A Veteran Player is Needed in the Apocalypse

Chapter 40 Then It Wouldn’t Be Fun

““I heard you won the training simulation again this time.”

“Yes.”

“Not a single one of your team members was eliminated, while the entire opposing team was wiped out.”

The commander wore a satisfied smile on his lips.

“I like your philosophy. You always aim to inflict the maximum damage with the least loss. I heard you plan to use a highly efficient strategy for the extermination battle as well?”

So, Meursault had already relayed the strategy for the extermination battle.

When I nodded, the commander asked again.

“What was the strategy for this training?”

‘This time, he’s asking me directly.’

Previously, he had Meursault gather information from the cadets rather than asking me himself.

Is he trying to get a feel for my tactical style since he’s planning to appoint me as the operations officer for the upcoming extermination battle?

Well, if that’s the case, there’s no harm in telling him.

“It’s simple. I created a situation the cadets expected.”

“A situation they expected?”

“People tend to let their guard down when things go as they expect.”

“Hmm.”

The commander listened attentively, signaling for me to continue.

“The opponent was a team composed of cadets who had been defeated by a ten-year-old child. Naturally, they believed such a team wouldn’t function well. I also removed Plato, the most capable cadet, from their team. They likely thought it would be easy to win without him.”

“I received a report that you and Plato had a falling out. Was that part of the strategy as well?”

What? He knew about that too?

How many informants has he planted?

Well, I did order Plato to openly badmouth me, so…

I nodded and replied, “A strategy should already be complete before entering the battlefield.”

“You’re right.”

The commander smiled.

“So, the condition that even one death meant defeat was part of the plan as well?”

“Yes. The moment they heard that losing even one person would mean defeat, they overlooked the number of people. If the opposing team has eight members, they stop seeing it as the enemy’s number and start seeing it as the number of opportunities to win.”

“Hmm.”

“So, right at the start of the simulation, I ordered them to tie me up and throw me into the enemy’s camp.”

“…What?”

“With seven chances left, they wouldn’t bother to take the least favorable one.”

It was a gamble, really.

But even if they had taken the bait and shot the tied-up child, it wouldn’t have brought them any honor.

“After that, it was easy. While Team B pitied me and took me back to their camp, Team A ambushed them. They eliminated the remaining guards first, then my team members, disguised under blankets as snowdrifts, waited behind the flag. I covered them with snow.”

“So, your team members never even left Team B’s camp.”

“That’s right. After camouflaging them with snow, I smeared paint on myself to make it look like I had struggled to defend the flag against Team A, fired a flare, and waited for Team B to return. From there, it was just a cycle of picking off the remaining members.”

“With each elimination, you gained a numerical advantage, so victory was inevitable.”

“Yes. Killing Lucas, who was the last one standing, was so easy it made me yawn. I expected a split of at least two against three after his death, but they weren’t that stupid—only one person left. Still, with an eight to four advantage, we immediately ambushed and hid again under the snow, finishing by shooting Bones as he rushed over. The training ended there.”

“You thoroughly exploited the situation and their psychology.”

The commander seemed pleased overall, but there was one thing that bothered him.

“But… your strategy seems excessively focused on ‘children,’ both this time and the last. It’s not universal. I don’t intend to put you in such danger on an actual battlefield.”

So, he’s worried because this strategy can’t be used in real combat.

Does he expect me, now as an operations officer, to show strategies that can actually be applied?

But there’s something the commander doesn’t know.

This strategy is especially effective in future battles.

It’s the reason I’ve been using my child’s body to outwit the cadets all along.

“I don’t intend to use myself as bait on the battlefield.”

“Then?”

“I’m preparing to face the external enemy that will use children as bait.”

“The external enemy…?”

“In future battles, the most dangerous opponents will be children my age.”

The commander’s eyebrows furrowed slightly.

“What do you mean by that?”

“As a regressor, I’m telling you.”

“…!”

“Soon, other zones will begin using children as bait. We need to prepare.”

It wasn’t a lie.

Most of the players, like me, were ten-year-old children.

Now that the barriers between zones were likely down, we needed to be prepared for the approach of players from other zones.

After tormenting them like this, they wouldn’t easily fall for a player pretending to be a child.

“If that’s the case, we’ll have to prepare.”

Fortunately, the commander trusted me completely, and he promised to distribute my training data to the other soldiers for reference.

“There’s something I’m curious about, though.”

“What is it?”

“During the first ambush, instead of pretending to defend, couldn’t you have just taken the flag and won easily? Why didn’t you?”

Does he really not understand?

I responded with a confused expression.

“Because that wouldn’t be fun.”

“…”

* * *

After the training simulation ended with Team A’s victory, the cadets of Team A were overjoyed, having reclaimed their honor.

Once again, they had achieved the result of eliminating every single member of the opposing team.

Now, no one would dare mock or look down on Haydam or those who had lost to him.

There may have been a time in the past when they harbored ill feelings toward Haydam.

But now, all that remained was infinite respect and a fear of ever facing him as an enemy.

Still, no matter how happy they were, there was one thing they had to do.

“I feel like I heard some kind of hallucination before the training.”

“What hallucination?”

“Something about wiping out our team.”

“That really was a hallucination. The team that got wiped out wasn’t ours!”

“Ha ha ha!”

Their priority was to mock the cadets of Team B.

“Those bastards…”

Team B, huddled in a corner, clenched their fists in frustration, but they couldn’t retaliate.

After all, they had also relentlessly mocked and ridiculed the cadets of Team A after they had lost to Haydam.

