70
Ch.70 Dead City
Beyond the concrete walls and barbed wire fences that mark the city's borders, built to keep the monsters out, lies a world untouched by human hands.
Cracked and worn asphalt, cement-covered buildings overgrown with moss, the wreckage of collapsed structures, and rusted vehicles.
Amid the ruins that hint at the era before the monsters appeared, wild animals and monsters have formed their own ecosystem.
A closed-off zone—land reclaimed by monsters.
A place where destruction doesn’t matter.
"Squeak?"
I burned to death all the insect monsters that had followed me from W-City.
Then, a new wave of monsters, drawn by the scent of corpses.
After tearing apart one group, the others, mistaking me for a weak monster, scattered in panic.
Perhaps it was the lingering human scent on me.
From then on, monsters from the closed zone kept appearing before me.
The most common were bird-like monsters, followed by beasts—weasels, wild boars, and roe deer.
"Peep!"
"Kkueek!"
"Weeoook!"
I devoured monsters of Terror-class and Crush-class strength as a single meal, digesting their seemingly useless abilities.
Wind blades, flexibility, monstrous strength, explosive sound—abilities like these.
As I hunted every monster that came my way, the human scent on me was washed away by the stench of monster blood.
The smell of corpses, even without resonating with my core, made weaker monsters flee.
And it attracted stronger ones.
"Uooong!"
A disaster-class bear monster, its ability: Storms.
A creature the size of a large truck charged at me, whipping up a massive whirlwind around it.
Rusted cars flew through the air as the storm crashed down toward me.
Not even worth fighting.
Fiiing.
With a thin slash through space, the bear monster’s head silently fell.
A mere Disaster-class lacked the resistance or regeneration to withstand my ability.
"Hrrrr..."
As I ate the bear meat, a stag monster appeared next, exuding an eerie aura.
It wielded telekinesis, illusions, and mist, trying to trap me in a labyrinth.
This monster seemed to exhaust its prey with hallucinations before devouring them.
If left alone, it might have reached Despair-class.
With my high resistance to sensory-disrupting abilities, I pretended to stagger before biting its throat in one motion.
It tasted better than the bear—less pungent.
Once the scent of Disaster-class monster blood clung to me, fewer monsters approached.
Trudging toward D-City, I found a nearby stream and paused to drink.
Splash!
Fish monsters with water-manipulation abilities shot watery bullets at me.
Terror-class monsters. Since scent doesn’t travel well underwater, they likely mistook me for rare, large prey, unaware I suppressed my core’s resonance.
Zap!
An electric shock from my toes made them float belly-up.
Picking up the snacks with telekinesis, I resumed walking when a memory from my human days flashed through my mind.
Following this path would lead to a park.
Back then, dog owners would gather there, playing fetch with Frisbees.
"Grrrr..."
"Woof! Woof!"
Arriving at the park, a pack of dog monsters appeared.
Most were Crush-class, their leader Disaster-class.
These pack hunters used strategies and tactics like humans, even attacking monsters stronger than themselves.
"Wooooo!"
"Awoooo!"
With the leader’s howl, their telekinetic abilities synchronized, amplifying their power.
Water from the stream surged like boiling liquid, and violent telekinetic waves upheaved the ground.
Bored of hunting, I yawned and severed the leader’s head.
"Kyiing!"
"Yelp! Yelp!"
Amid the fleeing pack, I picked up the leader’s corpse.
A dog collar, hidden in its fur, fell to the ground.
A familiar design.
Like the bracelet on my wrist, it must have been something precious—a part of itself—protected even after monsterization.
After chewing through the fish, I tore into the dog meat and continued toward D-City.
There’s a reason I walked instead of flying.
First, to clear out monsters near W-City before my absence.
Second, to deceive the insect monster leader.
As Gu Seo-ryong warned, charging into a monster nest prepared for enemies is dangerous.
So, I avoided the skies, hiding my approach until the last moment.
That way, the hunt’s success rate increases, and even if the parasite queen tries to flee, I can stop her.
How much farther? The city’s scent grew closer.
The stench of countless dead monsters mixed with the alluring odor of prey.
Just as I sensed D-City wasn’t far, unfamiliar yet familiar sights entered my vision.
Human corpses—no, skeletons.
I’ve seen many bones, but never ones so cleanly stripped of flesh.
The pristine skeletons, still clothed, looked recently devoured by small monsters.
