Player of a Ruined World - Chapter 19

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Player of the Ruined World – Episode 019
“Everyone get inside! Grab your weapons!”
The three brothers and I, the Elders who had participated in setting up the barricade, and Lee Kwanghyun gathered in front of the Common Entrance.
I instructed the students to take the children up to the 25th Floor first.
I shouted toward the Elders.
“Elders, please head up first!”
In this urgent situation, I wouldn’t have time to worry about them.
Moreover, we’d have to face the incoming Zombies while climbing the stairs.
The Elders with bad knees going up now was actually helping us.
But the Elders gripped clubs and various blunt weapons in their hands and spoke.
“We’re not over eighty years old grandmothers and grandfathers. In our sixties, we’re still in our prime.”
“This isn’t a situation we can handle with just determination….”
“With stat bonuses, we’re practically in our forties now. Even if we go, we can take a few of these bastards with us.”
Ah, that’s right.
There were stat bonuses.
Contrary to my expectations, the Elders were far more proactive.
Several of them already gripped blood-soaked clubs in their hands.
As I glanced at the weapons, an Elder whose name I didn’t know showed me his weapon and spoke.
“Do you know how we made it this far?”
“….”
“We didn’t just run away avoiding Zombies. We fought.”
Crash!!!
At that moment, something slammed its head against the Common Entrance door.
I spun around in panic to see a Zombie that had rushed forward first repeatedly ramming its head against the Common Entrance door.
Its eyes held nothing but madness.
As if it would chew up the Survivors beyond the glass door.
As if it had finally found prey to salivate over after a long hunger.
“Get inside, everyone get inside!”
As we crossed beyond the barricade, the Elders handed us objects from the floor.
“Everyone take one!”
As I received it without thinking, it was a long spear made of wood.
A spear crafted by sharpening the end of a mop handle.
So that’s why there were gaps between the barricade sections.
When Zombies clung to it, we could stab them through and finish them.
Crack-! Crackle-!
Following that, cracks began spreading across the glass of the Common Entrance door.
The number of Zombies had rapidly increased in mere moments.
It was impossible to even count exactly how many there were.
Crash!!!
The thick glass of the Common Entrance door shattered in an instant, and Zombies began pouring through.
Zombies swarmed the barricade in an instant.
With a sharp crack, the barricade constructed from stacked sofas, chairs, and miscellaneous items began to tilt.
“Push! Keep them from latching on!”
I gripped the spear fashioned from a mop handle and thrust it with all my strength at a zombie’s face.
I wanted to use my curved sword, but the narrow gap and the risk of striking someone beside me made it impossible.
The three brothers and I handled the zombies while Lee Kwanghyun, the Elder, and the high school students held the barricade against the onslaught.
[Zombie eliminated.]
[2 Points awarded.]
[Zombie eliminated.]
[2 Points awarded.]
[Zombie eliminated.]
[2 Points awarded.]
….
….
System messages obscured my vision.
I hastily disabled the system alerts and resumed thrusting and withdrawing the spear repeatedly.
It seemed that advancing the episode had also disabled the message notifications I’d previously blocked.
More importantly—2 points?
In Episode 1-1, eliminating zombies only granted 1 point, but now they were awarding 2 points.
The points awarded for zombie elimination had increased upon advancing to the main episode.
‘Focus!’
This wasn’t the time to dwell on such things.
The moment I paused, the zombies would breach the barricade and pour through, so I had no choice but to keep pushing.
Crack—crackle—!
The wire woven between the barricade’s gaps bent, and the stacked items began shaking violently.
“Gaaahhh!!”
Several zombies climbed onto the barricade and hurled themselves toward us.
Seeing this, I urgently drew the curved sword at my side and swung it.
Slash—!
With a single strike, I severed the creature’s head from its body and shouted to those around me.
“I’ll handle any that come over—grab a spear, anyone!”
A high school student immediately took my place at the barricade.
She was a female student.
Despite the fear that would have justified her retreat, she was doing everything she could to be useful.
We faced the relentless tide of zombies without a moment to breathe.

* * *
“Elder! The barricade is collapsing!”
“Hold on just a bit longer!!”
“We can’t take anymore!!”
How many minutes had passed?
Space to plant my feet was becoming scarce.
