A Veteran Player is Needed in the Apocalypse

Chapter 30. Dopamine Addict

Right after the training simulation ended, I received a letter from the Commander.

The letter had a neatly written message on it:

[Permission granted for Hayden Goodman’s participation in the subjugation battle.]

‘Judging by how dry the ink is, it looks like it was written beforehand?’

It seems the Commander also believed I would pass the test. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe my confession about being a regressor; he just wanted to confirm my abilities.

After the training ended, the cadets couldn’t even make eye contact with me, unlike before. Only Plato was staring at me with an intense gaze.

‘Plato’s strategy wasn’t bad.’

At least he correctly predicted that I would infiltrate their camp. If I had been an ordinary ten-year-old child, I would have fallen for it.

‘The problem is that I’m a player.’

This training ground is more familiar to me than to the cadets. After all, I once completely overhauled this training ground while strategizing to capture the Cola Zone in the game.

‘What could cadets, who are only now about to graduate from the academy, have done in this training ground other than simulated battles?’

In short, my understanding of this training ground is fundamentally different from theirs.

Moreover, I never intended to plant a flag in the enemy camp and claim victory in the first place. Because the likelihood of a flag being planted in my camp while I was away was too high.

In other words, my only choice was the annihilation route… But I didn’t expect them not to plant the flag either.

Thanks to that misjudgment, Plato stayed behind, reducing their strength and making it easier for me to deal with them.

Although I had memorized the NPCs’ habits, weaknesses, and combat patterns, so I wouldn’t lose even if I fought them head-on, Plato is an NPC I need to be cautious of.

This guy is a stubborn soldier who follows his convictions, with a bomb-like potential for a coup, and he’s unpredictable because of his exceptional abilities.

In fact, I had planned to discard Plato as a sacrificial piece since I already had Meursault, who is a superior version of Plato.

But after seeing him avoid an ambush based on intuition, I judged that he was worth recruiting.

For this reason, I chose to confront Plato head-on, relying on the sandbags I usually wore for training, but I used the 3B strategy on the other cadets.

‘The 3B strategy: Cowardice, Craftiness, and Coldness.’

Anyway, it was truly an enjoyable time.

Strategizing for the academy was a strategy I used only in the very early stages, so I never encountered Plato during his cadet days.

Somehow, I felt proud, like I was returning to my roots.

I hope it was a good learning experience for the cadets too.

* * *

After the training simulation ended with Hayden’s victory, Meursault called each of the cadets who participated in the training to give an honest assessment of Hayden.

The cadets’ evaluations of Hayden were sharply divided.

One cadet, who fell victim to Hayden’s ambush, shivered with indignation and said the following:

“I’ve never seen such a cowardly ten-year-old kid before!”

Meursault slightly furrowed his brows at that remark.

“Isn’t an ambush inherently supposed to be cowardly?”

“It was fine that he ambushed us while hiding. No, I was actually impressed when the two cadets at the very back were easily hit by the paintball gun during the first ambush. But…”

“But what?”

“Do you know what Hayden did afterward?”

“What did he do?”

“He put his gun away.”

“Hmm?”

“And then he came up to us, saying that he had a secret message from the Commander.”

“Ah…”

“Yes, of course, it was a ploy to make us lower our guard. As soon as we got close, he opened fire on us.”

“Whoa.”

“I was the last one standing and managed to escape, but Hayden came after me and fell with a loud noise.”

“Hayden fell…? Could it be…?”

“Yes, that too was an act. I was so worried that he might have gotten hurt that I approached him, and he stabbed me right away.”

“Hmm.”

“How could he exploit the good hearts of cadets like that? I can’t believe a ten-year-old could be so devious! I’m afraid of what he’ll become in the future!”

Meursault thought that if cowardice were to be discussed, the eight cadets who participated in the simulated battle against a single ten-year-old would be the ones criticized, but he didn’t say it out loud.

Another cadet gave the following evaluation:

“He seemed like a seasoned soldier.”

“Hmm?”

Since it was a completely different assessment from the previous cadet, Meursault asked with interest.

“Why do you think that?”

