Fenrir Translations
The mission system in Dark Zone boasted an exceptional degree of freedom, especially when compared to other games.
This was particularly evident during Yujin’s previous West Point infiltration mission—a “Very Hard” mission—where it became clear that players had the flexibility to choose their infiltration points, routes, and basic operations strategies.
Of course, this level of freedom could be overwhelming for players, so every mission had a basic story framework. For example, certain characters had to be rescued, and specific targets had to be destroyed, no matter what.
The same applied to the Artemis infiltration mission that Yujin and Harmony were currently playing. Specifically, in this mission, it was inevitable that the information leak couldn’t be prevented, and the EMP activation was scripted.
However, this also meant that, aside from these fixed events, the flow of the mission could vary greatly.
What does this mean?
-[Choice: Extract additional Artemis data.]
Normally, the two players would need to escape right after the EMP was activated, but a new mission objective suddenly appeared—these kinds of surprise pop-up missions were hidden triggers and a key way to raise the mission clear rank.
As usual, this was because of Yujin's tactical-handed spike hammer.
<gqgjwgaaa donated 1,000 won.>
"Thank you for the 1,000 won donation—oh."
—Crunch!
Artemis missions, characterized by small-scale infiltrations and numerous data servers, often demanded intense close-quarters combat, which was reflected in how shooting the servers before achieving the objectives could lead to mission failure due to accumulated damage.
As a result, on days when these missions were set to "Very Hard," many players would carry high-caliber handguns like the Desert Eagle as backup weapons to eliminate enemies with a single shot using minimal ammunition.
Of course, there's a joke that if you encounter a situation where brute force doesn’t work, you should wonder if you’re using enough brute force. Sometimes, that joke turns out to be true.
Harmony could attest to that.
"...You know, teacher, every time you do that, it really scares me, right?"
"Hehe."
Even though the enemy's body was made of polygons, Harmony still didn’t want to describe the horribly crushed corpse she saw. Then she rolled her eyes and looked at Yujin.
No one else knew, but Harmony did—Yujin’s avatar was almost deceptive in how close it was to her actual physical appearance. She had literally transferred her real body into the game as her avatar.
In other words, Yujin was openly advertising to everyone that she could do these things in real life. How could that not be terrifying?
As Yujin rampaged through the server room, crushing nearby enemies with her hammer and shooting down distant ones with her MK18, she was an excellent aggro-drawer, giving Harmony room to maneuver.
At a crossroad up ahead, Harmony spotted a UGV advancing quickly while she was in cover. A pulse swept across the area with an odd sense of buoyancy. The dot sight reticle covered the marked weak spot.
Harmony’s thin, long finger rested on the trigger, which weighed only a few grams.
—Ratatatat!
Sparks and debris flew into the air.
In less than a second, the bolt of her rifle cycled multiple times as dozens of 5.56mm rounds flew through the air. The tungsten core embedded in each round made sure that no matter how hard the impact point was, it unleashed its full power.
Even as holes were punched through the UGV’s body, the shooting continued. In just over a second, 31 rounds were fired, hitting targets all over without much care for precise aim.
Harmony, trusting the aim assist, naturally pulled a fresh magazine from her pouch, inserted it, and pulled the charging handle. As a bang echoed, the UGV exposed in the kill zone was reduced to scrap metal.
-[Alert: Artemis Data Center access node detected. Network synchronization in progress. Data transmission will be completed in 7 minutes and 32 seconds.]
A kind of battle trance.
Combat demanded immense concentration, and as the tension fluctuated, time seemed to stretch and contract like taffy.
The enemies kept coming. While the complex structure of the server room meant that only a limited number of reinforcements could enter at once, it also meant that many more were waiting outside.
There was a reason why sudden missions were difficult.
But.
—Boom!
"Waaah!"
Bang.
Then a splatter.
Just as Harmony used her pulse again, she barely hacked a drone charging at her when, with an ominous sound, three errant grenades arced upward and struck the ceiling.
The explosions rocked her body, and then—
"Teacher! The ceiling is leaking water───!!!!"
"What on earth did you do?"
"I swear it wasn’t my fault!"
The high-explosive multipurpose grenades, launched into the ceiling, caused cracks in the cooling water pipes, and icy cold water began to flood the server room.
