Reunion
I pulled the delinquent girl and the dark-skinned guy into a hug, one after the other.
Having not held me in so long, the delinquent girl crushed herself against my chest and broke into sobs.
"How did you even find me?"
"We heard there was a massive battle here—that the big-box store crew got wiped out completely. Word was some superhuman-level guy did it alone, so I figured it had to be you, hyung-nim."
"I see. What about the others?"
"Hic… Su-ji unnie, Teacher Seo-yeon, Hyeon-gyeong unnie, and Seok-gi oppa were hiding with us. Everyone else…"
The Pilates girl, the teacher, the pharmacist, and the fighter had made it.
From what they told me, after I went down, some of them got caught during the escape while others managed to run. The ones taken were the locksmith, the info girl—both dead—and the ring girl. Hmm. There hadn't been a body for the ring girl. Maybe the store crew dragged her off.
"But… how are you alive? You didn't die?"
I just smiled at the delinquent girl's question.
"Yeah. Nobody can kill me."
"I knew it—hyung-nim really is a superhuman! I'll follow you with my life!"
The line sounded like something out of a gangster flick, but the way he said it was pure fun-loving college kid.
Neither of them knew the info girl and the locksmith were dead. They still thought those two had just been hauled off by the store crew.
"Judging by the missing body, they probably dragged the ring girl away. The other two died ugly. We're taking revenge. I'm going to wipe those bastards out completely. So why'd only the two of you come? Where's the fighter?"
During the escape, the fighter had taken a serious wound and was burning up with fever from the infection. Hyeon-gyeong the pharmacist was looking after him, but without medicine there was nothing she could do.
One of the two men was down, leaving only the dark-skinned guy on his feet—no wonder they'd been scraping by. Everyone else was pretty, delicate women with almost no combat value.
"How'd you all hold out this whole time?"
"Well… I did everything I could to scrounge up food, but it was rough… We were barely hanging on, half-starved. Without you, hyung-nim, I was nothing… And then Mi-jeong got grabbed by some other crew…"
"Mi-jeong?"
"Kim Mi-jeong. The gym trainer. We'd gotten pretty attached to her, too…"
I hadn't even known her name. Compared to the other women her looks didn't stand out, so I'd never paid her much attention. The locksmith and the dark-skinned guy had been the ones sharing her body.
"No idea what happened after they took her?"
"No… There were over twenty of them. We were too busy running. I'm sorry."
"Don't be. You did fine. At least you made it out."
So that was why I hadn't heard anything about the gym trainer.
Alive or dead, I had no way of knowing—but those bastards were getting wrecked either way.
I grabbed my weapons and headed for the place where the rest of them were hiding.
We moved through the narrow alleys of a villa neighborhood, slipped behind a building, and went down a flight of stairs. At the bottom was a single door.
I opened it and stepped into a semi-basement apartment.
"The windows are almost completely hidden, and the entrance is around back, so it was a good place to hole up."
Just as the dark-skinned guy said, the place was excellent for staying out of sight.
But it reeked of mold and rot. It felt less like a home and more like an underground storage room. Anyone living here long enough would get sick.
Three women were crouched inside, and in the corner the fighter lay looking utterly wasted.
"Ah… M-Master!"
"Y-You're alive!"
"No way… hic…"
The women scrambled up and came toward me with disbelieving eyes. They were all painfully thin—starved half to death.
The pharmacist, the Pilates girl, the teacher. I pulled all three into my arms at once.
"Cough, cough… H-How…"
The fighter forced himself upright, staring at me through half-lidded eyes.
He wasn't just coughing—cold sweat slicked his whole body. A bloodstained cloth was wrapped around his side where he'd been wounded.
There wasn't a scrap of food left in the place. Even the water in the jugs stank.
"How the hell did you survive this?"
"Heh. This world… isn't easy to endure."
The fighter looked like he'd seen a ghost.
"I can't believe it… How… I saw them blow your head apart with a shotgun…"
"Yeah. Just like you saw—completely shattered. I've got Super Regeneration. And it keeps getting stronger. I can regenerate my head. My brain. All of it."
"Th-That's… I don't even know what to say."
The news that even my head and brain had grown back left not just the fighter but everyone else stunned.
"Let's go. You don't have to starve anymore."
Beside me, the pharmacist asked quietly,
"W-Where to?"
"Grand River Apartments. I'm the chairman there now. There's a big, spacious place waiting."
A soft cheer rose from the women.
"But… Mi-jeong got taken by some guys… and we couldn't do anything…"
"I already heard. I'll look into it."
We packed up and headed out, though there was barely anything to pack beyond a few weapons.
The dark-skinned guy and the women supported the fighter as we made for the apartments.
Once we reached the entrance, I handed them off to the apartment people and set out again with the dark-skinned guy.
The place he led me to was where the crew that had kidnapped the gym trainer was holed up.
They'd known the location the whole time and still hadn't been able to do a thing.
Noisy voices drifted down from the second floor of a rundown commercial building. Sounded like a decent-sized group.
A wide space that had once been a large restaurant, tables and chairs scattered everywhere.
