Player of a Ruined World - Chapter 35

—————
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 035
“People? Is it Doyun?”
As Park Sangha approached from the side and asked, Park Sangil shook his head with a bitter expression.
“No, they’re strangers.”
“I see…”
“They’ve spotted us too. They’ve stopped moving.”
“There must be Shooters on their side as well. Are there many of them?”
“A lot. Looks like around sixty.”
Sixty people moving together all at once.
And heading this way.
If that’s the case, there’s no need to hear lengthy explanations—their intentions are crystal clear.
“We can’t give up our Safe House.”
At Gwak Cheolmin’s words, the three brothers swallowed hard as they watched the unfamiliar group.
“Hey—!”
In that moment, an unexpected voice rang out from among the strangers.
“We don’t want to fight! How about you?”
Whether to call it direct or simply absurd, I couldn’t quite decide.
Was it because this world had transformed into one where fighting and tearing each other down had become routine?
Park Sangil glanced back at his group, left word for them to wait a moment, and stepped forward.
“Who’s your leader over there!”
“Are you the one in charge on your side?”
“What do you want!”
“Are you by any chance survivors from Haengdang Han O Apartment?”
From that question alone, I could sense what their purpose was.
About sixty survivors, mostly in their twenties and thirties.
Their clothing reeked of delinquency from the start.
If friction arose with them… the Han O Apartment survivors would be pushed back one-sidedly.
Park Sangil shouted at the strangers, his displeasure written plainly across his face.
“Get out of here! There’s no place for you here!”
“We have no homes and nowhere to go! Let us live with you!”
At the opposing leader’s cry, about sixty people began snickering with laughter.
There was no one panicking or trying to stop them at the opposing leader’s mocking voice—every last one of them was laughing.
There’s an emotion humans sense instinctively.
A chilling feeling.
A warning signal etched into human genes over hundreds of millions of years: be careful.
That signal set off an alarm in the minds of the Han O Apartment group.
“Brother, you know without me saying it, right?”
At Park Sangha’s question, Park Sangil swallowed hard and pulled out the kitchen knife he’d kept in his pocket.
Since the curved sword had corroded and disappeared, he was now using the weapon he’d relied on before.
The moment Park Sangil gripped the kitchen knife, his companions each drew their own weapons.
Park Sanghun gripped his curved blade, muttering under his breath.
“Of all times, why does Doyun have to be gone now…”
“Don’t lose your nerve. Even if we don’t know who these guys are, think about all the Zombies we’ve dealt with so far.”
At Park Sangil’s words, the group nodded with resolute expressions.
But there was one person.
Kim Suhan’s hands trembled visibly as anxiety clouded his face.
Noticing this, Park Sangha gripped his shoulder and asked.
“You alright?”
“B-brother Sangha, are we really… going to fight those people?”
“We have to.”
…
Was he afraid?
Kim Suhan’s limbs began trembling more violently with each passing moment.
Rather than reproaching him, Park Sangha spoke with a calm smile on his face.
“Think of them as Zombies.”
“…What?”
“What’s the difference between creatures that kill and attack people and Zombies?”
…
“Your younger siblings in Building 118, our family—these people are a threat to them.”
…
“You need to find your courage.”
At the word family, Kim Suhan’s eyes transformed.
From the Elementary School to the Han O Apartment, their brief but unbreakable bond had become an unshakeable sense of belonging.
These were people who had survived life-and-death situations together countless times.
Kim Suhan gripped his curved blade and spoke.
“I can do this. No—I will do this.”
Thud-thud, thud-thud.
Then, roughly sixty unfamiliar figures began slowly approaching.
They were not simply walking.
All armed, their expressions and footsteps carried an air of tension.
Now that the Han O Apartment was confirmed as a Safe House, it had become prey that everyone coveted.

* * *
Meanwhile, the man had no way of knowing the situation unfolding with the group.
“…Gasp!”
When I regained consciousness, I found myself in some public parking lot.
