Chapter 16

The Apocalypse Game I Created Became Reality Chapter 16

I had obtained truly insane information.

“...”

I stared blankly at the status window floating before my eyes.

『 Experience acquired! 』

At first, I thought I had seen it wrong.

It was VR training.

I hadn’t killed a real kobold in reality, nor had I eliminated a proper infected.

It was just a local build.

A Last Protocol test map left on my external hard drive.

All I had done was barely defeat a single Kobold Worker inside it.

And yet.

‘It gave me experience?’

It wasn’t a large amount.

Unlike when I eliminated the unofficial precursor entity in reality, I didn’t level up immediately.

But.

“This is still huge.”

A hollow laugh escaped me.

This made no sense.

Experience could increase even through VR training.

“This is completely broken.”

I set the VR device down on the floor.

Pain feedback at 100 percent.

It was insane.

But the effect was undeniable.

The kobold’s low charge, the way it slipped in beneath my field of vision, its vicious pattern of targeting the wrists and lower body.

All of it had been vividly seared into my mind.

‘I can improve my physical abilities in preparation for the end.’

And I could do it safely inside my base, through repeated training, without putting my life at risk.

“If this isn’t broken, then what is?”

I had found the safest growth route possible.

Until now, my survival plan had centered on supplies.

The base, food, water purification, electricity, defense, concealment, and so on.

But now there was another axis.

Growth and leveling up, combat training, and even skill proficiency.

“Instead of just hiding...”

I muttered quietly.

“...I have to make myself stronger.”

That didn’t mean I planned to obsess over VR and nothing else.

That would be stupid.

Training was only training.

The smell of blood in reality, wounds, risk of infection, the burden of having to hurt another person.

Things like that couldn’t be perfectly recreated.

“Good, let’s do it like this.”

I immediately revised my schedule.

[Daily Routine]

Morning: Organize survival materials / check supplies

Afternoon: Reinforce base / maintain equipment

Evening: VR combat training

Night: Organize records / check website and news

Finally, I created a new section in the file.

[Experience Efficiency Test]

- Check reduction rate when repeating the same monster

- Check reward differences by pain feedback setting

- Check correlation between clear time and experience

- Check whether number of hits taken causes reward penalties

Maybe it was because I was a game planner, but I couldn’t just gloss over work like this.

Identify the variables, compare the results, and find the safest and most efficient route.

If veteran players searched for every kind of meta, then I was the one who built the systems that created those metas.

Creak.

Right afterward, I leaned back in the chair.

『 D-148 』

There was still time until the end.

Even at this very moment, everyone else was living ordinary lives.

‘But my tutorial has already begun.’

_________

A little over a month after I settled into the workshop.

In other words, around the time the second prologue event involving Arctic glacier microorganisms occurred.

Knock, knock, knock.

Something mildly troublesome happened.

“Is anyone inside?”

“...!?”

My body stiffened for a moment.

Someone was knocking on the door.

This place didn’t even have a sign.

“Hmm.”

I walked up to the door and looked outside through a small gap.

It was a middle-aged woman who looked around my mother’s age.

She didn’t seem particularly threatening.

She was even carrying a shopping basket.

‘A local resident?’

Society was still normal.

I immediately opened the door.

“What can I do for you?”

The woman tried to peek inside.

Whip!

I immediately blocked her line of sight with my body.

“Ah, what kind of place is this?”

“It’s just a private workshop.”

“A workshop?”

“Yes.”

“What do you make?”

“A bit of everything. But why do you ask?”

“Ah. I live nearby, and I got curious while passing by, so I stopped in. This place was vacant for a long time, you know.”

The woman said that, smiled, and stepped back.

“Good luck with your work~”

Step, step, step.

Soon, the sound of her footsteps faded away.

“...”

I stood in front of the door for a while.

Click!

Then I locked it again.

It wasn’t anything unusual.

A passerby had simply stopped because she was curious.

“But why does this feel so unsettling?”

This building was an old three-story commercial property.

My workshop was located in an out-of-the-way corner of the basement.

It had no visibility, no sign, and was poorly located for business.

And yet.

‘That might actually make local residents more curious.’

They might wonder what kind of lunatic had moved into a place like this.

‘It’s fine for now.’

But after the apocalypse?

That curiosity could become a threat.

“...”

I looked around the workshop.

Supplies, equipment, growing racks, VR training equipment, everything that would someday protect my life was here.

To someone else, it might look like a treasure vault.

“...I really do need to hide it.”

Perfect concealment like a bunker would be difficult.

But at minimum, from the outside.

‘Is there something in here?’

I had to make sure no one thought that.

“Let’s make a double door. I’ll redo the main entrance too, not just the emergency exit.”

The first measure for that was blocking outside visibility.

Not even a sliver of light should leak through the cracks around the door.

I added soundproofing seals and hung a thick blackout curtain inside the door.

‘If I obviously reinforce the iron door, it’ll stand out more.’

From the outside, it needed to look like an old, worthless storage room.

Like the emergency exit I had already worked on.

No, even more rundown than that.

Remove the shine, faded notices, traces of a closed business, dust, even an exterior that looked completely useless.

‘I need to think about what happens after someone gets inside too.’

So even if the door opened, the workshop itself wouldn’t be immediately visible.

You know those ‘secret door’ interiors you see in wealthy homes?

“Right, a secret door.”

I muttered quietly.

Something that looks like an ordinary bookshelf, but is actually an entrance with a room behind it.

It didn’t need to be perfect.

I wasn’t trying to build a secret base from a movie.

‘It just has to avoid being noticed at first glance.’

The key was making sure the real interior wasn’t immediately exposed even if the door opened.

