episode_0002

Awakening (1) ― Hanmaeum Apartments 10th floor hallway

Kkkk-

The sound of more than twenty zombies boiling.

The strange sound resonated repeatedly, giving the illusion that the brain was ringing.

A foreign noise that feels instinctively repulsive.

It was like a noise comparable to the sound of an elk heard in the military.

Bang – Bang –

The zombies’ flailing arms were constantly hitting the glass window of the first floor entrance.

Although it is a thick glass window for security purposes, it will probably shatter in an instant.

First, let’s distribute the points earned to the stats.

“Uh… But how should it be distributed? Is it touch type?”

[Depending on the awakened person’s preference, it can be customized using voice recognition, fingerprint recognition, will recognition, etc.]

“… Does awareness of will mean that if you think, it will be immediately recorded as a stat?”

[That’s right.]

“Then, of course, we do it with recognition of our will. Where is the idiot who uses inefficient voice recognition?”

[The system respects the preferences of the awakened person.]

“Do you have any idiots set up for voice recognition or something like that?”

[…] … .]

Hmm, I thought about it a little bit, but as expected, there was no answer.

Obviously, I remembered the comment from the skill creation right tip earlier that skills that excessively harm balance are automatically adjusted.

What you’re saying is that you’re going to pay minimal attention to balance.

They’ll help, but they won’t answer questions that affect balance.

I wanted to know if there was an awakened person competing with me for the lead, but the system obviously wouldn’t answer.

First of all, if I were to guess for myself, the first achievement I got was ‘First kill of zombies as an awakener’.

The biggest structure of the system would be a typical RPG game where you gain points by killing zombies and use those points to strengthen yourself.

Then, there is a high probability that the only awakened person who has earned points now is me, who made the first kill.

The story was that I was the only one consuming points at this time.

And the most representative feature of this K-web novel style death game.

It is easier for the person who runs first to get the next first.

It’s typical, but it’s a ‘winner take all’ structure that causes more bloody competition.

[Consumes 36 points to grant 9 each to Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Magic.]

[An unknown power resides in you.]

White light seeped into my body along with the message on the status window.

As the light faded, my whole body began to overflow with an unknown vitality.

I could feel it intuitively.

I have become a completely different person than I used to be.

The wind from the light one-two punch shook my bangs.

Plus, an unfamiliar energy spread throughout my body.

For some reason, a sense of elation was surging from the vitality of that energy.

As a web novel reader, it was a feeling I should have guessed.

Alpha and omega to become a superman.

A soul duo that is always with the status window.

“… Mana.”

He has truly become the ‘awakened person’ that the status window says he is.

However, even if the abilities are immediately recognizable, intelligence is… .

What is 99 times 29?

‘… … .’

Huh, what is it? Why can’t I do mental math?

Isn’t there something fucking wrong with this?

“Sangta Changah! My intelligence has improved, but I can’t feel it? … Even if you raise your intelligence by 9, it doesn’t mean you’re going to be an idiot who can’t do even one mental calculation, right?”

… No, system?

[You have achieved your first achievement.]

[‘First increase in strength stat as an awakened person’]

[Additionally, a strength stat of 10 is given.]

[You have achieved your first achievement.]

[‘First increase in agility stat as an awakened person’]

[Additionally gives 10 agility stat.]

[You have achieved your first achievement.]

[‘First increase in intelligence stat as an awakened person’]

[In addition, an intelligence stat of 10 is given.]

[A large amount of unknown power comes to you.]

As the body flashed again, the excessively long status window irritated my eyes.

“Ah, wow! what’s this! From now on, please summarize and show repetitive items briefly.”

[All right.]

Now that you’ve gotten your initial reward, let’s try again.

What is 99 times 29?

‘9 times 9, so let’s start with 81… uh… ‘Fuck you!’

[It is 2871.]

“Holy shit! Who are you kidding? I increased my intelligence, but why isn’t it working? Isn’t this a scam?”

[…] … .]

What a fucking system.

Also, no reply.

Does that mean that answering my question will upset the balance?

… Or maybe even though my intelligence has increased by 20, I don’t have the intelligence to calculate that in my head.

No, let’s not think about it like that.

It just makes me feel dirty.

I calmed down and repeated the status window to myself.

[Name: Han Gu-won]

[Gender∘Age: Male∘27]

[Occupation: Awakened]

[Strength: 20] [Dexterity: 20] [Intelligence: 20] [Magic Power: 10]

[Points held: 69]

Now that I think about it, why didn’t I get the initial reward for magical power?

‘what! ‘Some kind of crazy person!’

No, let’s be patient. Be patient, salvation.

If I kept getting angry like this, one by one, there would be no end to it.

“… First of all, I ate almost all of the initial stat rewards.”

What I kept finding strange while looking at the status window was that there was no character level, an essential element in RPGs.

Kill monsters and gain experience points to level up.

Raise your stats with bonus stats obtained as a reward for leveling up.

This is the basic structure of a typical RPG game, but here you simply earn points and invest those points in your stats.

Doesn’t that mean that points are experience points, stats, and also function as currency?

“… Shop window.”

Band ring –

(Search for the product you want!)

