Chapter 54

If Miu did not wake up from being AFK, the ending was obvious.

He’s definitely going to get looted.

Miu was a high-level ranker, and he probably never imagined he would die, so he had to be carrying plenty of important items. Even if he did not get looted, there would be items that broke the moment he died.

After hesitating, Mo Yeonhoo rummaged through his inventory. Because of the recent Siege War, it contained construction materials and combat supplies.

Even so, there was nowhere near enough to help him survive a WAVE with his clumsy skill level.

Zombie WAVE, a person, Miu.......

For someone who had never once fought a zombie WAVE or another user, winning this fight was effectively impossible. He could not even manage one raid properly, and now he was supposed to overcome a situation with a much higher difficulty than that?

And with this shitty gun.

—Clack-clack?

And only his Skeleton, which looked like a giant set of dentures?

I’m definitely going to die.

And that would not be all. He would get stripped clean of his items too. Besides—

[(Alliance) Miu: Stop trying to hold me back too.]

[(Alliance) Miu: If you’d just kicked him when I said to, we wouldn’t be looking at this mess.]

[(Alliance) Miu: What are you going to do, keeping a spy around? lol]

[(Alliance) Miu: If what I said pisses you off, then just vote yes next week when we do the kick vote again.]

[(Alliance) Miu: My stomach’s weak, so I can’t chat somewhere there’s a spy.]

For once, Mo Yeonhoo hesitated unlike himself at the thought of losing so much to protect someone who currently hated him enough to die over it, but.......

“......Screw it!”

Since when had he ever lived by thinking that hard?

Screech. The bike’s handlebars twisted in an instant. He made a U-turn, heading toward—

Just try it first.

Miu.

Mo Yeonhoo rushed straight over, gauged the distance between the zombie horde and Miu, and began building towers around Miu to enclose him.

Maybe because he had built them so many times to give gifts, the towers went up at a fairly quick speed. Even so, Mo Yeonhoo’s face looked utterly doomed.

Ah, how am I supposed to fight that many zombies?

Miu had enough skill to go alone and wipe out a WAVE with nothing but himself, but Yeonhoo did not.

All he had done was watch scenes like that over someone else’s shoulder. Could he really do this......?

Let’s clear out the dark zombies first.

—Bang, bang!

Mo Yeonhoo fired at the dark zombies still shrieking inside the fence. Since the WAVE was coming anyway, he figured it would be better to take down even one in advance.

Hm?

But something was strange. The zombies seemed to be dying faster than usual. With his gun, even trash zombies like those normally needed dozens of shots before they went down....

Something’s weird today.

The oddness he had felt in his settings as soon as he logged in was one thing, but did a settings reset normally have this much of an impact? Or had (Necromancer) gotten an update or something?

Fuck, the zombies are almost here...!

But he had no time to linger on that strange sensation.

Mo Yeonhoo quickly checked the towers. The tower standing at the bottom had the thickest walls wrapped around it to protect Miu. Miu was essentially trapped in a box, with everything except around his head enclosed.

If I cover his head too, I won’t be able to check his condition.

He wanted to just seal Miu inside the walls, but special zombies had traits that allowed them to break through walls, so he had to check Miu’s condition and inspect wall damage every now and then.

And if the defense failed by some one-in-a-million chance.......

I hold out until he revives.

It would be best if they survived the zombie WAVE without dying, losing gold, or taking durability damage, but if that failed, Mo Yeonhoo’s goal was to hold out for just one minute until Miu’s revive so he would not get looted by another user.

Can I hold out against a user if I have to fight one?

That worried him, but it was Mo Yeonhoo’s only plan.

The towers are good enough for now.

Mo Yeonhoo swallowed dryly and looked at the stairs.

To build a tower, he had to design stairs along with it, but from this point on he planned to hold out only on the upper part of the tower, so he did not need the stairs.

Mo Yeonhoo placed a mini bomb at the starting point of the stairs he was standing on, then hurried upward.

—THUD!

With a collapsing roar, every stair except the part Mo Yeonhoo had his feet on crumbled down. This way, even if zombies broke into the tower, he could buy at least a little more time.

“Haaah.......”

But seeing the structure collapse made him feel strange, like the place he could retreat to had truly disappeared.

Hold out.

A zombie WAVE had a time limit. Mo Yeonhoo quickly recited the (Necromancer) keys in his head.

Q, S, Q, A, D, R, E, Shift, A, W, sometimes start with S, S, Q, A, D, R, E, Shift, A, W.......

He was nervous. He had never done anything like this alone in the game.

To begin with, he was a clumsy beginner who did nothing but troll even in raids. But.......

I have to protect her! 𝑓𝑟ℯℴ𝓂

His love for Miyoung was still burning.

Of course, he was a little hurt that her actions were different from how he felt. What did it matter if Miyoung was kind when her character Miu kept pouring nonstop burst damage into him without a break?

If I’m trying this hard, how am I a spy!

For a moment, indignation surged up, and his lips pushed into a pout. Without realizing it, Mo Yeonhoo thought of the person he had met today, Kwon Mieon.

Kwon Mieon had been kind. Honestly, Yeonhoo still suspected what his intentions might be, but his attitude had not been bad.

I’m not even asking for Miu’s personality to be similar to Miyoung’s. If he were even half like Kwon Mieon, I wouldn’t have to go this far.......

The moment that thought crossed his mind, Mo Yeonhoo froze.

Then his eyes landed on his phone. Even though he had flipped it over, it was still vibrating intermittently. It was definitely Kwon Mieon.

“...Ah, what is wrong with me.”