The only one from Team B who couldn’t hold back was Bones, who fell right into their provocation.

“Damn it, you won using a kid…!”

Realizing his mistake, Bones tried to back away, but it was too late.

Seizing the opportunity, the cadets of Team A pounced on him like a pack of piranhas.

“Did you hear that? When we lost, they called us idiots for losing to a kid, but now that they’ve lost, they’re saying we only won because of the kid.”

“Hypocrites.”

“Even Lucas is staying quiet, so what’s his deal?”

“Leave him be. Bones probably thinks the other team members dragged him down.”

Unable to contain his frustration, Bones shouted.

“Damn it! Let’s go again! This time, fair and square—”

“Enough already!”

“Stop it!”

Both Lucas and Plato spoke up at the same time.

They paused, briefly exchanging glances before looking away in opposite directions.”

The first one to speak was Lucas.

“Bones. I know you suspected Lord Haydam throughout the entire training, and that’s why you feel unjustly defeated. But this isn’t individual training—it’s team training. Are you going to act like this every time we lose a team exercise?”

“…….”

Bones still had a sullen expression, but he wasn’t foolish enough not to understand what Lucas was getting at, so he kept his mouth shut.

Lucas turned his gaze toward Plato and spoke.

“I apologize.”

“For what?”

“For the commotion caused by my teammate. And… for mocking your defeat.”

The cadets of Team A opened their eyes wide in surprise at his words.

‘Lucas is apologizing directly?’

“Having faced Lord Haydam myself, I suppose now you understand how we felt?”

One of the Team A cadets asked mockingly, but Lucas nodded as if acknowledging it without resistance.

“You probably fell for a similar tactic. I retract the statement where I called you idiots. But.”

When Lucas added the word “but,” the cadets of Team A were about to scowl, but their expressions became ambiguous at his next words.

“I cannot acknowledge Lord Haydam. He isn’t a cadet.”

“What kind of nonsense is that?”

Plato asked coldly.

“Didn’t we agree that if we lost in the training, we would acknowledge Lord Haydam as a cadet who can hold his own?”

“Lord Haydam’s skills are undoubtedly outstanding. I admit that. No one here could beat him in individual ability. But.”

Lucas spoke with a touch of disdain.

“If he truly cared for his comrades, he should have captured the flag. Endangering his comrades just to annihilate the enemy is not the way of a proper officer.”

“…….”

In fact, the cadets of Team A didn’t think Lucas’s words were entirely wrong.

If Haydam had simply grabbed the flag, they would have easily won the exercise, but he chose to toy with the opposing team for the thrill of it.

What Haydam seemed to pursue wasn’t victory…

But fun and excitement for its own sake.

As the cadets of Team A hesitated to refute Lucas’s words, a voice filled with rage broke the silence—Plato’s, with a vein bulging on his forehead.

“Do you even know what condition Lord Haydam is in right now?”

“What do you mean by that?”

Lucas was about to frown, thinking Plato was trying to make excuses for Haydam, but he froze when he heard the next words.

“Lord Haydam has not yet recovered from an injury he sustained not too long ago!”

“…What?”

It wasn’t just Lucas who was shaken. The cadets of both Team A and Team B, and even the others who had been watching their argument, were all shocked and turned to look at Plato.

“Injury… You’re saying Lord Haydam was injured?”

“Yes. He told me not to say anything, but seeing the way you all talk, I couldn’t hold it in anymore.”

“But… how could he have been injured? He hasn’t even enlisted yet.”

“Seems you didn’t know. Lord Haydam often goes outside the Zone to hunt.”

The cadets began murmuring at those words.

“Hunting? What do you mean by hunting?”

“I heard a rumor that he caught a Hippopig…”

“Wasn’t that just a rumor?”

“So, instead of going to the Tower, he goes out to hunt monsters himself?”

Plato ignored the murmuring cadets and continued speaking.

“On the day he was injured, the body of a Fur Crocodile was brought back with barely any wounds on it. He probably got injured during his battle with it.”

“A Fur Crocodile?”

“A Fur Crocodile is a large-class monster.”

“So you’re saying Lord Haydam is at the level where he can hunt large-class monsters by himself?”

Of course, Haydam hadn’t actually fought a Fur Crocodile; he had just picked up a dying one. But Plato, piecing together what he had heard from his father Anton, had convinced himself that “Lord Haydam successfully hunted a Fur Crocodile alone.”

“He still hasn’t fully recovered from the injury he sustained back then, and he should be resting more… But he came because he heard that we were being mocked by other cadets. To restore our honor!”

“No way…”

The cadets of Team A, who had known nothing of this, were utterly confused.

‘Now that I think about it, Lord Haydam did seem to be struggling with one shoulder when he was moving…’

‘So that was because of the injury?’

‘And he never once let it show in front of us?’

While the cadets of Team A were reeling from the shock, Plato continued.

“Instead of being grateful to the one who restored your honor despite his injury, you used that as a reason to mock other cadets.”

“T-That’s…”

The cadets of Team A blushed as Plato’s gaze shifted to the cadets of Team B this time.

“And you. You couldn’t even handle one injured child, yet now you claim you won’t acknowledge Lord Haydam as a cadet? Could you, in his place, drag your injured body into the battlefield to restore the honor of your comrades, using yourself as bait?”

“…….”

“You should be ashamed of yourselves.”

When the cadets of Team B fell silent, Plato clicked his tongue loudly and, leaving that final remark, stormed off.

Soon, this incident spread rapidly among the cadets.

And within the Academy, Lord Haydam’s reputation began to grow into something no one could dare challenge.