Chapter 122: Sharing the Truth
So if Joo Joowon kept this information hidden, then by the time other players learned about it, his territory might already have been completed.
Perhaps at that point the system would even grant him an achievement for becoming the first player to own a territory.
For players without access to this information, it was entirely possible that they would only discover the existence of territories after seeing his.
And because of this information advantage, Joo Joowon could establish a lead over the vast majority of players.
However, after thinking it over for a while, Joo Joowon still gave up on the idea.
It was true that he wanted to stay far ahead of everyone else, but he also did not want to deliberately slow down the development of other players.
More importantly, the fact that the first quest in the quest chain had a time limit of one month already suggested that becoming a Lord would probably require teamwork in order to complete the series of quests efficiently.
Even if he selfishly hid the information, there was no guarantee that he would become the first player to establish a territory.
In this world, it had always been the small group standing at the very top who enjoyed the best resources and possessed the safest fortresses.
Even though the arrival of the apocalypse game had reshuffled many existing forces, the essence of the world itself had not changed.
Society would still resemble a pyramid
.
For players at the bottom, the current world was even harsher than the one that existed before the apocalypse.
They needed the protection of cities.
Not everyone was suited for going outside and hunting monsters.
Some people were born unable to handle the sight of blood.
Some people had simply been born physically uncoordinated.
Others completely lost the ability to think calmly in moments of danger and could only stand there helplessly as enemies attacked them.
But this was no longer civilized society.
One mistake now meant paying an unimaginably terrible price.
Joo Joowon didn’t dare imagine how many living people had died over these past few days without ever being infected by zombies, only to lose their lives because of countless other reasons.
Once he obtained his territory, Joo Joowon had no intention of recruiting players.
Instead, he planned to turn it into a small paradise that belonged entirely to himself.
However, just because he wouldn’t recruit anyone didn’t mean other Lord players would make the same choice.
Joo Joowon firmly believed that there would be many players who had obtained opportunities in the Age of Apocalypse and gathered followers under their command who possessed ambitions of conquest and domination.
Perhaps some of them, like him, preferred solitude and independence.
However, territories required population in order to function.
No matter what, they would eventually recruit players to fill their territories and provide those players with a certain level of protection.
Although this might mean returning to a life that resembled the old world, working jobs and earning wages all over again, Joo Joowon felt that there were probably many players who desperately wished they could return to that kind of ordinary and boring life.
Besides, even if these ambitious people had selfish motives, there would always be some whose selfishness wasn’t quite so overwhelming, right?
For example, there were those who freely taught other players how to kill zombies with limited tools, how to quickly treat wounds, how to survive and cook, which supplies were the most important, and what unexpected uses ordinary objects that people usually ignored could have during disasters.
So after thinking it through, Joo Joowon felt that the sooner this information became public, the better.
When the sky collapsed, there would always be tall people willing to hold it up.
He personally had no desire to become one of those people, but there would always be someone willing to stand in that position.
The world originally had eight billion people.
Nobody knew how many had already disappeared during these short few days since the apocalypse game descended.
Joo Joowon genuinely hoped that more people would survive.
If players all continued fighting alone, then rather than producing more powerful individuals, the more realistic outcome would be the extinction of the majority of humanity.
...
[ Comment Section ]:
[ @FutureCorpse ]: Wait, are we even playing the same game? How did you suddenly reach Level 7?
[ @InventoryFull ]: You can actually become a Lord in this game?! I thought the most we’d get was guilds. I never expected territory building to actually exist!
[ @ApocalypseIntern ]: Wuwuwu, does this mean I can finally become a life skill player? I seriously cannot survive another day in this damn apocalypse.
[ @ProfessionalBystander ]: Thank you Boss Ashfall for sharing this information. This news is incredibly important.
[ @MusclePotato404 ]: Exposing the true face of player Ashfall! Don’t be fooled by him! Ashfall is a selfish and despicable person! Visit my profile for details!
...
The moment the guide was posted, countless players flooded into the comments section as expected.
Among them, one particular comment quickly rose to the top because it immediately received replies beneath it.
Combined with its attention grabbing content, it became impossible to ignore.
Over the past few days, comments similar to this had not been uncommon beneath Joo Joowon’s strategy posts.
Most of them were simply players trying to attract attention in order to sell items, or conspiracy theories invented out of thin air by random people.
Many players who clicked on them ended up complaining that they had been tricked.
Because of this, when Joo Joowon first noticed the comment, he didn’t pay much attention to it at all.
Instead, he wandered over to the pet section to see if he could buy one or two cats or dogs, feed them zombie core, and perhaps fill the final empty slot required for the Lord quest.
However, after searching for quite a while, he couldn’t find anything satisfactory.
Only after exiting did he notice that several players he had previously traded with had all sent him messages.