Chapter 3

Grave Digging

There were several reasons why I recommended that RoomCornerWife enlist.

First of all, now that we had been possessed into an apocalypse game, he had to learn how to use firearms.

In the game, you could shoot a gun just by pressing the space bar, but reality would be different.

Next, players basically started as “orphans.”

In other words, there was no one to take care of you and no home to return to.

Even just to solve the issue of food and lodging, enlisting was the better option.

The reason Safe Zone Cola’s difficulty was low was also because the force managing this zone was a “warlord faction.”

‘As long as you enlist, you at least get the basics covered.’

Of course, in an emergency, he could be mobilized as a soldier and get dragged into something dangerous.

The reason this world was divided into nine safe zones…

Was to preserve humanity from the “alien life-forms” that existed outside the zones.

The First Apocalypse, the ice age, began with a massive meteorite that fell from the sky, and the setting was that alien life-forms started spreading from that meteorite.

Because of that, every zone except for “Beer,” which had fled underwater, and “Unicorn,” which had floated its zone into the sky, regularly went out to subjugate the alien life-forms around the zone.

If he enlisted, he would naturally have to follow along with those subjugation events.

If he survived, it was an event where he could steadily get promoted and even rise all the way to commander.

Of course, there was also the possibility that he could be branded as part of a coup faction due to his rapid promotions and be killed by the commander’s own hands.

But that problem could be sufficiently resolved if I was recognized as the commander’s bastard child and became his heir.

“Enlist… Well, fine.”

Maybe because the enlistment strategy was a common strategy, RoomCornerWife accepted it without much resistance.

It was fortunate that this guy had not served yet.

If he had already served in the military, there was no way he would have easily accepted the option of going to the army twice.

In Safe Zone Cola, enlisting was not difficult.

As long as you could hold a gun, even a ten-year-old child would be accepted as a soldier.

That was how children survived in the apocalypse.

Before I went to start my own strategy in earnest, I tried to get this guy enlisted first.

But two problems arose.

One was, unexpectedly—

No, perhaps naturally, that this world was not Korean-patched.

Originally, Safe Zone: Apocalypse was a game that had never received a Korean version.

The reason the community guide posts were so active was because people uploaded translated scripts along with the guides.

I had taught myself English solely to upload guide posts for this game.

So in truth, it was not strange that there was no Korean patch.

‘Still, it’s cheap of them not to give us a translation skill after possessing us.’

Because we had been possessed without any sense of professional ethics—no, without any web novel ethics—we had to converse with the NPCs… or rather, the people of the zone, in English, and the enlistment application had to be filled out in English too.

But RoomCornerWife couldn’t speak English, so I had to fill it out for him.

And after seeing that the soldiers did not find it strange when RoomCornerWife and I spoke Korean to each other, I realized something.

It seemed that this world also reflected the setting where, after the apocalypse, people of various nationalities had gathered in the zones and ended up using a variety of languages.

In the game, that setting existed, but all the NPCs spoke English.

RoomCornerWife was furious.

“They possess us into a game and don’t even give us a Korean patch?!”

It seemed clear that whoever had possessed us into this game wanted to watch us suffer.

“I can’t speak English… How am I supposed to survive military life?”

“Once you enlist, you’ll become a yes-bot, so you won’t need English.”

Well, he wouldn’t literally only say yes, but at times like this, it was actually fortunate that he looked like a ten-year-old child.

Even if he spoke clumsily, people would understand to some extent…

The next problem was that we had to write a “name” on the enlistment application.

“I didn’t even think about needing a name.”

In the game, you would simply be called by the nickname you had entered.

But now that we had been possessed, introducing ourselves as “Dopamine Addict,” “RoomCornerWife,” or “T-Bastard” would certainly be strange.

As for me, since I was going to be Hayden Goodman’s bastard child, I could simply use the name of Hayden Goodman’s bastard child as it was, but RoomCornerWife needed a name.

