Swarming Zombies
Swarming Zombies
I even bought binoculars for a whopping 50 coins at the shop to check.
Hannam Bridge, the closest route to cross over to Gangbuk, as well as Banpo Bridge and Dongho Bridge located to its left and right, were all blown up.
Judging by the consecutive explosion sounds, it's highly likely they destroyed every single bridge crossing the Han River.
If so, the only ways left to get to the shelter are crossing the Han River on foot or finding some means of transportation like a boat.
By the way, aren't these bastards way too selfish?
Just to keep their own skins safe, they cut off every single path for survivors to reach the shelter?
What a bunch of fucking assholes..!
"Oppa! Over there!! Look over there!"
At Minseo's urgent cry, I, who had been scanning toward Dongho Bridge, turned the binoculars to the side and checked the lower part of Hannam Bridge where Minseo's finger was pointing.
"Those bastards are there. Fuck, military scum..!"
A group of soldiers in military uniforms were swimming across the Han River wearing life jackets.
Right now, the bridge is packed with zombies drawn by the sound of the explosions, so it's obvious they planned to escape that way from the very beginning.
Anyway, the number of zombies is definitely going to decrease, at least.
It doesn't seem like they're chasing that group of soldiers, but because of the severed bridge, countless zombies are throwing themselves into the Han River.
As expected of the country ranked number one in OECD suicide rates.
How on earth does this country even make zombies commit suicide?
"U-Um.. What should we do now..? If the bridge is cut off, the way to get to the shelter is..."
"Ah! Over there, water taxis and water skis..."
"None."
"Pardon..?"
"There's not a single boat left."
"Ah..."
I've already checked the entire Han River bank.
Just in case there was any usable boat.
But try as I might, searching high and low, not a single boat was in sight.
Even if it were me, if I'd been around here when the zombies appeared, I would've hopped on a boat and fled.
"Over there!!! There are people here!!!!"
"Ju-, Juha! Let's shout too! Over here!!! There are survivors here!!!"
"Save us!! Help, people are dying!!!!"
Minseo and Kwon's siblings suddenly started shouting toward the group of soldiers swimming across the Han River.
There's no way the shouts from this side could be heard in that situation, and even if they did hear, there's no way those guys could help.
Unless they're out of their minds, there's no reason for them to suddenly change route and cross over to this side.
And even if they did cross over, nothing would change.
Right now is not the time to shout for their help, but to think about how to cross the Han River.
Should I just swim across like those soldiers?
Given my current Stamina stat, it probably wouldn't be all that difficult...
"Wh-What the hell is that?!ޤ
At my sudden exclamation, the three people who had been shouting turned their heads all at once to look at me.
And dropping the binoculars held in my left hand, I slowly raised my right hand with its index finger extended to point at a certain spot.
Because that thing didn't even require using binoculars.
"Waves..?"
"No, it's not! That's a submarine! Probably to safely..."
"No... That's not it..."
Just as Minseo said, the undulating water looked like a large wave rolling in, or as Juhyeok said, it looked like a submarine rising above the water's surface.
But as Juha said, that is neither a wave nor a submarine.
I've never actually seen a submarine in real life, but no matter how big a submarine is, it wouldn't be that huge.
No, even if there were a submarine that massive, there's no way a submarine could move drawing such graceful curves.
Puwaaaaahk!!!!
Water lifted up by a massive object soaring out of the water at about a 45-degree angle poured down fiercely like a waterfall.
White sea foam formed around the area as waves rippled outward, and the swimming soldiers along with countless zombies that had fallen below the bridge were sucked into a giant mouth like a black hole, disappearing without a trace in an instant.
Teu-eop!!!!
Even though it seemed to be a good 500 meters away from here, the sound of the mouth snapping shut echoed vividly.
An alligator? No, a snake?
How on earth should I describe that thing?
A snake the size of a building covered in crocodile skin.
Yeah, this description fits best.
"Eek!!! Wh-What the hell is that?!!!"
"Uh... Uh..."
"No, no way... A monster... It's a real monster..."
A monster so despair-inducing that it made people scream, lose their words, and collapse flat onto the ground.
Words wouldn't come out of me either, leaving me with no choice but to blankly stare at the horrifying monster slipping back into the water.
What is this, the Monster of Lake Tianchi in Mount Baekdu?!
Why the hell is something like that living in the Han River?!
But the surprising thing is that there isn't just one of those monsters.
"What the fuck..!"
Hastily raising my binoculars to check the Banpo Bridge and Dongho Bridge sides to the left and right, I saw exact replicas of the monster I saw just moments ago repeatedly bursting out of and diving back into the water's surface.
Much like fish rushing forward to eat when food is dropped into a fishbowl.
Now the option of swimming across the Han River was gone.
No wonder I understood why not a single abandoned boat or water ski was floating around in the Han River.
They were all eaten up by those monsters.
"I'm losing my mind..!"
"Oppa... What do we do now..?"
