Chapter 353
The buildings on the outskirts began collapsing one after another.
Each building had a sturdy structure that could only be brought down by installing four attached bombs in the optimal positions and detonating them.
In other words, an enormous amount of resources was required to bring down a fortress of this scale.
But the siege team had resources to spare. That was why, instead of breaking through from a single direction, they began carving their way toward the center from all four directions.
It was possible to burrow toward the central buildings from only one direction, but the chances of dying were far higher.
“They’re not exactly trying to conserve resources.”
That was precisely what they were doing.
From the sniper tower in the center—the highest position—Seojun was sending back to the outpost any enemies whose heads poked even slightly above the walls.
Most of them were protected by steel helmets and didn’t die in a single shot, but there could be no disagreement that Seojun covering every direction from the center was the best option in the current situation.
[Oh no. It’s collapsing.]
“If you get caught in the blast and collapse together with the building, you’ll die without a chance to move. Once you hear the third explosion, just get out of the building.”
Taewoo answered Seojun, who was waiting with his eye pressed to the scope of his sniper rifle.
[I told you that before we started. Don’t worry.]
Taewoo himself was the very reason Seojun had to repeat the warning.
Anyway.
Bang!
“I’ve taken out the person watching us from the left side of the northern skybridge.”
They had to keep killing as many as they could.
[Confirmed! I’m heading out now!]
After hearing Seojun, This Isn’t Murim pulled his gun out from the skybridge and attacked the enemies who were in the middle of planting bombs.
Things were going smoothly.
But—
‘Four outposts.’
Boom!
Boom!
Heavy explosions that shook the chest spread outward together with vibrations.
From every direction.
Continuously.
Seojun and his teammates tried to stop them, but it wasn’t easy.
Bang!
Their numbers dwindled.
But at the same time, they were replenished.
The enemy had four outposts.
Last’s territory was divided into enormous tile-shaped sections.
Any number of sleeping bags could be installed in a single section, allowing players to spawn there upon revival.
However, once someone spawned from a sleeping bag, they could not respawn from any other sleeping bag within that section for a certain period of time.
Seojun’s house had been built on the vertex where four tiles met.
Most bases were built this way.
Only by straddling four tiles could they revive four times from their main base.
The important thing was that the enemy could also revive four times.
The siege team would have built one outpost in each tile, so that meant they had to kill each enemy roughly five times before the game would end.
It was a shocking number.
‘It’s not like I said we’d lose for no reason.’
Even if they held out as long as possible and turned it into a war of attrition, the moment Seojun began saving resources to reach Tier 4, they had already lost their chance.
“Whew. There’s no end to them, no matter how many times we kill them.”
-No wonder there’s no end to them, boss
-The fact that three teams properly joined together means they’re serious about crushing us
-Boss! I heard two people are mining resources right now. Is that true?
-We’ll probably lose before they finish mining
There was a way to win.
Even if the enemies had five lives, it would all be meaningless if they didn’t have resources such as guns to fight with after reviving.
They had to collect or destroy those resources.
By killing the enemies again and again.
For now—
[Mr. Seojun, can you see the pile of items beside the third building to the east?]
“Yes, I can see it.”
Seojun immediately changed direction.
[Blow it up!]
A corpse in Last became a pile of items.
When they had rushed toward the walls a little earlier, those who had died had been able to return to that pile of items and pick everything up again. But they couldn’t allow the enemy to recycle their resources like that anymore.
Since they couldn’t go down and collect them, they had to destroy them.
Seojun pulled a special weapon from the items.
A weapon the enemy had used until they were sick of it just moments ago: a rocket launcher.
“I’m firing.”
Although Seojun said that, he waited.
He wanted to erase anyone who entered the area at the same time.
Boom!
The rocket launched, an attack from another direction aimed at Seojun during that instant, and yet another building collapsing.
Countless situations occurred simultaneously, without pause.
This was a battlefield.
Buildings continued to crumble.
