2―7. Mastermind
Is it a lure operation? Now that I’ve realized their identity, are they trying to kill me? Jeong Minha cautiously approached with his hand slipped into the pants pocket where the pistol was.
“Not the pistol, take the sniper rifle you found earlier.”
“Huk.”
Jeong Minha, who had been shouting things like “I won’t kill you, hyung,” “Let’s not fight,” and so on, looked behind the tree Seo Sihan told him about and asked in surprise.
“A ladder?”
He hadn’t noticed because he was so frantic earlier, but there was a ladder marked in blue behind the tree nearby.
“I’ll go up first, so follow me carefully.”
“What is this?”
“I think we’ll see if we go up….”
Seo Sihan immediately grabbed the ladder and climbed up. Jeong Minha followed right after.
Climbing the ladder all the way up, what had seemed to be a simple tree when viewed from outside was actually formed in the shape of a narrow cabin. Only a small gap of a window existed, and other than that, only a simple water bottle was placed there.
Seo Sihan, who arrived first, looked outside through the narrow window. Jeong Minha, who had to maintain a certain distance from Seo Sihan, just gulped down the water placed in the corner.
“Found it.”
“Huh?”
Seo Sihan stepped back from the window and moved to the opposite corner. At his hand gesture to look at the window, this time Jeong Minha got up from his seat and headed to the window.
“Oh, from here I can see the safe zone building at a glance? I can even see the back side… Huh? What’s that? Is it a person…? It’s moving?”
When he was amazed seeing a shape walking like a person while surrounded by black clothes, Seo Sihan calmly informed him.
“…That’s the person who shot you earlier.”
“What?!”
Jeong Minha took out the sniper rifle he’d been carrying on his back to the front. He immediately opened the window and aimed the gun barrel.
“So that bastard is the last boss, I guess? Right? Even if I’m wrong, I’m just going to shoot as revenge anyway.”
‘Because of that, I thought I got a cramp in my leg earlier and rolled around embarrassingly…! In the end, even hyung got infected!’ When Jeong Minha, burning with vengeance, immediately aimed the gun, Seo Sihan smiled and affirmed.
“Probably right. Since that person appeared, the zombie movements became faster.”
“Huh? Really? Wow, I had no idea….”
Jeong Minha looked back at Seo Sihan at this newly learned fact. ‘How did he even discover something like that? To think this kind of game also needs you to use your brain….’ While Jeong Minha was shocked, Seo Sihan continued explaining.
“I don’t know if the broadcast telling us to come to the safe zone was a lie from the start, or if that person went there after hearing the broadcast to attack, but….”
“That thing is on the same side as the zombies, right?”
“Yeah…. The researcher’s journal? It said to do what you can with that gun, so it seems right that it’s an escape condition. But… actually it’s so far that it took me a while to find it too, can you see it well?”
“It’s worse than when I shot from the cable car. But this time it’s just one person, so I think I can shoot while looking through the scope….”
“…Did it say there’s only one shot?”
“Yes….”
He checked the ammunition once more, but as expected, there was only one bullet loaded. To have this kind of escape condition at the very end—isn’t this too much even for hard mode? The pressure seemed immense. To relieve Jeong Minha’s burden, Seo Sihan brought up words he wasn’t even sure about.
“It’s okay, Minha-ya…. Thinking about it again, this is just an additional event? It seems like that. For it to be a necessary escape condition, the difficulty is too….”
“Hyung.”
“Yeah…?”
Even though Jeong Minha was the one who had to shoot, Seo Sihan was more nervous. Holding the water bottle with both hands, he could see the water trembling slightly.
Jeong Minha spoke with the same expression as always. In other words, he raised the corners of his mouth even more refreshingly for Seo Sihan, who could only see the lower face because of the helmet.
“Do you think I can’t hit it?”
“…! No, if it’s you, Minha….”
Somehow it was a conversation like déjà vu. Surely, when departing for the Olympics too, it was like this…….
Seo Sihan quietly watched Jeong Minha aiming the gun barrel with his mouth closed.
Jeong Minha fixed his gaze forward again.
The magnification wasn’t much, so even looking through the scope, he could only see it to the extent that the head and body were barely distinguishable. He turned the gun barrel toward the black figure moving like two dots.
Distance close to 2km, no wind, target moving irregularly. Time limit… until the target disappears from before his eyes.
