Time Running Out
I had tried to enter Gongdeok Station once before.
Back when I received the quest to save Gihun, I planned to use the station to shake off the zombies I'd lured after me.
Of course, I failed.
I never even made it down the stairs into the station. Instead I clung to a roadside tree like a cicada and barely scraped through the crisis.
The reason was the same as now—too many zombies surging up from below.
"Kraaaagh!!!"
"Kraaagh!!!"
"Kraaaa!!!"
"Kraaaagh!!!!"
"Kraaagh!!!"
"Kraagh!!"
"Kraaaagh!!"
"Kraaaa!!"
"Kraaaaaaa!!!!"
All eight exits were the same nightmare.
No matter which exit I hovered the drone over, zombies came pouring up the stairs in a frenzied flood.
That meant if we wanted to reach Yeouido, the subway tracks were out of the question. We would have to cross a bridge—and to cross that bridge, we first had to rescue the women being held captive. Otherwise the quest would fail and the bridge would collapse.
"Battery's dead! I need to charge it!"
"Yeah, okay. Good work."
I watched the drone land safely, then headed down from the rooftop.
"Hey, Seongho."
"Yeah?"
"Did you get all of that recorded?"
"Yep. It's all on this SD card."
"Mind if I check the footage and give it back?"
"Sure thing~ But hyung... hang on a second."
He glanced at his father riding the elevator with us, then motioned me closer. I bent down to his height and brought my face near his.
(Hyung, you're leaving this place, right?)
(Yeah. Do you really have to ask that carefully?)
(Take me with you.)
"What??"
(Shhh..!!)
"......"
"Haha..."
I casually turned my head and locked eyes with Seongho's father. I gave an awkward smile and answered like a ventriloquist.
(No.)
(Why not?!)
(The odds of dying are high. I'm going in with half my life already on the line.)
(I'm going to die either way—trapped here or out there. If that's the case, I'd rather die trying something. I don't want to die like an idiot locked up in this place. And wouldn't you be in trouble without me?)
(......)
Pretty sharp kid.
He knew his own value perfectly well.
But I was already struggling enough dragging the girls around. Adding a middle-school boy to the mix was not happening.
So the moment he let his guard down, I snatched the SD card from his hand.
"I'll start with this."
"Hey! Give it back!!"
"I'll look at it and return it."
"It's mine! Give it here!! I'm not handing it over until you grant my request!!"
"Want me to tell him everything?"
"......"
This time Seongho turned his head. The second he met his father's sharp, watching eyes, he shrank into himself.
Once he understood the situation, he lowered his voice on his own.
(Cheap shot....!! Just look at it quick and give it back! I need to see it too..!!)
"You little brat!!"
"Aaagh! Why'd you hit me!!"
I was taking the SD card to use as a map. Seongho wanted it for the adult footage the camera had captured.
Though, damn—those bodies really were something else...
"Holy shit..."
"Whoa..."
"Insane..."
"Ah..."
"......"
"W-what the hell is this!!"
"Everyone stop looking! You perverts!!!"
"Why would you show us something like this?!"
"You absolute freak..!!"
I'd gotten too absorbed in the scene.
I quickly hit the spacebar on the laptop sitting on the living-room table and paused the video.
"Did everyone get the quest?"
"Quest??"
"What quest?? A sex quest?"
"Gihun oppa!!"
"What? He said quest, so I thought..."
They hadn't received it.
Even on the rooftop, I was the only one who got the quest.
It wasn't a black quest or a white one—just a regular blue quest. So why only me?
First things first: show them the quest.
"Everyone put a hand on me."
"On you?"
"I'll share the quest."
"Oh~ You can do that?"
"Quest share."
Now everyone could see the quest I'd received.
That didn't mean they had accepted it themselves. They were only looking at it.
"We can't take this quest??"
"Who knows. If you're lucky, you might get it once you move near the building with me or step inside."
"Ah..."
"We should've gone with you..."
"Right? If it's a random weapon box, we'd get weapons too!"
While Kim Jaemin and Lee Yeonghun fretted, I scrubbed the video forward.
