Chapter 7

The Apocalypse Game I Created Became Reality Chapter 7

Wooooooong.

A low, heavy noise kept reverberating from somewhere.

“The exhaust fan?”

I slowly sat up.

After working on the ventilation system.

I had been tired and lay down for a moment on the mat spread across the floor, but it seemed I had fallen asleep like that.

Crack! Crack!

I lightly rolled my neck.

My whole body was stiff.

I wasn’t used to sleeping in a basement, nor to this kind of hard labor.

Wooooooong.

And I wasn’t used to this irritating sound that kept ringing in my ears either.

“No matter how I listen to it, that doesn’t sound like the exhaust fan.”

My expression soon tightened.

I had definitely replaced the exhaust fan yesterday.

The noise had clearly decreased.

The old rattling sound had disappeared completely, and the new fan only made a low ‘ssssss’ sound.

Wooooooong.

But wasn’t the sound I was hearing now completely different from the start?

“What the hell is it?”

When I listened more closely, it seemed to be coming from inside the wall or beneath the floor.

Wooooooong.

The sound was steady.

“It sounds like some kind of machine running.”

A fan, a motor, or maybe a pump.

As though possessed, I walked toward the direction the sound was coming from.

“...?”

It was the area where the refrigerator stood.

It was something the previous owner had practically abandoned here.

“Ugh.”

When I struggled to push the refrigerator aside by myself, an old inspection hatch appeared on the wall.

But then.

Wooooooong!

The sound immediately became clearer.

“Is it here?”

I took a screwdriver out of the toolbox.

Screeech!

Then I immediately began loosening the screws on the inspection hatch.

Clunk!

Right afterward, the cover fell away.

The exposed interior was dark.

I immediately turned on my phone flashlight.

Pipes, dust, and an old concrete wall entered my vision one after another.

But deep inside the wall was another small space.

“What the hell is this space for?”

I bent down and looked farther inside.

For an ordinary plumbing inspection hatch, it was strangely deep.

Because behind the pipes, there was a gap wide enough for a person to crawl through.

‘The building structure is strange.’

Was there any reason for a basement workshop in a commercial building to have a space like this?

“Let’s see...”

I pulled out the building floor plan attached to the real estate contract.

Of course, it didn’t include detailed blueprints.

It was only a simplified plan for rental purposes.

But the approximate locations of the walls and pipes were marked.

“No matter how I look at it, there’s no space like this...”

I looked back and forth between the floor plan and the wall.

It was far too strange.

According to the plan, this side should have simply been a wall.

“...Wait, is this related to what the real estate lady mentioned?”

Suddenly, I remembered something.

This commercial building.

From the outside, it just looked like an old three-story building, but the real estate agent had casually mentioned something before.

“There used to be a small refrigerated warehouse in the basement of this building. They used it to store food ingredients, so maybe because of that, they paid particular attention to soundproofing. They couldn’t exactly ignore complaints from the neighborhood. If you’re going to use it as a workshop, you can feel at ease...”

At the time, I had let the comment pass without much thought.

‘If part of this building’s basement used to be a refrigerated warehouse...’

A mechanical room, piping, ventilation, cooling equipment.

There was a good chance there had been an inspection passage used to maintain all of that.

It was also possible that after several expansions, changes in business types, and parts of the space being walled off, it had disappeared from the plans.

‘That kind of thing happens fairly often in old buildings like this.’

Somewhere between legal and illegal.

Extensions and modifications.

Walls thrown up carelessly and forgotten equipment rooms.

“...”

I shone the flashlight inside the inspection hatch again.

Whoooooosh...

It was covered in dust, but there was a very faint airflow.

And.

Wooooooong!

This sound.

It was definitely coming from farther inside.

“...Should I go in?”

I hesitated for a moment, but the deliberation ended quickly.

This wasn’t something I could simply ignore.

If the inside really connected to something like an equipment room...

‘...That’s bonus space.’

My current base was a 92-square-meter underground workshop.

It wasn’t bad even as it was, but the more space I had, the better.

Supply storage, sleeping, water purification, power generation, sanitation, work.

There was a mountain of things I had to do in this cramped place.

“Let’s go.”

Eventually, I pulled a pair of thick gloves from the toolbox.

Then I put on another mask.

On top of that, I made sure to wear knee pads, a headlamp, and safety glasses.

“I really am doing all kinds of crazy things now.”

Gritting my teeth, I squeezed my body into the gap.

______________

“Ughhh...”

The passage inside was much narrower than I had expected.

Narrow enough that my elbows and knees scraped against the concrete.

As I moved forward, rusty pipes, severed wires, and black stains that looked as though they had leaked from somewhere flashed past my vision.

“This isn’t going to collapse, right?”

Wooooooong.

The farther inside I went, the louder the sound became.

Had I gone about five meters?

“Oh.”

The space widened slightly.

And at the end of it was an iron grating door.

It was rusted, and from the outside it almost looked like a small entrance.

“...There really is something here.”

An old padlock hung from the grating door.

Clang!

First, I used bolt cutters to cut through the padlock.

Creeeeak!

At the same time, the light from my headlamp illuminated the other side of the door.

“Ah!”

A space that was practically treasure to me was soon revealed.

A space far larger than I had expected.

