Vol 2. Chapter 53: Doomsday Online (3)

- Stage will be open!

- Level 1. Difficulty is set to intermediate.

- Eliminate the enemies (5 individuals) within 30 minutes.

- Stage will begin in 10 seconds.

- 10. 9. 8. 7….

Just like yesterday, the location was in front of a destroyed, abandoned house. The only difference was that the time was set to night, and there wasn’t the dead body of a girl snarling before the abandoned house. After a while, the countdown ended and the ringing notification indicated that the stage began. Strangely, the situation remained unchanged. 

"It must be hiding in the building." I walked towards the destroyed, abandoned house. My steps were very light and relaxed, because… Boom! I had a steel club in my hand. 

"Kyaaaaaakk!"

"Earthenware pot[1]!" 

Crackle! As soon as I broke through the ragged door, the zombie girl who charged at me had her head smashed. My heart would have escaped from my chest to roll onto the floor if I had been a weak person facing such a surprising ambush, but all I felt now was satisfaction.

"Wow, this is pretty convenient though? Although it is a weapon, the stats have increased.” When I opened the status window, all my stats that were initially fixed at 10 increased to 30 points. It seemed like the physical stats of a healthy adult male would be about 30 points (Strength, Stamina, Health, etc.). In other words, I now had a  better physical ability than before I had gone to s.p.a.ce.

I felt no pressure as long as the opponent had the physical abilities of a middle school girl who was unarmed. That earlier attack was, in fact, a really light blow. She simply held onto a steel club, which she swung down as if relying on gravity. Not only was there no consumption in physical strength, but there was also no counter-reaction at all. She did not break any bones in her hands nor sprain her wrists.

"As expected, humans should use tools." I walked into the abandoned house, which was larger than it seemed. There were five rooms, including a kitchen, on the first floor alone, and the second floor appeared to be similar. I continued walking unhesitantly.

The darkness of the night could be seen outside the window. The only light source was the chandelier and a few candlesticks that hung on the wall. They created a spooky atmosphere, but it wasn’t enough to stop me from walking forward. 

Thuckkk! I went into the kitchen and smashed the head of the zombie girl who went into the refrigerator. I then pa.s.sed through the first floor to move towards the stairs that led to the second before jumping. Thuckkk! I broke the head of the zombie girl who hung from the chandelier, which looked fancy and camouflaged her presence. However, it was impossible to hide from me.

Project End

Level 1

Grief-stricken, Sebastian

Although she hid herself pretty meticulously, I could still see the t.i.tle. My ability essentially rendered her desperate attempt at a surprise attack useless, and her life was quickly forfeited. "Uuushaaa."

Booooom! As I opened the door, I twisted my body to avoid the falling stone statue. "What the, what is with this sloppy trap?" I grumbled and smashed the head of the zombie girl hiding behind the door. Thuckkk! It seemed that she would have ambushed me once I was impacted by the falling stone statue.

Thuckkk! With no need of going out of my way to strike, I smashed the girl who hung by the window just by swinging my hand which held onto a steel club.

-Clear!

- Standing by for all battles to finish.

"It"s simple, but it takes much longer," I commented. It took much longer compared to her attacking while charging from the front. Still, my speed was still commendable since I could locate the dead bodies with ease. It was possible that the others would be ambushed by the zombie girl. If they did not want to suffer from the surprise attack, they would have to calmly search the abandoned house.

"Well, it"s much better now that the stat restrictions have been lifted." I nodded to myself. Even if it was based on an ordinary person"s standards, 10 points was too low. It was also no exaggeration to say that all adult men were subjected to the stat restrictions. However, another problem arose with the 30-point stat limit.

"The average person often fails to raise all 30 points. Especially in the case of women, children, and the elderly." To put it nicely, it was just a stat adjustment and, with its limitations, the stats would only decrease rather than increase. Unlike the Level 1 Low-difficulty where the majority of stats reached its limit, the Intermediate-difficulty onwards left more people with less than the stat limit. If they did not actively use the Experience Potion that could be obtained from the gacha machine, they would have lower stats than what was needed to clear the relevant levels they were in. Similar to the majority of games, the level of difficulty would increase exponentially if the stats were lower than the corresponding level. 

Poof! I took out a steel chair and sat down. "Great! This works too." I received no responses yesterday when trying to take weapons out from the Unique World to the stage, but I succeeded this time. "I was afraid that they would only count the one that I held onto.” The steel club that I brought to the stage was made from smelting the iron ore that I purchased from the gacha machine. As expected, it wasn"t possible to use external items inside the stage. I wanted to make a gun if possible, so it was unfortunate that the gacha machine did not sell gunpowder. 

