As You Believe, So It Shall Be (4)

The number of zombies was staggering. So overwhelming that rushing in or acting recklessly was out of the question. And these weren't ordinary zombies, either. Unlike the ones that turned you into a zombie with a single bite, these special variants could control any living human—or even a variant—the instant their blood made contact. Even a 1mm scratch was deadly. It meant I had to fight flawlessly... but was that even possible?

In close quarters, the odds were essentially zero. At range, there was at least some chance. But it was still just a chance. Even for me, it was a realm that required staking my life on luck. So far I'd managed to push through somehow, but what if one of those bastards playing dead reached out and scratched my leg as I passed? That would be worse than Tae Woo-ham turning into an apostate. What if Kang Ahyeon got scratched? Lee Ye-eun would be easy to subdue without her gun, but if Ahyeon started unloading on me with her skills, I wasn't sure I could stop her in time.

Even so, I had no intention of jumping into the fight between the Centurion and the Prophet. It would only put us at a disadvantage. That left only one choice.

I hauled every bullet and weapon I could grab from the armory and moved them. The overflowing strength came in handy at times like this. With 21 Strength, I ripped entire racks of boxes and guns free and carried them. I even lifted entire pallets stacked with ammunition. The only real obstacle was their bulk, but given enough time, even that could be managed.

I'd been worried one might climb up while I was moving that massive load, but it never happened.

—Clack. Clack.

The sharp crack of gunfire echoed faintly. It was the sound of my sister running and shooting. She was drawing the zombies' aggro from somewhere in the building, buying us time. A heavy unease simmered in my chest. Wouldn't it have been better to have Ahyeon and Ye-eun move the supplies while I bought time? But what was done was done. All I could do now was move faster so my sister wouldn't have to hold out as long.

“Ye-eun, load these on the roof.”

“...All of them?”

“All of them.”

I carried the entire pallet, then moved the gun racks one by one, setting them down in easy-to-reach positions. The sky was a gloomy shade of gray. Noises rose from every corner of the university—explosions, gunshots, even more gunshots, and the constant thunder of footsteps. I could hear Ye-eun sliding .22 rounds into magazines and loading shells into shotguns. The more the better. We needed as many as possible. I kept one shotgun slung across my back for myself. When the time came, I'd be using one of these too.

With a tense expression, I carried the last pallet up the stairs from the armory.

“Will Ahyeon be okay?”

Ye-eun had always been a good person. She wasn't broken like Kang Ahyeon. That's why she'd been emotionally shaken when she saw people she knew die, and she'd mourned Tae Woo-ham's death too. Not that any of us hadn't felt sorrow over it, but even now she was worrying about Ahyeon getting hurt.

As for me... I was worried about losing all the useful things that stupid bitch possessed. She didn't have much rifle ammunition left, and I'd given her my own magazines too. If she died, it would be a huge pain. All the effort to keep her alive and bring her this far would have been for nothing.

“She'll manage.”

I spoke as casually as I could, then took a deep breath as I looked at the last items ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I'd set down.

“...It'll be fine. Don't worry too much.”

The words came from Ye-eun's mouth, not mine. I almost snapped back asking when I'd ever worried, but stopped myself. Instead, I tapped my ear. Ye-eun nodded, put on the shooting headset, and I took a long, deep breath.

The higher my Strength climbed, the louder my voice became. The roar that 276-Strength Serpent of Eden had unleashed had been painful even for my strengthened eardrums. Remembering that, I exhaled the breath I'd drawn in.

“Look at meeee—!”

The shout rang out like thunder. Right as the crack of a rifle sounded somewhere below us, I heard the sound of running feet. I grabbed two shotguns. Ye-eun shouldered hers. We'd put on every tactical vest and bandolier we'd found. I'd shed my coat. Ye-eun had done the same, wearing her shooting gear with the bandolier and vest. It was an impressive sight. My sister probably looked no different.

I met Ye-eun's eyes for a brief moment, then tensed. They were coming.

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap!