[Roughly made energy bar: 1p]

[Very cloudy muddy water: 3p]

[Nutritious Yukgaejang Bowl Noodles: 10p]

[Bottled water slightly worse than Evian: 30p]

[Auxiliary battery (rechargeable for 10 hours): 100p]

… …

A scroll that never ends no matter how many times you scroll down.

Most of them were products related to food and basic clothing and shelter.

As an experiment, I decided to lightly consume only 1 point.

The moment I decided to buy a ‘roughly made energy bar’, an information message arrived.

[Do you want to keep it in inventory?]

Of course, if you have a status window, the inventory should follow.

The moment I nodded, another notification window popped up.

1. Skill creation ticket x1

2. Roughly made energy bar x1

The moment I thought I wanted to take out the energy bar, it was naturally held in my left hand.

‘Of course I can put it in, right?’

As soon as I thought about it, the ‘spear’ I had hastily made to kill the zombie earlier disappeared into my inventory in an instant.

1. Skill creation ticket x1

2. Improvised Cleaver Spear x1

The moment I took the window out of my inventory again, the message I had been waiting for appeared like a pop-up.

[You have achieved your first achievement.]

[‘First time using point shop’]

[Obtain a free store pass.]

“Yass! Yass! This is it! Just follow the cliche!”

Of course, there should be an initial reward in the store window too!

Jeok-

A dull noise was heard as a long knock on the security glass on the first floor was torn apart.

When I looked down, I saw that the zombies near the entrance were even more excited, perhaps because of the cheers I had just given them.

So so so so so-

The glass window, which had been holding strong while I figured out the general system, gave out a death blow.

There was no time to relax.

We hastily reorganized our armament.

Well, the only weapon I could say was an ‘improvised kitchen knife spear’.

The body, whose stats were evenly distributed, continued to infuse vitality.

With that many zombies, there was a good chance of victory by utilizing the narrow terrain.

Of course, it was difficult to increase the number further.

Judging from the reactions so far, the zombies were reacting sensitively to sound.

However, if you were to chat with that many zombies, noise was inevitable.

Perhaps it would be a slightly more difficult and longer battle than expected.

First, I decided to go down the stairs and use my first ‘First Achievement Reward’.

[Use skill creation rights.]

[Please remind me of the skill you want.]

My first thought after seeing the message was my own safety.

‘How do we prevent infection, which is the greatest strength of zombies?’

Typical clichés included bites or infections caused by blood or saliva.

‘A skill to effectively exterminate nearby zombies.’

“Isn’t there something similar to ‘full recovery’, where you recover immediately even if you are bitten?”

[It is impossible.]

“Holy shit! Just wait!”

I came down from the 10th floor where I was to the 1st floor in an instant at a speed as fast as my strengthened body.

The sound and feeling of my body cutting through the wind was so good that I found myself laughing even though the situation was serious.

‘Is this Runner’s High or something?’

Kkkk!

The zombies who found me on the first floor cheered with joy.

“… … Wow.”

A group of corpses clearly visible through the glass window.

It was more difficult to find a zombie that did not have a single body part missing.

Zombies were constantly pushing their bodies against the glass window, like the ebb and flow of the tide.

The zombies in the lead even seemed to be crushed by the zombies behind them.

Even as its body was bent into a strange shape, its frighteningly shaped eyes were fixed on me.

Blah blah blah-

Dark red rotten blood spread widely along the spider web drawn by the glass window that had reached its limit.

The rotten blood that covered the glass almost completely obscured my view.

“… Phew.”

I took a short deep breath and went back up the stairs I had come down.

Narrow stairs and an appropriate upper position will help you fight more efficiently.

Kkkk!

As I disappeared from sight, the zombies’ roar grew stronger.

It was as if he was angry that the lunch box in front of him had disappeared.

Powok-

“Keee!”

After a somewhat dull noise that could have been attributed to the glass being destroyed, the howling of zombies became distinctly more vivid and filled the entrance.

The security door that had been blocking the zombies and me for much longer than expected was shattered, and at the same time, it was the sound of zombies pouring out.

Zombies pouring in like a torrent of water.

Perhaps it was because of the howling that they continued to do, scratching their vocal cords, that the number was twice as large as I had perceived, just by looking at the crowd.

Tongtong-

The leading zombies were unable to control their speed and collided head-on with the elevator.

You may have the physical ability to run at full speed, but has the intelligence to control that speed disappeared?

“Blessed.”

The heads of the zombies that filled the first floor turned towards me at the same time.

“Kkiss!”

“Ulssigu.”

Is this a staircase culture where order and morality have disappeared?

The narrow staircase, with no consideration for walking on the right, was truly the second coming of the Korean-style Hell Gate.

The first zombies to climb the stairs were stepped on by the zombies behind them, and those zombies were also stepped on by the zombies behind them.

Yet the lumps of flesh steadily closing the distance felt like a red carpet had been rolled down to me.

After the excitement of the ‘first zombie kill’ subsided, I looked at the wave of zombies, the ‘zombie wave’, and realized that the world had gone crazy.

Those brisk gestures that an ordinary person would have no problem with even if they were critically injured and needed to be hospitalized right away.

The abnormally large hostility towards me, or appetite, in those creepy eyes.

“Keee!”

As I plunged the spear into and out of the jaw of the zombie that had reached the front, I thought of the skill I needed right now.

“If you are Korean, walk on the right! Fuck you guys!”

[You have used the skill creation right.]