Deliver Us From Evil (8)
The man's words were hard to make out. All his teeth had been pulled out, so his pronunciation was a complete mess. Even so, terror had granted him the miracle of speech. It was to the point where I thought, I could probably be a cult leader at this level. Turning a mute into a chatterbox. As I rested my chin on my hand, wondering what kind of method the cult leader must have used to make that possible, my sister dragged a chair over to the doorway while holding her shotgun. I watched as she wedged the chair against the doorknob to keep it from opening, and the man kept talking.
As I listened to him…
“Tsk, maybe I killed the food-vending machine too quickly.”
I let out a dry laugh and glanced at the cult leader sprawled on the floor. The man who once owned the Shop and used it to farm easy power and expand his cult had met his end by becoming a machine that spat out random one-point items whenever it ate a human. I didn’t know the exact principle behind it, and I couldn’t really figure out the logical reason either. But ever since the cult leader turned into a zombie, the world went to shit, and that snake-like thing appeared in the parking lot, the believers had been regularly sacrificing people to create food.
Since there were quite a lot of one-point items, it was often a gamble, but if you got lucky you could score something solid like two kilograms of hardtack. The fact that radioactive waste sometimes got mixed in was something only I knew. To these insane cult freaks, it probably looked like some kind of biblical miracle of the loaves and fishes.
“Fucking idiots.”
At my low mutter, the man’s whole body shuddered violently. Call it the gap between beings. The idiot who had charged at me with a cleaver to avenge the cult leader only learned fear after his legs were broken and all his teeth were ripped out. Now that he knew his life depended on my mood, he just clutched the cult leader’s corpse and trembled nonstop.
I looked at the pathetic man with disdain before shifting my gaze to the woman collapsed beside him. Her figure and face were both excellent. And it was true that when she begged me, saying she’d do anything, it had been tempting. My face wasn’t bad, but in this cult there wasn’t a single idiot willing to try a secret relationship with someone of my personality. That was why I’d lived as a forever-alone virgin until now.
If my sister hadn’t killed her, maybe I would have enjoyed her once?
“Oppa, can I have this?”
“Huh? Yeah, sure. Take it.”
“Thank you! Oppa’s the best. I love you!”
For some reason, my sister was being even more exaggerated with her affection as she picked up the cleaver the man had dropped. Well, if I had invested in knife skills, I’d want to use that too. It even came with a sheath. Maybe I should look for something like a monomolecular dagger in the Shop later. I wonder if they have one.
“…What are you doing? Hand over the sheath already.”
I jerked my chin at the man, and he pissed himself on the floor as he offered up the sheath.
“Hey, here’s the sheath. Don’t stab yourself.”
“Got it~”
I couldn’t help but smile as I watched my sister take the sheath, slide the blade in, and hook it onto the belt of her jeans.
“You look like a total thug. Carrying around a cleaver and everything.”
“I’ve got a gun too, though?”
At my words, my sister lifted the shotgun and flashed a bright smile. I answered casually.
“Then you’re a gun-toting thug. Obviously.”
“In that case, should I call you ‘hyung-nim’ instead of oppa?”
“Are you crazy? Call me oppa.”
“Yes, hyung-nim!”
“Ugh, you insane girl.”
We siblings laughed and joked in front of the corpses. The man trembled even harder, as if even our warm atmosphere terrified him. But I could read the look in his eyes. He probably saw us as lunatics who could crack jokes after killing people and watching them die right in front of us.
But the truth was, I didn’t feel anything at all. It was a little bit of a shame, sure, but beyond that, nothing came to mind. It was the same as when I killed zombies. In a way, these people were basically zombies too. Especially when I remembered they were the root cause of the Rapture zombie outbreak. Even this felt too lenient.
Still, what now? I’d already squeezed out every bit of useful information. It felt wasteful to just leave like this, but staying here was too dangerous. Maybe I should…
I was pondering that when the doorknob suddenly turned.
“Hey, hey. Hyuk-jun! What’s taking so long?”
A man’s voice. My sister, standing by the door, gave me a look, and I glanced at the man who was apparently named Hyuk-jun. Even while staring at me in terror, a faint spark of hope flickered in his eyes. It was nothing important, but for some reason it pissed me off. I could already guess what was about to happen next.
Guys rushing in with weapons. Me against a hallway full of people trying to kill me, just like that scene from the movie Oldboy. How cliché. It’s a good movie, but in real life it’s just stale.
I grabbed Hyuk-jun by the throat and lifted him.
“Ghk, ugh…”
“Hey, Hyuk-jun! Hey! Did you get the food? What took you so long? What about Miss Se-hee?!”
There was clear impatience in the voice. Miss Se-hee had a hole drilled from her eye straight through her brain and was dead. The fact that these cult bastards still felt affection, friendship, or love for each other made my stomach turn. Not because it made me think oh, they’re human too, but because it made me feel sick.
Still gripping Hyuk-jun’s throat, I approached the door. My footsteps caused a commotion on the other side.
“Hyuk-jun? Why aren’t you answering? Did you turn into a zombie or something? Just open the door already…”
Click. Click. The door wouldn’t open. The knob turned like a key had been inserted, but it wouldn’t budge no matter how hard they pushed. My sister was sitting on the chair, blocking it. She wasn’t that heavy, but maybe it was because her Strength was only 4.