Jeong Minha held his breath. For several seconds, he didn’t blink his eyes.
Then, just before the person in the black robe entered through the back door of the safe zone, he could see them briefly stopping their steps to insert a key into the door.
Jeong Minha said in a subdued voice.
“I always get perfect scores, you know.”
Bang—the bullet that flew at rapid speed precisely pierced the head of the person in the black robe.
At that moment, a blue notification window flashed on both their device screens.
[Hidden Quest Achieved! You have eliminated the researcher who spread the zombie virus. It appears the fallen researcher dropped one powerful cure from their bosom that they had saved to use themselves.]
As soon as they saw the device screen, the two jumped up.
“Oh! This is that thing, right! The thing that turns you back into a human even if you become a zombie!”
“Huk…. You really hit it from that distance?”
Seo Sihan was amazed at Jeong Minha’s shooting skills, and Jeong Minha was amazed at the quest reward. The two smiled happily.
However, at the continued guidance message, both of them had no choice but to immediately kick down the door and jump out.
[Caution: The researcher designed the entire area to explode 30 minutes after their heartbeat stops. Hurry and call the rescue team to escape from here!]
“Huk, heok!”
Jeong Minha took the lead and ran like crazy. Thanks to the regeneration potion given as an additional reward for clearing the hidden quest, he could run at speed again.
He became breathless from sprinting at full power because of the suddenly created time limit. Seo Sihan, whose stamina had gradually depleted, barely managed to follow from behind.
After that traitor or researcher or whatever they were fell, the zombies had also collapsed on the streets. It seemed they had been continuously controlling the zombies. Thanks to that, they could now swiftly run without the interference of zombie hordes. Of course, they ran while avoiding obstacles like building debris and fire scattered around.
“There it is!”
The two who hurriedly moved to the back of the safe zone building approached the fallen researcher’s corpse. The researcher’s face was covered by a mask, and their body was completely surrounded by a black robe as they lay face down on the ground.
Normally, Jeong Minha would have hesitated briefly at the realistic corpse, but right now he had no time to care about such things. He immediately pushed the corpse to flip it over. Unlike the zombies that had been phantoms, the researcher was quite heavy, as if actually made with machinery.
When he pushed the researcher from their spot, a cure marked in blue appeared where they had originally been lying face down. Quickly snatching it in case it disappeared, Jeong Minha stuck the cure syringe into the right shoulder of Seo Sihan, who was watching from behind.
“Urk……”
He only needed to hold it against him, but in his haste, Jeong Minha literally slammed the syringe down onto his shoulder. It hurt enough to make him completely forget the electric shocks that had been flowing through his body. Seo Sihan’s legs wobbled slightly.
“Ah, whoa! I’m sorry, hyung! Did it hurt?!”
“N-no. It’s okay….”
Still, it was an action done to save him, so what could he say? In the first place, even if Jeong Minha had hit him for a different reason, Seo Sihan probably wouldn’t have said anything.
Soon after, a “ttiring” notification sound rang from Seo Sihan’s device and a guidance message appeared saying the virus had been detoxified. On Jeong Minha’s device too, a reward was given as a hidden achievement: ‘Successfully returning a partner who became a zombie back to human.’
[Hidden Achievement Reward: You can stop the world’s time for 3 seconds. Press the corresponding button when needed.]
“What kind of reward says I can stop this world for 3 seconds? Only?”
“The reward doesn’t matter, but…. Thank you so much, Minha-ya. You could have left me and gone….”
“Ah, really! Without you, hyung… I’d still be fighting recklessly at the safe zone without even figuring out why there was a zombie wave, right? Then I would have gotten exhausted and gotten game over too.”
Seo Sihan laughed at the honest self-assessment. Jeong Minha also smiled facing him.
At that moment, Seo Sihan clasped both of Jeong Minha’s hands. ‘Wh-why suddenly?’ When Jeong Minha asked in surprise, Seo Sihan said with an eye smile that couldn’t be seen from Jeong Minha’s view because it was covered by the helmet.
“Now we can stick together again….”
“…Ah! R-right! Haha.”
Jeong Minha, who became embarrassed for no reason, grasped Seo Sihan’s hands and shook them vigorously. He was shaking them excitedly like children shaking hands when a warning alert rang once more.
[Caution: 20 minutes remaining until explosion.]
