Chapter 14

Jun-sang hurriedly finished putting on his military boots. But perhaps due to his haste, his hands kept fumbling the simple task.

“Damn it.” If they were going to give him time, they should give him plenty. What was he supposed to do with just 10 seconds? In the end, as Jun-sang was tying his bootlaces, he realized his body was enveloped in a white light, just as it had been when he leveled up previously. Soon, he found himself transported to a dark forest, completely unrelated to his home.

It wasn’t pitch black. It was as dim as if heavily clouded, and the tall trees surrounding him cast deep shadows, barely maintaining a twilight-like brightness. As soon as he finished tying his bootlaces and stood up, another message notification came from his phone.

Purify the Forest. : The forest has been contaminated by the power of darkness. The once beautiful forest has now become a hell filled with reanimated corpses. Remove the source of darkness to restore it to its former state. [Multiple individuals are participating in this quest simultaneously.]

“…” Jun-sang frowned. The quest’s content was relatively simple: eliminate the zombies appearing in the forest and remove the source of darkness that caused the phenomenon. The problem was the part about multiple individuals participating simultaneously. He knew that missing persons were still returning from various places. He didn’t know the details, but one thing was clear: they, like Jun-sang, must have completed a quest.

The tutorial, depending on how one thought about it, consisted of quite difficult objectives. If he hadn’t thought to climb the cliff at first, the tutorial would have ended before it even began, leaving him exhausted and starving to death. The same applied even if he started the tutorial. He had to survive battles with monstrous rats, use everything he had to make a fire, and protect that fire from the gaze of beasts. After that, he had to cross a forest teeming with traps and beasts, and finally, defeat zombies and a dungeon boss.

Especially… Even if he somehow managed to luck his way through other challenges, he had to defeat the dungeon boss with his own abilities. Surviving the tutorial meant precisely that.

“…” It was unknown what the game’s organizer was thinking by releasing multiple players into a single quest. However, Jun-sang had no intention whatsoever of fully trusting strangers with whom he was undertaking the same quest.

First, he put on studded leather gloves to protect his hands. Then, he pondered whether summoning the Will-o’-the-Wisp or the Crimson Wolf would be more beneficial for finding zombies. But that was a needless worry, because the zombies found Jun-sang first.

“Grrroaah…” A zombie with glowing red eyes let out an incomprehensible sound and immediately charged forward, swinging its rigid arms. However, Jun-sang was no longer the clumsy version of himself from a month ago.

“Berserker.” As he quietly spoke, cards were inserted into the empty card slots in their predetermined order:

Rampage, Blood-Soaked, Blood-Soaked, Blood-Soaked (R).

The moment the four cards settled into the slots, the combo card ‘Janthunsen’s Berserker’ activated.

“Hup!” He lightly inhaled, tucked his arms close to his sides, lowered his body, and charged towards the zombies. The leading zombie swung its arm horizontally at Jun-sang. But Jun-sang lowered his body to dodge the attack, then immediately sprang up, delivering a powerful uppercut to the zombie’s jaw. With that full-body leap, the zombie’s head effortlessly detached from its body and flew away, and the headless torso, unable to withstand the momentum, toppled like a rotten log.

“Hoo… hoo…” Jun-sang exhaled slowly, regulating his ragged breathing. The zombie’s headless body twitched for a moment, then ceased movement. Only then did he relax his stance and approach the zombie’s severed head. He immediately crushed the skull with his military boot and checked for a seed, but this time, it was empty.

“…” Jun-sang wiped his fist, stained with zombie fluids, on some dry grass, then quietly issued a summon command.

“Open Crimson Wolf.” Just then, a wolf with blood-red fur appeared before Jun-sang’s eyes. Jun-sang pulled out his multi-tool, cut off a piece of the rags the zombie had been wearing, and held it out to the Crimson Wolf.

“Track this scent.” The Crimson Wolf sniffed the rag for a moment, then turned and began to run off somewhere.

“…” He immediately followed behind the red-furred wolf. The zombies weren’t as far away as he had expected. This time, there were three of them!

-Grrrraaaah! The wolf threw its massive body at the leading zombie. As the zombie, unable to bear the weight of the large wolf, collapsed, Jun-sang quickly dashed forward and kicked it with all his might with his military boot. The moment Jun-sang’s blow, amplified by the attack power enhancement effect, directly struck the head of the fallen zombie, there was a crunching sound, and a part of the skull felt like it caved in, its neck twisting in an impossible direction, and the zombie instantly ceased movement.

After quickly dispatching one zombie, Jun-sang approached the zombie that had belatedly begun to counterattack and delivered a two-hit combo to its head.

Thwack! Jun-sang’s rapidly thrown punches accurately landed on the zombie’s head. The moment the zombie staggered from the impact, Jun-sang’s foot landed on the zombie’s shin, breaking its leg bone. Just as he was about to deliver a final blow to the wobbling zombie, Jun-sang realized something was approaching from behind him and quickly rolled forward.

