TYR 14

Chapter 14

I stared at him with my eyes wide open. Kwak Han-mook frowned.

“Captain Mo looks like that, but she’s actually a huge stickler for rules. Unless she was infected, there’s no reason she wouldn’t have been able to make it to the Green Zone.”

I immediately understood what he meant.

Mo Hae-in was the type who valued rules above all else, and Team Leader Shi Dae-cheong had always emphasized that, upon entering a trial, joining up with your teammates should be the top priority.

Therefore, her first objective would have been to meet up with us.

Even if she had encountered civilians caught up in the trial, there was a high chance she wouldn’t have acted alone.

Unless the situation had truly been unavoidable.

When I considered what kind of fatal reason could have prevented Mo Hae-in from reaching the Green Zone, zombie infection was the first thing that came to mind.

However, being the team leader of Shi Dae-cheong’s unit was not a position anyone could hold by luck.

Even if she encountered a horde of Dead Zombies, she would have been more than capable of escaping.

Kwak Han-mook seemed to have thought of the same thing and fell into deep thought.

I cautiously asked,

“Could she have encountered Lieutenant Colonel Je Hyeon-oh?”

Maybe she had clashed with Je Hyeon-oh, who was hostile toward the qualified ones.

At my suggestion, Kwak Han-mook groaned.

“That… it’s possible, but I doubt it. Lieutenant Colonel Je is actually pretty lenient toward us.”

“What do you mean by lenient?”

“He doesn’t attack us.”

“…Ah.”

That was true. Even in the game, the characters from Shi Dae-cheong’s team never attacked.

Either way, if she really had been bitten by a zombie, things had become complicated.

In Dead Zone Delivery, anyone bitten by a zombie became a Dead Zombie. Since they were extremely dangerous, the rule was to immediately eliminate infected individuals the moment they showed symptoms.

‘The true ending would solve this, but Je Hyeon-oh is the variable…’

Since I had no idea what he had done here, I couldn’t blindly assume the true ending would happen.

Just as I was organizing my complicated thoughts, an angry voice rang out.

“Are you not planning on talking?”

I had forgotten about the people standing in front of us. Belatedly, I turned my gaze toward the middle-aged man.

The Green Zone housed around thirty people, including non-combat personnel such as children and the elderly.

However, all of them valued their own lives and were too afraid to leave the safety of the Green Zone.

With food supplies becoming increasingly difficult to obtain, seeing me return with a backpack full of food was enough to make their eyes turn desperate.

I took out the salmon mayonnaise triangle kimbap—the one whose explanation made me feel the most awkward—and threw it over the iron gate.

The moment it landed, people swarmed toward it like a pack of dogs.

The wrapper tore open, completely separating the seaweed and rice, but that wasn’t important to them.

Everyone was desperate to put even a single grain of rice into their mouths.

“It’s real food.”

The middle-aged man, who had barely maintained his dignity until then, couldn’t hide his excitement as he chewed with rice stuck around his mouth.

If Kwak Han-mook and I casually opened even a single hot bar here, these people looked like they might faint.

I tapped my backpack, showing it to the people staring at us with greedy eyes.

“Let us inside for a moment, and I’ll tell you where you can get food. There’s much more than this.”

They exchanged glances among themselves for quite a while before eventually opening the iron gate.

However, things didn’t proceed peacefully.

The middle-aged man, who could be considered the leader of this Green Zone, cleared his throat repeatedly.

“Ahem. We’ll allow you two to stay in our safe zone as well.”

His tone sounded as if he were granting us a favor.

At that moment, the leader continued.

“But first, hand over that backpack.”

The guns pointed at us remained unchanged.

They assumed that while we had obtained food, we probably hadn’t managed to get any firearms.

It was exactly the kind of reaction I had expected, so I looked at Kwak Han-mook.

He remembered the favor I had asked him before entering the Green Zone and carried out his role perfectly.

With his hand inside the pocket of his baseball jacket, Kwak Han-mook cursed.

“Fucking hell.”

“What did you say?”

“Oh, I apologize. Your hearing seems to be bad.”

In just a couple of steps, Kwak Han-mook reached the leader and bent forward.

He was tall, broad-shouldered, and had an imposing build.

