The Reason for Pressing the Close Button
Honestly, I thought the idea that people like that even existed was an absurd premise.
But when I thought about it carefully, it wasn't entirely impossible either.
After all, humans will kill even their own families for it.
Money.
"Do you really think so? In a situation like this..."
"It's not that far-fetched~ Just imagine this whole mess getting cleaned up. Those people would be set for life."
"Even so..."
People so blinded by money that they couldn't see straight even after the world had gone to hell.
If things really did get sorted out the way Gihun said, it would be a genuine life-changing jackpot.
Of course, that was never going to happen.
"They're here."
At that short word, Gihun and Mingu, who had been chattering away in the back, and Suho and Jaeyeol, who had been wiping the blood off their spears and machetes with the clothes of dead zombies, all rushed over to the window where I stood.
Two military trucks, moving as quietly and slowly as they could manage, reversed into the underground parking entrance of the massive bank building.
One into the exit, one into the entrance.
With their canvas-covered cargo beds shoved deep inside, the two trucks killed their engines and came to a complete stop.
"Kraaagh!!"
"Kraaaaagh!!"
"Kraaagh!!"
"Kraaaaaaa!!"
"Kraaaagh!!"
The swarming zombies found themselves blocked by the trucks that fit the underground parking entrances like puzzle pieces. The two soldiers in the driver's and passenger seats casually rolled down their windows and lit cigarettes.
The chassis sat high enough that zombie hands couldn't reach them.
Every so often a zombie would plant a foot on the running board and shove its head toward a window, but—
Bang!
A short gunshot, and it toppled away in a spray of blood.
"Doesn't look like their first time doing this."
"Yeah..."
By now the soldiers who had climbed out of the covered cargo beds would be clearing the underground parking garage.
All so they could get into the bank and empty the vaults.
"Are we just going to keep watching?"
"Yeah, I thought we came for guns?"
"For now we just watch. When those trucks pull out again, if the zombies are stuck right on their tails, that's when we go in."
"What the hell does that mean?"
"We didn't come to snatch guns. We came to pick them up."
"Pick them up?"
The soldiers who looted the bank got massacred in truly gruesome fashion.
It wasn't a one- or two-time thing—it happened over and over.
Once the military couldn't afford to keep losing troops, they started throwing civilians into the operation.
And those civilians, success or failure, got eliminated by the soldiers afterward.
Because they had learned a secret they were never supposed to know.
As the civilians thrown into the operation kept dying day after day, people started voicing doubts and discontent over their deaths.
The protagonist's party, who had been racking up recognition and trust through one operation after another, were no different.
In the end they decided to tail the military trucks heading for the bank job, and they uncovered the dirty secret the soldiers had been killing people to hide.
As a bonus they got a quest to kill the horrific monster and walked away with a fat reward on top of it.
That became the catalyst for the protagonist's party to go to war with the military and leave Yeouido for good, wrapping up the long Yeouido arc.
But that was still a long way off.
The protagonist's party had only arrived in Yeouido with us yesterday, so they wouldn't get tangled up in the bank operation until they'd cleared at least five or six more quests.
"So why do the zombies have to be stuck right on the trucks' tails?"
"If they loot the bank, they've got to load the cash or gold onto the trucks, right?"
"And?"
"You want to load it while doing a buddy-buddy dance with the zombies?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Ah!! If the operation succeeds, there won't be any zombies stuck to the departing trucks. If there are zombies stuck to the trucks, that means the operation failed. Right, Hyung?"
"See, Jaeyeol, this is why you're the smartest one. What the hell was I expecting from a caveman."
"You little—! Then just say it that simply from the start!!"
"So if the soldiers fail the operation, we go pick up guns, and if they succeed, we wait for the next chance?"
"Exactly."
"But how did you even know the soldiers were going to hit the bank?"
"......"
Suho's sharp question put me in a bit of a tight spot, so I vaguely claimed I'd seen something similar in a foreign zombie drama.
"Ha... You're seriously reckless... You came all the way out here just on something you saw in a drama?"
"Well, it's not that dangerous a gamble."
We weren't in some secured second-floor building right now.
We were about three hundred meters away from it.
In a building that let us keep an eye on several nearby banks at once.
And it was a good thing we'd moved fast.
"Hyung!"
"Zombies stuck to the back!"
"The way they're peeling out, it definitely looks like a failure, right??"
"What are we doing?"
"What do you mean, what? We're going to pick up guns."
The two trucks that had been plugging the parking entrances lurched into motion and tore down a road that was too wide to really call an alley.
That movement pulled every zombie pouring out of the underground garage—and the ones behind the bank building—right after them.
Even the zombies that had been in the lobby of our building on the first floor.
Thanks to that, we slipped into the bank building's underground parking almost bloodlessly.
Unfortunately the rear door was locked up tight.
"Kraaagh!!"
"Kraaaaagh!!!"
"Kraaagh!!"
"......"
Even so, once we got down into the underground parking, zombies were everywhere.
