The Return

Through a haze of fading consciousness, I drifted slowly back into the world. My body was still heavy and dull, but bit by bit I began to register what was around me.

Pain throbbed through every inch of me, yet a warm body and a soft touch wrapped around me and made it strangely comfortable.

Water... water...

Parched, I reached out on reflex, groping for something to drink.

Soft. Yielding.

Huh?

What my hand closed on wasn't water. It was something plump and giving.

What the hell is this?

I squeezed. It gave again, warm and full.

"Hnn—!"

Half-conscious, I kept feeling it. Round, soft, and absurdly pleasant under my palm—and somewhere close, a moan that was just as pleasant to hear. I kneaded away at that wonderful something until a low, growling voice cut through the haze.

"If you're awake and doing that on purpose, you're dead. You hear me?"

Kang Hanna's threat snapped me rigid. Only then did I understand what my hand had been on. That soft, springy give. That size. Without even knowing it, I'd been groping Kang Hanna's chest.

I yanked my hand back and laughed, awkward as hell.

"Uh... sorry. I wasn't all there..."

Color flooded her face. Anger and mortification warred in her eyes.

"Right. So out of it you just had to keep kneading them for ten whole minutes?"

"What? Ten minutes?"

My eyes went wide.

Ten minutes? Had I really been at it that long? My head spun. On one hand I was stunned she'd said nothing the entire time. On the other, it was a damn shame I couldn't properly remember how they'd felt.

"Nnngh... those milk jugs."

"You crazy bastard! I try to let it slide and this is what I get!"

She dumped me.

"Ow!"

Whether my mouth had finally done it or not, Kang Hanna—who'd been carrying me on her back—simply let go. My back slammed into hard asphalt, and pain like a current of electricity ripped through my whole body.

"Ugh..."

I rubbed my ass, groaned, and barely clawed my wits back together. Hanna's furious face filled my vision. For a second I could have sworn sparks were jumping off her eyes.

"You look fine now, so walk on your own two feet!"

She was already striding off before the words had finished leaving her mouth, anger and irritation rolling off her back in waves. I just lay there on the ground and stared after her, blank.

The old man from the hardware store came up beside me and offered a hand, a warm smile on his face.

"Heh heh. You all right? Say, now..."

Come to think of it, he didn't even know my name.

"Park Dohyun."

I took the hand he held out, got to my feet, and gave it to him.

"Good to meet you. Name's Jang Sangcheol. Much obliged! I'd be dead if it weren't for you."

"Don't mention it."

I shrugged it off. The truth ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was, the moment I'd laid eyes on him and checked his stats, they'd been more than good enough. I'd already been thinking of keeping him alive and bringing him in.

The numbers were absurd. His bad ankle and his age were probably why his stamina sat at Low, and even so the rest of the sheet was outstanding. I couldn't begin to guess what kind of body he'd had when he was young. And that special ability—Blacksmith—had my attention all on its own.

Jang Sangcheol went on.

"Heh heh. And don't you go holding a grudge against Hanna. You have any idea how worried she was when you passed out? Crying, calling your ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠name like her heart was about to split."

I stared at him.

"Seriously? That Kang Hanna?"

He smiled and nodded.

"I'm telling you. The second you went under, she was practically dancing in place, not knowing what to do with herself. 'What do I do, don't you die!' Even I felt sorry for her, watching that."

I stopped for a moment and looked at Hanna's back as she walked ahead. Her stride still carried plenty of anger, but there was something uneasy in it too, if you knew to look.

"Mr. Jang! Quit the useless chatter and hurry up!"

She shouted it back at us, face already red, as if she'd caught every word.

"Heh heh. Best we get a move on."

So we picked up the pace.

Talking with Mr. Jang as we walked, I finally understood why Hanna had hauled me out on her back. While I was unconscious the mutant in the store had been dealt with, but zombies—fewer than before, still too many—had kept pouring in, and the barricade was already smashed. She'd decided there was no point staying and carried me toward my house.

Hearing that brought the mutant back to mind, the one that had torn the barricade apart. I hadn't expected it to be that strong. Sure, the barricade had been a crude pile of desks and display racks, but I still hadn't thought a fist could punch straight through it.

I wondered, briefly, whether it could break the wall around my house too. Then I set the thought aside. Even that shoddy barricade had only given way after repeated blows. A solid brick wall wouldn't come down so easily.

And stacked up against that other one...?

A powerful mutant. The thought pulled up the Lower-Body Collector I'd run into at the apartment.

I hadn't fought that thing, so I couldn't say for certain, but the System had named it a boss. This store mutant had carried no such title, which meant it was the weaker of the two. That alone told me just how nasty the apartment's monster really was.

Oh, right. I finished the quest, didn't I? There was something else after that...

The system window I'd half-seen just before I blacked out came back to me, and I opened it.

That was as far as the window had gone while I was still clinging to consciousness. I scrolled down and read what came next.

The rewards were enough to make my eyes roll back in my head, but it was the achievement text that actually caught me. Anyone could see it was written to mock me. I just stood there, dumbstruck.

I didn't need to kill it?

My mouth hung open as the thought turned over.

What the hell does that mean—an opponent I didn't need to catch?

That opponent was almost certainly the mutant.

What is this even saying?

Still chewing on it, I picked the quest apart line by line until one sentence jumped out at me.

Survive the endless tide of zombies! Survive for one hour.

Son of a bitch. That's what it was.

The quest hadn't been to hold the position. It had been to survive. Which meant that if I'd simply run from the mutant and ridden out the remaining time, the quest would still have cleared.

After that thing showed up, the zombie count dropped. I could have just fled!

The mutant had been killing as it advanced, and the rest had scattered to get out of its way, so their numbers had thinned hard. On top of that, its strength was exceptional, but its mobility wasn't anything special—and it had appeared when there wasn't much time left on the clock.

Haah... I did something stupid.

The back of my head went hot at the realization that I'd cleared a quest the dumb way when there had been an easy one sitting right there.

Still. I got the rewards. I'll take that as consolation.

It still burned, knowing the death match I'd staked my life on hadn't needed to be a death match at all. But I'd been paid in kind for it, and once I framed the whole mess as something that hadn't been useless, the burn settled.

All right. Let's crack these rewards open.

I rubbed my hands together, expectation flooding in, opened the System, and hit claim.