Player of a Ruined World - Chapter 57

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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 057
Let’s assume a rabbit and a tiger promised not to attack each other.
How long would that promise last?
Even if the tiger changes its mind and attacks the rabbit someday, there’s only one thing the rabbit can say.
-You promised! You promised not to attack!
Then the tiger would answer like this.
-That was then, but now I’m hungry.
Would the other animals watching this take the rabbit’s side?
Unless there’s another powerful being who loves peace, no animal would stand with the rabbit.
I know that a peace where everyone keeps their promises cannot exist.
Because I’ve lived in such a world since childhood.
So if you want peace, you can’t be a harmless rabbit—you must become a righteous monster.
Protecting something… that’s what it meant to me.
I took Do Sohee outside.
I could see two men whose faces were so mangled they were unrecognizable.
Park Sangil’s fists were soaked with blood.
“Sangil’s Hyung, I found out.”
“….”
“I found the hideout of those bastards called the Organization.”
Park Sangil still seemed furious, glaring at the two men who lay groaning, covered in blood.
“Sangil’s Hyung.”
“Give me a club.”
“Hyung….”
“Give it.”
This was the first time I’d seen Park Sangil so angry.
With no choice, I handed him the shovel and wooden clubs from the yard, and he gathered all the blunt weapons and entered the detached house.
He placed them on the floor where the five people in the living room could see them, and spoke to them.
“The two outside won’t be able to resist at all.”
People staring at Park Sangil with vacant eyes.
Dead, lifeless gazes—already devoid of will to live or hope.
Park Sangil spoke to them, his eyes blazing with fury.
“You decide what happens to those two.”
“….”
“Our help ends here.”
“….”
“Whether you continue living trampled on or pull yourselves together and rise up—we won’t interfere. You decide.”
Then three of the people in the living room’s eyes began to light up.
While some showed signs of life, two still looked like they’d given up on living.
“You… you bastards….”
The three people grabbed the shovel handles lying in the living room, tears streaming down their faces as they stood up.
Following that, I swung the shovel mercilessly at the two legless men.
Leaving behind the gruesome scene of vengeance, Park Sangil emerged from the detached house.
“Let’s move immediately.”
No anger was visible on Park Sangil’s face.
But neither joy nor sorrow existed there either.
An expression of complete emptiness.
What exactly was Park Sangil thinking right now?
Flicker—flicker—
At that moment, flashlight beams began to appear faintly from the direction we had come up.
So those bastards who went hunting were real.
It seems they’ve returned.
“It looks like the ones who went hunting have come back.”
“Hunting?”
“Yes, I heard it from one of the guys inside earlier. There are ones who catch people.”
“So those things coming up now are the ones who hunt humans?”
“Yes.”
Park Sangil gripped his curved blade and strode toward them with long steps.
I tried to stop him in my confusion, but I instinctively hesitated at the killing intent in his eyes.
Suddenly, words Park Sangil had spoken before came to mind.
‘I can’t leave a world like this for Kyeongeo.’
Park Sangil’s resolve to leave no filth in the world that Kyeongeo would inherit.
In the end… I abandoned the thought of stopping him.
Instead, I stood beside him and walked together.
“Doyun, you stay behind. You can’t even see ahead.”
“How can I let you go alone? What if you get shot?”
“Even if I can’t dodge bullets, I can see their trajectory beforehand.”
Indeed, Park Sangil’s current physical stats were 40.
Double that of other players.
Adding the increased stats from wearing protective gear… his strength, stamina, and agility were all 50.
When those coming up the hill aimed their guns, he had the tracking vision and evasion ability to perceive their trajectories.
“I’ll handle the ones on the left.”
“….”
“Even if my eyesight isn’t as good as yours, my reaction time is faster, right?”
“You little bastard. Are you mocking me for getting old?”
“Come on, give it your best shot, old man.”
“Ha ha ha! Okay, I’ll take the right.”
We gripped our blades and plunged into their ranks like arrows.