The intimidated leader unconsciously shrank back.

Looking down at him, Kwak Han-mook repeated what he had said.

“I said this is fucking bullshit.”

“…W-what? How dare you, you insolent bastard!”

The moment the leader’s face turned red with rage—

Kwak Han-mook pressed a handgun against his head.

The cold sensation of the barrel against his skull instantly froze him.

I spoke calmly.

“We already have several firearms. I don’t want to waste time on something pointless.”

Ziiip.

I opened the duffel bag and pulled apart the opening.

Inside were pistols, submachine guns, ammunition, knives, axes, and various other weapons.

After letting him see everything clearly, I asked:

“Are you still going to continue?”

“No, no, I apologize… I think I was just too desperate.”

The leader stammered out an awkward apology.

Since I had no intention of taking over the Green Zone, I accepted it there.

Kwak Han-mook returned to my side and took the duffel bag.

During our journey here, I had carried all the luggage while he dealt with the zombies. Now he carried both the duffel bag and the backpack on his back while complaining dramatically.

“I can’t believe I made someone seven years younger than me carry everything, brother.”

Hearing him call me “brother” repeatedly despite being older than me was making me uncomfortable.

I told him he could just call me Goyo, but—

“If Goyo tells me to do something, I gotta do it.”

“……”

Kwak Han-mook would check the survivor shelter—the elementary school—while I would search the broadcasting station located inside the Green Zone.

The broadcasting station wasn’t far from the elementary school, so I could go alone. Besides, the Green Zone was safe.

After seeing Kwak Han-mook enter the elementary school carrying both bags, I headed toward the broadcasting station.

The city wasn’t very large, so the station building itself was rather modest.

If not for the transmission tower rising high above it, I wouldn’t have known it was a broadcasting station.

The atmosphere of the abandoned building mixed with the darkness of night, creating an eerie feeling.

I quickly entered the building.

Ding.

A system window appeared.

◆Main Quest….

It appeared—

Then stopped.

What was this supposed to mean?

I waited for the system window for a while.

The box kept appearing and disappearing, flickering repeatedly.

It was almost as if two invisible forces were fighting against each other.

Then suddenly, with a popping sound, the system window appeared.

★Event Quest: Exciting Broadcasting Station Exploration!

You have visited a broadcasting station!

The broadcasting station is a servant of ■■ ■■■! A tool of mass communication!

Amid the flood of infodemics, are you a ■■ ■ person equipped with media literacy?

■■ ■■■ will continue watching you!

…The tone had changed.

And the contents were strange too.

‘So what exactly is the quest?’

Was it simply asking me to explore the broadcasting station?

That was strange in itself.

Because this quest didn’t exist in Dead Zone Delivery.

I usually liked discovering parts of the game that weren’t there before, but this somehow felt unsettling.

For now, I decided to assume the system window had malfunctioned and ignored it.

I didn’t have time to obsess over something like that. I needed to grab the item quickly and find Mo Hae-in.

The broadcasting station had not escaped the zombie outbreak either. The inside was a complete mess.

I passed through the silent lobby and entered the hallway.

The building was pitch black, with not even moonlight entering.

The broadcasting station had a complicated layout, but I had wandered through it so many times in the game that finding my way wasn’t difficult.

Relying only on my flashlight, I searched for the emergency stairs.

Just before turning the corner—

“GRAAAH!”

A zombie with rotting flesh hanging from its body suddenly lunged out.

I wasn’t someone who was easily startled by cheap jump scares.

I calmly swung the baseball bat in my hand.

Bam!

The zombie was knocked backward.

Since it was a zombie inside the Green Zone, dealing with one of them—even at night—was manageable.

I ignored the struggling creature and continued searching for the emergency stairs.

“…Hmm.”

But something about the area around the emergency staircase entrance was strange.

Along the hallway were multiple emergency exit signs featuring green running human figures, lined up in a row.

But the direction they pointed toward was strange.

They weren’t guiding people toward the emergency stairs.

They were pointing in the opposite direction.

It was unsettling, but there was nothing I could do.

I walked against the direction indicated by the green figures.

When I entered the emergency staircase, the first thing I noticed was the strange floor numbering.

