Player of a Ruined World - Chapter 66

—————
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 066
I need to figure out how far this gagged man is willing to lie.
If I move forward without knowing the truth… I might end up in another situation like this.
I glanced around the interior of the vehicle, but Park Sangil, who should have been in the driver’s seat, was nowhere to be seen.
“Where did Sangil’s Hyung go?”
“A zombie corpse got stuck in the front wheel, so the steering wheel won’t turn. He’s removing it right now.”
Apparently, several zombies got caught in the axle during the process of ramming through them with the triangular plow.
That’s why the steering wheel wouldn’t turn and we couldn’t build up speed.
I left the repairs to Park Sangil and turned my attention to the man beside me.
Once I removed the gag from his mouth, he immediately wiped the saliva from his lips with his sleeve.
“I, I never lied!”
“Don’t you see the corpses in the back? You’re telling me there are that many zombies in a cleared area?”
“No… when I said cleared, I meant people. I wasn’t saying the zombies were cleared.”
“You bastard… do you really think I came all this way to play word games with you?”
“No, that’s not it…”
“Just the zombies I killed in the last few minutes must be around 500. Do I look like I’m in the mood for jokes?”
I’d been surrounded by zombies for over ten minutes.
I’d swung my dual blades relentlessly without barely catching my breath, so the sharpness of the blades wasn’t what it used to be.
Taking this kind of damage before even starting proper combat would put me at a disadvantage in every way if this turned into a prolonged battle.
“Hey… Doyun.”
Park Sanghun called out to me from beside.
When I turned my head, he gave a bitter smile and spoke.
“500 is way too low.”
“…What?”
“Check your point message.”
Following Park Sanghun’s words, I checked my point message.
Looking at the numbers displayed in the point message, I couldn’t close my gaping mouth.
A total of 2,800. Just the points that came in moments ago were 2,800.
That meant I’d killed 1,400 zombies, didn’t it?
I thought I’d killed hundreds, but I never expected it to exceed a thousand.
If the zombies’ physical abilities ever increased, combat like this would become impossible.
I was grateful this happened in the second episode.
If something like this had happened in the fourth or fifth episode… we might have died here.
The man’s lips trembled like a fish’s, and he hurriedly offered an excuse.
“I, I’m telling the truth! Believe me.”
“This bastard…”
“No, no! Of course! Who would think someone would just recklessly ram through with a car like that?!”
“…”
“I naturally thought you’d move by jumping through alleys or building rooftops! I’ve never even seen anyone move like this.”
“So what you’re saying is… the zombies in Gangnam are almost completely uncleared?”
“The Great Dominion’s main base is secured, but naturally there are plenty of Zombies in the other areas.”
I grabbed the man by the collar as irritation boiled up inside me.
He swallowed hard and squeezed his eyes shut.
Expecting a slap, he tucked his head down defensively.
Like a turtle, almost.
Park Sanghun scratched his head, then opened his mouth with a cough.
“Doyun, I’m going down to help my older brother, so handle things on your own.”
“Got it.”
“And… I can’t kill him?”
“I know.”
Park Sanghun descended, and I looked at the man with his limbs bound and asked.
“Tell me everything you know.”
The man blinked, then spilled all the information he possessed.
The exact location of The Great Dominion, their numbers, even the interior layout.
He also revealed where Zombies were concentrated in Gangnam and the location of the hideout where he’d been staying.
“N Elementary School in Nonhyeon-dong is The Great Dominion’s main base?”
“Yes. It’s true.”
“So there are no Zombies within 300 meters of that area?”
“Yes. There’s a third barricade at a 300-meter radius, a second barricade at 150 meters, and first barricades at the front gate, back gate, and side gate of the school.”
“Why didn’t you mention this earlier?”
“Because… I was afraid you’d kill me if I told you everything.”
“Again.”
“Yes?”
“Is there anything else?”
I gripped the hwandao in my hand and asked. The man’s eyes widened in fear as he spoke.
“Th-The Great Dominion has quite a lot of No Way Home Players!”
