Free Web NovelChapter 32: Chapter 32
A bit reckless, I’ll admit. It was a gamble based on nothing but guesswork.
If it failed, it would’ve been a stupid way to die.
But staying still would’ve killed me just the same.
Without much hesitation, I pulled out the utility knife and slit my forearm. freēwēbnovel.com
A sharp sting bloomed as my arm grew wet in an instant. Blood streamed down, dripping onto the floor — plip, plip.
I looked down, tense.
If even the slightest gap opened up, I planned to exploit it and escape.
But the result was far bigger than I’d expected.
"...!"
What I’d imagined was a small crack forming where the blood touched.
Instead, the inner wall began to dissolve the moment my blood hit it.
The slick membrane disintegrated, revealing the zombie’s upper body and the massive TV.
It had reverted to its original form — before being absorbed by the boss monster.
I knew my blood was the cure, but I never expected this level of effect.
Since the "cure" was a substance that never existed in the original game, it seemed to have an even more abnormal potency.
The moment I saw the blood-soaked area dissolve, another thought struck me.
Wait — I could actually beat this thing.
In some endings of the Trial, you could take items.
Generally, the higher your Contribution, the better the item grade and the more you got.
But sometimes items were exclusive to the Top Contributor, or at most the top three in Contribution.
As far as I knew, DeZonDeal only allowed the top two to take items.
Right now, the Top Contributor was probably Je Hyun-oh. He’d achieved something that was basically designed to be impossible.
I’d built up decent Contribution during the fight with the Chef Zombie earlier, but I hadn’t dealt any damage at all to the final boss, the Nothing.
Sure, I’d played a major role in developing the cure and the vaccine, but that meant my ranking could easily get pushed down.
I need to become the Top Contributor.
I had no idea how things would play out from here, but I needed to prove my usefulness to the TRA as clearly as possible.
Entering alongside Je Hyun-oh and still becoming the Top Contributor?
That would be the strongest proof there was.
Besides — I’ve put in how many hours of playtime?
It was only fair they gave me Top Contributor.
I raised the utility knife and slit my right forearm again.
A chill was creeping in, along with the beginnings of anemia.
I’d already had blood drawn once today, so my stamina was probably hanging by a thread.
Just as I was carefully gauging my remaining strength through my blurring vision —
The ground beneath my feet went soft and crumbled. It felt strange, not quite like normal decomposition.
I looked down at my feet and couldn’t believe my eyes.
All the eyes that had been plastered on the walls had gathered beneath me.
Every time the writhing pupils touched my blood, they reverted to their original shape and dissolved.
As the dissolved flesh collapsed, new pupils surged in to take their place.
The movement was desperate — endlessly filling in, trying to reach my blood.
I stared at the countless eyes pooled in my blood.
They looked like they were weeping tears of blood.
Suddenly, I thought I understood what they wanted.
You want to go back to how you were.
If I could, I wanted to give that back to all of them.
Either way, the blood I’d already shed wasn’t enough to take down the boss.
Just until I’m at death’s door...
A warning message would pop up when I hit critical condition, so I could stop the bleeding then.
I slit my left thigh.
As the blood splattered down, the eyes’ reaction grew even more violent.
They writhed, practically climbing up my leg.
Maybe it was the blood loss. I could barely feel the pain anymore. Just a hazy, floating sensation.
One more thing was strange — the critical condition alert never came.
Guess I’m still fine?
I cut my right thigh too. Blood poured out.
The Nothing crumbled rapidly, and the cramped space I’d been trapped in grew wider and wider.
And finally — I could see the outside.
I stumbled forward.
My vision was too blurry to see clearly, but I could make out the silhouettes of people watching me.
I heard voices saying something, but the ringing in my ears was too loud to make out the words.
Captain Mo’s probably calling me crazy again...
Maybe because I’d been trapped inside that thing’s guts for so long, the outside air felt incredibly fresh.
Just as I took a deep breath, a System window appeared.
[You have won the battle against the Nothing!]
Top Contributor confirmed.
But for some reason, even though I wasn’t in critical condition, my consciousness started to fade.
My body swayed as if all the pain I’d been ignoring came rushing back at once.
Through the haze, I caught sight of Je Hyun-oh.
Tied up with the zelkova wood bead rosary — I couldn’t help but laugh.
Right before I hit the ground, someone ran over and caught me.
I couldn’t tell if it was Mo Haein or Kwak Hanmuk, but even as I was dying, I made sure to ask one thing.
"Please — grab Lieutenant Colonel Je by the collar for me..."
Then I blacked out completely.
When I opened my eyes, several System windows were floating in front of me.
[You have successfully completed the third defense!]
(Current defense successes: 3/3)
[You have perfectly defended the Laboratory from the zombies!]
[You have succeeded in developing the vaccine!]
I’m alive.
Relieved to be alive, I read through the System windows one by one.
The Laboratory defense was a success, and it looked like Yi Ga-on had safely developed the vaccine.
The cure’s still in progress?
I tried to sit up, but someone was watching me from beside me.
My vision hadn’t fully recovered yet, so I blinked a few times through the haze.
Only after blinking for a while did I realize the person watching me was Yi Ga-on, and that I was lying on the cot in the Laboratory.
"..."
Yi Ga-on just looked at me without saying a word.
I moved my lips. But no matter how much I wanted to speak, my throat was too dry.
Then Yi Ga-on placed a damp gauze over my lips.
After taking in a little moisture, I finally managed to speak.
"The cure..."
"I made it."
She cut me off sharply, biting her lip.
I didn’t understand why the quest completion window hadn’t appeared if she’d made the cure.
