"Hello. I am Doctor M. Cheng."
I practiced introducing myself as Professor M. Cheng while looking in the mirror.
My pronunciation wasn’t bad, and my voice sounded decent.
But I looked far too young and stylish to convincingly portray him.
There’s no way this would fool that suspicious gangster boss.
However, with the right mix of resources, tricking him might not be as difficult as it seed.
I had several DVDs—on dicine, architecture, electrical engineering, construction, tailoring, survival skills, and even beatboxing—each containing knowledge I could use in isolation after the war.
Among them, I rembered a lecture on internal dicine featuring a Chinese professor.
In the short video, a doctor in a white coat explained internal diseases in fluent English. After reviewing it carefully, I realized his appearance was perfect for the role of Professor M. Cheng.
I paused the video, pressed the print screen button, and pasted the captured image into Paint.
I cropped the professor’s photo, carefully erased the na tag on his chest by copying other parts of his white coat and overlaying them. I blurred the area slightly to smooth out the edits. It looked surprisingly seamless, even to .
Next, I lowered the image resolution and added a new na below it:
DR. M. Cheng
The profile picture was complete.
The next step was dubbing.
I translated the rumor I had previously written into English using the Viva! Apocalypse! translation function and displayed the script on the screen.
Then, using my high-quality beatboxing microphone, I dubbed over the professor’s movents in the video, syncing the words to his lip movents.
"Hello. I am Doctor M. Cheng. Master of the School of Mutation and Monsters."
I played the introduction back.
“...”
It felt good.
This should be enough to fool even that paranoid gangster boss.
I continued the work with montum, but the loud rumble of a vehicle from the direction of the U.S. military base interrupted .
Through the periscope, I saw a jeep with its headlights on driving briskly in my direction.
Click.
Work was work, but security was security.
I stepped outside and observed the jeep’s path.
It was taking an eastern detour, crossing the bridge, and heading straight toward my territory.
There was no doubt about it.
They were coming here.
Had they found ?
I grabbed a recoilless rifle, two assault rifles, and three magazines, then headed to the decoy bunker.
When dealing with raiders targeting a bunker, ambushing them from outside significantly increases survival odds.
Defending the bunker from inside is always a last resort.
Moreover, it was nightti.
I hid below the ridgeline, relying on my ears instead of my eyes to track the raiders’ movents.
Directly observing them was risky since they might have brought infrared equipnt.
Lying on the cold, winter-chilled dirt, I listened carefully to their actions. Their vehicle stopped in front of my main bunker.
A couple of people got out.
Two of them.
But the total number wouldn’t be just two.
There could be four or five in total.
The worst-case scenario would be if they had a sensory Awakened among them.
If that was the case, a fight would be inevitable.
Even then, I didn’t consider it a disadvantage.
This was my ho turf.
Facing an old-school hunter like with just the passengers of one jeep was not a wise decision.
Crunch, crunch.
I heard footsteps heading toward the ridge.
Holding my breath, I watched their movents.
I shifted my position subtly, staying out of sight and keeping in mind the possibility of a sensory Awakened detecting .
"You see anything?"
A voice called out for the first ti.
They had reached the top of the ridge.
"Not a damn thing. No lights or anything."
Another man responded.
"Where did you even hear about this place?"
"Who knows."
"This is bullshit."
"Can’t we just grab soone and kill them? Wouldn’t that work?"
"You idiot. Killing soone doesn’t always turn them into zombies. You need the virus for that."
"By the way, do you sll sothing?"
"What sll?"
"Like piss or shit."
Four voices now.
I pinpointed their positions based on the sound of their voices.
Killing them wouldn’t be difficult.
I could drop the concealnt, take aim, and eliminate them one by one with precision shots.
But I held back.
That patience ca from experience.
As a forr team leader for a hunter squad specializing in large-scale monsters, I had to make countless decisions.
There are two kinds of judgnt: long-term judgnt and short-term judgnt.
The scope of judgnt always depends on the mission’s nature and its chances of success.
My current mission is to survive unnoticed and protect my territory for as long as possible.
From their behavior, it was clear their objective wasn’t or my bunker. They seed more interested in high ground.
My territory happened to offer the highest elevation, providing a vantage point over the surroundings. That’s why they climbed to the ridge and spoke from there.
If their purpose wasn’t to target , there was no need to kill them.
Even if they were raiders, that didn’t change the calculation.
If these were the only raiders in the area, I could take them out cleanly like Defender would. But they had comrades back at the U.S. military base.
Killing one would just bring another, and so on.
Of course, holding back when I could kill wasn’t easy.
The temptation to silently take them out with an axe crossed my mind several tis.
Especially since they had caught a faint whiff of the waste remnants I’d buried in a pit.
In the end, the raiders got back in their jeep and left.
“...”
Situation resolved.
