Fortunately, there was almost no impact from the fall.
I’d slid down something like an esophagus, and the floor I hit was soft and squishy.
Unlike the pitch-black esophagus, there was a faint light here, so I could see my surroundings.
Surprisingly, there was no stench.
It felt a bit ridiculous to say, but it seemed like I’d landed in the cleanest part.
The texture was just absolutely awful...
I let out a small "ugh" as I looked at the wall, which sank in the shape of my hand where I pressed against it.
My palm started itching from touching the wall, so I pulled my hand away — and froze.
An eye had appeared on the damp wall.
The same eyes that had grown on the Nothing’s outer skin were now inside its guts.
A bloodshot eye stared at me.
As our gazes met, the inner wall squirmed, and more eyes sprouted one after another.
Soon I was surrounded by hundreds of eyes.
A physiological revulsion made my skin crawl, but my heart was pounding for another reason too.
I studied the eyes on the inner wall carefully.
Had the eyes from the outer skin been pushed inward? Or were they newly generated?
I’d never been inside DeZonDeal’s final boss before, so I couldn’t suppress my curiosity.
Already somewhat adapted to the disgust, I slowly reached out and touched an eye.
The Captains would have freaked out if they saw this, but I was alone here, so there was no one to scold me.
The eye was wet and slimy.
It didn’t blink — either because it couldn’t feel pain or because it had no eyelids. It just rolled its pupil, following my hand.
I pulled my hand away and recalled something I’d momentarily forgotten.
’I need to get out of here.’
All I had on me was the ammunition belt around my waist and a single military knife strapped to my thigh for emergencies.
No matter how much I swung that knife, it would be useless against a zombie that couldn’t feel pain.
’And I can’t count on the Captains to save me.’
Je Hyun-oh had personally fished me out and dropped me onto the boss monster.
There was no way he’d let Mo Haein and Kwak Hanmuk rescue me.
But it didn’t seem like he wanted me dead either.
"Goyo. Don’t die."
That was what Je Hyun-oh said as he dropped me.
He probably wanted to confirm something about me.
I had no idea what, though...
’Couldn’t you have at least thrown in a gun while you were at it.’
Suddenly I felt like I could grab Je Hyun-oh by the collar if I got out of here.
First, I called up the System window I hadn’t been able to read earlier.
◆MA!IN! QUE!ST!!!: Escape from the Nothing.
You have been placed in danger by the treacherous ■■.
Kill! Execute!! Kill! Execute!!! Though executing them immediately would be just, mercy is also a virtue not unworthy of ■■ ■.
Rather than punishing ■■, you choose to overcome this crisis with your own strength.
You believe you can escape from the Nothing.
But the Nothing wishes to remain with you forever.
It will not let you go easily.
"...?"
I read the whole thing, but the content didn’t make sense.
It wants to be with me?
HapFactory’s Smiley had tried to lure players in out of loneliness.
But the Nothing was a boss monster formed from dead zombies and the ruins of a city.
It had no ego — it just faithfully carried out its sole purpose of killing players.
Even as I dismissed it as System window nonsense, I felt a little uneasy.
Maybe it was because of the countless eyes watching me. They felt strangely expectant.
But expect what?
Like in any game, the only thing between a boss and an Adaptee in the Trial was predetermined.
Defeating each other.
All I could do now was escape this place by bursting through its guts or tearing them apart.
Unless a special quest was given, there was no peaceful solution.
I had no idea what Je Hyun-oh or the boss monster wanted from me.
Then I felt a sharp sting on my back.
I felt around and found a shallow wound through the long tear in my uniform top.
Je Hyun-oh must have scratched me slightly with his metal hand when he grabbed me.
The bleeding had mostly stopped, but blood still came off on my palm.
As I frowned at my bloodied hand, I felt eyes on me.
"..."
I slowly lifted my head.
All the pupils were fixed on the same thing.
My blood-stained palm.
Suddenly Yi Ga-on’s voice flashed through my mind.
"Roasted Chestnut-nim’s blood was the cure for the Pandora virus!"
Maybe... I could actually do something here.
The boss monster opened its mouth, Han Goyo fell, and was swallowed — gulp.
It all happened in less than a minute.
Mo Haein stood frozen for a moment, then started running.
