Chapter 9

The Apocalypse Game I Created Became Reality Chapter 9

Time remaining until service termination.

[03:12:44]

I stared at that number for a long time.

It had been a while.

At the same time, a logo I had once seen so often that I was sick of it appeared before my eyes.

[LAST PROTOCOL]

An old ruined city.

A shattered elevated road.

A burning sky.

Screams coming from far away.

And even the familiar login screen.

[OrdinaryHuman, would you like to connect?]

“...Connect.”

My vision went dark.

And before I knew it, I was standing in the middle of Ruined City Plaza.

“...”

For a moment, I was speechless.

There were a lot of people.

Far more than I had expected.

A failed game that had fewer than 100 concurrent players.

But today was different.

The final day of service.

“Hmm.”

Even users who had left had gathered.

Some in the basic survivor outfit.

Others in bizarre Box Man setups.

Gas masks dressed up far too stylishly, ragged coats, even some strange person playing guitar in the middle of the plaza.

At that moment, the chat window began scrolling rapidly.

- VegetableCracker: Human’s here lololol

- DemonKingLucifer: Hey, you were still alive?

- PeninsulaPrince: I seriously thought you quit.

They were familiar usernames.

Snort.

A laugh slipped out before I knew it.

Probably because I was secretly glad to see them.

I didn’t know their faces, ages, or names.

But these connections we had formed inside the game.

- VegetableCracker: Human, what have you been doing lately?

- OrdinaryHuman: Real life is hell.

- VegetableCracker: Worse than here?

- OrdinaryHuman:...Probably?

A trivial conversation.

A meaningless joke.

And yet, for some reason, one side of my chest felt tight.

‘This kind of conversation ends now too.’

Once the server closed, this plaza and these characters would all disappear.

[Time Until Service Termination 03:00:00]

When the time hit exactly three hours, the entire plaza went quiet for a moment.

Then someone typed in chat.

- BoxMan: This really is the end.

- RuinedCityRat: It lasted a long time for a dead game.

- WhiteBird: Even if it was a dead game, it was a god-tier game to me...T_T

The moment I saw that sentence, my fingers stopped.

“Ah.”

For some reason, something heavy settled in one corner of my chest.

______________

A little later, I quietly opened the menu.

It was a UI ordinary users couldn’t see.

[Developer Console]

“...It’s still here.”

It seemed the company hadn’t fully revoked my permissions.

Since the game was shutting down anyway, they probably thought it didn’t matter.

Swipe.

I carefully touched the admin window.

A message soon appeared.

[Caution]

[Current privileges are limited to internal event control on the live server.]

“...As expected.”

A sigh escaped through my teeth.

I couldn’t fix reality with these privileges.

I couldn’t cancel the prologue omen events, nor could I erase the infected that would swallow reality in the future.

I couldn’t stop the Great Collapse 184 days from now either.

‘The only thing I can touch right now is the data inside a game server that’s about to disappear.’

A world moments away from closing.

Its final stage.

Right then.

[The Humanity’s Last Bastion event will begin.]

“...What?”

My brow furrowed naturally.

Humanity’s Last Bastion.

This was content that should never have been released.

It was an event we had once planned to introduce as the game’s final scenario.

And yet now, it was about to run on the live server.

“No way...”

I hurriedly opened the admin window.

The logs were pouring in like crazy.

[Final Event Package Load]

[Humanity_Last_Bastion]

[Server Shutdown Special Event]

[Executed by: Operation_Admin]

“...Fuck.”

A curse slipped out before I knew it.

Bae Young-jun. That bastard.

A game that was shutting down anyway.

He had probably decided to put on one last fireworks show and dragged out every remaining piece of event data.

Of course, the players cheered.

- Did the operators finally come to their senses?

- The last-day event is insane

- Why are they only doing this now?

But I couldn’t laugh.

The infected patterns used in this event, the AI structure, the group behavior algorithms.

Thinking about things like that...

‘We’re fucked.’