The jeep headed east.
Whether my decision was the correct one, I couldn’t say.
But I wouldn’t regret my choice.
Unlike before, I was the only one responsible for it.
*
"Hello. This is extrely dangerous. Mankind must be prepared. Thank you."
I finished dubbing the interview video for Professor M. Cheng.
I didn’t try to make the pronunciation overly refined—forcing my tongue to sound sophisticated would’ve made it feel even more unnatural. Instead, I aid for the stiff, foreign-accented English typically associated with Asian speakers.
The video was just over a minute long, but the quality was solid.
The synchronization between the professor’s lip movents and the dubbing was perfect.
For further authenticity, I edited the na tag area on the video. Since I didn’t have advanced video editing tools, I left a faint black smudge over where the na tag had been, adding to the illusion of a degraded video. Then, I reduced the video resolution to 320x200, making it suitably grainy.
The photos and video I created were added to the AntWiki page for Professor Edmond K. Park, a fictional colleague of M. Cheng.
Of course, no such entry existed before, so I wrote a brief description for Professor Park, ntioning his collaboration with M. Cheng to make the connection appear natural.
I didn’t forget to work with Ballantine to adjust the page’s creation date to before the war, ensuring historical plausibility.
Before sunrise, I posted a new thread on the forum.
SKELTON:
(Skelton’s Chilling Story) So people doubt the U.S. military base zombie virus research facility. Here’s the link.
SKELTON:
Refer to the AntWiki entry for Professor Edmond K. Park on PaleNet.
“...”
I hadn’t slept much, but I was satisfied.
With the effort I’d put into the video, even that skeptical gangster boss should hesitate to press further.
Honestly, King probably took over the airport on a whim, driven by desperation. There was little to gain from dominating this area.
The region was far from Incheon and Seoul, offering nothing but a concrete military bunker.
Sure, the airport was functional, but would another plane really co?
Everyone had already evacuated from Incheon.
Unless King planned to operate fighter jets, which seed beyond his capabilities, his hold on the airport felt futile.
With my second line of bait cast, I began my daily watch.
Even though my eyelids were heavy, I was used to this routine.
Quietly, I observed the gang’s movents.
They maintained strict vigilance as always.
So used observation equipnt to scan suspicious areas, while others deployed drones to survey from the air.
Naturally, whenever a drone was launched, I had to take cover either in the bunker or the cabin.
“...”
They were definitely troubleso neighbors.
The longer they stayed, the more my stress levels would rise.
If they didn’t leave soon, I might have to find a way to eliminate them entirely.
Killing that many gang mbers at once would send a clear ssage to King, forcing him to think twice about deploying more troops here.
Of course, that would require taking out all 22 of them before they could call for reinforcents—a near-impossible task.
But perhaps not entirely impossible.
Everyone has monts when their guard slips.
Even trained gangsters like these might throw a drunken party one day, letting their vigilance lapse.
While considering my second option, a jeep appeared from the east.
It was the sa jeep that had visited my territory the previous night.
This ti, four—or no, five—people were inside.
One of them wasn’t alive.
It was a corpse, a zombie.
Its head was riddled with bullet holes, and it wore a tattered military uniform of sorts.
As the jeep arrived, the gang mbers cheered loudly.
The zombie corpse was unceremoniously tossed onto the ground.
Several gang mbers laughed raucously as they took photos of the zombie with their phones.
That’s when I felt a pang of curiosity.
Were zombies rare in Sejong City?
In this ruined world, zombies were everywhere, yet they seed fascinated enough to gather around and take pictures.
I couldn’t understand it.
Pondering this mystery, another day passed.
As night fell, I checked the bait I had cast.
Unlike before, there were no comnts on the thread.
Not even a ssage from King.
Had he not seen it?
Or had he seen it and decided to ignore it?
That night, it rained.
Though exhausted from staying up the previous night, I imdiately donned a raincoat and went outside.
I climbed into the pit I’d once used as a makeshift toilet and began cleaning it with the rainwater, scrubbing it over and over again.
The stench of waste had seeped into the ground, and I scrubbed until the sll no longer lingered.
Even as my body grew heavy like soaked cotton, I didn’t stop.
This was necessary labor.
Labor that had to be done.
Once the pit was thoroughly cleaned, I filled it in with muddy soil using a shovel, ensuring it was sealed completely.
*
Another day had passed.
The gangsters were still holed up at the U.S. military base.
Nothing had changed.
King still hadn’t sent any ssages, and my post hadn’t received a single comnt.
I was tempted to repost the sa ssage, but posting it twice might raise suspicion instead of reinforcing the rumor. I decided to let it be.
Using rumors was just one of many thods to eliminate the threats surrounding my territory.
It was disappointing to abandon the effort after so much work, but giving up when there was no response was a skill every leader needed.