"What do you mean, what do we do? We survive on our own, forget about the damn shelter and whatnot. The bridges are cut and those monsters are swarming everywhere, so what other choice do we have?"
The most realistic method in the current situation is not to go looking for the shelter.
We've survived extremely well up until now anyway.
But there is one concern.
"B-But..! If a monster like that appears here too, we won't be able to survive with just our own strength..."
Right, as Minseo said, there's no law saying monsters like that have to live only in water.
If a monster like that were to appear on land as well, we wouldn't be able to survive with our strength alone.
Of course, joining forces with the people at the shelter doesn't guarantee we could kill a monster like that, but still, two heads are better than one, so it's still better than being alone.
But with the bridges cut and those monsters living in the Han River, the way to get to the shelter is...
"Th-The Bundang Line!"
"And Line 5 is also possible!"
Right, as the Kwon siblings said, we can use the two underwater tunnels crossing the Han River.
I had thought of this myself previously, too.
However, what if the number of zombies has increased even more than the first day I was there?
It would end up being like walking on my own two feet into a zombie den with nowhere to run.
And unlike the surface where we can climb up to places like apartment rooftops to roughly check the situation ahead, dark subway tracks make it hard to secure visibility, and since we'd have to keep moving without knowing what's ahead, it's impossible to perceive dangers in advance or cope with them.
Fuck, maybe it's because I saw those monsters, but I've turned into a total coward myself...
"Going to the shelter right this second isn't urgent, so let's think about it slowly. For now, what we need to do right away is get stronger. That's the most urgent issue. Especially you two."
"..."
"..."
The people I pointed out were Minseo and the otaku... no, Juhyeok.
These two need to get stronger.
Not to mention myself, and Juha isn't lacking anywhere at her current level either, but Minseo and Juhyeok aren't like that.
They need to get stronger.
『Name: Kang Hajin (27)
Height: 183cm Weight: 77kg
Traits: Strong Mentality (D), Nimble Movement (E)
Coins: 103
[Strength Lv.8] [Agility Lv.11] [Stamina Lv.6] [Luck Lv.3]』
『Name: Kim Minseo (25)
Height: 163cm Weight: 49kg
Traits: -
Coins: 76
[Strength Lv.5] [Agility Lv.8] [Stamina Lv.4] [Luck Lv.3]』
『Name: Kwon Juha (24)
Height: 169cm Weight: 52kg
Traits: -
Coins: 98
[Strength Lv.6] [Agility Lv.8] [Stamina Lv.4] [Luck Lv.3]』
『Name: Kwon Juhyeok (27)
Height: 173cm Weight: 88kg
Traits: Body Enhancement (E)
Coins: 61
[Strength Lv.8] [Agility Lv.5] [Stamina Lv.4] [Luck Lv.1]』
In the case of Juha or Juhyeok, there's been zero change in their stats since when I first met them.
Since I took all the coins they had, the only coins they have are what they got from killing zombies while moving yesterday and today.
However, in Minseo's case, her Agility level went up by one.
"When did you hit Agility level 8? And you've got quite a few coins on top of that."
"I've been killing hard, you know? And I killed people too..."
At this rate, there's almost no difference between Minseo and Juha.
Looking at the total sum of stats excluding Luck, the difference is only 1.
Of course, Juhyeok has the same total stat sum as Minseo, but the allocation is wrong.
If he had invested in Agility instead of Strength, it would've been easier for him to keep up with us or deal with zombies.
Of course, if he had a trait that could cover his lacking Agility stat, it could rather become an advantage.
Of all things, why does he have such a useless trait?
Well, thanks to that trait, he survived getting smacked by my iron mace without dying, though.
"Kkrak!!"
"Kraaaah!!"
"Kraaak!!"
"Krah!!"
"By the way... aren't the zombie noises getting way too loud..?"
"So what?"
"Ah, nothing..."
Just like Juhyeok said, it's true that the strange shrieks the zombies are letting out have been getting louder and louder since a moment ago.
But so what?
We're on the apartment rooftop, so those stupid zombies screaming down below won't be able to hear the noises we make, and even if they have sight, they can't see us.
On top of that, we locked the rooftop access door securely, which means those screaming zombies and us have nothing to do with each other.
Yet that otaku bastard, for whatever reason he's so anxious about, is hanging half his body over the rooftop railing to check below.
"H-Hey.. You guys might want to come over here for a second and take a look at this..."
"Huu... What is it?"
"The zombies are all swarming toward this apartment..."
"What?!ޤ
"What do you mean by that??"
"Is that true, oppa??"
Dadadadak!!!
At Juhyeok's words, Minseo, Juha, and I hastily ran toward the railing and looked down.
And Juhyeok's words weren't an exaggeration or a lie; they were the truth.
Real zombies are gathering at this apartment.
It's not like there's an apartment resident meeting going on, so why on earth are they coming here?
"Why are they all coming here..."
"D-Don't tell me they're coming for us, right??"
"..."
