Chapter 5: Change
Chapter 5: Change
#
Emergency news bulletins were airing on every channel.
The cause was still unknown, but the reports said simultaneous zombie outbreaks had erupted all across the country.
Tap
I opened MeTube.
All kinds of surreal videos were going up in real time.
Comparing the footage with the zombies I'd seen myself, I was certain those who turned were no longer human.
Their intelligence was diminished, and they had no memory of their former lives.
Crudely put, they were creatures that wouldn't recognize their own parents.
They really were just monsters.
Zombies relied on sight and hearing to detect humans and were extremely aggressive.
They didn't seem interested in feeding. They appeared to attack simply to spread the infection.
I couldn't measure their physical abilities precisely, but they seemed more capable than an average person.
'Which explained how they could overpower a grown man.'
On the other hand, based on my experience, their bodies seemed somewhat fragile.
A solid hit to their weak point—the head—could easily crush it.
They resembled the zombies people had always imagined so closely that everyone in the videos called them zombies too.
"Haaah... ugh."
After watching my phone for about thirty minutes, I switched it off.
I needed to conserve the battery, just in case.
Sitting there idle made me crave a cigarette.
Given the situation, maybe it'd be okay to just light up indoors.
Click, click.
Feeling light-headed, I stared blankly out the window. A zombie was moving under the blue canopy.
It wasn't moving much, but it occasionally shifted position and turned its head.
On the other hand, the five outside the tarp getting rained on still stood perfectly still.
'Hmm... I had no idea.'
For now, the ones in the rain seemed to be staying put, but how was I supposed to know what they were thinking?
Were they even capable of thought in the first place?
They seemed to move purely on instinct.
'But why wasn't she coming out?'
Another thirty minutes passed with no sign of her, and I started to worry.
My body temperature had fallen, and I began shivering.
'Wait. Fuck?'
What if Seon-yeong had been thinking of doing something drastic?
Then what was I supposed to do?
I decided to go to the door and call quietly. If she didn't answer, I'd check.
Not because I wanted to peek, of course.
I approached the closed shower room door.
I planned to crack it open and call out to her first.
Clunk
The instant I grabbed the handle, the door swung open.
'Haa... seriously, what timing.'
Seon-yeong had opened it from the other side.
"Huh? Team Leader?"
"You were taking a while, so I was about to ask if something was wrong."
I blurted it out, sounding defensive.
As I spoke, I noticed that Seon-yeong was holding all of her clothes in her hands.
Water dripped from them, making me wonder if she'd washed them.
'Gulp.'
Seon-yeong's face was flushed.
Maybe because she'd just washed up, her skin looked especially fair.
A large blanket was wrapped around her slender neck and soft-looking shoulders.
The rest was hidden, but with all her clothes in her hands...
The sight of her draped in a blanket while still wearing sneakers was a little funny too.
"My clothes felt disgusting too... They probably won't dry in this rain, but I rinsed them out. It took a while. The bloodstains wouldn't come out."
"Ah... I was worried."
Embarrassed by the situation, Seon-yeong rambled.
I'd only ever seen her competent, decisive side at work. Seeing her like this made her seem different.
Until now, I had only viewed her as a capable colleague.
"Team Leader, use this. Take your time. I'll keep watch in the hallway."
"Okay. Give me those clothes too. I'll wring them out as hard as I can and bring them out. They're dripping wet."
I took the washbag and Seon-yeong's clothes and went into the shower room.
A cozy warmth still lingered inside. I spotted toiletries, toner, lotion, and such gathered off to one side.
'Why had she brought the toiletry bag back out?'
I set the sudden question aside and stripped quickly.
Warm water poured over me, and I felt as though I were melting.
I wanted to relax a little and enjoy the moment, but the thought of Seon-yeong alone in the hallway made me uneasy.
I forced my relaxed, sluggish body to move, hurried through my shower, and gave my clothes a quick wash.
Splashhh.
I wrung as much water as I could from both our clothes.
'No underwear, huh.'
Strangely, I felt a twinge of disappointment.
Wearing only my wet briefs and the Airism undershirt I'd had beneath my clothes, I slipped my bare feet into my shoes.
Seeing myself in the locker-room mirror brought on a moment of brutal clarity.
'I was just a middle-aged guy with a gut.'
Since quitting sports and settling into office life, I'd put on plenty of extra weight.
No one had called me fat yet, but stepping out in wet underwear and shoes was humiliating.
'So that's why Seon-yeong was babbling earlier.'
I tried to look as nonchalant as possible and opened the door.
"Seon-yeong, have you been waiting long?"
"Status Window!!!"
The word rang out at the exact moment I spoke.
Seon-yeong turned toward me with her fists clenched and her face scarlet.
#
Without exchanging a word, we came back inside the supply room.
The atmosphere was awkward.
Click
I locked the door just in case and saw her shoulders flinch.
Her ears were so red they looked hot to the touch.
"Team Leader, have you tried saying 'Status Window'?"
Seon-yeong asked softly.
At that, a thought struck me.
'Status Window... Ah! Was this because of Jin-su's last words?'
As soon as I heard her question and had that thought, a screen appeared before my eyes.
No, not before my eyes. It was more like it appeared in my mind.
It was difficult to describe—a phenomenon that became visible the moment I focused on it.
* Transformation: Optimization
* Enhanced Recovery
* Available Points: 4
Just three lines.
"Huh? I only thought about it after hearing you, and now I can see something."
