[삼잎발차보끼 has donated 1,000 won!]

• "Isn't it because other players are too scared of getting killed by the teacher? There's no way they just wouldn't show up like this."
• "For real, LOL."
• "Honestly, thinking about getting my head smashed in first-person is kind of scary, haha."
• "Did everyone turn on the head-smashing mode in Team Six? No one's going near you even if they die, right?"
• "It's either die or surrender and join the party, for real."
• "Running away dirty and shamefully, LOL."

"Thank you, 삼잎발차보끼, for the donation. Is that so? I just thought the map was too big, and that's why no one was coming."

As she said that, she popped up the map in front of her.

Although part of it was omitted and condensed, the map was vast, something that would take quite a while to traverse on foot.

Forty players. It sounded like a lot. But unlike other battle royale games, there was no shrinking safe zone, and you could hide in buildings indefinitely, so...

Players were scattered across a massive area like stars sprinkled across the sky.

Whether players were coming to kill them or not wasn't important right now.

She had intentionally stayed silent on the comms to avoid disrupting the operation, but human curiosity is hard to suppress.

Before she knew it, she had come back outside and was cautiously observing the interior while leaning against the wall near the front gate.

There was an eerie silence.

"…Should we go in?"

• "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!"
• "Ah, there's no friendly marker showing up? This is frustrating."
• "If a teammate goes down or dies, there will be an alert, so let's wait."
• "Turn off the lights, come back, and the teammate is gone, LOL."
• "This is a horror game, for real."

Indeed. This is a horror game.

Seeing one of the chat logs briefly pop up and disappear on the side of the chat, Harmony couldn't help but agree. Considering that horror movies often start with someone going missing...

Besides, to add to that, she was a big scaredy-cat.

But at that moment,

Someone began to walk out from the darkness inside.

In an instant, both the chat and Harmony's inner thoughts swirled like a chaotic Manhattan storm.

It was likely Yujin, but she couldn't let her guard down. Taking a deep breath, she quickly aimed her sights, capturing the silhouette in the red dot.

Then a green light began to glow from within the darkness.

"…Lower your gun. The interior has been cleared."

"…."

Of course, the one who emerged wasn't a massive, bulky anaconda but Yujin, holding a tomahawk in one hand.

As she stepped outside, she took a deep breath and spoke.

"Let's just gather the items we need and head to the contaminated zone."

"…Yeah, I figured this would happen."

"Haha."

With an indescribable sense of unease, Harmony quietly followed behind her.

With a small resolution in her heart that she needed to improve her skills before she could no longer rely on Yujin.

[Crafting: Virus Filter.]

[Filters out high-level environmental toxins. This enhanced filter can also block non-volatile organic compounds, particulate matter, acidic gases, and ammonia through its multi-layer structure.]

"Wow, after blowing up the area with enemies, the items and materials are just…."

"At least we don't have to worry too much before we go in."

Inside the hideout.

Near a large black box about the size of a refrigerator, with the Icarus logo engraved on it, Harmony marveled as she watched the items she had collected being reassembled and transformed inside.

Unusual as it was, this was the crafting station in survival mode. Instead of hammering together guns and tactical gear in a literal workshop, it involved touching a box, which would then display the number of items and materials in your possession. When you inserted the required materials, the internal nanomachine printer would break them down and create the chosen blueprint.

This system made its debut in survival mode.

Wearing a gas mask with a virus filter around her neck, Harmony curiously fidgeted with it.

"Oh, I've never seen a mask like this in my life… Where do you usually use these? It looks like something you'd only use in a really dangerous place."

"Well, we're going to a dangerous place right now."

"Oh… Now that I think about it, that's true. We're going into the contaminated zone."

A perfectly appropriate answer, almost like something out of Think Big.

While saying that, they were becoming fully equipped operators, ready to withstand any situation—provided their skills were up to par.

Of course, they had some materials left, thanks to the constant advice in the chat that they could upgrade to better items once they entered the zone.

Soon, the two carefully opened the door of the hideout, fully dressed as proper operators.

Outside, the snowstorm was still raging.

───Whoooosh!

"We're heading out."

"Okay."

Braving the harsh weather, the two began to move.

The storm hadn't subsided yet, and it was far from being fully insulated, as evidenced by the wind that seemed to hit them like a barrage of snow.

Amidst it all, advertisement panels and lights capable of operating in even harsher conditions shone brightly, lighting up the darkness. The lights were a paradox in themselves, shining all the more brilliantly despite having no one left to see them.

But at some point, a massive barrier came into view.

The boundary separating the city from the city.

[Warning: Approaching Contaminated Zone.]

QUARANTINE.

That single word, written in large yellow paint on the wall, evoked a sense of immense pressure, greater than anything else.

