Stagnant Water of Apocalypse - Chapter 0

-Rabbit Princess: Ah…This game is so boring. There’s really nothing to do.

-Duck Buttock Goes Kwek Kwek: Well, it’s a failed game. What did you expect?

-Survivor 1: So, going to play another game?

-Rabbit Princess: After playing this game for so long, I don’t think I will be able to play another game.

-Duck Buttock Goes Kwek Kwek: LOL.

The only players left in this game were all stagnant water. Just like usual, we were hanging out on the rooftop of a certain building as we chatted about various topics. We didn’t have any choice but to do this because we had cleared everything this game had to offer. On top of that, there are also no newbie players who came to play this game.

(T/N: Stagnant water refers to players who have played the game for far too long.)

If it weren’t for the fact that corpses of various kinds of monsters were scattered here and there, the night view from this place would have been very beautiful. However, there’s nothing we could do about it, because in this game, players and corpses were inseparable.

This game was called ‘Survival Life’. A virtual reality game advertised with catch phrases like, ‘Extremely realistic apocalyptic world where zombies and monsters roam freely!’

‘You are the only one who survives this hell!’

However, not anymore. The impregnable difficulty of this game demotivated the users and everyone dropped this game one by one. Moreover, the need for dedicated VR equipment to play this game also raised the hurdle as tall as Mount Everest.

Thus, within months after its launch, the number of players decreased significantly.

Then, what about a year after its launch? Well, let’s not talk about it.

-Rabbit Princess: Ah… There are no fresh newbies coming in….

-Duck Buttock Goes Kwek Kwek: What are you going to do when a newbie appears?

-Rabbit Princess: I will go to them and greet them LOL.

-Survivor 1: Look at yourself in the mirror please, it would be a miracle if they didn’t run away.

-Rabbit Princess: Tsktsktsk, this kid really knows nothing even though he’s a stagnant water as well.

The appearance of ‘Rabbit Princess’ was that of a 30-year-old male, and it was very unique. His whole body was covered in pink colour and a carrot was embedded on his face which acted as his nose. The white tail on the top part of his buttock was disgusting, though.

Of course, the appearances of both Duck Buttock Goes Kwek Kwek and Survivor 1 were also quite unusual. And between all of us, I was certain I was the one with the best appearances. At the very least, a newbie wouldn’t run away when they saw my appearance. Even though what I was wearing was basically the same as wearing only underwear.

Then, out of the blue, a message popped out in the chat window.

-Newbie Is NubNub: Hello!

It was a message from a newbie all of us had been longing for. Both their nickname and greeting was very good. We could also see a VR café icon beside their name. They must be playing from a VR café which is rather popular these days. Even so, all of us who didn’t care about those kinds of things swiftly answered to their message.

-Rabbit Princess: Sniff! Sniff! What is this smell?

-Duck Buttock Goes Kwek Kwek: It smells dirty, HAHA.

-Survivor 1: This game finally has 5 players!

-Newbie Is NubNub: But what are you guys doing here?

It’s time for me to step up. The other three players were the type of players who break through any kind of hurdle through their strength alone. They wouldn’t be much help to the newbie. Meanwhile, I was a player who analyzed every weakness of the monster and used my surroundings to hunt it.

-I Love Gimbap: Have you finished the tutorial?

-Newbie Is NubNub: No, not yet. Do I have to finish it?

-I Love Gimbap: Yes. In order to play freely, you have to finish the tutorial. The title of the game is Survival Life, right? To stay alive is the goal of this game….

As I explained to the newbie, the other three began to chat sarcastically.

-Rabbit Princess: Here it comes!!

-Duck Buttock Goes Kwek Kwek: Here comes the speed wagon!

-Survivor 1: But, Gimbap-nim is indeed qualified to do these kinds of things since the three of us are players who only smash through everything on our path.

– Rabbit Princess: I agree.

(T/N IIRC, Speed wagon is some kind of wikipedia, for those who read EER, that’s what Yu Ilhan called Erta.)

Damn it. There’s a lot of background noise, so I’ll cut my explanation short.

-I Love Gimbap: Anyway, you have to finish the tutorial. We can only help you once you finished it.