As I jolted upright in shock, a throbbing headache crashed over me like my temples were about to burst.
“Ugh…!”
A groan escaped involuntarily.
I squeezed my head between both hands, eyes clenched shut.
Crunch- crunch- crunch-
Gradually, my blurred vision returned, and my muffled ears began detecting sound once more.
‘Crunch?’
I heard something chewing.
It didn’t take long to locate the source of the sound.
“Huh?”
“Kack-!”
A Zombie with only its upper body was gnawing on my calf.
How long had it been chewing? My shin guard had been reduced to tatters.
Its teeth were so broken and shattered that fragments scattered across the ground like corn kernels.
“You bastard…?”
A curse spilled from my lips unbidden, and I frantically reached for the scabbard at my side.
But the curved blade was gone.
The scabbard remained, yet the hwandao that Park Sangha had crafted for me had vanished.
Did I lose it?
Where could I have lost it?
Throb-
Then dizziness washed over me along with the headache, my vision wavering.
Like the morning after a heavy drinking session when your memory goes blank.
My last memory was…charging at the Water Demon.
“Kahahaack!”
In that instant, the Zombie with the shattered teeth abandoned my calf and lunged at my face.
Was it startled by my movement?
With no other choice, I stretched out both hands and grabbed its face.
Throb-
“Ugh…!”
The bones in my fingers crackled, and every muscle screamed in agony.
Only then could I understand.
My hands were broken.
My gloves were reduced to rags, and the backs of my hands were covered in blood, dirt, and some unidentifiable powder.
Unable to muster strength in my hands, I had no choice but to push myself up from the ground….
“Grraaahhh!!”
The moment I tried to get up, pain that started from my left ankle shot through my shin, thigh, pelvis, and spine, climbing all the way to my cervical vertebrae.
A piercing ache that spread throughout my entire body.
When I lowered my head to check my ankle, I could see that my left ankle had twisted ninety degrees.
Did this bastard bite it and break it?
‘No, that can’t be right.’
My current epidermis stat is 110.
No matter how much it bites and tears, as long as this world is set in No Way Home, my skin cannot be pierced.
It can’t pierce the skin, but it can break bones?
No, that doesn’t make sense either.
With the zombie’s current strength, breaking my leg is beyond its capability.
To put it dramatically, it’s like trying to smash a rock with an egg.
My strength is 30, and adding the effect of my protective gear brings it to 35.
The second episode hasn’t started yet.
The zombies from the first episode don’t have the strength to break my bones.
Then this means….
‘I did this.’
That’s right.
The conclusion is that during the one hour the Frenzy lasted, I created this masterpiece.
I hunted zombies until both my hands broke and my ankle shattered.
‘Am I insane?!’
It wasn’t by my own will… but that madman was me.
“Cough hack!!”
“Ugh…!”
With no other choice, I waited for the moment the creature lunged with its mouth wide open, then struck its nose bridge with my elbow.
Crack—!
The zombie collapsed with a sound like a watermelon shattering.
The same was true for me.
It wasn’t just my hands that were broken—my wrists and forearms seemed damaged too.
But I couldn’t just let it keep screaming like that.
I couldn’t know exactly where I was, but I could tell this was roughly a public parking garage.
About four stories high.
If I let it keep screaming, other zombies might hear it and come rushing over.
It was a race to see who would die in agony first.
I gritted my teeth and drove my elbow into the fallen zombie’s face.
The pain transmitted through my elbow was so intense my consciousness began to fade.
But I couldn’t stop.
Either it would die, or I would lose consciousness first.
“Screeeech…!”
I thought I would win, but my condition was worse than expected.
My body couldn’t hold on.
The pain was so intense that I couldn’t put any strength into my strikes.
After several attacks, I collapsed to the ground, unable to bear the agony, and clutched my elbow as if it might burst.
Then the Zombie rose, blood streaming from both nostrils.
The creature, its front teeth to molars completely gone, swayed but kept its gaze fixed on me.