I immediately put it into action.

Secondhand furniture stores, liquidation sales, old bookshelves, metal shelving, dusty boxes, useless-looking old office chairs.

I brought things like that inside.

Bang, bang, bang, bang!

I built a partition just inside the entrance.

When the door opened, the first things visible would be boxes, an old bookshelf, dusty scrap materials.

Only after turning around behind them would the actual work area come into view.

So that from the outside, it would feel completely like an old basement storage room.

‘People look for traces.’

Footprints from frequent comings and goings, delivery boxes, the sound of ventilation, trash, light, smell.

I had to minimize all of those.

After that, I wrote a new section in my notebook.

[Exposure Management]

- Spread out deliveries

- Minimize external trash disposal

- Add ventilation filters

- Avoid unnecessary contact with nearby residents

Defense wasn’t just about making doors thicker.

‘Not being seen.’

That was the first line of defense.

___________

That night.

I logged onto the official Last Protocol website, which didn’t have much life left.

『Notice of Last Protocol Website Service Termination』

The notice was still pinned at the top.

The scheduled shutdown date for the website was listed too.

‘There really isn’t much time left now.’

But the message board was actually noisier than before.

Naturally, it was because of the article about Arctic glacier microorganisms.

ㄴ (Link) Hey, what the hell is this?

ㄴ Bermuda and then the Arctic actually happened?

ㄴ It’s way too similar to the Last Pro prologue order.

ㄴ It’s kind of creepy to call it a coincidence... even the countdown matches.

ㄴ Guys, get a grip. You seriously think the setting of a dead game is becoming reality?

ㄴ I don’t care, I’m making at least some preparations.

I scrolled down.

The atmosphere had changed.

When Bermuda happened, most people laughed it off.

Of course, far more people were still laughing this time too.

But I could tell that the laughter had changed slightly.

ㄴ Still, just in case... anyone have a backup of the prologue?

ㄴ I have a few screenshots.

ㄴ Anyone have the setting guide PDF?

ㄴ Did the old strategy wiki go down? I can’t find it.

ㄴ If the website closes, won’t all the remaining material here disappear too?

ㄴ I’m going to capture everything for now, later.

ㄴ This dead game barely has any late-game info on the website to begin with. We’re screwed.

And at some point, the topic shifted toward the top-ranked players.

ㄴ Come to think of it, what was the number one guild in Last Pro?

ㄴ I think it was Last Kingdom. The one led by PeninsulaPrince.

ㄴ That guild had tons of lunatics.

ㄴ Wasn’t VegetableCracker in there too?

ㄴ DemonKingLucifer, number one in combat power, too.

ㄴ If the game becomes reality, I don’t think anyone would have more information than those guys.

ㄴ Rankers, share some info T_T

ㄴ Like you’d share information if you were them, ah lololol

ㄴ Seriously though, if this is real, shouldn’t we find those people?

“...”

I quietly stared at the comments.

‘They’re already trying to find us?’

The possibility of Last Protocol becoming reality.

Even if people didn’t sincerely believe in that possibility, they instinctively searched for information.

And the first people they thought of were the rankers.

“...This is going to get annoying.”

For now, it was still a joke among users.

But what if the third event happened?

What if abnormal group animal behavior appeared in reality too?

‘Then even more people will start moving.’

Click.

I closed the website.

Anxiety was already spreading.

And that anxiety was very slowly beginning to find a direction.

___________

At the same time.

The lights were still on in the game company office, which had already been turned upside down once.

After Last Protocol’s service ended, the team had been disbanded and the servers cleaned up. The data had also been deleted.

But.

“Hm?”

Strangely, traffic to the official website was increasing.

Ring-ring-ring-ring.

Even strange calls were coming into the company.

“Yes, hello?”

- This is the company that made Last Protocol, right?

“Yes, it is.”

- Are you really shutting down the official website?

“Yes, that has already been decided...”

- Can’t you keep it open? It looks like the game is becoming reality.

The operations team employee frowned.

‘What kind of fucking nonsense is this?’

After roughly finishing the conversation and hanging up, he accessed the website.

The comments under the notice were already a mess.

Full of nonsense about Last Protocol becoming reality.

“These dead-game users really do all kinds of things.”

But soon, even his expression became ambiguous.

Because there were far too many comments.

Some were even specific.

The order and dates of the prologue events, Arctic glacier microorganisms, even predictions about the next event.

“...Should I report this, at least?”

With an uneasy expression, the operations team employee got up from his seat.

The light in the CEO’s office was still on.

For reference, the company atmosphere had been a complete mess lately.

Because things had been chaotic internally ever since the Blind× incident.

“Ah, I really don’t want to.”

Still, it was better than ignoring it without reporting and getting chewed out later...

Knock, knock, knock.

“Um, sir.”

“...What?”

“There are some strange reactions on the Last Protocol website.”

CEO Bae Young-jun’s face immediately twisted.

“That’s still not shut down?”

“The scheduled termination date hasn’t arrived yet.”

“Didn’t I tell you to shut it down quickly?”

“Yes, it’ll be closed soon. But before that, the users are...”

The employee held out a tablet.

Bae Young-jun looked down at the screen as if annoyed.

“...”

After scanning the reactions for a while, Bae Young-jun snorted.

“What, the game is becoming reality?”

“Yes, the users are saying things like that...”

“What a load of fucking bullshit.”

The employee immediately shut his mouth.

‘I knew this would happen.’

The moment he squeezed his eyes shut.

Bang!

CEO Bae Young-jun threw the tablet onto the desk.

“Instead of wasting time reporting shit like this, work on planning the new game properly. The atmosphere is already a mess as it is.”

“...I’m sorry.”