With zombie corpses piling up on our side as well, each step brought the sickening sensation of soft, decaying flesh beneath my boots.
There were far too many obstacles impeding our movements.
The Elder, who had been pushing against the barricade, glanced around nervously before wrenching open the Elevator Door and pointing toward the 2nd Floor Stairs.
“Everyone head up to the 2nd Floor!”
“We’re abandoning the 1st Floor already?!”
Park Sangil cried out in shock, and the Elder furrowed his brow as he shouted back.
“The zombie assault is far more vicious than anticipated!”
It made sense.
Zombies possessed no reason, felt no pain.
Broken arms, crushed chests, shattered legs, collapsed skulls—none of it mattered. They were creatures consumed entirely by the primal instinct to devour their prey.
When a zombie fell to the ground, those behind it simply used its body as a stepping stone, making conventional defensive tactics useless.
The Elder gestured urgently, shouting for us to hurry.
“I have a plan! Get up to the 2nd Floor now!”
I had thought we could hold this position for thirty minutes, but I was mistaken.
In barely fifteen minutes, we abandoned the 1st Floor and retreated to the 2nd.
Crack—! Boom—! Crash—! Kaboom!
The stacked barricade collapsed in an instant, and zombies surged through like a tidal wave.
“Push this!”
Once we reached the 2nd Floor, the Elder grunted as he grabbed hold of a large wardrobe leaning against the wall.
We all rushed to help, pulling the wardrobe down. It toppled and slid down the Stairs.
Crash!!
The zombies that had been frantically scrambling up the Stairs were swept down along with it.
“Students, grab this quickly!”
The Elder didn’t stop there. He ordered the high school students to grab a rope lying on the right side of the floor.
The students obeyed the Elder’s commands without hesitation.
“When I tell you to pull, you pull!”
“Yes!”
“Now! Pull!”
At the Elder’s command, the students yanked the rope. It went taut, sweeping away the zombies tangled on the Stairs.
In moments, zombies tumbled over the railing.
“Gahhhhh!!”
But a few that hadn’t fallen charged toward us. The Elder, gripping a club, smashed one zombie’s skull without hesitation.
As Park Sangha, his brothers, and I stared in shock, the Elder grabbed another rope lying on the left side of the floor and shouted.
“Don’t lose focus! Deal with the zombies coming up!”
“Yes!”
The Elders, Lee Kwanghyun, Park Sangha, and Park Sanghun pulled the rope laid on the left floor.
The rope that had been taut along the right railing swept across the wardrobe and moved to the left.
As Zombies leaping up the cramped stairs and over the wardrobe stumbled and fell, the Elder shouted toward the students.
“Pull again!”
The rope connected to the stair railing, window frame, and elevator shaft.
Regardless of how the mechanism worked, pulling from the left loaded it, and pulling from the right made the rope taut, pushing the Zombies on the stairs toward the railing.
Even those who didn’t fall over the railing had their legs caught by the rope and tumbled, while others fell flat and thrashed about.
Park Sangil and I handled those ones.
The collapsed barricade on the 1st Floor also served to impede the Zombies’ advance.
Since they had to climb over the barricade, those tangling with each other and falling kept appearing in succession.
Moreover, those plummeting through the wide-open Elevator Door were easily spotted.
The Elder hadn’t constructed a perfect barricade.
Knowing perfection was impossible, he’d built an ant trap in preparation for the barricade’s collapse.

* * *
[Time remaining until activation: 2 hours 45 minutes]
We held out for an hour on the 2nd Floor alone.
But the Survivors had reached their physical limits.
Blood was flowing from the hands of the Elders and high school students holding the rope.
Enduring the rough rope and the Zombies’ weight had scraped away their flesh, and the blood-soaked rope grew increasingly slippery.
“Ugh…! I, I can’t hold on anymore!”
As the high school students groaned in pain, Lee Kwanghyun beside the Elder shouted.
“Let’s abandon the 2nd Floor! I’m at my limit too!”
“We can’t! The 3rd Floor won’t be as stable as this!”
The Elder shouted that it was impossible and gripped the rope even harder.
I surveyed the students’ expressions and the surrounding terrain.
Swinging my curved blade frantically, I wasn’t grasping every situation either.
The high school students had already reached their limits.
