Chapter 7

(Global) 0momo0: ???

(Global) 0momo0: Wooooaah

It looked like the natural regeneration had finished while Hhumble and Miu were talking.

(Global) 0momo0: Holy shit

So you can revive by yourself.

Of course, just because he’d gotten out of the incapacitated state didn’t mean he was fine.

From 0momo0’s head, blood was gushing down like lava spilling out.

(Global) Miu: Use a kit and treat your injuries.

(Global) 0momo0: Ah... treatment!!! Y-yes yes!

Mo Yeonhoo, who’d learned the tutorial and at least knew what an inventory was, fumbled around and frantically dug through his items. But after dying an uncountable number of times, was there any chance his inventory was still intact?

He’d already been looted by other players for most of it, so naturally it was bare—even the first-aid kit beginners were supposed to get was gone.

‘There isn’t one... can I buy it in the shop?’

He hesitated, staring at the empty slots, and Miu typed like he’d more or less guessed what the situation was.

(Global) Miu: gg

gg?

‘H???’

Did he mistype and hit the wrong key? Was he laughing at him?

‘Am I supposed to laugh too?’

Yeonhoo trotted over to stand right beside Miu and typed “haha.”

(Global) 0momo0: haha

Zombie Village had a function where your character would react to certain chats and express emotions, and on cue, Yeonhoo’s Necromancer automatically responded to “haha” and started laughing.

‘Oh, I’m laughing.’

Seeing the laugh sound and the slightly bobbing first-person view, Yeonhoo’s eyes went round. He’d never typed a laugh before, so this was his first time seeing it.

‘This does make me look harmless.’

Miyoung probably typed that too, just to show she didn’t mean any harm, so Yeonhoo kept entering it.

(Global) 0momo0: hahaha

But Yeonhoo was overlooking one very important detail.

Because 0momo0 didn’t have any avatar items equipped, he was currently the naked default bald character—so no matter how much he typed “haha,” he didn’t look harmless at all.

He looked like a full-on pervert.

Miu stared at the character—one glance alone was enough to ruin your eyesight—then spoke after a brief silence.

(Global) Miu: Not H. G.

So it wasn’t that.

(Global) 0momo0: Ah...!!

So it wasn’t telling him to laugh together. It meant press a key......

(Global) 0momo0: S-sry;; T_T

Only then did Yeonhoo answer, mortified. And he even had a typo in there, which made him want to bury himself even deeper.

‘He’s kind.’

Still, if he thought of the other person as Miyoung, a smile kept slipping out on its own. Her gentle way of speaking to him kept flashing through his mind.

‘The G key....’

Anyway, if it was Miyoung telling him to do it, Yeonhoo would do it without question—like he was possessed, he pressed G.

The moment he did, his view abruptly dropped, and his character lowered his body on its own, reaching out toward something.

‘That’s Hhumble’s corpse?’

Then Hhumble’s information popped up on Yeonhoo’s screen.

user: Hhumble

Inventory

Ballistic goggles, tactical gloves (bound item), tactical vest (bound item), tactical knife (bound item), avatar—Hawaiian shirt, avatar—pants, reinforced crossbow (bound item), adhesive mine, emergency hemostatic agent, medical kit (3)

Gold Owned

230,160G

‘So you can see it like this.’

Looks like if you press G, you can check a dead person’s info. But why was he telling him to look at this?

Still, it was his first time seeing someone else’s inventory, so Yeonhoo stared {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} as if it were fascinating. Unlike him, Hhumble’s inventory was packed full.

While he was blankly scanning it, the Hawaiian shirt caught his eye. Curious, he moved his mouse cursor over it and clicked.

A notification popped up.

(Notification) Achievement Unlocked! Congratulations on your first loot!

Achievement?

He barely had time to be surprised before Yeonhoo’s eyes widened. The item he’d clicked in Hhumble’s inventory slid straight into his own.

‘...Oh?’

Yeah. This game was Zombie Village.

It looked like fighting zombies was the main content, but what the game actually treated as the biggest deal was—

‘I just looted him.’

