What God Desires (2)
The first building was markedly different from the second. It was obscenely luxurious. Even just walking down the hallway, you could tell where the money had been poured in. The lighting, for instance. Some ridiculously high-end fixtures. The corridor was finished in pristine marble, and the windows opened toward the well-landscaped mountainside. The interiors were probably the same. Even the number of units per floor was smaller than in the second building. Only four residences per floor. Just four. That meant each unit was enormous. It was unfair. Extremely so. But I no longer felt like getting angry about it. After all, the people who would have complained were already zombies with their heads split open by my machete. And soon enough, I would be collecting what was owed.
I crossed the unfamiliar first building, having been here only a few times before. Even while being guided, my sister and I never lowered our guard. There was nothing about these cultist bastards worth trusting. I kept my revolver trained on them despite not knowing how to shoot properly, while my sister followed with her shotgun raised. Considering her reaction speed, she didn't really need to aim, but the threat mattered. The people who had already seen what that shotgun could do led us forward with fear in their eyes.
We didn't take the elevator. Too cramped, too dangerous. If someone opened fire or charged with a knife the moment the doors opened, we'd be screwed. So we took the stairs down to the first floor, and there I realized it again. These bastards lived on an entirely different level from the second building.
"Damn. This is basically a hotel."
I'd never actually stayed in a hotel, but I knew what one was supposed to feel like from movies and comics. A massive lobby, a reception desk, and on the first floor, instead of residences, there were what looked like a security team office on one wing and recreational facilities on the other. A billiards room, a lounge area. The annex connected to it even had a bowling alley and screen golf. Most of the exits to the outside were blocked with furniture and proper barricades, but the overall impression remained that of a high-class lobby. It was absurdly extravagant.
"So where's the stuff?"
"Th-the security team's storage and the basement warehouse... We split it between them...."
Weapons were probably in the security team's storage. Made sense. I nodded at the security team member guiding us.
"Lead the way."
"Where to...?"
"Security team first. What good would weapons do in your hands anyway?"
I didn't know how many guns they had, but I wasn't immune to bullets either. This wasn't some martial arts world where I had an unbreakable body. Blades and blunt weapons could still hurt me. My increased strength might let me endure a bit longer, but only endure. So first, I needed to take their weapons away.
I followed the security team into their office. The moment the door burst open, I spotted the man standing beside it, knife in hand. I didn't need him to say what he was planning. The blade and body lunged straight at me, aiming to stab, twist, and drive the knife deep with his full weight. I reached out and grabbed his wrist. Strength surged through the captured arm, but I didn't get dragged along. Instead, I yanked him forward, twisting my body aside, and drove my elbow into his face.
Crunch! Blood sprayed, yet he didn't drop the knife. I seized the lapel of his suit jacket, yanked him back to expose his side, and drove repeated knee kicks into his ribs.
Crack, crack! Ribs shattered. Before the blood could even pour from his open mouth, I released his jacket, shoved him away, and clenched my fist.
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud! Even I was surprised by my own punches. The sound was nothing like a fist hitting flesh. A rapid combination of jab, straight, and hook left his body swaying before he collapsed. Calling it a pulp would be accurate. Seeing the trembling security team members, I slowly raised my foot so both the guide and the ones behind could see clearly.
Crunch! I stomped down and crushed his skull. Silence fell. The corpse stopped twitching thanks to its ruined head. I looked instead at the knife he had tried to stab me with.
[U.S. Marine Corps Standard Bayonet]
The information Insight provided. Even at a glance, it was clearly a tool made for killing people. These crazy bastards actually had something like this? It was ridiculous. I could tell they had been killing people long before the world went to hell. Real lunatics.
I clicked my tongue, kicked the body over with my foot, and unfastened the sheath.
"Kang Ahyeon."
"Yeah?"
"This is for you."
"...You could use it, though...."
"What the hell am I supposed to do with a tiny knife like this? It's for girls."
It was a statement that instantly reduced the U.S. Marines to girls, but the truth was that I preferred heavier blades like Chinese cleavers or machetes. Besides, a weapon like this suited someone with my sister's dagger skills better.
"And it's better than a sashimi knife or kitchen knife. Consider it an apology gift from that idiot for misunderstanding. Feels wrong for me to use it."
With the headless "idiot" silently agreeing, I brought the sheathed bayonet to my sister.
"...Mm."
Where to fasten it. The sheath had a belt-like strap meant to wrap around the thigh. The dead idiot had been wearing it on his thigh too. After a moment's hesitation, I approached my sister and knelt on one knee.
"You wear skirts a lot, so I'll put it here. You can adjust the position yourself later."