RoomCornerWife shook his head as if he couldn’t be bothered to worry about something like a name at a time like this.

“It has to be an English name too, right? Just make one up for me.”

“Well… sure.”

I also had no time to spend on naming RoomCornerWife, so without much thought, I wrote his name on the enlistment application in one swift motion and submitted it.

Since it would take a little time for his enlistment approval to come through, we decided to talk a little more about what we would do going forward.

“First… once you enlist, we won’t be able to move together for the time being. Let’s regroup after each of us has established a position in this zone.”

“What’s the standard for ‘established a position’?”

“Mm… First, if I’m recognized as the heir, I’ll call for you then. Later, I’ll tell the commander that there was a child who was like a brother to me back when I was living as a street orphan, and have you brought to the commander’s residence.”

I added, as though giving him a serious warning,

“Work hard in the army. No matter how much I want to call you over, if you’re dead weight, I won’t even be able to get you parachuted in.”

“You’re thinking I’ll be dead weight, aren’t you?”

I lightly ignored his reasonable question and continued.

“And since this place seems to be English-based like the game, make sure to write down and record anything about the apocalypse or other important information in Korean.”

“That won’t be hard.”

Hmm…

Come to think of it, what were the players who were probably in the other zones doing right now?

I had no idea when we would run into other players, so I needed to start thinking about rules of conduct for when we met them.

The best case would be if the players cooperated obediently like RoomCornerWife… but there would definitely be players who would not.

“But are you really going to do the bastard child strategy?”

RoomCornerWife asked me with an anxious expression, as though he truly did not trust the bastard child strategy, or perhaps he simply did not want to enlist alone.

“Can’t you enlist with me? You can speak English, and you seem smart. Since you asked me if I’d served, I’m guessing you’ve already done your military service… If you’ve been through it once, wouldn’t you be better at military life?”

This bastard was saying something terrifying with an innocent face.

***

How many hours had passed after that?

When the soldier who came to approve the enlistment called out the name written on the application, RoomCornerWife regretted leaving the naming to me.

“Your name is Darling Outsider, correct?”

The soldier’s question was in English, but RoomCornerWife seemed to immediately understand that “Darling Outsider” referred to him.

“D-Darling… what?”

“You still look young… but you want to enlist?”

When the soldier continued asking in English, RoomCornerWife—no, Darling Outsider—looked at me with eyes asking for help.

I whispered quietly to him.

“When a soldier asks you something, just answer yes no matter what.”

“Does that make sense? No, more importantly, my name is ‘Darling Outsider’? Are you serious?”

I thought it was a perfectly localized version of RoomCornerWife.

“It’s better than Darling Hikikomori.”

“What kind of bullshit is that?!”

In any case, now that he had already been registered under that name, there was no taking it back.

“You crazy bastard, I think that soldier is laughing while saying my name…”

RoomCornerWife’s analysis was correct.

The soldier who had called RoomCornerWife was holding back laughter, the corners of his mouth twitching.

“Darling Outsider, your answer?”

I whispered that he should just answer for now, and RoomCornerWife struggled to part his stubborn lips before replying.

“Ha, crazy… Y-yes…”

“You do wish to enlist in the army, correct?”

“Ye… yes!”

“Good. Follow me.”

“Y-yes, sir!”

RoomCornerWife—

No, Darling Outsider faithfully followed my advice and became a yes-bot as he left with the soldier.

He did.

It seemed he had developed a small grudge against me over the naming, but he would forget all about that once he started military life.

Now then…

From here on, it would be solo play for a while.

First, I needed to find a grave.

The grave of Commander Hayden Goodman’s former lover.

And the pitiful woman who had been buried together with the “proof of the bastard child.”

As for Commander Hayden Goodman, he had originally come from another zone.

One of the soldiers who went out on a subjugation mission found him collapsed and saved him, and Hayden joined the Cola army in order to repay that debt.