[Common Equipment Room]

A sign with those words was attached to the wall.

“Hahahahaha...”

I stared at the words for a long time.

It really was an equipment room.

A hidden inspection passage behind the underground workshop.

A common equipment room at the end of it.

Of course, it wasn’t mine.

This was most likely a common area belonging to the building.

‘Using it however I want would cause problems.’

Like one of those assholes who treats an apartment hallway as though it belongs to him.

‘The world is still normal for now.’

I couldn’t just occupy this place as if it were mine.

But.

‘What about 184 days from now?’

Then the situation would be different.

“...”

I examined the area beyond the door more closely.

The equipment room was larger than I had expected.

It was smaller than my workshop, but it still looked to be well over 33 square meters.

More importantly, there was another iron fire door on the opposite side.

Thump-thump-thump!

My heart suddenly pounded.

‘What if this equipment room connects all the way to the underground parking lot?’

A shiver ran through my body.

“...Perfect.”

Above all, there didn’t seem to be any sign that anyone had been coming and going recently.

‘An unexpected expansion route.’

It was the best possible harvest.

_______________

Meanwhile, at that same time.

“You were still clinging to Last Protocol, this garbage?”

CEO Bae Young-jun, seated at the head of the table, skimmed through the report with a look as though he were staring at an insect.

The atmosphere in the conference room had long since turned icy.

The development team leader, operations team employees, the server administrator, and several working-level staff members.

“...”

Not one of them could properly speak.

Bae Young-jun tossed the report onto the table and growled.

“Do you seriously think it makes sense to keep burning money on server costs for a game that doesn’t even have 100 concurrent players?”

“But sir, there’s still a loyal player base remaining...”

“Loyal?”

Bae Young-jun snorted.

“So nowadays, a few unemployed guys who don’t spend any money count as loyal players?”

“...”

“I won’t drag this out. Shut down that failed game that’s doing nothing but eating money. I’ll reassign the few remaining staff members to other departments, so keep that in mind.”

The employees squeezed their eyes shut.

Because the situation they had feared was becoming reality.

“Um... sir.”

At that moment, an employee from the operations team cautiously raised a hand.

“Even if we shut down the service, what should we do with all the data accumulated so far?”

“Data?”

Bae Young-jun frowned and repeated the word.

“User logs, play patterns, AI behavior logs, survival route statistics, test server backups, things like that. Some of the internal simulation data that Manager Baek... no, Baek Yi-hyeon handled is still there too.”

“...Baek Yi-hyeon?”

The moment that name came up, Bae Young-jun’s expression twisted.

The bastard who had stormed out of the company on his own.

The bastard who had humiliated him in the middle of the office.

Just hearing that name in this room again was enough to sour his mood.

“That bastard’s data is still in the company?”

“Yes. More precisely, there are backups on the development server...”

“Delete it.”

“Pardon...?”

“I said delete all of it.”

The operations team employee blinked in confusion.

“Still, it might be useful later if we ever reuse the IP or reference it for another project...”

“Reference, my ass.”

Bae Young-jun scoffed.

“You’ve got nothing better to reference than a failed game? Why? Want to ruin another game too?”

“...”

“Do you not understand what I’m saying? Even the storage space it takes up is a waste.”

Bae Young-jun slammed the desk with a ‘Bang!’ and continued.

“Post the service termination notice immediately, and only keep whatever data is legally required.”

“...Understood.”

“Keep the announcement as plain as possible. Don’t start with any sentimental bullshit. Just put in some cliché line like, ‘Thank you for your support all this time.’”

After finishing, Bae Young-jun stood from his seat.

Bang.

Soon, the conference room door closed.

“...”

For a while, those remaining in the conference room said nothing.

The server administrator blankly stared at his laptop screen.

[LastProtocol_Live]

[LastProtocol_Test]

[Phase0_EventLog]

[Infection_AI_Backup]

[SurvivalRoute_Simulation]

[AdminScenario_Private]

[Baek_IH_LocalPatch]

A list of folders appeared one after another in the corner of the screen.

“Tsk, what a waste. Is deleting all of this really the right thing to do...?”

“What can we do? If he says jump, we jump. Unless you want to follow in Manager Baek’s footsteps?”

“I don’t, but.”

A moment later, the server administrator sighed and moved the mouse.

Click.

[Are you sure you want to delete?]

“Yeah, if the boss says do it, we do it. He’s the one calling the shots.”

Click.

[Deleting...]

Soon, the progress bar on the screen slowly began to fill.

1%.

7%.

18%.

...92%

And then new text appeared on the screen.

[Data deletion complete.]

________________

That night.

Ding.

“...Hm?”

At the familiar notification from my phone, I slowly sat up.

- Last Protocol Official Community.

It was a notification from the Last Protocol official community announcements.

“It’s been a while.”

After leaving the company, I had deliberately avoided the official community.

Just seeing the game’s name reminded me of the company, and thinking about the company naturally brought that bastard CEO’s face to mind.

“This is an old notification setting. I should probably turn this off soon...”

That was when my hand stopped.

“...Huh?”

Because the title of the announcement that suddenly entered my field of vision looked ominous.

『Notice of Last Protocol Service Termination』

The moment I saw it, I knew immediately.

‘Ah, that bastard CEO ordered this.’