“…” Jun-sang rolled once on the ground, then immediately stood up and turned his gaze to where he had been. There, two zombies were entangled, struggling. The moment Jun-sang stood up, the Crimson Wolf belatedly charged towards the zombies. The zombie that had been flailing its limbs, trying to get up, was immediately pinned down by the Crimson Wolf and began to roll around. Jun-sang seized the opportunity when the zombies were separated and kicked the head of the zombie with the broken leg bone with all his might.

However, this blow missed. The zombie had thrashed its limbs around, causing the blow to hit its shoulder instead of its head. But Jun-sang immediately folded his raised foot and brought his knee down onto the zombie’s head.

Thwack! The zombie’s head, struck by that powerful blow, was crushed with an eerie sound, and as its head shattered, its flailing limbs also soon grew still.

“Hoo… hoo…” Regulating his breathing, he approached the last remaining zombie. However, before Jun-sang even needed to act, the zombie’s neck snapped from the Crimson Wolf’s teeth, and it ceased movement.

“Good job.” As he said that and stroked its head, the Crimson Wolf narrowed its eyes and bowed its head in submission. Jun-sang once again rummaged through the zombies’ heads with his hands, but this time, it was empty.

“As expected… I have to take out the boss, huh?” He clicked his tongue and stood up when he suddenly heard a tearing scream from somewhere. Was it another player? The continuous screams that followed were those of a young man.

Jun-sang hesitated for a moment. Should he pretend not to notice? Or should he go and save him? But his hesitation didn’t last long. After all, it was clear that there would be zombies where the screams were coming from. Jun-sang first unsummoned the Crimson Wolf, then headed towards the source of the screams.

Regulating his breathing, he ran through the forest for a while, and soon witnessed a man struggling fiercely with zombies, brilliant lights flashing around him. The man’s right arm hung limply, as if he had been bitten by a zombie, but he was continuously firing something that emitted white light from his other hand. The attacks were quite powerful, causing the zombies to flinch with each hit, but perhaps due to his injury, he couldn’t aim properly at their heads. Fortunately, the attacks seemed to have a slowing effect on the enemies, as the zombies’ movements weren’t very fast.

“Ohh…” Could that be magic? As Jun-sang watched, the man continued to fire what appeared to be magic lights, then stopped even that, seemingly running out of energy. He quietly counted the number of zombies. One, two, three, four, five, six… There were six in total.

But if the man kept screaming like this, it was obvious that zombies would flock from all directions. Should he use the man as bait? Or would it be better to just finish them off? Jun-sang, however, concluded that if more gathered, he himself might struggle to handle them. Once the decision was made, he immediately lunged, ambushing the zombies. He grabbed one by the back of the neck, pulled it down, and then slammed his fist down as if smashing a tile on the floor.

Thwack! As he instantly dispatched one zombie, another lagging zombie reacted to Jun-sang and turned its body. However, before it could fully turn, the zombie was struck by Jun-sang’s hammer-like punch and staggered sideways. Seizing the advantage, Jun-sang grabbed the zombie’s collar with one hand and unleashed a flurry of punches.

Thud! Thud! Thwack! The zombie couldn’t withstand the continuous barrage of punches, and its skull was crushed. Jun-sang violently shook off his grip, knocking the zombie down, then stomped on it with his military boot to ensure it was dead.

Now there were four zombies left! The moment Jun-sang stood up, the magic fired by the injured man finally shattered the head of one of the zombies. From a distance, he hadn’t noticed, but up close, he could see that the man was firing ice shards about the size of two fingers put together. The man, having barely taken down one zombie, shouted towards Jun-sang.

“Help me!” The thought of “what took you so long?” crossed his mind, but Jun-sang silently delivered a powerful hook, putting his weight into it, to the head of one of the remaining three zombies. As the hammer-like hook struck the lower jaw, the zombie’s head twisted at an odd angle and spun around. As the zombie wobbled, Jun-sang swept his raised foot down, delivering a low kick to the reeling opponent’s leg to bring it down, then finished it with a soccer kick.

At that moment, the man’s magic again struck the body of one of the zombies. Although he didn’t hit the head precisely, the cold solidified the zombie’s body, making it much easier for Jun-sang to create a one-on-one situation. Finally, after a short while, all the zombies were down, and the man who had been using magic collapsed onto the ground, as if he had just survived.

“I-I’m alive…” He hadn’t noticed before, but this younger-looking man was wearing a hospital gown. Had he been summoned again shortly after returning? Only then did Jun-sang realize that his quick return was also a kind of reward.

After the battle, Jun-sang rummaged through the zombies’ heads as he had done before.

“Ugh…” The man started to gag as if he had seen something unbearable, but Jun-sang silently continued his work.

“…” This time, it wasn’t empty-handed. Jun-sang immediately took out his phone and checked the newly found seed.

Item Information Name: Readiness Seed Level Restriction: None Type: Seed Grade: Uncommon Effect: Physical Attack Skill Cooldown Reduction 3% Description: A seed that reduces the cooldown time for physical attack skills. Can be equipped to items or cards with Seed slots to enhance abilities. To detach an equipped seed, the special ability ‘Detach’ is required. [Click here to equip this seed to an item or card.]