Genius Archer’s Streaming - Chapter 298
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————
The Genius Archer’s Streaming Season 2 Episode 18
6. Combat (2)
“Even taking a bathroom break is rough.”
Almond trudges into the convenience store.
His shirt is soaked with blood, and the mop handle in his hand is stained a deep crimson.
The store clerk instinctively takes a step back.
“You, you… how are you alive…? Those zombies are all…”
“Just close the door. They’re not dead.”
“…?”
Not dead? They look unmistakably dead.
The clerk rises on her tiptoes to peer over Almond’s shoulder.
‘They’re moving…?’
Almond was right. The zombies were still moving. Just very slowly. In fact, they were moving even slower than their usual sluggish pace.
“Close it.”
“Oh, okay.”
Thud.
The clerk obediently shut the door. She had no desire to face the zombies again.
-She listens well lol
-???: (Still, she’s got her pride as a senior…) Oh! Yeah!
-If Almond says to close it, you close it~ What choice do we have lol
“Wait, what’s going on? Why are they like that? Do they stop moving when night falls?”
“…Night?”
Almond responds in surprise at the clerk’s words.
Night, she says.
“Yeah. It’s night right now. 9 PM.”
“…?”
The convenience store clerk’s phone indeed showed 9 PM.
“Is that a glitch?”
“What are you talking about? All the news articles show the correct time.”
Using the exact same method he’d employed to convince her earlier, Almond found himself convinced.
He switches his microphone channel to the broadcast and asks.
“It’s not night right now, is it?”
-Yeah it is
-Not here lol
-Time must be flowing faster! It’s a game after all!
“…When I attended the lecture last time, time flowed normally. Is this relativity?”
-Einstein: You fell asleep during my lecture, didn’t you?
-That’s just because you were boring
-If this isn’t relativity, what is it!
-Einstein and Almond are the same person. Seriously lol
Observing the viewers’ reactions, I realize that time in the real world hasn’t passed much at all—only here has it accelerated rapidly.
Most survival games employ this mechanism, so there’s nothing unusual about it.
What’s frustrating(?) is that during class time, time actually flowed in real-time.
“So that’s why I was so hungry.”
Now I finally understand why this character kept complaining about hunger. If I think about it, the accelerated time flow makes sense.
-Oh. I see.
I was like, why are you trying to die without even eating one lunch lol
-So it wasn’t just because he’s in a growth phase….
I’m gradually learning more about this game.
The shaggy-haired one sitting quietly at the table speaks up.
“What’s that?”
What he’s pointing at is apparently a mop handle.
“This….”
I explain that I sharpened a large mop handle by scraping its edge to create a spear.
I explained it with considerable pride, but….
‘There’s already something similar.’
There was a spear here too. A cutter knife was bound to what looked like a steel pipe—I’m not sure where it came from.
Was about to brag but then discovered the window lol
-Everyone has at least that much of a weapon~!
-Almond’s expression is so cute
-???: Wait, I’m not the only one with a spear!?
My expression must have revealed some emotion, as the viewers tease me about it.
Ahem.
I clear my throat once and try to change the subject.
“Why couldn’t you kill it? Doesn’t that weapon work?”
But this shaggy-haired one doesn’t seem intent on ending the conversation.
“…Yeah.”
Yeah. Right. Well. It doesn’t work.
I swallow the flood of words that follow and realize I need to explain what I’ve learned from my encounters with zombies. The information I’ve gathered.
“Killing a zombie turns out to be harder than I initially thought.”
* * *
The shaggy-haired man carefully organized what Almond had told him.
“So you’re saying zombies can’t die unless you smash their heads?”
“Yeah. To be precise, the brain.”
“I tried stabbing the heart too, but it kept moving just fine… And those zombies lying over there are the result of you severing all the arm muscles, leg muscles, and core muscles.”
“Yeah.”
“You… what exactly are you?”
The shaggy-haired man looked Almond over with an incredulous expression.
The convenience store clerk felt the same way.
“Wow. Are you some kind of special forces operative? You didn’t look like it at all….”
Considering the setting was that he hadn’t even graduated high school yet, calling him special forces seemed like a stretch.
Almond didn’t know how to respond, but thankfully, the shaggy-haired man just moved on.
“Anyway. To sum it up, we need a weapon capable of crushing skulls.”
“Yeah.”
The shaggy-haired man scratched his head for a moment and muttered to himself.
“A hammer… would that work….”
“What about something like a bow?”
At the sudden question, the shaggy-haired man blinked for a moment.
“…A bow?”
Since the word “bow” itself wasn’t commonly used, Almond understood that it took time to process.
“Yeah. A bow. The kind you shoot.”
When Almond demonstrated the stance, the shaggy-haired man shook his head.
“How am I supposed to make that?”
“….”
Almond’s expression fell with disappointment.
-Why are you getting all gloomy lol
-Did he expect him to make one??
-Hey. I’m just a normal high school student?!
-???: What… what a letdown.
-I thought he was playing the blacksmith role. Guess he’s disappointed he’s not lol
“You don’t seem to understand. To pierce a skull with a bow and hit it with that kind of precision, you’d need to be incredibly skilled. Why do you think the gun became so revolutionary after it was invented?”
“I’m skilled.”
“…?”
-Stop breaking the NPC you bastard lol
-Wait, why does he have that same expression Mingu Han had on that talk show??
At Almond’s words, the shaggy-haired man looked him up and down for a moment.