I had no hesitation in abandoning plans that weren’t working, no matter how much effort had been invested.
That tendency of mine probably contributed to my reputation as soone cold and ruthless.
With the rumor operation a bust, the next option was a massacre.
If death was inevitable anyway, betting on slim odds wasn’t a bad choice. I wouldn’t let myself be slowly boiled alive like a frog in hot water.
I drifted into a short sleep while thinking about how to use the two claymores and recoilless rifle I’d received from Rebecca to wipe them all out.
*
The sound of music woke .
It wasn’t a dream.
Soone was playing music through a loudspeaker, and at quite a high volu.
The source? The U.S. military base.
The gangsters were responsible.
Stepping outside my bunker to take a look, I couldn’t believe my eyes.
They were throwing a wild drinking party.
The gangsters were grilling what I could only guess was so kind of mystery at, drinking what seed to be homade whiskey and soju, blasting music, dancing, and screaming like madn.
“...”
For a mont, I wondered if God existed. Was this so divine intervention?
All 22 of them were at the party.
Their usual tight periter and disciplined vigilance were gone.
If I attacked now, I could take them all out on my own without any trouble.
Setting up the claymores and spraying them with the recoilless rifle or an assault rifle would wipe them out in one go.
I grabbed my gear and moved out, keeping an eye on them.
The drinking party lasted until around 3 a.m., when it finally started to die down.
The raiders began passing out one by one.
Only one guy, who seed to have drunk less, stood guard—but taking out a lone sentry silently would be as easy as snapping a twig.
Carrying nearly 20 kilograms of equipnt, I approached the military base.
To avoid the motion sensors, I climbed over a half-collapsed barbed wire fence.
The enemy was right in front of .
If I approached quietly and swung my axe at the guard’s neck, he wouldn’t even have ti to scream before collapsing.
“...”
The choice was mine to make.
I could kill him and then eliminate the rest inside, one by one.
King would take a heavy loss and likely send an investigation team, but what could burned bodies tell them?
I pulled out my axe, ready to strike.
Just then, the sentry chuckled softly and muttered to himself.
“Zombie virus, my ass. What a load of crap.”
The sentry turned his head slightly, looking around.
“Huh?”
He tilted his head in confusion.
“Felt like sothing was there.”
He was right.
I had been there.
But now, I was back over the barbed wire fence, watching him from a distance.
I wasn’t going to kill him.
I wasn’t going to touch the gangsters.
That was my decision.
I couldn’t explain why.
It was just a gut feeling.
The judgnt of a leader, one that told this course of action wasn’t right in the long run.
This might have been a once-in-a-lifeti opportunity, but I retreated to my territory, leaving the 22 defenseless raiders alive.
I wouldn’t regret my decision.
*
Miracles don’t happen often.
When they do, people rarely recognize them for what they are.
Yesterday had seed like a miracle, but it wasn’t.
The real miracle happened under the warm spring sun the next morning.
The raiders began packing their gear.
They humd tunes, laughed, and chatted cheerfully as they dismantled the motion sensors and periter equipnt they’d set up.
Around noon, a truck arrived.
All 22 raiders boarded the truck and left the U.S. military base.
The gang that could have been the greatest threat to my territory disappeared on their own.
A ssage popped up on my computer.
ssage from CrunchRoll:
“Honestly, I didn’t believe you, but it turns out you were right.”
ssage from CrunchRoll:
“There really are zombies around. Almost lost so of my smartest guys.”
ssage from CrunchRoll:
“I know you don’t like , but if you’re ever in Sejong, just drop my na, Skelton. I’ll get you a drink or two. lol.”
ssage from CrunchRoll:
(Photo attached)
King had sent another photo.
It was yet another image of a woman in an animal costu, posing suggestively.
“...Is he insane?”
I rarely talked to myself, but this warranted an exception.
I cald myself and thought things over carefully.
Why had the gang taken pictures of the zombie corpse?
A faint smile spread across my face.
So that’s what it was.
Gangsters are people too.
They have thoughts and desires.
They must have hated being here—this godforsaken wasteland with no won, no people, and nothing but boredom and danger.
King must have ntioned the zombie virus, and they started thinking.
The excitent over the zombie corpse was probably a result of that.
It explained their party, their decision to leave, and the fact that I had spared them all.
In the end, the situation surrounding my territory resolved itself in the best way possible.
No one died, no one beca suspicious, and I even earned King’s goodwill.
“...”
Maybe I should upload a beatboxing video.
It feels like the only way to express this joy properly.
Ding!
“Hm?”
A notification popped up.
A comnt alert.
Who could it be?
The only recent posts I’d made were the ones ant to bait King.
The comnt was on my second bait post, the one with the dubbed video of Professor M. Cheng.
Heart pounding, I opened it.
gijayangban:
“Caught you, you bastard.”
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