Mental Caretaker In An Apolcalypse Game

Episode 54

I told Do-yoon to break the projector while Ga-eun was taking care of the man.

“Ha… I, I want to go… outside…”

“Yes, yes, we’re going out, so calm down.”

I comforted him as he came over with her support. Meanwhile, I kept an eye on the shadow heading towards the projection room. Soon after it went inside, the movie on the screen cut off. As the lights inside turned on, the zombies sitting in the chairs began to stand up one by one, screeching. The man, who hadn’t expected such a reaction from the zombies, panicked and also screamed.

“Okay. Good work. Let’s get out quickly. Ms. Ga-eun, please take care of him.”

After everyone came outside, I closed the door and inserted the large stick broken from a mop between the door handles. After he tied the door handle with clothes to prevent it from opening, securing it doubly, I finally relaxed.

“Oh… how…? I’m sure it didn’t open before…”

The man looked at the double-locked door with a bewildered expression. After a moment, he started crying again, relieved to be out of there. I looked at him with a slightly awkward face.

Well… I needed to calm him down first.

They too looked at him with awkward expressions, as if he was burdensome, before turning their gaze towards me.

“We did bring him, but what should we do with him?”

“It seems like he’s been stuck there for a long time. He looks mentally unstable… Let’s wait until he calms down. Anyway, we’ve been running around the theater rooms, so we should take a break too.”

“Okay. Let’s do that, then.”

I suggested moving to a quieter place near the desk for mental and physical stability. It was too noisy here due to the banging sounds coming from the theater rooms since earlier. Having experienced it once in the first screening room, we had a rough idea of how to handle it. From the next screening room onwards, we didn’t fight the zombies but just broke the projector. Then, we went outside, closed the door, and inserted a broom or a large stick between the door handles. We also tied the door handle tightly with clothes left in the staff changing room to doubly secure the lock. This prevented the zombies inside from coming out, yes, but it didn’t block out the noise.

“Huh…”

“Are you feeling a bit better now?”

When we moved to a quieter place, the man gradually regained his composure and soon stopped crying, only sniffling lightly.

“Thank you for helping me… I was able to get out of there because of you.”

“What were you doing there?”

“That is…”

When I asked the reason, the man hesitated for a moment, then his emotions welled up again, and tears filled his eyes. Unable to hold back, he burst into tears and, amidst it all, tried to explain what had happened with jumbled words.

“That’s why… Hah… I was… Hah…”

“Ah, that’s why you were there? It must have been very scary. But it’s really amazing that you held on until now.”

“No… It’s… Hng… I was scared… Hng. I couldn’t fight…”

“Don’t think too lowly of yourself. It’s truly an amazing feat. An ordinary person wouldn’t have been able to hold on like you did.?”

Although I already knew it from the game, the conversation just now reaffirmed my thoughts. He was really a person with very low self-esteem. Seeing him shrink back, thinking himself pathetic and useless, I tried to boost his self-esteem by praising him as much as possible and empathizing with his words.

“Noona, did you understand what he said?”

“Yes. I could get enough of what he was saying.”

“Did you really understand? I couldn’t understand at all…”

“Ms. Ga-eun, you couldn’t understand either?”

“With the crying mixed in, the pronunciation was all messed up, and the context was broken off, so I couldn’t understand anything.”

Huh? It’s true that the pronunciation was a bit off, but I thought it was understandable to some extent?

Clearly not of the same opinion, they looked at me with a bewildered expression. Was it because I already knew the general content from the game that made his words easier for me to understand?

So, to summarize what he said, he was originally a part-timer at this movie theater. That day, he was cleaning a screening room by himself after the movie ended, just like usual. Suddenly, people started pouring in. In his confusion, he tried to send them out, but they were biting and attacking each other. Shocked, he fainted. When he woke up again, the lights inside were off, and a movie was playing. At first, he thought he had been dreaming. After some time, he realized that the people watching the movie were all zombies and tried to escape through the door, but it was locked, so he couldn’t get out. He then spent the rest of his days in fear, waiting to be rescued until he met us.