“It’s not just because he flanked us and approached from behind, but also because he used the excuse of having a message to deceive the enemy after the ambush. Since he attacked from the rear, if he had left it at that, the cadets at the very front would have fled and hidden behind the terrain. If that happened, Hayden, whose location had already been exposed, would have been at a disadvantage. So he deceived us to keep us from running away. That aspect… seemed like something a seasoned soldier would do.”

The cadet hesitated for a moment, wondering whether to say more, before finally adding quietly,

“This might sound strange, but Hayden seemed very familiar with the training ground, as if he had fought in many simulated battles before. No, saying he was familiar doesn’t do it justice… It looked comfortable for him.”

“Hmm.”

While some cadets were left with nothing but resentment after being humiliated by a ten-year-old in training, there were also a fair number of cadets like this one who gave Hayden a precise and objective evaluation.

In fact, Meursault understood the feelings of those cadets who spoke ill of Hayden.

‘Hayden has a fundamental tendency to disregard people…’

You could say he doesn’t care about making a good impression on others.

Meursault thought that while one might feel fear upon first meeting Hayden, it would be difficult to develop any affection for him.

Of course, there was one cadet who made a completely unexpected assessment.

It was Plato, the son of Commander Anton.

“Hayden is a god.”

‘What’s wrong with this guy?’

Of course, Plato was the only one who made such an absurd evaluation after facing Hayden until the end.

Meursault included Plato’s assessment in his overall report and submitted it to the Commander.

At that time, Meursault had no idea that there could be any other motive behind the sudden order to test Hayden with a training simulation and then compile an evaluation report.

Meursault, who thought the Commander might just want to brag about his son somewhere, was shocked when the Commander made a bombshell announcement after reading the report.

“I’ll leave the command of the upcoming subjugation battle to Hayden.”

“What?!”

* * *

The Commander isn’t in his right mind either.

“Just because I crushed some cadets in a training simulation, does he think it makes sense to entrust me with a real operation? My father is something else.”

“This isn’t the time to be criticizing His Excellency.”

Meursault looked at me with an indescribable expression, as if he had a terrible headache, and said,

“Why didn’t you refuse, Hayden?”

“Well, if he insists on giving me the job, why should I refuse?”

Naturally, if it were announced that the command of the operation was given to a ten-year-old, even the pro-Hayden faction officers would strongly oppose it.

On the surface, Meursault is the operation commander for this mission.

That’s why he’s with me now.

They’ve told everyone else that I’m here to observe and learn from Meursault.

In other words, even if the operation fails because of my strategy, Meursault will be the one blamed.

“Sigh…”

Meursault pinched his brows and then asked me,

“Are you confident?”

“Confident?”

“Simulated training and real combat are completely different. Simulated training is against other people, while real combat is a war against monsters. Sure, you did take down a Hippopig with a single shot, but other soldiers can’t do that. That’s what worries me the most.”

“You’re worried that I might devise a plan assuming others can perform as well as I do?”

“I see you understand.”

“You don’t need to worry about that.”

“Are you saying you’ll plan the operation according to others’ abilities? You, Hayden?”

What’s with him? What does he think of me?

“Of course not. I’m only going to take people who are at my level.”

“…That’s exactly the answer I expected, so I have nothing to say. But…”

Meursault muttered to himself as he looked at the route I had planned for the subjugation battle.

“It’s true what the cadets said. You seem overly familiar with this.”

“Really?”

“Yes. And this route… This isn’t something you can know just by going outside the zone a few times to hunt. How can you figure this out just by looking at the map?”

I still didn’t plan on telling Meursault that I was a regressor.

It’s not beneficial to have too many people aware that I’m a regressor.

Even deceiving the Commander was something I did with great determination.

If another player ever reported to the Commander that I was a player, I’d be exposed in no time.

Revealing to the Commander that I’m a player should be done… after we’ve formed an un

breakable bond, or when my power has grown so much that even the Commander can’t do anything about it.

Suddenly, the ring grew hot.

It was as if it was protesting against my act of deceiving the Commander.

‘Stay calm. Everything I’m doing is to save the Commander.’

I muttered that thought internally without much care, and as if it understood, the ring quickly cooled down.

‘What is this ring, anyway?’

