Chapter 97

Player Highlight Reels (1)

[Dentist’s Candy Zone Conquest Highlights (NEW!)]

I had already been wondering whether my precious newbie was progressing properly.

When I played the video, footage from the security cameras of that collaboration convenience store appeared, just like in the video of my first playthrough.

Apparently, the moment a person chose a symbol in the convenience store also counted as a highlight.

After I waited for a while, a man wearing a white doctor’s coat entered.

He appeared to be in his mid-thirties and had the refined look of a literary intellectual from the Enlightenment era. Adjusting his round, thin-framed glasses, he addressed the employee behind the counter.

“Excuse me, but are you the owner of this store?”

‘Oh?’

It seemed the Dentist had not entered to buy anything.

Without even glancing at the shelves, he walked directly toward the employee.

“I’m not the owner. What is it?”

This time, the convenience-store employee shown on the screen was someone I recognized.

The bastard who had hit me over the head with a barcode scanner.

He looked to be in his late twenties.

His physique was far too muscular for an ordinary convenience-store employee, and beneath the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt, I caught a glimpse of tattoos resembling octopus suckers.

He had swung a barcode scanner with those bulging forearms.

How could I possibly have remained conscious after that?

“Ah. W-Well…”

Perhaps he had noticed the tattoos on the employee’s forearms, or perhaps he had only realized how intimidating the man’s build was after approaching him.

Looking somewhat nervous, the Dentist pushed his glasses up again.

“This may sound strange, but I came to ask whether this convenience store has a rear exit.”

“A rear exit?”

“It’s nothing serious. The owner of the flower shop across the street said she had seen many customers enter, but none of them ever seemed to come back out. She was feeling uneasy because she thought it was strange.”

“Hmm.”

When the convenience-store employee tilted his head with interest, the Dentist flinched and hurriedly waved both hands.

“Ah, of course, I’m not accusing you of anything. Elderly people around her age tend to worry unnecessarily, don’t they? I thought she might be reassured if I explained that the customers were leaving through a rear exit.”

“There is naturally a rear exit, but…”

“Ah, I thought so. I’ll tell her that there was one. Ha ha.”

The Dentist gave him an amiable smile and turned to leave, but the employee called out to him.

“Wait.”

“Yes?”

“A doctor?”

“Ah, yes. I’m a dentist…”

“Hmm.”

The convenience-store employee examined the Dentist from head to toe with lifeless, pitch-black eyes.

Then he gave a faint smile.

“Since you’re already here, choose something. We’re going to be neighbors now, so I’ll give it to you for free.”

“Ah, that’s all right…”

“Choose. Now.”

“Erm…”

The employee’s somewhat forceful attitude left the Dentist looking troubled.

Still, his expression seemed to say that since they would apparently be neighbors from now on, rejecting the man’s goodwill and creating unnecessary friction would only cause problems.

He calmly walked toward the shelves.

‘So that’s how an ordinary person who knew nothing about Safe Zone ended up entering the store and buying candy…’

Judging by how the employee had deliberately induced him to choose something, perhaps it was an absolute rule that anyone who entered the convenience store had to be transported into the game.

Then again, considering that he had first confirmed the man was a doctor, perhaps he had some other objective.

“This really is an unusual convenience store. You only sell nine items.”

“That’s because this is a convenience store upon which the future depends.”

“The future itself depends on it?”

After deliberating, the Dentist picked up a piece of candy.

The employee looked surprised.

“You’re a dentist, yet you chose candy?”

“If you think dentists dislike candy, you are greatly mistaken.”

“Then you like it?”

“Do you have any idea how much money dentists have made since tanghulu became popular? Doctors can only exist when there are patients.”

I had also found it strange that a dentist had chosen candy.

He was a more capitalistic newbie than I had expected.

However, after hearing the Dentist’s response, the convenience-store employee fell silent, seemingly lost in thought.

The Dentist glanced at him, then spoke awkwardly.

“About half of that was a joke. Since you offered me something for free, I merely thought candy would be an appropriate choice…”

“Ah. I see.”

Only then did the employee seem to emerge from his thoughts and look at the Dentist again.

“If I offended you by appearing to abandon medical ethics, I apologize…”

“No. You merely reminded me of the most contemptible human being imaginable.”

“Pardon?”

“In any case… you are fortunate.”

“I am?”

“Some idiot chose the knife even after I warned him.”

Just as I began to notice that the convenience-store employee’s tone had suddenly become dry, he continued bluntly.

“You may leave now.”

“Ah, yes. Thank you for the candy. Um… although it seems this candy doesn’t have an ingredients label…”

The Dentist turned toward the employee and tried to say something as he was leaving, but the employee only displayed a mechanical smile.

“Good luck.”

With those final words, the Dentist’s body vanished from the convenience store.

The video moved on to the next highlight.

The Candy Zone.

Although 99 percent of the world had been covered in snow due to the ice age, it was one of the few places where greenery could still be seen.

The area was home to trees that had grown to an abnormally enormous size under the influence of the meteorite. Players referred to them as Christmas trees.

The temperature rose around clusters of those trees, so monsters adapted to the cold refused to approach.

As a result, the Candy Zone existed within a vast Christmas forest.

Most residents lived in log cabins made from Christmas-tree wood and survived by hunting the monsters roaming around the forest with bows and arrows.

They were a kind of hunter settlement.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to call it a hunter village.

At the very center of the zone stood an enormous candy-shaped meteorite embedded in the ground.

That stone was the zone’s meteorite item.

