Free Web NovelChapter 16: Chapter 16
Je Hyun-oh wasn’t my first Registration. I had already registered Park Seonggyeon as a Sample before him.
But this time was completely different.
A searing, boiling heat tore through my entire body.
It was unmistakably excruciating pain. And yet, a strange sensation that arrived at the same time made me feel wrong.
Liberation? Relief? Catharsis...?
A feeling I couldn’t put into words pressed down on the pain and drove itself deep into my brain.
A surging sense of elation curled the corners of my mouth on its own.
Registration complete!
I already knew what I had to do.
It came as naturally as a newborn lamb seeking its mother’s first milk.
’Prohibition. Message.’
Prohibiting ’Je Hyun-oh’.
You formulate a Message to send to ’Je Hyun-oh’.
My nose throbbed. It felt as if the heat behind my eyes had traveled downward.
I licked the metallic taste from my lips and sent the Message. I could see the message window appear in front of Je Hyun-oh, blocking his path.
"Captain, don’t attack!"
Kwak Hanmuk, who had been preparing a strike, faltered.
"Just ram him!"
If Je Hyun-oh counterattacked, both of us would be torn to pieces on the spot.
But there was no time to deliberate.
"Captain Kwak!!"
The moment I called out to him, Kwak Hanmuk burst into laughter like a madman.
Instead of attacking, the Bead Rosary whipped around and bound Kwak Hanmuk and me together. So tightly that nothing could separate us, no matter what happened.
"Fuck— Lieutenant Colonel, sir! Incoming rookie!"
Kwak Hanmuk’s maniacal laughter mixed with the ripping roar of the engine. The motorcycle charged straight ahead.
Je Hyun-oh, immobilized by the Prohibition, filled my vision.
And the System window floating in front of him.
Stay still.
The gaze that had been fixed on the System window turned toward me.
My face reflected on its smooth surface, unlit by any LED glow.
But the face behind the goggles remained unknowable.
Just before the motorcycle crumpled.
The Bead Rosary completely covered our view. Kwak Hanmuk and I were encased within a cocoon it had spun.
CRASH!
An explosion of noise, like ramming headlong into a steel wall. The brutal impact felt like it rattled my internal organs.
The Bead Rosary unraveled, and Kwak Hanmuk and I tumbled messily across the floor.
"Guh...!"
Kwak Hanmuk coughed up a mouthful of blood. The Bead Rosary had absorbed a significant portion of the impact, but it couldn’t block one hundred percent of it.
The alien metallic substance that made up Je Hyun-oh was fundamentally incompatible with the Zelkova wood Bead Rosary, which didn’t mix well with metal to begin with.
Despite the pool of blood forming beneath him, Kwak Hanmuk checked on Je Hyun-oh before his own condition.
A brief silence passed. Then a slightly bewildered voice crept out of him.
"...Lieutenant Colonel?"
At the end of a long skid mark on the floor, Je Hyun-oh lay sprawled out.
As limp as a doll with its strings cut.
Kwak Hanmuk spoke, his voice laced with wishful thinking.
"He dead?"
Of course, he said it knowing full well there was no way that was true.
I staggered to my feet and made my way over to Kwak Hanmuk.
"Right now... I think we should move. Quickly."
We couldn’t afford to waste this opportunity while Je Hyun-oh was immobilized.
But then Kwak Hanmuk suddenly grabbed my face with both hands.
He stared at me, still and silent.
My cheeks squished in his grip, I quietly protested.
"That hurts...."
Kwak Hanmuk didn’t even flinch at the complaint. After peering at me intently for a long moment, he muttered.
"It came back."
"What came back?"
"Nah. You okay?"
"I’m fine. What about you, Captain Kwak?"
"I’m fucking fantastic."
...Kwak Hanmuk answered with a grin, blood streaming down from the corners of his mouth.
I probably didn’t look much better. I tugged at my sleeve and roughly wiped under my nose and along my chin.
"We need to move."
"Yeah, let’s go."
He rummaged through the backpack and duffel bag that had been flung far away.