⇧2smile.png⇩B1

The smile symbol seemed to indicate the current floor—1st floor.

My destination, the live studio, was on the 6th floor.

I quickly climbed the stairs and checked the sign again on the 6th floor.

⇧99nosmile.png⇩5

The smiling face had remained throughout the climb.

But on the 6th floor, it had turned into a crying face.

And the next floor was labeled as the 99th floor.

I examined the sign carefully.

‘This wasn’t in the game either.’

In the game, it was just a normal emergency exit.

There were no strangely arranged exit signs or weird smiley-face indicators.

Naturally.

‘Because it was a zombie game.’

Something like this didn’t fit the zombie genre.

It wasn’t something you would see in Dead Zone Delivery.

‘Something like Happy Smile Factory, maybe…’

I gripped my baseball bat and slowly opened the emergency stair door.

The flashlight beam stretched down the hallway beyond the door.

Nothing seemed unusual.

I carefully entered the 6th floor.

Among the three studios located there, I searched for the dedicated news studio.

The door was wide open, and the inside was a disaster.

There were traces of people fleeing in a hurry.

Dried blood stained the scattered news scripts on the floor.

I stepped over a fallen broadcast camera and headed toward the monitoring area.

Among the many large and small monitors, I needed to find the security USB.

Just as I was about to shine my flashlight—

The surroundings suddenly brightened, and an anchor’s voice echoed.

“An unidentified virus is occurring simultaneously throughout the nation.”

“The Korea Disease Control Agency has announced that infected individuals display high fever, extreme aggression, and temporary cognitive impairment.”

The monitors turned on by themselves, displaying a news broadcast.

I watched without surprise.

In the game, the monitors also turned on automatically and explained the world setting of Dead Zone Delivery.

“The government will announce specific countermeasures through an emergency briefing at 6 p.m. today.”

“We ask all citizens not to be misled by unverified information and to confirm accurate information through official announcements.”

A faint tremor could be heard beneath the calm voice.

Fear.

Anxiety.

The screen changed.

The anchor’s prediction had not been wrong.

“Citizens. We will now deliver the government’s emergency disaster order.”

The anchor’s voice was now closer to a scream.

“The unidentified infection spreading nationwide has exceeded controllable limits. The government is issuing a nationwide immediate evacuation order as of 18:00 today—no, stop, save me, aaagh!”

The news ended with both male and female anchors being attacked and bitten by zombies.

Ignoring their screams behind me, I searched the drawers and found the USB.

I put it into my pocket and was about to leave the studio—

when everything around me was dyed red.

I looked at the monitors.

Every single one displayed the same screen.

A bright red breaking news alert.

Breaking News!

For a moment, I was overwhelmed by the red screen.

Then the display changed.

The new image was…

me.

My own face appeared on the monitors, slightly pale as I stared upward.

‘Could it be Samra?’

But Samra couldn’t enter the trial.

And she couldn’t influence anything here either.

Just as I became tense from the unknown situation—

BOOM!

A tremendous explosion shook the entire building.

I staggered but managed to steady myself.

Cracks covered everything—the ceiling, the floor, everywhere.

The monitors that had been showing strange images moments ago were all broken, their screens filled with rainbow-colored distortions.

‘The impact came from above.’

After a brief thought, I ignored the destroyed monitors and ran toward the emergency stairs.

The building could collapse at any moment.

But instead of escaping downward, I headed upward.

Taking two or three steps at a time, I rushed toward the rooftop.

I worried that the 99th-floor phenomenon might happen, but fortunately, I reached the rooftop without incident.

nosmile.png nosmile.png nosmile.png nosmile.png nosmile.png

The floor signs were still a little strange, though.

I threw open the rooftop door.

‘…Crazy.’

A curse naturally escaped me at the sight beyond the door.

The transmission tower that had stood tall above the rooftop had been folded in half.

Its upper section was bent horribly and buried into the rooftop floor.

It looked less like a steel tower and more like a toy someone had crushed.

Someone was standing on top of the collapsed transmission tower.

Someone I absolutely should not meet alone right now.

You have discovered ‘Je Hyeon-oh’!

‘Je Hyeon-oh’ is a registrable character. Would you like to register him?