But Deliver Us from Evil (3)

My body hurt. Waking up feeling refreshed was rare enough, but today was especially brutal. My muscles throbbed, my bones ached, and even my head pounded like I was running a fever. Everything felt wrong. I lay in bed. The sky outside was dark, the room was dark, and my throat was parched. I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had no memory of how I’d gotten here. The last thing I remembered was hazy at best. Right… I’d run into that variant on the roof, tried to escape, and then—

“You fucking snake bastard—! It’s dinner time—!”

“Run, you sons of bitches.”

“Come at me, you piece of shit.”

Ah. That’s right. I’d summoned the snake, tried to use it to my advantage, failed, and ended up running for my life. I’d thrashed and fought with everything I had. In the end I fell to the sixth floor, kept fighting, and then Ahyeon fired the shotgun and sliced through its neck. That was how we barely won.

Once the memories returned, only one thought surfaced.

How the hell did I get here?

What about the snake? Had it given up? Or had we somehow shaken it? Even if we had, how did I get pulled out of that sixth-floor death trap? I couldn’t remember any of it.

I rolled my unfocused eyes across the familiar mattress and the familiar body heat beside me. It was Kang Ahyeon.

“Oppa…”

She was glued to my side, arm wrapped around my waist, cheek rubbing against my shoulder. My body was half-naked. Makes sense—after all that blood and those wounds. Wounds?

“Ugh.”

“What? Where does it hurt?”

The moment I tried to sit up, pain lanced through me like ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠electricity. My breath caught. As I groped at my body, Ahyeon rubbed her eyes beside me.

“Oppa… are you awake now?”

Kang Ahyeon. My sister. The same girl who had somehow fired ten rounds from a shotgun that should have been empty straight into the Preacher. She stretched luxuriously, shirt riding up to expose her stomach. I reflexively tugged it back down.

“Eung.”

She didn’t say anything, but she gave me a bright, knowing smile. It had always been like this. Of course, we didn’t need to worry about prying eyes anymore, but old habits die hard. Call it the big brother instinct to look after his sloppy little sister. In exchange, I sucked in a breath as fresh pain raced along my nerves and lay back down. I’d thought the wounds were gone, but apparently not. The throbbing felt suspiciously like fractures. Considering the shit I’d pulled, ending up with nothing worse than broken bones was lucky. I stayed obediently in bed and suffered.

Ahyeon stuck close to my side again, pressing her cheek to my shoulder. Strangely, it hurt a little less that way. What was it—oxytocin from hugging? Or was it dopamine? Was that why the pain eased? Even with so many questions swirling, I stayed still for the sake of recovery.

I didn’t know how much time had passed, but my condition was noticeably better than when I’d lost consciousness. Had a lot of time gone by? Yet my basic needs didn’t feel too bad.

“Hey, Kang Ahyeon.”

“Mhm.”

“How did I get here?”

Her eyes widened—round, almost eerily so.

“I was definitely on the collapsed sixth floor, in 606… The entrance was blocked, so I couldn’t get out. How did I end up here… Is this our place?”

I had lost consciousness in a sealed sixth-floor room with no way up or out. Yet somehow I’d been carried to the seventh floor, avoided the enraged snake, made it all the way to the eighth, and returned to 807. Since there was no way I could have moved on my own, Ahyeon must have done it. But how?

It was honestly impossible. To my question, Ahyeon answered without missing a beat.

“Oppa, I tore up the bedsheets, made a rope, and climbed up. Don’t you remember?”

She lied with a straight face. I wanted to call her out, but I didn’t. I’d recently learned my sister had a shady side. Not that she was an enemy or too dangerous to keep around, but it was probably better to play along with her little WWE performance.

“What kind of bullshit is that? You were beat to hell and passed out. How could you climb anything?”

“Hing, but it’s true.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

She looked at me like I was being ridiculous, but I wasn’t entirely serious either.

“So anyway, what happened? How did I get back in the room?”

“Oppa held my hand and we went down the emergency stairs… No, that’s not it… Ah, we climbed the rope from the seventh floor, sneaked past the snake really quietly, and came home.”

“…At least try to make it believable.”

“I did try.”

“Sure.”

Yeah, I’d already guessed. There was zero chance I’d woken up on my own, overcome it with superhuman willpower, and crawled back to bed. More accurately, Ahyeon had somehow made it happen. I could tell just from what she’d wrapped around my body.

“Sanitary pads, huh.”

She’d layered bandages over the worst bleeding areas with a sanitary pad. There wasn’t a splint, but I didn’t feel any misalignment or catastrophic damage. Had my body grown stronger along with the stat gains? I’d never had separate ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠durability or endurance stats, though.

“But why sanitary pads of all things?”

“Why, does it bother you? They’re mine.”

“Mom used them too. It feels weird.”

“Still, nothing’s cleaner than these.”

She let out a little “hing” and leaned her head on my shoulder. She smelled good—body wash, mixed with her own unique scent. Something citrusy and floral, like apricots. The fact that I noticed at all was because I hadn’t washed yet.

“I used them for emergency first aid, okay?”

She deliberately lisped cutely and buried her face in my forearm. I rolled my eyes at her. There were way too many impossible things. How had she fired ten rounds from an empty shotgun? How had every shot hit? How had she carried her much heavier older brother all the way back? Plenty of things didn’t make sense… but then again, the whole world ending because of zombies didn’t make sense either. Considering the snake bastard’s majesty and power, I could accept other variants being half as ridiculous.