Mo Yeonhoo rubbed at his head. He did not know why he had thought that. Feeling pointlessly embarrassed, he opened a small hole in the tower and watched outside. At that moment—

<img alt="warning2.png" src="https://webview-cache.ridibooks.com/3302046725/epub/images/Images/warning2.png"/>

CRITICAL WARNING: ZOMBIE WAVE STARTED!

You have entered the radius of the <B-Class Boss Type: Core Beast> WAVE that occurred in Sector B-3!

Current status: Evasion impossible / Forced entry into combat situation

Survival difficulty: Danger (RED)

The WAVE had begun...!

Along with the alert came countless footsteps, the shrieking of zombies, and the sound of strong winds. Amid every kind of commotion, Mo Yeonhoo stuck his head out the window.

—Kyaaaak! Kyat!!! Ghhhaak!

There were an unbelievable number of zombies. Not simply “many”—everywhere his eyes reached, there were zombies.

Mo Yeonhoo’s face turned white when he saw them leap up with ragged roars that battered his ears and begin climbing the walls.

I’m supposed to do this? Me...?

There seemed to be far more than he had expected....... His face crumpled helplessly. The resolve he had braced himself with over and over until just moments ago, and even the skill order he had been repeating endlessly—nothing came to mind.

Looking at that endless swarm of zombies, no matter how he saw it, the only outcome he could imagine was that both he and Miu would die.

—Tap!

While he was thinking that, however, a special zombie moved.

—Tap, tap, tap, tap!!!

Though it was a humanoid zombie, it crawled like an insect and climbed the tower in an instant.

That is insanely... disgusting!

At the center of its tattered chest, as though something had eaten it away, a red heart shaped like a human face was beating.

Is that the Core Beast?

Judging by the glossy red bands wrapped around its body, that seemed to be the zombie at the center of this WAVE—the Core Beast. Sure enough, its speed was on a completely different level from the other zombies.

The zombie climbed the tower wall, looked around, and made a bizarre sound.

—Kkigik, kkik? Kkiik?

And as it turned its head, Mo Yeonhoo, to be honest—

Fuck, I’m scared. I feel like I’m going to cry.

—felt like he was playing a horror game....... Still, he could not just keep holding his breath and watching. Mo Yeonhoo loaded his magazine with a tearful, bitter expression.

First, that one.

Special zombies were troublesome if left alive. He fired at the zombie whose aggro had not yet been drawn to him.

—Bang! Ba-bang!

“Ah—shiiit.”

His luck was awful too. It just so happened to overlap with the moment the Core Beast jumped, so he sprayed bullets into empty air. And very unfortunately....

—Kkik, kkigik!

(Notification) <Core Beast> has recognized you.

He had drawn the Core Beast’s aggro.

Fast!

The special zombie moved so quickly that it kicked off from its spot and climbed up in an instant, then dangled from the wide-open top of the tower. It fixed its gaze on Mo Yeonhoo, who was looking up at it from inside. The problem was....

(Notification) <Core Beast> has recognized you.

There was another one?

Another face peeked out right beside it.

Fuck, both of them are attacking me?

The Core Beast at the center of the WAVE was naturally strong.

Some people described it as feeling like PVP, because it attacked players with a decent amount of skill. And as for Mo Yeonhoo, forget PVP—he was at the level of needing to spray dozens of bullets just to kill trash mobs....

Wow, there is no way I can do this.

The mere act of recognizing his own skill level made helplessness wash over him for a moment. Negative thoughts flowed on their own, but—

Right. This is just a game anyway.

Click. Mo Yeonhoo aimed at the target.

You never know until you try something, do you?

Mo Yeonhoo instantly snapped the muzzle upward. The moment his eyes met the Core Beast’s as it smacked its lips and tried to drop toward him—

—Bang!

A bullet flew.

Mo Yeonhoo fired in bursts with the shitty (Necromancer) gun and suppressed the recoil as much as he could.

—Bang, bang! Bang! Bang, bang!

As the gunshots kept ringing out, the strange sensation he had been feeling since earlier became so excessively vivid that Mo Yeonhoo blinked.

What is this? The gun feels so different in my hands compared to before.

Before, even firing a single shot made the recoil so severe that he would immediately end up looking at the sky, and just aiming again in succession had been incredibly difficult.

But unlike that bizarre sensation, right now it was so easy......?

“Ah, shit!”

—Kyaaaak!

Of course, that seemed to have been his imagination.

Seeing the zombie break through the hail of bullets and drop toward him, he was sure he had not hit it even once. Mo Yeonhoo aimed at the target again and tried to fire one more shot, but something was strange.

The zombie lunging at him simply....

It passed... me?

Had it not just gone past him?

As he stared in shock, an alert appeared at the bottom of the screen.

⚠ (Necromancer) HIDDEN SKILL! 《Brain Reverse》 ⚠

(More)

Hidden skill?

He quickly pressed More, and the explanation continued. It was an alert he had never seen before, so he needed to read it carefully, but he was so shocked by what happened next that he had no time to do it properly.

Because the Core Beast Mo Yeonhoo had shot.......

—Kyak!!!

—Kyaaaak!!!

Attacked another Core Beast!

Mo Yeonhoo’s eyes went round as he watched the two zombies clash with a tremendous noise.

That was right. He had.......

⚠ (Necromancer) HIDDEN SKILL! 《Brain Reverse》 ⚠

You have fulfilled the instant activation condition for [Grave Bond] with an accurate strike to the center of the skull.

“A dead brain revives through a (Necromancer)’s command.”

The corpse converts to subjugation state without skill delay.

By hitting the zombie’s head dead center, he had triggered a hidden skill.