-Newbie Is NubNub: Okay. Then I’ll finish the tutorial.

How long has it been since we had this kind of newbie?

Tears of happiness were dripping from the eyes of the stagnant water including myself as I started to explain about the placement of zombies, the effect of various items and where it could be found as well as the landscape of the tutorial to the newbie.

And then, the newbie stopped sending messages. It seems like they are trying to finish the tutorial now.

Will it work out?

We prayed that the newbie would join us safely.

-Rabbit Princess: Please, please, four of us have been praying for months! If there’s one more person, we’ll have more fun together!

I also feel the same way. No more, no less, we only need one.

-Newbie Is NubNub: This game is so hard. I give up!

When the newbie’s message came up, four of us were thrown into chaos.

-Rabbit Princess: No!! Don’t go!!!

-Duck buttock goes kwek kwek: GO GO OUR NEWBIE! You can do it! Fighting!!

-Survivor 1: You’ll get warm support once you finish the tutorial!

-Newbie Is NubNub: But I’ve been doing the tutorial for 2 hours now….

Yeah, that’s right. The difficulty of this game was really disgusting. Does it make sense that there were only a few players who could finish the tutorial?

The funny thing is, the tutorial that the newbie did right now was a much easier version compared to the early version of the tutorial. Back then, even after 3 days after the launching, no one was able to finish the tutorial.

I tried to encourage the newbie to try a little bit more and not quit.

-I Love Gimbap: It should take more than 3 hours, so please try a little more.

-Rabbit Princess: Without you, there’s only four of us. We can’t make a five eagles brotherhood!

-Duck Buttock Goes Kwek Kwek: But who will be the swan?

– Newbie Is NubNub: Bye!

Ah….That was it.

The newbie didn’t send anymore messages after that. We could only sit down and lament.

-Rabbit Princess: It is confirmed that this game is a failed game!

-Duck Buttock Goes Kwek Kwek: It’s been a long time since this game became a failed game, though.

Yeah, that’s right. We’re just holding on to a failed game.

If the update was also bad, maybe we would also give up on this game a long time ago. However, the game company always updates the contents of this game on time. But the problem is, we were done with the newly updated content as soon as it was updated. Who knows why the company still updates the game when they don’t even have any source of revenue…

We looked at the night view of the city as we talked about this and that.

The Rabbit Princess said, ‘I want to beat an ogre with my bare hands.’ but no one responded to his rambling because it was annoying.

He’s been saying all of that as well as doing all kinds of crap for a year, and we were tired of it.

-Survivor 1: I’ll go first bye bye..

Starting with Survivor 1, everyone else also disconnected from the game after saying they had work to do.

I turned the recording function off. With some editing, I think I would be able to upload it on MeTube. ‘Survival Life’ was a small game, at most, I would get around 10,000 views from one video.

I turned off the monitor and laid down on the bed.

“Should I just quit?” I sighed. The number of viewers on my live streaming, which used to be 20, had recently decreased to less than 10. The cause was obviously the characters in the video, the other 3 people and me. It would be better if there’s a newbie to be introduced, but most of the time, they quit long before finishing the tutorial.

“I’ve been playing this game for quite a while, too.” If I remember correctly, it’s been around a year and three months. I had spent around 5,000 hours on ‘Survival Life’. It was never easy. It takes quite a lot of effort to run a snack bar and broadcast a VR game.

So far, I’ve been holding out with sponsorship I got from my streaming, but it is getting harder and harder these days.

Should I just quit and fully concentrate on my business? Summer is just around the corner, should I make a new menu? I think it would be a big hit if I developed a cold menu since these past few days, there were many students who were looking for shaved ice at the store.

My eyes slowly got heavier as I was thinking about this and that. And when I finally closed my eyes, I saw numerous zombies filling up my vision as they bare their teeth at me.

How dare a mere zombie do that to me!! I moved around the gap between the zombies and threw my fist towards them one by one. And then, the sound of the alarm woke me up. It’s already morning.

What a shitty dream.

I got up and washed my face as I yawned. It’s time to get ready for business.

Few months have passed since then. Some minor patches that greatly reduced the difficulty of the tutorial as well as improving the starting condition for new players was added. However, for me and the other stagnant waters, the patch was akin to repairing the barn after losing the cow.

