Player of a Ruined World - Chapter 20

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

Player of the Ruined World – Episode 020
So that’s why you called it a last resort?
Molotov cocktails should never be used unless we’re in the absolute worst situation.
Right now, all we can do is hold out as long as possible and wait for the Safe House to activate.
“Switch out!”
Park Sangha’s voice came from behind.
As Park Sangil and I reached our physical limits, Park Sangha, Park Sanghun, and Lee Kwanghyun gripped their weapons.
They hadn’t been resting either.
They hurled every tool they could grab at the clustered Zombies.
We managed to block the Zombies’ advance as much as possible, but their physical exhaustion wasn’t nearly as severe as mine and Park Sangil’s at the front lines.
The stamina drain was incomparable to clearing Zombies inside the Safe House.
Unlike the District cleanup where we’d repeatedly kill a few Zombies and walk, then kill and walk again, now I had to swing my curved blade without a moment’s rest.
We’d already abandoned the 3rd Floor and made it up to the 4th Floor.
The Middle School Students were stacking new supplies on the 5th Floor, but not many usable items remained compared to the 3rd and 4th Floors.
I retreated, my entire body drenched in sweat.
Park Sangha filled the gap, and when Park Sangil also stepped back, Park Sanghun took his place.
With Lee Kwanghyun making three, they blocked the 4th Floor stairs while Park Sangil and I collapsed in the common hallway, gasping for breath.
“Hyung, is Sangil hyung okay?”
“Huff, huff… Gasp! Ugh…”
Park Sangil couldn’t even respond.
He lay sprawled on the floor in a wide spread, his eyes squeezed shut.
As if he had no strength left to struggle.
My arms wouldn’t move anymore either.
Whether the problem was in my bones or muscles, I couldn’t tell, but exerting force felt like my insides were hollow.
That feeling people describe after completely exhausting themselves at the gym.
‘How much longer is left?’
I opened the System Message and checked the remaining time.
[Time remaining until activation: 1 hour 30 minutes]
Had four hours really been this long?
Over an hour still remained?
This was enough to drive me insane.
Park Sangil, lying beside me, moistened his parched lips with saliva and asked.
“The 5th Floor… how much… is the barricade… finished?”
“Don’t talk. Just rest. Start with deep breathing first.”
Park Sangil was in a state of complete exhaustion.
He couldn’t be counted on for combat anymore.
Should I leave the remaining time to Park Sangha, Park Sanghun, and Lee Kwanghyun?
There were the Elders and high school students too, so maybe we could manage somehow?
But everyone was exhausted, their palms injured and raw.
They were pushing back the ascending Zombies using spears made from mop handles, but they groaned in pain each time they stabbed and withdrew, the impact transmitted through their palms.
Everyone was exhausted.
If I raised my Stamina stat… wouldn’t that help somehow?
I hurriedly checked my Player Information.
“Open Player Information.”
[Player Information]
[Name: Baek Doyun]
[Age: 28]
[Class: Buster (Physical Enhancement)]
[Title: Battlesteam Honor Player]
[Current Stats: Stamina 45, Strength 25, Agility 30, Endurance 5]
[Available Points: 5,814]
[Available Coins: 4]
In that moment, I couldn’t close my gaping mouth.
5,814 points?
I’d earned that much?
Including the episode clear rewards and bonuses for #1-1, I’d gotten 2,000 points, plus 1,000 points from handling Mutants and the first hunt bonus.
So I’d earned 3,000 points, then roughly 400 points while progressing through the #1-1 Safe House Activation episode, and the zombies I’d dealt with so far amounted to approximately 2,400 points.
The total came to 5,814.
Since the Safe House Activation episode was ongoing and I was receiving 2 points per zombie, it meant I’d dealt with roughly 1,200 zombies in the past three hours.
It made sense that my arms wouldn’t move.
Rather, it was a miracle I’d held out this long.
“Hey! Mister!”
A voice called out to us from the stairs leading to the 5th Floor.
I lifted my head and looked up, and Middle School Students came down toward us.
“What about the 5th Floor barricade?”
