Chapter 124: Awakened?
The main theme of the game was clearly not some relaxed farming and city building simulation.
Yet from the very beginning, the game had provided players with something as absurdly generous as the trading platform.
No matter how he thought about it, that simply wasn’t normal.
So what kind of crisis would require the game to continuously hand out benefits to players in advance?
Not just once, but for seven consecutive days.
Almost as though it wanted players to have enough time to stockpile supplies and purchase weapons.
When combined with the biggest change that had occurred over the past few days, the answer to what that crisis might be was practically obvious.
However, speculation without evidence was still just speculation.
Even if Joo Joowon voiced these theories, people would only accuse him of fearmongering.
After all, compared to conspiracy theories like these, the idea of a game showering players with rewards for seven straight days immediately after launch felt far more familiar to domestic players.
That kind of generous opening event was practically standard operating procedure for game companies.
However, in Joo Joowon’s eyes, both situations followed exactly the same principle.
Both existed for the same purpose, which was preventing players from leaving the game.
The problem was that players in the Age of Apocalypse couldn’t simply quit even if they wanted to.
No matter how much they disliked it, they still had no choice but to continue playing.
So how exactly would players "leave" the game?
Only through death.
There was only death.
Joo Joowon had long since learned not to let other people’s words shake his own judgment.
Back when he had almost been tricked into going overseas and nearly lost his life, he had already learned an important lesson.
Rather than constantly reflecting on himself, it was often better to suspect that other people had ulterior motives and hidden agendas.
He opened the video uploaded in the product description of the player called MusclePotato404.
The man shown in the footage was exactly the type of person who would make others instinctively frown if they judged people by appearance alone.
He had tattooed arms, a buzz cut, and facial features that looked naturally fierce and intimidating.
In short, he was the sort of person most people would subconsciously avoid if they encountered him on the street.
The footage appeared to have been recorded on someone else’s phone and shook slightly from time to time.
The burly man swaggered confidently toward a zombie in the distance without showing the slightest hint of fear.
The moment the zombie charged toward him, one of his arms suddenly began writhing and transforming into a long tentacle.
The tentacle moved at astonishing speed as it lashed toward the zombie.
It moved so quickly that even the video footage left behind visible afterimages.
The zombie wrapped by the tentacle instantly became motionless, almost as though it had died on the spot.
When the man retracted his arm, all that remained of the zombie was an empty skin that collapsed softly onto the ground.
Its entire interior had been hollowed out.
This looked less like an ability and more like the man himself had already undergone some kind of mutation.
The comment section beneath the video reflected the same sentiment.
[ @NeedMoreTherapy ]: Uh... this is kind of hard to judge.
[ @PleaseUseSpoilerTags ]: Ehhhh... that’s kind of disgusting.
[ @AbsolutelyNormalHuman ]: Help! The abilities I imagined were fireballs, lightning blasts, earth spikes, and golden arrows. The abilities we actually got are mutated tentacles and psychological trauma. What kind of nonsense is this?!
[ @StillDefinitelyHuman ]: Has anyone considered the possibility that you’ve already turned into a monster and just haven’t realized it yet?
Faced with those comments, MusclePotato404 responded with remarkable confidence.
[ @MusclePotato404 ]: The game literally brought about the apocalypse. Did you seriously think it was going to hand players beautiful and cool looking powers? Sure, it doesn’t look good, but tell me honestly, is it strong or not?
That single response actually managed to convince quite a few people.
Compared to being torn apart by zombies, if the only price was a few changes to one’s appearance, many people felt that it wasn’t entirely unacceptable.
Furthermore, judging from the video, the transformation only appeared while he was attacking.
At ordinary times, he looked no different from a normal human being.
[ MusclePotato404 ]: One person’s evidence might not be enough, but I refuse to believe I was the only person who got caught in the rain, right? Has anyone else already woken up? Come over here and tell everyone whether you’ve awakened abilities too!
Under the silent attention of countless players, several more "ability users" gradually appeared one after another.
Most of them uploaded videos or pictures on their personal pages as proof, causing more and more players to begin wavering.
[ @MusclePotato404 ]: At this point, I assume nobody still doubts what I’m saying, right? Ashfall is a criminal against humanity! Because of his concealment, how many people who got caught in the rain were abandoned by their companions? If they had survived, how many people could they have protected? How many players who could have become ability users died because of this? Because of his selfishness, so many people suffered!
As long as it didn’t involve their own personal interests, most players would have simply treated MusclePotato404’s insults as entertainment no matter how harsh his words were.
However, once he framed the issue this way, many people suddenly felt as though they had been awakened to a truth they had overlooked.
That’s right!
They might have had the opportunity to become ability users too!
They might not have had to tremble in fear every time they saw a zombie!
Even worse were the family members of people who had been abandoned by their teams because they had gotten caught in the rain.
At this moment, those people had finally found an outlet for their frustration and anger.
One after another, they flooded into the comment section beneath Joo Joowon’s strategy posts.
For players who already felt trapped in hopeless situations, becoming a monster in exchange for power was still preferable to death.