2―10. The Video
At 8 PM, a video was uploaded to the official MiTube channel of the game department that had been embroiled in controversy. It was an edited video about 5 minutes long, resembling a movie trailer.
At the beginning, there was a brief explanation of the game, followed by footage of people playing Easy Mode and Normal Mode. Some people failed, but footage of successful players was also shown.
After Normal Mode ended, the screen suddenly turned black. The gentle background music also stopped for a moment.
Soon, gunfire rang out.
Bang—, with the following sound, the black screen changed back to the ruined city.
In the distance appeared the figure of a person holding a sniper rifle while wearing a helmet and equipment. At the top of the screen, it read “Hard Mode.”
Suddenly, fast-tempo background music flowed in and sirens wailed like crazy. Two people appeared running across a central road bridge, fighting against endlessly pouring zombies. Boom, boom—perfectly timed to the beat, it felt like watching an action movie.
The taller person wielded an axe, sweeping through the zombies’ heads, while beside them another person ran with pistols in both hands, precisely shooting only the zombies’ heads.
Similar large-scale battles continued with only the background changing. The central road, an office, an abandoned hospital, up to a weapons warehouse. The scenes kept switching rapidly, but the two people continued fighting with the axe and guns.
The black screen appeared again briefly, then transitioned to a scene showing a cable car floating in the air. Soon, the person with the sniper rifle removed the scope and shot vertically downward at the zombies on the ground in rapid succession.
Then once again, the screen turned black.
Click—the background music that had been playing continuously stopped. Only gasping breaths and the sound of running footsteps could be heard.
At that moment, a single sentence appeared on the black screen.
[There is a traitor among them.]
In that instant, a warning notification sound rang out with intense noise.
Multiple scenes passed in time with the voice counting down from 10 seconds. The silhouette of a person wearing a black robe, a player falling down, someone being carried and supported, a scope gazing at a distant place, a blue syringe held in hand, a mysterious room, two people running down a dark corridor, someone clutching a telephone, up to a scene of running on a rooftop.
Matching the final 1-second voice, a scene of two people reaching out their hands toward a helicopter appeared enlarged, then all sound disappeared as it changed to a black screen.
[―Escape Successful (Difficulty: Hard)―]
[Escape Time: Day 5, 17:36]
The sentence that had been receiving endless AI suspicions on the internet appeared and then disappeared.
After a while, the black screen lit up again.
The viewpoint slowly descended from the dark sky tinged with red. The backs of two people standing on a building rooftop in the ruined city were visible. The camera slowly moved toward the person aiming the sniper rifle next to the person holding the axe.
The person put down the gun, removed their helmet, and lightly swept back their hair. The figure that had only shown their back gradually came closer.
Soon, the approaching camera stopped.
Right after that person turned around, the screen was covered in black.
[Highest Score: 100% Accuracy Rate]
The video, which displayed only a single sentence briefly, soon ended.
People who had been watching with bated breath at the video that was like a proper movie trailer let out exclamations as soon as the video ended. This was because most people recognized the face that had been shown briefly. After that, the internet went crazy again.
* * *
Going back to before, in fact, the last scene wasn’t actually part of the game. That’s because Jeong Minha would stop Seo Sihan if he tried to take off his helmet while playing the game, but he himself had never taken off his helmet in the middle of shooting.
However, after the game officially opened. Jeong Minha, who usually browsed the internet frequently, discovered a certain video. The video thumbnail with a title written as “Fraud Suspicion” showed the play record that he and hyung had done.
“What’s this?”
Having watched the video all the way to the end, Jeong Minha felt wronged.
An AI test! After hyung and I cleared it with so much difficulty! However, it was embarrassing to directly comment on that video saying, “This was me.”
Eventually, while eating dinner, when he casually brought up the topic to Seo Sihan, Seo Sihan actually laughed and answered.
“It’s because Minha did too well. Even I, who watched directly from the side, can’t believe it….”
“Mmm….”
That’s probably true, right? Though he felt proud, he still couldn’t help feeling uncomfortable. Jeong Minha had no choice but to just eat the delicious dinner until his cheeks were completely full. It was a taste that relieved stress on its own.
And the next day, Seo Sihan held an additional meeting with the PR team.
Originally, the PR team had planned to release a promotional video when the game opened, but Seo Sihan had suggested waiting a few weeks. This was because he thought it would be better to upload the video when people who had played Hard Mode left their reactions, rather than releasing it immediately.