I asked while licking my parched lips, and the students chirped away like sparrows.
“We don’t have enough materials!”
“Not as much as the 3rd and 4th Floors!”
“We have to hold the line here somehow!”
“Are you okay, Mister?”
Then the children placed their hands on my arms, legs, and chest.
I flinched in surprise and brushed away their touch.
“What, what are you doing?!”
“We’re Healing Factors. Just stay still.”
“Oh.”
Whoooosh—
Then a golden glow rippled from the children’s hands, and a warm energy began spreading throughout my entire body.
It wasn’t simply healing wounds.
In the No Way Home game, I’d thought it was a class specialized in wound treatment, but it also had the power to relieve the fatigue accumulated in the body and loosen tense muscles.
Could it be… that the reason I felt strangely refreshed when I woke up was thanks to these children’s treatment?
As I stared blankly at the children, an Unnamed Student furrowed his brow and spoke.
“Your accumulated fatigue is considerable. This won’t be easy.”
“You can measure accumulated fatigue too?”
“Yes. In our eyes, the depth of wounds and fatigue levels appear as numbers. Right now, your fatigue is at 100.”
“What happens at 100?”
“It means you’ve pushed your body to its absolute limit. You can’t even make a fist right now, can you?”
Damn, that’s accurate.
I nodded silently, and the children closed their eyes tightly, concentrating their focus.
“Stay still and don’t move. We need at least 10 minutes to heal to reduce your fatigue by half.”
“Wouldn’t recovery be faster if you all worked together?”
“We’re all working together—it takes 10 minutes. And that’s just to recover half.”
I see.
I left the recovery to the children and fell into contemplation about my remaining points.
If I invested this into stamina, I could move right now.
But….
‘Epidermis enhancement is urgent.’
The Mutant appearing in the first episode instead of the third—this situation.
I had to strengthen epidermis first.
If I raised my epidermis stat to 100, Buster’s skill would be generated, and I’d gain enough durability to survive even a direct hit from a Mutant.
I didn’t know how similar the generated skill would be to No Way Home, but survival rates would differ depending on whether I obtained the skill.
The difference in ability between a Buster with and without a skill was like heaven and earth.
The points needed to reach epidermis 100 were 9,500.
The road ahead was still long, but once episodes 1-2 ended, I’d receive 2,000 points as a reward plus the first-clear bonus—a total of 4,000 points.
If I could just endure this activation… it was definitely achievable.
“Just hold on for 10 minutes! We’ll switch right after recovery is done!”
I shouted to Park Sangha and Park Sanghun, and they answered without even looking back.
“We’ll talk after it’s done!”
“If you say 10 minutes, it just feels like false hope—tell us when we’re switching!”
Park Sangha and Park Sanghun, telling me to shut up and focus on recovery.
A smile naturally spread across my face at the sight of their backs.
I had reliable party members now.

* * *
“Just five more minutes!!”
“Hold on!!”
[Time remaining until activation: 5 minutes]
We’d abandoned the 4th through 9th floors and made our way up to the 10th floor.
There was nothing left that could even be called a barricade.
We staked everything on the iron door separating the common hallway from the stairwell, holding it as the hinges groaned while jabbing at the zombies with our curved swords—that was all we had.
Having survived multiple encounters with zombies in the district using this same method, everyone’s bodies reacted instinctively without needing explanation.
While my companions held the iron door, I thrust my curved sword relentlessly.
The blade was beginning to show chips along its edge.
Please, let the weapon hold.
Please, let my companions hold.
I continued the desperate battle with every ounce of strength I had.
For some reason, all the middle school students had chosen the Healing Factor.
The moment I heard it, I thought of how in online games, if healers party together, they can never kill enemies, but the result is an immortal cockroach combination where we never die either.
It was absurd to think such things in a world overrun by zombies, but their choice had become our advantage.
Thanks to the middle school students healing those of us pressed against the iron door with our full bodies, we’d made it this far.
Without the children… we would have collapsed from exhaustion long ago.
“Last five seconds!”
“5! 4! 3! 2! 1!”
We all cried out together and began the final countdown, and the moment the remaining time pointed to zero.
