Unprecedented
I laid my hand on the bat that had frozen mid-swing against Do Wangu’s stiffened arm.
“Mister. Let’s just drop it. There’s nothing left to gain from playing with you any longer. I’m way too hungry to waste more time on petty irritation.”
“…What the hell does that mean? That you’re hungry?”
It means exactly what it sounds like. What other meaning could there be?
I looked up at him while still gripping the end of the bat. The mental shock had finally snapped Do Wangu back to reason; he glared down at me with trembling eyes.
“I knew it. You’re planning to go back to your crew and wipe this place clean, aren’t you? You can’t handle me alone right now. You monster.”
“…Mister, that level of paranoia is basically a medical condition.”
“Shut up. I’m done dragging this out. I will kill you.”
“No, what I’m saying is—”
With a body that exhausted, how exactly did he plan to manage it?
He ground his teeth at my words, then drew a sharp breath and cocked the bat back behind his head. I clicked my tongue under my breath.
What a pain in the ass. I was going to let him off easy for the meat’s sake.
Even after he’d beaten me like a dog, I hadn’t felt a single shred of pain. Paying that back by dragging this out any longer was more than I was willing to do.
But what choice did I have? Once someone closed their eyes and ears like that, there was only one way left.
I watched the bat come flying toward my temple and stepped straight into its path.
The diagonal angle of the swing meant the metal connected with my neck instead of my temple.
Whether he was simply that worn out, or my durability had grown again in the meantime, I couldn’t tell—but I took the hit without so much as a flinch and stared straight at him. Do Wangu’s expression finally crumbled.
“Just… how the hell does a human like you even exist?”
Faced with something he had never seen before in his life, the strength drained from his hands. I forcibly yanked the baseball bat free.
He stared blankly as the long red welt across my neck vanished in an instant. I spoke to him almost in a whisper as I swung the bat.
“Who knows. Maybe I’m not human.”
Thwack—
He staggered from the blow to the temple and collapsed onto the floor. I looked down at him and continued.
“Believe it or don’t—that’s your call. But I really did come here alone. My goal is exactly what I said earlier: I’m hungry and I came for meat. The people gathered here are none of my business.”
That included him, of course.
Do Wangu made no move to wipe the blood running down his cheek. He simply stared up at me.
Whether he was trying to gauge the truth of my words or the truth of what I was, I couldn’t say. Either way, he seemed to have reached some kind of conclusion.
I’d drawn blood with one hit, so the debt was roughly settled. Taking the bat as well would have evened the books nicely…
I abandoned the thought almost immediately. There would be far more useful things upstairs in this department store.
I tossed the bat in front of him. It clattered across the floor and rolled to a stop at his feet.
“That one freebie ends here. If you ever come at me again trying to do something about me, I’ll pay back everything I’ve taken so far—with interest. Remember that.”
I left him still staring mutely at the bat and turned my back.
Do Wangu’s friends, who had been unable to tear their eyes away from the figure walking off while casually dusting dirt from his clothes, finally came to their senses and approached him.
“Hey. Wangu. You okay?”
“Don’t try anything else. At first I was worried you’d kill the guy, but turns out we should’ve been worried about something else entirely.”
They shot glances at my retreating back—half disbelief, half a strange kind of awe—as the friend in the cap spoke up.
“I could tell from the start he didn’t give a damn about us. You went and poked a beehive that was just sitting there.”
“Not a beehive. A bomb. Imagine if that guy had gone berserk and started swinging like Wangu did earlier. We’d all be dead.”
“No, seriously—does any of that even make sense? When I saw the bruise on his neck disappear in under ten seconds, I almost felt like I needed to get my eyes checked.”
“…If you think about it…”
Do Wangu, who had been listening to their uneasy chatter in silence, finally opened his mouth. Everyone shut up at once and leaned in.
“Zombie-like monsters actually showed up. Maybe it’s not so strange that a zombie-like human exists too.”
“…Yeah. You’ve got a point there.”
“Maybe he really did die and come back. Like a zombie.”
One of the men muttered something about maybe trying dying once himself. Everyone shook their heads.
