Ji-hoon had seen outlines of rooftops ahead, barely poking above the trees. The Trader's Camp had to be close—maybe another fifteen minutes if he pushed Dusty harder.
But something didn't sit right.
The woods had gone quiet. No bird calls. No rustling branches. Even the wind felt like it had paused, holding its breath.
That was when the notification popped up:
[PING]
Unmarked Structure Detected – 300 meters south
Classification: Unknown
System Note: Not on original map file]
Ji-hoon narrowed his eyes. "That's… not normal."
He tugged Dusty's reins and circled around a bend in the path. The trees thickened again, crowding the trail until he had to dismount and lead the horse by hand.
Within minutes, the forest opened into a sunken clearing.
There, half-buried in vines and dirt, sat a decaying barn. Parts of the roof had collapsed inward. The walls were warped and blackened with age. But what struck Ji-hoon immediately was how wrong it looked—not just old, but out of place.
Dusty neighed and backed up, ears flat. He refused to go any closer.
Ji-hoon calmed the horse with a few pats and tied the reins to a low tree limb.
He stepped forward.
Each crunch of grass beneath his boots echoed louder than expected. A thick tension hung in the air—like the very air was watching him.
[New Discovery: The Forgotten Homestead]
Status: Corrupted Zone
System Integrity: 74%
Entities: Unknown
Data Consistency: Fragmented
Environmental Threat Level: Moderate
He walked around the perimeter of the barn first. Hidden among overgrown weeds were half-rotted crates, splintered barrels, and rusted tools. He found an old horseshoe nailed into a post—except it was made of stainless steel, not iron.
"That's wrong… they didn't have this in the 1800s," Ji-hoon murmured.
The barn doors had mostly fallen off, hanging by single hinges. He ducked inside.
The smell hit instantly. Mold. Rust. Something faintly sweet and rotting.
Inside, the barn wasn't empty—it was cluttered with gurneys and metallic beds. Long metal cabinets lined the back wall. Medical equipment sat scattered across the floor: heart monitors, tubes, even shattered computers with loose wiring.
None of this fit the time period.
"This isn't part of the game. Not the game I remember," he whispered.
In the far corner, a spotlight flickered to life on its own. Ji-hoon flinched and stepped toward it.
There, on a steel table, lay a body.
Half skeleton, half preserved. Its clothes were too modern—black synthetic jumpsuit, security tags still attached. One glove had the logo of GraveTech Industries, the fictional company behind the world-ending virus in Gunslinger Graveyard.
Ji-hoon's blood chilled.
"Why is this here?"
He opened the system. Nothing came up. No quest prompt. No log update.
But on a nearby shelf, a blinking yellow light caught his eye.
He opened the compartment.
[Item Acquired]
Data Fragment (Encrypted Memory Log 4/20)
Use: Unknown
Corruption Level: 42%
Replay Stability: Low
As soon as he touched it, his vision flickered. A burst of static. The air around him pulsed like a wave of energy pushed through his skull.
And then—sound.
A voice. Male. Stressed.
"…we pushed the simulation too far… AI's learning faster than the kill switch cycles. They're rewriting themselves. This isn't gameplay anymore, it's evolution."
Then silence.
The vision stopped. The barn felt colder.
Ji-hoon stumbled back, breathing hard.
"That wasn't part of the game," he said aloud. "That was… a dev log?"
His hand shook slightly as he brought up his inventory. The file was there, sitting quietly under a new category: System Logs.
There were twenty slots. He had one.
Dusty neighed again—sharp this time.
Ji-hoon turned to the door. He felt it before he saw it.
Something was coming.
Twigs snapped.
And then—they emerged.
Three of them.
Bodies hunched and broken, movements unnatural. Their skin was pale and grey, but barbed wires snaked through their limbs like veins. Eyes glowed faint yellow—different from the infected he'd seen so far.
They moved fast. Too fast.
[New Entity Identified: Modified Infected – Variant 2]
Type: Enhanced Undead
Speed: High
Aggression: Critical
Weakness: Unknown
"Nope. No thank you."
Ji-hoon bolted out the side door, sprinting to Dusty.
He untied the reins mid-stride and leapt into the saddle just as one of the infected slashed at his leg—its fingertips sharpened to bone points.
Dusty kicked off hard and thundered away through the trees.
They chased for several minutes—guttural snarls echoing through the forest—but Dusty was faster.
By the time Ji-hoon looked back, the clearing was gone.
Literally.
The trees where the barn stood had shifted. The landscape now looked untouched, like the entire place had vanished from existence.
The system screen flickered, then reset.
The location had disappeared from the map.
But the data fragment remained.
And Ji-hoon had a feeling… this was just the beginning.