The rapid sound of someone taking stairs two at ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a time. I listened closely, drew one last breath, and exhaled. A flutter of brown hair appeared through the rooftop door we'd left open. Our eyes met. Behind her, I saw the countless zombies surging forward. Monsters that threw themselves at the walls, twisting their bodies on impact. The moment my sister reached the roof, I threw the shotgun I'd prepared. She caught it mid-slide, skirt flaring, and I raised my own shotgun at the exact same instant.

Then the shotgun roared.

KWAAAAAAAAAAAANG!

The metal pellets tore forward. Countless fingernail-sized fragments were propelled by the force of gunpowder, flying straight at the zombie shoving through the rooftop door.

Thud!

The result was clear. Its head exploded. The skull fragments, everything above the lower jaw, splattered across the wall. The body that had been accelerating slammed to a halt, skidding before crashing into the doorframe. The remaining momentum made the corpse twitch horribly. Yet the others didn't stop. They poured in. They swarmed.

My finger was already on the trigger.

KWAAAAAAAAAAAANG!

The shotgun roared again. This time it hit center mass. A woman—slightly smaller than Ahyeon, with disproportionately large breasts—had her chest gruesomely torn apart and flew backward. Two shots. The gun was already empty. But I didn't hesitate or panic. I simply broke the action open and loaded fresh shells.

Normally there wouldn't be time to reload. No matter how convenient a firearm was, you couldn't fend off a tide of zombies while reloading. Especially not when even a graze would turn you into one of them. The Prophet must have thought the same. Their side had endless zombies. We had only three people.

But.

“Reload!”

At my shout, Ye-eun's finger tightened on the trigger. A zombie leaping over the doorframe. The instant it jumped, she pulled the trigger. The deafening boom sent the creature crumpling. While flesh and gore rained down, Ye-eun immediately fired the next round.

Boom. Boom.

The thunderous roar shook me to the bone. Zombies were hurled back by the sheer violence. Heads exploded, limbs tore off, chests and torsos were punched through. Two shots. The moment Ye-eun broke open the empty gun to reload, the apostates surged forward as if they'd been waiting.

A double-barrel could only hold two rounds. So there was an opening. Usually.

But.

“Reload!”

At Ye-eun's sharp cry, it was Kang Ahyeon who took aim. Not the double-barrel, but one of the semi-auto shotguns we'd found at Sion Mountain Fortress. A ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠10-round magazine. Ahyeon pulled the trigger.

KWAAAAAAAAAAAANG!

The apostates who had just begun their charge died in clumps. Heads, arms, legs, torsos—bodies collapsed amid scattered flesh and blood. I could see a spine dangling through a gaping hole in one stomach. A headless corpse slumped over. Others caught in the blast tangled together and tumbled down the stairs. The wet sound of mangled flesh rolling across the steps echoed between shotgun blasts.

This was the plan.

“Switch!”

The moment Ahyeon, having fired two rapid shots, lowered her gun to reload, I raised mine again. I pulled the trigger on a zombie trying to exploit the gap.

KWAAAAAAAAAAAANG!

A simple plan: me, Ye-eun, and Ahyeon taking turns firing shotguns. Crude, but effective. Its simplicity was exactly why it worked. Plans were always made with the assumption they would break. Since a plan was nothing more than a guideline, the simpler it was, the better it performed. Besides, there was only one staircase leading to the roof.

“Reload!”

A luxurious tactic we could never have pulled off alone. Something impossible with only one gun. Even if they tried to rush us all at once to create a gap in firepower, it was futile.

Boom, boom, boom, KWAAAAAAAAAAAANG!

The firepower of the semi-automatic shotgun in Ahyeon's hands was monstrous. The countless hunting loads we'd scavenged amplified it even further. With every shot, the stair railings on the way to the roof bent, snapped, and sent lead pellets ricocheting. Stone fragments, dust, blood mist, flesh, and entrails soaked the floor, releasing a thick, warm vapor. Even as severed limbs slapped wetly to the ground and twitched, we moved with mechanical detachment, doing what needed to be done.

“Reload!”

Shoot. Reload. Wait. We executed our roles perfectly. When there was no time to reload, we simply tossed the empty gun aside and grabbed a fresh one from the rack. Spent casings clattered across the floor, piling up. I kicked them aside carelessly and raised the shotgun again.

“Jam!”

