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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Zaped
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A stress test.
A trial to determine how much a subject could withstand under pressure, and to what extent they could recover.
I was about to conduct a stress test on these zombies.
The zombies in this world were similar to the ones I had fought countless times in the game, but there were subtle differences.
In the Transmission Tower Forest, the forester zombie had been susceptible to provocation.
It had understood that I was mocking it, and it had charged at me with a fury that was almost human.
Zombies could feel anger.
And what about the zombie crow attack?
The zombies had clearly been afraid, seeking shelter from the swarming birds.
Zombies could feel fear.
Emotions.
Zombies had emotions.
I didn’t know if they possessed intelligence, but they definitely had emotions.
What if I could manipulate those emotions?
What if I could make them angry?
Could I control them?
In a way, I had already been controlling them.
I had pitted them against the gangs, against each other, using their primal instincts to achieve my own goals.
But that was just a repetition of the strategies I had learned during my thousand hours of gameplay.
It wasn’t wrong, but it was stagnant, uninspired.
This world wasn’t the already-destroyed world I was familiar with.
I had arrived earlier, perhaps even earlier than I was supposed to.
Which meant I had to adapt, to learn, to evolve.
The humans in this world were already using the zombie virus and the zombies themselves for their own purposes.
I could do the same.
In fact, I probably understood zombies better than they did.
And the situation before me was the perfect opportunity to experiment.
A gang, their individual combat skills mediocre, but their defenses well-organized, facing off against a horde of zombies.
The ideal setting for a stress test.
From my vantage point on Horseshoe Rock, the odds seemed stacked against the zombies.
The civil servant gang had already established a defensive line.
Two buses had arrived, blocking the road, their occupants firing their weapons through the open windows.
Bang, bang, bang!
Gunfire continued to erupt from the building Camilla had entered.
Unlike before, the shots were coming from a fixed location.
A stalemate.
Camilla couldn’t break through, but they couldn’t push her back either.
They were definitely more competent than the Lambert gang.
Their efficient use of manpower and their tactical retreats were impressive.
As the zombie horde pressed forward, the buses slowly retreated, their movements deliberate, maintaining a zigzag pattern to avoid obstructing their comrades’ line of fire.
They were like drivers trying to parallel park in a tight space.
It was time to give the zombies a helping hand.
Fortunately, the buses weren’t armored like the Lambert fire truck.
They had simply removed the windows, perhaps to prevent injuries from shattered glass.
I lay prone on the rock, aimed the M4 carbine, raised the barrel slightly, and fired.
I didn’t need to hit anything.
I just needed to make the gang members inside the buses nervous.
One shot, then duck.
Another shot, then duck again.
Ping.
Thud.
The bullets ricocheted off the rock, the gang members returning fire, their aim wild.
They had pinpointed my location.
“Grrrr!”
The buses’ firepower was divided now.
The zombies, sensing an opportunity, surged forward.
Their behavior was predictable.
Zombies had no sense of camaraderie.
They saw their fallen comrades as food, their primal instincts overriding any sense of unity.
This created a natural obstacle, a wall of flesh and bone.
Just like I had done in Lambert Village, using strategically placed gunshots to create a barrier, the same thing was happening here.
But this was different.
Lambert Village had been an open field.
This was a narrow road.
The buses could concentrate their firepower, but their line of fire was now obstructed by the “zombie obstacle.”
And I had shot out their tires.
They couldn’t maneuver.
“Oh…”
The buses tilted precariously as their occupants lurched forward, their bodies pressed against the dashboards.
No one fell out, but the sudden movement disrupted their aim, their weapons falling silent for a moment.
And then, something unexpected happened.
The zombie obstacle, instead of being devoured, became a platform.
The zombies behind it surged forward, climbing over their fallen comrades, their movements a grotesque parody of human cooperation.
“Kyaaaaaah!”
They reached the windows, their hands grasping, their teeth gnashing, their bodies a writhing mass of hunger.
The gang members inside the buses panicked, their bodies entangled as they tried to escape.
The buses swayed precariously, like wounded animals struggling to stay upright.
I tried to understand their behavior, to see the situation from their perspective.
I had a high capacity for empathy.
Maybe I could understand the zombies.
It was like being offered a steak dinner.
A single steak, on a plate, with a knife and fork.
I would gladly accept.
But being presented with a five-cow meatball, without any utensils, and being told to eat it… that would be overwhelming.
Maybe the zombies were experiencing a similar sense of overwhelm.
The sheer size of the obstacle, the sheer quantity of flesh, had overloaded their senses, their primal instincts unable to process it as food.
Which meant their cognitive abilities, their thought processes, were either similar to humans, or even more primitive.
No.
That was a dangerous assumption.
This hypothesis required further testing.
Bang!
Ping!
I ducked, startled by the sudden gunfire.
Bullets ricocheted off the rock above me.
They had found me.
The zombies below snarled, their eyes fixed on my position.
This wasn’t good.
I grabbed a rock and hurled it at the closest zombie, the stone connecting with its jaw, sending it stumbling backwards.
No.
Too weak. I aimed the M4 and shot the zombie in the left leg.
“Kyaaaah!”
The zombie, its balance shattered, tumbled down the slope, its body bowling over the other zombies like a runaway pin.
It was time to leave.
One of the buses was gone.
It had vanished while I was distracted.
A voice boomed from the resort’s loudspeakers.
“Control room to all units, control room to all units! Situation critical, situation critical! All personnel to battle stations! All personnel to battle stations! The rear wall of the auditorium has collapsed! Repeat, the rear wall of the auditorium has collapsed! Engagement at the shopping center! Engagement at the shopping center!”