[Ah. I’m dead. I think it’s the person who got a lucky shot on Mr. Seojun. Ah. A perfect headshot through that gap. Ah.]
One by one, people began to die.
Simply destroying the items with rocket launchers was nowhere near enough to delay the enemy.
They had surely stockpiled plenty of resources at their outposts.
Even so, they believed.
[Ah, anyway, if we just hold out! We’ll win! Right?]
They believed in Seojun, who was covering them from the highest point in the center.
And—
Seojun believed as well.
In the two teammates struggling far away.
* * *
“The ant! The ant! The ant!”
Dududududududu!
Let’s Shut Up and Game gripped the powerfully operating jackhammer tightly, pouring all her concentration into striking the metal’s shining spots accurately.
Controlling the jackhammer wasn’t beyond the ability of an ordinary person, but it was bothersome having to constantly adjust an aim that kept shaking.
She didn’t have to target the shining spots in the ore.
They would obtain enough materials regardless.
But striking the shining spots granted a bonus, and that bonus was desperately necessary for them right now.
The same went for the angle of the jackhammer.
If they didn’t hold it at the precise angle and dig, mining would take slightly longer—and they needed every one of those extra seconds.
That was why she turned off her microphone and concentrated in silence.
“The ant! The ant! The ant!”
Well.
It wasn’t exactly silence, but whatever.
It couldn’t be helped.
That was simply her nature.
Even while watching broadcasts, Let’s Shut Up and Game was the sort who typed in the chat while making a noisy fuss over everything.
Even when watching the news alone, she would loudly click her tongue and say, “Oh, dear, look at that.” There was no way she had enough composure to keep her mouth shut in such an emergency.
At least her microphone was off.
[How much longer?]
The rich player working alongside her asked.
He wasn’t asking her specifically.
Their mining speeds were about the same, so each of them already knew roughly how much they had gathered.
The rich player was asking the team members.
[Hmm, we’ve almost reached the center. Nearly all the external turrets we installed have been destroyed. Are those bombs really unlimited?]
Faced with a situation more desperate than expected, Ant—or rather, Let’s Shut Up and Game—began moving across the field and mining ore even more frantically.
If their base was overrun before they finished gathering resources, it was all over.
[Don’t worry and gather them slowly.]
[Mr. Seojun, I don’t think this is the time to say that.]
[Professional Baek Doyul, are you scared?]
[Ha! Gather slowly! Slowly!]
“Gaaaaah!”
Seojun acted more relaxed when things became more dangerous.
She didn’t know whether it was some kind of humor he was deliberately putting on or whether he truly didn’t care, but Ant—or rather, Let’s Shut Up and Game—felt an enormous burden from the fact that the situation was in no way good.
Why on earth had she been entrusted with such an important role?
She had clearly intended to ride the boss’s bus!
“I mean, I am riding the bus right now! Ah, whatever! Just gather!”
For the first time in her life, even when taking the entrance examination, she poured out every ounce of ability and mental strength she had never fully exerted before—in other words, her entire power.
She entered a grand state akin to the trance of martial artists who had reached enlightenment.
Dududududududu!
She swung the jackhammer and mined resources.
And, a few minutes later—
[Finished! We gathered everything! Everything!]
* * *
Within the fortress was an area packed with sleeping bags, resource chests, electrical equipment, weapons, turrets, and more.
The main base.
The turrets, building walls, and sniper towers installed earlier were all merely superficial defenses designed to keep enemies from easily approaching this place.
The outer walls of the main base could never be destroyed.
More precisely, their structure and size were designed so that they could never be brought down by a mere four bombs, and the outer walls were reinforced with the strongest walls from the highest final tech tier.
The reason the other buildings couldn’t be reinforced in the same way was simply a lack of resources.
The materials needed to reinforce outer walls to their maximum strength could be purchased with coins at the Survivor Camp, and the number one could buy was limited.
In other words, they were meant to reinforce only the main base.