And so, now that a month had passed since the release. Seo Sihan’s judgment in anticipating people’s reactions was exactly on point. Now was the right timing to release the video.
However, if they only released videos of previous gameplay, people could claim that even those were staged. Since helmets were worn, it was difficult to recognize who the protagonists were. Seo Sihan pondered.
Eventually, as soon as he got off work that evening, he gave Jeong Minha unlimited sincere compliments and asked if he could briefly show his face. Jeong Minha, who had coincidentally felt wronged, became even more confident thanks to Seo Sihan’s compliments, and said that if they were going to film it, they should film it stylishly.
As soon as he got permission, Seo Sihan immediately contacted the PR team and took Jeong Minha to the studio the next day. The result was the current video.
Jeong Minha muttered, “Will this be enough? Won’t it be even more embarrassing if no one recognizes me? People will be like, ‘Who is that person acting all cool at the end?'” However, Seo Sihan could say for certain. What are you talking about when Minha is now totally world-famous…….
Just as Seo Sihan said, right after the video was released, people’s atmosphere completely changed.
―If the 1st place was athlete Jeong Minha, you should have told us from the start. This is acknowledged.
―You’re releasing this now? Amazing; If it were me, I would have been so excited I would’ve leaked it before the game even opened and gotten fired;;
―Getting a patriotic high from a game video, does this make sense?
―Wow…seriously fraud-level. How do you get 100% accuracy?? Thinking about it, even AI probably couldn’t do that well.
―Pleasegiveusmorepleasegiveusmorepleasegiveusmore
―No, there’s no one who can clear Hard Mode so they brought Jeong Minha? ** So funny.
⤷I’m so curious what they asked himㅋㅋ Company: It’s a zombie game and it takes almost 5 hours and you can only do headshots and you have to run around all day blah blah / Jeong Minha: What the fuck 〈―This is the only thing I can imagine, seriously how could you do it?
⤷This is seriously ㅇㅈ ㅋㅋㅋ He seems like someone who wouldn’t do this sort of thing at all, but he ran around doing all that shit without complaint?? The leisure of a world #1 is different. I respect you.
―Who is the person running with him?? Is that person also an athlete?? Even with the helmet, their proportions look fraudulent… No, how can someone do close combat with an axe so deliciously? Was there an axe event at the Olympics by any chance?
⤷What are you talking about?
⤷Ah, I was curious about this too. Crazy, one person is long-range and one person is short-range? This is a fraud combo for the game…
⤷From now on, Hard Mode must be done with this combination. Thanks for the answer key.
⤷Can you even do it?
⤷Quiet…^^
―No one’s talking about the story… No, Easy and Normal seem ordinary but what’s this about a traitor in Hard? Looking at the video, they do some kind of room escape and shoot weird things, it’s no joke. There was a reason Hard is so expensive.
⤷Is the traitor maybe their own teammate?
⤷It seems like other people also appear ㅁㄹ
―Holy shit, they hit everything while running, this seriously doesn’t make senseㅋㅋㅋ That cable car thing was really high, how do you shoot zombies on the ground without a scope?? Come out, you bastard who said they can’t do long-range earlier. This is just 〈a god〉…..
⤷It’s seriously so cool I can’t even imitate it. Why are you filming an action movie here???
⤷Honestly, isn’t that just acting? You can just composite it.
⤷You should watch the Olympics as composites too.
⤷ㄹㅇ After seeing those crazy consecutive perfect scores, still doubting their skills, that intelligence level.
―I’m really, really curious… Can’t you release more videos? Just go ahead and make it into a movie at this point.
⤷Please
⤷(50 agreeing comments…)
Seeing people’s reactions, the PR team threw a party with the development team. The sales these days are no joke—they ate meat and drank alcohol excitedly while chattering, and a topic that had been frequently requested in the comments came up.
“There’s also talk about a movie, can’t we just release all the footage? It seems like it would promote better. Anyway, there’s no voice and their faces are covered by helmets, so it doesn’t matter.”
“I thought that too, but the Director said that won’t do….”
“Huh, really?”
“Actually, the Director himself said he didn’t really mind. But apparently Jeong Minha-nim said that enough of his performance has already been shown, and doing more would be meaningless. To me, it all looked amazing…. Anyway, since the Director said no, we can’t help it.”
“Ah….”
Since he was the only one who had cleared Hard Mode, which had almost failed to open at all, and had already promoted it splendidly, they couldn’t push further. At the team leader’s declaration that they should be satisfied with the current situation, everyone raised their glasses in a toast and drank.