She threw away even the bare minimum of decorum toward a superior officer and screamed.
"JE HYUN-OH!!!"
The scream tasted like blood in her throat.
Je Hyun-oh had been excessively aggressive toward Han Goyo from the very first moment he saw him.
It was strange, but she’d understood it. TRA was an exception — he was fundamentally hostile to the Trial and Adaptees.
But now he clearly recognized Han Goyo as a team member.
And yet he’d thrown him to the boss monster like a toy.
It wasn’t even an instinctive attack.
This was a violation of TRA regulations and a crime warranting arrest.
As she ran toward Je Hyun-oh, a bead rosary flew in from a distance.
The Zelkova wood beads, flying like a long rope, wrapped around Je Hyun-oh.
"Lieutenant Colonel! You son of a bitch!"
Kwak Hanmuk grabbed the rosary and roared.
"I told you not to kill him!"
Je Hyun-oh, the one who’d caused this whole mess, remained calm. He just floated silently in the air, bound by the rosary.
"I didn’t kill him."
"You son of a BITCH! Then what the hell was all that fucking around?!"
Je Hyun-oh replied in a tone so calm it bordered on lazy.
"I had to see his eye color too."
Mo Haein felt her blood boil.
As she got closer, she viscerally realized how absurd the situation was.
The boss monster, larger than the Laboratory building, stood perfectly still in its sludgy, filth-like form. The hundreds of eyes that had covered its outer skin were gone somewhere. It just stood there dumbly, not attacking at all after swallowing Han Goyo.
Mo Haein fired a burst at the thing, which loomed like a small mountain, to test it.
But the bullets just buried themselves in its flabby flesh and were absorbed.
’If only I could use the Black Moon Blade...!’
A feeling of helplessness made her vision go red.
Without the Black Moon Blade, Je Hyun-oh was the only one who could cut through that massive monster in one blow.
There might be other ways, but who knew what would happen to Han Goyo trapped inside in the meantime.
Mo Haein aimed her gun directly at his gleaming goggles.
"Right now! Get the Trainee out RIGHT NOW!"
Kiiik — a metallic grinding sound.
It was the sound of Kwak Hanmuk tightening the rosary around Je Hyun-oh.
"Lieutenant Colonel. Get Goyo out."
Pajik — a brief flash of blue light sparked from the rosary.
Je Hyun-oh glanced at the rosary for a moment, then slowly called out each name.
"Captain Mo, Captain Kwak."
Then he said something strange.
"Can’t you hold off on the mutiny for a bit? I feel like something interesting’s about to happen."
What the hell was he talking about now. This man was impossible to reason with.
Just as she was about to pull the trigger —
"...!"
Mo Haein flinched and swung her gun around.
Squelch.
Something flabby fell from the boss monster.
What fell was a zombie corpse that had been absorbed.
That was just the beginning.
Squelch. Squelch. Squelch. The boss monster’s flesh kept collapsing.
It was spitting back out everything it had indiscriminately absorbed.
Zombie corpses, rubble from collapsed buildings, city garbage...
As the components that made up its body crumbled, its massive size gradually shrank.
Mo Haein and Kwak Hanmuk could only stare blankly at the sight of the boss monster disintegrating alive.
It was when more than half had crumbled away.
A bright golden light fell over the darkening surroundings.
The source of the light, walking out of the dissolving boss monster, was Han Goyo.
His eye color had changed again.
Mo Haein, who’d been unconsciously spellbound by those golden eyes, suddenly widened her own.
Because she belatedly noticed what the golden light had been hiding.
Han Goyo’s entire body was drenched in blood.
Beneath his pale face, several large, knife-like gashes pulsed open, spewing blood.
The blood was absorbed by the boss monster before it could pool at his feet, and wherever the blood touched, the flesh dissolved as if melting away.
As Mo Haein and Kwak Hanmuk stood frozen like statues, Je Hyun-oh’s laughter rang out.
He’d taken off his goggles at some point, and he laughed as he shouted.
"It really is the exact same gold...!"
Ding — a cheerful notification sound rang out as a System window appeared.
You have won the battle against the Nothing!
It was a victory notification announcing that Han Goyo had defeated DeZonDeal’s final boss.