She was wearing jeans now, but over the past few days of basically living on the rooftop, she had often worn skirts. Dresses too. Not the best clothes for protecting her body, but she had worn a coat over them. More importantly, the knife was large. If I fastened it to a belt, it would be hard for her to draw. I wrapped the belt across her thick, soft thigh, and she spread her legs slightly. She was strangely quiet. Even when our eyes met, she didn't say anything. Feeling awkward, I patted her thigh, and only then did she burst into giggles.
"What?"
"Did you gain weight?"
"No way. How could I gain weight when I haven't even been eating?"
"Still feels bigger, though."
As I stood up while speaking, the security team could only stare blankly, unable to do anything but watch us.
"What are you doing? Keep guiding us."
When I spoke as if nothing had happened, they resumed leading the way. I could feel it working. Beating one man to death and crushing his skull hadn't required any real effort on my part, and showing no reaction or warning only made it more terrifying for them. If the cult leader had bought reverence through miracles from the Shop, then I would buy fear from these bastards with the skills and strength I'd obtained through my status window and looting.
Thanks to that, there were no more ambushes.
"Hey, there's some ammo here."
"Ah, put it in the bag! Wait, no. My pocket!"
"Put it in yourself."
"Hng, my hands are full holding the gun...."
"Can't you hold it with one hand?"
"It's heavy!"
A girl with Strength 4 complaining about weight was rich. With Strength 4, she could probably grab me by the collar and lift me up. Still, I gave in to her whining and put one 20-round ammo box into her bag while stuffing the other 20 rounds into her pocket. The thigh I felt through the pocket was warm and pleasant. Warm enough that I'd be able to stick my hands in when the weather got colder. But that wasn't important right now.
Leaving the office and following the guide down to the basement, I finally saw the preparations. Barricades lining the path to the underground parking lot, furniture stacked densely, and sheets covering the windows, probably to block the zombies' sight. Yet the underground swimming pool was still operating. While countless types of food were piled up like a giant freezer, I could clearly see things like hardtack. Supplies were abundant. Abundant enough that the cult leader didn't even need to feed people to him to extract food. Instead, I spotted dozens of packs of toilet paper and what looked like thousands of condoms that the cult leader must have bought after turning into a zombie. I could roughly guess what had been going on. Offering people as heretics to the cult leader was either to obtain supplies to change the situation or to prolong survival in this messed-up world. Still, I was a little curious. What would these bastards have done once they ran out of heretics to offer? Would they have started breeding babies to feed to the cult leader? Thinking that might have been the case, my sister and I finished exploring the basement.
"Oppa, oppa."
"Yeah?"
"Hey... can we take this?"
When we passed the swimming pool, my sister called me over and showed me something. It was a swimsuit. A frilly, bright white bikini. It looked a little small for her chest.
"Why that?"
"Um, umm, come here...."
When I brought my ear closer, she cupped her hands around it and whispered.
"I want to wear a swimsuit and take a half-bath in the penthouse. Can't I?"
A half-bath in the penthouse. I thought about it for a moment. The penthouse bathroom was huge. Practically a spa. Soaking in it while wearing a swimsuit... felt incredibly wealthy. A kind of luxury I'd never experienced in my life. Kang Ahyeon whispered again.
"Do you want to wear a swimsuit and get in with me?"
The world had ended. The Rapture brought by these idiots had destroyed it, and everything from before—lives, efforts, talents—had lost all meaning. Status? Class? Wealth? None of that mattered in an era where man-eating monsters roamed. Only strength was the true class. And in this first building, we were undeniably royalty.
"Let's do it."
Whatever we did here was our natural right. I nodded, and my sister smiled bashfully as she led me along.
"You guys can get lost now. Go die somewhere out there."
After driving away the guides, my sister and I picked out swimsuits together. There was only one swimsuit that fit her bust, but that didn't matter. We took the swimsuits we'd chosen side by side and headed back. I grabbed the pistol holster we hadn't managed to take from Choi Jaewook's corpse sprawled on the thirteenth-floor stairs, stepped over the bodies of the men I'd killed, and returned to the penthouse. To the cultist fanatics who had followed despite being told to leave, I threw the cult leader's split-open corpse and the woman's body.
"Hey, here's your beloved cult leader and his billboard. Do whatever you want with them."
Ignoring their dazed stares, I entered the penthouse with my sister and locked the door. The spa-style bathtub in the large bathroom on the side of the penthouse was waiting for us. We'd been working our asses off for a while, so it was time to rest. My sister and I changed into our swimsuits and headed to the bathroom.
*
In front of the enormous bathtub, larger than anything I'd ever seen in my life, my sister pulled out a hidden box. It was....
"Oppa, let's make water balloons with these and play!"
It was a box of 100 condoms.
"You crazy pervert."
I looked at my sister, who was grinning lewdly, with an incredulous expression.