Player of a Ruined World - Chapter 72

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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 072
A venomous expression and tone of voice.
I was taken aback by the Prophet’s words, but Park Sangha opened his mouth calmly.
“In a world where you don’t know what might happen at any moment, one must stay vigilant, mustn’t they?”
“….”
“This place is… unfamiliar to us. I hope you’ll understand that we cannot yet lower our guard.”
“….”
“In a world where survival is impossible without remaining cautious of others, surely you understand.”
A pragmatic response.
It might have sounded somewhat brazen, but the Prophet smiled with satisfaction at Park Sangha’s answer.
“Caution, you say… Do you fear us?”
“We have younger companions among us. I wish to observe a bit longer to ensure this is a safe place.”
As Park Sangha glanced at Do Sohee while speaking, the Prophet’s gaze also turned toward her.
Do Sohee, her expression tense with anxiety.
That expression reassured the Prophet.
It would seem as though everything Park Sangha said was the complete truth.
“Rest assured. This place grants you eternal peace.”
“….”
“Believe in us. Those who have faith in us shall find peace.”
When Park Sangha offered no response, the Prophet began to smile smugly.
No one is easier to manipulate than those who are afraid and suspicious.
Fear and suspicion… once resolved, they become faith.
Behind the Prophets sitting arrogantly on the sofa loomed a massive tent.
Given the traces of a collapsed wall, the Zombie King must be behind that tent.
Then the Prophet at the far left end furrowed his brow and opened his mouth.
“Now that new believers have arrived, shouldn’t we begin the baptism?”
When the man wearing semi-transparent pants over his underwear spoke, the Prophet holding a long pipe nodded.
“That would be best. Then let’s proceed one at a time, in order.”
“Who should we start with?”
“Well…”
The Prophet with the long pipe examined our expressions, then pointed to Do Sohee, who stood beside Park Sangha.
“That child would be suitable.”
Were they trying to deal with the one who appeared weakest first?
Or perhaps the one who seemed most likely to cause trouble?
At that, I raised my right hand slightly and spoke.
“Would it be acceptable if I went first?”
Bang!
In that instant, the Prophet at the far right end slammed his palm on the table and shouted.
“Insolence! How dare you defy our will?”
Anyone ignorant of the situation would be startled or intimidated by this moment.
But to me, it felt like nothing but irritation.
It looked like the petty posturing of arrogant fools.
Then the woman holding the long pipe smiled contentedly and gazed at the man.
“Please, calm yourself. Isn’t it admirable that you step forward first, concerned for the safety of your younger comrade?”
“….”
“Let him do as he wishes.”
I bowed my head respectfully to the woman with the pipe in her mouth, then glanced back at Park Sanghun.
As if he’d been waiting, a voice reached my mind.
-Doyun, once you go in, I’ll start right away.
There’s no need to wait for the security guards here to arrive.
When I nodded while looking at Park Sanghun, he began relaying the plan ahead to the group gathered here.
How did I know Park Sanghun conveyed it correctly?
I could tell just by watching Park Sangil, Park Sangha, Elderly Grandfather Kwak Cheolmin, and Do Sohee—their eye corners twitching and their upper bodies flinching.
“Cover your eyes.”
The woman with the pipe held out a blindfold to me.
Instead of answering, I looked at her, and she continued calmly.
“I’m testing the magnitude of your faith.”
“….”
“If this displeases you, you have no right to enter The Great Dominion.”
How many people had they fed to the zombies this way over the years?
Just thinking about it made my blood run cold. These despicable creatures.
There was no point in saying anything different—it would only disrupt the flow. So I put on the blindfold without hesitation.
“Take my hand. At its end lies eternal rest.”
As I grasped the Prophet’s hand, she suddenly placed earmuffs on me.
The thick, soundproof kind you wear in the depths of winter.
So that’s why Park Sanghun had gone silent at some point.
I couldn’t see anything, and I couldn’t hear anything.
Holding the woman’s hand, I took one step, then another, continuing forward.
With sight and hearing cut off, my sense of touch became acutely sensitive.
