Player of a Ruined World - Chapter 69

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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 069
I looked at Park Sanghun and spoke.
“Sanghun, can you break the gear mechanism on your way out?”
“Ah, yes, yes.”
He answered as if responding to the sentry’s question, but it was really an answer meant for me.
Then Park Sangil beside me tilted his head and asked.
“Break the gear mechanism?”
“Yes, if things go well, today might be our chance.”
“Weren’t we supposed to wait for the scout patrol to come out and deal with them one by one?”
“That was the plan, but if the third barricade has a radius of 300 meters, it seems impossible to check everything.”
….
“Besides, there doesn’t seem to be just one scout patrol, so it’s impossible for us to block all the passages.”
It was difficult even to confirm how many entrances there were.
Blocking all the scout patrols was practically impossible.
Just looking at the number of sentries, the scout patrols would be at least twice as many.
“If Sanghun can confirm up to the first barricade… it seems we could launch a surprise attack on a late night.”
Park Sangil and Park Sangha wore contemplative expressions, and before long, they nodded in agreement.
If we could understand the state of the first barricade and what kind of people these Prophets were, we could end everything before sunrise tomorrow morning.

* * *
Park Sanghun arrived at the first barricade installed at the main gate of N Elementary School, passing through the second barricade.
He entered the school grounds following the sentry’s guidance.
“The atmosphere here is different, isn’t it?”
“The Prophets live here? What kind of people are the Prophets?”
“Four of them? Do they manage the four cardinal directions?”
“Oh, that has a nice ring to it. Then… could I become a believer too?”
“I will also work for the prosperity and glory of this place together with the Great Dominion.”
Park Sanghun answered in a way that let us know what conversation he was having with the sentry.
“A prayer meeting? What’s a prayer meeting?”
“The Prophets pray for Gaia on that day?”
“Me too? Can I participate?”
“Ah, so I need to receive baptism at the prayer meeting.”
Just from Park Sanghun’s words, I could grasp the internal situation.
The sentry seemed very strict at first, but upon seeing Park Sanghun follow obediently, he seemed to lower his guard.
Park Sanghun acted like an innocent person who knew nothing, like a believer who truly wanted to pray.
I looked at my wristwatch and calculated the remaining time of the auditory hallucination.
Fifteen minutes left.
Would it be possible to break the gear mechanism within the remaining time?
“This is the Prophets’ room?”
Soon, at Park Sanghun’s words, everyone gathered on the rooftop began to concentrate.
“So the administrative office is where the Prophets stay. If you don’t mind… would it be permissible for me to meet with them?”
“It’s only proper to pay my respects anyway…”
“Really?! Thank you so much! Weapons? I have no weapons. I left them at the checkpoint in front of the third barricade earlier.”
I could see Park Sanghun’s Adam’s apple bobbing.
He seemed nervous himself.
Then I noticed Park Sanghun’s pupils dilating and his mouth falling open.
At the same time, his upper body flinched.
“Y-yes, I meet with the Prophets.”
“I… came from Hakdong Park.”
“The group from Hakdong Park has been decimated by attacks from those demonic creatures.”
“Pardon? The rifles we supplied? Ah, yes. Of course I remember.”
“I can’t be certain if any remain. Those who attacked us may have already taken everything.”
“I barely survived alone… and managed to escape here with great difficulty.”
“From what I gathered, they seemed to be from the east. They were talking about Gangdong-gu and Songpa-gu.”
Park Sanghun spun his lies smoothly.
Yet his voice and expression made it feel like pure truth without a hint of falsehood.
He couldn’t manage fake tears, but he could lie this well.
Perhaps it was because these were lies infused with desperation—the kind that emerge when lives hang in the balance.
Park Sanghun continued relaying the situation after that.
But about ten minutes after meeting with the Prophets, Park Sanghun said nothing more.
My eyes couldn’t leave my wristwatch, anxiety gnawing at me.
Now there was barely a minute left of the auditory hallucination.
“Sanghun, we’re out of time. You need to come out in one minute.”
