2―9. Game Over
After hearing the explanation, Jeong Minha asked with a dazed expression. The team leader answered with an even more excited face.
“That’s it! That’s exactly it! That’s why when I gave you the initial briefing, didn’t I say the powerful cure was basically all about luck? You have to kill that researcher to get the powerful cure, but the timing has to be right, and on top of that, you have to make a headshot in one shot from that distance… Honestly, this is called a hidden route in name only—we really made it just for fun. We made it thinking, ‘Who would actually try this?'”
“What…?”
“But you actually did it, and succeeded!”
The employees chattered excitedly among themselves, saying things like the success rate for this route is absurd, but it actually worked.
“W-wait a moment. Then the normal route is ultimately…”
“Ah, yes! Since they go to rest every five cycles, you just need to take that opportunity to quickly enter through the research lab’s main entrance. And as you go up the stairs while taking down the zombies inside the building… there’s a phone at the end, right? That appears. From there it’s the same—request rescue, get on the helicopter, and you succeed.”
“Oh my…”
Did I take the harder route? As Jeong Minha pondered quietly, he soon realized something important and smiled.
“But in the end, I could only save hyung by going the route where I shot that person.”
“Minha-ya…”
At Jeong Minha’s cool line, Seo Sihan was moved and barely held back the urge to hug him. The equally moved employees excitedly said:
“Wow… That’s so cool. Right! And actually, if you have the deductive skills to discover that route and the shooting ability to hit from that distance, it’s actually a more convenient and better route! When you take down the researcher, you get the cure, you get 3 more seconds, and since the zombies stop moving you can travel more comfortably, right? Oh, of course, instead of zombies, in that route you have to escape from a room at the end. If you can’t catch them with physical fighting, you catch them with brain power—that’s the idea. But our Director here too…!”
“Haha…”
As Seo Sihan laughed weakly, the employees murmured in admiration. Since he’s a high-ranking superior, they seemed hesitant to just freely chat with him. So this time, Jeong Minha spoke up loudly and excitedly on their behalf.
“Right! Hyung, no, the Director is really amazing, you know? How did he deduce from that huge room and quickly do mental calculations to escape in just a few minutes—I still can’t believe it. And even aside from that, just overall, hyung saying let’s go this way, let’s do this, I think that’s what this is—I was lucky he told me. If it weren’t for hyung… the Director, I’d still be fighting zombies, wouldn’t I?”
At Jeong Minha’s honest praise of the Director, the employees chimed in agreement and talked animatedly again. Still, we made it as a five-star difficulty room escape considering our own standards, but figuring out the trick is one thing—doing the mental calculations in an instant is cheating; we had it set up so you could get a calculator if you solved another trick next to it; and besides that, just everything overall was so perfect it gave us chills, etc…
The employees who had watched in real-time as Seo Sihan broke through quickly after discovering even the hidden route’s secret with his excellent judgment and deductive skills all chattered away. Jeong Minha, who had been nodding proudly as if it were his own achievement, suddenly had a question pop into his mind.
“But really… even if we’d gone the normal route, it would have been incredibly hard, right? Since you have to fight zombies until just before boarding the helicopter… Can you actually escape this?”
“That’s why it’s the employees’ labor of love, their masterpiece—Hard Mode! Want to try clearing it again using the normal route?”
“Uh, um… what?”
Even Jeong Minha, who loved games, was so flustered by the suggestion to do it again that it showed just how genuinely difficult it had been. In the end, Seo Sihan politely changed the subject instead. Rather than that, it would be better to make a promotional video with scenes where Player Jeong Minha was active from today’s playthrough… At those words, the employees cheered, and Jeong Minha was shocked.
“M-me?!”
“Don’t want to…? If Minha doesn’t want to, we won’t do it. Since we were the first to play the final stage this time, when we had the meeting before, they asked if they could make a promotional video with us. I didn’t mind so I said it was fine, but… if Minha doesn’t want to, we can reorganize with a different team…”
“No! It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just a little embarrassing…”
At what seemed to be Jeong Minha’s embarrassed remark, the shocked employees began passionately debating.
“What are you talking about?! Watching Player Jeong Minha today, all of us employees couldn’t keep our mouths closed! A 100% accuracy rate in the first place—does that even make sense?! I’m worried people might suspect you used hacks!”
“I really want to use that scene! The moment when Minha-nim took off the scope on the cable car and just shot everything with the naked eye! This is going to get insane views!”
“Me, that one! At the beginning when the Director was doing the axe decoy strategy and you saved him by immediately shooting everything with the pistol… I really thought I was watching a movie.”
“No, for a promotional video, it has to be hitting the boss at 2km distance with a single bullet…”
“Not just guns—we have to use the part at the end where you went back to the room, stopped time, and got on the helicopter!”
