Player of a Ruined World - Chapter 99

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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 099
Boom-!!!
Meanwhile, Baek Doyun had pushed deep through the horde of zombies.
Hearing the distant explosion, I stopped moving and turned to look back.
‘A grenade?’
Since I’d already been spotted by the zombies anyway, was this an attempt to eliminate them all at once?
Did they really throw a grenade without knowing how many zombies and mutants were in this area?
If the fighting dragged on, I’d definitely exhaust myself physically.
Moreover, unlike the Jamsilbridge where everything was wide open, this place had plenty of cover and blind spots.
The more information I had to process visually, the faster fatigue would set in.
Whoosh!
In that moment, I spotted a figure moving rapidly to my right.
Approximately 40 meters away.
It resembled a human form, but its movement didn’t look like a zombie’s.
Yet it wasn’t a Creeper or a Joker either.
With a nagging feeling, I gripped my curved blade and was about to pursue it when—
“Doyun’s brother!”
Kim Suhan’s voice called out from behind me.
Suhan came running to my side with a crossbow shouldered, then stared blankly at the zombie corpses scattered around us.
“Did… did you handle all of these?”
“Where are the others?”
“They’re following behind.”
“You should have come together. If you move alone, what happens then? If a Joker catches you, it’s over.”
“You went ahead first.”
“No, I came to clear the zombies—”
No, let me stop there.
Suhan’s words weren’t wrong either.
“Next time, come with the others. I went ahead to clear a path, so don’t force yourselves to follow.”
“Yes, understood!”
“Is anyone injured?”
“Haneul got hurt a bit, but So Hee is treating him.”
“Anyone bitten?”
“No one’s been bitten.”
Good, as long as no one was bitten, that’s what mattered.
Now that the group’s physical abilities were no longer ordinary, they shouldn’t get bitten by zombies easily.
The danger of being bitten and infected by a zombie was now far less than the danger of being struck down by a mutant.
“Who threw the grenade?”
“Yeon-hee threw it.”
“Hong Yeonhui?”
If it had been a high schooler like Park Youngsu or someone from No Way Home who threw it, I wouldn’t have thought much of it, but if Hong Yeonhui used a grenade, somehow it made sense.
Because he would always have thought through the best course of action and made his judgment accordingly.
Kim Suhan glanced around before slowly lowering the crossbow he’d been aiming and asked a question.
“Brother, are you already done clearing this floor?”
“Don’t you see any of them in your field of vision?”
“No. I don’t see any right now.”
“What about the fourth floor?”
“Kim Hanna and her subordinates already headed up to the fourth floor.”
Did they go up to the fourth floor after seeing me clear the third floor?
A wise decision.
I cannot distinguish between Kim Hanna’s subordinates and ordinary zombies.
In such a confined space, they could easily get tangled up with each other, so it seems they chose to avoid friction from the start.
“But what were you doing, brother?”
“I told you. I was clearing out the zombies.”
“Weren’t you staring intently in that direction just now?”
Right, I’d forgotten because of Kim Suhan.
I’d seen something moving like an arrow from forty meters away and tried to chase after it.
I’m not certain, but if it’s something my eyes couldn’t follow…
“P…please save me.”
At that moment, hearing a voice from ahead, both Kim Suhan and I turned our heads without hesitation.
It wasn’t clear, but I definitely heard a voice pleading for help.
Kim Suhan’s eyes widened like lanterns as he stared ahead, and he asked with a stutter.
“B-brother. Did you just hear that too?”
“Yeah.”
“There’s a survivor here?”
“…”
“Let’s hurry. If it’s a person, we need to…”
As Kim Suhan tried to move forward, I quickly grabbed his arm.
“I’ll take the lead. Follow behind me.”
“Ah, yes!”
I carefully moved toward where the sound had come from.
A restroom visible to the right.
It definitely seemed to come from this direction…
“Please save me.”
The sound came again.
I’d found the right place.
The plea for help was coming from the restroom.
As Kim Suhan’s expression grew excited, I placed a hand on his shoulder.
To calm down.
“Please…save me.”
A pleading voice begging for salvation.
Kim Suhan grabbed my sleeve and spoke urgently.
“H-hey, brother! There’s a survivor!”