"So thinking it is enough. I can't see yours. Maybe each person can only see their own."
"But this is... awfully bare for a game-like Status Window. What does yours show?"
"Hold on. There's a pen and notebook here. Mine is simple too."
* Creation: Shield
* Strength Increase
* Available Points: 0
When we compared them, the basic format was the same, but the contents differed slightly.
I guessed that Available Points increased from killing zombies.
That was my conclusion from comparing what each of us had done.
What about the rest?
"Shield."
I was staring down at the notepad Seon-yeong had handed me, mulling it over.
I heard her murmur and looked up to find her face slightly blurred.
There was something between us.
Tap, tap.
Seon-yeong tapped the plastic-like disc floating in midair.
Its diameter was about fifty centimeters.
"Team Leader, I think I made this."
"Looks like it. Does it literally let you create a shield?"
Fascinated, we tested out Seon-yeong's shield.
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
Fsssh...
I swung my baseball bat at the shield about three times, and it crumbled away like sand.
She could create only one at a time, and it vanished when she willed it to disappear.
We wanted to test more, but after creating a fifth shield, Seon-yeong staggered with a nosebleed.
"I can't make any more."
"It must have a limit. Lie down and rest for now."
I helped Seon-yeong lie on the sofa and considered my own Status Window.
Her sudden nosebleed worried me, but nothing else seemed wrong.
"Transformation!"
Seon-yeong looked at me with slightly unfocused eyes.
We held eye contact for about ten seconds without a word.
I could feel my face heating up.
Unlike her visible shield, I couldn't tell what, if anything, had changed in me.
"I can't figure out what my ability is. I don't feel anything."
"It's not very informative... We'll need time to figure it out."
She was right.
The Status Window offered no descriptions, tips, or guidance.
"Anyway, I want to check the rooftop too... Think you can get up?"
"Yes, I can move. Earlier it felt like vertigo—I just got dizzy all of a sudden. I still can't use the shield, though."
After a little while, color returned to Seon-yeong's face.
Maybe it had happened because she overused her ability in rapid succession.
Once I had checked her condition, we prepared to head out again.
Wee-oo! Wee-oo!
Mid-conversation, a loud siren suddenly blared.
Startled, I looked over to see Seon-yeong hastily pulling out her phone.
"Team Leader, something like an emergency alert came in. Look at this."
The loud siren had come from Seon-yeong's phone.
I hadn't known because I'd turned mine off earlier.
- [Emergency Crisis Response and Safety Department] Critical alert for all regions of the Republic of Korea. This is not a drill. All citizens, please evacuate immediately to your local shelters.
An emergency alert arrived from a government department I'd never heard of.
A few more messages followed in sequence, giving shelter guidance and stressing that the current situation was a real disaster.
"They're telling us to evacuate. What do you think? This alert came awfully late for an emergency."
"It's absurd. The messages are so slapdash too. But is going to a shelter really the right call?"
"Exactly. If even one zombie gets inside, everyone could die."
We discussed it briefly and rejected the idea of evacuating to a shelter.
We chose to trust what we'd seen and experienced ourselves.
Honestly, anyone who opened MeTube would think twice about heading to a shelter.
The thought of being trapped in a confined space with someone who'd been bitten by a zombie was horrifying.
Still, I was worried about people who hadn't encountered zombies yet and would rush to follow the instructions.
'I needed to worry about myself first.'
Even so, going outside to stop people from evacuating wasn't an option when my own life was in immediate danger.
So we decided to check all the way up to the building's rooftop, then come back here and rest.
'But it was pouring... Did I really have to get soaked again?'
I hated the thought of getting rained on after washing up with warm water.
But I was afraid to stay put when a zombie could appear without warning.
"I wish we had an umbrella or something. Guess I'm asking for too much."
We really did think alike.
Then I noticed a roll of garbage bags in the corner.
It contained ten standard 100-liter municipal garbage bags.
We could pull them over ourselves and head outside.
"Should we cut holes for our heads and arms and wear them? We can spread our clothes out to dry here."
"It's embarrassing, but I think that's best."
Anything was better than putting wet clothes back on.
I used scissors from a shelf to cut holes in a garbage bag and pulled it over my head.
The feel of the plastic against my bare skin was unpleasant.
Watching me, Seon-yeong rose from the sofa and whipped off the blanket.
She was in her underwear.
'Whoa...'
I made a point of looking away.
Seon-yeong didn't seem concerned about covering herself, but it would have been rude to stare.
She wore a sports bra, so I couldn't judge exactly, but her breasts had a noticeable fullness, and faint abdominal muscles showed below.
She wore a black bra and panties, and they suited her pale skin well.
Rustle rustle
Her shapely figure vanished inside a garbage bag.
I pictured how we must look: a man and woman in their underwear, garbage bags with holes over their heads, shoes on, and bats in hand.
It couldn't have been a pretty sight.
We exchanged embarrassed looks, then approached the door.
"Seon-yeong. Open the door, please. Let's be careful out there."
"Okay."
I adjusted my grip on the baseball bat and waited for Seon-yeong to open the door.
As with the 'cat' Seon-yeong had mentioned earlier, a zombie might have slipped in while we were away, so we reminded each other not to let our guard down.
"No, I didn't mean Schneider... Never mind. I'll be careful too. Should I open it?"
Seon-yeong started to say something, then stopped.
Then she gave me a thoroughly unimpressed look before taking hold of the doorknob.
'What? What was that look for?'
I kept the thought to myself and just nodded.