Without answering Minseo's question as she looked at me with wide eyes, I quickly spun around and ran toward the rooftop access door.
Beolkeok!
Dadadadak!!
"Kkrak!!"
"Kraaak!!"
"Kraaaah!!!"
The footsteps and cries of zombies echoed fully through the emergency stairs leading up to the rooftop.
Fuck, they're coming right here?!
How on earth do they even know we're here and coming?!
Pull yourself together! This isn't the time to be wondering about stuff like that!
What should I do? Should I shut the door and hold out? Or go down right now?
In a way, the rooftop seems like a safe place, but this place is literally a death trap with nowhere to run.
Because the only things that can block the swarming zombies are this iron door and the four of our bodies.
If the door breaks, we'll be trapped helplessly on the rooftop and forced to endlessly face the surging zombies.
If we hate that, the only method left is to throw our bodies down and commit suicide.
And considering I clearly closed the emergency staircase door, the fact that zombies are coming up using the emergency stairs means they can also smash open the rooftop access door, which is the exact same kind of door.
"Follow me!!"
At my urgent shout, the three people by the railing started running toward me, starting with Minseo.
They didn't forget to grab the bags and weapons they left along the way, and I snatched the iron mace handed back by Minseo with my right hand, grabbed the bag with my left hand, and started running down the stairs.
"Kraaak!!!"
"Fucking hell, you got here fast!"
Before we even reached the floor below, a single zombie was running up the stairs.
And not a zombie transformed from a person, but a real zombie that had been a zombie from the very beginning.
Whooooooong!!
Kwajik!!!
The iron mace swung from bottom to top struck the zombie's chin upward, and the zombie that had been running up busily had its body float up into mid-air and began falling back down.
Tadat-
Treading on the corner of the stairs and launching my body into mid-air, I stepped on the falling zombie's chest and belly with my foot, landed on the flat turning area below, and swung the bag held in my left hand.
Peouk!!
Slamming the bag into the arms of a zombie that had suddenly appeared around the corner and tried to pounce on me, I pushed away the corpse of the dead zombie I was stepping on and shoved the bag clutched in the zombie's embrace with my shoulder.
Then, colliding with the backward-pushed zombie, the zombies collapsed like dominoes.
Fortunately, since they had been climbing the inclined stairs, quite a large number of zombies fell down, but those were only the zombies on the half-flight of stairs.
The zombies on the flat turning area further down, right where I am now, kept swarming over, stepping and climbing all over the fallen zombies.
"Don't lift your head!"
Hwi-i-ik!!
Cheok!!
Simultaneously with Minseo's knife plunging straight down into the crown of the zombie hugging the bag, Juha's short spear grazed past the zombie's cheek and pierced right into the eye of a zombie from behind that was pushing against the bag-hugging zombie.
"Quickly draw your weapons!!"
"Hey, you right now..."
"Get out of the way! Uraaaaah!!!!"
Peouk!!!
This crazy otaku bastard, he's throwing a dropkick with that body?
At 173cm and 88kg, though he lost 1kg in a single day, Juhyeok still had a small and roundish build.
However, flying with that heavy body from atop the stairs, Juhyeok delivered a dropkick to the zombie hugging the bag and smashed it into the corner, while a few zombies behind it also lost their balance and fell, blocking the zombies running up the stairs.
Of course... as a result, I, who had nowhere to escape with zombies in front and Minseo and Juha in the back, ended up pinned right under the bastard's belly.
"Kkrak!!"
"S-Sor-Sorry..."
"Get lost, you asshole!!"
Hudadak!!
As Juhyeok hurriedly removed his heavy body from on top of me, I got up, knelt down, and started bashing the heads of the fallen zombies with the iron mace like playing Whack-a-Mole.
"Krah..."
"One!"
"K.."
"Two! Three! Fuck, I'm setting a new record today!!"
"Is this really the time to be doing that?!ޤ
"We gotta kill these bastards to get through, don't we!"
"Ah... Oppa, fighting!!"
"Shut up and cover the rear properly!"
"Leave it to me!"
Thus, leaving the fallen zombies step-by-step to me, and the zombies climbing up the stairs to Minseo and Juha standing on both sides, we slowly descended and nearly reached the emergency stairs connected to the 20th floor, the top floor of this apartment.
"Otaku! Now's the time, one more shot!!"
"Pardon me for a moment!! Uraaaaah!!!"
Tuk!!
"Ugh..! Fuck, this fatass is so damn heavy..!"
Jumping off by stepping on my shoulder, Juhyeok unleashed another dropkick, sending the zombies blocking the emergency stairway door flying down the stairs, and dragging the bastard that had fallen to the floor backward, I flung open the closed emergency stairway door.
However, the moment I faced the long-stretching apartment hallway...
"What on earth is this..?"
"Ah..."
"What on earth is that..."
Not just me, but Minseo and Juha as well were left speechless.
Yeah, so this was the reason the zombies came running like crazy even though they couldn't hear or see us.
This apartment... was a zombie breeding ground.