I think something like a crossbow should be possible.

"That"s true, but I don"t think a crossbow is particularly useless under such narrow conditions. Besides, the level seems to keep going up, so there will be a limit in terms of power."

I spent time doing various kinds of tests and whiling away my time… Then, I voiced out a concern, "…No, wait a minute. Why isn"t it over?" I placed the chair back into the Unique World. I was puzzled because this was an incomprehensible situation. The test itself clearly stated to eliminate the corresponding enemies (5 individuals) within an hour, but a few hours had pa.s.sed by now. Then, as if answering my complaint, I heard a notification. 

-Warning: 4,525,555,531 battles have not finished. 

-1,000,501,775 out of 6,696,651,249 examinees have pa.s.sed. The remaining people have been dealt with Death Procession.

-Partial updates will be made to the system. 

- Excessive time-consuming behaviors are considered as an act of surrender. 

-A re-test can be taken 12 hours after the end of the first test. In the case where an act of surrender is repeated twice, it will be dealt with Death Procession. 

I grasped the situation upon hearing the slightly different announcement from before. "Ahh... Some people haven"t entered the deserted house at all, huh?"

Come to think of it, an act of surrender was a good enough choice to take. 50 percent of humanity experienced death just 24 hours ago, and those who didn’t die had experienced the desperate struggle of killing, and being killed by, zombies. It would be normal for them to refuse to partic.i.p.ate in such a traumatic test.

-Do you want to start the next battle? If you knock down the enemies in quick succession, your number of clears will cancel the corresponding number of Death Procession. At the end of the stage, the Death Procession that isn"t retracted will be confirmed and cannot be reversed. 

"Start!" The entire situation, of course, had nothing to do with me. "Come here!" I kicked the door down and entered the abandoned house. This time, all five of them were on the first floor—one in the closet, one on the bathroom ceiling, one hiding beneath the broken floor, one hanging on the chandelier just like before, and one hiding inside the bed. "Crush the five siblings’ heads!”

Thuckkk! I crushed their heads before they could scream. The zombie kids, who were holding their breath for the surprise attack, died in their original state.

-Do you want to start the next battle?

- Do you want to start the next battle?

I continued the challenge, since the battles were easy. I could clearly guess where the hidden enemies were, my physical ability went through an improvement, and I was even holding on to a weapon. However, even though I was comfortably dealing with the enemy and rationing my stamina… My stamina was starting to run low. Unlike yesterday, it was impossible to resolve the battle in its place.

- Do you want to start the next battle?

It was when I cleared the test for the 201st time… 

-Death Procession has all been canceled. 

-Congratulations! The stage has been cleared! Rewards are given based on contribution.

- Your ranking is 9,147.

"I"m still at 9,000th place without holding back much? My stats have also reached its very limit. I am even holding on to a weapon.” Although the ranking had drastically risen from 5,000,000th place, I still blinked in surprise. It seemed that many people had quickly adapted to this test, or there were a lot of masters who went beyond the limitation of the stats. "This… The c.r.a.p." I approached the gacha machine that appeared and laughed. "It"s making me compet.i.tive."

- You earned 1,005 points as a clear reward.

-Point is a means of transaction and you can purchase Awakening Potion, Experience Potion, Equipment, Tools, and Materials.

- You have purchased 1,005 kilograms of iron ore!

-The stage has ended. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1.

***

It was summer, a period of time where sunrise came early, but it was a comparatively dark dawn compared to the ones in other time zones. The door to the training grounds, which were much quieter, opened. "Dae-ha!"

I roughly put down the big dumbbell that I repeatedly lifted. I turned to look at a man entering the training grounds in a suit covering his robust body. He looked like a gangster no matter how one looked at him, and I could hardly believe that he was just a high school student.

"Oh. It seems you"re alive and well, friend."

"What? Oh dear."

I swapped my body with the one in the Unique World and ordered it to go shower. Then, I followed behind Jae-seok with my dry and refreshed body.  We walked past the court ladies who seemed oddly rigid at times and headed towards the teahouse on the second floor of Gyeongh.o.e.ru Pavilion. It initially never opened at such a time, but was now seemingly opened 24 hours a day given the current state of affairs. 

"Are you feeling alright?" I asked while drinking a choco-brownie chocolate that was sweet enough to make the tip of my tongue tingle. It wasn’t a pointless question, since his left arm was bandaged.

"It"s not that bad of a wound. I was bitten because I couldn"t stop the b.a.s.t.a.r.d from jumping off the d.a.m.n chandelier."

"It"s not contagious, right? A zombie virus or something." It was just a question I asked without much thought. In fact, Jae-seok was just a little hurt and did not show any signs of infection. I just asked to check because I wasn"t bitten. 