Modern defense industries, materials science, and architecture had combined to create a disaster waiting to happen. The grenades, advanced enough to penetrate over a dozen centimeters of steel armor with a single shot, had no trouble shattering the concrete.
The sirens on the ceiling blinked, signaling that everything was going wrong.
-[Warning: Leak detected. Warning: Leak detected. Water supply prevention system unavailable due to emergency power shutdown. Server malfunction in 3 minutes and 22 seconds. Full flooding in 10 minutes and 52 seconds.]
-[Alert: Data transmission will be completed in 56 seconds.]
"Waaah! The water’s pooling on the floor! Do we really have to stay here!?"
"As long as the network is synced, the data will download automatically before the servers fail. Check the escape route and the location of the pipes in the ceiling."
"Oh, okay! Let’s see, the quickest way out, the quickest way out… Take the winch… Got it!"
Yujin, splashing through the water beginning to pool on the floor, added her input.
Having downloaded the data, she focused intently on her Icarus gear, then carefully began to move an Artemis UGV that Harmony had hacked.
As grenades fired with a thumping noise took out the shutters blocking the exits, Yujin accessed the nearby CCTV to check the position and distribution of enemies.
"…The underground area is essentially a donut-shaped space that’s been freely modified. There’s a main elevator in the center, but that’s out of the question… We’ll retrace our steps, then take a side path toward the water control room and exit through the building’s main entrance."
"What about all those enemies?"
"Let’s attract their attention in style."
Whirrrrr.
The UGV’s 3-round grenade launcher, with over 20 rounds left, swiveled freely under her control.
It aimed at the ceiling—specifically, the thick cooling water pipes running above.
Yujin, rarely smiling, grinned slightly as she spoke.
"Ready to go for a swim?"
<ChristmasEgg donated 1,000 won.>
Thud, thud.
After flashes of light and explosions, water cascaded down like a waterfall.
Harmony would never forget the donation she saw while sprinting out of the server room to avoid the deluge, which threatened to flood the entire world.
"Heh."
Like many pro gamers, AP soloing was essentially a forced march. Once the time was set, you entered the room, shot everything in sight, and left. In that process, you either died or emerged as the sole winner.
For Dice, who only did AP soloing, that was a relief. Most other SSM members alternated between soloing, duos, and squads, meaning they were truly going through a forced march.
Anyway, Dice—currently in the SSM briefing room with other pro gamers from the same team—was involved in a kind of debriefing. It was a place to discuss how your gameplay went, what you did well, what you didn’t, how your movements were, and so on.
Naturally, Yujin had been a hot topic lately, never leaving people’s lips. There were many reasons: she’d joined SSM as a temporary coach, she’d shown off her overwhelming performance, and, well…
And that was true for Dice as well.
After all, she was the one who boldly declared the Wild Card at the start of the scrims, and she was the one who brought Yujin to SSM, even if only temporarily.
Still, now that the initial excitement had died down—
"You don’t watch Yujin’s streams much, huh? Everyone’s going wild right now."
"Oh, Coach Pierre…."
Or not.
Of course, it was about Yujin again. Was she pulling off another crazy stunt? Come to think of it, this was the exact time she usually streamed. Dice had forgotten, being unusually tired from the intensity of today’s matches.
As the coach dropped the hint and left, her curiosity began to bubble up. She logged into Tricky and saw the title “[Dark Zone Co-op with Harmony]”... But the problem was the view count next to it—around 27,000 people.
It was even proudly sitting at the top of the real-time HOT broadcast list. Unable to resist her curiosity, she clicked on it.
And then,
-Waaah, teacher! Put me down! Put me dowwwwn─!
It definitely looked like the underground of Artemis Corp.…
But what on earth had happened to cause a flood down there?
Next to the UI, the blueprint displayed a brief explanation—an EMP had damaged the water supply system, disabling the shutoff function, and after destroying all the cooling water pipes, the entire underground facility was now flooding.
"What kind of crazy nonsense is this…."
It seemed that there would be even more questions to ask tomorrow.
These people really seemed out of their minds.
To reward the sudden donation competition, here’s a chubby Yujin for youㅎㅎ
Isn’t she cute?