Chapter 1854 – 1854. Eternal Eden
I woke up the unconscious Jin Kang-gu and interrogated him. Of course, the interrogation involved torture. It had been a while since I’d done the torturing myself, but it wasn’t particularly difficult. I tore off his fingernails and crushed his toes. I peeled off skin from suitable areas and poked him with weapons.
“Ugh… I’ll talk! I’ll talk!”
The loyalty of gangsters was less impressive than I’d thought.
Jin Kang-gu had come to capture Na Chae-young under the orders of the Gosan faction boss. He was connected to the loan shark I’d killed a few hours ago. It seemed the Gosan faction boss had been in cahoots with the police to bury the loan shark case.
“The boss gave me a gun and told me that the boss of Taewang wanted to see Dr. Na, so he ordered me to bring Dr. Na! There were no other orders! I thought the boss was trying to get revenge on Hahsik hyung himself! And also, to trade Dr. Na with the boss of Taewang!”
Hahsik. That was the name of the loan shark I killed.
“What’s Taewang? Is it a gang?”
Na Chae-young spoke with a serious expression.
“It’s a gang that controls Gangnam, Seocho, Songpa, Seongdong, Dongdaemun, Gwangjin, and Yongsan in Seoul. They practically dominate the underworld of Seoul. Their scale is beyond that of a typical gang. Why does the boss of Taewang want to meet me?”
“I don’t know! The boss just told me to bring you!”
“What about Bister? Where did you get the drug?”
“We bought the drug from a Taewang member. 100,000 won per pill. It makes you excited and reduces pain when you fight, so our guys always have it.”
“…How did you know I was here?”
“Under the boss’s orders, we attached a tracker to your car. We already knew your residence. Did you think we’d trade with someone as suspicious as you for no reason?”
“…I see. I underestimated you guys.”
After a few more rounds of interrogation, I decided there was no more information to be gained, so I grabbed Jin Kang-gu by the neck, electrocuted him, and killed him.
“Dr. Na, why do you think the boss of Taewang is looking for you?”
“…It’s probably to confirm if I’m a Technologist. The boss of Taewang already knows about Players.”
“What are you going to do? Are you going to meet the boss of Taewang?”
“That’s suicide.”
“I don’t mind fighting those guys.”
“The Gosan faction seems to have somehow covered up the loan shark case, but if another fight breaks out in Seoul, the police won’t stand idly by. There’s no reason to do something stupid.”
Dr. Na got up. She started tidying up the surroundings nervously.
“What are you doing? Don’t just stand there, help me clean up. Now that our location has been exposed, we need to move somewhere else. They’ll probably come looking for us in a few hours.”
“You have another hideout?”
“I have a place in mind.”
I got up. Following her instructions, I organized the items and moved them to a truck hidden behind the used goods shop. Items that were difficult to move were put into the disassembler.
“Take apart the car and put it in the disassembler. It’s too wasteful to leave the resources behind.”
“…No, even so, taking apart a car is difficult.”
My physical abilities were less than half of what they were in reality. I couldn’t even lift a car, let alone disassemble it without tools.
“Then just leave it.”
We spent almost four hours organizing the items, loading them onto the truck, and leaving the place. I drove the truck, and Na Chae-young tapped away at a tablet PC in the passenger seat. Her mood wasn’t good. Glancing at it, I saw a schedule displayed on the tablet PC.
“Things have gone wrong. I was about to start fortifying our base…”
“Where are we going now?”
“Here.”
She kindly turned on the navigation app and showed me. I widened my eyes at the unexpected location.
“Seongak Elementary School? In Gangseo-gu, Seoul?”
“It’s a school that closed down two years ago due to a drop in student numbers. Even though it’s in Seoul, the population in that neighborhood is small. Plus, there’s a rumor that it was built on top of a graveyard, so people don’t go near it. It was originally scheduled to be used for another building this year… but it’s been postponed due to some political issue.”
“Is Dr. Na the owner of this school? You’re rich.”
“There’s no way.”
“…Are you going to squat there?”
“The zombie outbreak is going to happen in 30 days anyway. Even if we squat there, we can get away with it. We can just say it was an emergency.”
“The government won’t like that. Is there a reason why it has to be here?”
“Because it’s Seoul.”
I tilted my head. Was that a reason?
“…It’s about Eternal Eden. Players can choose their class and starting point before the game starts. So, what starting point would players prefer?”
“……A powerful country?”
“That’s right. It’s advantageous. If a country is powerful, they can quickly handle any problems that arise. Most people choose the United States. It has many advantages. There are also quite a few players who choose China. If they can seize power, they can grow faster than the United States in some ways.”
“Why did Dr. Na choose Korea?”