Regardless, the main base would not collapse.
Its doors could be destroyed, and several sections of the outer wall could be breached, allowing enemies to enter, but—
“Get ready to climb up! Keep them in check!”
The attack team had to steadily push their way up the tower.
Though “steadily” wasn’t quite accurate.
Flashbangs.
Grenades.
Smoke bombs.
And—
“The helicopter’s up!”
A helicopter that could land immediately when the defenders were unable to properly watch the sky.
Everything was ready.
“Let’s go!”
They had prepared with determination.
They had never underestimated their opponents.
If they had, they would have simply begun the raid once they had farmed a certain amount of resources.
“Whew. This is our victory.”
Lloyd was confident as he stood before the main-base door.
Bang!
It took more than ten bombs to open the door, and installing each one was a task in itself.
Bang!
He fell back, then returned to the door.
Bang!
Tension filled the air.
But Lloyd casually went to the door and began installing another bomb.
Seventeen people, excluding the four who had died and were returning, were currently covering him.
That was when—
Bang!
Bang!
Two gunshots rang out.
‘Huh?’
“I’m dead!”
“Damn…! I…”
He died.
And yet the members of the attack force were cheering.
[……oyd!]
The reason was quickly understood through their conversation.
Not only had Lloyd, who was planting bombs on the door, died—the opponent who killed him had also died.
That person was Jin Seojun.
[Finally got one kill.]
[You’ll be able to do plenty more from here on out!]
[We should spend all day harassing and keeping them in check today. Right?]
Normally, each team prepared treasure chests in various locations in case their main base reverted to the Stone Age.
Treasure chests containing a starting package and a small amount of resources.
After successfully raiding the base, they would search for and destroy as many of those as possible. Even if they failed to find them all, they would spend the entire day tormenting the team that had become primitive humans by killing them over and over.
They hadn’t come for the resources.
Their goal was to crush that team.
“It’s already one kill! Hahaha. I wonder how many more times they’ll die once they return to being natives. And what will they be able to do? Crossbows, like on the first day?”
Lloyd snickered.
But the leader was still the leader.
[Lloyd, just stay there. We’re sending more people over.]
“Huh? Why?”
[I talked with the Bear Team and the Marauder Team just now, and they said something seemed strange.]
“What?”
[They think he deliberately took the hit. Said there was no way he should have died. They think he may have died to target our outpost with the sleeping bags outside.]
‘What is he talking about?’
Who was he to say that someone shouldn’t have died?
Anyone could die if they made a mistake.
Of course, Lloyd had never seen Seojun make one.
But that was most likely because they had watched edited videos.
Even they couldn’t possibly review every hour of all Seojun’s live broadcasts, could they?
“Got it.”
[The breach can wait a little longer, so guard the base. You’re at three deaths anyway. More importantly, the two who disappeared also—]
The outpost was a structure made up of three simple but sturdy bunker-like buildings.
Lloyd waited leisurely at the top of the outpost alongside the guards who had been stationed there, as more people arrived.
While listening to good news.
[Baek Doyul’s down! Move up to the next floor.]
[Should I throw a flashbang?]
[They’re definitely not here. Looks like they were targeting the outpost. What do we do? The main base is going to get raided.]
[I’d love to have some real fun after turning those guys into natives. When is this going to end? Yaaawn.]
But then—
[Guys? I think our base is about to be raided.]
A shocking report struck the Hunter Team.
Had they gone to the main base after dying?
Was this a mutual-destruction strategy?
Such thoughts filled Lloyd’s mind, but soon an even greater question mark took shape.
Someone was approaching at exactly the right moment.
It was Seojun, holding a frying pan.
“Huh?”
And Lloyd quickly realized what strategy Seojun and the other two had prepared, then shouted—
“Ha! You think reaching Tier 4 changes anything? Try stopping us!”
Exactly two minutes later—
The attack team’s three northern outposts were destroyed, and Lloyd spawned inside their main base as it was being raided.