However, he gave me an unexpected answer. "It"s contagious."

"What, really?" I asked in surprise. Was he trying to tell me that a zombie epidemic was rampant even in the midst of this whole mess?

Jae-seok just looked baffled at my reaction. "What a basic question... Did you not even get bit once? No, more than that, do you not even watch the news? The whole world is in such a chaos."

"Well, I just…”

"Wow, what a sn.o.b… Well, there"s nothing to worry about. It"s contagious, but it won"t be a problem after going back to reality. Similarly, the zombie virus apparently can"t be brought over into reality. Once we return to reality, only the injuries would remain."

"How do you know it is contagious?"

"I was bit on my hand when I cleared the test for the 44th time. In the 56th time, the infection spread to my shoulders and stopped me from proceeding further. To be honest, my last clear was rather forceful and I almost died."

Come to think of it, it was impossible to bring things from the stage into reality. All I could bring over were things that I bought from the gacha machine in the stage. In other words, only an injury would remain upon my return to reality, and no external viruses or curses would follow along.

"By the way, you broke it 56 times? Come to think of it, you..." Only then did I realize that something about Jae-seok had changed. A gentle Life Energy was emitted from all over his body, and he wore a bright smile on his face. Although we were all in a serious situation given the fact that doomsday was coming, his face was still full of joy.

"Yes, that"s right. I"ve awakened my spiritual ability. Life Energy."

"Huh," I commented. It was surprising, because...he had little talent for spiritual ability. It was necessary to cultivate and develop spiritual ability, as well as make an effort to do so, but unconditional talent was needed for learning it. It was almost impossible for a talentless person to awaken his or her spiritual ability unless he or she used a unique great spell or consumed a special elixir. 

"The gacha machine seems to have a tremendous effect."

"I know, right. I gave up after struggling so hard, but I didn"t know I"d get a chance like this. It wasn"t an easy matter even with the huge wealth that Ilsung possessed."

I looked at Jae-seok for a moment before having a sudden thought. "What"s the training method of your Life Energy? With your face, the Hwarang’s Way of Heaven Earth Flower would be difficult."

"I can"t learn Hwarang’s Way of Heaven Earth Flower even if I had a good-looking face. Do you know how strict and inflexible the Lee Family is? Would they even accept and train a person from a chaebol family who"s already pretty old? There are many training methods, so I"ll buy something that can be purchased with money."

"Hmm." I checked my plans for a moment. Come to think of it, Jae-seok had a better condition than what I initially thought. "Well, how about this one?"

"What?"

"I"ll teach you the training method I learned," I said out of the blue.

Jae-seok"s expression turned serious, because he probably knew of the Lee Family"s extremely cautious att.i.tude towards me. The Lee Family were thorough, all the way down to the control of information. He was not from the Lee Family, but he was the grandson of the chairman of Ilsung, who controlled the Korean economy. He was also the hands and foot of the Imperial Princess who ruled over the Lee Family in the current circ.u.mstances. He might not specifically know everything about me, but he certainly knew that I was an extraordinary existence. His gaze directed towards me was complicated. "I"ve known you for a long time and I thought I knew you well... I really don"t know. It was the same with Yeong-min-hyung, who turned into a Ghost Blade and saved the Lee Family despite looking like a frail little girl."

"…I didn"t know about Hyung either." I shrugged, because I truly couldn’t even begin to guess. I did not know that the Ghost Blade t.i.tle that Hyung had obtained was because he handled the sword like a ghost, or that he continuously fought every night—with his life on the line—in a special place that I did not know about. 

"It"s just guesswork, but I a.s.sume that the training method you"re learning is stronger than the ones that the Lee Family has, right?" Jae-seok asked.

Spiritual study on Earth-34 had developed to an unbelievable extent with the arrangement and support of the Great Wizard, so it was hard to believe that Earth-34 was a backwater planet. However, even so, it was not comparable to the systematic spiritual abilities of the Empire that was recognized even in the Great Universe. It was not just the simple matter of the spiritual study, but rather, there was a huge difference in the infrastructure that supported it. 

"Well, I"d be grateful if you would teach me. Do I need to prepare anything?" 

"All you have to do is bring your body."

"What? Just like thattt-?"

Pooof! As soon as I touched Jae-seok"s hand, his figure disappeared. Slurppp. I sucked on the straw and sipped the choco-brownie chocolate. "Ahhh, it"s sweet." It was 7 in the morning, so it basically happened three hours before the second-round test took place.

1. Ttukbaegi (뚝배기) earthenware pot: A black or brown earthenware vessel in which jjigae, a Korean stew, is cooked or gukbap, a Korean rice stew, is served.