"Ah..."
"There are so many zombies..."
"Whoa... no way we're getting in there."
After showing them the zombies pouring out of the subway exits, I rewound the footage.
"Okay. Now look at this."
"Why this??"
"Watch how the zombies move."
"How they move..?"
"They're following it."
"Exactly. Jaeyeol, you're the smartest one here after all."
"I am not?!"
"We're smart too! It's just these guys who are dumb!"
The girls bristled, but I kept talking without missing a beat.
"As you all saw, using the subway tracks is impossible. So if we want to reach Yeouido, we have no choice but to cross a bridge."
"You're planning to lure the zombies with the drone and move, right?"
"Correct. Spot on. But even that will be dangerous. We can't lure every single zombie. And before that, we have to complete the quest I just showed you. Otherwise the bridge collapses."
The rough plan was set.
Use the drone to draw the zombies away, then head for the apartment where the women were imprisoned. Complete the quest there, grab the weapons, rest and reorganize, then use the drone again to cross Mapo Bridge.
"S-so if we just have the drone, we can move safely..?"
"No. Like I said, the danger doesn't go away. At night the zombies react more sharply to sound, but it's daytime—luring all of them is impossible."
"Then why not move at night??"
"Darkness is a weakness for us too. If even one person bumps into something or kicks whatever's underfoot, every zombie out there will come running. And in the dark the drone could slam into a building and crash."
"Ah...."
"So when are we leaving..?"
"Now."
Leaving tomorrow or leaving today changed nothing.
In that case, moving sooner was better.
In this world, time really was money.
The inflection points where zombies grew stronger kept arriving, and people kept growing stronger too.
To survive in a world like that, I had to get stronger as well—and to get stronger, I had to clear quests.
Finish a quest as fast as possible, then take the next one.
That was the best way to raise your survival rate in this world.
Jihye, who had been completely drained and sleeping nonstop, finally woke up. We screenshot key frames from the video, transferred them to our phones, and built a map.
Han Nari finished packing her inventory—she'd left a little space for fire extinguishers earlier—with spare clothes, underwear, shoes, and the rest of our departure gear.
"You're leaving?"
"Yes. We're heading for Yeouido. Would you like to come with us?"
I hadn't asked anyone else, but I put the question to Kwon Suhyeok—the man who, in the webtoon, had been the right hand of the blackened Yang Jaeyeol.
Whether my presence had already twisted the story again, he declined lightly.
"I'll stay here."
"Understood. Ah—if you happen to have the capacity, could you try rescuing three ajummas at a nearby sauna? Once we're gone and you use the drone, it shouldn't be too difficult. No pressure, of course."
"If you give me the exact location, I'll do my best."
"Thank you. Once we reach Yeouido safely, we'll make sure to request a rescue helicopter for this place."
"Thank you."
After the revelation of Park Dokyeong's true nature and Kim Hyeonji's death, Kwon Suhyeok was still in a foul mood.
He felt cold enough that he almost seemed like a different person.
Surely he wouldn't blacken in Yang Jaeyeol's place and end up fighting the protagonist's party... right?
"Hyung.. I'm here..."
"Oh, you're here. Here's the SD card."
"......"
Watching him shuffle over with his father gripping the back of his neck, it was obvious he'd been caught trying to sneak off with us.
Not that I'd planned to take him anyway.
"Drones fully charged?"
"I swapped in fully charged batteries.."
"How much flight time does that give us?"
"We need time to come back too, so... depending on distance, about thirty-five to forty minutes.."
"Hmm.. time's enough. First let's exchange numbers. Call anytime something comes up."
"You could just take me with you..."
"Lee Seongho..!!"
"I'm not going! I said I'm not!!!"
After exchanging numbers with Seongho—who had clearly been caught trying to tail us in secret—I briefly explained the plan.
We would stay in constant real-time contact, of course.
Thankfully, we'd even been given something for that.
"I'll put these to good use."
"Not at all. Travel safely."