The interior, invisible due to jamming, was an enigma. What lay within, whether anyone had escaped, or if so, what had transpired inside.

A place shrouded in secrecy.

With contrasting expressions, the two gazed upward, their eyes following the endless vanishing point of the barrier stretching beyond the horizon.

One was simply overwhelmed by the grandeur, mouth agape, while the other just shook her head, not wanting to see it.

"…Wow."

"What do you think?"

"Well, even if you ask me… I can say they really nailed the atmosphere in this game."

Pandemic Apocalypse.

It was a massive tombstone erected for those who could no longer witness this sight, for those who had died.

Yujin let out a small sigh and added briefly.

"Let's go. There's probably no designated entrance. Instead, there are a few ways to get in. Like walls that were blocked off with fencing because the construction wasn't finished."

"Then let's hurry. I hope it's not too late."

Nodding, the two ran, keeping the towering wall to their right.

Why she knew so much wasn't clear, but Harmony, setting aside her dwindling curiosity, assumed she had probably studied the game in her spare time.

"Damn it… No matter how many times I play this survival mode, I can never get used to it."

The term "sniping" had been around for a long time, but with the advent of streamers, it had taken on a new meaning.

In short, it referred to one or more players disrupting the gameplay of a streaming multiplayer game in various ways.

This was the exact opposite of viewer participation, where the audience joins the content. It was usually done to provoke anger or frustration in the streamer.

As technology advanced, these types of sniping had been reduced through various means, but it was nearly impossible to completely prevent them.

Likewise, Harmony's stream was no exception.

In short, aside from her loyal fanbase, known as the 녹냥단 (Green Cat Squad), there were those who would stop at nothing to ruin her stream for their own pleasure.

And this perfectly described one user with the almost unreadable nickname lillliillililll.

"No, this is definitely the right session, so where the hell are those bitches going?"

The streaming screen flickered in front of his eyes.

Although the Dark Zone had taken extreme measures, such as automatically blocking the stream feed when a streamer entered an opposing PvP team to prevent sniping, it was a different story if he had other means of accessing the information.

He had set up an independent computer in the room, opened a website, and placed an additional camera to monitor it remotely during the game.

He was going to these lengths, all just to ruin a stream.

There was no reason behind it. It was simply his source of joy. A twisted sadism and an innate desire for attention fueled this behavior.

He had been banned from countless streams over the years, even landing on blacklists.

Yet he continued this behavior, only because his actions had not yet accumulated enough reports to result in a hardware ban.

"Ha, these damn bitches. Why are they playing the game so weirdly? Why do they keep going in circles?"

As they entered the contaminated zone, the snowstorm, which had dropped to around minus 30 degrees, lost half of its intensity.

To prove it, the upper UI indicated the lowest temperature was a mere minus 17 degrees.

The blizzard, which had previously poured down with the same force as the wind, subsided, leaving a thick layer of snow silently covering the streets of Manhattan—on which a single figure passed.

Cursing under his breath, he headed towards the direction where the most combat noise was coming from.

Turning corners, navigating alleyways, sometimes circling around to avoid enemies, he approached the spot where Yujin and Harmony were likely to be.

Although the external computer was only now starting to observe the two in survival mode, the real-time commentary from clueless viewers was extremely helpful.

In the meantime, a plan formed in his mind for how to cause the most distress to the streamer.

He would kill her. Specifically, when she was most vulnerable, likely during a fight with an enemy, quickly, so Yujin wouldn't have time to react. Avoid the invincibility during the helicopter extraction.

First, he would "accidentally" meet them and join the party.

For that, a bit of preparation was needed.

Rustle.

As the combat sounds grew louder, he began discarding unnecessary items on the ground.

He kept only a little more than the minimum necessary for survival, to appear like a clueless beginner who had barely made it inside.

Yujin was a concern, but he figured he could handle it somehow.

After finishing his preparations, he turned the corner of the block.

Rattattattat!

And there, in the distance, he saw a familiar sight—Harmony and Yujin in the process of mowing down a patrol that had been obliviously roaming the streets.

Just as the fight was wrapping up, he began to run toward them with his hands up, trying to look as innocent as possible.

"Hey, you two, wait a minute───!"

Yujin, who had just retrieved her skill-crafted cluster seeker mine, was the first to respond.

Her sharp gaze scanned him from head to toe, but perhaps due to his ragged appearance, she cautiously lowered her gun and responded with a slight look of suspicion.

As he approached, Harmony, who had been staring into space for a moment, spoke up.

"Stop! Lower your gun!"

"Oh, yes! I really don't have anything worth killing me for!"

Immediately, he dropped to the ground and clasped his hands behind his back, his gaze fixed downward.

If only he had known what kind of conversation Yujin and Harmony had exchanged at that moment, he would have bolted away without a second thought.