“What’s your real identity… Are you on the archery team or something?”
The archery team?
Perhaps it was because of the school setting recreated in the background, the uniforms from that era, and the nostalgic environment that stirred memories.
Thump.
Almond’s heart suddenly raced at those words.
‘Is there an archery club?’
If the school was modeled after a Korean institution, it wouldn’t be particularly common.
If an archery club existed, it would have been included for the weapons.
“There are bows in the gymnasium’s archery range. But… I think they shoot with arrows that don’t have arrowheads…”
The shaggy-haired man scratches his chin.
“Maybe we could make arrowheads and swap them in.”
That’s useful information.
At least it means there’s a possibility of obtaining a bow if we can reach the gymnasium.
“But reaching the gymnasium right now seems impossible! There are this many zombies here too!?”
The convenience store clerk interjects, trying to dissuade them.
“…That’s true.”
The shaggy-haired man agrees.
Almond agrees with this as well. We can’t even kill the zombies here right now. The gymnasium is far enough that we’d have to cross the playground to reach it.
‘For now, crafting a spear and using that seems like the best option.’
Fighting with close-range weapons appears to be the way to go for now.
“You said smashing their heads seems to be the answer, right?”
The shaggy-haired man picks up a hammer and shows it.
“With this… it should be somewhat better.”
Screech.
The sight of wrapping the hammer to an iron pipe with box tape. It looks skillful.
“Here.”
A long blunt weapon with a claw hammer attached to the end of the iron pipe was complete.
“Let’s test it.”
Then the clerk gasps in horror.
“Test?!”
“…?”
The shaggy-haired man quietly turns to look at the clerk.
“You’ll probably need the bathroom the most.”
“Ah… well, but even if we kill all the zombies, won’t more just come from somewhere else? I saw on Ollytube that zombies are most sensitive to sound, and next is smell. Apparently their vision isn’t that good.”
That kind of content is being uploaded to Ollytube? It seems odd, but with the network still active and zombies roaming around, it certainly made sense.
“So what I’m saying is, the sound of us smashing zombies with the hammer will reach the upper floors. Then more zombies will come…”
In other words, every time we go to the bathroom, we’ll eventually face zombies. This is a terrible quality of life.
“I have a plan for that.”
That’s what Almond said.
Surprisingly, this time he proposes a strategy.
‘It’s shown on the minimap too. I definitely saw it there.’
He explains the operation he came up with.
“There’s something called a fire door.”
“Ah!”
The shaggy-haired man claps his hands as soon as he hears this, as if understanding what I mean.
“Hallways, stairs, passages—once they’re spaced a certain distance apart, they’re required to install them. It’s a school regulation.”
“…Ah. Those iron doors!”
The store clerk seems to finally understand what I’m talking about.
“The western stairs are right next to our convenience store, so we can just step out and close them. The key is the eastern stairs.”
“If we close the eastern stairs too…?”
“Then we can use everything down here in the basement—the music room, restrooms, indoor gymnasium—all of it becomes ours.”
“!”
That’s right.
This school… or rather, every school across the nation can expand territory this way.
Thanks to fire doors serving as natural barricades. And schools are packed with desks and heavy objects perfect for building actual barricades on top of those fire doors.
“If we do this, we can keep expanding our territory anywhere in the school.”
“Wow…! That’s brilliant!”
-Hodu’s insane spin lol
-Be honest, you’re Juhyeok Kim, aren’t you?
-Almond, please come back to the Capsule now~
It was an incredibly practical and effective plan.
If we claim this entire basement corridor, including the restrooms, we could cover sanitation in addition to food supplies.
“So while the zombies are in bad shape right now, what if we head to the northern stairs and close the door?”
This is my proposal.
Now, while the zombies are neutralized, was our opportunity.
“Killing the zombies will make noise. So instead, we go quietly to the northern stairs without killing them.”
There’s no need to kill the zombies in this plan.
For the other two, it’s definitely something worth attempting.
“Yeah. Let’s do it.”
The store clerk speaks as if making a resolve.
“I, I think I could actually handle zombies in that state. No, I have to try. I’ve watched so much on Ollytube. I can do this.”
She repeats the same words over and over, as if speaking to herself.
The shaggy-haired man nods as well.
“…Of course we have to. We need to survive.”
Survival.
The word hasn’t quite sunk in for the three of us yet, but if today passes and tomorrow comes, that could change.
By then, it might be too late to execute this plan.
“L, let’s map out the operation precisely. What if something goes wrong once we’re out there?”
The store clerk suggests.
I agree with what she’s saying.
Since we’ve already used the restroom once, there’s no reason to rush.
* * *
Almond tore a sheet from his notebook and sketched a diagram to show them precisely.
“We close the two fire doors in front of the stairs here. Then the zombies can’t come down anymore.”
The convenience store clerk and the shaggy-haired man nodded, finally understanding properly.
“Ah….”
“Now I get it.”
The three of us stood in a line in front of the convenience store door. All of us held new weapons.
“Then let’s open it.”
Almond grasps the convenience store door handle and asks.
‘Yeah.’
‘Okay.’
Thump. Thump.
The store clerk’s heartbeat echoes out into the open.
It was understandable. There was reason to be nervous. Would the zombies still be incapacitated? They couldn’t know for sure.
It was natural to be afraid, since they might encounter zombies the moment they stepped outside.
But what choice did they have? This was something they had to accomplish.
Creak.
Almond opened the door.
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————