Player of a Ruined World - Chapter 28

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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 028
Park Sanghun sighed heavily, as if he couldn’t bear it any longer.
“I learned boxing because I wanted to fight legally—what more is there to say?”
“Legal…ly?”
“Can you imagine how difficult my teenage years were? Being born as the younger brother of someone like that.”
“Did he hit you a lot?”
“I had to learn boxing just to survive.”
“….”
“After that, once I learned boxing too, he became even more vicious—a real demon of a… no, a relentless older brother.”
It was strange how this man, despite being a father, possessed an unusually impressive physique and moved with remarkable skill.
The more I learned about him, the more fascinating details emerged.
Park Sanghun spoke with a wry smile.
“My older brother loved learning martial arts since childhood. That’s probably why he asked you to teach him kendo.”
If that’s the case… I should teach Park Sangil kendo and learn boxing myself.
As the episode progresses, the mutants evolve too, and eventually mutants will appear that I’ll need to face with my fists instead of a sword.
Since I’m confident in physical combat, I should learn quickly enough.
“Um….”
The male student who had been observing the situation carefully opened his mouth.
“Should we talk here?”
“Wherever you’re comfortable. We can go outside if you prefer.”
The male student glanced at the others’ expressions, then exhaled a deep sigh as if the ground were collapsing beneath him before speaking.
“Well… I’ll just talk here then.”
“Go ahead.”
“You have a No Way Home Player on your side too, right?”
At the male student’s question, Park Sangil and Park Sanghun’s eyes twitched slightly.
The male student swallowed hard and continued.
“Without a player, clearing this episode wouldn’t make sense.”
“….”
“Plus, that equipment. Those are the Maker’s crafted weapons and armor. How could you accumulate that many points in less than a week?”
“So, what are you trying to say?”
When I asked calmly, the male student glanced at his companions in the living room.
Then, clenching both fists and looking directly at my face, he spoke.
“I want to join your group.”
“What the hell?!”
The middle-aged man shouted, and the male student flinched.
But he didn’t back down and continued with what he had to say.
“I’ve heard the story. There was conflict among those who were at the elementary school shelter.”
“….”
“I’m not one of those people. I came to Dae O Apartment alone. I went there because it was close to where I was… but the Dae O Apartment survivors were absolutely hopeless.”
“You, you, you bastard with a loose mouth, how dare you!”
When the middle-aged man raised his voice, Park Sangil stepped forward with a long stride and spoke.
“You’re being awfully loud. Want me to split your mouth open?”
Park Sangil’s expression had turned ice-cold.
It was the look of someone gazing at something insignificant—as if telling a mosquito to stop buzzing, as if warning that if you didn’t want to die, you shouldn’t interrupt.
The middle-aged man bit his lower lip hard, overwhelmed by Park Sangil’s aura.
He was angry, but lacked the courage to charge forward, afraid his arm might be broken again.
The male student continued speaking, seeing that the middle-aged man couldn’t mount any resistance.
“I’ve played No Way Home a lot too. I didn’t play from the very beginning, but I played almost every day for nearly a year.”
“….”
“I’ve seen the ending multiple times. I haven’t seen the true ending, but… I still uploaded my own strategy guide to Yanben….”
He uploaded a strategy guide to Yanben?
The No Way Home Yanben I knew had several dedicated veterans actively posting.
Three people who uploaded their own strategy guides.
The people known as the Three Elders.
Could he be one of those three?
“Student, what is Yanben?”
“Pardon?”
“You said you uploaded a strategy to Yanben. Is it an information-sharing forum?”
I looked at the male student with an expression of complete ignorance.
There was no need to reveal that I was a Player, and I intended to extract only the student’s information.
What would happen if I kept denying being a Player?
The male student’s expression became blank.
It seemed he had assumed I was a Player all along.
But my foolish question had caught him off guard.
“Sir… aren’t you a Player?”
“I’m not, but I had a friend who was obsessed with No Way Home.”
“Ah….”
“I’ve heard so much about this game that my ears have calluses. Thanks to that, I’ve survived this long.”
“If, if he was obsessed with it… do you perhaps know his Yanben nickname?”
“I think I heard it when drinking with my friend… what was it again.”
I paused, observing the male student’s expression.
The male student stared intently at my lips, his face full of anticipation.
“What was it… was it something like Baek Do?”
“…!”
At the name Baek Do, the student’s eyes widened as if they might burst from his skull.
I’m not one of the Three Elders.
I never uploaded strategy guides.
I was more like a hermit, quietly and silently enjoying a game with high freedom on my own.
But the sole person who proved the true ending of No Way Home.
The person who proved the endings of every single game on Battlesteam.
Baek Doyun.
A name known to everyone active in Yanben.
“Wait, Baek Doyun is your friend?! Really?!”
“He’s famous?”
“Of course! If he were here, this situation right now would be… wait, is he at Han O Apartment? Is Baek Doyun there?!”
“No, he’s not. But I’ve heard so much from him that I understand this game to a certain degree.”
“Insane! That’s incredible!”
The male student’s face lit up with excitement.
A student unable to compose his shock.
I could tell his heart was racing just from the dilation of his pupils.
I spoke calmly.
“What was your activity name?”
“Huh?”
“You said you were active in a place called Yanben.”
“Oh, my nickname? I’m Pottery.”
“Pottery?”
“Yes. Do you know it?”
No, I don’t know that name.
I had hoped he might be one of the three elders, but it doesn’t make sense to meet them here, does it?
“I’d like to share the information you know with what I know. How about it?”
“Huh? You know me? I’ve been pretty active too….”
“No, I don’t know you. But sharing information would be beneficial.”
As I cut off the male student’s words, he hesitated and asked me.
