Two Groups of Apartment Survivors
Survivors?
I was suspicious of everyone because I already knew what kind of world this place was from the webtoon, but Yang Jaeyeol's group had already been stabbed in the back once by Jeong Doyun's gang, so their wariness of other people was bound to be sky-high.
Even so, taking the hand these people were offering right now would still be the best call.
"If you smash the glass, the people inside will be in danger too! And everything's already barricaded anyway—they can't get in! Come this way!!"
Just like the man said, every window on the first floor was sealed shut, and even the entrance was blocked off with heavy furniture.
"Hyung!"
"W-we're almost out of fire extinguishers!"
"Over here! Hurry!!"
"Let's go."
"But…!"
"If we don't, we die anyway."
We sprinted toward the people hanging out of a broken second-floor window, screaming their heads off.
There was no entrance—but they had made one for us.
Thwip-thwip-thwip-thwip!
A coiled rope ladder unfurled from the second-floor window and dropped down.
The first one to grab it was Yang Jaeyeol.
"I'll go first."
"You sure?"
"Yes."
Going first wasn't exactly a privilege.
They might not exactly roll out the welcome mat for us, after all.
Jaeyeol was volunteering to take that risk so he could protect everyone else.
"No time—get on right behind him!"
Starting with Jaeyeol, we sent the women up as fast as we could.
"That's the last of them!"
"Got it. Nari, you go up too."
"Oppa…!"
"Hurry!"
"Nari, quick!"
"Get up here already!!"
Han Nari pulled the last of the fire extinguishers from her Inventory and grabbed the ladder. At the same time, I charged the oncoming zombies with Gihun and the remaining guys.
"Spray!"
We blasted the extinguishers from as far back as we could, then retreated toward the ladder again.
And we held our breath as much as possible.
"KRAAAAAAAGH!!!!"
So the zombies clawing through that white powder cloud couldn't pinpoint us by sound.
Thud!!!
I kicked the chest of a zombie that had taken a field shovel to the side of the head and smashed another one across the face.
Meanwhile Park Mingu buried his axe in a zombie's forehead, and once Kim Jaemin and Lee Yeonghun had done their part, they scrambled up the ladder.
No big commotion from above. Looked like we were good.
"Whoa, shit! This thing's badass?!"
"You crazy bastard. And keep it down. Or every single one that comes boiling out is going straight for you."
"Bring it, then!!"
My friend Won Gihun.
The reason I called this guy Primitive Man wasn't just his looks—his thoughts and actions were pure caveman too.
If he liked something, he liked it. If he hated it, he hated it. Happy was happy, sad was sad.
He was completely honest and faithful to his own feelings, the kind of guy who looked more natural stripping naked and vanishing into the mountains than wearing a suit and showing up at an office.
Fighting zombies like this might actually suit him better than sitting through stiff job interviews in a stuffy suit.
That was why I'd handed the shield to him instead of Park Mingu, whose stats were actually more tank-like.
"Uwaaaah!!!"
"Get back here!"
"Tell the kids to go up first!"
"Just you! Get your dumb ass up here!!"
"Ah… you cheap bastard! We go together!!!!"
Before I knew it, Park Mingu had climbed the ladder too. Only Gihun and I were left.
And I was already holding the ladder.
"KRAAAAAAGH!!!"
"KRAAAGH!!"
"KRAAAAA!!!"
"KRAAAGH!!"
"KRAAAAAAA!!!"
It was a photo finish.
Gihun reached the ladder a split second before the zombies, and the people above—plus the ones who'd already climbed—hauled the ladder up just in time. We barely made it.
"Huff…! Huff…! You cheap son of a bitch…!!!"
"You're the one who charged out like an idiot. Still the same old you—once something gets stuck in your head, you lose all sense."
"Of course I'm the same! People don't change that easy!"
"Even if they don't change easy, change. Do that here and you die on the spot."
"…That's not exactly easy…."
Even after every friend who'd started a game with him quit, he'd keep playing alone for years.
There were games that shut down their servers because of him.
Not only that—if he got hooked on a side dish, he'd pack a whole lunchbox of just that one thing and eat it obsessively. He'd rewatch a single drama dozens of times. He'd loop one song for an entire month.
That was the kind of guy he was, so he'd gotten teased and left out in school, but he never became a bullying target.
I never even had to step in. The second some bastard tried to mess with him, Gihun would beat that one guy half to death—whether his own nose got broken, his arm got broken, or his leg got broken didn't matter.
So I was basically his only friend.
Sure, his social circle had gotten a lot wider because of me, but whenever he got drunk he'd still bellow that I was his only real friend.
Most people called him a crazy bastard, but in my eyes he was just pure and stubborn as a rock.
Even if he was a massive pain in the ass.
"Aigoo~ we really almost died there, hahahaha~"
"Crazy bastard…"
"Ah, so you're Jaeyeol? Man, you've got a seriously unlucky face~ hahaha"
"…Excuse me?"
