The Game's Forbidden Zone, Quiet House!

Winter had us firmly in its grip. In recent days, many people had frozen to death. The only upside was that crime had decreased; even the bandits couldn't go out and cause trouble.

The temperature was still very low. In the besieged city of Pogoren, finding firewood had become increasingly difficult, and people had started collecting anything they could burn.

This was also the time when wood prices were at their highest. The price of timber had skyrocketed: one piece of wood cost two cigarettes.

At that point, bullets were actually worth as much as wood.

Yeah, the kind of wood you could find just about anywhere.

Silver had already ended his livestream. He stared at the washed-out game screen, tilted his head back, and closed his eyes.

The bright incandescent light shone through his thin eyelids, stinging his eyes. His head was spinning a little.

He had played the game for three hours, but it felt as if he'd lived through three years.

The first time he'd broken down was when he slaughtered everyone at the military outpost and looted the place.

He'd found a letter there.

[First page of the letter:

Mother told me you want to join the army. There's something I need to tell you. Last week, we caught a girl who'd joined the rebels—a sniper. Someone told me she'd killed quite a few of our brothers, so they wanted to "have some fun" with her. They tied her to a tree and hung explosives all over it.

The fuse was very long, long enough for her to look back on her entire life.

Second page of the letter:

It took ten minutes for her to be blown to pieces. Do you know what the worst part was? It wasn't her guts and blood scattered everywhere. It was the look on her face. Seeing that expression felt like taking a heavy blow to the head.

I don't think I'll ever forget that sight. You want to join the army to get a taste of excitement, right? I don't think there's anything fun about it, brother.

There's nothing here but death and dust.]

When he saw that letter, he truly broke down.

Even though he hadn't killed that girl himself, his heart still felt heavy. Maybe it was because he'd learned just how horrible things could get in wartime.

Silver took a deep breath. He decided to watch other people play the game.

He wanted to know how it could end, but he didn't want to open the game again himself.

He searched for This War of Mine, and countless gameplay videos immediately popped up. They showed different content creators playing the game, with clips edited by their fans or livestream moderators.

The video he was watching was Dumpling's.

Unlike him, Dumpling played with extreme caution.

She saved up for a saw blade, cut through the fence, and opened a cupboard inside. Only then did she notice the glaring words "Private Property" on the items within.

Silver watched the video, smoking in silence. It had a very high view count, but there were hardly any comments on the screen.

The things in the cupboard stood out starkly. They were marked as private property, but there was food inside.

In the video, Dumpling stared at the glaring words, which filled nearly half the screen. She froze for several seconds, then sighed and left.

Silver said nothing, and no one in the comments said anything either.

But at that moment, it seemed as though everyone could hear people in different places and times sighing together.

In the video, Dumpling found the front door locked and started smashing it. As soon as she went in, a group of people rushed out to beat her up, and she ran for her life.

She came home empty-handed that night.

But the game hadn't rewarded her for not stealing from others.

She was robbed on the very first day. They took her tools and food.

On the second day, afraid of being robbed again when she went out, she carried some of her household belongings with her, leaving a few resources behind.

When she returned, she found that her home had been ransacked. They hadn't even left a broken screw behind.

Still, at least one person only had one mouth to feed. The burden was light.

Her home was bare. It hardly even counted as a home, since there was a huge hole in the wall.

She was robbed often afterward, but never lost anything, because she had nothing at all.

Sometimes Dumpling went out at night and came back empty-handed—for instance, if she was chased away and had to run, or if she didn't dare take someone else's private belongings... The game system would still say: "XXX returned home safely, but empty-handed."

Watching her play, Silver couldn't help laughing aloud. He wondered whether the people who went to rob her home, after coming away empty-handed, also told their companions waiting for supplies: "Sorry, I couldn't find anything. I let everyone down, but I'll try harder next time."

Nothing unexpected happened in Dumpling's game. Her companions either fled or died.

Her game ended on the day winter arrived.

The video wasn't long. It wasn't until it ended that comments began appearing on the screen.

'That was good, actually.'

'It's good not to kill anyone. If they die, they die. Who can survive a war?'

'If I could, I'd want to avoid robbing anyone too. It gets so hard later on, and it feels awful.'

The comments kept coming, and everyone seemed to think it was good that Dumpling died on the night before winter arrived.

It really was good. Maybe that was the best ending the game had to offer.

Could you really be happy if you survived to the very end?

Silver posted a comment too: [This is the best gameplay video I've ever seen.]

He didn't even want to watch his own playthrough anymore. A victory?

It was a load of crap.

After closing the video, he refreshed the page. A video with over ten million likes appeared before his eyes.

[The Game's Forbidden Zone! Quiet House!]

Silver's breath caught, and his heart seemed to stop.

He remembered this place. But why was it being called a forbidden zone?

His fingers trembled a little, but he still clicked on the video.

In it, a gaming content creator was controlling his character as he looted the Quiet House, robbing the unarmed elderly couple who lived there.

He brought a gun and an axe.

He walked straight in. The old couple had no way to stop the player from doing whatever he wanted.

He searched upstairs, while the old man stayed downstairs, calling out, "Put it down! Don't steal, you thief!"

Silver remembered this scene. It had been exactly the same when he played.

That time, he'd taken everything without a moment's hesitation.

But unlike him, this content creator came back a few days later.

Before entering, the creator had laughed mockingly. "This place is loaded. It'll last me for days."

This time, the old people no longer shuffled around and scolded the player.

It was as if the stench of their rotting corpses could seep through the screen.

There were only two bodies on the bed, both dead from hunger.

Yes, they had literally starved to death.

Fucking hell!

Silver clutched his chest. The words from that letter appeared before him again, every last one clear as day.

[War isn't fun at all. There's nothing here but death and dust.]

Silver shut down the computer for good. He punched the desk, unable to put his feelings into words.

In this war, ordinary people had almost nowhere to run. If they hid at home, soldiers would go from house to house with the household registers, wiping out entire families.

If they fled the city, snipers waited on rooftops and picked them off one by one.

If they waited for rescue, they'd be slaughtered all the same.

Stock up and hole up until the end? The city had been under siege for five years, but instant noodles only lasted two.

What were they supposed to eat for the other three years? Their friends and family.

Big brothers and sisters, please vote for me ●﹏●