I slipped one of the wireless earbuds Kwon Suhyeok handed over—he'd seemed cold earlier, yet still offered them—into a single ear and dialed Seongho.
-Yeah~
"We're heading out now. Start."
-Yeah~
"You sulking?"
-Yeah~
"Ahem..! Sorry. And thanks in advance."
-Yeah~
Seongho was definitely sulking, but his curt answers didn't stop him from piloting the drone launched from the second floor with perfect precision, drawing the zombies inside the complex elsewhere.
We slipped out through the entrance Kwon Suhyeok's group opened for us and ran without stopping to our first waypoint.
The first waypoint was right next door—the pillars of the neighboring mixed-use apartment building.
"Seongho, we made it. Clear the road in front of us."
-Yeah~
The drone came in from the right, circling over the road directly ahead of us, pulling the zombies' attention, then drifted slowly back the way it had come and opened a path.
"I'm going first. Everyone do exactly what I do."
The words were barely out before I hunched low and sprinted toward the roadside.
I pressed myself tight against a taxi parked along the sidewalk and waved the others out from behind the pillar.
Gihun, Park Mingu, Jihye, Han Nari, Kim Jaemin, Kim Seonye, Lee Jeongyeon, Lee Yeonghun, Choi Huijin, and finally Yang Jaeyeol.
One taxi couldn't hide everyone, so we lined up against the cars in front and behind it as well.
-Still far?
"We're hugging the road now. Go past."
-At this rate the battery's gonna die~
"......"
The snide tone grated, but we were getting too much help to complain.
If he really got pissed and pulled the drone, we'd be in genuine danger.
Thud-thud-thud—
Thud-thud—
Thud-thud-thud—
Thud—
Thud-thud—
We slipped between the cars as quietly as possible.
Whenever zombies that had been wandering in the distance started drifting closer...
Whoosh!!!
I hurled one of the soju bottles we'd stashed in Han Nari's inventory far away.
CRASH!!!!
The bottle smashed against a car with a satisfying shatter. The zombies swarmed toward the noise, and in that gap we finished crossing the remaining stretch of road.
"Hoo..."
Instead of following the wide eight-lane road, we quickly cut onto the two-lane road running behind the buildings.
Whirrrrr!!!!
About twenty meters ahead, the low-flying drone started moving again and led the zombies away. We tailed it in secret.
We still had more than five hundred meters to cover this way.
The apartment where the women were imprisoned sat near Mapo Station.
But would this operation keep working all the way without any variables?
"Kraaa...!"
"......"
"......"
"......"
"......"
A single zombie ambled out of the underground parking entrance of the building beside us.
The first real variable. Everyone froze. I raised my hand slightly, then lowered it—signal to crouch.
I locked eyes with Yang Jaeyeol and gave a small nod.
He got it, right?
Thud!!
The instant the zombie turned away from us, I burst out from behind the car.
The moment it heard me and spun around—
Thunk!!!
I drove my entrenching tool into its throat so it couldn't scream.
You did understand, right?!
Shunk!!!
Thank god.
Yang Jaeyeol's kukri, right on my heels, punched through the zombie's forehead and out the back of its skull.
We carefully laid the silent corpse on the ground. I pressed the earbud that had slipped a little back into place and spoke.
"Check both sides. Any zombies?"
-Left is the main road, so it's packed. Right's only moderate.
"Then lure them right. We'll move with that."
-Yeah~ But time's almost up~
"What?"
-Only fifteen minutes left. Battery.
Twenty minutes already gone?
Shit.
We needed more speed.
We picked up the pace and, before the drone's battery died, managed to reach the rear of the target apartment.
But "managed" was the wrong word for what waited there.
Because....
SPLAT!!!!!!!
The second my eyes dropped, I clamped a hand over my mouth.
"Ugh..!!"
I'd killed people. I'd killed countless zombies.
Even so, the sight was so horrific it made me gag.
The ruined body that had hit the ground and burst open.
Then the thought of quest failure flashed through my mind, and the retching stopped cold.
"Fuck..!!"
I had to stop this.
I had to save them.
Or Mapo Bridge would come down.