Chapter 10
Chapter 10
After everything was over.
That evening.
“Uuugh.....”
An intense pain crashed over me.
It was because of the Holy Body Elixir.
My bones ached, and my muscles cramped like they were being twisted apart.
It felt as if something inside my body was forcibly rearranging itself, a sensation too bizarre to describe.
Crunch!
The pain was bad enough to make me grit my teeth.
But.
I endured all of it.
And by morning.
“Huh?!”
When Lee Sua opened the door to wake me up, she instantly covered her eyes with her hand.
Though not completely.
She peeked at me through the gaps between her fingers.
“W-Who are you?!”
That reaction didn’t suit Lee Sua at all.
I thought she was messing around again, so I shook my head and got up.
“Who else would it be? It’s Choi Han. We’ve got a lot to do today. Get ready, we’re heading to Basement Level 1 right away.”
“.....Choi Han?”
Her reaction was way too strange.
“What’s wrong with you? Did you eat something weird?”
“No.... your body changed!”
“What are you talking about?”
I couldn’t understand what she meant.
“Go look in the mirror!”
She immediately grabbed my hand and dragged me into the bathroom.
The mirror reflected my appearance.
“Huh?! What the hell!”
“I told you it was real!”
I was shocked the moment I saw it.
My height, which used to be somewhere in the mid-170s, had shot up to over 185 centimeters.
My muscles had expanded too, making my whole frame bigger.
And most of all—
“I got handsome!”
That was the biggest change.
My nose had become sharper, my eyebrows thicker, and my brow ridge more pronounced.
I looked like some kind of foreign movie star.
Until last night, I’d never cared much about my reflection.
But now, I couldn’t take my eyes off it.
“Wow!”
What kind of transformation was this?!
‘The Holy Body Elixir!’
It had to be because of that.
Satisfied, I examined my body.
I clenched and unclenched my fists.
The density I felt was incomparable to yesterday.
Beside me, Lee Sua stared while practically drooling.
Then.
“Ah, right!”
I remembered what needed to be done.
“Hey! We’re busy today! Start getting ready! Clean up the second floor first!”
I hurriedly said.
“H-Huh? O-Okay!”
She wiped her drool and quickly scrambled away.
Ignoring her, I stepped out of the bathroom.
And the moment I did—
“Good morning, Master.”
Zombie Lee Hyunjae greeted me.
I had implanted one command into him.
Absolute obedience toward me and Lee Sua.
And after that, he turned into this.
“Follow me.”
“Yes, Master.”
Today was the day to thoroughly clean the research complex.
We had to dispose of all the zombie corpses.
Otherwise, gas would build up, and the stench alone would become unbearable—not to mention the health risks.
“Wait a second.”
Then a thought suddenly crossed my mind.
“Can’t I sell zombie corpses?”
It seemed possible through the Gallery Shop.
I immediately headed to the first floor and approached a corpse.
“Let’s see.....”
I opened the shop window and tried selling one.
Then.
— Drug Zombie Corpse — 10,000 Ether.
“Oh! It works!”
The price was dirt cheap, but the fact that corpses could be sold at all was already a huge gain.
I walked around the entire first floor, selling every corpse I found.
Then.
— Current Ether: 4.5 million.
“Not bad.”
And that was just the first floor.
I immediately headed down to Basement Level 1.
The Variant corpses were still there.
— Mutant Corpse — 1 million Ether.
And then.
“You guys worked hard.”
— Variant Zombie Corpse — 100,000 Ether.
Even the Variant Zombies I used myself.
I sold all of them.
— Current Ether: 7.8 million.
“Looks clean enough.”
“Yes! Extremely clean, Master!”
Lee Hyunjae buttered me up from beside me.
But then suddenly—
‘Why was this research facility even created?’
The thought crossed my mind.
Why had this place mass-injected drugs into zombies?
And why had the Abomination been created in Basement Level 2?
Questions kept surfacing.
I immediately turned to Lee Hyunjae.
“Hey. You said you were a researcher here, right?”
The pale-faced Lee Hyunjae nodded.
“That’s correct.”
“Then what was the purpose of this place? Why inject drugs into zombies?”
“Well.....”
After organizing his thoughts, he continued.
“This place wasn’t originally built for zombie research.”
“...Then?”
“It was a facility for researching and developing chemical compounds.”
“.....”
“But then the head researcher suddenly brought something in.”
“A government order.”
“What kind of order?”
The bigger picture was slowly coming together.
Lee Hyunjae closed his eyes, recalling the memory.
“It was an order to cooperate with researchers sent by the government. After that, large trucks and helicopters started transporting massive amounts of supplies.”