“How many exactly?”
“I don’t know that either.”
“Then what’s your basis for calling The Great Dominion demonic bastards? You said they won’t make a move unless we attack first.”
“That’s… really difficult to explain in words.”
I grabbed the man’s collar with my left hand and pressed the hwandao I held in my right hand against his neck. He stammered as he spoke.
“W-wait! That… I’m not sure how to explain this, but it’s kind of like a cult? That kind of feeling.”
“A cult?”
“Yes. I don’t know much, but it seemed like they had prayer times.”
“How did you know that?”
“They pray openly on the school’s athletic field—how could I not know? N Elementary School is in a low-lying area, so you can see everything from a tall building looking down.”
“You can see that from 300 meters away?”
“If you look, you can see it all. Really. I’m a Shooter by profession.”
A cult, then…
Did such an organization exist in No Way Home?
It didn’t exist in the game.
Then it’s likely a kingdom created by the No Way Home Players themselves.
Since there are many players, wouldn’t they rule people using information?
They may have deified themselves through the information they possess.
Like prophets who know the future.
Or we can’t rule out the possibility that they’re a group that worships Gaia, the creator of No Way Home.
Regardless of what the name “The Great Dominion” means, one thing’s certain—they’re unsettling bastards with religion mixed in.
“How did you know they eat human flesh?”
“They come out beyond the third barricade every three days to dump trash. There were human bones there.”
“You’re sure?”
“You think I wouldn’t recognize a skull?”
This bastard would crawl right back up if I loosened my grip even slightly.
As I furrowed my brow, the man opened his mouth with a nervous cough.
“I know the area between Nonhyeon Station and Sinnonhyeon Station well. If you just spare my life, I’ll truly be loyal.”
“I don’t want your loyalty. Just tell me everything you know.”
“I’ll serve you as my hyung! Really!”
“How old are you?”
“I’m thirty.”
“I’m twenty-eight.”
“…Huh?”
The man stared at my face with a dazed expression, then spoke with a bitter smile.
“Come on, you’re lying.”
“Want to die?”
“I-I’m sorry.”
I’d learned the exact location of The Great Dominion and that they’d fortified it with barricades.
To set up barricades within a 300-meter radius centered on the school… how many survivors would that require?
If they’d erected barricades and established their own system in such a short time, wouldn’t they be a massive group of at least 300 people or more?
Click—
Following that, the driver and passenger doors opened as Park Sangil and Park Sanghun climbed into the vehicle.
“Ugh.”
Park Sangil brushed his hands off and frowned.
He’d apparently touched something unpleasant while removing the zombie corpse caught on the drive shaft.
When I told the Park brothers what I’d heard from the man, Park Sangil wiped the blood from his hands with a wet cloth and spoke.
“Let’s move through the alley. Moving on the main road seems dangerous.”
“Yes, that seems better. What about the vehicle?”
“I managed to remove the visible corpse, but I had to forcibly extract the one completely tangled in the drive shaft, so the vehicle’s performance won’t be the same as before.”
“I see.”
“I extracted as much as I could, but we’ll probably need to lift the car later and check the undercarriage. There was something like a thigh wedged in a spot I couldn’t reach.”
“Understood.”
Park Sangil started the engine and slowly turned the steering wheel.
There was indeed a problem; my foot on the accelerator wasn’t as steady as before.
We moved slowly through an alley where Zombies were relatively sparse.

* * *
After passing through a two-lane road and crossing the furniture district, as we entered a narrow alley marked with a one-way sign, the number of Zombies began to decrease.
“Which way from here?”
I asked the man beside me, and he gestured forward with a nod of his chin.
“That way. Just keep going straight ahead.”
“Straight?”
“Yes, if you just follow this alley straight, there’s a solitary apartment building.”
Then Park Sangil, who was holding the steering wheel, asked with a voice full of doubt.
“In Nonhyeon-dong, aren’t apartments only north of the furniture district? There shouldn’t be any apartments to the south.”
Really?
Since Park Sangil said so, I picked up the gag I’d set on the seat and looked at the man.