“…”
But Park Sanghun gave no answer.
It seems disabling the gears of the second barricade will be difficult.
The remaining time of the auditory hallucination was counting down.
“10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5…”
What on earth are they talking about in that office.
“3, 2, 1.”
“Gasp!”
Then I saw Park Sanghun’s eyes come back into focus, and he staggered once.
I quickly steadied him and looked at him—Park Sanghun stared at me with a vacant expression.
“Are you okay? Are you with me?”
“I… met them.”
“The Prophets?”
“No, not the Prophets.”
“What happened to the man you were controlling?”
“H-he’s dead. They… threw me alive.”
“What?”
What in the world are you talking about….
Gulp!
At that moment, Park Sanghun looked at my face with a terrified expression, then grabbed my collar and spoke.
“Doyun, not here. I don’t think we should touch anything here.”
“….”
“Something’s wrong with the people here. It looks like they’re conducting experiments.”
“First, calm down. Take a deep breath.”
Park Sangha pulled out a water bottle from his inventory and handed it to Park Sanghun.
Park Sanghun gulped down the cool water, then exhaled deeply and wiped the moisture from his lips.
Only after he’d calmed down a bit could we finally hear what Park Sanghun had seen and heard.

* * *
The people at the Third Barricade were called sentries, but that was just a nice way of putting it.
In reality, they were slaves or servants.
“In the past, whenever a survivor appeared, they’d check if they’d been bitten by zombies and see if they could fight. But not anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“This place… doesn’t accept new survivors anymore. They have enough slaves.”
“….”
“If you enter The Great Dominion now, you’ll all become sacrifices.”
Sacrifices?
Sacrifices for what?
Park Sanghun gulped down the remaining water and spoke.
“I saw it. I definitely… saw it.”
“Saw what?”
“The King of the Zombies.”
At Park Sanghun’s words, the expressions of everyone gathered on the rooftop hardened.
Then their gazes all focused on me at once.
“The King of the Zombies is… the fourth episode boss, isn’t it?”
At Park Sangil’s question, my mouth wouldn’t open easily.
Instead of answering, I looked at Park Sanghun.
“Sanghun, the King of the Zombies you saw—can you draw what it looked like?”
“Paper.”
“Does anyone happen to have paper?”
As I looked around at the group and asked, Do Sohee raised her hand and approached.
Do Sohee, who kept a notebook and pen in her inventory.
As she opened the notebook, I could catch a glimpse of the contents at the front.
This was Do Sohee’s diary.
“Oh, ah, please don’t look at the front!”
“I won’t. Can I just use one page in the back?”
“…Yes.”
I opened to the last page of the diary and placed it on the desk beneath the tent.
“Draw it for me. What did it look like?”
Park Sanghun’s right hand trembled as he sketched, still bearing the trauma of being mauled by the King of the Zombies.
The drawing gradually took shape.
By any measure, it was an ordinary person.
Moreover, this was…
“A woman, wasn’t it?”
“It was definitely a woman.”
The King of the Zombies was called the Walking Daddy in No Way Home.
Daddy means father, right?
No, there’s no law saying everything has to unfold like a game.
Game episodes are only episodes, after all.
Haven’t we already seen the Giant Zombie that should have appeared in the fifth episode show up early?
Ever since the Mutant Egg was discovered in the first episode, everything has been accelerating.
So the possibility of a Walking Mom instead of a Walking Daddy?
Entirely plausible.
I looked at Park Sanghun and asked.
“Sanghun, was there anything unusual about its appearance?”
“Extremely pale. The skin was incredibly white… you could see the blood vessels. But the blood vessels were black.”
“What about the eyes? The pupils—they weren’t black, were they?”
Then Park Sangil beside me tilted his head and asked.
“Most Korean people have black pupils, don’t they?”
“Ah, I misspoke. Not the pupils, but the whites of the eyes.”
“The whites of the eyes were black?”
“Yes, the King of the Zombies has no distinction between the whites and pupils of its eyes. From a distance, it looks as if the eyes are missing entirely—pitch black, like absolute darkness.”