Because the Christmas-tree forest spread outward from the meteorite, the prevailing theory among players was that its influence had caused the trees to grow so enormous.

The video showed a ten-year-old child sleeping beneath one of the Christmas trees.

It was the Dentist, whose original appearance had simply been made younger.

A short while later, Candy Zone residents who had gone out hunting discovered him and carefully carried him into the center of the village.

When the Dentist awoke not long afterward, he became extremely flustered and confused.

The residents attempted to calm him down.

“A-A dream… This must be a dream…”

The Dentist could not accept the situation as real, so he dismissed it as a dream and spent the rest of the day that way.

He mistook the monster-meat stew cooked by the Candy Zone residents for beef stew and tried to eat it happily.

Then he experienced the “player-style eating” phenomenon that had shocked even me.

The moment the food vanished into blue particles around his mouth, he threw the stew away and began biting at the air in terror.

I watched with great interest.

‘A player becoming terrified while eating stew. That’s certainly new.’

The Candy Zone residents became worried and took the Dentist to their leader NPC.

“I-I can’t eat. Whenever I try, the food disappears into blue particles around my mouth. I don’t remember why I’ve become a child either. I don’t even know where this place is…!”

I watched with fascination as the Dentist openly told the leader NPC everything that had happened to him.

The leader decided that something about the Dentist seemed different from the rest of them.

Around the evening of his second day after possession, he took the Dentist to the village meteorite.

When he was told to place his hand on it, the Dentist stared in bewilderment before touching the stone.

In an instant, the meteorite shone with a blinding radiance.

The light enveloped the entire Christmas forest before fading.

The villagers became excited by the strange phenomenon and began calling the Dentist the Child of Prophecy and their savior.

I watched without much interest.

‘That meteorite always lights up when a player touches it.’

Normally, a player would have entered the Miracle Child route at that point.

“I-I’m not the Child of Prophecy. I’m an ordinary human being, just like all of you! How could I possibly save anyone with the ability to make a rock glow? What? That isn’t just a rock, but a meteorite? No, no. Even if it really is a meteorite, what possible use is there in making it light up?”

In a situation where an ordinary player would naturally have begun pretending to be the Child of Prophecy and the zone’s savior, the Dentist was desperately attempting to persuade the residents otherwise.

“I’m not a savior. I’m a dentist. What? You don’t know what a dentist is? D-Don’t tell me… there are no dentists here. Can everyone else eat without chewing, like I can? You can’t? Then… when was the last time any of you had your teeth professionally cleaned? Do you know what brushing your teeth is? What about dental floss?”

I was watching with great interest as he explained the importance of oral hygiene to the Candy Zone residents when the video moved on to the next highlight.

The following scene appeared to take place quite some time after his possession.

Since none of his conversations with us appeared in the footage, it seemed the video truly contained only scenes the developer considered highlights.

‘He actually made dental floss and distributed it…’

Once the Dentist learned that the zone relied on bows for hunting, he used bowstrings to produce dental floss.

I had no idea why he remained so passionate about dental care even after realizing he had been transported into a game.

As I watched the subsequent highlights, however, I began to understand that the Dentist was an exceptionally kind person.

After learning through our chat that players could restore their bodies by consuming food, he tried to take responsibility for every dangerous task in the zone.

Perhaps because he had never played Safe Zone, the Dentist never treated the villagers as NPCs, not even once.

After a long period of persuasion, the residents finally accepted that he was neither a miracle child nor a savior.

Even so, they appeared to cherish and respect him.

Since it was a zone where the residents worshipped the player even if they did nothing, I had never considered a route like this.

‘If he progresses this way, the zone probably won’t enter the massacre route at the end.’

The most popular strategy in the Candy Zone was the Miracle Child route.

However, its weakness was that it made the residents overly dependent on the player.

Because they believed the player was a special child, they made no preparations whatsoever for the Second Apocalypse.

Consequently, the other zones slaughtered them with ease.

In this highlight reel, however, the Candy Zone NPCs did everything they could to ensure that the Dentist had to sacrifice himself as little as possible.

Even so, the residents’ growth rate remained painfully slow.

An efficiency-obsessed player like me would never attempt such a route.

Still, considering that he was a complete newbie with no understanding of Safe Zone, it was encouraging that his progress was this stable.

The highlight reel ended with the Dentist earning the title “Saint of the Christmas Forest.”

I made my decision.

‘This newbie belongs to me.’

He was valuable content I did not want stolen by the veteran players from the other zones.

Judging by his behavior, he would probably cooperate without complaint when the time came to unlock Logout, which made him even more promising.

The only problem was that I had ignored the Dentist’s friend request this whole time.

The other veterans had probably already begun interfering with him.

Well, even if he had already become friendly with another veteran, I could simply bring him over to my zone.

‘There are highlight reels for the others too…’

Truthfully, I was not particularly curious about them.

The veterans were highly likely to be imitating my established strategies.

Even Shin Eunjo was currently following my Cult Leader route.

I casually played T-Bastard’s highlight reel, intending only to see what hardships he had experienced at the beginning that made him want to kill me so badly.

However, during T-Bastard’s convenience-store footage, I unexpectedly encountered someone familiar.

“…You look familiar. Weren’t you on the national team?”

“Ahaha. It’s been ages since I retired. You came because of Safe Zone too, right? My in-game name is Taejeong Taese Beyoncé. What’s yours?”

The man introducing himself as Taejeong Taese Beyoncé…

The former national soccer player who had been forced to retire after being caught doping.

It was Kim Taejeong.