I'm a Young God, so Please Raise Me - Chapter 29
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————
Chapter 29
The metal wings folded with a sharp metallic screech.
Je Hyeon-o landed on the Rooftop, a backpack suspended from his metal hand by several carabiners.
Only a single ring had survived the descent, dangling from his metallic grip.
Having successfully retrieved the backpack, Je Hyeon-o set it down and tilted his head to the side.
“Colonel.”
Gwak Han-muk, who had been waiting on the Rooftop while eating potato chips, brushed the crumbs from his hands.
Mo Hae-in, standing beside him, exchanged a silent nod before picking up the backpack and descending the Emergency Stairwell.
She needed to quickly deliver the items to Lee Ga-on.
Gwak Han-muk delivered a brief report to Je Hyeon-o.
“During the Basement Area boss battle, Han Go-yo’s eyes changed to gold. Captain Mo Hae-in reported it earlier, and it matched the symptoms I witnessed in the Yellow Zone.”
After a brief silence, a gravelly voice emerged.
“Just gold?”
Je Hyeon-o pushed his goggles up onto his forehead, revealing his eyes.
“Or the same color as mine?”
Gwak Han-muk, observing the vivid golden pupils—distinct from the indigo irises—answered with certainty.
“The exact same color as your pupils, Colonel.”
Having seen it twice, there was no room for confusion. But there was one difference.
“However, in Han Go-yo’s case, it wasn’t just a temporary color change—it seemed to emit light.”
“It sparkled?”
Sparkled.
That wasn’t quite the right word. Gwak Han-muk retraced the scene he had witnessed.
And I chose the closest feeling from the words I knew.
“I’d say it was more like a radiance.”
At Gwak Han-muk’s words, Je Hyeon-o’s eyes crinkled as he laughed.
He put his goggles back on.
“I’d like to see it myself. What would I have to do to make it happen?”
“You mustn’t kill him.”
“I know.”
It was just as Gwak Han-muk received that decidedly unconvincing answer from Je Hyeon-o.
A chime sounded, and a system window materialized.
◆Main Quest: Defend the Research Facility.
Defend the Research Facility from zombies for 3 days. (0/3)
***
“Do you see it? Han Go-yo, look at this, you can see this, right? I can’t believe it….”
Lee Ga-on trembled violently as she shouted at me after finishing the test.
“Han Go-yo was the cure!”
She rattled off incomprehensible jargon about serums and antibodies at breakneck speed.
I didn’t understand half of what she said, but I grasped the essential point.
My blood was the cure for the zombie virus Pandora.
“Sob, Han Go-yo….”
Lee Ga-on’s eyes finally glistened with tears.
The cruel memories of suffering at the hands of Tak Ju-chul and Paeng Sang-do seemed to have vanished entirely, and her tear-stained face overflowed with joy.
I was naturally pleased as well, but truthfully, it didn’t feel real.
It seemed I had never anticipated events would unfold in this manner.
“First, I’ll try to produce enough cure for two people, and I’ll work on vaccine production simultaneously.”
“How much blood will you need?”
“We’ll need at least 400ml….”
Lee Ga-on broached the subject carefully.
“Under normal circumstances it might be fine, but in a situation like this, you might feel quite exhausted after the blood draw.”
It did seem certain that the lack of proper rest would take its toll.
‘But there’s no point in delaying it either.’
Developing the cure even a day sooner was the most critical priority.
I readily extended my forearm.
Lee Ga-on gazed at the blue veins running along my forearm with covetous eyes.
She swallowed hard, murmuring as if entranced.
“I’ll prepare for the blood draw.”
…I was grateful I had built up favorable rapport with Lee Ga-on beforehand.
If I had been Tak Ju-chul or Paeng Sang-do, I might have lost an arm.
In an instant, she gathered a 16-gauge needle and blood bags, seating me on a makeshift cot in the corner of the Research Facility.
“It’ll be done in ten minutes.”
Then she hurriedly typed something into a tablet and disappeared.
I stared at the blood flowing into the collection bag.