“If I tell you… will you let me join?”
“That depends on how useful the information is.”
“Then I won’t tell you.”
The male student backed away with an anxious expression.
He’s charging a steep price for something he barely knows.
I tilted my head and asked.
“If you won’t even tell me, why should I accept you?”
“You’ll just throw me away anyway.”
….
“I, I can fight too. I’ve hunted a lot of zombies alone. I’ve accumulated a lot of points.”
Unable to compete on information, the male student tried to prove himself through his ability to fight zombies.
But this was a miscalculation.
Was it because my expression wasn’t favorable?
The male student hurriedly continued.
“I, I’m serious. Plus, I… chose Shooter as my character. I can secure vision, and it’ll be useful in the Dark Episode that comes later.”
“All Shooters can secure vision. There’s no particular reason I should accept you just because you’re a Shooter, is there?”
There would be those who couldn’t accept the current situation.
You might wonder why I accepted thirty-two survivors so readily, yet hold this student to a higher standard.
There was a clear difference between them.
The thirty-two survivors had proven themselves.
They demonstrated they could hunt zombies effectively and posed no threat to others.
They were people who did their best in their respective roles to benefit everyone.
But this student?
He knew how to exploit people, using others as bait for his own survival.
He was someone I could never trust—a man who might stab me in the back at any moment.
I crossed my arms and asked.
“When you came here, it was you who told everyone that bringing a mutant would help them avoid the zombies’ attacks, correct?”
“Yes? Ah, yes.”
“If we hadn’t eliminated that mutant, everyone here could have died. Do you understand that?”
“But you did eliminate it, didn’t you?”
….
Did eliminate it? There he goes again with that nonsense.
As I furrowed my brow, the male student continued with a nervous cough.
“There was no choice if I wanted to benefit from the safe house effect.”
….
“Even if it’s dangerous, I couldn’t die in a place like that anyway.”
Look at the shamelessness of this bastard.
“Just because you can’t die doesn’t mean others are expendable.”
….
“Do you know why I think you’re truly despicable?”
“…Despicable?”
“You put Jo Yunhwan, a seven-year-old girl, and a mutant together on the thirteenth floor of Building 204, didn’t you?”
….
“And you placed the Dae O Apartment survivors on the twentieth floor of Building 204.”
The male student bit his lower lip, his expression growing anxious.
Did he think I wouldn’t find out?
I spoke as if it were absurd.
“The survivors in Building 204 were bait from the start. Weren’t they?”
….
“You deliberately herded them into Building 204 so that once the mutant finished studying human behavior, it could devour them.”
….
“And these five people here—you had already leaked information to them beforehand. They knew everyone in Building 204 would die.”
….
“They followed your plan knowingly. You must have told them they could survive if they obeyed you.”
The male student’s pupils began to tremble.
I didn’t stop there and continued pressing him.
“So you won people’s favor that way, and now that things aren’t going according to your plan, you want to abandon them and join us instead?”
“….”
“Would you accept me if I were in their position?”
The male student glared at me with clenched fists, his face flushing red and then pale with emotion.
Unable to control his feelings when things didn’t go his way, he was no different from a child.
I crossed my arms and asked.
“Let me ask again. What reason do I have to accept you?”
“I… know the conditions for character awakening.”
I was trying to gather episode information, but different information spilled out instead.
Is character awakening really possible?
Seeing skill books in the coin shop, I had wondered if perhaps other characters had a second awakening available.
I never thought it would actually be possible.
As I stared with an expressionless face, the male student’s lips trembled as he spoke.
“If I tell you, will you accept me?”
“Fine.”
I answered with a satisfied smile, and this time Park Sangil and Park Sanghun approached my side.
Park Sangil glanced at the male student’s face, then whispered to me.
“Are you serious?”
I didn’t answer.
Because I wasn’t serious.
The three brothers seemed to think I was a good person, but I had said it repeatedly.
I wasn’t such a good person.
Park Sangha said I seemed to find reasons for myself to be bad, but that was never the case.
Why would I bother being kind even to garbage?
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
This was the fundamental mindset that lay beneath me.
The male student opened his mouth with a slight cough.
“Then… I’ll tell you on the condition that you accept me.”
“Go ahead.”
“If you break open a mutant egg nest and drink its essence, you can awaken.”
“…What?”
“In the game, it was possible after the third episode, but it’s different now. You can become much stronger much faster.”
A mutant egg nest.
And its essence.
With an ominous feeling, I asked the male student with anxious eyes.
“You… did you drink that?”
“Of course I did.”
The male student smiled with satisfaction as he said he naturally drank it.
Meanwhile, my expression turned ashen.
“You… how far have you progressed in this game?”
“I’ve completed up to the fourth episode.”
“Did you give up as a player at the Wall of Lamentation?”
“Huh? You know about the Wall of Lamentation too, mister?”
The male student gazed at me with innocent, unknowing eyes.
I brushed my bangs aside and looked at the people in the living room.
Five survivors in total, including the male student.
“Did all of you here also drink the secretion that leaked from the Mutant Egg nest?”
“W-what’s the problem?”
The middle-aged man sensed something was wrong with the situation and stammered as he asked.
I gripped the hwarang in my hand and pointed it at the male student.
“Get out of here right now. Unless you want me to search through everything.”
The people panicked.
Park Sangil and Park Sanghun felt the same way.
Park Sangil grabbed my arm and asked.
“What’s wrong with you, Baek Doyun? Why are you suddenly acting like this?”
“We need to throw these people out immediately. If they refuse to leave, we kill them all and burn them quickly.”
“But why?”
“They drank the secretion that leaked from the Mutant Egg nest! Don’t you remember what I told you?!”

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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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