“There’s less competition in the early stages than in the US or China. And also, because I’m Korean.”
“It doesn’t have to be Seoul, does it?”
“Seoul is the center of Korea. Being in Seoul makes it easier to obtain resources… and because there’s a large population, we can recruit good talent.”
Listening to her, Na Chae-young’s words seemed to make sense.
The truck continued towards the school, and I checked the relatively quiet streets. Not all of Seoul had modern buildings. Most of the buildings here were old. There seemed to be quite a few empty houses.
“Seongak Elementary School has a back gate. The road is rough, but it’s a good place to avoid people’s eyes. Let’s go that way.”
“Okay.”
There was a small mountain behind Seongak Elementary School. The back gate was locked. Na Chae-young got out of the car, unlocked the gate, opened it, and got back into the passenger seat.
“You had the key too? You’re quite resourceful.”
“When I came here last time, I broke the old lock and replaced it with a new one.”
She was surprisingly proactive.
We moved like thieves. Even though it was an abandoned school, if the lights were turned on, people might become suspicious, so we kept the lights to a minimum and unloaded the furniture from the truck first.
“Let’s set up the furniture first and then unload the guns. It’s better to move the other machines tomorrow morning. The most urgent thing is the generator.”
Fortunately, the electricity was cut off, but the water was running normally. Still, it felt a bit unsettling, so it wasn’t suitable for drinking right away.
“It’s groundwater. It’s safe to drink.”
“I only drink bottled water.”
“……You have surprisingly high-end tastes.”
“It’s so high-end that it’s a problem.”
Na Chae-young and I looked around the school together.
The school had a total of five floors. There was one main building and three annexes. There was even an unfinished swimming pool in the basement of the annex. In the basement of the main building, there was a boiler room and a storage room. The boiler was left behind for recycling purposes, but we didn’t know how to use it. The storage room only had old desks, chairs, and other items. Most of it was garbage.
I had hoped for the infirmary, but it was completely empty, with no medicine or even a bed. The science lab had nothing except for a human model. The music room was also empty. To put it bluntly, there was nothing except for the boiler.
‘Na Chae-young chose this school because of the fence.’
The fence surrounding Seongak Elementary School was quite high at 5 meters. It was difficult to climb over the fence without tools. It would be even more effective against zombies with low intelligence. In fact, the only openings for zombies to enter were the front and back gates. If we could block those two places well, it would be a safe place from zombies.
‘I need to check for any holes tomorrow during the day.’
Na Chae-young and I put a bed in a room on the first floor of the main building.
“You can use the bed.”
“What about Dr. Na?”
“I need to redo the plan. We lost our hideout, and I need to think about how to utilize your power. Above all, I need to make a sword for you.”
“Come here.”
I took off my clothes on the bed and said while naked. Na Chae-young didn’t blush even when she saw my naked body. She just frowned.
“I told you I had things to do.”
“Did you forget about our deal? One hour a day. I’m going to use that one hour now. Or rather, it’s past midnight, so can I use two hours?”
“……Tell me exactly. Are you going to use one hour? Or two hours?”
“One hour. I’ll use the rest tomorrow.”
“…….”
Na Chae-young walked over and sat on the bed. She was smart, so she probably knew what I wanted. If she didn’t know my tendencies after seeing the Lust trait, she was stupid.
“One hour a day, you agreed to be my sword.”
“In return, Na Chae-young becomes my woman for one hour a day.”
“…I’m going to accumulate the time. I’ll save it up for about two weeks and use it all at once.”
“Two weeks? What are you going to use the sword for?”
“There’s a war weapons research institute in Gangwon-do. It’s under the Ministry of National Defense, but it’s a secret research institute different from the Agency for Defense Development. As the name suggests, it’s a place where they research and experiment with all kinds of war weapons. I need the combat AI there.”
“How do you know about that?”
“Eternal Eden. That’s one of the reasons why I chose Korea. One of the most valuable technologies in Korea is combat AI. You’re not going to refuse because it’s dangerous, are you?”
“It’s dangerous, but it’s not impossible, is it?”
If it was impossible, I wouldn’t even try. Na Chae-young saw my abilities and judged that it was possible.
Na Chae-young nodded and sat on the bed, setting an alarm on her smartphone. The alarm would go off in exactly one hour.
I noticed that Na Chae-young’s shoulders were trembling slightly. They had been trembling since the afternoon. It must be because of what happened today. It was the first time she had ever experienced killing someone.
I grabbed her shoulders and pulled her onto the bed. The bed mattress bounced. Na Chae-young, lying on the bed, looked up at me with a blank expression. Even though she was giving me her body, she didn’t seem willing to cooperate. But that didn’t matter. I grinned and started to take off her clothes.