“Hmm.... Then the trucks on the first floor were loaded with drugs?”
“Most likely.”
The trucks in the research facility.
They were apparently filled with the drugs injected into the Drug Zombies.
“So they pumped zombies full of drugs... but for what?”
“I heard it was for vaccine research... but judging from what they actually did...”
Lee Hyunjae frowned slightly.
“I think they were trying to create biological weapons.”
“.....Weapons?”
The government tried to weaponize zombies?
That explained the Mutants and the Abomination underground.
They wanted to manufacture living weapons.
“Then why did everyone die?”
“We didn’t die because of a mistake. The moment a certain drug was completed, this place was disposed of.”
“Hmm.....”
So even he had simply been abandoned.
Then—
“Where did those people go?”
“As far as I know, they moved to a massive shelter in Seoul.”
“Seoul.....”
Things were better there.
There were more people, quarantine facilities, military bases, and immediate response systems.
The government had quickly erected a giant dome in central Seoul.
That became the mega-shelter.
But.
“We wouldn’t be allowed in anyway.”
Even the best shelter required an entry permit.
Not just anyone could get inside.
“Hmm.....”
I hesitated.
From the shelters’ perspective, Awakener-types would obviously be welcomed.
But.
“My existence is a little strange.”
An Awakener who used necromancy.
If the organization behind facilities like this discovered me, wouldn’t they try to capture me for experiments?
“That’s terrifying.”
It felt safer not to stand out.
Normally, I’d probably have to pretend to be some kind of body-enhancement Awakener using the support of the Valkar people.
Though there was another method.
“I just need to become stronger.”
A one-man army.
The ultimate stage every Necromancer should strive for.
I had to reach it.
And for that—
“Growth comes first.”
Until now, I mainly hunted ordinary zombies and Variants.
From now on, I needed to hunt Mutants.
They gave far more experience.
“But where can I find more Mutants.....?”
At that moment.
Lee Hyunjae suddenly seemed to remember something.
“Choi Han-nim. What about going somewhere with high radiation levels?”
“Radiation?”
“Mutants are created through radiation exposure. The Mutants on Basement Level 1 were also injected with radioactive material.”
“Ah.....”
There was a way.
Then—
“Wouldn’t we need to go near a nuclear power plant?”
“I happen to know one!”
Lee Hyunjae said excitedly.
“Good. Then guide us there.”
And so, we headed toward the nuclear power plant.
Daejeon Metropolitan City.
Near the outskirts, in an area closer to the countryside.
There was a nuclear power plant there.
“That’s it.....?”
Far away stood a gigantic structure shaped almost like an observatory tower.
The nuclear plant.
But it looked abandoned for a very long time.
Parts of the cooling tower’s concrete exterior had peeled away, exposing rusted steel rebar like the ribs of a corpse.
“Whoa.... I can practically see the radiation leaking out.”
Maybe because Valkar had unlocked, or because I took the Holy Body Elixir.
I could now visually sense harmful things.
“So what’s the plan?”
Lee Sua asked beside me.
She looked uncomfortable too, frowning deeply.
“Let’s just scout it out first.”
“.....”
The most important thing was confirming whether Mutants were actually here.
I slowly approached the nuclear plant.
Then.
Ordinary zombies began appearing.
But.
“Oh... they really are weird.”
“Seriously.”
The zombies exposed to radiation looked grotesque.
Some had extra arms and legs.
Others had limbs transformed into tentacles.
And.
— Radiation Zombie — 10,000 Ether.
Their price was the same as Drug Zombies.
Ten thousand Ether wasn’t bad at all.
“Good. For now, don’t engage them directly.”
“Got it.”
If enough radiation had mutated them like this, then their blood was probably contaminated too.
Radiation destroyed molecular structures.
That meant direct combat was dangerous.
“Zombie Control.”
The easiest method was my skill.
Turning them into subordinates without even fighting.
“My current cost is... 8 cost.....”
The Mutant and Skeletal Variant together already consumed 7 cost.
That left only 1 remaining.
So I controlled Radiation Zombies one at a time, then immediately sold them.
But because of the ten-minute cooldown, progress was slow.
And during those intervals—
I had no choice but to use the Mutant and the Skeletal Variant.
“Nicely done.”
“This really is convenient.”
With a single attack from the Mutant or Skeletal Variant, Radiation Zombies were torn apart.
But.
“Hmm... just as expected.”
The skin of both the Mutant and Skeletal Variant was slowly melting from radiation exposure.
“So it really is radiation.....?”
At this point, it seemed like I’d have to ask the Gallery for a solution.