Dopamine surged through my soul, and a lively sensation spread from the top of my head to the tip of my tail.
[System]: The Baby Arctic Fox is in a good mood. He starts to dance.
Suddenly, music that sounded like something straight out of a cartoon began playing from somewhere.
Nyang-nyang-nyang-nyang? Ddoi ddoi nyang nyang♪
My body moved on its own. My front paws neatly came together and swayed side to side.
Bbam bbam bbam♬
I wondered what kind of effect would come at the end of this dance. Smiling brightly, I flashed a cheerful fox grin, filled with anticipation. Snake Rim, who had been watching me, blushed.
‘What are you staring at, you punk.’
Nyang-nyang!
With a fiery final bark, the music came to an end.
[System]: Snake Rim is impressed by your movements. Snake Rim’s molting speed increases by 30%.
[System]: Snake Rim wishes to have a beautiful child like you.
[System]: !!! Snake Rim is a male and cannot produce offspring.
‘What the heck? No personal bonus for me?’
I was looking around, puzzled, when it popped up—
[Snake Rim wishes to adopt you as his son. Will you accept?
Yes / No]
I blinked at the screen.
‘This is uncharted territory…’
It felt rash to accept right away. There was no doubt that becoming the adopted son of the second-in-command in the Castle of Shadows came with perks—but everything had its price. No doubt there’d be downsides too. Maybe even an annoying “filial piety time” or something. And who knew how this would actually apply to the game mechanics?
As I mulled it over, I noticed a “Postpone” button at the bottom of the system window. I tapped it with my front paw and gave a vigorous nod.
[The Baby Arctic Fox needs time to think.]
[You have deferred your choice.]
Snake Rim flicked out his long tongue wistfully. As a gesture of apology, I brought another full scoop of water to his discarded molt.
“Thank you… baby fox.”
Tending to Snake Rim’s recovery didn’t last long.
“I’ve configured the barrier to allow only you to pass through.”
After confirming that Snake Rim’s barrier had been restored, I dashed back outside.
[Third Survival Quest complete. Reward: Health Potion]
As the quest ended, the people who had regained their composure began grumbling about how measly the survival reward was. And with good reason—people had killed each other just to seize the bells. Moments ago, they had been roasting wolves together, laughing and joking.
Measured against the value of a human life, the reward was utterly meaningless.
‘Is it, though?’
In my own bag, a single measly Health Potion had been quietly added.
Just as I confirmed the item—
Just when you thought you had grown accustomed to the Night Spirits… true terror always comes from up close.
“W-What the hell?!”
A chilling voice rang sharply in my ears.
‘It’s started.’
The chained Survival Quest. The most difficult and grotesque challenge, triggered the moment the number of survivors drops to exactly half of the starting count—500 people.
[The Fourth Survival Quest, <500:500> has arrived!
Your former comrades, called back by the shadows, are returning. Fight against those who seek to take you away! The shadow friends will return to where they belong when morning comes.
Time remaining until morning: 4:44:44]
Before the quest text was even finished, users who had just moments ago been corpses—limbs twisted and mangled—began crawling upright, dragging themselves forward.
And then grab! They latched onto the ankles of the living.
“AAAH!”
“Holy shit, that’s disgusting!”
The dead feeding on the living. Of course, being eaten didn’t turn you into a zombie—your game simply ended.
One warrior screamed and slashed at a moving corpse with his sword, but the severed arm slithered across the ground and wrapped tightly around his neck.
“GAHH! Somebody help me!”
In an instant, chaos erupted. If I were human, the very first thing I’d have done would be locking the castle gates.
This quest was called <500:500>. Since the previous quest began when we had around 800 people, that meant about 300 were inside the castle—and the remaining 200 were buried in the mountain of corpses outside the gate.
“AAAGHH! The corpse pile is FUCKING writhing! We need to lock the gate—NOW!”
“We’re all gonna die!”
Several players who had already found the bells during <Find the Baby Fox’s Protective Scent!> and escaped to the safety of the walls shouted down at the people below after seeing the gruesome scene beyond the battlements.
“Don’t just stand there, do it yourselves, you dumbfucks!”
But the people below were far too busy fending off the immediate threat of the writhing corpses.
In the middle of the struggle, I pranced along the path atop the castle wall.
“God, I’m gonna puke… Uwek.”
“Move! Get the hell outta the way, fuck!”
“I mean it—stop fighting the damn zombies and lock the gate, you idiots!”
Curses and profanities flew in every direction. Amid the madness, one warrior, soaked head to toe in blood, finally listened and locked the main gate. Then, grabbing one of the clinging corpses stuck to him, he began hurling it up toward the wall.
“Why the hell are you throwing them at us, asshole?!”
“Thought you might wanna have a taste too, fuckers!”
They hurled pieces of corpses at each other while flipping each other off with their middle fingers.
Just then—
“Little Fox, you shouldn’t be seeing things like this.”
A Noona, who had been the loudest in cussing out the corpse-thrower, turned and spotted me. With a gentle smile, she covered my eyes.