It was mentioned that he survived by picking up the popcorn and other food that people had left behind, but even when I imagined it, a miserable picture drew itself in my mind, and I truly felt sorry for him. He couldn’t handle scary things well, and a horror movie was playing 24 hours a day with zombies all around him. He passed out several times.

It would have been better if a romantic comedy or a fantasy genre movie was playing…

“Well, that’s what happened.”

“Ah…”

When I summarized his story for them, their eyes filled with compassion as they looked at him.

“Now I understand why he was crying like that.”

“It’s amazing that he survived until now. An ordinary person might’ve died of a heart attack.”

I just shrugged my shoulders.

Someone with a weak heart might have already died, true. But he’d survived, so…

“Do-yoon, take some food out of the shadows. He probably hasn’t eaten properly for a while. I think we should give him something to eat.”

Seeing the man crying so much, I got worried that he might collapse from exhaustion, so I asked him to get him some food.

“You’re fine now, so stop crying and eat this. You must have been very hungry…”

“Thank you…”

He was surprised by the unfamiliar sight of items popping out from the shadows, but upon seeing that it was food, he brightened up and immediately put it in his mouth. The sight made him look even more pitiful, and my sympathy for him grew. I took out the blanket I had wrapped around myself the previous night and draped it over his shoulders. I then patted his back, telling him, “Eat slowly. You might upset your stomach.”

 

***

 

After a good cry and a full meal had calmed him down. He now looked at me with a look of genuine embarrassment.

“Um… My name is Park Jun-woo. Thank you so much for helping me.”

I didn’t do much in the first place. The one who broke the projector was him, and the one who supported him out was her. I just went outside and inserted a large stick in the door, so it felt a bit awkward to receive his thanks.

“I didn’t do much, so you can thank these people. My name is Han Ji-ah. This is Lee Do-yoon, and that is Ms. Seo Ga-eun.”

After the introductions, I felt a sense of relief. The goal of this stage was to rescue the ally and defeat the main zombie. These were the two tasks. I’d accomplished the one I cared more about, so I felt much better.

Watching Do-yoon awkwardly accept his thanks and Ga-eun treating him kindly, I glanced towards the screening room. There was only one screening room left, and it was certain that the main zombie was there.

Honestly, this main zombie was very different from what you’d expect a zombie to be. It didn’t even feel like a zombie anymore. If it were a zombie, it should’ve been biting people, but this one stayed in the projection room, not coming out, and kept playing the movie as if it still thought it was human. It would have been fine if it had just done that, but it also had a special ability to bring the characters from the movie out into the real world. If they were just going for that concept, they should’ve called it a magical monster.

“Noona.”

“…Huh?”

“What are you thinking about? You didn’t respond when I called you.”

“Sorry… I was just spacing out.”

“You’re lying again. Do you think I can’t tell when you’re lying?”

“I really wasn’t thinking about anything.”

“Okay. I’ll just say I believe you.”

“Haha… But why did you call me?”

“…It’s over there, isn’t it?”

I raised my head, and he suddenly lowered his voice, whispering so only I could hear. After making eye contact with me for a while, he turned his gaze towards the theater room.

“What is?”

“The clear condition.”

“…What?”

“There’s a special zombie like the one we met in the ICU, right?”

“…?”

Caught off guard by the unexpected question, I shut my mouth. He then looked back at me. I looked away from his eyes, which seemed to strangely suck me in, and tried to sound calm as I responded.

“Why do you think that?”

“Because that’s how it’s been.”

“How it’s been…?”

“At first, I didn’t know what the clear condition was, but now I think I get it. In the mart and the hospital, whenever we killed a special zombie different from the regular ones, a clear message always appeared, right? So, the clear condition must be to kill such a zombie, don’t you think? Well, except for the school.”

“…?”

“Anyway, if my hypothesis is correct, there should be such a zombie here. We’ve checked five out of the six screening rooms, and none of them had a particularly special zombie. Doesn’t that mean the last screening room has it?”

He was clever. No, was it just natural? As the protagonist, he was quick to catch on to things, so just with a small clue, he quickly figured out the answer.

Just like how he suspected something about my true identity at the school. Well, that was partly because I acted foolishly and gave away too much information…

“So, am I right?”

“…Why are you asking me?”

“Because I think you would know.”

Seriously, just how much did this guy figure out?