Ding—!
[The Safe House is being activated!]
[Clear reward of 2,000 points is being granted.]
[Players belonging to Han O Apartment who successfully activated the Safe House are being granted an additional 2,000 points as a first clear bonus!]
Ding—!
[All zombies within the Safe House are disappearing.]
[From now on, a Safe House activation sphere will be generated at the Central Complex of Han O Apartment District.]
[While the sphere is maintained, zombies cannot enter the Safe House.]
Ding—!
[Players of Han O Apartment in Haengdang-dong who have acquired the Safe House are granted four days of rest.]
[After four days, the second episode will proceed.]
[Players in other regions will have the ‘Fend for Yourself’ emergency episode end after four days, and the second episode will proceed.]
Ding—!
[You who have acquired the Safe House can check the number of survivors in the Safe House and dangerous zones through ‘Safe House Status’.]
System messages appeared one after another before my eyes.
At the same time, the zombies on the stairs began turning to dust and disappearing.
The living ones, the already dead ones—every last one turned to dust and vanished.
“We… we did it. We actually did it!”
As Park Sangil shouted, everyone around him began screaming without exception.
High school students cheering wildly, Elders collapsing as if exhausted, Middle School Students clinging to each other in tears.
In their varied states, everyone savored the overwhelming emotion of the moment.
Regardless, I gazed at the System Message and posed my question.
Activating the Safe House had naturally been a success, but an unresolved mystery remained.
No Mutants had appeared in the past four hours.
“Safe House Status.”
[Current Survivors: 64]
[Danger Zone: Building 204]
As I suspected, the survivors in the Safe House were not 38.
Moreover, Building 204 was marked as a danger zone.
A Mutant.
Seeing the message materialize before my eyes, I pressed my forehead with my right hand and sighed.
Park Sangil approached next, and upon seeing the System Message, his eyes widened.
“What is this? Why are there 64 survivors? We only have 38.”
At Park Sangil’s words, the group that had been cheering rushed to my side in unison.
“Building 204? Isn’t that near the back entrance?”
As Park Sangha adjusted his glasses and asked, I opened my mouth along with a dry laugh.
“I had a feeling something was off, but it’s not over yet.”
“Not over? What do you mean? The Safe House is safe now, isn’t it?”
“It’s only safe from the Zombies.”
“What do you mean by that….”
Park Sangha, who had belatedly grasped the situation, stood with his mouth agape, his expression hollow.
The Elder behind him also furrowed his brow and asked me.
“So it came in after all.”
“Yes. It appears so.”
Park Sanghun, who hadn’t understood the current situation, looked back and forth between the Elder and me.
“What came in? All the Zombies that were here turned to dust… Oh.”
Park Sanghun, who had belatedly caught on, slapped his forehead and stood with his mouth agape.
I spoke to my companions beside me.
“In Building 204… there are likely survivors from the opposite apartment and a Mutant.”
Silence stretched on for a while.
Everyone’s expressions showed they hadn’t anticipated this situation.
Only I and the three brothers had foreseen this.
But there was one person.
The Elder I had asked to install the barricade.
When I had asked him to install the barricade, the Elder had been conscious of the survivors in the opposite Dae O Apartment.
He crossed his arms and asked me.
“What do you intend to do?”
“….”
“If all the survivors in Building 204 are annihilated, perhaps the Mutant might leave this place as well.”
That’s a possibility.
But on the other hand, it might wander through the entire district searching for other prey.
The outcome will differ depending on what kind of Mutant has entered.
If it’s the Eye Monster we saw in the Underground Parking Lot, it shouldn’t be too much of a threat.
The Eye Monster’s precise name is Resonance Species.
If you make eye contact with a Resonance Species for five seconds, your body becomes immobilized.
However, because they prefer dark and cramped spaces, they don’t launch preemptive attacks unless someone enters their territory.
So the Resonance Species wasn’t particularly threatening.
The problem is that the Mutant here now isn’t a Resonance Species.
It followed a Survivor all the way here.
A Mutant driven by hunting instinct is in Building 204.

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