A chiming sound rang out, and a system window materialized before me, who still couldn’t grasp the reality of the situation.
◆Main Quest!?
: Defend the Research Facility for 3 days against the incoming hordes of zombies.
Unbelievable! You have discovered a cure that does not exist.
This remarkable Achievement will delight Akasha.
However, to reach your own true ending, one final trial remains.
For three days while the vaccine and cure are being produced, you must defend the Research Facility against endless waves of zombies that assault it every night.
Can you succeed again!? You will succeed again! Success!
You pledge to yourself that you will absolutely succeed this time as well.
(Current defense success count: 0/3)
The message contained some strange elements, but it was the main quest I was familiar with.
In DeZomDeal, it was known as the “Three Days of Death”—a Defense Quest bearing the notorious nickname “Ending Cutter” for its reputation of preventing players from ever witnessing the conclusion.
‘Does it start tonight?’
The timer ran from sunset to sunrise the following morning, leaving precious little time to prepare.
I found myself wishing I’d secured more submachine guns beforehand.
Yet I harbored no serious concerns.
After all, my team possessed the perfect asset for large-scale combat.
I studied the system window, contemplating the most efficient strategy, when a shadow suddenly fell across my vision.
Wondering why it had grown so dark, I lifted my gaze without much thought—then flinched in surprise.
Dark goggles stared down at me.
“Colonel Je….”
I called out to him, pressing a hand against my startled, racing heart.
I rarely jumped at jump scares, but Je Hyeon-o’s habit of thrusting those goggles into my face genuinely caught me off guard every time.
The puncture wound throbbed dully. I gazed at my own reflection in the lenses and asked.
“When did you arrive?”
Of course, I didn’t truly expect an answer.
The cold aura radiating from him suggested he’d only just gotten here.
‘Given that the next Quest appeared, it seems he delivered to Lee Ga-on successfully too.’
I accepted his silence as response and checked whether my blood was being drawn properly.
Then I glanced past Je Hyeon-o’s shoulder.
Mo Hae-in and Gwak Han-muk were approaching, engaged in conversation.
“Recruit.”
Mo Hae-in asked with visible tension etched across her face.
“Have you checked the Quest window?”
“Yes. Zombies will swarm us starting tonight.”
I gave my superiors a brief overview of the Quest.
When I mentioned the timeframe—from sunset until sunrise the next day—Mo Hae-in’s expression visibly relaxed.
She’d apparently feared we’d be harassed by zombies continuously for all three days and nights without respite.
Mo Hae-in preemptively disclosed her status.
“I won’t be able to participate on the final day.”
After tomorrow passed, Mo Hae-in would become a full zombie.
More precisely, she would complete her transformation around the time the sun rose following the second battle’s conclusion.
However, since unforeseen complications could arise, it seemed prudent for her to withdraw during the second battle itself for safety’s sake.
I explained my reasoning and added one more point.
“We shouldn’t lack combat strength. Colonel Je is with us, after all.”
The real problem lay with Gwak Han-muk’s zombification.
Today being the first day of infection, it remained manageable, but by the second day, suppressing his aggression would prove nearly impossible.
Even if he exercised restraint under normal circumstances, once combat began his instincts would be far too stimulated—I had to assume he’d inevitably attack me.
“That’s why I think we should divide our positions and conduct the battles in separate sectors.”
I, being human and the weakest link, would handle ranged attacks from the Rooftop in the rear; Je Hyeon-o would take the central frontline; Gwak Han-muk and Mo Hae-in would cover both flanks.
Since their zombification had elevated their stamina and strength, this distribution should work effectively.
“But Go-yo.”
Gwak Han-muk, who had been listening to me intently, suddenly interjected.
“Why are you drawing blood?”
Only then did I realize I hadn’t explained the most crucial fact.
As I pondered how to explain it, Lee Ga-on appeared right on cue.
“I’ll remove the needle.”
Despite the presence of two zombies and a pair of goggles, she approached without hesitation, checked the blood bag, and withdrew the needle from my arm with practiced efficiency.