When I looked at her curiously, Yi Ga-on spoke about something else first, instead of the cure.
"Roasted Chestnut-ssi, you were unconscious for two full days before waking up. Your colleagues are cleaning up around the Laboratory right now. Before that, they found Tak Jucheol and Paeng Sangdo and handed them over to me."
She said both of them had become zombies, and with her colleagues’ help, she’d managed to lock them up. Then she closed her mouth again.
I quietly gauged the situation. Her eyes were full of resentment.
"They said Roasted Chestnut-ssi took down a huge monster all by yourself."
"...Ah, yes."
"You know that really strong soldier? The one with all the latest weapons? Why didn’t you ask him to take it down? Why did you have to get hurt this badly all by yourself?"
He was the one who shoved me into the monster’s mouth...
I couldn’t bring myself to tell her the truth.
And honestly, I’d gotten myself hurt because I was greedy — I wanted to become the Top Contributor.
I smiled sheepishly and sat up.
Still, my condition seemed better than I’d expected. My vision was much closer to normal than when I’d first woken up.
An IV was stuck in my arm. Yi Ga-on removed the needle for me.
"When I tested it on mice in the preclinical trials, it was successful. I wanted to try it on my brother right away, but... I waited. For you to wake up, Roasted Chestnut-ssi."
So the quest completion alert hadn’t appeared because they hadn’t confirmed the cure’s effect on a zombie yet.
She held out her hand to me.
"I’m going to administer the treatment now. Come with me."
I took Yi Ga-on’s outstretched hand.
The Laboratory was quiet.
Even though we’d taken down the final boss, there should have been a few zombies left, but I couldn’t sense a single presence.
Did Lieutenant Colonel Je and the other Captains clean them up?
Walking beside Yi Ga-on — who was unusually, eerily quiet — I made my way down a hallway that was just as eerily silent.
We arrived at the Laboratory Director’s Office on the second floor.
In front of the office, Tak Jucheol and Paeng Sangdo were tied up with ropes.
The zombification had progressed considerably.
"Gaona! Gaona!"
The moment they saw Yi Ga-on, they went berserk. They crawled on the ground with faces utterly devoid of dignity.
"The cure? You’re still working on it?"
"Right, Yi Se-on’s going to treat us, aren’t they? You two were so close, there’s no way you’d give up on them."
In front of them, clinging to hope, Yi Ga-on silently began removing the barricades blocking the Laboratory Director’s Office.
I helped her move the barricades.
Reacting to the noise outside, Yi Se-on started making guttural sounds — krrrk, krrrk.
Once all the barricades were cleared, I could see Yi Se-on — looking not much different from when they’d first been locked in.
Yi Ga-on let out a relieved breath.
She pulled out a case containing a syringe. Then she looked at me.
"We made this together, Roasted Chestnut-ssi."
So that was why she’d waited for me.
In front of me — and in front of Tak Jucheol and Paeng Sangdo — she injected Yi Se-on with the cure.
Tak Jucheol and Paeng Sangdo started howling.
"Gaona! That’s the cure, isn’t it! That’s the cure!"
"I knew you could do it! See this arm right here? Just put it in here. Huh? Please, I’m begging you. Do you want me to get on my knees?"
Ignoring their pathetic pleas, Yi Ga-on pushed every last drop of the cure into Yi Se-on.
The moment the cure was fully injected, Yi Se-on began convulsing.
Their whole body seized up, and then suddenly, black tears of blood streamed from their eyes.
The torrent of pitch-black bloody tears was so shocking that both Yi Ga-on and I stumbled back.
Yi Se-on’s research coat was soaked through, and the tears pooled on the floor before finally stopping.
Miraculously, from that point on, Yi Se-on showed no aggression at all.
They hadn’t regained full reason yet, but color had returned to their bluish face, and they looked at us with calm eyes.
A System window appeared, announcing success.
[You have succeeded in developing the cure!]
"Roasted Chestnut-ssi! I think it’s working!"
Yi Ga-on shouted at me, her face flushed with excitement.
"I’ll need to observe the progress a little longer, but I’m confident it’s a success. Oh — there’s still one vial left, so if you inject your colleague right away...!"
"We’re fine."
Once we cleared the True Ending and got out of here, DeZonDeal’s virus would be cured anyway.
There was no need to waste a precious dose of the cure.
"Instead — could you treat the zombie locked in the Generator Room downstairs? He was the chef at this Laboratory."
"Ah..."
Yi Ga-on suddenly went quiet.
Tak Jucheol and Paeng Sangdo howled behind us, begging for the cure, but both Yi Ga-on and I let it wash over us like background music.
"Roasted Chestnut-ssi, you’re too..."
Yi Ga-on trailed off. Her gaze landed on my bandaged arms and both legs.
"We have nothing to give you."
I hadn’t done anything deserving of words like that.
Feeling awkward, I answered.
"It’s fine. Besides — Yi Se-on was a zombie, weren’t they?"
Instead of agreeing, Yi Ga-on gave me a strange smile. Then she held something out to me.
"Take this."
It was the portable cassette tape player I’d given her.
Feeling a little pleased, I took it and checked the item description without much thought.
But the description had changed.
[Portable Music Player: Contains a cassette tape with 666 lively songs. Listening to the music brings a pleasant feeling.]
The number of songs had increased from the original six to a whopping 666.
"Yi Ga-on-ssi, did you by any chance..."
I started to ask if she’d put in a new cassette tape, but stopped.
Yi Ga-on — who had definitely been right in front of me just a moment ago — had vanished.
All that remained in her place was a System window announcing DeZonDeal’s clearance.
[<Dead Zone Delivery> Cleared!]
- New Horizon of the World Ending.