He tossed the burst triangle kimbap, crushed cans, plastic bottles, and wrecked firearms, then repacked only the food that was still intact, along with the axe, a knife, and the like.
Kwak Hanmuk slung the duffel bag over his shoulder, positioned me behind him, and approached Je Hyun-oh.
Je Hyun-oh was still lying there, perfectly still.
Kwak Hanmuk flicked his hand, and I limped forward.
It was just as I was passing beside Je Hyun-oh. The goggles lit up.
X X
I thought I understood why they called him a certified maniac....
The moment Kwak Hanmuk saw Je Hyun-oh’s goggles, he spat out a string of curses. But he didn’t waste any more time than that.
Kwak Hanmuk and I left Je Hyun-oh behind and entered the Yellow Zone.
Despite it being the middle of the night, the Yellow Zone was quiet, without a single zombie in sight.
That was thanks to every zombie in the vicinity swarming the bridge and getting themselves drowned en masse.
Kwak Hanmuk found an old Jeep, ripped open the ignition box, and started it with a screwdriver.
"Goyo, you know how to drive?"
"I have a license, but I’ve only driven manual in games."
Kwak Hanmuk snorted at my answer and took the wheel.
"Should we head to the base first?"
"Yes. Good idea."
We needed to regroup before going to find Mo Haein. In this state, searching was out of the question — we were in no shape to take down even a single zombie.
While Kwak Hanmuk drove, I decided to check on Je Hyun-oh, plastered to the passenger seat like a rice cake stuck to the pan.
’Je Hyun-oh Status Window.’
- Je Hyun-oh (Manifest)
- Soldier ƒreewebηoveℓ.com
- Acquired Items: None.
- Held Items: Crow Hood Jumper (1), Crow Combat Uniform (1), Crow Goggles (1), Crow Mask (1), Crow Gloves (1), Crow Walkers (1).
Message
Prohibition
Execution
There were additions that hadn’t been there with Park Seonggyeon. I examined each entry one by one.
Manifest seemed to be the name Je Hyun-oh had been granted in the Trial.
His occupation was simply listed as Soldier, with no rank — likely because DeZonDeal didn’t have detailed settings for Player occupations.
Items were divided into Acquired and Held.
’Acquired means items obtained in the current Trial, and Held is... items he already possessed, like Mo Haein’s Black Moon Blade?’
I waited a moment.
No System window popped up to contradict me, so my guess seemed to be correct.
The Held Items list was a full-on crow party.
Je Hyun-oh always wore his own items in Trials, but I’d never realized they were all part of the same set.
’And Prohibition.’
That was the ability I had used on Je Hyun-oh earlier.
Prohibition temporarily restricts a registered individual from taking any action whatsoever.
But the effective duration was extremely short. Three seconds at most, by feel?
That seemed to be the current limit of my ability.
The reason Je Hyun-oh hadn’t moved even after those three seconds passed was because of the Message I had sent right after, telling him to stay still.
From Je Hyun-oh’s perspective, an inexplicable phenomenon had occurred, so he would have followed the System window’s instructions for the time being.
’He doesn’t know I was the one who sent it.’
I could probably get a few more uses out of it against him.
The problem was that this was nothing more than a stopgap.
With my current abilities, I couldn’t fully control Je Hyun-oh.
Using Prohibition consecutively was also impossible.
Considering the pain I’d experienced when I used the ability, it was clearly an act that put significant strain on my body.
I might end up dying while trying to capture Je Hyun-oh.
’Are there no attack skills?’
You feel a great sense of accomplishment at your further-developed self.
You consider it a truly successful first Registration and resolve to strive for even greater growth in the future.
You think it would be best to fill all three Character Registration slots first, in order to achieve rapid growth and obtain new abilities.
The System window looked pleased.
Normally it would have just sent a single word like ’insufficient,’ but this response was fairly elaborate.
Registering Je Hyun-oh seemed to be the reason.
But I wanted to avoid Registration if at all possible.