* * *
“The choice is yours.”
After dealing with the eight-man group climbing up the hill, I spoke while looking at the seven bound survivors.
Ding—!
[You have destroyed one Sanctuary!]
[500 Points awarded.]
The System Message appeared before my eyes.
Didn’t a Sanctuary require at least twenty or more survivors to be recognized as such?
‘Could it be… because of these people?’
The bound survivors.
Including them, the numbers exceeded twenty.
Thanks to that, it seems this place was recognized as a Sanctuary.
Well, all the survivors on Gaeun Mountain would be here, so the system would naturally recognize this as the Gaeun Mountain Sanctuary.
“Doyun.”
“Yes, Sangil’s Hyung.”
“We only killed ten people, so why is it recognized as a Sanctuary?”
“It seems we only need to eliminate those with hostile intent.”
“So we don’t need to kill people who have no intention to fight?”
“That appears to be the case.”
This detail had been nagging at me, but the system had resolved it on its own.
‘This could be useful.’
When we eventually went to the group’s main base, it would be easy to distinguish between those who surrendered in words only and those who truly surrendered.
Vroom—
Following that, our companions approached in a vehicle.
“Doyun’s Brother, Uncle Sangil, we’re moving right away, right?”
At Kim Suhan’s question, I looked toward Park Sangil.
Park Sangil opened the driver’s side door of Vehicle 2, and Park Sanghun shifted to the passenger seat.
“Let’s finish this today.”
Park Sangil closed the vehicle door with a brief response.
I climbed into the passenger seat of Vehicle 1 and spoke to Kim Suhan.
“Let’s head to Jeongneung.”
“I don’t know the way.”
“I’ll guide you. There might be group members on building rooftops or near windows, so drive slowly and check carefully.”
“Yes!”
I opened the 3D terrain map and checked Jeongneung’s location.
Not far from here.
The area around Jeongneung had many low-rise buildings and more alleyways than main roads.
If they had blocked the alley in front of Jeongneung with obstacles… I wasn’t sure whether to push through or leave the vehicle and proceed on foot.
With that, I picked up the radio.
“Sangil’s Hyung, I just checked the 3D terrain map. The area around Jeongneung looks like a good structure for setting traps.”
Crackle—
The response came through the radio almost immediately after I transmitted.
—Push through.
“Push through every obstacle we encounter?”
—Yeah.
“That sounds like an awfully risky operation. What if they start shooting from the surrounding buildings?”
—Are there a lot of buildings around Jeongneung?
Of course there were plenty.
When I mentioned the villas and churches and other structures in front of Jeongneung, Park Sangil’s response came through.
—Checking each one while moving would be inefficient, and leaving the modified vehicle behind is dangerous too. We can’t afford to have it stolen.
“That’s true.”
—It doesn’t seem like handguns can penetrate this vehicle anyway. How about we do this instead?
“How?”
—Vehicle 2 will lure out the ones outside Jeongneung. Vehicle 1 will wait, and when we give the signal, it goes in.
So Vehicle 2 would tank while Vehicle 1 takes down the boss?
The burden on Vehicle 2 would increase, but it was also the most reliable approach.
A strategy that only worked if we trusted the modified vehicle’s performance.
The man with the handgun from earlier had fired at Vehicle 1, but not even a scratch appeared on it.
If that was the case…
“Let’s do it that way.”
—Vehicle 1 will lead the way since I don’t know the route.
“Understood. I’ll report the situation again when we’re 700 meters from Jeongneung.”
—Okay.
After the brief communication, Vehicle 1 and Vehicle 2 descended from Gaeun Mountain.

* * *
On the way to Jeongneung, zombies were easily spotted everywhere.
Narrow alleys had few zombies, but the main roads were packed with them—a natural consequence.
Small groups of zombies were easy to handle, but large hordes were difficult, so this distribution made sense.
Of course, for us….
Vroooom—!! Vrooom!!