Listening to the endless debate, Jeong Minha rolled his eyes around and tried hard to suppress his rising smile. It was embarrassing that they’d all been watching, but at the same time, it all came back as praise, which made him feel good. Come to think of it, I was wearing a helmet anyway, so other people won’t know it’s me, right? Then it probably doesn’t really matter…
While the employees huddled together talking among themselves, Seo Sihan quietly turned his head toward Jeong Minha and whispered in his ear.
“Me too… Minha, you were so cool today, I really want to watch it again… Would that be okay?”
Because of Seo Sihan’s finishing blow, in the end, Jeong Minha raised both hands and surrendered.
* * *
One month later, in early September when it was starting to get cool.
The game officially opened.
A VR experiential zombie game taking place in a theme park—just hearing the description, people said it sounded incredibly fun and made reservations one after another. Despite the quite expensive per-person price, reservations were endless. Since they only accepted single-digit numbers of teams per day, reservations for several months filled up in no time.
The majority played on Easy Mode, considering time, stamina, and skill. With a maximum play time of about 2 hours, and zombies falling when hit anywhere on their bodies, everyone managed to escape safely.
People a bit more confident in their skills played Normal Mode. They only fell when shot in vital areas, and you could escape after playing for about 3 hours.
Also, several teams who bragged about having shot guns in the military applied for Hard Mode, but after hearing the explanation that followed, they all switched to Normal Mode. With a play time exceeding 5 hours, only headshot hits allowed, fast zombie speed, hopelessly insufficient bullets, and having to run around without rest—hearing all this, they ultimately lowered the difficulty. After all, they couldn’t waste their money dying from the start after paying such an expensive price.
Among them, a few brave souls actually played on Hard Mode. They were mainly famous MiTubers. At the employee’s words that only the ending couldn’t be shown on broadcast, they all attached cameras and played diligently. The MiTubers who entered with hopeful hearts thinking that if they just barely cut before the ending it would get good views all ended up with Game Over without even knowing the ending themselves.
With only headshots counting amid the surging zombie hordes, bullets were far too insufficient. Did they really make this for people to clear? Shouldn’t they bring in an actual special forces unit? In the end, people who gave up on guns tried close combat with axes or baseball bats, but that ended with being surrounded by zombie hordes and getting the infection ending.
However, their videos drew views from another angle.
“Do you see that ending credit right now, hyungs?”
In the ending credits, records for each mode were organized and displayed. Easy Mode showed only the records of people who played Easy Mode.
Therefore, the records that had been unknown until now because mainly lower stages were played were revealed by the MiTubers who played Hard Mode.
[―Escape Failed (Difficulty: Hard)―]
[Team Number: Team 6]
[End Time: Day 2, 3:17]
[High Score: Player 1 achieved 18% accuracy.]
[―All-Time Rankings―]
[1st Place]
[―Escape Successful (Difficulty: Hard)―]
[Team Number: Team 1]
[Escape Time: Day 5, 17:36]
[High Score: 100% Accuracy]
They made the ending credit screen into a huge thumbnail and blatantly drew aggro with red text saying “That Famous Game These Days, Cheating Suspicions?” The comments exploded.
―They cleared this crazy mode? Does that even make sense? 100% accuracy is fucking cheating to begin with
―I paid expensive money and barely got a reservation months out and now they’re saying it’s fake, I want to kill them
⤷Look at the number lol obviously they ran AI to test it duh
⤷Then shouldn’t they delete the record? Why would they leave test records on the official release lol
―If even AI takes 5 hours, who am I to have reserved Hard Mode, I’m going to cancel
As the SNS reaction blew up, several articles came out. The majority of people had the reaction that honestly only Hard Mode was a problem and many people enjoyed the other modes, so what can you do if the game is hard and you can’t beat it.
But when soldiers famous from entertainment broadcasts actually played Hard Mode and posted their records, everyone’s reactions started changing again.
[―Escape Failed (Difficulty: Hard)―]
[End Time: Day 4, 12:02]
[High Score: Player 2 achieved 81% accuracy.]
―Wow fuck if these hyungs only got this far then yeah it’s made so you just can’t clear it ㅇㅇ
―Hard Mode = money milking용
―It’s the most expensive difficulty but what are we supposed to do if they make it unclearable? Ah if it’s like this just keep having AI do it lol
―Ah this is a bit… did they really need to make it like this. Shouldn’t they adjust the difficulty? Hmm…
―I kept making reservations to clear this and ended up getting a proper workout ㄹㅇ my arms and legs got thick muscles but instead my bank account went negative
⤷So it was just gym PT
As people who played Hard Mode complained to customer service asking if it’s really something humans can clear, the development team was in chaos.
How much thought we put into balancing this difficulty! Team Leader-nim, I can’t stand it anymore! Release it quickly! The equally pissed team leader finally sent word to the PR team. Release that thing right now.
In the end, the next evening, a video was uploaded to the game department’s official MiTube.
