Episode 8: Desperate Battle

“Hey, why are so many of them gathering?!”

Deadman's Conflict 3 is a game where enemies steadily swarm you if you stand still.
Perhaps because we’d been spacing out and chatting, zombies were now popping up all over the place.

—A quick glance told me there were about thirty of them.

My Army of Hell rushed to engage.

“Whoa, look at those guys! They’re way faster than the zombies before!”

Next to Kiryu-san, who was recoiling, I grimaced.
“…Those are Berserk Zombies. They look the same as regular zombies, but they’re faster and hit harder.”

“They have tricky enemies like that too, huh?”

“They do. The lore says they evolve into various monsters from that state. The fact that enemies like that are appearing… it’s probably because our levels have gone up a bit. It seems like slightly tougher enemies have started showing up…”

And even against these slightly tougher foes, my Army of Hell was fighting back hard.
…But honestly, with weapons like logs and iron pipes, there was only so much they could do.
Since this was an early stage, we hadn’t found any decent weapons, so some of them were even stuck using plastic buckets and empty cans.

“Damn, this is a pain… I wanted to look for bugs while the Army of Hell kept the enemies off us and things were calm… Sera, it’s a long shot, but do you have any ideas to hold them off temporarily?”

“…Let me see…
…
…
…That one’s a bit… impossible, I’d say…”

“So, the situation is hopeless, then.”

As Kiryu-san’s face soured, I nodded back grimly.
“Indeed. It’s tough. …But there’s no reason to despair here either.”

Saying that, I readjusted my grip on the machine gun and smiled.
Kiryu-san looked puzzled, so I switched my smile to a wry one.
“In times like these, it’s better to put on a brave face, even if it’s just for show. Let’s hang on until we see an opportunity.”

“…Right. You’re right. It’s too early to give up!”

For some reason, my answer—that we had no choice but to fight even with no clear strategy—seemed to cheer Kiryu-san up, and he flashed a revitalized smile.

—And so, the troublesome battle began.

Deadman's Conflict 3 is a game where enemies steadily swarm you if you stand still… In other words, since we couldn’t move from our current position, the number of enemies would only continue to increase.
Still, we had no choice but to hold our ground and fight.
The Army of Hell… or rather, the Rescuees, would die permanently if their health reached zero; they wouldn’t revive.
In this situation, I couldn’t afford to lose any of the troops I’d worked so hard to level up.
So, I fought, prepared for my own level to rise.

“As a zombie game addict, and someone who posts strategy guides online, there’s no way I’m dying in the very first stage… You damn zombies can DIEEEE!!” I yelled as I fired relentlessly, aiming at each one, steadily taking down zombie after zombie.

…But.
We were still at a slight disadvantage.
Since both Kiryu-san and I were fighting to protect the Army of Hell, our zombie-killing speed was inevitably slower.
One by one, then two by two, the number of zombie reinforcements was increasing.

They’re gathering… At this rate, we’re just going to get slowly picked apart…

From the other end of the narrow path, the Berserk Zombies were forming a line and flocking towards us.
We were struggling just to protect ourselves… or rather, we weren’t fully managing to.

And then… Nick.

Nick, who was supposed to be the protagonist of this game. Something major was happening to him.

“Whoa, Sera! Nick’s being pushed around by zombies while still in his A-stance!” Kiryu-san, who had just smacked a zombie’s face with his crowbar, let out a startled cry.

When I looked towards Nick, he, who should have been standing stock-still in the middle of the parking lot, had become a plaything for the Berserk Zombies.
Still in his A-stance, he was being repeatedly tackled, shins kicked, collar grabbed, shoulder-punched, and gnawed on…

“Ah. …Aaaah, Nick is…!”

I couldn’t help but scream, but as expected of Nick, the protagonist of this game, he didn’t have a single scratch on him, whether he was tackled or bitten.
His serious, expressionless face remained unchanged.
…
…Wait, isn’t he bugged?