They hadn’t been dead long.
Feeling something in a pocket, I shifted to human form and pulled out the contents.
A small notebook and pen, emblazoned with a hero’s emblem.
The front pages, stuck together with dried blood, couldn’t be opened, but from the middle—where a plastic bookmark lay—the pages were intact.
[Of the heroes, only five remain uncorrupted, including me. I can’t believe it. D-City’s only S-rank hero has already fallen to the Monster Cult.]
[The five of us, who skipped the cult’s festival that day for patrol duty, avoided becoming their meal or part of their twisted baptism ritual.]
[We realized too late.]
[It feels like we’ve stepped into an old zombie movie.]
[The difference? These zombies are fully conscious, retaining their memories.]
The shaky handwriting belonged to a D-City hero.
Hoping to understand the city’s state, I read on.
[Looking back, the monsters cutting D-City’s communication lines was part of their plan.]
[All electronic reports now require upper-level approval before archiving.]
[Communication is the same—we can’t even use the city’s intranet.]
[Alerting the outside is impossible.]
[The password for the restored lines is unknown.]
[When I asked an infected comrade, they mocked me but refused to share.]
[They suspected me.]
[I killed them. I’m safe again.]
[I feel like I’m losing my mind… I wish I were just insane.]
[Internet access remains blocked. If we could connect, we’d call for aid.]
[Only the cult knows how to access the new lines.]
[Hee-su left for the cult to uncover the password, vowing to bite a poison capsule of mind-control.]
[Hee-su’s life signal vanished.]
The journal confirmed D-City had already fallen.
Pages later, a familiar parasite diagram appeared.
[The cult controls minds through unknown means. But the conditions are unclear.]
[Is it an ability with specific activation requirements?]
[Tiny worms in corpses.]
[Choi Ji-hyuk got infected examining them… We had to kill him.]
[I’m sorry.]
[His death revealed the condition: white parasites in the body.]
[We call the infected ‘carriers’.]
[No poison kills just the parasites without harming the host.]
The sketches matched those I’d seen in labs.
Chemical charts marked with ‘X’ likely listed tested poisons.
Flipping past research notes, the journal resumed.
[Food isn’t an issue.]
[They haven’t reached the government’s underground food factories.]
[Good news, since I feared parasites in supplies.]
[Byeong-ho began bringing uninfected citizens underground.]
[Some noticed the strangeness like us.]
[1,500 survivors. With the factories, we can hold out.]
[The problem: no way to call for help.]
[Byeong-ho died trying.]
[The cult realized uninfected heroes remained.]
[We sealed the underground.]
[I’m leaving D-City to seek help.]
[May luck be with us all.]
The journal ended there.
The last entry was dated just months ago.
The hero who left D-City was killed, their plea for help never delivered.
For a non-S-rank to venture into the closed zone was suicide.
They must have been desperate.
D-City still has uninfected survivors.
Their hideout: the underground food factories beneath government buildings in every city.
Adjusting my goal, I melted into the shadows.
Silently, undetected, I approached D-City.
***
Inside the walls, a city less than half the size of W-City.
D-City, now a monster nest, was eerily peaceful.
Heroes patrolled leisurely, chatting with citizens.
"Well, the other day—"
"Oh my! That sounds awful."
"Hahaha, but it’s part of the job."
Playful expressions, small talk, mundane conversations.
The citizens, devoid of tension, brimmed with happiness.
Children played, adults laughed, sharing homemade food.
I stood quietly in the heart of the city, enveloped in a cloud of peace and joy.
As my core trembled with mixed emotions, a bell tolled.
Deng, deng, deng.
The deep reverberations spread through the city. People clasped their hands and bowed toward the sound.
A few didn’t bow, but they too stopped and stood quietly.
In the distance, a bronze bell bore a symbol—three overlapping circles forming a triangle.
The same mark on the bodies of those who’d killed themselves before me.
As the bell faded, the people resumed their activities.
Cooking, laughing, chatting, radiating happiness.
A deeply unsettling sight.
These things that smell human are no longer human—their bodies stolen by monsters.
"Ouch!"
"Oh dear! Be careful!"
A child fell off a bike, scraping their knee. A white worm wriggled in the wound.
Unnoticed by the mother, who bandaged it with a handkerchief.
Nearby, a coughing man spat out a worm while smoking.
A street vendor’s bandaged finger twitched—another worm beneath.
This city is already dead.