“If you don’t want to wear this again, tell me straight.”
“No, I’m serious! I’m from here—do you know this place better than I do?”
“Are you getting annoyed?”
“No… this is just expressing my opinion, expressing my opinion.”
Park Sangil, uncertain, tilted his head and slowly drove through the alley.
Before long, Park Sangil slowly pressed the brake and leaned his face toward the windshield.
“Wow, it’s really there. There’s a solitary apartment here.”
“See! Why would I lie to you?”
He seemed quite aggrieved.
As he appealed his grievance with flushed cheeks, I patted the man’s back and asked Park Sangil.
“Sangil’s Hyung, how far is it to the apartment?”
“It’s 80 meters ahead. Should we go straight into the apartment?”
“Yes. We’ll go into the apartment and secure the rooftop first. Then check if we can see N Elementary School from here…”
“That won’t work!”
Then the man beside me cried out in alarm.
“Damn… you scared me. I can hear you even if you speak quietly.”
As I caught my breath and looked at him, the man spilled out words like rapid fire.
“Right in front of that apartment is the third barricade. If we go any further from here, The Great Dominion will notice. If we’re discovered first, I really don’t know what will happen…”
“Understood. Calm down.”
The way the man was so alarmed suggested he definitely wasn’t affiliated with The Great Dominion.
His tone and his expression—just looking at his face, he clearly didn’t want to be entangled with The Great Dominion.
Park Sangil poked his head toward the windshield and spoke.
“Hmm… I can’t see the barricade from here. There are too many villas around, so there are too many blind spots.”
“So ultimately, we need to go into the apartment to confirm the entire surrounding area?”
“Yeah, that seems to be the case.”
“From here on, we’ll move on foot.”
As I tried to get out of the vehicle, Park Sangil unbuckled his seatbelt and turned around.
“Wait a moment.”
“Yes?”
“What about him? Are we taking him along too?”
The creature with both hands and feet bound.
I gripped the hwarang in my hand and pressed the blade between his legs.
“Ah! W-wait! I told you everything!”
As he flinched and clenched his groin, I forcibly spread his legs and spoke.
“I’m just cutting the rope around your ankles. Stay still.”
“Ah. Yes.”
Snap!
Once I cut the rope, the man extended both his hands.
Was he asking me to untie the rope binding his wrists too?
“I’m not untying that.”
“What? But if there’s danger, I need to fight! How can I do anything with both hands tied…?”
“You won’t need to fight. Just follow quietly.”
Click-
I opened the heavy modified vehicle door and descended with the man.
Feeling the humid air and cold downpour, I glanced around my surroundings.
The area around the barricade seemed to have finished clearing out the zombies, as I felt no other signs of life.
Park Sangil, who followed me out of the vehicle, gathered a crossbow and bolts as he spoke.
“I asked Sanghun to send reinforcements.”
“Reinforcements?”
“Not many—just Elder Chulmin, Sangha, and So Hee will be coming over this way.”
Because of the rain’s noise, my voice wouldn’t carry unless I spoke loudly.
For some reason, it seemed like the rain was getting heavier.
Was it because the end was approaching?
Once the second episode ended, all these dreary rain streaks would disappear completely, so I’d just have to endure a little longer.
Since I needed the Maker to work on vehicle repairs and one healing factor member, I didn’t object to Park Sangil’s decision.
Not long after, Park Sanghun descended from the vehicle and spoke.
“I explained the safe route, so there shouldn’t be any problems on the way for the reinforcements!”
I nodded and looked at Park Sangil, then he took a step forward.
Splash- splash-
Following behind Park Sangil and maintaining vigilant watch on all sides, the apartment’s exterior began to come into view for me as well.
A gray apartment building looming beyond the thick mist.
I could only make out its silhouette, but judging by its height, it seemed to be the tallest structure in this area.
Park Sangil then stopped walking and spoke.
“There it is—the barricade.”
“Where exactly is its location?”
“There’s a parking lot entrance at the midpoint of the apartment. The barricade is in front of it.”

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