Click. When pulling the trigger produced no shot, I instantly discarded the gun and drew a pistol. A .22 caliber powder pistol. The same model used in Olympic rapid-fire events. When I pulled the trigger, the tiny bullet still punched straight through skulls. Zombies and apostates with shattered heads collapsed. Some tried to dive between the piles of severed limbs on the floor despite their minor wounds, only to stop moving. Yet even in that chaos, a few put up desperate resistance.

The instant I fired my pistol, one raised its arm to block, then swung its fully cocked arm. At the same time, a blood-smeared Chinese cleaver flew toward me. Touch it, and you became an apostate. As long as it didn't touch flesh, I'd be fine. I twisted slightly and deflected the cleaver heading for Ahyeon with my left arm—the one protected by a bracer.

Clang—KWAAAAAAAAAAAANG!

Ye-eun fired from behind me. When the corridor and stairs were painted red with blood and the sound of it pouring down reached us, we kept loading, grabbing fistfuls of pre-opened ammo from where we'd placed them and stuffing them into bandoliers and vests. We continued until no more zombies climbed the stairs.

“Haa... haa... haa...”

Ye-eun exhaled shakily, rubbing her hands together. My sister stood up, her fingers trembling faintly. It felt like we'd fired a thousand rounds. Broken firearms and empty shell boxes lay scattered everywhere.

“Is it... over?”

I pondered Ye-eun's question.

“Almost.”

The Prophet's zombies had been countless. Their numbers had been overwhelming. But they weren't truly infinite. I believed that if we kept killing them, it would end. Or that it would end if the Prophet died. Still, there had been doubts and worries. What if the Prophet bit a few zombies and fled? Leaving something that dangerous alive didn't seem wise in the long run, so I'd thought it best to kill it in advance.

But now, after time had passed, I knew. There was no need for such worries.

I curled the corner of my mouth upward.

“Almost...? Nothing else is coming...?”

Ye-eun said that, but I already knew. To be precise, I'd noticed while shooting. At some point, they had stopped acting intelligently and simply swarmed mindlessly. And instead of infected humans, only zombies had appeared. I knew why.

Footsteps echoed. Step. Step. Step. Squish. The sound of someone climbing the blood-soaked stairs. One foot was being dragged limply.

The quest was still active. I unslung the rifle from my back and hung it on the gun rack. Something stepped on the collapsed tower of corpses the zombies had tried to force their way through and finally revealed itself.

“How...?”

Ye-eun, who had only now heard the approaching footsteps and raised her gun, gasped in horror. I dropped my vest and bandolier to the floor. A variant missing one leg and one arm, half its face eaten away, its body covered in blood. A monster holding a gun that doubled as a spear in one hand. A former special forces sniper who continued to move despite injuries that should have killed it.

The Centurion. It had come here to die. It crossed the red carpet we'd laid with corpses, guts, and blood, and approached us. Its spear had the Prophet's head impaled on it. A woman who must have been beautiful in life. The spear had pierced through her right eye and protruded from the back of her skull. She no longer moved. It was a hollow end for someone called the Prophet, but that wasn't my concern. Apparently it hadn't been the Centurion's either.

The Centurion threw the Prophet's head, still skewered on the spear, at my feet as if to show off. The horribly twisted variant head rolled across the floor. A beautiful face that would have fooled me if I didn't have Insight. I let out a short laugh. The Centurion leveled its spear at me. As if to say that since it had dealt with its old enemy, I was next.

I couldn't help but chuckle. Ah, you son of a bitch. If you weren't a variant but a person, we might've gotten along.

Swallowing my regret, I stepped forward.

“Kang Ahyeon.”

“Yeah.”

“Don't interfere.”

I stopped at a distance where weapons couldn't reach and placed my hand on the hilt of my sword. The wind blowing across the roof was cold.

“This is my fight.”

“Got it~”

My sister smiled brightly. Ye-eun looked back and forth between her and me. I ignored them both and fixed my gaze on the enemy before me. For some reason, this variant had protected people while also disposing of them, and had opposed the Prophet while trying to stop the expansion of her forces. Even so, it was my enemy. We could not coexist. I knew that.

I drew the Holy Sword from my waist and took a middle guard stance.

“Let's finish this.”

We charged at each other at the same time.