After finishing my explanation, I looked at Park Sanghun, and he was staring at me with a vacant expression.
It seemed he had indeed faced those pitch-black eyes.
“You’re certain it’s the Zombie King?”
Park Sanghun nodded instead of answering.
If that’s the case…
“It appears N Elementary School intentionally created the Zombie King.”
I think I understand why the Great Dominion became so powerful, and what it means that they use people as sacrifices.
They weren’t consuming human flesh—they were feeding the King of the Zombies.
The Zombie King is literally a zombie.
It cannot speak human language.
But if it consumes large quantities of human brains… the Zombie King can also learn to speak human language.
A being with zombie violence and abilities, yet simultaneously possessing human reason.
That is the King of the Zombies.
“Sanghun, were there offspring of the Zombie King there as well?”
“I couldn’t confirm that far. There simply wasn’t enough time.”
“So, were there any unusual circumstances—like the Zombie King being restrained or gagged?”
“They broke through the wall behind the administrative office. My eyes were covered, so I can’t be certain, but there’s a room that looks like a storage area back there. Inside, there’s a Zombie King with bound limbs.”
Upon hearing Park Sanghun’s answer, I clenched my fist and exclaimed, “Yes!”
Park Sangha, standing beside me, adjusted his broken glasses and asked.
“Is this something to celebrate?”
“Yes, because we still haven’t found it.”
“Found what?”
“The Zombie King’s offspring.”
“…!”
“Now the puzzle is coming together. You said The Great Dominion came out to dispose of garbage every three days, and there were people who went on reconnaissance missions at those times, right?”
“That’s right.”
“You mentioned those reconnaissance scouts were well-dressed. While it could be for trade with other factions, it’s likely because of the child.”
“….”
“Children can read a person’s appearance and expressions. When they find the Zombie King’s offspring, they might be dressing neatly to prevent the child from being startled.”
“So… The Great Dominion is searching for the Zombie King’s offspring?”
“Yes. Given that there are Players at No Way Home and they’re called Prophets… it means they’ve deciphered information about the Zombie King.”
Park Sangil pouted his lips, scratched the bridge of his nose, and asked while smacking his lips.
“So… these Great Dominion bastards are trying to clear the game by using the Zombie King?”
“Yes.”
“Wait, didn’t you say the Zombie King can’t make rational judgments before meeting its offspring?”
“That’s why they’ve restrained it. Once it consumes human brains, it can use language. Once it can communicate, they plan to ask it where its offspring is located.”
“Can that even work? It can speak, sure, but before finding its offspring, it’s just a strong zombie without reason.”
“Exactly. Those so-called Prophets are mistaken. They seem to believe that once it can use language, its reason will return.”
Park Sangil thrust both hands into his pants pockets, as if something felt off about this.
“The Zombie King’s offspring won’t be alone either, and since we don’t know what it looks like… does it make sense for the reconnaissance team to be moving?”
“They’re likely searching based on the game’s settings. That’s probably why they can’t find it.”
“Isn’t that strange? In the game, it was a walking daddy, but in reality, it’s a walking mom. So the method should be different.”
“That’s why I’ve thought of something.”
“What is it?”
Park Sangil looked eager for my answer.
I looked at everyone and spoke.
“The Prophets are extremely anxious right now.”
“Anxious?”
“Because their bluff is about to be exposed. So they’re trying anything they can.”
“….”
“They feed the Zombie King people, try this method, try that method. All while hoping its reason will return.”
“Hah.”
“With food already scarce, they’ll be tearing their hair out. If faith wavers, the slaves will rebel.”
“That’s why charlatans end up killing people.”
Park Sanghun, seated before the desk, nodded in agreement.
“You’re right, Doyun. Your words seem to be correct.”
“Do you remember what the Prophets said?”
“They showed me a picture. They asked if I’d ever seen a child that looked like this.”
“….”
“I thought they were simply looking for a missing child, but hearing your words, Doyun, it seems like it was the same thing.”
“Do you remember what the child in that picture looked like?”

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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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