“Damn it. I’m an idiot.”
Why hadn’t I thought of that?
The control room.
It was located on the second floor of the main building, the country club.
It had a CCTV room, a microphone connected to the loudspeakers, and a broadcasting system.
They had probably used the control room to coordinate the bus’s escape.
CCTV.
Loudspeakers.
Walkie-talkies… The civil servant gang was playing this like a strategy game.
I ran along the left side of the rock, formulating a plan.
They weren’t like the Lambert gang, reacting to every sound, their movements predictable. They were more cunning, more organized, like a spider lurking in its web.
There were two options.
Eliminate the spider.
Attack the control room and take out the leader.
The most direct and effective approach.
But that wasn’t feasible right now.
The control room was located in the center of the second floor of the main building.
I would have to fight my way through at least five rooms to get there, and judging by their equipment and their tactical awareness, I wouldn’t stand a chance alone.
And there were no windows.
The main building was also quite a distance away.
True to its name, the country club was surrounded by a golf course and a lake.
There were trees, planted for aesthetic purposes, but the area was still relatively open.
Which meant I had to go with the second option, the slower, but more effective approach.
Cut the threads.
Disable the buildings one by one, isolating the spider in its web.
I didn’t need to target every building.
There were over twenty buildings in the country club complex, but that included small storage sheds.
There were only four buildings that mattered.
The auditorium was right in front of me.
The buses and the security detail had probably come from here.
Which meant I didn’t need to go inside.
The restaurant and shopping center, where Camilla was currently engaged in a firefight, was located at the eastern end of the complex.
It was too far, and the buses and the zombie horde blocked my path.
I didn’t need to go to the main building yet.
Which left only one option: the condominium building, which housed various amenities.
I would hit the condominium, while Camilla hit the restaurant and shopping center.
The more chaos we created, the more likely the spider in the main building would panic and make a mistake.
“Camilla, you got this!”
I shouted, even though she couldn’t hear me.
The zombies, emerging from a side path, turned their heads towards me.
I fired two shots into the air and sprinted towards the fence.
There was a small gate where I remembered it being.
It was locked.
I didn’t have time to pick the lock, so I shot the hinges.
The rusted metal splintered, and the gate swung open.
I slipped inside.
But I didn’t enter the building immediately.
I ran towards the guard post at the edge of the fence.
It should be empty, thanks to Camilla’s earlier sniping.
As expected, I found two dead gang members, their bodies sprawled on the ground.
“Damn it.”
They were wearing body armor, but they had removed the plates, probably because of the weight.
And the sniper rifle, a high-end SG-1, was covered in rust, its bolt carrier stiff and gritty.
If the rifle was in this condition, I didn’t want to know what state the barrel was in.
“…They could have at least left me a decent weapon.”
I would have to make do with this.
I grabbed the two sniper rifles and crawled to the corner of the guard post, peering out at the country club complex.
“Wow, they’re well-prepared.”
The main building was surrounded by buses and trucks, their tires reinforced with sandbags.
The parking lot was filled with expensive-looking vehicles, all gleaming and well-maintained.
The vehicle I needed was right there.
I took a deep breath, aimed the sniper rifle, and fired.
BEEEEEP! BEEEEEP! BEEEEEP!
The car I had shot blared its alarm, its headlights flashing.
It was a bit underwhelming.
I fired at another car, timing my shot to coincide with the first car’s alarm.
The bullet’s trajectory was a bit off, thanks to the rusty rifle, but it connected.
BEEEEEP! BEEEEEP! BEEEEEP!
Bang! Bang! Bang!
This was it.
The sound I had been waiting for.
A symphony of car alarms, their discordant melodies a cacophony of noise.
It was like having insects crawling in my ears, a mixture of revulsion and intense irritation.
“Kyaaaaaah!”
The zombies, who had been fixated on the buses, seemed to share my sentiment.
The dog trainer had been right.
Repetitive, jarring sounds weren’t just unsettling for dogs.
They drove zombies crazy too.
“Yes!”
The zombies, as if trying to silence the source of the noise, surged towards the country club, their movements a relentless tide, their numbers overwhelming.
A wave of calm washed over me.
I knew zombies were sensitive to sound.
That’s why I had cranked up the van’s radio, its distorted music a beacon of chaos.
I knew they reacted to unusual sounds, to anything that disrupted their primal instincts.
But I hadn’t considered this application.
Using sound to irritate them, to provoke them, to redirect their focus, to manipulate their emotions.
Why hadn’t I thought of this before?
I knew the answer. I had limited myself, my imagination constrained by my preconceived notions of what was possible.
I was capable of more than I had realized.
It wasn’t a lack of ability. It was a lack of imagination.
Imagine.
Explore.
Achieve.
I imagined it.
I had angered the zombies.
I could control their emotions!
The country club’s loudspeakers blared, their distorted announcements adding to the cacophony.
I discarded the sniper rifles, their usefulness spent.
As I climbed down from the guard post, I noticed something bulging from the chest pocket of one of the dead gang members.
“Oh.”
A flashbang grenade.
“Sharing is caring.”
I pocketed the grenade. I still couldn’t enter the building directly.
I smashed the window of the nearest car with the butt of my rifle, opened the door, grabbed a large flowerpot from the sidewalk, and shoved it onto the driver’s seat, pressing down on the horn.
Honk! Honk! Honk!
The sound was gloriously obnoxious.
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