Serpent Hunt (3)
“Oppa~”
It wasn’t without regret. What if I’d had some insane power, some superpower that let me crush the serpent without collapsing the entire building? That kind of lingering thought. The time we’d spent in the penthouse really had been decent. The massive bathtub, the cutting-edge facilities, and above all, the simple fact that electricity and a water purification system still worked meant everything. My sister could soak in her beloved half-baths whenever she wanted, and I got to taste the comforts of civilization for the first time in months. Hell, maybe the first time in my entire life.
The cult leader’s quarters had a decent library of saved movies and documentaries. My sister and I binge-watched everything we could find. Films we’d only ever heard mentioned, or ones whose titles we’d never even known. It was fun. So much so that I actually wondered if we should put off hunting the serpent bastard a little longer.
But we still killed it. The penthouse was reduced to rubble. The home we’d lived in, every place we’d stayed—everything we knew became debris. And I gained a new skill: Greed. I still didn’t know exactly what traits I could steal, but I now had a way to take them. If it only worked on the traits variants possessed, it didn’t seem all that useful. But if it could take traits from people too—
“Oppa?”
“…Yeah. What?”
“Are you okay? No injuries?”
“Are you kidding? Do I look that weak to you?”
I put on an irritated face, but my sister saw right through the lie. She simply widened those big eyes and stared at me in silence, waiting for the real answer. It was her way of saying she knew I was full of shit.
“Of course I’m fucked up. A lot.”
“That’s what I thought.”
She beamed, that bright, innocent smile of hers. Together we looked out over the wreckage that was now little more than a crawling mound of concrete and rebar. It sucked that after a fight like this there was nowhere comfortable to rest, but it couldn’t be helped. I couldn’t think of any other way to kill that serpent. If we hadn’t had the explosives, we wouldn’t have even tried—we would’ve just figured out how to run.
“Want me to look at your wounds?”
“Sure.”
“Call me noona and I will.”
“Cut the bullshit.”
When I scowled, she finally let out a soft giggle and began checking me over.
“…Still, not everything was wiped out.”
Most of the place had been swallowed by the explosion and collapse, but the foundations weren’t completely gone. The ladder leading down to the bunker remained, along with a small section of the basement and the vehicles parked outside. One of them even had keys in it. A plain truck—not a supercar or sports model, but those were mostly in the underground garage anyway. At our current level, where we couldn’t even fight the serpent one-on-one, those flashy cars weren’t worth coveting. There were probably plenty of intact supercars out there in the world. They just weren’t the right choice for us right now.
I watched my sister purse her lips while she examined a particularly nasty gash.
“Mmm, disinfecting here is going to be a pain…”
“Then go bring the truck over. I’ll grab the food. You know how to drive, right?”
She looked momentarily flustered, then closed her eyes and clasped her hands together. A sudden, sneaky prayer.
Intermediate Dagger Mastery
Basic Stealth
Advanced Shooting
Novice First Aid
Novice Bayonet Technique
Basic Explosives
The status window for my sister floated up at the same time. She really was trying. She didn’t even bother explaining anymore; she just accepted that I could see it and watched the numbers shift.
…
Basic Driving
So the quest rewards really were shared through Resonance. She slowly opened her eyes and glanced at me, gauging my reaction. I pretended not to care. She fidgeted, watching me.
“The food…”
“It’s in the bushes where you came from, right? I’ll get it.”
She dashed off toward the truck. I walked slowly across the debris. With parkour, climbing, and decent physical stats, navigating the ruins wasn’t hard. Still, walking over the place I’d lived my whole life felt strange.
I’d been born and raised in this damned apartment complex. My very existence had been the result of the cult leader wanting a new concubine, so it made sense, but I had no memories of anywhere else. Every part of my life had belonged to the cult. Seeing it all ground to dust was oddly satisfying, yet it left me with a vague sense of unease. On the other hand, it also felt like I was now completely, utterly free.
What should I do from now on?
I found the food stashed in the undergrowth, wrapped it in sturdy canvas, and loaded it into the truck bed where my sister had left the engine running.
“Oppa.”
There was no need to worry too much. A healthy body makes for an easy mind, and my body was in excellent shape. Besides, I had my sister with me.
“What are we going to do now?”
After I climbed into the truck, she wrapped bandages around the cuts on my palms and body, disinfecting them carefully. Then we reclined the seats and lay side by side, talking.
“I don’t know. Where should we even start?”
Freedom was nice, but it was also nerve-wracking. We could do whatever we wanted, but the sheer openness of it made it hard to decide what to do first. Should we gather more food and water? Medicine? Or… should we go after the things we’d always wanted to do?
Nothing concrete came to mind. As I mulled it over in vague anxiety, I looked at my sister.
“Can’t we take our time thinking about it?”
