Chapter 17 – Cola Zone Meet-up

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Translated by Seoulbound

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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The Commander, who was handling paperwork in his office, raised his head at the sound of children’s voices coming from outside the window.

Checking the time, a faint smile appeared on the Commander’s lips.

‘It must have started by now.’

He stood up, walked to the window, pulled the window blinds slightly aside, and looked outside, catching sight of the tops of the children’s heads as they gathered in small groups to enjoy a barbecue.

Since finding the black-haired Asian child among them was not a difficult task, the Commander was quickly able to locate his child.

‘The big kid next to him must be the one named Tae-jeong… and who is that blonde one?’

The big, red-haired boy next to the child was a face the Commander also recognized, but the blonde child beside him was a face he was seeing for the first time.

Judging by the fact that he was wearing a military uniform of the right size, he seemed to be a child soldier…

‘Is that child also someone he knew from the slums?’

According to Meursault, his son Haydam had hung around with the children from the slums, hunting and procuring food themselves.

Though he had felt that he was no ordinary child upon seeing how he remained unfazed even when a person was shot dead right before his eyes.

When the child, who said he was going hunting, dragged back a monster dozens of times his own size… he had even felt an inexplicable sense of crisis.

The impact the child left was powerful enough that the leader of a zone felt threatened by a ten-year-old child.

Since even Meursault, who only cared about Daphne, had laid out Haydam’s heroic tales before him with a highly excited face.

‘He stabbed the back of his own hand to lure a hippo-pig and caught it by firing only a single shot?’

If other people heard it, they would have scoffed, thinking it was an exaggerated story.

Commander Hayden, however, instinctively knew that the story was all true.

Haydam Goodman was the child of Luna Moon.

Since he could heal immediately even if he wounded the back of his hand, he would have been able to execute a strategy of harming his own body without hesitation.

‘In the first place, asking me for such a dining arrangement was not the idea of an ordinary person.’

Add to that his boldness in the officers’ meeting, and even proving his marksmanship by hunting a monster himself.

Everything far exceeded the Commander’s expectations.

‘Is the child of a hero, in the end, also a hero?’

Commander Hayden recalled the first day he saw Haydam.

It was not difficult to recognize at first glance that the child holding out a ring to him was Luna Moon’s child.

Because.

The look in the eyes with which Luna Moon used to gaze at them.

Was a gaze reserved for looking at non-human things.

Because he had the eyes of an observer, as if looking at a creature of a different species from himself.

‘Could it be that Haydam, too, is like Luna Moon…’

No, that was going too far.

The Commander chuckled and shook his head, brushing the needless speculation from his mind.

There was no way Haydam was the same as Luna Moon.

Because Haydam was a child Luna Moon gave birth to in ‘this world.’

* * *

Unlike the immature CornerHoney, Tae-jeong greeted politely.

“I am Taejeongtaesebeyonce. I look forward to working with you.”

“Taejeongtaesebeyonce? Why is your nickname so long?”

“You can just call me Tae-jeong, big brother.”

Hm? Is he going to call CornerHoney ‘big brother’ too?

“CornerHoney is twenty years old.”

When I casually revealed his age, CornerHoney jumped up in protest.

“Hey!! Are you seriously bringing up real-life age here? We’re all ten years old here!”

“Ah, no. If you started the game before me, you’re the big brother. Since you’re young, I’ll call you little big brother.”

“Well… call me whatever you want.”

CornerHoney’s guard seemed to lower at Tae-jeong’s amiable attitude, which did not look down on him just because he was young.

Wait, until now, I thought he called me big brother because he was younger than me.

But anyone who starts the game first is a big brother?

Could this guy Tae-jeong actually be really old?

I’d better leave it alone since I don’t want to use honorifics if he turns out to be older and reveals his age.

“But…”

CornerHoney, who had softened for a moment at Tae-jeong’s friendly attitude, glared at me again.

“Little big brother or whatever, why didn’t you enlist that bastard?”

“Because I’ve served. And you haven’t. Have you already forgotten the reason why I made you enlist?”

To think I have to explain this again.

“I told you that you need to know how to handle firearms to survive.”

“Ah, right.”

Ah, right?

“Are you… doing well in military life? Though you seem like you’d be dead weight.”

“Hey, big brother! That’s too harsh. How could little big brother be dead weight? He’s a player, after all!”

“…”

CornerHoney seemed to make an extremely troubled expression just now, or was it my imagination?

“For now, let’s share our respective progress. After that, we can make a plan on how to proceed.”

“Yes! Then I’ll go first.”

Tae-jeong eagerly stepped forward first to share his progress.

“I was hired as a mansion servant and am learning the chores. I don’t have any duties solely assigned to me yet, but they take me to various places to observe, saying that watching and learning is important. Through this, I realized that everyone speaks comfortably about secrets in front of me, perhaps because they think I’m just a kid. I believe the information gathered this way will be of great help to our strategy.”

Hmm.

That makes sense.

Our advantage and disadvantage is precisely that we are young.

Although physically disadvantaged, there is no better camouflage for lowering the other party’s guard.

“Is there anything useful among what you’ve heard so far?”

“Yes. Apparently, Lieutenant General Radu is having an affair.”

“…How is that information helpful?”

“We can blackmail him later by using the affair as leverage!”

Has this guy watched too many soap operas?

More than that, to think that an affair would work as blackmail.

“Tae-jeong, I’m an illegitimate child the Commander fathered out of wedlock.”

“Oops.”