"It means you're good-looking. That's why it's unlucky. His mouth's always like that, so just ignore him."
"Ah… th-thank you…"
"Anyway, thanks to you we made it. Appreciate the save earlier."
"No, not at all! I'm the one who's gotten through several close calls thanks to you, hyung…"
"He knows! Hahahaha!!!"
"Sigh…."
I shook my head and casually scanned the faces around us.
They were clearly split into two groups.
Ours, and theirs.
But the fact that they had a ladder like that probably meant they'd cleared a quest, right?
"Hello. I'm Kwon Suhyeok."
Kwon Suhyeok?
Looking at him, mid-twenties, and the name Suhyeok.
I glanced back at Yang Jaeyeol standing behind me.
So we were destined to meet like this, huh.
I was pretty sure I was right.
This was the guy who'd been Yang Jaeyeol's right-hand man when Jaeyeol's group had harassed the protagonist's party in Yeouido.
"Kang Juhan."
"You're really something. I never even imagined you could use fire extinguishers like that."
"Not at all. We would've been in real trouble if you hadn't helped."
"By the way… did you come here because of the rescue helicopter?"
"Yeah."
"Ah…."
His expression darkened.
If I had to guess, it was one of two things.
Either the rescue helicopter never came back, or it crashed while carrying people out.
I hoped it was neither.
"What's wrong?"
"Ah… well…"
"Maybe we should sit down somewhere and talk? You all look exhausted…"
"S-should we?? This way, please."
I followed Kwon Suhyeok as he led us along with the others.
True to a residential-commercial complex, the second floor was all shops instead of apartments. We stepped into a restaurant still dotted with bloodstains that hadn't been fully cleaned.
"Have you eaten?"
"Yeah, we have. More importantly, can you tell us about the rescue helicopter?"
"Ah… the truth is, that video was filmed a week ago."
"……"
"What??"
"What do you mean by that??"
"So it was a lie?!"
Yang Jaeyeol's group got more worked up than I did.
They'd risked their lives coming all this way for that helicopter, after all.
"We didn't mean any harm! We just decided this place was safe… and we thought the survivors should band together as much as possible, so we uploaded the video…"
It was the woman who'd suggested we sit down and talk.
She was spinning it like their intentions weren't bad, but what they'd done was still selfish and completely inconsiderate.
"Did you not think at all about the people who might die trying to get here because they believed that video?"
"Ah….. th-that…."
"Or did you actually decide that was better?"
"…What? What do you mean…"
"Anyone who dies on the way here was never going to be useful anyway, and the ones who make it alive will be useful. People filter themselves out, so just upload the video and only take the ones who arrive. That way you don't waste food on the useless ones. Is that how you thought about it?"
"N-no!!"
"Kang Juhan-ssi! Absolutely not! Please don't put it like that!"
"If that's not it, then I apologize. Sorry."
From their side, what I'd said was genuinely offensive and rude.
But it made one thing a little clearer.
Even after hearing something like that, no one was showing real hostility—so the odds that they had bad intentions were low.
Of course, I still didn't know about those other people.
"Hey! You lot!! You actually went and brought people here?!"
"We told you we needed to join forces."
"Then go outside and buddy up with other people yourselves! Why the hell are you dragging them in here?!"
"Exactly!! And don't you dare come asking us to share food later! We're not giving you a single thing!!"
"No, while we're at it, let's divide the food properly right now! Just us, without those people!"
"Let's do that! You called them, so you handle feeding them yourselves!"
"And if those people cause any trouble, it's all on you. We won't just sit still then either."
"……"
The hostility was intense.
And the age gap between the two sides arguing was crystal clear.
Kwon Suhyeok's group that had taken us in was mostly people in their twenties and thirties. The hostile group over there was all forty and up.
That was probably the real reason these people had no choice but to split.
The younger ones had likely decided that zombies and quests meant this situation wasn't going to improve on its own, so they'd chosen to fight to survive.
But the older crowd over there had no choice but to pick the passive, safe approach.
Not because they lacked the courage or drive of the younger people—but because they had families they needed to protect.
"Ah, Dad…"
"What the hell?! Why are you here?! I told you not to leave the house!"
"Can't we just listen to what they have to say…? They're people who came from outside…"
"Listen to what?! Get back upstairs right now! Dad'll grab some food and come up!"
"This kid! This kid! What is wrong with these children?! Are none of you going upstairs?!"
"It's safe here anyway, right? And it's way safer for me to be walking around than Mom. If you run into a zombie, can you even get away? So you go home, Mom."
Anyway, looks like I was finally getting a quest like the ones the protagonist's party got.
Of course the difficulty would be no joke.
But…
This was already showing up?
Recapture the Underground Shopping Mall
Time Limit: 72:00:00
📍 On Success:
▶ Trust of the apartment residents
▶ Random Box granted
▶ Stat Points +2
📍 On Failure:
▶ Accelerated growth of ???