Oh crap, oh crap, this is bad, what do I do! I totally thought Nick would be ignored by the enemies!

I panicked.
Since he was being relentlessly attacked by zombies, Nick had to be taking damage right now.
In this game-like, mysterious world, if the protagonist Nick kept taking damage and his HP (health) ran out… what on earth would happen?

“Nick!” I shouted.

I have to save him! …No, it’s impossible!

Both Kiryu-san and I had our hands full dealing with the zombies; we had no spare capacity to do anything about Nick.
Besides, Nick at the start of the game is level 1 trash.
He should die after being bitten about three times.

Which means, right now, Nick is probably already…!

I held my breath.
Nick, completely at the mercy of the swarming zombies.
Eventually, he was knocked down by the zombies, toppling to the ground with a thud, still in his A-stance.
He was then kicked by zombies, rolling over and over…
His health (probably) in the negative, yet even lying on his side, Nick maintained his expressionless face and A-stance…

Nick…!
….
…Huh? He’s not dying? Is he really bugged? Does that mean he’s become an immortal warrior????

“—Hmm? Ah! We can use him, can’t we!?”

Seeing Nick lying on his side, Kiryu-san’s face lit up with an idea.
“Sera, clear out the zombies around Nick!”

“Eh? …O-Okay!”

Tilting my head in confusion, I nevertheless unleashed a flurry of headshots and suppressive fire, doing as Kiryu-san asked.
The area around Nick became safe, albeit for a moment.

“—Alright!”

Kiryu-san immediately slid over to Nick’s side and scooped up the overturned Nick in a princess carry.
The series of movements was too fast to follow with my eyes.

What’s Kiryu-san planning to do…

Still carrying Nick, Kiryu-san ran and gently stood him up on an overturned truck a short distance away.

And then… something very strange happened.
The zombies began to gather there… and continued to gather.

In other words, Nick was now functioning as a lure, like a moth lamp attracting zombies!
Because he was standing on the truck, the zombies couldn’t attack Nick.
He was just continuously drawing them in. They barely came towards us anymore.

“Woow! Amazing! With this, we can calmly kill as many zombies as we want!”

“Bwahaha, just as planned! Let’s have him job-change from scarecrow to Zombie Lure!” Kiryu-san declared the success of his idea with a surprisingly radiant smile. He might have been having the most fun he’d had all day.

I feel a little bad for Nick, but we’ve definitely found a way forward!

This could work! My spirits lifted.

“—Kiryu-san!! Now that we have some breathing room, I’ve thought of something good too!”

“Hmm?”

“We’ll whittle down the zombies’ health to the last sliver and let them become leveling fodder for the Army of Hell!”

“…Ah, I see. You mean have the Army of Hell deliver only the finishing blows to the zombies?”

“Exactly! That’s it! Before, there were too many to even think of something like that… but if it’s just this many, I can totally do it!”

The majority of the zombies were engrossed with Nick, who was standing on the truck, reaching out their hands and baring their teeth at him.
Nick was closer to them than we were.
I fired away, calculating their remaining health. Then, the Army of Hell would occasionally approach the zombie horde, land a single hit, and the zombie would die, granting experience to the Army of Hell.

…This is a feat only possible for a zombie game addict like me, the kind who writes strategy blogs.

“Amazing! We can power-level like crazy now!” Kiryu-san shouted excitedly.

The surroundings were filled with gunfire, zombie moans, and the sound of zombies being beaten with empty cans and plastic buckets…

“Sera, you’re incredible… I thought we were in a hopeless situation, but to come up with something like this on the fly!”

“Ahaha, you can praise me more, you know! More importantly, Kiryu-san, leave this to me and go find a bugged spot using that method!”

“Right. I’ll go smash my head against walls until I die!”

“Wait!! …I’m worried you’ll actually die from hitting your head too much, so take this!”