Loot.

On instinct, Yeonhoo started clicking through Hhumble’s bag in a line.

‘I can take way more than I thought?’

Only then did he understand why Hhumble had been so desperate to run, and why people had tried so hard to kill him, no matter what. In this game, if someone died, you could take everything except certain bound items.

Gold, however, wasn’t something you could take all of. You could only take a set amount.

‘That’s why Hhumble didn’t kill me and tried to shake me down for gold.’

He realized Hhumble had been pretending to show mercy, acting like a generous saint, when all he really wanted was to properly squeeze a newbie dry.

After excitedly stripping Hhumble’s bag clean, Yeonhoo looked at his own inventory. Unlike before, it had a decent amount in it now, and when he tapped a medical kit, the sliver of health he’d been clinging to filled back up.

‘Can I put clothes on too?’

After a brief debate, he tapped the Hawaiian-patterned shirt, and before he knew it, he was wearing Hhumble’s shirt.

Before, whenever he angled his view down toward his own body, all he could see was underwear.

Now he saw a gaudy pink Hawaiian shirt.

Escaping primitive life made him realize just how starved and broke he’d been, but who cared about that right now?

‘Ms. Miyoung helped me.’

From Mo Yeonhoo’s—0momo0’s—point of view, Miu was his savior.

He turned to the side, intending to show her how grateful he was, but the place was already empty.

‘Where’d she go?’

Looks like he’d moved while Yeonhoo was busy looting Hhumble’s bag....

Still confused, he looked around—and that was when he saw Miyoung walking alone in the distance.

Yeonhoo sprinted after her like he couldn’t afford to lose her.

There Ms. Miyoung22.gif

He’d been searching for “Ms. Miyoung” so relentlessly in his head that he almost shouted it out without thinking—then froze, deleted it, and called out with a more appropriate form of address.

(Global) 0momo0: Momo

Yeonhoo felt weird.

This is a game, so why—

(Global) 0momo0: Wait a sec—

Just looking at that back alone, why does my heart race this hard?

At first he’d been a little flustered, because she didn’t match the image of Miyoung he’d imagined.

But not anymore.

‘She’s fucking bold, my baby rabbit....’

It kept coming back to him. The way she’d beaten Hhumble down when he’d been swaggering around in front of Yeonhoo—and the way she’d basically tossed Hhumble’s corpse at him like, Here, eat up.

(Global) 0momo0: Momo!

(Global) 0momo0: Momo???

But no matter how many times he called, Miu didn’t stop walking. The problem was the distance. Whether he was using an item or just had higher base movement speed, Miu was already way farther ahead.

(Global) 0momo0: Wait

(Global) 0momo0: It’ll just be a second

(Global) 0momo0: Momo!!!

A bald character wearing only a Hawaiian shirt and underwear chased after Miu with pathetic longing, but it was useless.

Like he couldn’t even see 0momo0’s chat, Miu kept walking, eyes forward. As the distance widened, Yeonhoo’s anxiety surged—and right when he was too frantic to even type, a single word suddenly surfaced in his head.

‘Sincerity. Ms. Miyoung said sincerity mattered.’

Without having any clue what he looked like, Yeonhoo chased after him and shouted.

(Global) 0momo0: Sincerity!

His stamina was already drained, so he couldn’t properly sprint—he could only shuffle forward in a weird, awkward trot.

(Global) 0momo0: Sincerity!!

(Global) 0momo0: SINCERITY!!!!

He didn’t have room to explain. Just typing the word “sincerity” while chasing was already a struggle.

But when 0momo0 kept spamming chat and following, Miu finally stopped and glanced back.

The 0momo0 character was creeping closer while shrieking “Sincerity!” in a way that was honestly disgusting—and maybe because the face was ugly, it looked a little too gross. A little too scary.

(Global) Miu: What is it?

Miu stopped.

And like someone who’d taken a hit to the calves, 0momo0—wearing a Hawaiian shirt and underwear—hustled up in that bizarre little trot and skidded clumsily to a stop in front of him.

Footnote

Movement speed