I stood in front of the door and thought for a moment. Hmm, should I leave the penthouse entrance intact? If the door stayed undamaged, I could probably sleep here comfortably or take a bath. I also wanted to clean up the corpses, but those could just be tossed out.
After thinking it over, I nodded at my sister. Kang Ahyeon lifted her butt along with the chair and scooted back with tiny steps. The door burst open.
What I saw when it opened was a man who looked like a gorilla. Ah, I recognized him. His name was… Kim Soo-hyun? Or was it the general affairs guy? Something like that. When he saw me, his eyes widened, then trembled when he noticed Hyuk-jun in my grip.
“You fucki—”
Before he could finish, my leg kicked him. Unrestrained power sent his body flying. Like a baseball thrown at full force, he slammed into the wall, dislodging chunks of concrete, then collapsed on the floor twitching.
I stepped past the penthouse entrance. My sister followed close behind me, sweeping the shotgun in every direction.
“Kang Ahyeon.”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t interfere.”
She looked puzzled but listened carefully to what I said. I glanced down at Hyuk-jun in my hand.
“Hey, Hyuk-jun.”
His body jerked. I looked at him and spoke.
“I don’t know if Kim Soo-hyuk is dead or alive, but he’s useless now. So it looks like you’ll have to suffer in his place.”
Dirty Hyuk-jun trembled and pissed himself again. I frowned slightly and threw him. He slid down the long hallway and collapsed in front of the stairs.
“Scream as loud as you can! You want to kill me, don’t you?! I killed the cult leader, crippled your legs, pulled out all your teeth! I killed Se-hee and fucked up Kim Soo-hyuk too!”
The fear slowly faded from his eyes, replaced by rising fury. I watched in silence.
“So scream your lungs out and tell them to come kill me!”
Poison filled Hyuk-jun’s eyes. Even with all his teeth missing, the bastard screamed just fine. Wow, he couldn’t talk for shit when I was extracting information earlier. His scream was half curse, half shriek. I casually rested the machete on my shoulder.
“Oppa…?”
I cracked my neck left and right.
“Only kill the ones with guns.”
My Agility was 7, and so was my sister’s. Even if the opponents had guns, I figured we could handle it to some degree. Unless they shot me without me noticing, but in this long hallway that would be difficult. In that case, there was no need to bother using guns here.
“…Ah, like Oldboy?”
Kang Ahyeon burst out laughing. There was no worry in her bright, clear smile. Oldboy, huh. She wasn’t wrong.
I loosened my shoulders while listening to the thunderous shouts. Soon, footsteps followed Hyuk-jun’s cries. They weren’t quiet footsteps. Because he was screaming at the top of his lungs, the sound was heavy and resonant. I loosened both wrists, then my ankles, doing something like warm-up exercises as I prepared.
These cult bastards—I’d hated them for a long time. My entire life had been ruined because of these sons of bitches, and the world itself had gone to hell because of these idiots. Beating them to death wouldn’t even be enough to feel refreshed. So…
It should be fine to discipline them a little. It should be fine to show them the difference in power.
It wasn’t just an impulse. There was calculation too. These fuckers needed to learn fear. They were the kind of idiots who offered their own people to the cult leader as food and played gacha with aunties for rice. So this was perfectly justified.
People were coming up the hallway. The elevator dinged as it stopped, and I heard footsteps climbing the stairs. Cultists pouring out of the elevator. Cultists reaching the fourteenth floor via the stairs. I roughly counted them with my eyes. Thirty-three in total.
After confirming the numbers with my right hemisphere, I faced them. The bastards who had rushed over to kill us stopped in their tracks when they saw us. The cult freaks holding tools hesitated when they saw me and Kang Ahyeon standing there relaxed, neither trembling in fear nor tense. Shock, disbelief, and denial flashed across their faces.
There were no guns. Well, even if I had a gun, I wouldn’t step forward first either. Bullets aren’t infinite. Instead, a variety of tools caught my eye. These bastards… don’t tell me they’ve been using these on people too? Why do their tools look like this?
I saw all kinds of sinister implements. Tools soaked in blood. Cleavers, axes, shovels with sharpened blades, and even practical weapons like baseball bats. I watched as they grew confused and didn’t charge.
They’re not coming. Maybe I should have dragged the cult leader’s corpse along after all.
Ignoring Hyuk-jun as he pointed at me, crying and screaming, I grabbed Kim Soo-hyuk by the hair and dragged him to the middle of the hallway.
“Uh, Soo-hyuk hyung-nim…”
Hyung-nim, huh. Nice.
I planted my foot on the guy’s head and dropped the machete in my hand to the floor. Their eyes followed the weapon in confusion. The moment their gazes were fixed on the ground—
CRUNCH!
I stomped down hard on Kim Soo-hyuk’s head.
“Aaa—”
His skull completely crushed into pulp. Scattered brain matter, droplets of blood, eyes bulging in horror, mouths hanging open. The hallway was dyed red and spread outward. Standing atop that blood, I spread both arms wide.
“Next.”
Shock turned to rage in an instant. As I watched their faces twist and their expressions flush crimson, I lowered my arms.
“……Kill that motherfucker!”
Only then did the cult bastards distort their faces and charge all at once. After hearing the screams directed at me, I finally smiled and raised my fist.