“Shh.”
“Their voice sounds weak—they must be injured…!”
Despite my demand for silence, Kim Suhan kept raising his voice.
I clamped my hand over his mouth and fixed him with an intense stare.
“Be quiet.”
“…!”
Kim Suhan’s eyes widened in shock, then he nodded vigorously.
“Please… save me….”
The pleas for help grew progressively fainter.
As if their strength was completely exhausted.
As if they’d already reached their limit.
The voice sounded like they could stop breathing at any moment.
I swallowed hard and gripped my hwandao tightly.
No Way Home had cases like this too.
Mutants that mimicked human voices to confuse players.
Given the high likelihood of an Enhanced Joker being here, and now hearing these desperate pleas for help….
‘It’s that thing.’
The Enhanced Joker was likely hiding in the bathroom.
The human figure Elder Chulmin had seen, and the human shape I’d glimpsed moments ago.
All of it could be a trap to lure us into a confined space.
Kim Suhan didn’t understand my actions and continued fidgeting anxiously.
There was only one thought in Kim Suhan’s mind.
‘Why is he acting like this?’
The Baek Doyun that Kim Suhan knew wasn’t cold-blooded enough to ignore someone begging for their life.
But the current Baek Doyun… had an expression as if he’d kill the person pleading for help at any moment.
“Brother, this person needs help.”
“It’s not a person.”
“What?”
“Don’t let the voice deceive you. Look at the situation.”
Kim Suhan finally began assessing the situation.
The first floor was eerily silent.
The second floor was littered with hundreds, thousands of zombie corpses, with Creepers lurking beneath them.
From the third floor onward, zombies packed the space, and Jokers sporadically burst out to target our group.
There was no way a survivor could exist in such a place.
Once Kim Suhan finished assessing the situation, his mind grew even more confused.
Then… who was the one pleading for help from the bathroom?
Or was it even human?
Baek Doyun’s words—focus on the situation, not the voice.
Kim Suhan finally shouldered the crossbow and kept his eyes fixed on the bathroom entrance.
“Please… save me.”
“…”
“Save me? Please save me.”
When we offered no response, the voice emanating from the bathroom began to shift in increasingly grotesque ways.
“Save… please save me? Please save me. Please save me? Please save me? Please save me? Please save me. Please save me! Please save me?”
Like a broken radio, the creature repeated the same words.
It raised its inflection, lowered it, and twisted it into questions.
It expected people to enter when it pleaded like this, but no one came despite its desperate cries—it was panicking.
A Mutant Zombie that kept casting bait indiscriminately because nothing would bite.
Kim Suhan behind me shuddered visibly, his upper body trembling as he looked at my face.
I stepped back from the bathroom entrance and asked him quietly.
“Do you have a rifle?”
“Yes.”
“Give it to me.”
We exchanged words in whispered tones.
I shouldered the rifle and aimed it directly at the bathroom entrance.
Since no answer came no matter how much I called, the creature would grow suspicious and reveal itself first.
One chance. That’s all I’d get.
I knew the Enhanced Joker’s characteristics better than anyone, so I intended to give it no opportunity and eliminate it in one swift strike.
An Enhanced Joker possessed speed and elasticity that seemed to defy the laws of physics.
If the creature in there truly was an Enhanced Joker, I’d struggle to keep up without using my Skill.
So I had to secure victory while it was still confined in the bathroom.
Whoosh—
Beyond the translucent glass door, a human silhouette became visible.
The Joker pressed its face against the glass, placing its ear against it, then its forehead.
“Please save me? Hehehehe, please save me. Kekeke, save me? Pffft! Help me. Pffft!”
A bizarre sound—whether laughter or speech, I couldn’t tell.
As it pressed its face against the glass to look outside, I could make out the contours of its face.
Unlike other Mutants, the Joker wasn’t abnormally large in build.
Which made it all the more difficult to catch.
I focused, keeping my rifle trained on the glass door.
“The rounds loaded in there are three-times enhanced, right?”
“Yes.”
Hearing Kim Suhan’s confirmation, I pulled the trigger.
Bang!!!
The bullet erupted forth in a straight line—
Crash!!