"Haah, this bitch has a pretty face, but the fake tits are kind of a letdown."
A man covered in back tattoos was pounding hard into the bound gym trainer, one hand roughly mauling her breasts the whole time.
Kim Mi-jeong kept her face twisted, managing nothing but choked little grunts.
Her arms were tied, her legs forced wide and bound the same way—spread open like a butchered chicken.
"Hey, for implants that good you can barely tell the difference. And she was a gym trainer—that ass is killer. Way better than those ugly bitches over there."
The other man pointed to two women crouched with their hands bound. Their faces and bodies were utterly ordinary. Nobody would look at them and call them beautiful.
"Hah. Hah… Yeah, fuck. Girls this good don't come easy. Hah. Hah."
Mi-jeong stared blankly at the ceiling, trying to look anywhere but at the sweating man slamming into her. Every hard thrust jolted her body and wrung another involuntary grunt from her throat.
Ever since she'd been dragged here, the roughly twenty men in the place had taken turns on her like animals.
There were two other captive women besides her, but the moment she arrived they'd been shoved aside. Everyone piled onto her instead.
At first five or six of them would jump her at once. Now they mostly went one at a time, in fits and starts. Even so, there were so many of them she barely got a moment's rest. In this ruined world, playing with women was just about the only entertainment left.
A few women who looked like girlfriends were around too, but even the men who had partners raped without exception. The women only scolded them half-heartedly; they had almost no real control over their men. It was a straight-up animal kingdom.
Shame and humiliation were secondary. Physically, she couldn't take it anymore. She hurt so badly down there, and she was barely wet anymore—it felt like she was tearing.
"P-Please… could I have a little rest…? It hurts so much down there…"
"What? Nngh…"
The man pounding her groaned, pulled out, and a thick rope of cum slid from her pussy.
No mercy—he'd finished inside. Mi-jeong was used to it by now, but the tears came anyway. If she got pregnant, these bastards would dump her without a second thought. Or maybe they'd keep using her even after she was pregnant, then throw her away.
The man who'd been fucking her yanked his pants up and shouted,
"Hey! This bitch says her pussy hurts too much!"
Laughter rippled through the others.
"Fuck, maybe your dick's just too big."
"Nah, it's me. Most girls can't handle mine."
"What? Bring it over. Let's measure whose is bigger, you bastard."
They started spouting nonsense and arguing among themselves.
Then a racket erupted outside.
Someone shouting. Screams. Crashing, things shattering.
"Wh-What the hell! Somebody go check!"
Nobody needed to go outside.
One of their own stumbled in clutching a belly streaming with blood.
Right behind him came a tall man soaked head to toe in gore.
Outstanding proportions. A handsome face. In one hand, a blood-slicked machete.
Men armed with spears, machetes, and knives charged him.
He tilted his head and shifted his body like he was doing light exercise, dodging with lazy ease.
After slipping each attack he flicked the machete in a casual counter, and one by one they went down spraying blood.
A muscular man with a fairly long spear kept his distance and thrust at blinding speed.
Like a fencer striking from range—and the tall man treated every lunge like a game, slipping them all without effort.
"Hah… hah…"
After about ten missed attacks the spearman started to tire, his speed dropping.
Realizing it was hopeless, he ditched the spear and tried to dive out a window. Before he could even get it open, a knife cut through the air and buried itself in the back of his neck. He crumpled to the floor, gurgling blood.
The remaining half-dozen men and the women who were their girlfriends were trembling too hard to even think of fighting, backing away.
The tall man surged forward and cut the rest of them down in an instant.
"P-Please spare us! I-I'm a woman!"
The women dropped their weapons, raised their hands, and begged for their lives. Why did they think being women would save them…
The handsome man glanced over their faces for a moment, then casually took their heads off one after another.
Then he walked up to the gym trainer.
"M-Master? H-How… You died… hic… How are you alive…"
Still bound with her legs forced open and her sex completely exposed, Mi-jeong squirmed in pure mortification.
"Let's go. You've been through enough."
He untied her arms and legs. From behind, the dark-skinned guy rushed in and helped her to her feet.
Soul Absorbed: 23
Super Regeneration: 370
They didn't seem to have any firearms, so I'd fought with nothing but the machete—and it was still ridiculously easy.
I was covered in blood, but I hadn't taken a single hit.
The gym trainer was a wreck, just as expected, but at least she was alive and not critically hurt. That was something.
I freed the other women they'd been holding too. Ordinary faces, ordinary bodies—I just told them to get lost and let them go.
They stared at me, then finally spoke up.
"C-Could you take us with you too…? We want to repay you somehow…"
Naked and looking like beggars—what exactly were they planning to repay me with? All they had left was their bodies, and those weren't anything special.
"Get the fuck out of here. Both of you. Before I kill you."
At that, the women scrambled away as fast as they could.
Boring trash. Even the ones who looked like girlfriends had been nothing special.
Barely more than a light stroll. Though for a stroll, my clothes had gotten pretty filthy.
With the dark-skinned guy supporting her, the gym trainer and I headed back to Grand River Apartments.