“Well, right now you probably only do odd jobs, and the scope of information you can hear is small. Once you start getting properly involved in mansion matters, you’ll be able to learn more useful information. Work hard.”

“Yes! Next time, I will definitely bring useful information.”

I looked at Tae-jeong with satisfaction, then shifted my gaze to CornerHoney.

“Loner, what about you?”

“I… well… nothing special…”

“Have you handled firearms?”

“I’m still doing basic physical training…”

‘Seeing how he can’t even make eye contact and gets intimidated when the military is brought up, it must be pretty tough for him.’

I have also served in the military, so I knew CornerHoney would be having a hard time.

Even so, if I took his side, he was the type of guy who would immediately go to his senior officer and say, ‘My friend is the Commander’s son, so don’t mess with me, lol.’

I didn’t know about later once he got more settled, but for now, I had to maintain a dry distance as much as possible.

He had to realize that I wouldn’t unconditionally take his side so that he would behave carefully on his own in the military.

“Have you heard anything about the subjugation war?”

“Ah! I did hear that I would probably be conscripted for the next subjugation war.”

Subjugation wars take place during the period when the most snow melts that year.

There was a low mountain not far from the zone with a red flagstaff erected, and when the snow on its peak was observed to have melted, the subjugation war would begin.

Since the snow was piled high when I went hunting with Meursault, there would be some time until the next subjugation war.

‘CornerHoney will probably participate in the subjugation war event without any issues…’

I had no intention of letting Tae-jeong participate in the subjugation war.

In case something went wrong with both CornerHoney and me in the first subjugation, we would need a player to handle the aftermath.

Although I had never died in the first subjugation while playing Safe Zone, this was now reality, so I intended to plan for the situation after my death as well.

“Now I’ll tell you what I’ve figured out. But before that.”

Saying so, I presented Luna Moon’s ring, which I had threaded through a leather strap and was wearing like a necklace, to the two of them.

“You two, touch this ring.”

Although the two touched Luna Moon’s ring.

Judging by their expressions, nothing seemed to happen.

As expected, it seemed that contact with the meteorite alone was not enough to open the status window.

I hid the ring back inside my clothes and spoke.

“First of all, I opened my status window.”

“You opened the status window? There was a status window?”

Tae-jeong, who already knew because I had told him, only nodded, but CornerHoney was startled, perhaps because he believed we had been possessed without any perks.

“There was a condition to open the status window.”

“A condition? What is it? Can we open it too?”

To CornerHoney, who asked with eyes full of hope of obtaining a perk, I shook my head and replied.

“At first, I thought it opened by coming into contact with a specific item… but it seems it only opens for the very first player to touch it. That’s why the status window didn’t open for the two of you.”

“What? Then do we have to clear the game without a status window?”

“Even with a status window, it only has functions like Character Inspection, Inventory, and Chat. There’s also Zone Development… but there’s no point in using it in Cola Zone. At least Chat is a useful function.”

“Chat? What would we use that for?”

“Once two or more people open their status windows, they automatically enter the public chat room.”

At my words, both CornerHoney and Tae-jeong wore surprised expressions.

They had probably guessed that there were players in other zones as well, but it must be their first time hearing it directly.

“There are currently a total of eight people in the public chat room. In other words, there are seven other players who have opened their status windows besides me.”

“Damn it, just how many people got possessed here?”

Tell me about it.

“Hey, but you know…”

CornerHoney suddenly lowered his voice, making me wonder what he was about to ask.

“Among the players who opened their status windows… is Dopamine Addict there too?”

‘Why is this guy so obsessed with me?’

Tae-jeong, who knew that I was ‘Dopamine Addict,’ looked at CornerHoney with a puzzled face, but then quickly adjusted his expression.

It seemed he remembered that I told him to pretend not to know I was ‘Dopamine Addict’ in front of CornerHoney.

Fortunately, CornerHoney was looking at me, so he did not notice even though Tae-jeong acted suspiciously.

‘I should tell him sooner or later. Sharing a secret between only the two of us isn’t a good thing for allies.’

However, I planned to reveal my identity to CornerHoney only after putting him in my debt.

If he had his life saved by the Dopamine Addict he was grinding his teeth at, he wouldn’t turn on me out of sheer embarrassment.

When I didn’t answer, CornerHoney furrowed his brows and pressed me.

“What? Why aren’t you answering? Was he not there?”

“He was there. Dopamine Addict opened his status window too.”

In any case, I didn’t lie.

CornerHoney’s questions did not end there.

“Which zone did that bastard drop into?”

“There’s no way he would tell me that.”

That last one was indeed a lie.

“True… there’s no way that rude bastard would have willingly revealed his zone.”

Actually, I was the very first one to state my zone.

“Weren’t there any players in the same zone as us?”

Only when Tae-jeong asked that did the topic shift from Dopamine Addict to the other players.

“None. It seems there is only one item that can open the status window per zone. And judging by what I observed earlier, it looks like we are the only players in our zone.”

The only children who reacted to ‘pork belly’ were CornerHoney and Tae-jeong, and while the three of us had lukewarm expressions during the meal, the other children… looked happy.

Although I arranged the meal with a purpose, I felt a bit proud seeing those children eating well.

Anyway, there are only the three of us as players in our zone.

If there were only four players who chose ‘Cola’—including Safety8, who had already retired—then the number of players in other zones probably wasn’t that high either.

“And this is just my speculation…”

I looked back and forth between CornerHoney and Tae-jeong and spoke.

“Luna Moon might have been a player.”