We hid behind cars and waited for the agitated ones to scatter.
(Do you even know where the bank vault is?)
(......)
(Don't tell me you came without knowing that either??)
(......)
I barely swallowed a cough and looked around.
And there it was.
A trail of dead zombies laid out like Hansel and Gretel's breadcrumbs.
The problem was that the agitated zombies, failing to find fresh prey, had dropped to the floor and started devouring the corpses of their own kind.
It was a fine natural law that kept this world from drowning in dead zombie bodies—but right now that same law had made us lose the trail.
Still, it was fine.
Where the zombies had been stripped to the bone, red pools of blood and the belongings the dead soldiers had left behind remained.
"Hyung."
"Check the ammo pouches and pockets too. There might be magazines."
"Got it."
"Hey, over here."
Not a bad start.
Once the zombies that had finished stripping the corpses scattered enough, we started moving again and immediately scored one rifle and two magazines packed with rounds.
In front of the elevators we picked up another rifle and one more magazine.
"How do you know which floor, though?"
"When you fight zombies, what ends up all over you?"
"What ends up—? Blood, obviously."
"Right. Blood."
"Ah... fuck, when did you get this smart?"
"I've always been smarter than you."
We stepped into the elevator and pressed the button smeared with blood.
And true to form for Koreans, the close button was absolutely caked in bloodstains too.
Being Korean myself, I hammered the close button like I was at an arcade.
The doors are opening.
At the automated announcement, everyone tensed up and watched the doors part, ready for a fight.
But it was strangely quiet.
"......"
"Hyung, I'll get off first."
"Mingu and Gihun, cover us from behind."
I left Mingu and Gihun with the guns inside the elevator and stepped out first, entrenching tool in one hand and hatchet in the other.
Suho and Jaeyeol followed right behind me, and finally Mingu and Gihun came out after them.
"It's unpleasantly quiet..."
"Yeah... this doesn't feel like a place that should be quiet..."
"Both of you shut up with the creepy talk..!"
"L-let's just grab the guns and get out of here..! This place seriously gives me the creeps...!"
"......"
The stench of blood hit my nose. Bloodstains everywhere.
At least five rifles lay scattered around, but not a single corpse was in sight.
Had the zombies already finished eating and moved on?
No.
Even then, helmets, combat boots, uniforms—those should still be left with the guns.
Staying as alert as possible, I started collecting the fallen rifles first.
It was a shame we hadn't secured extra magazines, but it looked like we'd have to settle for this and leave.
Like the kids said, this place felt too wrong, too ominous.
Grab—
Drip— drip-drip—
When I picked up the last rifle on the floor, the sticky blood coating it dripped onto the ground.
Had I misunderstood the webtoon?
Was it not that the monster only showed up when the protagonist's party tailed them—had that thing been attacking the soldiers and civilians every single time?
Or was there more than one of those monsters?
Plop—
A chill ran straight down my spine.
Something had just dripped onto my head.
Something thick and disgustingly sticky.
Slowly—
I pulled back the hand that had been reaching for the entrenching tool and hatchet I'd set down to pick up the gun.
Then I gripped the rifle hanging from its sling around my neck and felt for the selector with my left hand.
The raised portion was rotated toward the muzzle.
Full auto.
My heart hammered like it was about to explode.
But I couldn't tense up.
The Mutant had been the same.
The earlier it appeared, the weaker it was.
This thing wouldn't be any different.
And right now I had a gun in my hands.
So...
"Die!!!!"
TATATATATATATATATATAT!!!!!
I raised the muzzle and squeezed the trigger straight at the ceiling.
I didn't hold the barrel still—I swept it wildly back and forth.
Startled, Gihun flattened himself on the floor. Mingu crouched and threw both arms over his head.
I had no idea what Suho and Jaeyeol behind me were doing.
But that didn't matter.
Thud!! Thud-thud!! Thud-thud! Thud!!!
Because the gunfire that emptied the magazine had started bringing things down from the ceiling.
The soldiers' corpses we hadn't been able to see.
"H-Hyung...!"
"Juhan..!"
"Fuck, why the hell did you— aaagh!!!"
"U-uaaaagh!!!!"
Gihun and Mingu, spotting the bodies late, screamed.
But this was no time for that.
"Everyone run!!!!!"
"Gihun!"
"Mingu!!"
Suho and Jaeyeol shot out to either side of me, dragged Gihun and Mingu by the arms, and piled into the elevator.
I dropped the empty rifle, scooped up another gun that had fallen with the corpses, and sprinted for the elevator.
Now I understood.
Why the close button had been so thick with bloodstains.
It wasn't because they were Korean.
It wasn't because they were Korean....!!
Whoosh—
It was to get away from that thing.
To escape the monster that looked like something straight out of Alien.
"Kyaaaaaaaaaagh!!!!!!"
"Shoot!!!!!"
TATATATATATATATAT!!!!!
TATATATATATATATATATAT!!!!!
TATATATATATATATAT!!!!!