It wasn’t a level they could endure through sheer willpower.
Moreover, no more Zombies were falling through the Elevator.
Over an hour, Zombies had accumulated from the basement, and now a platform was complete.
And furthermore…
Thud-thud! Splat!
The sound of palms striking the outer wall of Building 118 was audible.
This meant Zombies had piled up outside and could climb the outer wall up to the 2nd Floor.
How many Zombies were within a 1-kilometer radius anyway?
I’d killed so many Zombies while living at the Villa, yet this many more remained?
With no other option, I shouted to my group on the 2nd Floor.
“Everyone, let go of the rope! We’re moving to the 3rd Floor!”
“No! We need to hold out here for at least twenty more minutes!”
When the Elder objected, I grabbed his arm and pushed him upward while shouting.
“If we wait any longer, we’ll lose our chance to escape!”
“We can still do more…!”
“The zombies are climbing up the outer wall!”
As I shouted toward the Elder, his expression went blank.
He released the rope he’d been holding and rushed frantically toward the window.
The moment he opened the small stairwell window and peered outside.
“Kaaahhh!!”
A zombie’s arm seized the Elder’s collar.
“Ugh?!”
The zombie gripped the Elder’s collar and refused to let go.
The Elder threw himself backward to avoid being dragged away.
Crack!!
The zombie’s elbow bent backward at an unnatural angle, producing a sickening sound that pierced my eardrums.
A normal creature would release its grip if its arm broke, but these things refused to release their prey even if their limbs shattered.
The Elder’s complexion turned deathly pale in an instant.
“Hurry! Get the Elder upstairs!”
As I shouted while dispatching zombies with my hwarang blade, Lee Kwanghyun supported the fallen Elder and headed toward the 3rd Floor.
After sending the high school students and elders up first, Park Sangil and I dealt with the zombies while slowly backing away.
“3rd Floor! What do you have on the 3rd Floor?!”
The zombies kept increasing in number.
As I shouted to the Elder behind us, he dragged over all sorts of junk piled in the 3rd Floor common corridor and yelled back.
“The 3rd Floor is all we can do to block the stairwell!”
Bed mattresses, wardrobes stuffed with clothes, chairs, desks, and even exercise equipment.
While we dealt with the zombies in the district, the survivors remaining in Building 118 had been moving through each floor gathering these items.
“Kaaahhh!!”
“Graaahhh!!”
Thud-!!
I kicked the zombie in front of me and pushed it back, and it tumbled down, knocking over the zombies climbing the stairs.
Without missing the opportunity, Park Sangil and I rushed frantically toward the 3rd Floor.
“Push it!!”
The moment Park Sangil and I arrived on the 3rd Floor, the Elder began hurling all sorts of items down the stairwell.
Crash! Thud-! Bang- Thud! Crack!
Zombies struck by 30kg dumbbells tumbling backward, zombies pinned under wardrobes with broken legs—the stairwell leading to the 3rd Floor was instantly crammed full of junk.
But the zombies began pushing through the debris and climbing up.
Many of them fell as they climbed on the unstable footing.
Those that persisted and crawled up to the end, Park Sangil and I dealt with.
“Elder! What’s the plan after this?”
“Nothing! Just hold out here as long as we can!”
“What? You’re saying the barricade goes up to the 4th Floor!”
“The 4th Floor is exactly the same as here!”
The Elder’s palms stung from the friction, so he grimaced and opened a box placed in the corner.
Even in this situation, he had thought to bring bandages.
The Elder wrapped bandages around the scraped palms of the children and elders as he spoke.
“There is one last resort, but we need to save it until the very end.”
“What is this last resort!”
“Molotov cocktails.”
“What?”
He had made those too?
So that’s why the mattresses and wardrobes that catch fire easily, along with clothing, were tucked among the miscellaneous items?
The humid air from the pouring rain kept pricking my nose.
But within it, I could faintly detect the smell of gasoline.
‘He soaked the clothes inside the wardrobe with gasoline?’
He had thought of even this.
It was preparation for a last resort.
The problem was that smoke rises when fire ignites.
The children were on the 25th Floor, and we would need to go up as well.
We could suffocate from the smoke, and our vision could be obstructed by smoke and flames.
Since we couldn’t know how large the fire would spread, this was close to gambling.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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