Wooooooong!

Before I knew it, the sky had turned crimson.

Red clouds were gathering over the ruined city.

Wiiiiiiiiiiing!

A siren blared from the old speaker in the center of the plaza.

- What is this, what’s happening?

- An event?

- There’s a last-day event?

- The operators were alive?

- Hey, shit! The atmosphere is insane!

A gigantic wall rose on the north side of the plaza.

Collapsed buses and steel plates.

Concrete barricades.

At the same time, NPCs began rushing out.

Merchants, guards, even medical personnel.

Every last one of them gripping weapons.

[The defense battle for Humanity’s Last Bastion begins.]

[All survivors, gather in the central plaza.]

[Time Limit: Until Server Shutdown]

“Wow...”

Someone exclaimed in admiration.

Soon, NPCs placed supply crates all around the plaza.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

At the same time, the NPCs shouted.

“Survivors! Take your equipment here!”

“Money is no longer necessary! It’s all free, so take everything!”

“Let’s all survive and meet again!”

Items were being distributed for free.

The few remaining firearms, ammunition, emergency kits, armor, melee weapons, throwable equipment, and more...

The plaza instantly descended into chaos.

The newbies were flustered.

“W-What am I supposed to take first?”

“Are guns better? Knives?”

“I just logged in!”

That was when the veterans started moving.

“Newbies, come over here!”

“Don’t just grab ammo! Check the weight first!”

“Grab a gas mask first!”

“Don’t take that! That item’s a trap!”

Confusion, laughter, curses, tension.

All of those emotions mixed together.

“...”

I simply stared blankly at the scene.

Strangely, my chest grew hot.

‘Was this the kind of scene I wanted to see?’

...Maybe it was.

_______________

The first wave.

Infected came rushing in from afar.

An endless tide.

A tsunami of the end.

At first, they were slow.

The ones staggering as they walked.

Early-stage infected that even newbies could easily kill.

Naturally, the veterans were more relaxed.

“Take it slow! Aim for the head!”

“Keep the noise down! Save your bullets!”

“Melee first!”

The guards advanced with shields raised.

The players attacked from behind them.

But the wave never ended.

Even so, the players cheered.

- Ooooooh!!

- The last-day event is fucking amazing!

- Why didn’t they do this sooner??

- If they had, the game wouldn’t have died lololol

A bitter smile formed on my lips.

Soon, the second wave came.

This time, ghouls were mixed in.

“Help me...”

“Open... the door...”

“It’s cold...”

Human voices came from around the plaza.

Several newbies flinched.

“Huh? Aren’t those NPCs?”

Someone immediately shouted.

“Don’t go! It’s a trap!”

But it was too late.

One player went outside the barricade and was grabbed.

Screams, blood, and the chat window shook again.

- Ah, that seriously gives me PTSD

- Operator personality

- Are ghouls supposed to talk like people??

- Newbie shredder lololol

Still, the players held out.

Because the veterans quickly got things under control.

Then came the third wave.

Wooooooong!

The sky turned even redder.

A roar sounded from far away.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

The plaza floor shook.

Someone typed in chat.

- Hey, no way

- It can’t be, right?

- That sound...?

A gigantic shadow appeared beyond the ruined buildings.

[Ghoul King]

Last Protocol’s infamous boss.

Famous as a player slaughtering machine.

“...Fuck.”

The chat window exploded.

- Ghoul King spawned lolololol

- We get to see this on the last day

The Ghoul King slammed into the wall.

KABOOOOM!

The barricade shook.

NPCs fell.

The players all attacked at once.

Bullets poured out, and Molotov cocktails flew.

Explosives detonated.

“Push it back!”

The players looked like they were about to be pushed back, but held their ground.

As everyone attacked together, the Ghoul King’s health slowly but surely began to drop.

“Waaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

Everyone cheered.

They could kill it.

It really felt like they could kill it.

Of course, that was still only wishful thinking.

“...Now this really is the end.”

My eyes turned toward the admin window.