The texture of the ground beneath my feet with each step.
The fabric of the tent brushing against my hair.
Clank—
Faintly, I heard the sound of a heavy iron door opening.
The Zombie King wasn’t directly beyond the tent; rather, the place where the Zombie King was confined was hidden behind the tent.
Well, the Zombie King was still a zombie, after all.
It would keep growling constantly, so confining it in an open space would be burdensome.
‘This is….’
The moment I stepped beyond the iron door, my face reflexively contorted.
The stench of blood was vibrating through the air.
Clank— Clatter—
At the same time, the iron door slammed shut with the heavy sound of a lock clicking into place.
Thwack!
I felt a kick strike my back.
Caught off guard by the sudden attack, I lost my balance and fell.
The blindfold and earplugs I’d been wearing came loose, and I blinked my eyes open to survey my surroundings.
Candles hung sporadically along the walls.
There were no windows, and the ground was drenched with blood so thick it pooled beneath me.
“Grrrraaahhh…!”
I turned my head at the sound of a voice from behind my neck.
Crunch!
I could see the creature biting into my trapezius muscle.
Pale skin and distinctly visible black veins.
It was the Zombie King.
“How many is this now?”
“97.”
I heard the voices of the Prophet and an unknown man conversing.
The Prophet must have guided me here, and that man hid behind the iron door before kicking my back.
“Once we hit 100, we’ll be able to say that thing, right?”
“That’s how it worked in the game. How many came in this time?”
“Six. Five men and one woman.”
“How old?”
“Looked like a middle school student?”
The woman mentioned Do Sohee’s age first without even asking who she was.
Then the man chuckled as he spoke.
“Don’t bring her here—take her to my room. Got it?”
“Ugh, you disgusting bastard. Fine.”
“Heh heh, then let’s clean up this corpse first…”
In that moment, both the man and woman who caught sight of me wore equally dumbfounded expressions.
The Zombie King was gnawing at my trapezius, yet I sat there calmly listening to their conversation.
“What, what is that bastard?”
Looking closer, the man wore only underwear, his entire body caked in blood.
His hair, which fell to his shoulders, was matted and clumped together, and his beard was thick and unkempt.
He seemed to be the one who disposed of corpses here—I could tell his tastes were utterly repulsive.
I casually waved my hand and spoke.
“Don’t mind me. Keep talking.”
“H-hey, what the hell is that bastard?! Why is he fine when a zombie’s biting him?!”
The man looked at the Prophet beside him in shock, and the Prophet stammered as he spoke.
“D-did you… did you choose Buster?”
“Yeah, first time seeing a Buster?”
“…!”
At the word “buster,” the long-haired man wearing only underwear bolted toward the iron door.
I quickly pulled a curved blade from my inventory and hurled it toward his tailbone.
Crack!
The bone pierced through in a single strike, the curved blade passing clean through.
“Huh? Ugh…! Kyaaaaaaah!!”
The creature shrieked with an otherworldly cry and collapsed.
I shoved the Zombie King aside—who was gnawing at the trapezius muscle—and rose to my feet, walking toward the Prophet.
“How predictable. Trash always acts exactly as you’d expect.”
“…!”
“Did you really think you could control the Zombie King this way?”
“Who, who are you?”
“What else? A Player.”
“A, a person whose skin doesn’t get pierced even when bitten by a zombie? I’ve never even heard of such a thing.”
“Do you need to hear about it? I’m standing right in front of you. Can’t you believe what you see?”
Bewilderment was written all over the Prophet’s face.
The woman’s eyes darted left and right as she swallowed hard, then suddenly her eyes widened and she grabbed my arm.
“Y, yes! Come, come here. Actually, the position of Cult Leader in our Great Dominion has been vacant!”
“…What?”
“Cult Leader, I mean Cult Leader. Would you like to be the Cult Leader? We were originally planning to install the Zombie King as Cult Leader once his sanity returned, but… thinking about it again, I think it’s better if a person holds the position.”
“….”
“You become the Cult Leader and the Zombie King becomes something else….”