Hayden, who turned out to be far more capable than expected, quickly rose to a high position in the military, and the commander at the time, who looked favorably upon him, introduced his own daughter to Hayden.

Hayden then married the commander’s daughter and rose without much difficulty to become the next commander.

That was the simple story…

At least, that was the publicly known version.

The owner of the grave I was about to search for was “Lunamoon.”

She was the soldier who had saved Hayden in the past during a subjugation.

In truth, the reason Hayden had joined the Cola army was because of Lunamoon.

He had fallen in love with the woman who saved him.

Lunamoon and Hayden had been lovers, and they even had a child between them. However, for the sake of success, Hayden became engaged to the commander’s daughter.

He left behind a promise that once he became commander, he would call Lunamoon and their soon-to-be-born child back to him.

So did he call Lunamoon back after becoming commander?

No, he did not.

Rather than not keeping his promise, it was more that he could not keep it.

Because Lunamoon suddenly vanished.

Even when playing the safe zone, the commander of this zone was still searching for his lover and child.

Without knowing that before their child was even born, Lunamoon had died and been buried in a grave…

The important thing was that I knew the location of that grave.

After parting with Hayden, Lunamoon hid her identity and slipped into the slums to avoid any possible checks against her.

As a military doctor, even while pregnant, she helped the residents of the slums.

And that was exactly why, even after she died, a proper grave had been made and left behind.

Normally, when someone died in a safe zone, their corpse would be thrown outside the zone, so this was a special case.

The monsters outside the zone did not distinguish between the dead and the living, so after sharing a corpse among themselves, they would become quiet for a while.

Despite that, the fact that her grave remained inside the zone meant that she had been a very kind person, respected by everyone.

‘The problem is that her kindness became poison.’

A contagious disease spread through the slums where she was staying, and while the people with healthy bodies had long since left the slums, she alone remained and cared for the sick.

Naturally, it did not take long before she also caught the disease and died.

Moved by her good deeds, the sick dragged their ailing bodies to the outskirts of the slums and made her grave.

Because she herself had died from an infectious disease, and because the grave had been made by patients with that disease, even now, after all this time, no one wanted to go near her grave.

The name written on the grave was an alias, and people avoided both approaching and mentioning the place.

No wonder Commander Hayden had been unable to find Lunamoon.

It was unfortunate, but for a player who had to dig up her grave, there could be no better conditions.

I found a suitably hard piece of scrap metal that looked good for digging, held it in my hand, and hid on the outskirts of the slums until night fell.

The reason I was being this careful, even though it was a grave no one approached, was because…

Since it was a place no one approached, I would stand out all the more if I visited it.

A ten-year-old kid heading toward a grave no one visited, with a piece of scrap metal in hand.

It would be exactly the kind of thing people remembered.

‘It’ll be troublesome if someone later testifies that they saw me going to dig up Lunamoon’s grave, so I should be careful in advance.’

In that way, while being careful not to catch anyone’s eye, I walked along the dark night road and arrived at the grave.

But when I felt around her grave, I realized that something was wrong.

‘The soil… is soft.’

There was no way the soil on top of a grave that had been buried long ago should be this soft.

Unless someone had dug it up once and then covered it again.

I hurriedly dug up the grave.

Since the ground had already been turned over by someone once, digging with my hands was enough.

When I dug up the grave and opened the coffin lid…

I immediately understood when I saw that the dog tag, which should have been hanging around Lunamoon’s skeletal neck, was gone.

‘Another player came here first.’

It seemed there was another player in this zone besides me and RoomCornerWife.

‘Looks like someone else is also trying the bastard child strategy.’

Things had gotten interesting.

If I went to the commander’s residence tomorrow morning, I would probably run into another player who had come to clear the bastard child strategy.

But I would be the one to succeed.

Because the real proof of the bastard child…

Was still inside the coffin.