It pierced straight through the glass door and lodged itself between the Mutant Zombie’s eyes.
Knowing one shot wouldn’t be enough, I pulled the trigger again in rapid succession.
Bang!! Bang!! Bang!! Bang!!
Was it because I had let my guard down and taken those shots?
The Mutant Zombie offered no resistance whatsoever, taking every bullet that came its way before tumbling backward.
Though the creature had fallen, my finger never left the trigger.
I kept pulling without pause until all thirty rounds were spent.
Firing in bursts risked wasting ammunition, so I aimed precisely at its weak points.
Click- Click-
After emptying all thirty rounds, I handed the rifle to Kim Suhan and gripped my curved blade once more.
“Brother, brother!”
“Stay right there.”
“It’s already dead!”
“It’s not dead.”
What I see with my eyes isn’t everything.
Even if it appears dead, the Enhanced Joker is an intelligent creature.
Which means it can play dead.
So rather than trusting what my eyes show me, I should doubt the absence of a System Message.
Gripping my curved blade, I approached in long strides to verify its condition.
Eyes rolled back, blood streaming from its head.
And from repeatedly pulling the trigger at the fallen Joker’s knees and thighs—
Blood was also gushing from its lower body.
“Stop pretending, you monster bastard.”
I raised the blade high and, without a moment’s hesitation, drove it toward the creature’s throat.
Clang!
By the narrowest margin, the Joker dodged the blade.
Simultaneously, its rolled-back eyes snapped forward, and with a twisted grin, it seized my ankle and yanked.
“…!”
It went for my ankle.
Caught off guard by the unexpected move, I lost my balance and staggered for a moment.
“Kyahahahahaha!!”
With a chilling laugh, the creature bolted from the bathroom like an arrow.
The Enhanced Joker sprinted madly, blood pouring from its head and lower body.
It wasn’t even particularly defensive, yet the Enhanced Joker seemed to have taken less damage than expected from the three-times-reinforced bullets.
However, the impact wasn’t without effect—its running posture was unsteady.
I watched the fleeing Enhanced Joker and murmured.
“Whirlwind.”
Ding-!
[Whirlwind Lv.4: For 5 minutes, you are freed from all status abnormalities and completely recover from physical wounds and fatigue.]
[During the 5 minutes Whirlwind is active, Strength, Agility, Stamina, and Skin Defense stats increase by 2x.]
-Cooldown: 1 hour.
With my accumulated fatigue recovered and my physical abilities doubled, I pursued the creature.
Two minutes remained until Balhwa’s duration expired.
I dropped into a crouch stance and exploded forward with all my strength.
Boom-!!!!
Spiderweb fractures erupted across the ground, and the stagnant air instantly transformed into a violent gust.
The Enhanced Joker’s defining trait was using its incredible speed to toy with survivors like a game of tag.
It would play with them until they grew exhausted, and once they all gave up, it would drag every nearby Mutant, Mutant Zombie, and common Zombie without discrimination to attack them—that was the Enhanced Joker’s nature.
A creature that inflicted despair upon survivors until the very end.
So this time….
it was my turn to teach it a lesson.
Whoooosh-!
No matter how fast the Enhanced Joker was, it couldn’t escape me while wounded.
“Eek?”
I closed the distance in an instant and swung my curved blade toward its waist.
Slice!!
I didn’t sever it completely in one strike, but I felt the distinct sensation of its sturdy spine snapping clearly through my fingertips.
The Enhanced Joker’s form, which had been running so vigorously, twisted violently before it collapsed.
Sensation must be fading below its waist.
I stopped abruptly and stared down at the fallen Joker.
“Gack? Eek? Kyahahaha!!”
The Joker dragged its paralyzed lower body and continued laughing as if still mad.
Its mouth was smiling, but confusion flickered in its eyes.
Since it would recover quickly given time, I gripped my blade tightly and drove it into the creature’s body.
“Kyahahaha!!”
“Don’t you dare split apart.”
Slice-slice-slice-slice-slice-slice-slice!!!
As I hacked at the fallen creature’s limbs, the Joker finally let out a scream.
I could see thick veins bulging across its forehead and blood vessels straining in its neck.
“P-please spare me? Please spare me. Please spar….”
“Shut up.”

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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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