“Houu!!”
Kim Suhan plowed through the zombies with an exhilarated expression on his face.
The Hunting Dog Alliance with their modified vehicle.
For us, the zombies clogging the main road were nothing but delicious points.
Kim Suhan kept his foot on the accelerator while engaging the handbrake, even pulling off a drift.
He’d become completely one with the vehicle.
Youth in their teens—truly remarkable.
Learning comes fast at that age.
After moving without pause, clearing zombies the entire way, we soon arrived near Jeongneung.
With roughly 700 meters remaining, I called out to Kim Suhan beside me.
“Suhan, pull the car over here.”
“Here?”
“Do you see anything in the alley ahead?”
“There’s a lot of stuff piled up at the end.”
As expected, they’d constructed a barricade.
“Can you tell what they’ve piled up?”
“I can see desks and chairs, and it looks like they’ve built a wall out of metal plates.”
“A wall?”
“Yes. It’s like a barricade made from miscellaneous junk stacked together.”
“How tall?”
“About… 2 meters? The distance makes it hard to be precise.”
They’d built a wall to keep ordinary zombies out, but he said there were many gaps visible in it.
The best they could manage with their limited points.
Crackle—
A radio transmission came through.
-Doyun, the adjacent alley is the same.
“There’s a wall there too?”
-Yeah, but I think the modified vehicle can push through it easily enough.
“How far are we from the wall from your position?”
-About 400 meters from here. The rain noise probably drowned out the engine sound. No unusual movement yet.
After a brief moment of thought, I picked up the radio and spoke.
“Hold position for now. Let me spend some points before we go in.”
-That sounds good. It’s nice being able to use points in real time.
“You got a skill too, didn’t you? You’ll be able to see the points decreasing in real time.”
—Goodness, whether back then or now, I need to earn a lot.
Park Sangil still had the spirit to joke.
I smiled thinly and checked my current points.
[Current Points: 2,482]
I had just destroyed one shelter and obtained 500 points.
Excluding that, I had 1,982 points.
All of them were Zombies pushed down by the modified vehicle.
If the Zombies grew stronger, they would grant more points, but combat would become proportionally more difficult.
So it was better to process as many as possible while I could still slaughter them like this.
“Invest 10 in Epidermis, 10 in Mentality.”
[Consuming 1,000 points to increase Epidermis and Mentality by 10.]
Ding—!
[Current Stats: Health 60(+5), Strength 60(+5), Agility 60(+5), Epidermis 150, Mentality 160]
[Current Points: 482]
[Current Coins: 4]
I checked my current stats and tilted my head in confusion.
‘Why isn’t anything appearing?’
Following the settings of No Way Home, when Buster’s Epidermis stat reached 150, I should have acquired a new Skill.
But why wasn’t anything appearing?
Ding!
[Congratulations! Buster’s Epidermis stat has reached 150.]
[A new Skill is being generated!]
[Checking available Skills.]
[Checking…]
The System Message appeared one beat too late.
I was startled—I thought the settings had changed.
It seemed the verification process was necessary because I had already acquired all the Skills available in the early stages.
[Verification complete!]
[There are no Skills available to learn in the current episode.]
[To conduct additional investigation, please pay 100 points.]
They wanted me to spend 100 points just to refresh once?
This wasn’t even a pay-to-win mobile game—what kind of ridiculous setting was this….
“Use 100 points.”
[Beginning additional investigation.]
[Checking Skills that will be unlocked in future episodes.]
[In progress…]
Ding—!
[There is only one Skill currently available to learn.]
[Will you still acquire it?]
Of course I should take it while I had the chance.
I even spent 100 Points on refreshing.
“I’ll learn it. What Skill is it?”
[You have acquired the Skill ‘One Strike Lv.1’.]
Ding—!
[One Strike: Attack an enemy with powerful force.]
[Can be used simultaneously with other Skills, and deals damage equal to twice your Strength.]
-Usable 6 times per day.

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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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