She took my hand and smiled brightly.
“No matter what we do, Ahyeon wants to do it with you, Oppa.”
“…You say the creepiest shit so naturally.”
“It’s because I have affection deficiency. If you spoil me a lot, maybe I’ll get better.”
“Don’t even dream about it.”
I chuckled softly and settled back comfortably. There weren’t many choices anyway. I glanced out the window at the hazy buildings in the distance. The direction facing Building 1 of Sion Mountain Fortress—the place we could never have crossed before because of the serpent.
The New Heaven Rapture Mission Church’s village. Gucheon Village. It was called a village, but it was the size of a decent small city. It had a large hospital, elementary, middle, and high schools, even a university. Residential districts, every kind of cult-run franchise imaginable—it had been a perfectly isolated little city all its own.
If we were going to leave Sion Mountain Fortress and survive, we’d have to pass through there. I had no idea what quests, what zombies, or what kind of humans might be waiting for us.
At least there would be something to keep us entertained.
I decided to rest with my sister and closed my eyes.
It was just another day.
The survivors of Gucheon Village witnessed the catastrophic collapse of Sion Mountain Fortress. It was a shocking sight. The fortress had not been built to crumble so easily. It was a symbol. The cult’s preparation, a stronghold meant to endure the Rapture. Even after the Rapture had actually occurred, their faith had remained unshaken.
The only problem had been the monster that prevented ordinary believers from approaching. The ‘serpent.’ Whether that was the right name for it, no one knew, but ever since someone first called it that, everyone else had followed suit. It was a monster in the truest sense. Countless arms and legs, a long tongue made of even more arms extending from its mouth. If it grabbed you, every bone in your body would shatter before you were swallowed whole. No one who had been eaten had ever returned. No one had ever crawled out alive from inside it.
In the beginning, when ordinary believers had gathered to reach the cult leader, how many had died? Even then the leader had not stepped forward. Some claimed it was another of the leader’s tests, but after so many challengers died en masse, no one said that anymore. They didn’t have the luxury.
It was the Rapture, after all. Countless humans died, and the things that refused to stay dead ran wild. Survival had become a cheap joke. Factions? There was no such thing. Some people struggled to survive with their families, while others wandered alone. She was the same.
She wanted to live. Like everyone else, it was simple human instinct. At the same time, she was curious. She needed to know why the building had collapsed. What if the serpent had done it? And what if, with no more food, it came down into the village?
They had to flee before that happened. So she had urged the people living with her to follow. Their destination was Sion Mountain Fortress. That was why they moved at night. The serpent’s eyes, or maybe its hearing—whatever sense it relied on was sharp to the point of being unnatural. Night, when the creature slept, was their only chance.
She moved forward, carrying fear in her chest.
“Sion Mountain Fortress…!”
The building had completely collapsed, leaving only ruins. Beneath the fallen darkness, it had buried everything that had once existed there.
“What on earth happened…?”
The serpent was nowhere to be seen. Even the underground parking lot it had used as its nest was buried. Its massive body shouldn’t have been easy to hide. Had it gone into the forest? Or up the mountain? Either way, it was gone. Not even a trace remained.
What they did see was a lone pickup truck standing in the open. They approached it. Their eyes met. Something was loaded in the truck bed. A lot of it. Could it be the cult leader’s escape vehicle? They swallowed hard.
Full of anticipation, they drew closer to the rear of the truck.
That was when something burst out from behind it.
“Ah—”
There was no time to react. An overwhelming burst of strength. Her eyes flew wide open. The weapon in her hand clattered to the ground. Her body was slammed helplessly into the dirt. Her mind went blank. Breath rushed out of her. The light concussion made her head spin; even breathing was difficult. The assailant grabbed her by the throat.
“What—”
Then the truck’s headlights cut through the darkness. Half the group flinched in terror, while the other half grimaced in pain from the blinding glare. When they opened their eyes again, they saw a girl stepping out of the truck, rifle raised, silhouetted against the light. It was as if she had known they were coming. The ordinary believers panicked and raised their hands. The siblings threatened them without saying a word.
Where was the serpent?
Even while panicking, she agonized over it, eyes darting. Under the moonlight, she saw the man’s indifferent face. He was smiling coldly. A face she knew all too well, wearing an expression she had never seen before.
Before she realized it, her mouth moved.
“Take everything we have—”
“Kang Hyun…?”
The man flinched, then slowly lowered his gaze to meet the eyes of the woman whose throat he held.
“…Lee Ye-eun?”
Kang Hyun and Kang Ahyeon had lived their entire lives in Gucheon Village and Sion Mountain Fortress. They had attended Saeneul Elementary, Middle, and High School. Just like Lee Ye-eun, one of the ordinary believers and a survivor.
Kang Hyun had met a childhood friend he never thought he would see alive again.