Her eyes gleamed with something far beyond fear—a fervor bordering on madness.
The exhilaration of discovering a cure seemed to suppress everything else within her.
Gwak Han-muk, who had been observing Lee Ga-on’s mad scientist demeanor, asked again.
“Researcher. Why extract the blood?”
Lee Ga-on cried out as if she’d been waiting for this moment, her voice brimming with elation.
“Han Go-yo’s blood was the cure for the Pandora Virus!”
The instant those words left her lips, both Gwak Han-muk and Mo Hae-in’s expressions froze with terrifying rigidity.
Lee Ga-on seemed oblivious to the menacing faces the zombies displayed right before her.
She vanished with my blood bag in hand, her face flushed with intoxicated rapture.
The moment Lee Ga-on disappeared from sight, Mo Hae-in’s gaze fixed upon me.
“Trainee.”
Her voice cut through the air like frost, glacial and sharp.
“Come with me. We need to talk.”
***
I got scolded.
Scolded quite severely, actually.
I swallowed a sigh and recalled the barrage of nagging that Mo Hae-in and Gwak Han-muk had unleashed from both sides.
“Minimize contact with NPCs and items. It’s a basic principle of entering the Trial—didn’t you know that? Get your head on straight, recruit. What do you think the Trial even is?”
“I’m losing my mind over this fool, seriously. If you’re going to hand over blood like that, do you know what an NPC might do with it? And what if they pretended to draw your blood but injected you with drugs instead? Huh? What made you think you could just sit there and let them stick a needle in your arm? God, this is driving me crazy.”
From the start, their perspective and mine were fundamentally different.
I had developed considerable affection for the NPCs belonging to the Trial while playing the Archive’s game.
Because of that, I couldn’t help but maintain a basically favorable attitude toward them.
But for Mo Hae-in and Gwak Han-muk, the Trial was a calamity that had descended from another world.
In their eyes, my actions must have looked like waving my hand in a raging inferno while insisting, “This is actually quite warm, not hot at all.”
No matter how much I claimed it wasn’t dangerous, it was pointless.
Of course, I needed to take the captains’ words to heart.
Everything they’d poured out was correct.
‘I am being reckless, that much is true.’
If I had acted with normalcy and reason, I should never have saved Chef Zombie in the Basement Area.
Nor should I have attempted to create a cure, nor given my blood to an NPC for that purpose.
Expressed coldly, it was all madness.
But… even if I could turn back time, I felt I would make the same choice.
Because I knew Lee Ga-on and Lee Se-eon, whom the captains didn’t know; I knew Chef Zombie; I knew Princess Tarantella and Smiley.
In any case, once the vaccine and cure were successfully completed, the captains seemed like they would relax somewhat.
I finished assembling the firearm while thinking I needed to perform well over the next three days of combat.
The sun was already setting.
As I was about to position the firearms according to what Gwak Han-muk had taught me, someone standing on the Rooftop railing naturally caught my eye.
Je Hyeon-o was gazing at the sun, which blazed with the light of dusk, his metal hand hanging loosely at his side.
‘Come to think of it, Colonel Je hasn’t said anything.’
Then again, it would have been stranger if he had.
I approached cautiously, as one might toward a wild beast.
“Colonel Je.”
At that, Je Hyeon-o turned his head toward me.
^ ^
With that smile displayed on his goggles, he looked extremely pleased.
He even shook his metal hand slightly, making it rattle.
“Since I can observe the battle situation from the Rooftop, if Captain Mo or Captain Gwak need support, I’ll let you know through the system window. And it seems the zombies will likely swarm toward me, so over these three days of continuous combat, if there’s anything too strenuous….”
“Go-yo.”
I stopped speaking at the sudden call of my name.
Actually, my breath caught and my voice nearly died in my throat.
“【Zero】 knows.”
“….”
“But three days?”
A laugh echoed as if rising from deep darkness.
Je Hyeon-o whispered in a voice trembling with barely contained delight.
“Let’s finish this tonight.”
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————