-It’s too late.

-Fixed the barn, but you had no cows.

-Please decrease the equipment requirement. Who’s going to buy a hundred thousand won machine just to play this game? It’s just us.

-Mm-hmm.

-Or, just let them play with keyboard and mouse. We’ll make a lot more friends if you do it!!

-Stubborn staff members.

-They aren’t going to do it.

Because of life in reality, the playing time of the other stagnant waters had become lesser and lesser. Even though there was a big update coming, no one enjoyed it except for me. And just like always, from time to time a newbie appeared, but they soon got frustrated by the terrible difficulty and ran away.

And a few more months after that. My playing time was also decreasing, but I still had all the patch details and my playthrough videos on my PC. I had to explain it to my friends when they came back. However, no matter how much I waited, they didn’t come online.

Am I the only one on this server?

– I Love Gimbap: Is there anyone online?

··
There’s no answer to my question.

Did the management finally decide to throw away this game?

The graphic and realistic aspects of this game were quite good. Is it really okay to throw away this kind of game? That’s what I’m thinking about. However, in the end, It’s none of my business.

-I Love Gimbap: There’s no answer. So, I’m really going to quit this time.

Even after I said that, the chat was still completely silent.

Few days after that. I was still enjoying the new content all by myself. It was neither zombies nor fantasy monsters, but a bizarrely transformed monster. It was quite fun to analyze them and devise a plan to hunt them down.

Some people who were curious about the new content came to my stream, but it was not that many. Sometimes, some newbies appeared through VR café, but as always, they didn’t last long.

And a few more days passed. As I was preparing to fight the new monster ‘Brutra’ a notice suddenly popped up.

-System: Hello, this is the ‘Survival Life’ Operations Team. Firstly, I would like to thank the users who have been playing ‘Survival Life’.

I’m a little nervous about what they were trying to say.

-System: In a week’s time, the ‘Survival Life’ will be terminated. As a member of the development team, I’m truly sorry about the end of the service. I hope we will be able to meet again someday. Thank you very much!

Is this real?

What are you talking about?

The service will be terminated?

Are you saying ‘Survival Life’ is completely over?

The system instantly disappeared as soon as they finished spewing some nonsense. Haha…. This was the end of more than 5,000 hours spent in this game.

I looked at Brutra howling in the distance. I really wanted to hunt it. But, it wasn’t something I could do alone. It would only be possible if all 4 of us prepared thoroughly.

It’s all over now.

“Live streaming or whatever…” I suddenly felt empty and erased all of my videos from MeTube. There’s nothing to be disappointed about since the number of views was less than 10,000 anyway.

While I was at it, I also entered the live streaming platform I used and posted my retirement notice. Even though I only had less than 10 viewers, I still had to do this at the very least. Then, I opened a can of beer and gulped it down as I sat on my bed. I really wanted to meet my friends. Even though I didn’t know anything about their name or age, they were people who had played the game together with me for the past years.

I won’t be able to see them again in the future. There’s still a week left before the termination of service of Survival Life. but I don’t think they would come online in the meantime.

“Let’s stop.” I need to face reality. The 5,500 hours I spent in ‘Survival Life’ would soon disappear. As I thought so, I threw the beer can into the trash can and fell asleep.

***

After closing my store, I was having my lunch while browsing through the internet on my PC. Then one post in a certain forum catches my eyes.

-I got a status window.

ㄴWhat kind of bullshit is this? Don’t tell me it’s the one from a game?

ㄴHoly XXXX crazy!!

ㄴWhat a bullshit!

“Status window my ass…” Well, the status window was a common cliche in webnovels. It was a power that could make an ordinary person gain a special strength and become popular. But in reality, no one had actually experienced it. After all, reality was not like a work of fiction. No matter how many times you spew the words with your mouth, it was impossible for a status window to appear.

When people keep slandering the poster, he posted another reply.

-Oh, did you get an XXXX in your ear? Just try saying status window. Is it that hard?

Certainly, it’s not a hard thing to do. I swallowed the rice on my mouth before uttering the words. “Status window.”

Just like the poster said, something appeared in my sight.

This is crazy….

The real status window popped out.