For now, it’s best to come up with some plausible excuse for Meursault.

I deliberately spoke with a tone that suggested he was overreacting over something trivial.

“Meursault, you were overly surprised when I remembered someone’s name in one go. Are you really that shocked that I can read a map?”

“But…”

“If I couldn’t do this much, my father wouldn’t have entrusted me with the operation.”

“Hmm…”

Subjugation battle.

Various alien monsters live outside the zones.

It would be great if we could drive the monsters as far away as possible during a subjugation mission, but if we did that, the monsters would just move towards other zones.

If that happened, people from those zones would flee to ours, or they’d target our zone, so subjugation missions usually advance only a certain distance before returning.

Well, there are barriers between zones that prevent players from crossing over in the first place.

Anyway, just knowing that we periodically carry out subjugation missions is enough to keep alien monsters from approaching our zone carelessly.

While medium and small-sized monsters like Deerhorn Rabbits or Hippopigs are sometimes spared even when spotted, large monsters are killed on sight, so they live as far from the zone as possible.

Unlike medium and small-sized monsters that linger around the zone to scavenge corpses or byproducts, large monsters don’t need to approach the zone because they can feed on other monsters.

These large monsters only come close to the zone when food runs out.

This is why we conduct subjugation missions regularly.

Large monsters driven far from the zone inevitably face limits in their hunting, and as a result, they approach the zone.

The reason they come when snow falls on the mountain peaks is that alien monsters are resistant to cold but vulnerable to heat.

When the weather warms up, monsters reduce their activity to the extreme and hide in the snow.

Because of this, the number of visible prey decreases, making it difficult for large monsters to find food, and they approach the zone.

In other words, the subjugation battle is a fight against large monsters.

“Until now, the plan has been to kill the monster first, then find and destroy the gem, right?”

“That’s correct.”

“It would be easier just to destroy the gem. Killing large monsters consumes a lot of resources, and it reduces the amount of edible meat.”

“You must have only dealt with medium and small-sized monsters, so you wouldn’t know. Normally, the location of a gem varies from monster to monster. Medium and small-sized monsters have smaller bodies, so the location doesn’t change much, but large monsters have different gem locations even within the same species.”

Listening to Meursault, I chuckled.

“Do you think I wouldn’t know that?”

“You know that, yet you still suggest just destroying the gem…?”

“No, I really do know. The gem’s location.”

“What?”

“This operation’s core will be high efficiency.”

Why do players engage in survival battles with each other rather than dealing with the monsters introduced in the Second Apocalypse?

It’s because they know how to strategically capture the monster’s core, the gem.

Although the gem’s location varies, there are patterns that determine whether it’s on the left or right, inside or outside the body, and so on.

For instance, if a monster has a wound on one side of its body, the gem is located on the opposite side.

If the monster has a horn, the gem is embedded near the horn.

These patterns likely evolved to protect the vital gem.

This much can be shared with other NPCs.

However, there’s a more precise way to determine the gem’s location, but it can’t be shared.

It’s not because only players should know it.

It’s because it’s something you can only sense.

It comes from the accumulation of experience in multiple playthroughs.

Just from a monster’s cry or its approaching footsteps, you can tell, ‘Oh, this one has its gem on its navel.’

It’s an intuitive sense, honed through countless experiences, that only a player with multiple playthroughs can possess.

And I was the player with the sharpest intuition.

The fact that I could tame flying monsters, which appeared in the Second Apocalypse, was partly thanks to this ability.

Although others may not be as exceptional as I am, the veteran players in other zones are also surviving by relying on this intuition.

…Except for the newbie who’s playing for the first time, the Dentist from the Candy Zone.

‘Come to think of it, is everyone still alive?’

Tbalrom may only respond when he feels like it, but the other players have been too quiet.

Thinking about that, I opened the chat window and was startled.

‘What the…?’

There were new messages piled up in the public chat window.

‘Why didn’t I notice the chat?’

Checking the settings, I saw that message notifications were turned OFF.

I think I had turned them off because I found it annoying to have chats pop up in front of me constantly.

I opened the chat window and checked the most recent message.

[Sapppossible: Does that mean there are two Dopamine Addicts?]

…What on earth does this mean?