No one would meet my eyes. Only the part-timer kept staring blankly in my direction. I met his gaze for a moment, then turned away and thought to myself.
So this is how other people see me. Guess that answers it.
Either pure fear, or that unfocused look people get when staring at some inexplicable work of art.
Or maybe like Kim Yejin—no thoughts at all… ah, that one’s probably not it.
I entertained the thought that would have left someone deeply hurt if they’d overheard it, and walked up the escalator to the second floor.
I was about to head straight for the third when the sea of clothes spread across the second floor made me pause.
…Meat first.
Priorities. I gave my thoroughly unpleasant hoodie a single flap and stepped back onto the escalator.
That was when I heard the familiar guttural snarl behind me.
I turned. A corpse was shoving its way out through racks of clothes that cost hundreds of thousands of won apiece.
Our eyes met. I checked for others—and sure enough, three or four more had already gathered, drawn by the sound of footsteps on the escalator.
If I ignore them now because I’m in a hurry, they’ll just be a pain on the way back.
Anything in sight needed to be dealt with immediately. That was how you kept variables to a minimum.
Strictly speaking, if things went sideways I could always smash a window and make an emergency exit like last time—but the other people in this department store couldn’t.
“Grrraaaaah…”
I loosened my grip—weak from a full day without food—and yanked a clothes-hanger rod free as a makeshift weapon, beating them down. Another one appeared from a side corridor.
Its speed was wrong.
Thud-thud-thud—
Running corpses weren’t new; I’d seen more than enough of them yesterday while looting the pharmacy. I’d figured those ones could move like that because their bellies were full.
This one, though—its mouth was completely clean, not a single bloodstain. It had clearly been starving the whole time.
How it could still sprint like that was one question. The bigger problem was how it looked.
A completely bald, hairless scalp. Skin so rotten it was falling apart in clumps.
The atmosphere around it was nothing like the ones currently straining to tear my flesh off.
“GRAAAAAAAAH!”
And its voice was disgustingly loud.
I drove the rod straight into the forehead of the thing charging at me with that shriek.
Crack—
Crash—
I left it tumbling noisily from the stacked momentum and kept smashing the others’ skulls.
A clothes-hanger rod was a terrible blunt weapon for beating people. Every time one snapped I simply grabbed a fresh one and continued. Before long every last one of them—except that strange specimen—was down for good.
“Ghk— ghk-gak—”
With both legs completely shattered, the thing clamped its teeth around the rod I held out and made a sound somewhere between a human and a crow. I examined it carefully.
Every zombie I’d seen until now had looked unmistakably “new model”—plump, taut skin. This one looked like it would finish transforming into a mummy in another hour if I exaggerated only a little.
The grain of the skin had peeled away entirely, exposing muscle. Pale, flaking layers showed through the cracks. It was enough to kill even a ravenous appetite…
…Not quite. God, I’m hungry.
Whatever. Thinking about it wouldn’t produce an answer.
I cracked its temple, then kept hammering the back of its skull while I spoke.
“Instead of a bald freak like you, how about bringing your boss—the one wrapped in bandages?”
Unravel those bandages so I can get one good look at that dog-faced bastard.
Crunch—
The back of its head split open. Shattered brain matter spilled out at the same moment the rod in my hands finally snapped.
I tossed the broken piece aside, rolled my shoulders while the dull ache in my arms eased, and headed straight up to the third floor.
Come to think of it, I’m not sure I’ll even have room left for anything besides meat and clothes.
Anything that hadn’t spoiled, I planned to take.
I’m so damn hungry.
I couldn’t feel pain, so my stomach didn’t burn—but the emptiness grew sharper with every step.
The hunger that had already been bad after getting worked over by that gorilla had completely gone wild. Was it because of the healing?
Ah, that ape bastard. Maybe I should’ve just killed him.
I forced down the emotions that kept fraying further under the hunger and hurried to find the food court.
If I delayed any longer, the moment I found meat I might start tearing into it raw.
Whether it belonged to an animal or a person wouldn’t matter.
Whether it was even alive or dead might stop mattering too.