“…Maybe I should offer the snake some kind of tribute later.”

“Euueng, but it’s a monster?”

“I know, but… at this point it’s starting to feel a little…”

“Yeah, it is kind of cute.”

“Are you insane? Don’t cross that line.”

Even when I put on a straight face, she just giggled without a care. Still, some things were simply wrong. No matter how you looked at it, that form wasn’t sane. I hadn’t had a proper look before, but it was like dozens—maybe hundreds—of humans fused together. The red color came from constantly dripping blood. Inside its gaping maw were arms. An obvious monster. I called it Snake Daddy for now, but if the chance came, I’d have to deal with it. Even if it was the kind of monster that left you completely clueless on how to fight it.

When I sighed, another spike of pain made me catch my breath.

“If the sanitary pad bothers you, you’d get mad if you knew how Ahyeon fed you, huh?”

She suddenly spoke up, rubbing her cheek against my bare shoulder. I narrowed my eyes at her.

“Do you like it when I get mad?”

“Yeah.”

An instant answer. I had no idea why she was like this. She’d been this way since we were kids. Even when I accidentally gave her a nosebleed for clinging too hard, the moment I hugged her she’d stop crying and laugh with a big grin. She was a strange girl. Anyway.

“Ah, you smiled.”

“No I didn’t. I laughed because it was ridiculous.”

Even when I clicked my tongue she didn’t back off. Still wearing her camisole and dolphin shorts, she draped her leg over my body.

“So how did you feed me?”

I was genuinely curious. Had she made porridge or something? Using instant rice for that would’ve been a waste. When I asked—

“I chewed it up really well in my mouth and then fed it to you mouth-to-mouth.”

“That’s gross.”

“So mean.”

“Our lips didn’t touch, right?”

“They did. A lot.”

“Stop bullshitting.”

Instead of answering, Ahyeon just beamed. I had no choice but to believe it wasn’t that bad. It was a shame I couldn’t even lift my arms properly to push her face away.

“So how long has it been since I got back?”

“One day!”

“…One day?”

Maybe the stat increase had boosted my recovery too. These injuries shouldn’t have healed in a single day. Or had Ahyeon done something else? Either was possible. Maybe both. But I couldn’t keep throwing my body around just because of that. Fighting the Preacher had hammered that lesson home. If Ahyeon had been even a second slower, my skull would’ve been crushed or my neck snapped. One wrong judgment and I would’ve died with a hole in my body or become another Kang Hyun splattered on the ground. It had been far too close.

Taking risks like that wasn’t the right move in the apocalypse. Take it easy, slow life, safety first—whatever you called it, that had to be the priority. This time I couldn’t avoid it, but there was no guarantee I’d survive the next time. At the very least, I needed the strength, tools, and methods to handle situations like this.

And I knew the method was right in front of me.

My eyes drifted to the sharp carbon-steel machete. I had created it with the temporary skill, Synthesis. Skills clearly had definite value. While Ahyeon supported my arm so it wouldn’t strain, I opened my status window.

The numbers in parentheses seemed to be the original values, while the ones outside were current. And from those current numbers, it was clear the skills I’d gained were giving me some kind of stat correction. When I gained Running, my Strength was 6 and Agility 5. After getting Advanced Combat, Strength, Agility, and Perception rose by 3, 2, and 3 respectively. In that sense, the Preacher had been an excellent teacher. I closed my eyes for a moment of silence to honor my master.

Of course, there was the minor flaw that he’d become a zombie despite having Master-rank Combat skills. Still, I was a man who respected his teacher. A flaw like that was nothing.

Next, I looked at the plundered skills.

The glowing words “Combat - Advanced.” I’d wondered where the ranks split, and a tooltip appeared.

He was basically a max-level martial artist. Preacher, just who were you?

I suppressed the mixture of admiration and horror and carefully examined Combat. The explanation unfolded as if it had been waiting.

Combat was just as good a skill as Running. It seemed like it could be further divided into boxing, judo, and so on, but even while my body ached and felt like it had cracks everywhere, knowledge flooded my mind. Right now, I felt confident that even if Ahyeon suddenly attacked me with a knife, I wouldn’t die. With that realization, I had no choice but to accept it while reviewing the battle.

From now on, I shouldn’t invest in raw stats—I needed to invest in Plunder. Maybe even in Insight.

I took one of the two points I’d earned from defeating the Preacher and invested it into Plunder.

Tch, a little disappointing. Still, it couldn’t be helped. At this rate, the next level would let me cleanly plunder Intermediate skills, then Advanced, Master, and finally Expert. The notification followed.

It would be tough, but whatever. Stealing skills that others worked hard to cultivate—paying this much was only fair. It gave me a good reason to hunt zombies diligently.

I rolled my eyes toward Insight to spend the last remaining point. If Plunder was this valuable, then Insight—which I’d ignored because the name sounded weak—had to be worth something too. I stared at Insight, which had loyally stayed in my status window like a faithful first wife, and boldly invested the point.

There were no levels for Insight. But nothing else appeared either. What? Lame.

While I rolled my eyes in disappointment and looked at my sister out of habit, new text filled my vision.

I froze at the flood of text that filled my entire field of vision.