I unfastened the Vital Watch from my forearm and tossed it to Kiryu-san. He caught it deftly.

“Try wrapping that Vital Watch around your wrist!” I shouted, without taking my eyes off the enemy. “Every time you hit your head against a wall, you can check your remaining health with it. That way, you should be able to use a medicinal herb before your health hits zero!”

“Got it… Hmm? Wait, I’ve put it on my arm, but… how do I check my health with this?” Kiryu-san’s voice sounded puzzled. “All I see is something like an EKG, I have no idea how to read it.”

“Go by the color! If that EKG-like thing is green, your health is full. Yellow is a warning, and red is an extreme danger signal!”

“Aargh, it’s another one of those games, huh!” Kiryu-san yelled. “Sorry Sera, I’m colorblind. I can’t tell the difference between green and red! Is there any other way to tell?!”

“…Ah, is that so? I’m sorry! Um, the more jumbled that EKG-like line gets, the worse it is, so please watch out for how messy the line becomes!”

“Got it, I’ll try that method!”

—The percentage of people in Japan with congenital color vision deficiency is said to be about 5 percent for males and 0.2 percent for females.
It wouldn’t be strange at all if Kiryu-san was one of them.
I’d heard that many people who face such daily inconveniences aspire to become creators or designers… Could Kiryu-san be one of them?

I see.
So, only our appearances have become game characters, but our physical abilities and conditions are carried over from our original bodies… Is my body like that too?
I feel like something strange was happening to me, though…

Even as a nagging thought surfaced in my mind, I continued to fire the machine gun accurately.
There were no such things as health bars in this game, but I had memorized the strength of each enemy.

Verifying bugs is something only Kiryu-san can do, but this here is a job only I can do.

With that thought, I kept firing the machine gun.

—After a short while, a kind of equilibrium was established, just as I’d planned.

Zombies would trickle in from the back of the stage, but they were drawn more to Nick, who was nearby, than to me or Kiryu-san.
Occasionally, zombies that shifted their target from Nick to us were ganged up on and beaten down by ten members of the Army of Hell.
It had reached a point where the Army of Hell could fend off the zombie onslaught on their own, without me having to do anything with the machine gun.
Since my and Kiryu-san’s levels had barely risen, there was no worry of even stronger enemies appearing.
The now-strengthened Army of Hell could safely engage in some weakling-bullying for easy leveling.

Good… It looks like it’ll manage even if I leave it alone. Maybe I’ll let them level themselves up from here on.

For the time being, I could breathe a sigh of relief.
Haaaah, I finally managed a sigh of genuine relief.
I’d thought that if we overdid it, some kind of punishing super-strong character might appear… but they already had.

Oh dear, a Zombie Tank and a Minotaur are causing a traffic jam at the other end of the passage…

It seemed the path leading here was too narrow for them to pass.
They weren’t enemies that should normally appear this early in the game, so it was probably an unavoidable phenomenon.
Every time the tank thrashed about, trying to force its way through the passage, I could see the Minotaur taking heavy damage from the backblast.

…I guess I can just leave those alone.
Once the Army of Hell’s level is maxed out, things like that won’t be enemies anymore.
And since my and Kiryu-san’s levels haven’t risen much, no stronger characters than those should appear.

After thinking that, I headed towards Kiryu-san.
Kiryu-san was continuously ramming into a wall with incredible force… and each time he hit it, his body would clip more than halfway through. I stared, wide-eyed.

“Wow, impressive. The human body can ignore the 3D laws of physics, huh.”

Well, it shouldn’t be able to. But since it’s happening, it’s happening, so what can you do…

【Unhelpful Character Introductions That Won't Help You Understand the Main Story at All】

■ Nick
The original protagonist of Deadman's Conflict 3. The type of young man often found in horror games who has conveniently lost his memories.
Sera, in her middle and high school days, used Nick extensively to clear the game in every possible way, meticulously documenting his exploits and in-game mechanics on her blog.