"Haah!?" Gomez stared in confusion at the notification that appeared before him.
[ - 0 Points ]
"What just happened!?" he wondered to himself, trying to understand the message.
"Gail, did you also lose 20 points!?"
He turned to look at Lisa. "Huh!? 20 points!? No…"
"Wait…" his eyes suddenly lit up. "Lisa, tell me, which cup did you choose!?"
"The cup!? It was the silver one… the silver cup…"
"I see, each cup must have its own value…"
"The bronze one is worth 0 points, the silver 20 points, and the gold is probably double that…"
"But what's the purpose…"
As if the system were responding to his question, another notification appeared.
[ Warning! :
• Level 0 = Death
• Immunity Duration 0 = Death
• Death = Death ]
Unconsciously, he glanced at his status and sighed in relief when he saw that everything was still above zero.
"Death!? That's quite a heavy joke…" he muttered with a frown.
[ • Challenge Name: Apocalypse
• Difficulty Level: C
• Duration: 90 minutes
• Reward: 100 Points
• Description: After failing to choose the correct cup, the failures have turned into dangerous zombies. Your goal is to survive until the end of the time limit. ]
[ Challenge Start... ]
Suddenly, the ground began to shake, as if an earthquake had struck the place, under Gomez's shocked eyes. In an instant, the terrain of the hall changed , it became a massive maze with towering walls.
He touched the wall and felt its cold, solid texture.
"What the heck is going on here!!?"
He refocused on the system interface, frowning at the content before him.
"A challenge!? Zombies!?"
He could only glance around , There was only Lisa behind him and that man.
Suddenly, the man who had answered him earlier fell to the ground, trembling in a strange way, as if something was moving inside his body.
"Are you kidding me!!?"
Gomez cursed and stepped back a little, still watching as the man stopped shaking and slowly stood up. Gomez noticed that the man's skin had turned pale, as if someone had drained the blood from him, and the veins on his body turned black, like ink.
"Did he really turn into a zombie!?" His thoughts were in chaos, unable to believe what was happening.
"G-Gail! Look over there!"
Lisa's terrified voice snapped him out of his daze. He slapped his own face, then turned toward Lisa, who was pointing with her finger. He followed her gaze to where she was pointing.
He found that a woman had already turned into a zombie and was entering the corridor they were in, approaching them slowly and clumsily.
To make matters worse, the man also started walking toward them, making that guttural choking sound as if something was stuck in his throat.
"Gail! We're surrounded…" Lisa said fearfully. Her body was trembling, yet she didn't completely lose her composure. She moved closer to Gomez, as if seeking safety beside him.
Gomez looked to his right, where the female zombie was, then to his left, where the man stood. He clenched his fist tightly to stop his trembling.
"Get ready…" he said, addressing Lisa, who was pressed against him.
"W-what!?"
"The corridor is narrow, so we'll use that to our advantage…" As he spoke, he took off his jacket and wrapped it around his right arm.
"I want you to start running toward that woman…" he said, pointing toward the female zombie with yellow eyes and pale skin.
"What!? Are you crazy!! Wh..." Lisa said with wide eyes, her tone full of disbelief.
He turned to face her directly, placing both hands on her shoulders and staring into her fear-filled blue eyes. "Calm down! And trust me…"
She gritted her teeth. "If i turn into something like her, I'll kill you…" she threatened weakly, then took a deep breath and began running toward the woman.
"Move all the way to the right!" Gomez shouted as he followed her, running.
Just as he expected, the zombie chose to chase after Lisa.
He used that moment to his advantage, coming up behind the female zombie. With a swift kick, he knocked her down hard to the ground, then pressed his foot on her back to pin her down.
"Nice…" Lisa commented in awe, then continued running toward the exit. Gomez gave the female zombie a quick glance , she was struggling to get up.
"This isn't a damn dream! , Just What kind of place have I been dragged into!?"
"That woman really turned into a zombie because of this damned challenge…" he muttered, glancing at the system interface—specifically at the challenge description.
[ 86:23.... ]
"Tsk! , Only four minutes have passed…" he muttered with a frown. It felt like an entire hour had gone by because of the chaos.
"Gail!! What are you waiting for!!?"
He turned toward Lisa, who had called out to him, then looked to the other side at the male zombie, now just a few steps away.
"Should I finish them off!?" he wondered in his mind as he reached into his back pocket, gripping the small knife he kept with his keys. Despite its size, it could be deadly if aimed at a spot like the eye or the ear.
"But what if they return to normal when the time ends!?"
He hesitated but quickly abandoned the thought. He removed his foot from the zombie's back and ran toward Lisa, who hadn't run away and was waiting for him.
"Let's go quickly , more of them are coming…" Lisa said, pointing toward a horde of zombies approaching from the left corridor. In front of them, the path was blocked, and behind them was the zombie he had just knocked down.
The only open path was to the right, and without hesitation, Gomez and Lisa started running in that direction.
"A lot of people turned into zombies…" Gomez thought with a frown.
[ 77:13... ]
"That means there are hundreds of them. It seems everyone who chose the golden cup turned into a zombie…"
"All of this is real, so there's no way this is some kind of virtual reality…"
"I have to stop thinking about where I am ...it's better to focus on surviving…"
[ 70:46... ]
He snapped out of his thoughts when they entered a dead-end corridor. He wanted to turn back, but four zombies had already entered and blocked the exit.
"This is bad…" he muttered under his breath, glancing at Lisa, who was breathing heavily from running.
He looked up, and an idea struck him to climb up.
Although the wall was extremely high, Gomez estimated its height to be around 12 to 15 meters. Normally, scaling such a height would be impossible, but since the corridor was only about two or three meters wide, the idea seemed doable.
He lowered his head, then began running toward them.
"Gail!! What are you ..." Lisa screamed, thinking he was about to do something suicidal, like rushing toward the zombies, but her words stopped when he suddenly stopped running, turned around, and started sprinting toward her.
Then, right before her astonished eyes, he jumped up, kicked off the right wall, then the left, continuing to bounce upward until he was almost there.
Gomez smiled in excitement , just one more jump, and he'd make it to the top. But when he raised his head to look, he found that the wall had somehow become taller than before so tall he could barely see its end.
"What the heck…"
He fell back down after losing momentum. Thankfully, he managed to control his fall; otherwise, it would've been painful.
"What the hell just happened… I swear I was only a few steps away from reaching the top…"
"Lisa, did you see what just happened!?"
"What do you mean!?" Lisa asked in confusion, her eyes still fixed on the approaching zombie horde.
She could already see blood on their faces, which meant they had already taken someone's life.
"The wall ! , it suddenly got highe…" Gomez said as he lifted his head and pointed upward, but the words froze in his throat, unable to come out , because the wall hadn't risen at all.