The moment it contorted its grotesque face and opened its mouth wide.
Crack—!
Simultaneously, with the crisp sound of a home run, its skull caved inward.
I could see an Unnamed Woman standing where the Zombie had been.
The woman held an aluminum bat, her gaze alternating between the fallen Zombie and me.
As I looked at her with blurred eyes, she rested the baseball bat on her shoulder and stared at my face intently.
Without saying anything, she regarded me with an expressionless face.
Not long after, the woman’s mouth opened.
“What are you? Are you human?”
What am I?
Was she expecting me to answer that I’m human?
But I didn’t have the strength to respond.
When I tried to speak, my voice wouldn’t come out properly, as if debris were caught in my throat.
The woman stared at me intently, then called out to someone behind her.
An Unnamed Man came rushing to the woman’s side.
As the woman whispered something in the man’s ear, he looked startled and stared at me.
Then, approaching with obvious caution, he placed his hand on my elbow and asked.
“Does it hurt?”
“Aaah! Don’t… don’t press…!”
“I only touched it….”
“Ugh….”
“Bear with it. I think I can treat it.”
Hum—
Then a golden aura began to shimmer from the man’s hands.
A Healing Factor.
Regardless of who he was, this wasn’t the time to refuse his goodwill.
If this person didn’t treat me… I might actually die.
The woman strode toward me, tapped her baseball bat against the ground with a clang, and spoke.
“Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m saving you because I have questions to ask.”
“….”
“Once the treatment is done, answer my questions sincerely. If you don’t promise now, I’ll stop the treatment.”
“….”
“You’re not going to answer?”
I didn’t know what questions she intended to ask, but right now I desperately needed their help.
With both arms and my left leg broken, if I couldn’t receive the Healing Factor’s treatment… I couldn’t return to the Safe House.
Instead of answering, I gave a short nod, and the woman furrowed her brow as she spoke.
“Fine. I gave you my word.”
“….”
“You’re not the type to say one thing and mean another, are you?”
“….”
“Uhyeok, keep treating her.”
At the woman’s command, the man named Uhyeok continued with the treatment.
Where had I gotten to during this hour of Frenzy?
When the Safe House activated, zombies within a one-kilometer radius centered on it poured in all at once.
I’d thought that if there were no zombies on the streets, I wouldn’t venture far from the Safe House even while using Frenzy, but it seemed I’d charged straight ahead until I found them.
‘I hope everyone’s alright.’
The faces of my companions surfaced in my mind.
The fact that I’d made it this far meant I’d dealt with all the Mutants inside the Safe House.
If there were a Mutant I hadn’t detected while in Frenzy….
No, I shouldn’t think negatively.
I’d used Frenzy while in a state of Balhwa precisely to prepare for such situations.
An increase in physical ability wasn’t merely about stamina, agility, and strength.
Stamina and agility translated into enhanced sense of smell and hearing, improved dynamic vision, and faster reflexes.
Similarly, strength wasn’t just about increased power and muscle mass—bone density increased as well.
The epidermis didn’t simply become tougher and more elastic; it also affected wound recovery.
Of course, it was different from super-regeneration.
It was merely faster than ordinary natural healing.
For me, who’d used both Balhwa and Frenzy, detecting Mutants that entered the Safe House wouldn’t have been difficult.
How could a madman intoxicated with slaughter remain still upon catching the scent of blood?
In Frenzy, I was such an existence.
‘I need to invest in Mentality stats bit by bit from now on.’
The Mentality stat that was created when I learned Frenzy.
The description had clearly stated this.
-For every 50 Mentality increase, maintain rationality for an additional 5 minutes and reduce sleep requirement by 1 hour.
If it worked the same as No Way Home, then like other stats, it would increase by 1 for every 100 points invested.
I couldn’t afford to invest that many points into Mentality.
It was more stable to raise Strength with the points I’d allocate to Mentality.
So I’d invest moderately in Mentality and use Frenzy only as a last resort for the worst-case scenarios.

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