‘The best move right now would be to use ‘Declaration of Peace Zone.’
This was probably the perfect moment to use that skill—total chaos, and people either trying to organize or flee. It could buy time for either.
But the cooldown was a whole week. If I burned it now for someone else’s sake, I wouldn’t have it when I really needed it.
And besides, the undead barely even registered me. I was a fox—they weren’t attacking. So technically, it wasn’t even my problem.
That’s when someone approached me.
It was Kessler. Casually strolling through a battlefield where corpses were bouncing around like pinballs—yeah, he was definitely a thief, alright.
“Yo, baby fox. Time to eat.”
This guy. Who the hell says something like that in the middle of a blood-soaked zombie horde?
Then, as if to top my disbelief, Kessler pulled out some deep red bat jerky from his cloak and began chewing it.
It was a fucking snack.
While corpses outside the castle gate piled up like a tidal wave, the air was thick with the stench of rot and blood. Heads and rotting limbs flew like javelins overhead, people beside us were vomiting from the smell—and this guy sat there, completely unfazed, munching on jerky.
‘The more I see, the more dangerous he looks.’
I shook my head. Sitting on his knee, I looked down at the chaos below—and what I saw made my brows furrow deeply.
Nyang!
Bori Noona was cornered. Waving around a chunk of iron she had found from who-knows-where, she frantically shouted, “Go away! Get back!” but the more she flailed, the more the undead gathered.
A zombie, hopping toward her with its neck missing, stretched its jaw unnaturally wide and clamped down on Bori Noona’s leg.
Crunch.
“Ack!”
Goddamn it. With Kim Teolbo dead, Bori Noona was the only comrade I had left. Sure, it wouldn’t be the worst end—letting her reunite with our party in peace—but… my body had already leapt off the castle wall.
Looking back up from the ground, the ledge where Kessler sat seemed impossibly high.
“Baby fox!”
I stood in front of Bori Noona, shielding her. One of the undead twisted its eyes to look at me. It was asking: What the hell are you?
‘Don’t lay a finger on the last comrade I have.’
I frantically slapped the air with my front paw and pulled up a skill.
[‘Declaration of Peace Zone of the Baby Arctic Fox.’
Would you like to declare peace? Yes/No]
I pressed Yes.
Wind burst outward from me as if the atmosphere itself had reset. Bori Noona’s pants flapped briefly.
Just as people were starting to sense that something had changed, a cutesy notification popped up.
[This area has been declared a Peace Zone. Please cease all combat.]
“What the hell?”
Even the zombies that had been relentlessly attacking stood frozen, seemingly just as confused by the sudden shift.
The players who caught on quickly shoved the staggering undead aside and began creating a safe assembly area.
“Alright, alright, everyone gather up! Emergency strategy meeting!”
With their formation tightened up, there was no room left for the zombies to squeeze through.
“All we have to do is hold out, right? Looks like these guys aren’t great at climbing onto rooftops and stuff, so if you’re low on stamina, get yourselves up high! Also, we need to gather a bunch of undead cores to unlock the Special Occupation Necromancer, but… honestly, this is gonna be pretty brutal…”
Now that he thought about it, a Special Occupation quest had popped up.
If you killed 100 undead and gathered their cores, you could earn the Necromancer class.
“Huh, what’s this?”
The job quest, which had nearly been buried in the chaos, suddenly rose to the center of everyone’s attention. Players’ eyes began to sparkle.
‘But it won’t be that easy!’
A few people pressed their lips tightly together, letting out tense sighs.
“Should we gather the mobs and funnel the kills to one person?”
If someone managed to become a Necromancer, the game’s management would become much easier.
“No. There are too many zombies to safely funnel kills to one person. It’s not worth risking everything for just one job class.”
“Yeah. Let’s just fend for ourselves.”
Still, a Necromancer gaining control would mean a massive advantage in the game.
“Let’s at least give it a shot.”
This was a survival RPG where the ultimate goal was to be the last one standing.
Because of that, it seemed more logical to deny everyone the Special Occupation rather than fight to snatch it in the open. Making sure no one could claim it was the smarter play.
The majority alliance decided to abandon the Necromancer quest.
However, a small coalition of like-minded players prioritized getting the Special Occupation no matter what.
“For those who support funneling the Necromancer cores… Among the players without jobs, I think ‘PeeledGarlicUnpeeledGarlic’ has the highest magic stat, so it’d be best for them to grab the class. There are tons of corpses right outside the gate. Just drag a bunch of potions and make sure you land the last hits somehow.”
“When does the Peace Zone declaration end?”
“Ten minutes left.”
The small coalition prepped in advance and moved out beyond the walls. But whether it was fortune or misfortune, they ultimately failed to secure the Special Occupation.
The majority, reading the minority’s intentions, intervened and blocked them from claiming the class.
[Fourth Survival Quest complete.]
Under the pale dawn sun, I stood among the zombies, gazing down at the corpses of the failed micro-alliance.
Now the real game began.