The next wave.

[Awakened Horde]

A horde of Awakened Infected.

Creatures that were never supposed to appear.

Strong, fast, and vicious.

They were also enemies that had never been revealed to the players.

- Kwoooooooaaaaaaar!

A massive roar came from afar.

-??

- What the hell is that sound?

Soon, red eyes lit up in the windows of every building.

One, two, dozens, hundreds.

The Ghoul King was not the final boss.

It was merely the first gatekeeper.

The Awakened Infected ran down the walls and leapt off.

The players panicked at the agile movements of infected they had never seen before.

“What the hell are those?”

“Were those ever added in an update?”

“I’ve never seen those before.”

Monsters even the veterans didn’t know.

Enemies with no strategy guides.

At that moment, the plaza truly became humanity’s last bastion.

______________

The battle was merciless.

As expected, the Awakened Infected were strong.

The NPCs stood against them on the front line.

A merchant NPC fell while firing a shotgun.

A medical NPC kept throwing emergency kits until the very end.

Guard NPCs blocked the way with shields.

The players fought too.

Newbies and veterans alike.

All as one.

“Block the left!”

“I’m out of ammo!”

“Someone throw a Molotov!”

“Get the newbies back!”

“The Ghoul King still isn’t dead!”

“How the fuck is the Ghoul King still alive in the middle of this?!”

The waves continued without end.

The horde of Awakened Infected finally poured into the plaza.

Before long, the players were pushed all the way back to the central plaza.

The final circle, NPCs and players, newbies and veterans.

People who had cursed the failed game, people who had come back for the memories.

All of them held out together until the very end.

“...”

I was standing right in the middle of it.

OrdinaryHuman.

The lead planner and a player.

The person who created this world.

And now.

The person watching its end.

[00:05:00]

The sky split open.

Outside the plaza, it was already filled with infected.

The barricades had long since collapsed.

Most of the NPCs had fallen too.

Only a handful of players were still standing.

And yet no one logged out.

It seemed everyone wanted to watch until the end.

The final moments of this failed game.

Then.

[Humanity’s Last Bastion has fallen.]

The final system message appeared.

‘...No.’

An alarm suddenly rang through my mind.

If the game became reality.

‘This is supposed to be humanity’s end?’

I quickly opened the menu and searched through the list.

‘...There it is!’

And then I activated my final privilege.

[...But not all survival ends here.]

The plaza fell silent.

Through the admin window, I entered the final message.

This was not originally part of the event.

I typed it in on the spot.

A final piece of romance only possible because this was inside a game, and one more hope.

[Last Protocol activated.]

[Survive until the very, very end.]

[Those survivors who endure to the end will face a ‘new world.’]

[...May fortune be with you.]

The chat window froze.

And then it exploded.

- What

- Insane!

- Season 2 teaser?

- They’re seriously dropping a Season 2 teaser while shutting the game down?

- The operators are fucking evil lololol

- What the hell is this new world

- Are you saying Last Pro 2 is coming?!

- Was the reality server joke actually real?

I quietly let out a sigh.

Reality server.

Something someone had written as a joke.

But I couldn’t take it as just a joke.

[00:00:30]

At that moment, the Awakened Infected descended upon the final circle.

The screen shook.

The sky collapsed.

The plaza was engulfed in red light.

[00:00:05]

[00:00:04]

[00:00:03]

[00:00:02]

[00:00:01]

Finally, a system message appeared.

[LAST PROTOCOL]

[Service Ended]

The screen went dark.

Blackout.

And complete silence.

Slide.

I slowly removed the VR headset.

The darkness of the underground workshop greeted me.

“...”

I said nothing for a long time.

“A new world...”

The words I had left in the game at the very end.

Survivors who endured until the end would carry over into a new world.

I didn’t know what meaning that final message would have in the coming apocalypse.

“...Now, let’s prepare.”

The game was over.

‘The game I created became reality.’

But the Last Protocol I had to survive was only beginning now.