Thud!
I pulled the curved blade from the tailbone of the man collapsed on the ground, then severed his cervical spine.
As blood dripped from the blade, I pressed it against the Prophet’s neck, and the woman froze like a plaster statue, swallowing hard.
“Where did that Zombie King come from?”
“…Huh?”
“You said you test survivors to see if they have the strength to fight zombies. Don’t you have a notebook recording where the people came from?”
“That… is in the records room.”
“Where is the records room?”
“Underground, the underground hall. The hall’s storage.”
The underground hall… is that the direction of the stairs I saw when entering the building earlier?
There were stairs leading underground, and it seems that’s the path to the hall.
“Let me ask one more thing.”
“If, if I talk, will you let me live?”
“The Zombie King didn’t come to the Great Dominion alone. It must have come with its offspring, right?”
“I don’t know about that. We discarded all children fourteen and under.”
“What?”
“We weren’t trying to create a Zombie King from the start! That thing suddenly transformed into one, so we had no choice but to….”
“Where did you discard the children?”
“How would I know such trivial details? That’s the Head of Security’s job!”
“…Trivial?”
As I furrowed my brow and gripped the sword hilt tightly, the woman swallowed hard and spoke.
“Wait, wait! Please, calm down. I apologize for calling it trivial.”
“You don’t know anything, do you?”
“I don’t know, I really don’t know. Sob….”
The woman suddenly began to weep.
And this is supposed to be a Prophet.
Strutting about with such pretense, oblivious to her own insignificance.
The three Prophets outside are no different.
All bluster and intimidation, utterly hollow beneath the surface.
“That Zombie King over there. How many days has it been since he transformed into a zombie?”
“I, I don’t know. I don’t know.”
“Answer, or you die.”
“Ah, perhaps… two weeks? Maybe a bit more than two weeks? I really don’t know.”
What?
Upon hearing those words, I hastily examined the Zombie King’s condition.
There were still no signs of rampage.
Only now did I notice the necklace hanging around the Zombie King’s neck.
I shoved the woman against the wall and slid forward toward the Zombie King, reaching for the necklace.
“Go… home… must.”
A faint voice escaped from the Zombie King’s lips.
As I stared in shock, tears of blood began to flow from the Zombie King’s eyes.
“My… child….”
“…!”
“Home… must… go.”
A Zombie King shedding tears of blood meant… the rampage was imminent.
This was not the time to think of what came after.
I had to deal with it before it was too late.
I quickly tore the necklace from the Zombie King’s neck with my left hand, and in the same instant, I swung the curved blade gripped in my right hand.
Clang!!
The iron chains binding my right arm snapped in an instant, and the Zombie King seized my arm as I swung the blade.
“Home… must go. Child… my baby….”
“…!”
“Grrrraaaaaahhhhh!!!”
The Zombie King roared, tears of blood streaming down its face.
I wrenched myself free from its grip with all my strength and retreated, while the Zombie King’s face flushed crimson and violet as it began tearing apart the iron chains binding its limbs like a frenzied beast.
Clang!! Crash—!! Clang!!
The Zombie King shattered the chains in moments and rose to its feet.
Ding—!
[Emergency Episode commencing.]
[The Zombie King’s rampage begins.]
[The Zombie King’s physical abilities surge to twice the episode limit.]
Ding—!
[Emergency Episode: The Lost Child]
[The Zombie King, having lost his offspring, enters a rampage.]
[Please locate the Zombie King’s child within the given time to suppress the rampage.]
[If the rampage is not suppressed, the Zombie King will remain in a frenzied state until the game’s ending.]
[Time Limit: 72 hours]
[Clear Condition: Discovery of the Zombie King’s child.]
[Clear Reward: 2,000 points.]
[Additional Reward: ???]
[Failure: Zombie King’s rampage persists]
Now was not the time to be reading system messages.
I closed the system message obscuring my vision and turned to look back at where the Zombie King had been.
“…!”
I could see the Zombie King’s face, which had already closed the distance to mere inches from me.

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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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