It had already made me uneasy before, and after registering Je Hyun-oh this time, I’d realized something more clearly.
It was burdensome enough to have a complete leash on another human being, but the decisive thing was....
I felt like I was becoming strange.
The emotions and mindset I had experienced the moment I registered Je Hyun-oh were abnormal.
I felt like I’d had some bizarre thoughts too, but only a vague impression remained — I couldn’t properly remember.
As if I’d fallen into some kind of trance and then woken up.
I was someone who pursued a quiet life, true to my name.
Just becoming Earth’s System was already more than I could handle.
Adding another factor that could negatively affect my mind was too much.
Was it impossible to upgrade my System abilities just by clearing Trials?
I would find out once I cleared DeZonDeal with the True Ending this time.
’Let’s try to handle things on my own if I can.’
Je Hyun-oh was already registered, so there was nothing I could do about him.
Having roughly sorted out my thoughts, I turned my attention to Kwak Hanmuk.
He was the supporter who was making it possible for me to move proactively right now.
Even when things seemed questionable, he trusted me completely and followed my lead.
What had happened earlier was only possible because Kwak Hanmuk had rammed into Je Hyun-oh based on my opinion.
Of course, he might have just gone along with it because doing insane shit was fun.
"What?"
Maybe I’d been staring a little too long. Kwak Hanmuk glanced at me. Since it had come to this, I formed a question.
"Captain Kwak, may I ask what name you received in the Trial?"
I was curious about information on him that I hadn’t been able to learn in the game. Kwak Hanmuk answered readily.
"Blue Thunder."
"...."
"You just thought, ’His hair is red, so why Blue Thunder?’"
"...How did you know?"
"Haha!"
Kwak Hanmuk burst into refreshing laughter.
Clutching my wounded pride, I envied him.
I should’ve picked a cooler name when I was playing the game. The price of picking something half-assed stung.
’Can I not change my name?’
If there was something like a name change ticket, I wanted to buy one.
While I was wallowing, I wondered why Kwak Hanmuk had been given the name Blue Thunder. His eyes were gray, too.
Curious, but not quite able to press further, I watched as Kwak Hanmuk held the wheel with one hand and handed something to me.
An exclamation slipped out before I could stop it.
"Wow...."
It was a portable cassette tape player with wired headphones connected.
"It was in the glove box. First time seeing one, Goyo?"
"I’ve seen them in archive footage and stuff."
Kwak Hanmuk muttered "archive footage..." to himself. There was clearly a bit of a generation gap between us.
I examined the cassette player with curious eyes.
This was an item I’d never seen in the game either. That was because vehicle glove boxes couldn’t be opened in the game.
The item description was simple.
Portable Music Player: Contains a cassette tape with six exciting songs.
"Don’t listen to the music."
I had been about to put the headphones on. "Ah," I said, and lowered my hands.
Not using Trial items recklessly was a TRA rule.
It was only natural, for safety — you never knew what kind of infection might occur.
’I want to listen to it, though.’
It didn’t seem like I could right now. I tucked the cassette player into the duffel bag.
Come to think of it, the triangle kimbap and fire chicken ramen from the convenience store were recent, but the firearms, the Jeep, and the cassette were all old models.
It felt like the timeline had been mixed up at random.
When I’d roamed DeZonDeal as a game, I hadn’t noticed it, but now that I was confronting it as reality, the sense of dissonance was considerable.
It was a little too unsettling to dismiss as just another quirk of the Trial.
Assuming the Trials were based on a game the Creator had made.
I knew the Creator wasn’t the type to botch details like this.
Meticulous worldbuilding was one of the reasons I’d loved his games.
If the scrambled timeline had been the setting all along, and the game had simply hidden it....
"AAGH!"
SCREEEECH—!
Kwak Hanmuk suddenly yelled and slammed on the brakes.
Jolt. My body lurched forward, barely held back by the seatbelt.
I’d nearly smashed my forehead into the windshield. Eyes wide, I stared ahead.
"Captain Mo...?"
Mo Haein, turned into a zombie, was hitchhiking.
